Male performer JD Ram (David Perry) died last Thursday. He was cremated. A memorial service was held in Canoga Park Tuesday afternoon.
The crowd divided in two - porners on one side and David's family on the other. The sermon was typically evangelical Christian with a strong appeal to porners to mend their ways. Later David's brother read a letter to his deceased sibling. D.K. Stanton spoke.
Sharon Mitchell and AIM are considering naming a halfway house for recovering drug addicts for JD Ram.
"It"s too bad that JD didn't get to see himsef on MTV," says one porner.
"Thought it was a shame about JD," writes a director. "I had written parts especially for him in two scripts that were never produced. He never seemed quite in touch with the same reality as the rest of us, and I think his growing desperation was disturbing to be around, but there was a certain sweet honesty in his heart that I admired. Unfortunately, I've seen the same story repeat with way too many heroin addicts ... a truly evil drug, my friend."
Like many of his peers, Perry came from a "dysfunctional" Christian family who hated his sex work. Though he had a bitterly painful relationship with his mom, David still called her every day.
Last Thursday morning, 10/1/98, after a particularly harsh telephone conversation with his mother, David Perry aka JD Ram went into his bathroom, shot up heroin, and died.
David's girlfriend Jolene wondered why he had not come out of the bathroom. She went in and found him dead.
The results of his autopsy have not been released. It is not clear yet if JD overdosed on heroin, intentionally or accidentally, or if he injected some tainted product, or if the heroin conflicted with medication he took regularly. In short, it is not clear whether he committed suicide or died accidentally.
Sources close to the porn performer say that he's been largely drug free for eight months. He did drink at times. I saw him knock back a few at the World Pornography Conference in August. JD made me promise not to write about it.
I talked with David Perry many times between July and August. The heavily tattood ex-drug addict was obviously a troubled soul who felt tremendous bitterness towards his family and his ex-girlfriend Raven McCall. He expressed his concerns to me about what she would say about him when I eventually interviewed her, which I did about a week before he died.
JD Ram felt particularly proud of his performance in the Sin City video Models and of his growing relationship with his live-in girlfriend Jolene.
The death of David Perry contrasts sharply with the happy face David and other porners put before the world in early August at the Universal Sheraton. Matt Labash interviewed Ram for a Canadian documentary and for his Weekly Standard (9/21) essay.
Speaking from his Washington D.C. home this afternoon, Matt remembered Ram as an obviously disturbed man whose mouth blew a "Jack Daniels gale."
Labash received about eight letters on his essay on the World Pornography Conference. Six were negative. The conservative weekly received about eight subscription cancellations including one from Andrea Dworkin. "Most of them were on religious/propriety grounds but hers was the best. She wrote "I can't believe that you publish this s---. Cancel my subscription."
"I was thinking of writing her a letter back saying, 'Andrea, how can we get you back?' Usually when I'm writing, I'm writing with Andrea Dworkin in mind. That's the audience I aim for."
Luke and Matt missed the MTV documentary last night. "My wife saw the previews," says Matt. "She wasn't jealous at all [of Matt spending time with porners] after she saw xxx. 'Holy hell, she looks like a guy.'
"My colleagues loved coming by my desk and seeing the paraphenalia...the pink jelly butt plug from Adam & Eve. I mainly picked up mail order catalogues. My wife wouldn't allow me to bring any of the stuff in the house.
"Everyone grabbed Annie Sprinkle's book... I told them to flip to the page where she's humping the amputees stump which caused everyone to lose their lunch.
"It [conference] was pretty intense. I don't know how you live that life. Thank God for the Sabbath, huh? And I think I saw the best of it."
Two religious writers for the Weekly Standard quit after the mag published Matt's 9/21 article.
Salon Magazine discusses the World Pornography Conference. "The column about the World Pornography Conference is a sloppy piece," writes a journalist to me, "and pales in comparison to the article PLAYBOY.COM did on the conference. The bit about Max Hardcore is your typical shock-the-reader material. A real disappointment from a publication that usually does much better." Other observers were similarly disappointed.
Salon's Carina Chocano writes:
"Um, these next two performers want to say something, especially to all you researchers out there." Annie Sprinkle, self-proclaimed post-porn modernist, was announcing the final performances at the kickoff party for the World Pornography Conference. "Pornography can lead to hard drugs like marriage and children! And between the two of them, they have a lot of years of marriage and a lot of children!"
Held over four days at the Universal Sheraton in Universal City, and co-sponsored by the Center for Sex Research at Cal State Northridge and the Free Speech Coalition (the trade association of the Adult Video Coalition, and a special-interest lobby that advocates against stricter government regulations on the adult entertainment industry), the WPC billed itself as the first-ever academic conference on pornography. It was not, however, the first academic conference of its kind. The center had already sponsored conferences on transgenderism and prostitution, and other conferences at New York University, the State University of New York and the University of California at Santa Cruz have covered similar ground.
In fact, for many of the performers on stage, putting an academic spin on pornography and "sex work" is relatively old hat. As "people with brains who happen to like sex" ("liking sex" being the preferred euphemism here for making porn), these industry veterans -- articulate, subdued and clad in neat little suits -- have been a hot ticket on the lucrative campus lecture circuit for years. Acting as ambassadors of "sex-positive" feminist theory, they were careful to stress the kinder, gentler, downright uplifting side of the porn industry.
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Many industry big shots are in Atlantic City this week for the East Coast Video Show.
Porn talent have returned from a week (9/27-10/4) in a Mexican resort as angry as Rob Spallone predicted over a week ago.
He told me 9/25: "Talent have to drop $300 deposit off to Jim South. They get it back if they show up. If anything happens to these kids down there, he should be held responsible. Supposedly, they have the cops and everyone [in Mexico] paid off with sex. It's like a fantasy sex camp.
"Fans are paying $3000 to go on this trip, and join in the sex… Or watch the sex shot… They're worried about AIDS and they've having fans jump in for sex.
"The girls have to work six hours a day with the fans… playing volleyball, laying in the sun, going to dinner an hour a night with the fans…
"What they're doing is not legal. What happens if someone gets arrested? They'll languish in those Mexican jails."
The "Porno Paradise" took place at the Blue Bay Village, Km 20 Carretera Federal 200, Tenacatita, Jalisco Mexico, Cp 48989, 011-52-335-15020. Or go to www.smspromotions.com, or phone 800-995-2583. Talent supposed to attend included: Allysa Allure, Angela DeAngelo, Savanah Moore, Eve Adams, Candy Cash, Felecia Ann, Alex Dane, Johni Black, Mila, Montana Gunn, Papillon, Racquel Devine, Candy Vegas, Sana Fey, Malitia, Temptress, Jimi Ji and Alexandra Nice.
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Rob Spallone crows that the North Hollywood Clinic has reduced its PCR DNA test price to $80. Rob hopes to drives Sharon Mitchell's (AIM) Adult Industry Medicine out of business.
Mitchell takes a beating in the 12-98 Hustler Erotic Video Guide's interview with Matt Zane's ex-girlfriend Kristen, who received a false HIV positive result from PAW in July.
(PAW) Protecting Adult Welfare, I hear, has filed suit against Zane Entertainment for slander. Marshals supposedly served papers on Zane two weeks ago.
Kristen, who describes herself as a 20-year old pothead, told HEVG editor Mike Albo: "The people at P.A.W. told me [the test results] in front of Tabitha Soren from MTV." (HEVG 12/98)
Kristen says she smoked $1000 worth of marijuana in the week following her false positive.
"I thought my life was over and I was never going to have sex again."
Albo: "I see the name Luke F-rd down on your "things to do" list. I hope to God you're not going to talk to that dickhead."
Kristen: "Have you met him?"
Albo: "Yeah. His skills as a writer are seriously lacking."
Kristen: "He said I was very suicidal. I couldn't have been. I was too stoned the whole time. He aso said I was counseled for hours. That never happened... He exaggerates a lot...and sometimes he just makes things up. He's a loser."
Albo: "Most of those geeks on the internet are..."
Kristen says that PAW "need[s] to get rid of those two [Margold and Mitchell]. It's not a medical facility. There's no real doctors there, nothing." (HEVG 12/98)
Kristen says PAW needs to get real doctors and to conduct their affairs more professionally. Sharon Mitchell would largely agree with that, which is why she left PAW and founded AIM, which operates under the direction of Dr. Steven York.
NEW YORK (Reuters) - Singer Margaret Whiting filed a $ 2 million negligence suit Tuesday against New York City, utility giant ConEd and a paving company alleging she fell and injured herself because of careless street repairs.
Whiting's husband, Jack Wrangler, 52, a former 1970s porn star, also filed a $1 million lawsuit claiming he has suffered the loss of his wife's amorous and affectional services.
Named in the civil lawsuit filed in Manhattan Supreme Court were the City of New York, Consolidated Edison, which supplies electricity in the city and City Wide Asphalt Paving Company.
Wrangler, 51, has appeared in about 90 pornographic movies. He has said Whiting talked him into abandoning adult films after they met in the late 1970s.
BEIJING (Reuters) - China's anti-pornography authorities have seized a Chinese version of the Starr report, branding it an ``illicit publication'' for its graphic descriptions of sex in the White House.
Steamy details of U.S. President Bill Clinton's sexual encounters with former White House intern Monica Lewinsky have been circulating around China in translation, Xinhua said on Wednesday.
FRANKFURT (Reuters) - An international report on the plight of women in Asia's burgeoning sex industry has won this year's ``Woman's Oscar'' at the world's biggest book fair, organizers said Tuesday.
The harrowing report by the International Labor Organization (ILO) said up to 1.5 percent of all the women in Thailand, Malaysia, the Philippines and Indonesia could be involved in the growing trade.
The sex industry already accounts for up to 14 percent of the four countries' Gross Domestic Product and the report warned that Asia's economic turmoil could force even more poor women into prostitution.
John Bone says:
2nd Annual Nymphomaniacs Ball
'The party where the press are treated like real guests'
Did ya go last year? Could you get in? Did you have fun? Did you see Sunset Thomas doing it on the dance floor? Did you see Mike Tyson hitting on the girls? Whoop-de-do did we have ourselves a party?
Yeah, OK.
The 2nd Annual Nymphomaniacs Ball will be held in Las Vegas on Friday January 8th 1999.
This year…….GOGO DANCERS…….. With big tits!
Jail Bird Jismin
Does anybody have any information on Miss St. Psycho's arrest in Michigan last year for passing fake prescriptions? According to the manager of the Déjà vu Club where she was dancing it was all over the local TV and Newspapers.
Zoë - Appearing at the Spearmint Rhino in Rialto this Thursday, Friday and Saturday.
Kendra - At the West
Coast Show today and tomorrow, Thursday evening she is appearing on
'Philly after Midnight' a Philadelphia TV talk show. Saturday she is
shooting the final scene for WINDSONG, our really big budget November
release, with a 600lb tiger as her co-star, not Ron Jeremy in an animal
skin, though the thought had crossed my mind.