"Jenna Jameson," writes a source, "who recently starred in a Las Vegas show at the Riviera, was seen in the company of Tommy Lee (yes, that Tommy Lee). It seems Mr. Lee and Ms. Jameson spent a night sharing the same hotel room at the Riv. And apparently, it wasn't a happenstance meeting. It appears that Tommy showed up specifically to spend time with Ms. Jameson."
"My Yiddisha Porn Star," runs a headline in the gossip section of the 12/98 AVN. "Internet yenta [yiddish word for 'busybody'] Luke F-rd, who generally specializes in turning the tables on the porn industry, gets some turned on him when he makes a very unscheduled singing appearance in an upcoming Kendra Jade feature titled Too Hot For Porn 2. Ford has appeared in a couple of features but not the way you'll see him here. Ford serenades Kendra ala The Jazz Singer with Hebrew lullabies as he escorts her around a hallway in a wheel chair. The impromptu Nelson Eddy - Jeanette MacDonald routine was caught on tape. Then again, Kendra knows all about unrehearsed performances being caught on video."
Vice President of Editorial Operations, Gene Ross runs the 20% of Adult Video News that is not ads. I talked to him by phone around noon on Tuesday.
Gene: "We are drowning in new product. And distributors can only take so many new pieces. Nobody has broadened the consumer base [for porno]. I find it regrettable that high numbers are considered 5000 pieces out the door. Gauged against the population at large, that is not a high number of pieces..."
Luke: "Why not make one-tenth as many movies at ten times the budget?"
Gene: "It's the mathematics [of distribution]. It depends on what deal you cut with the distributor... What he agrees to buy your product for. You've got to wait three or four months before you see any return on your investment. It's like selling insurance - you have to make lots of sales before you start seeing stuff (renewables) coming back to you. An average company today, to make any money, has to put out an average of four titles a month. There is a mathematical formula already written into it. You're not going to be able to sell your product for more than X number of dollars [$8-$14 per tape wholesale on new releases to distributors]. Only if you have a certain name recognition can you squeeze out an extra dollar or two per tape.
"Thirteen dollars per tape is on the high end of what a distributor will pay. They will certainly try to get it for less."
Luke: "Most tapes are not very good?"
Gene: "I can't say that anymore. They're pretty decent. I've seen the evolution of porn. Some of this stuff is pretty good. The problem is that there is a lot of sameness to the product because you're using the same talent pool over and over again. It's the guys who are able to get the new girls first and get out the door with their product who will do better. Ed Powers has always been able to get the brand new faces first and market them first. That's part of the reason for his success along with that persona of his that people buy into... He's a non-threatening male performer. He sells the fantasy of the average guy getting to score with a beautiful woman. That's been the main theme of adult pictures since the stag loops of the 1920s. Great looking women were always paired off with not great looking guys."
Luke: "If someone made a feature for $500,000..."
Gene: "If I had $500,000, I'd put it in a savings account. You'd make better money. Why bother getting into porn. Today you really have to grind it out. The ones who are going to survive are the ones who've developed name recognition, who've been around awhile... Unless you can figure out additional methods of cash flow. You need a helluva lot more money than $500,000 to get a video company started. Anyone who had $500,000 and decided to pour it into one movie would be pissing away $500,000. You'd be better creating a whole block of $10,000 movies. As beautiful as a movie like Zazel is, it takes forever and a day to recoup your losses. And cable doesn't give you the money that it used to because there is more product competing for that market. Same with foreign. They have their own product which is probably on par with our own. American product is not as readily embraced as it used to be. And with foreign [sales], it takes longer and longer to recoup your money."
Luke: "What if an established company like Wicked spent $500,000 to make one gorgeous feature..."
Gene: "The market is what it is. If you've already established a price point with your distributor, that's it. You'll never get more. It's on your distributors computer. 'I've been buying your product for X number of dollars. That's it.' You can just hope that you will sell more of a product. That comes in re-orders.
"Everybody's dream [wholesale buyers] is the catalogue. Lots of [production] companies try to get to catalogue [prices slashed to $3-$5 a tape so that consumers will buy them for about $10 each, as opposed to renting] as quickly as they can because people are hip to knowing how it works. A new feature is new for a week and then some [production] companies push it to catalogue a month later. So everybody knows how to play the game. I'll [small to mid-size distributor figures] buy it when it hits catalogue. This is the thinking of the quick turnaround artists who work out of the trunks of their car... You can move lots of pieces and probably get cash..."
Luke: "Some video companies like Extreme say that it gives their product more integrity if they wait longer to go to catalogue. Why?"
Gene: "They're saying that it [their product] has that immediate grab. People want it right now. They don't want to wait for it [to go to catalogue prices]. It's a hot commodity. We can get our best possible price for it longer because it is so good."
Luke: "What would need to happen for us to have million dollar porno features?"
Gene: "That won't happen unless some mainstream company decides to take a crack... Within the industry as you're seeing it now, nobody is going to make a million dollar porno movie. Why? What could that possibly have? A million dollars could mean that you could get some well known actresses doing porn to get that kind of budget. I've seen porn movies that have poured in special affects... bells and whistles... Why? It looks nice for cable. It's nice to have helicopter crashes but it doesn't add to the intensity of a sexual scene. Editing... You can over-edit a porno movie too."
Luke: "You could get better looking women. The talent pool seems thin these days."
Gene: "That's debatable. I've been looking at lots of safe sex product lately and it's good. I just saw Vivid's Action Sex 2. It's good.
"This industry hasn't yet figured out what is a safe sex scene. Some think, 'so long as it has a condom it's safe sex.' No. That's the start. You still have to worry about where that wet shot is going [facials]. What point is served by doing condoms then having a facial?
"I don't see condoms aesthetically subtracting from the value of a sex scene. I don't think the marketplace has yet to send a message back about condom use. It may take a year or longer for the results... On a pragmatic stance, if you're shooting a movie, and actors are having difficulty getting up for a scene because of condoms, then that is a whole different story."
Luke: "How would you evaluate the talent pool?"
Gene: "I've seen some great looking women. The gonzos have been a blessing in the sense that you get to see a lot of women in one feature. The only thing that disturbs me is the proliferation of the tattoos. I don't appreciate seeing all the body artwork. If you're trying to shoot a romantic scene with all sorts of candles and gauze... and then you have a girl who looks like she's just been recruited by the Hells Angels... It doesn't work."
Luke: "John Bowen and Rob Black say the talent pool has shrunk because of fear of HIV."
Gene: "Black and Bowen are the stalwarts in the non-condom issue. If you're willing to keep an open mind, the talent pool is ok. Successful companies must think about generating their own talent base because most everybody seems to be drawing from the same pool of four or five talent agents. They're marketing the same girls over and over. Sometimes three agents rep the same girl. Freshness is a key foundation of good porno. Anyone will tend to look more favorably on a scene when they're watching her for the first time. After you've seen her for the 25th time, you'll feel like you're married to her. Where's the fantasy in that?"
Luke: "Does AVN have a stand against women smoking in films?"
Gene: "No. We get lots of letters from guys who say they'd love to see scene in which women smoked. I wrote a tongue-in-cheek editorial about that two years ago in response to a guy who wrote a detailed five page letter about what he wanted to see. And it was all built around smoking scenarios.
"Ultimately, we want to see everybody working maintain good health but smoking is so universal that you can't take an editorial stance against that. Sometimes smoking heightens the eroticism of a movie, as in a film noire take-off. It would only stand to reason that the girl would be smoking in the particular scene. It gives that bad girl thing."
Luke: "Why do so many people in porn smoke?"
Gene: "Nerves... But I've never smoked in my life so I'm the worst person to ask..."
Luke: "How good do you think porn looks on DVD? A friend told me yesterday that the technology is so good that it shows up many of the flaws [inherent in cheap porno]."
Gene: "That's a problem. DVD is only beneficial if you're starting with a good product to begin with. If you're just taking middle of the road video crap, DVD is a fruitless gesture. DVD accentuates a great film like Shock or Latex.
"VHS was more accessible because you could record... DVD don't have that yet. Many people have built extensive video collections. I don't collect porn but I have an extensive video library of 3000 titles. I'm not going to switch to DVD.
"The porno that best suits my taste is Evil Angel. Tape after tape. From Leslie to Stagliano, their stuff suits my preference. Keep in mind, I do not jerk off to porno."
Luke: "I find that hard to believe."
Gene: "Luke, I'm still lucky enough to get the real stuff. When pickings get lean, I'll learn to synchronize the hand - dick dynamic."
Luke: "You're a luckier man than I."
Gene: "You've just got to have a better line of bulls---. Do you know what I find is the speediest form of seduction? Whipping out a $100 bill and making sure that it has friends."
Luke: "How many women have you slept with in your life?"
Gene: "Over 600."
Luke: "Wow, what is the key to getting women into bed."
Gene: "Being outlandish. All the guys think that there is a certain way to do it, but it's when you break all the rules that you do the best. You've got to start off with a 'I don't give a s---' attitude. Lots of guys betray a franticness in their efforts.
"You get sex when you least want it. And the more you get, the more you get. If you go through a dry spell and you approach a woman, you're demeanor betrays you. But if you're getting it regularly, women sense it. They want you. Women don't want a guy who comes off as desperate. If you come off as a guy whose getting it all the time... Their sensory antennae grasp that immediately. It's part of the power dynamic. Women want to be around successful men who make money... and who are successful with women. When you go out to dinner with a lady friend, you'll tend to get more glances than when you go alone..."
Luke: "Why don't you pick up on porn chicks?"
Gene: "I don't find myself attracted to most of them. I go to the supermarket and see infinitely more attractive women than in porn. We're selling sex. You've got to find a woman who's willing to do it on camera. How many women are willing to do it on camera? Few."
Luke: "How do you decide what gossip is appropriate to print in AVN and what isn't?"
Gene: "I have to evaluate the source. Just because I hear a rumor, doesn't make it so. If you hear a fact, you have to check it out. If the story involves three people, you have to talk to all of them. The more involved the story gets, it becomes work."
Luke: "If Joe Porn Star breaks up with his girlfriend, when is that worthy of writing up in AVN?"
Gene: "It probably isn't unless it was a longtime recognized relationship. Breakups are bound to happen in this business. It's tough to maintain a relationship within the adult business."
Luke: "Do you have a different standard towards writing about their personal lives than about talent?"
Gene: "I can't remember the last story we ever wrote about an owner's personal life."
Luke: "Neither can I."
Gene: "Basically, people don't give a s---. We're a trade magazine but we have to have a consumer tinge to it. I ask myself 'who's going to be reading this article?' Few people care about the business end of the adult business."
Luke: "It's unusual for a trade magazine to have as much gossip as AVN does?"
Gene: "We don't have as much as we used to. Eight, ten years ago, the gossip section was much larger. I have to either credit or discredit you for that. Because once you put a story on the internet it becomes old news. You have the advantage of putting it out daily. AVN has a two month lag time. By the time the story hits print it's so old it has barnacles on it. So that's why I was telling you in one of our past conversations that I look for a story with a different twist.
"For instance, you wrote the story on Trinity Loren. You acknowledged the fact that she was found dead of an apparent drug overdose and all that. My twist on the story comes from the police report which is more revelatory than talking to people who say, 'Oh Roxanne, yeah, she came into the business in 1982... She was really a nice person.' That's one way to write the story. When I write a story about the demise of a porn star I try to work from the facts as they were presented to the cops."
Luke: "Has the coroner's report come back on JD Ram yet?"
Gene: "I haven't heard anything. And at this time what point does it serve? We all know that he had a drug problem. We can be 99.9% sure that it was drug related. He didn't impale himself on a bathroom door knob. That'll probably be in the December AVN."
Luke: "So you've already got hold of the police report on Roxanne? [How do I get that?]
Gene: "Oh yeah, weeks ago."
Luke: "Well, I'm glad someone is doing some real work out there. Talent complain to me about the gossip in AVN. It hurts their feelings."
Gene: "Show me an article that hurts anybody's feelings. Let's take an issue, say, a guy is alleged to have beaten up his girlfriend. I will not accept that as a credible story unless there is a police report on it. A story isn't a story unless there's paper involved with it."
Luke: "Is there any other criteria you use aside from truth and new angle? Perhaps it is too damaging or intrusive?"
Gene with a chuckle: "Truth is always a good measure. You have to judge things case by case... If an owner beat up his girlfriend, and we had paper on it, we'd have to handle it like anything else. If there's paper on it, then it's likely a story that appeared in a newspaper. Whenever you get three or four cop cars going to a domestic disturbance, more than likely that will appear in the newspaper. And that's something you can't avoid.
"Bianca Trump got pissed off at me because I wrote a story about her hooking. Excuse me, it had already appeared in a Fort Lauderdale newspaper. It wasn't like I was making it up or invading her privacy. Once the media grabs it, you have to give attention to it."
Luke: "Doesn't AVN work for the good of the business?"
Gene: "I don't know. Are you saying that we are the Sir Lancelot on behalf of adult? Yeah, if you're a trade magazine, you by definition are [out for the good of the industry] because you're writing about the business of the business."
Luke: "I remember talking to Paul [Fishbein, AVN owner, publisher and editor] about two years ago and he said you criticize people or you report on bad checks, when it is for the good of the business."
Gene: "We never did stories like that. We had wrestled with that from time to time because Paul had personal situations [Paul Norman and others had written Fishbein bad checks] and he was thinking of doing it... And then begged off... This is where I got into a debate with you on Ed Powers show. To me, a bad check happens in any industry. A bad check doesn't necessarily mean that I'm trying to screw somebody out of money. It just happens in the natural flow of cash. A delay in a deposit... If there was a systematic pattern of fraudulent behavior, then that is a story you have to look into."
Luke: "Do you have any thoughts on Marilyn Chambers comeback?"
Gene: "That photo they sent us of her looked pretty damn good. Which generation controls the porn market? Gen X or the over - 40s?"
Luke: "How well do we know the market for porn? Who buys it and why?"
Gene: "That would require a significant investment to study that. I'd love to see one. If we knew what sells a product we'd all make that kind of product. The famous quote came from Michael Eisner. 'In Hollywood, nobody knows nothing.' That extends to this business. Nobody knows nothing. No one person knows what's going to stick to the wall when you throw something at it. Everything is a crap shoot."
Luke: "Any newcomers making a difference on the business end?'
Gene: "We consider such people for a Breakthrough Award. I give Alex Sanders credit. He started out as a performer who's gone into all the facets of the production end. He's taken the editing side and made people re-aware of the value of that. He's changed the look, immeasurably, of how we rate features. People are more sensitive to synchronization, the look on the screen...music..."
Luke: "Does GVA dominate distribution to the extent of 60-70%?"
Gene: "I don't know about that percentage but GVA is the dominant force, obviously. If you're going to become a successful company, it has to start with GVA. You have to have a mainstream porn look to get acceptance from GVA. And their individual entities decide whether to accept or reject titles. GVA San Francisco can say yes, and another GVA will turn thumbs down. As I understand it, they are totally independent entities.
"Rob Black has been successful from the start because he has a background [in dealing with distribution]. He's brought many advantages to the table. He's as good a salesman as a producer.
"I interviewed Brooke Ashley ten days ago. That article should come out in January."
A source: "Gina Ryder has left her newlywed husband. She has no ill feelings and he treated her good, it was a decision she made to be on her own. He has bugged her often for a return of his love but he is out of the picture. She's now with T.T. Boy. Gina is also housing Shay Sweet..."
Bob
Fingerman writes: "I was recently put onto your excellent site because
of your reportage on a former associate of mine, namely my old pal (and
editor) David Aaron Clark. His genesis (pun intended) from spectator
to participant in the wacky world o' porn has been a weird one to observe.
I used to draw comics and covers, as well as write a monthly column
for Screw, back in
his days as an editor there. He was always a genial fellow to work
with, and we were pretty good friends.
"He
is the basis for a character in my ongoing comic book series,
Minimum Wage,
a fair portion of which is based on my days working for Screw. Several
of the cast of my comics are based on the folks I dealt with then, including
Dave and Al Goldstein."
Charley Frey says you should listen to Howard Stern Wednesday morning: "The REAL Nymphomaniac's Ball (a trademarked event)...is getting huge publicity. Four different radio shows have picked up on it. It is rumored that key members of the Jerry Springer show will be at the party; plus over 45 centerfolds and porn stars have already committed to take part in the festivities. Jan. 9th at Club Utopia in Las Vegas at 9PM."