Tuesday, May 11th, 1999

San Diego Tribune Article
5/11/99 excerpt by Norma Meyer

Walk up the dingy staircase with the stained carpet, the walls of chipped paint and the cigarette-fouled air, and enter the stark, unglossy side of porn. Far from the lives of adult contract superstars and BMW-driving moguls is Margold's Sherman Oaks office, in an aging building that also houses World Modeling Talent Agency.

Feel-good signs, like the one that says "Hug is a Very Important 3-Letter Word," adorn Margold's dreary walls. Plush teddy bears of all shapes and sizes are everywhere. Margold is the 55-year-old self-described "Papa Bear" to despondent porn stars, whom he calls "my kids." He runs the one-room office of Protecting Adult Welfare (PAW), a place that for some reason smells like dirty socks.

A 26-year veteran of the business, Margold knows about the head cases in porn. He got the idea for a counseling service and 24-hour helpline after the 1994 death of Savannah, an adult sensation who was once a Mission Viejo high school cheerleader. In one of four suicides of major porn actresses over a decade, Savannah blew her brains out after crashing her white Corvette into a fence after a night of hard partying.

The burly, bespectacled Margold is sort of mainstream porn's nightmare, a one-time dog food salesman who is rumpled and off-the-wall -- and won't shut up. One of his first sex scenes, he says, was mistakenly in a kitty litter box he couldn't see in a dimly lit Venice garage. That put it all in perspective.

On one hand, he staunchly defends his industry, declaring that "in a society that is drug-infested, violence-racked and polluted by chemical greed, no one has ever died from an overdose of porn." But he's also quick to preach that "this is an overage version of Juvenile Hall."

Every day, he sees them trek past his office on the way to the industry's most powerful talent agent, Jim South, who founded World Modeling 22 years ago. When he can, Margold tries to talk the men and women out of their porn aspirations, which he says are motivated by "money, sex and glory."

Those who become "contract stars" -- there are only about two dozen in the industry -- can make about $100,000 a year for doing six pictures and promotions. The rest of the talent go from job to job and are paid by the "scene," which is a classy way of saying sex. Performers can get anywhere from $250 to $1,500 a scene depending on their notoriety, the act and the number of people involved.

"Hellooo!" says a chipper voice at the door. It's Rayne, the 4-foot-11 tattooed softball player from the charity game. Rayne is a soccer mom, who was bathing one of her three young daughters in the tub a few days ago to bring down a fever. She lives with her 86-year-old grandmother, who might have a stroke if she saw Rayne in today's traffic-stopper, a neck-plunging, fanny-hiking hot pink Lycra dress.

Rayne, 26, has brought along another single mother, Le'Na, who dances with her at a Westminster strip club. Both are en route to see South.

Margold gives them the speech -- "Once it's on film, it's forever; it puts you in sociological damnation . . . ." Rayne doesn't flinch. She says she needs the bucks. Her children's fathers, all different men, are losers who don't give her financial support. Le'Na, who has a 5-year-old daughter and is studying art at a community college, has a deer-in-the-headlights look. She says she has flipped burgers and briefly taught kindergarten but couldn't make ends meet.

"Oh, go ahead," Margold says pretty quickly. "They'll be delighted to see two new pieces of meat."

The Tawdry Tale of Johnny Wadd
By Matthew Beer
San Francisco Examiner, Friday, May 7, 1999
WHY SHOULD WE CARE ABOUT THIS MAN'S AWFUL LIFE?

IT'S LIKE inviting Willy Loman to be the keynote speaker at a salesman's convention.

Friday, the tawdry "Wadd: The Life & Times of John C. Holmes" will make its debut at the Roxie Cinema, a premier event for this weekend's San Francisco Sex Worker Film & Video Festival.

Though a "buzz" entry on the film festival circuit (Sundance, South By Southwest), "Wadd" seems a strange entry, even for an event that purports to celebrate men and women who work in what is called "the sex service industry."

He [Holmes] pimped his underage girlfriend. He burned away his savings and his wife's assets on a vicious coke addiction. He ratted out four of his pals to organized crime figures. He purposefully engaged in unprotected sex in European porn productions after he was infected with the AIDS virus.

Holmes's is a compelling story. But in "Wadd," the narrative is drawn out by an endless string of commentators. Paley can't seem to leave anything on the cutting-room floor. In the process, the director delivers a documentary that is too long by half. Considering the subject matter, it's a painful, unnecessary trudge.

By the time "Wadd" ends with Holmes' death, you're left with a sense that the porn industry is just one giant army of Willy Lomans, joylessly driving around Southern California from one film set to the next, dropping their clothes in resignation, hoping to get it over fast so they can make their next drug buy.

...Porners in distress can get help from the North Hollywood Clinic, 818-760-4500, who offer the PCR DNA test for HIV for $75 and a vaccine for hepatitis C for $30. Or go to AIM at 818-981-5681.

Thoughts on the Late Galactic Galaxina

Dago writes: I was shocked to hear about the death of one of my casual acquaintances on your site. I began speaking to Roxy about 5 months ago online, and we hit it immediately. She had the kind of personality that endeared her to you right from the start. She was not a porn girl, at least as far as I know, but was having a website built, and was starting to be represented by Kevin Korey. She never actually did any porn [videos], but had done a lot of dancing and some photo work. She originally offered me her services for video work and told me about this character she had developed which was Galactic Galaxina. She emailed me photos of her in costume, and everything she wrote me was in character, so I really think that she and her character were one and the same. She was a riot, and very sweet. But I actually told her that I felt GG as she called the character, was to good for porn videos, and that I felt she should try and shop it in the mainstream market, which she did. I just spoke to her about a week and a half ago, and she told me she was recuperating from another emergency surgery associated with the breast enlargement she had been undergoing for it seems like she said, a year and a half. I have searched my files, and the only letter I saved was the second one she wrote to me, but it talks about the surgery, and the problems she was going through because of it, or them I should say, because she had undergone several, including a few emergency surgeries due to complications.

She was very Sweet, and was getting a taste of just how dog eat dog not only the porn biz is, but even more so, how mainstream is. Someone in mainstream really f---ed her over bigtime recently, and she was pretty upset about it. The guy, (Kevin Korey) that she was working with recently was being good to her, I want to clarify that, but until then, I think I may have been the only one who didn't try and use her.

Luke Retracts Two Stories About AVN

On Update 4/14/99 and Update 4/17/99, Luke F-rd posted two stories on his website www.l-keford.com concerning Adult Video News magazine and its employees. One of these stories fallaciously implied that AVN's good ratings and rankings are for sale. The other story spuriously alleged that AVN's "Breathrough Award" was exchanged for sexual favors. Subsequent investigation has revealed that both of these stories are completely false. Accordingly, they are retracted by the author Luke F-rd. Apologies are extended to AVN for any reputational harm or embarrassment the false stories may have caused.

The US News cover story christens professional wrestling "a new American art form," albeit a savage one: Fifty episodes of a popular wrestling TV show included "1,658 instances of grabbing or pointing to one's crotch, 157 instances of an obscene finger gesture, 128 episodes of simulated sexual activity, and 21 references to urination." The wrestlers also enact crucifixions, sadomasochism, and prostitution.

The May 1999 edition of Adult Video News features part two of a discussion with the seven leading "Directors of the Decade." With one exception they all admit that that they don't watch porn. Exceptional John Stagliano is HIV positive and says that his sex life is now confined to masturbating to porn.

"I've gone through different phases... I went crazy over John Leslie's Drop Sex because it was so different... I go from liking the simplest softcore stuff..up-the-skirt stuff...and then I wind up at the end of the night on the hardest S/M ever produced in Germany in the '80s... I went crazy over this Andrew Blake movie one night... I'm stoned...I'm looking at these colors and these skin tones popping out, and it's like "Holy s---, I've never seen anything like that in my life.""

Paul Thomas says that he jerks off "all the time" to John Stagliano and John Leslie product. Greg Dark says that he hopes PT does not jerk off to him.

PT: "Your stuff is strange."

GD: "You especially; I hope you can't."

PT: "I'm sure I could."

GD: "No, no, no. If I make a movie that you can cum to, I'd-"

PT: "Give up?"

GD: "Yeah."

John Leslie: "If you can transfer that feeling to the viewer, of It's Really Happening... If you could find a way to transfer that to the film and make that work, and give somebody who's watching it that same experience that you had when it personally happened to you, then you're very successful."

Michael Ninn: "There ain't enough good actors in our business to carry a story."

Ninn says VCA has cut his budgets and pushed for more sex scenes per movie. "There's not time to put production value in. I can either do the art direction or I can sit and listen to Shayla say lines. I know I'm good at art direction so..."

Andrew Blake: "We've got a generation of people that have been watching MTV... We just respond to a visual shorthand. People smokes dope, they do a line...whatever goes through their mind is...what turns them on." Ninn: "We all do the same thing... We all show f---ing, but it's what we hang on the two minutes before and the two mnutes after the scene that works... If I put up my movie, Greg'smovie, anybody's movie...and I run them together...you're going to see the same thing... If you're commercially successful, it's the same f---ing thing.

"As an editor of a sex scene, I'm looking for three things. I edit it in a triangle. I go to the face for a response; I go to the genitalia, and I go to the wide and medium shot... This is what I do for a living, and that's the formula.

"I don't even tell people that I work with [porn]... If they ask, I say I'm editing in LA, but I work in Georgia; I work for a big company an directed a show, and I wouldn't tell them what I do because it's unacceptable still... It's okay in our clique but it's not okay in the real world... Just one picture of me in AVN and I went nuts." PT: "I'm speaking out of two sides of my mouth. We do not use condoms/ we use condoms; we are concerned for people's health, but there's a whole bunch of times when I wouldn't use condoms or any other rules - but I do it because we [Vivid] are a huge corporation, we have incredible liability. We're a huge business. We want to minimize our liability."

Page 100 features an ad from Rob Black's Extreme Associates which hails Jessica Darlin as the new "Ass Woman." She's pictured standing over the fired Tiffany Mynx (partly because Tiff let Tom Byron's dogs run away while she smoked pot), the ad says: "What do you do when your dog can't see, walk, run, bark or fetch? You take it out back and shoot the muthaf---er!"

Wicked publicist Joy King tells AVN that her porn success has come at a price: "People say, 'Oh, it doesn't affect my personal life.' Bulls---. Let me just go on record right now and say that that's a lie. You can't work around this environment and not have it affect personal relationships; your family, your spouse, whomever it is. I've had my own marital problems in the past. I'm divorced, I'm remarried now, and very happy, but you think about things differently, especially sex. That's what this industry is about. I never saw a [porn] movie [until she began at Caballero in 1984], now I'm a pervert."

Porn Chat

<WarmProp> i mean if people don't play by any rules in porn, why the f--- should luke then?

<l-keford> Warm, you are exactly right. I have slipped into this style of "reckless don't check facts journalism" because people lie and threaten and bluster

<WarmProp> keep at it if you have balls to do it man :)

<l-keford> But I got some very serious threats on the Jenna story from someone with muscle, so we'll see how it resolves.

<WarmProp> yeah well i suppose she's a worth a lot of money to a lot of people

<WarmProp> it's sort of interactive journalism instead of reading the official press release from the official porn authority. makes good reading, too :)

<l-keford> Thanks Warm, it is exactly what I've evolved too. I have done responsible journalism in other forums, but these techniques don't work as well for internet porn coverage.

<l-keford> I know who wrote the porn star poem. She sucked my dick.

<l-keford> I came in hot sticky spurts.

<WarmProp> that sholdn't be a reason for contemplating suicide :)

<l-keford> It's hard to hate someone who hates himself and is certifiably insane and his own family condemns.

<MikeSouth> we picking a dead pool here?

<WarmProp> hey luke if you get popped we'll put up an internet shrine for you :)

<WarmProp> with lots of porn ads

<MikeSouth> dont get popped Luke yer site is amazingly popular with my members....

<MikeSouth> they bitch like hell when you go down....

<MikeSouth> Luke I got Alicia at the top of mine too

<l-keford> JMT, how much would you charge me to listen to my feelings 2x 90 mins a week?

<JustMrT> you couldn't afford it <MikeSouth> I'll do it for nothin Luke but ya gotta throw in all the latest gossip when we're done :)

<JustMrT> why did you publish that horses--- about Joe Montana? Have you reached a whole new plane of recklessness and stupidity?

<l-keford> Constantly, JMT

<l-keford> That's why I need therapy. And you turned me down.

<JustMrT> you better pray that that never gets back to him or his lawyers

<l-keford> Greg, have u ever snorted coke with Jenna ?

<Greg_Zebo> lol...you're real funny Lukey

<adamjm> i know a guy who knows a girl who was friends with this chick that had a boyfriend that was friends with a dude that did some lines with jenna luke

<Alain-> Let play a trivia: right now I downloading pissing pics from a very famous american pornstar, take a guess now

<Alain-> janine

<MikeSouth> no s---...she actually pees....

<Diablo^> janine pisses? i didnt know vivid girls did

<MikeSouth> hmmmm this before the new "do" I hope

<Alain-> yes, recent pics too, she has a new tatoo on her right arm and her dark hair: http://tom:tom@www.kenmarcuserotica.com/members/

<MikeSouth> I figured they even s--- cotton balls or something

<lsb> Janine ever gonna do a real xxx b/g vid?

<MikeSouth> lsb I wouldnt pay a plugged nickel to see that now

<MikeSouth> she only looks marginally better'n her Boyfriend ricky Rachtman...loser

Mike: Dan Barros, who owned a company called Wildfire in San Francisco, repped Jenteal to Vivid. He also discovered Melissa Hill. Dan was a good guy but he quit being an agent. He looked around and saw he had ethics, so didn't belong

Killer: Hey Luke I talked to Paul [Fishbein about Gene Ross and AVN corruption] . and I understand a little bit more about his thoughts about the whole thing. People who tell you all these things about some one but when asked about them later those people don't stand by their own words so why should we expect paul to stand by those same words. It seems to me that when the s--- hit the fan everyone bailed.

<Porner> Jenna has always been REALLY nice to me....

<Porner> so this is off the record...ie anon

<Porner> she definately does drugs...I have witnessed it

<Porner> she is known for being a flake...if she is so into her money how cum she blows off so many appearances?

<Porner> clubs dont want her cuz she f---ed em

<Porner> also Dominic...DR X ...AVN photographer, used to be her raodie

<l-keford> yes, what was she like to him?

<Porner> he told me all the same s--- your original guy did...BTW that didnt even look like the same guy wrote the rebuttal

<Porner> she abused hell out of him....f---ed around all over the place...drugs and stuff and wanted Dominic to cover for her

<Porner> called him her little nigger Luke feels stressed.

Shoot Luke a recommendation for a Los Angeles massage therapist.

St. Paul writes: "Hi Luke. I was the one who told you about Caressa Savage and her "secret" escort service and referral service some months ago, and also about my dancer friend who was offered a contract with Vivid, but only if she got a boob job (sorry, she never wanted to go on the record). Anyway, I saw you were interested in a nice massage, and I can tell you, the ABSOLUTE best erotic massage is this girl named Tanya in Hollywood that I know. You can call her (days only-she starts around 11-11:30 AM) at 323-851-5851. She is just the most gorgeous full-bodied Mexican girl, with the fullest, biggest, most natural tits you ever saw! She gives an incredible erotic massage, no sex, but you will definitely want to go back! Let me know what you think of her if you go see her. "Anyway, the other reason I'd been thinking of writing you lately is regarding Alicia Rio. She and I go back aways, and I had already heard a lot of the things going on with her before you posted them. I lost touch with her about 3-4 months ago,and keep hearing bad things. "Papillon's ex-husband defrauded her. He didn't tell her until they'd been married 6 months that he's actually gay! He told her while he was DJing at Exotica in the City of Industry, and she got so pissed off (more at the way he told her, than even the actual shocking news) that she punched him out right there in the club, so he called the police, and had her arrested for spousal abuse."