.c The Associated Press
By MICHAEL BLOOD
NEW YORK (AP) - With the city ready to banish strip clubs and sex shops to the industrial outskirts, some are scrambling to comply with the law by putting bikinis on strippers and adding souvenir kitsch to racks of XXX videos and magazines.
Under zoning changes scheduled to take effect Tuesday, sex-oriented theaters, bookstores, massage parlors and dance clubs would be banned from operating within 500 feet of homes, churches, schools or each other.
Stores with 40 percent or more of their stock in pornography would be subject to eviction.
A First Amendment challenge was pending in federal court Monday.
City officials say that even if courts let the law take effect as planned on Tuesday, New Yorkers shouldn't expect a change overnight.
``We will give everybody an opportunity to comply with the law, and those who don't comply with the law, we'll take the appropriate action,'' said Police Commissioner Howard Safir.
In a rush to comply, some stores have exercise and sports videos, such as ``NFL Football Super Duper Follies,'' next to titles such as ``Taboo VIII.''
Others have mixed souvenir and family fare - from Mickey Mouse keychains to Statue of Liberty miniatures - amid racks of racy flicks and skin magazines.
Some strip clubs have dressed their dancers with T-shirts and bikinis in the hopes of staying open.
At Peepworld, a clerk who wouldn't give his full name said owners began moving in scores of exercise and family videos a few days ago.
At The Playpen, where
neon likeness of a bare-bottomed woman decorate the marquee, a manager
would only say the business would comply.
PAW says that Kristin aka Lilly Lynn tested PCR/DNA positive for the HIV virus 7/17/98.
On 7/17, she worked with Matt Zane. On 7/15, with Malitia. On 6/30, with Petra and Brooke. On 6/15, with Katie Gold. On 5/12 with Amy Lee and Dolly Golden. She also worked recently with Diesel. AIM says that 16 people were exposed and nine people have PCR/DNA tested out safe.
I heard numerous complaints from pornographers today about how difficult it is to get paid (by stores) unless you have muscle. The unspoken message seemed to be that you needed a small army of thugs to collect your money. Three of the biggest distributors, I heard, are also three of the slowest to pay - GVA West, Metro and Pleasure.
The Free Speech Coalition has forbidden Sharon Mitchell and Bill Margold and other AIM office personnel such as Selena to speak to Luke F-rd. Sharon and Bill Amerson want to set up AIM (Adult Industry Medicine) independently from the FSC but they are hoping from a generous grant from the FSC, and therefore want to stay in the good graces of the FSC.
The FSC's World Pornography Conference has dropped me from its list of scheduled speakers and has also refused to give me media credentials for the conference.
FSC executive Jeffrey Douglas says that VCA head Russ Hampshire does not and will never talk to Luke F-rd. The truth is - Russ and I talk regularly.
Sharon Mitchell is away for two weeks visiting her mother.
Joey Edwards is out of jail and visiting talent agencies seeking work. He usually walks in with his wife, or ex-wife (I'm not sure if they have divorced yet), Shawna Edwards. Joey has spent jail time for beating her up.
7/20/98
I began my day at Star World Modeling at 11AM. Damien Michaels sat in the sun making calls. He had severe toothache but could not afford a dentist. The porn veteran flew out to LA a couple of weeks ago. He did run the only porn talent agency in New York until his partner fled the country (for what reason I do not know).
Charlie Biggs and a Brazilian shooter stopped by the Star World office to look at pictures of the girls and book "talent" for their next shoot. Biggs lives in Arizona and hates LA. He flies out here regularly to shoot for various companies.
A couple of weeks ago I met a cute 20-year old Hispanic redhead Jackie who was hanging out with Director James DiGiorgio. She has done her first scene (with two white guys, a double pussy penetration) for Mike Elia's (formerly of Rosebud and IVC) All Good Video.
This was the first time she'd had sex with anyone aside from her ex-boyfriend, the father of her two-year old baby. In the afternoon, Jackie and her 21-year old sister went over to shoot with Ed Powers in Chatsworth.
Jackie says she enjoyed her first porn experience. "I was nervous but I had fun. I got into the industry to have fun and to make money.
"My parents are from Mexico but I grew up in LA. None of my family know about this aside from my sister. I live at home with my parents. Maybe if I get my own place, and they find out… They can't do anything. But while I'm living with them, they will have every right to be upset… I have two little brothers, 12 and 4 years of age… I have three sisters, 21, 19, 16. My 19-year old sister is innocent. She will freak out if she finds out… I won't never tell her. My older sister is wild. She wanted to become a stripper.
"Having a baby is really hard. I do regret that I got pregnant. I'm not stable enough to raise a child. I was 16 when I became pregnant. I don't want any more kids… I'd like to tie my tubes [tubuligation]…
"I've made an appointment with a clinic on Thursday to go on birth control. The guys in the scene did not wear condoms…[and Jackie used no protection]… I have a 23-year old friend with four kids, who struggles… I don't want to end up like her, having kids boom, boom, boom…
"Nobody has pushed me. I want to get breast implants. I have always had low self esteem about my small breasts. Everyone tells me to stay natural but I want to get big breasts.
"I also have to sign up with a gym and start working out. I'm out of shape."
Jackie stands about 5'2, with a shy pretty face, dark red hair that cascades below her shoulders, and a slender feminine body. She speaks with a thick hispanic accent.
Joe Spallone showed me the renewed talent agency license for Star World from the state of California through July 19, 1999.
I see Mark Spiegler, who called to Ed Powers show protesting my calling him a "trust fund baby.' Mark explains that the money he received upon his grandmother's passing was really only money that he had lent her to buy a condo. Mark did not inherit thousands. Luke was wrong. Luke retracts. Luke apologizes to Mark.
At 12:45, I walked up the steps to PAW (Protecting Adult Welfare) to find out that it is now AIM (Adult Industry Medicine). PAW no longer exists, except out of Bill's home. It may resume after AIM finds its own quarters.
I walked into Sharon's office to find Bill Margold sitting in her chair. "We have all been forbidden from talking to you," Margold tells me but he won't say who told him that. I learn later that it was the FSC (and probably its director Jeffrey Douglas).
Margold receives $1000 a month from the FSC and Mitchell $2600 a month for their work for PAW which is now AIM, which supposedly will be separate from the FSC.
Through devious means, I learn that a major reason that Margold did not make it to Ed Powers radio show Saturday night was that he was giving emergency counsel to a drunk porner. He then had an early call time for his continuing role as Bugsy Gunn in the Arrow Deep Throat - The Quest series directed by Bud Lee. In his latest scene, Bill cuts to pieces a mythical writer (played by a bald man) named Pike Alpo, based on the real life bald heroin addicted editor of HEVG, Mike Albo. Bill also punctures a teddy bear 18 times.
Bill explains: "It's revenge for bad reviews on the Deep Throat series [by HEVG] and personal attacks on me. Calling me obese is the golf ball calling the bowling ball fat. I enjoyed it. It was me playing a character playing me."
At 8:15 this morning, Bill got online to read RAME on the Ed Powers debate. Bill's buddy John Allen, the publisher of Nightmoves, taped the show for him.
Bill is peddling two sex-and-violence scripts he created with Mark Weiss in 1983.
Van Damage phones to talk to Bill. Steve Drake wanders in and out.
Nicole, a producer from MTV, sits on the couch making calls on her cell phone. MTV has already interviewed Brooke Ashley for a documentary they are making on porn. Bill introduce Nicole to Stacy Valentine and her boyfriend Julian, the Metro contract boy with a past in gay porn.
A producer from MTV News phones to try to get admission into the FSC Night of the Stars dinner. Bill tells Jackie Rubin that the FSC will want a donation from MTV in exchange for permission to videotape part of the proceedings.
Bill says to Jackie: "A sit down dinner… Awards given out. Prestigious. It's like the scene in Field of Dreams, stepping over the rocks to grow up. I don't like accepting adult responsibility. This night is as much stepping over the rocks as it [porn] gets. It's the one night where the industry gets dressed up and is not allowed to take off its clothes. I don't know if it's worth shooting…
"Simply by being around for the World Conference, if you're good journalists, you will shoot us anyway out in the hall. Do you need to come in and get botulism at the dinner?"
On the couch by a huge teddy bear sit a couple new to porn - Jamie (male) and Jennifer. They have done two scenes and are signed with Jim South.
I chat with Bill Amerson, who 1/1/98 set up the California Center For Addiction and Recovery. Bill works closely with Sharon Mitchell, PAW, AIM and the FSC to counsel porners. Bill serves as President of the CCAR, which Mitchell also works for.
Bill Amerson was pleased with the Playboy article on John Holmes. Bill mentioned that he had talked with one of the detectives on the "Four on the Floor" murders that John was around… Amerson and Margold said there were numerous errors in the new book on John Holmes, recently published by John's widow Misty Dawn aka Laurie Holmes. http://www.johnnywadd.com
Laurie wrote down what John told her, says Amerson, and what he told her was bulls---.
MTV plans to shoot interviews at Bill's apartment this week.
If Margold and Luke had been allowed to talk, we would've talked about the Ed Powers show. Of course we were not allowed to talk. Thus we did not talk about the issue of real names, because Margold has been gagged by the FSC. He was told it was about "insurance liability." That's why he can't talk to Luke F-rd.
Bill and I did not discuss the legal challenge to laws that require secondary notification of proof of age…meaning, the numerous IDs with California Drivers License numbers, Social Security numbers, home phone numbers and home addresses that Luke and hundreds of other persons remotely associated with the industry routinely receive with their shipments of adult product.
Bill did not tell me that I should've brought up this point on the radio show, because it would've "humanized me."
Bill: "It's probably going to take a cataclysmic situation, where someone gets hurt, to show that they [legal enforcers] have no regard for human life."
Luke: "Their IDs should not be going out to everyone. I should not be getting them."
Bill: "Why should companies be forced to acquiesce [to these government requirements] because the government is insensitive to these kids lives?
"You did what you could to defend yourself [on Ed Powers show]. You were being hit from all sides. And they resorted to name calling. That [from Gene Ross and Mark Kernes] accusation of you having a boyfriend. Usually people who say that you're gay, have something to hide. Those who call others faggot may well know of what they speak.
"If I had been there, I probably would've supported you, because I tend to side with the underdog. Next time you're on with Ed Powers, you should get a one-on-one with Gene Ross, instead of one against ten."
At 2PM, I drive back to Star World to check up on my friend Rob Spallone, recently out of the hospital. He looked pale and wan, and walked with the help of a cane. He smoked a cigar. He lifted his shirt and showed me the scars from his appendectomy.
"Ed Powers. I've been sending him girls every day. I just sent him Jackie and her older sister. "
"Every one said that he's the guy you call when you've got new girls because he pays the best. And he started talking like the godfather [Marlon Brando character]. 'Hey Rob, how are you doing?' He was joking around. I said, 'I guess you've heard some stories.' So we talked for about 45 minutes. He seemed like a real nice guy. I sent him some girls and he paid them and paid me my fee. He wanted pay me more. He said that my fee is not enough. I said, 'that's how I charge. I'm not Jim South or Reb.'
"They tried to whack me, Luke, but it didn't work. [Facetious]
"I went to the show [VSDA] Saturday for ten minutes. I felt weak, shaky. I walked outside. All of a sudden, a guy walks in front of me for the cab. I drag him, I beat his f---ing ass. I throw him out of the cab. I got the doctor [Dr. Benora from the North Hollywood clinic]… I felt like s---. They said, 'you're a maniac. Why did you act like that?' I said, 'I don't feel good. Leave me alone.'
"I started throwing up in all the garbage cans. Dr. Benora walked me up to my room. I said, 'leave me alone.' I got in the bed. I threw up and s--- for two hours. I got in the bed and couldn't move. I felt like I was dying. The phone kept ringing, it was two feet away, and I couldn't even reach it.
"A few hours later, my father broke into my room with security and they took me to the hospital in an ambulance [Saturday]. They had tubes in me…
"My mother said to the doctors, 'I want to wait for him to wake up.' Doctor said, 'wake up? You're son is on life support and he's paralyzed.' My mother freaked. If my wife was there, forget it. Can you believe that the doctor talked like that?
"My stomach was so tense and tight, that they couldn't cut me open. They gave me so much anesthesia that I was out of it.
"I'm weak, but I'm back."
Rob's 357 Magnum pistol, unloaded, lay on his desk. I fondled it. I think I need to buy one.
Rob: "Kimberly Jade asked PAW to pay her rent and they said that they did not have the money. Do you know how much money they get from these companies? Do you why they are denying her?"
Luke: "Because she is with you."
Rob: "They're scumbags
[FSC]. I need a vacation. I'm going away for a few weeks. When I get
back, we'll have a big talent call."