Friday, August 20th, 1999

Porn Goes Public

Edew writes on RAME: There are two e-articles, one in sfgate.com, another on wired.com about porn and the web and how to make bucks in it. Obviously, porn is the only successful e-commerce industry. While all others are drowning in red, adult web-sites are the only ones currently making profit. (And on an aside, the only portion of the edustry to push the technological limits.) The wired.com and sfgate.com articles also mentioned possibility of porn web companies going public. I ask, "why?" Let's look at the fundamentals of going public:

1) Company advertises a stock price and number of shares to sell.

2) People buy them, the money going to the company. Any rise in the stock price then does not directly benefit the company. Why? Well, the company should be reluctant to sell any additional stock, even at the higher price, because that's giving away more of the company. Further, there are usual securities rules which will prevent the company from selling more shares.

3) The people who really benefit from the sudden rise in stock price are the underwriters and those who got in at the start. These people *can* sell their shares and make the profit. So the company itself don't see the profits from those sales of stock shares.

4) The company's value, however, does increase with increasing stock price, and that can be used to leverage loans and better deals, as well as prevent other companies from buying the company. But, if a (private) company is making tons of profit, why share that profit with shareholders? Why, as a company owner, own less of a company in return for a fixed amount of money from an IPO? In particular for porn companies, there is little need to expand. Sure, you might need to buy a more powerful server (FreeBSD costs how much?), and maybe some more tech-heads to manage the website. But, a lot of increase costs associated with other industries aren't present in porn. For some amateur sites, increasing your company doesn't require increasing head-count or salaries. People are literally sending amateur sites their home video captures for free or, what, $50? There is virtually no costs involved. Sure, you might want to buy a honking Sparc ultra, or get a cheapie X86 and run FreeBSD (BSD is great for server work -- can handle terabytes of data downloads, and, it's FREE). Mimi Miyagi, mentioned in the sfgate.com article, does her own website. So does Danni Ashe and a host of others. Cost is none for salary in that case (well, I'm sure Mimi Miyagi the corporation pays Mimi Miyagi the president and CEO some salary, but it's nothing compared to the $$ which goes in).

Lastly, there is a stigma (unfortunately) attached to porn. As lucrative and profitable as it is, some people might not want to buy porn stock no matter how attractive it is. They would rather buy and hold onto bleeding stocks like Ama*on or Yahoo!. So the question is, why would any profitable porn company go public? The stock price *may* not rise as quickly and lucratively as other .COM businesses, and since the company is wonderfully profitable, why share that profit with others? There is no significant amount of expansion necessary to warrant selling parts of one's equity. I think the model to consider is the very successful Wizards of the Coast, a gaming company that sold Magic The Gathering. They make tons of money with the trading card game niche. There is no immediate need to expand (although they have by buying out TSR the D & D makers), and so they are still private and obscenely profitable. My non-MBA advice to porn businesses: stay private, rake in the dough, and cry yourself all the way to the bank.

Sin City Says

Just thought I'd send out a press release on a new publication we're associated with. It's called Hustler XXX and it's a new bi-monthly published by LFP and distributed by Video-Presse and it features two of Sin City's contract girls in the inaugural issue, Shay Sweet and Katja Kean. Look for it in September. It's Hard with a capital H, and you're gonna love it. If you have any questions, call me at (818)407-9990 or email me at sincity@flash.net.

When was the last time you dreamed about Shay Sweet squatting on your miserable face? Ever fantasize about Katja Kean getting her holes basted by a couple of hung studs? How about some hot piss with your morning coffee? Well, we at Sin City are proud to announce that we have just what you sick f---s out there really need. It's called Hustler XXX, and it's a new bi-monthly, full color, glossy sex magazine coming your way this Fall, filled--no, make that crammed--with more filth per page than a slumber party in the Oval Office. Cum loads caught in midair. Double penetrations. Faces coated with jizz. Threeways, fourways, fiveways. Gangbangs. Gallons of fresh female piss right out of the faucet. Shay Sweet herself, Sin City contract girl extraordinaire, unleashes her bladder all over you unsuspecting readers in the inaugural issue, and Katja Kean, another of our contract bombshells, gets her Danish cunt and asshole plunged by two professional wood! ! smen before they coat her flawless face with enough cream to cure a barrel of herring.

Nothing is too raw, too disgusting, too extreme, and it's all presented in full living, breathing, dripping color for your depraved pleasure. Most men's magazines give you a three page centerfold to cream over. We've upped the ante by including a six page centerfold and a three page coverfold. Do the numbers. That's triple the stroking. In between the covers are 108 full size pages of more hot honeys than any magazine out there. We will knock the competition out of their cum-stained, outdated, subpar tubs, and that's a promise. Look for the first issue to hit the stands in September. Hustler XXX will be distributed by Video-Presse. Contact Mike Blatt at (800)315-9888 or (818)407-9990 for further information.

Brandy Wins Big

Brandy Alexandre writes: I had been denied benefits by the Employment Development Department of California because they believed, I quit my job with Forest Lawn Memorial-Parks without good cause. After a rather lengthy appeal hearing, attended only by myself and the administrative law judge, they apparently agreed with me that the transfer Forest Lawn imposed on me in light of the revelation that I "was" Brandy Alexandre was not made in good faith. Therefore, I indeed had good cause to "quit" (the way Forest Lawn orchestrated my departure). In her decision the judge said (yes, it was a woman): "In the present case, the claimant gave up employment with the employer rather than accept a forced transfer to a position where the claimant had legitimate reasons for doubting that the employer legitimately intended her to succeed in the position, but instead was continuing a campaign to force her out or keep her silent. By the time she was supposed to report to work, the harm had been done as far as the employer was concerned anyway, and so there was little reason to believe the employer would have much reason to have further interest in the claimant in any event...." The entire letter of determination will be showing on my web site shortly in an update to http://kamikaze.org/forestlawn.html."

Luke F-rd Moves to Jerusalem

Luke's decided to follow his father's advice, and the porn industry's, and move to Jerusalem and enter a yeshiva (Jewish Talmudic academy). I will bring peace to the Middle East just like I've brought peace to Porn Valley.

In exchange for Luke leaving Los Angeles, organized porn aka organized crime has agreed to let Luke live.

Luke talked Friday with British journalist Anthony Haden-Guest (stbriac@aol.com). XXX writes: "Last year he published two major books, one on the contemporary art world and another on the Studio 54 disco scene. His work has been in Vanity Fair, The New Yorker and just about everywhere else. Didn't I send you my Spy story on "disgusting" art? Haden-Guest is briefly interviewed in that. I did a New York mag story on him in '93. He's a pretty glamorous guy, occassionally controversial. His brother is Christopher Guest, married to Jamie Lee Curtis, the actress. Haden-Guest, since his father is a Lord of the Realm, recently had his name added to Burke's Peerage. At present he is writing some kind of history of stardom. He knows about our history of Stardom. I sent him your bios from The Village Voice and the Rolling Stone Hot List.

"He's a well-known f---er of women dating back to the very dawn of post-modernity. Reputed to be massively endowed. Probably has some resplendently raunchy stories to tell involving celebrity sluts and slutty celebrities."

Mark Kramer wrote about Guest in Spy magazine in November, 1996:

The Medium Is The Mess

"....Participatory cultural commentator and SPY contributor Anthony Haden-Guest recalls a 1970 personal appearance by Rudolph Schwarzkogler crony Otto Muhl. Haden-Guest was covering the Wet Dream Festival in Amsterdam, a film festival targeting the era's planetary glut of sexually candid cinema--, "everything from Danish dog-and-pony-and-farmgirl videos to French documentaries on Jean Genet--with performaces by the likes of Muhl between screenings". Here, at the molten core of the transgressive universe in a transgressive time, the freewheelin' Haden-Guest was in the company of subtereranean-feminist and glandular goddess Carolee Schneemann--a worldwide underground phenomenon party by way of her 1965 film, Fuses, in which Schneemann's and her male lover's parts joined in flagrant delicto for the very first readily identifiable, non-pseudonymous penetrative sex scene in movie history.

"I was sitting with Carolee in the front row of the Cosmos club when suddenly these four naked people--two rather hideous men and two rather cute frauleins--appeared onstage with a live squawking goose. One of the men, Otto Muhl, was waving a carving knife. Carolee, who apparently knew Muhl would be killing the unfortunate goose and using its remains to penetrate one of the frauleins, ignited the whole thing. Whereupon the playwrite Heathcote Williams and I sprung into action. Heath grabbed Muhl. I grabbed the goose--saving it from a certain death, evisceration and worse--and ran out of the Cosmos. I gave the goose to a hippie on a barge--who probably had it for dinner."

Mark Kramer wrote in New York magazine about Anthony:

"Haden-Guest's Very Own Hated Guest"

Almost as mysterious as the events leading to the early morning April 30 stabbing of ubiquitous cultural commentator Anthony Haden-Guest and 30 year old gallery manager Patricia Klein is their alleged assailant, Horace Harris, who was arrested outside the Haden-Guest residence at the peculiar hour of 4:50 AM. A switchblade knife was recovered at the scene by police. No sooner had Harris' name been released than tremors of recognition were felt in disparate outposts of Manhattan's visual arts community, where the forty-two year old unemployed messenger—who had been discharged from his position at a SoHo reprographic shop only a week before the crime— was widely remembered for the persistence with which he foisted his forgetability upon anyone who'd listen.

Harris, who boasted in the downtown galleries of the TriBeCa loft he inhabited and the London flat he maintained, in fact lived in a one-bedroom apartment in the Bronx with his septaguenarian mother. The Harris residence at 831 Gerard Avenue was worlds away from Haden-Guest's East Eightieth Street apartment, and further still from the rarefied fine-arts environments where this most improbable of liaisons would be get under way. The ocherous pre-war building on a once-ritzy block near the Grand Concourse is only a half block from Yankee Stadium, where the pitcher's mound and home plate are actually visible from the five windows giving out from the Harris' eighth floor dwelling. A sofa in the musty but sun-splashed living room served as Horace Harris bed. As is typical of solitary men who are suddenly thrust into tabloid headlines, Horris Harris' neighbors remember him as a quiet individual whom one hardly ever saw.

The Horace Harris persona that would emerge in the wake of the Haden-Guest/Klein knifing was a familiar apparition at the Museum of Television and Radio on 25 Fifty Second Street, where he was known to while away his Saturday afternoons watching British TV comedies. With admission on a donations-only basis, The Museum provides ardent ideophiles with the capability to electronically punch up—without ever actually touching software—tens of thousands of television programs for private viewing in two-hour blocks. Recalls one employee, ""Everyone at the Museum knows him. He was a regular patron. The Museum can sometimes be a real freak show. Among the various idiot savants regulars here there's one guy who thinks he's Regis Philbin . I remember that Harris spoke with a kind of British accent. He was very friendly. A little too friendly. I tried to keep my distance. You felt that if you talked to him for more than five minutes, he' d want to hang out with you indefinitely."

It was at the Museum of Broadcasting that Horris Harris got word of the April 29 art event that would immediately precede his ascent to the rarefied Haden-Guest nightlife purlieus. Abstract painter Rob Nuell, age 25, was a longtime Museum employee who would be making his downtown debut, titled "Themes and Variations" —an exhibition of twenty well-intentioned canvasses—at Imaging Solutions, a Tribeca storefront gallery and imaging studio. Hypothesizes Nuell: "Harris must have overheard me talking about my opening. And there he was on Friday night, working the room. Everyone I later talked to said they had talked to him."

Memories of Harris would later spring into bold italics among the GenX'ers gathered to fete Nuell's emergent ouvre . . Spenser Tunick, a twenty-five year old photographer who was shooting a series of half-frame party photographs at the opening, recalls: "There was this very jolly friendly man there, and someone told him that I photgraphed fine-art nudes on the streets. And he said, "I'll pose for you". And I thought, "Great", because I'm looking for older models.... So he took my number, and if he would have called me, and I had an idea or thought that related to his body, I would have used him for nude photography. He seemed very happy and very positive about art and photography and getting naked on the street." Tunick, who admits that he always "looks at people's shoes", noted that while Harris' preppyish attire was more or less new, his shoes seemed old and worn.

Harris was less affectionately recalled by Sabrina, a 25-year-old graphic designer and photographer. With a an audible shiver in her voice, she recounts, "He gave me the creeps from the first moment I met him. He didn't talk a lot about art but he just said he was into galleries and stuff. He didn't go into any specifics. He kept getting really close, right up in my face. He made me feel uneasy, so I left the gallery."

According to a 25-year-old gallery assistant named Jeannie, "This guy introduced himself to me— Horace. He was really pushy. He said he was looking for a girlfriend, and he wanted to go out with me. I felt really claustrophobic with him. He made me promise that I'd go see the film Naked . He said that he'd worked on videos for The Cure a long time ago. Also, he had this article from the Times of London about some man he really admired, whom he said was his mentor. I thought it was really strange that when I asked Harris where he was from, he said, 'What does it matter?'"

It would later be reported that Harris was convicted of rape and sodomy in London in 1982, as well as being the subject of a stateside arrrest record dating back to 1974, for offenses ranging from sexual misconduct to theft of services and petit larceny.

The exact steps by which Harris made the transition from the somewhat downscale ambience of the Nuell exhibit to the much l private preview dinner at the Stux Gallery on Mercer Street are uncertain, although attendees at the former exhibit remember that he was tirelessly asking if anyone knew of any parties. His inquiries bore rich dividends in the form of Stux's celebration of eight abstractionists exhibiting under the title "In the Spirit of Things"—succinctly described by one wag as "somebody's idea of an interesting collection".

The sixty invitees to this event, a buffet supper catered by a local Italian restaurant, were artists, critics, curators , collectors and assorted art insiders, among them Anthony Haden-Guest. One of the exhibiting artists, painter Carroll Dunhan, characterizes the gathering as "an absolutely typical art-world event . There was absolutely noting anomalous about it." And it appears that the hyperconvivial Harris, attired in a blazer, and wearing khaki slacks that one of the evening's observers recalls as being too tight, navigated the stylishly heterogenous gathering with ease. According to one gallery owner—who asked not to be identified—Harris was still clutching his Times of London tear sheet when he glommed onto the gallerist and his five-year-old son. Says this longtime SoHo insider, ""I had never seen him before, but he was very friendly and he seemed to know my wife and son, whom he recognized from a copy shop on Greene Street. I now feel really stupid because he was sitting there with me and that's why nobody questioned his presence. He offered to babysit for my son. He also said he was going back to England."

No one in attendance has any recollection of the point at which Harris hooked up with Anthony Haden-Guest, nor the moment that perhaps twenty of the Stux celebrants—Haden-Guest, Harris and gallery manager Patricia Klein among them—left the premises and made their way to the White Street loft of artist Alain Kirilli. One attendee this latter event noted that this was a spontaneous gathering, but "it was not like a SoHo loft party, but rather more like a decorous French party. "

The participants in this soiree have drawn a shroud of secrecy about them in wake of the stabbing, and Haden-Guest is loth to describe the steps that would lead from the Kirilli domicile to East Eightieth Street, where an altercation with Harris would result in the near-lethal play of the switchblade, allegedly Harris'. The party crasher and accused slasher faces two counts of attempted murder and one count of assault with a deadly weapon. It is not likely that he will be seen at art openings any time soon. Meanwhile, 30-year-old abstract painter Matthew Weinstein, one of the Stux artists, observes, "This unfortunate instance has nothing to do with the art world. It was the totally random act of an outsider. People can infiltrate the art world so easily—mainly because none of us can figure out why they'd ever want to."

Haden-Guest told Luke Friday that he's interested in writing about the rise of popular culture in our time. "I'm pursuing leads that interest me. You interest me a lot for two reasons. One, I'm very interested in the rise of cyberspace. I've spoken with Matt Drudge, with Jill Stemple who ran the now defunct cybersleaze column, as well as the sex... I covered the Jasmin St. Claire gangbang for Penthouse magazine."

Anthony did a Rolling Stone cover story on Hugh Hefner and the late lamented Bernie Kornfield (with madame Heidi Fleiss).

BrandyAlx1: I just sent you an email to l-keford.com BrandyAlx1: I actually made a fruedian typo, sending it to "kukeford.com" and it bounced. ;) BrandyAlx1: hmmm, it just bounced again... BrandyAlx1: I'm sending to luzdedos1 Luzdedos1: yo Luzdedos1: luke@lukeisback.com BrandyAlx1: Oh, that's my mistake. BrandyAlx1: I sent it to AOL. BrandyAlx1: You still crotchety today? ;) Luzdedos1: feeling better, thanks for the scoop BrandyAlx1: You're welcome Luzdedos1: :) Luzdedos1: i'm going to jerusalem, i think BrandyAlx1: Really? When? Luzdedos1: dunno, soon Luzdedos1: i need a change

BrandyAlx1: Moving, not just a vacation? Luzdedos1: not sure BrandyAlx1: How much Hebrew do you know? Luzdedos1: a lil bit BrandyAlx1: Actually, many people there speak English BrandyAlx1: So why Israel, exactly? Luzdedos1: heart of the world, heart of judaism BrandyAlx1: You giving up "Luke F-rd" or do you think you can just as easily be the scourge of the industry from there? ;) BrandyAlx1: How well do you think native/orthodox/"true Jews" will accept Scoop Luke? BrandyAlx1: (as I turn the interview tables) Luzdedos1: If i live by the law, by the torah, they will

BrandyAlx1: Is doing what you do now living by the Torah? Not being Jewish I don't know anything about the particular doctrine involved. BrandyAlx1: Does the Old Testament count? Especially that "false witness" part in the ten commandments? Luzdedos1: No, I am violating the Torah by writing on porn etc, posting pics of naked chicks, fornicating, etc Luzdedos1: Yes, the Old Testament is the Jewish Bible, we do not accept the NT

BrandyAlx1: How does writing on porn violate the Torah? I would think that simply being a specialized reporter is okay, so is it perhaps your interest or revulsion by the subject and so the approach you take? Luzdedos1: good point BrandyAlx1: If you were to change your tactic, would writing on the industry still be a violation? If you were completel objective? BrandyAlx1: I guess that's up to your Rabbi. You may have a point on the fornicating thing, though. Luzdedos1: i'm just talking to my mom BrandyAlx1: Actually, that's between you and God. BrandyAlx1: Ask her what time you were born for me. ;) Luzdedos1: 6am BrandyAlx1: You kept her up all night? Gee, you were rude from the get-go. ;) Luzdedos1: :) BrandyAlx1: Why do you refer to your sexual activity as "fornicating," instead of promiscuity. It's almost as if you glory in your sin rather than regret it BrandyAlx1: By biblical reference terms Luzdedos1: You're right BrandyAlx1: Well, if you glory in it, then you do not feel bad about it. Right? Luzdedos1: mixed feelings BrandyAlx1: So why all the other self-depricating commentary with regard to you personal life? BrandyAlx1: Admit it, Luke, you like sex. ;) Luzdedos1: i have both feelings Luzdedos1: true BrandyAlx1: Are things that make us feel good, and harm no one, really bad? BrandyAlx1: Assuming the partner was equally satisfied with the arrangement. Luzdedos1: Looking at porn violates the Torah's stance on modesty. BrandyAlx1: I know sometimes when I go for a romp, and even wind up feeling quite good afterword, when I get the impression that I was probably just a masturbation tool for the guy, I start looking at sex badly. Is that where your mixed feelings come from? You use women merely as masturbation tools? Luzdedos1: Torah says sex should be saved for marriage. BrandyAlx1: For marriage, or for attempting to have children? Luzdedos1: for marriage BrandyAlx1: Well, looks better than Christianity already.

BrandyAlx1: Why such a radical change from 7th Day Adventist to Judaism? BrandyAlx1: About the only thing they have in common is Sabbath on Satirday BrandyAlx1: (I hope you fix my typos Luzdedos1: will do Luzdedos1: :) BrandyAlx1: It appears, to me anyway, that the change in "faith" may have been based more in the desire thoroughly shun your upbringing rather than a change of faith and conscience. Would you say that's accurate? Luzdedos1: No, it was a change of faith and commitment.

BrandyAlx1: Continued belief in God, but not in his alleged son, Jesis Christ? Luzdedos1: I never really was a fervent Christian, at least from my teens onward. I left Christianity, went out into the world, then found Judaism.

BrandyAlx1: Perhaps that Christians to not embrace their Jewish heritage? BrandyAlx1: I was just thinking of all the different Christina sects and came up with another oxymoron -- Christian Science ::giggle::: BrandyAlx1: How long have you been Jewish? Do you find that converts are more devote than those born to it? Luzdedos1: Yes, with converts, since 1992 BrandyAlx1: I understand the concepts of heaven and hell are different in Judaism. If that is so, how to do you think God looks upon your activities, and how will He deal with you? Luzdedos1: Great questions. Judaism believes in reward and punishment, both in this life and the world to come. I think God applauds that part of my work that does good and promotes truth, justice and the good, and He despises that part of my work that needlessly destroys and hurts.

BA: think you strike a balance that you are no further behind than ahead on the reward/punishment cycle? How have you seen some of the things do good? You know my opinion on the bad stuff... Luzdedos1: I believe that God will give me what I deserve. I think my exposing of scum bags in porno is good. BrandyAlx1: But how has there been benefit? BrandyAlx1: Are you aware of any girls *not* getting into porn because of what you've done? How about your printing of real names when the girls may not know you've done it and therefore can't request removal?

BrandyAlx1: Do you think you reach the pool of potential talent? BrandyAlx1: Well, I find myself in need of a Butterfinger Twister from Foster's Freeze, so I shall remove myself from your face at this time. ;) BrandyAlx1: Make sure if you move to Israel you do so for all the right reason. While you may fool man, you will never fool God.

Luke talked to Lynne L-patin, whose hubby Bruce Walker died a few weeks ago, at 2:30PM Friday. She had just taken a break from the pilot for her Dave Hardman Is Working Stiff series.

Lynne: "We're going to cut a version for Comedy Central to show them just how funny we all are... And we just came across a serious problem, and so I said, I need a cigarette. And Scotty drove me home and I'm trying to figure out how to solve the problem...

"I'm ok... I have to be careful with nightmares... Today I did my exercise routine for the first time in six months..."

Luke: "I'm moving to Jerusalem..."

Lynne: "That's interesting."

Luke: "I want to bring peace to the Middle East."

Lynne: "You're not very good at it... All you'll bring is trouble and dissension."

Luke called his mommy at 2:45PM.

Luke: "There is a great controversy between good and evil going on in the middle of me... A cosmic struggle for my soul... So I'm moving to Jerusalem and I'll enter a yeshiva... I'm trying to stay chaste, and these chicks..."

Mom: "Well, you've lost that battle."

Luke: "Heeeheeeheee..."

Mom: "Why don't you go to a therapist, a man, someone you can't fool, and tell him the truth?"

Luke: "A therapist can't change me, in a direction I don't want to go. BTW, my therapist is getting married."

Mom: "Your doctors don't see what is going on because you hide it. You probably don't think you need any help... But you're going to have to lie down on the bed you make and you're going to be very depressed because you're doing stuff that violates your soul. You know better."

Luke: "I am a big sinner. I keep getting sucked into sin."

Mom: "You've got a side of you that you let take over. You're supposed to let the good one take over."

Luke: "Oh, ok. Dad wrote me a note and I posted it on my site."

Mom: "I wish you wouldn't."

Luke: "It's inspiring to people..."

Mom: "No it doesn't. It causes them to criticize him... People come by and presume child abuse and stuff like that that never happened, and it's very painful. That's why I stopped writing for your site... Everybody wants to give their opinion. What do they know.

"Something happened to you..."

Luke: "I got sucked into sin."

Mom: "You got hit on the head.

"It doesn't do any good to tell you off because it doesn't make any difference.

"That heehee guy... I don't like him. I'll call him Barabbas. Leave him behind when you go to Jerusalem. You want to do Jews some good."

Luke: "I'm going to bring peace to the Middle East."

Mom: "They'll shoot you and that will create peace.

"You need to clean up your act. You've got to want to... You need to see that you've got a problem and then want to do something about it... But you don't see that... I want you to do something good for the world."

Luke: "I'm exposing sin."

Mom: "But you're not standing apart from it, are you?"

Luke: "Yeah I am, just sometimes I get sucked in..."

Mom: "You're very much a mixture. You can see it on your website... There are two of you."

Luke: "Jerusalem will rejuvenate my writing, rejuvenate me... I'm in a slump..."

Mom: "Dad said to me this morning, people do what they've been doing, few people change after age 25. I certainly don't think I am any better than you... But we care about you very much. It doesn't change, even if you are a brat."

Luke: "I took out XXX to dinner but she is still elusive..."

Mom: "Of course she is. Any decent woman is going to have problems... But Luke, you've got tremendous capacity for change..."

Luke: "This guy swaggered into the doctor's office on Tuesday... It was Michael Douglas..."

Mom: "I've seen Kirk Douglas and he swaggers as well. He swaggered down the airport... He looked great. I like the Douglases... He runs around with these young women... Like you will, if you make it... We expect that you will be a blot on the carpet...

"You've got this heehee side that wants to destroy you... You've got a death wish. Anyway, I like it that you call me. Does Dennis Prager think you're loopy?"

Luke: "Yes, either that or morally blind."

Mom: "Your laugh is so insane... I looked at the article in Rolling Stone. And my book has a higher ranking on Amazon.com than yours... You're like Jack Nicholson in that 1971 movie Carnal Knowledge...about the fornicator... You'll be a roue. Sorry."

Luke: "Let that be a warning to me. I keep praying to God to give me the strength to be chaste. Me and Augustine. God grant me chastity, but not yet."

Mom: "Instead of chastity, I'd ask Him for sanity. Anyway, I've got to go."

Luke: "You've got to go? But I'm talking about my feelings..."

Mom: "I know you are love, but it's a game. You don't mean it. It's like me talking to myself..."

NiceJewishGirl called from work in a panic at 3PM.

NJG: "What do you mean you're leaving?"

Luke: "I'm going to Jerusalem. In the spring."

NJG: "You're going to leave me? I'm going to be really sad."

Luke: "We'll always have the internet..."

NJG: "I know but I won't be able to talk to you... I'm going to be really sad. I don't want you to go."

Luke: "I think Jerusalem needs me to bring peace. Save humanity from sin... Die on a cross."

NJG: "I don't want you to go. Why don't you move here?"

Luke: "San Francisco is a sinful city, full of sodomy... Jerusalem has a flourishing sex industry."

NJG: "But you'll be in yeshiva?"

Luke: "Yeah, but at night I will be out scooping for l-keford.com. I'll minister to the lost souls of Jerusalem."

NJG: "I don't want you to leave me."

Luke: "But don't you think the world needs me in Jerusalem."

NJG: "No, I need you..."

Luke: "Aren't you being selfish?"

NJG: "I don't care. I'm really selfish."

Luke: "I just feel that God is calling me to Jerusalem. You wouldn't want me to disobey God would you? I feel that I need to assume the missionary position."

NJG: "Do that with me... I started getting a panic attack when I read your site... I'm going to cry. I don't want you to go."

Luke: "I won't go for a while. I just had this blinding flash of inspiration. I was walking to mail a check to Mark Kramer and then this bolt of light struck me, and a voice called out from Heaven, Luke, Luke, why are you persecuting me?"

NJG: "Really?"

Luke: "Sort of... I just told my mother... She says I need to leave part of me behind in LA."

NJG: "Come here."

Luke: "San Francisco is filled with sin and iniquity."

NJG: "I'm not sinfull. I'm pure. Like a virgin."

Luke: "We'll have to pray about it and see what God says."

NJG: "I just don't want you to leave me."

Luke: "I'll never leave you nor forsake you. In my father's house, there are many mansions... Lo, I go to prepare a place for you, so that where I am, you may be also..."

NJG: "I'm not like all those other girls... I'm like really real. I have a lot of feelings. This is hard for me to deal with... All because I said I was going to get through to you... Maybe I went too far."

Luke: "Someone sent me a fan letter today, saying they love NiceJewishGirl and the soap opera we're weaving on my site."

NJG: "It is a soap opera... It is really good."

Luke: "Because it is real."

NJG: "I went to the library to see what you had to say and then I read that and I freaked out... I got pains in my heart... He's going to leave me and I don't want him to leave me. I didn't let you leave me before..."

Luke: "I feel your love pulling me back. I'm torn between the Lord on the one hand and NJG on the other."

NJG: "Your whole site has totally changed since you met me... You don't report as much on that porn crap. There's now a better soap opera going on.

"I feel better now. I feel you taking my bad energy away from me. Can you feel that?"

Luke: "I can feel that. BTW, I was born at 6AM, on May 28, 1966..."

NJG: "I'm going to shul tonight..."

Luke: "So will I... Maybe David Buchbinder from Hustler will come... I'll be there at 7:30PM."

NJG: "I'll be there at 7PM. Are you going to think about me?"

Luke: "Oh yes."

NJG: "I'm so pure and spiritual... I think you should be a rabbi. And I'll be the rebbetzin. We're both on the same level."

Luke: "We could minister to the punk rock and porn crowd."

NJG: "No, we'll minister to whoever needs us. I could bring love and spirituality and you could bring your knowledge. Oh God, this whole office is wondering what I'm doing on the phone. They think I'm dishing like usual. They don't know that I'm crying my eyes out to my boyfriend Lukey. Ok Lukey, I love you."

Luke: "I love you too."

NJG: "It's real."

Luke: "It's real."

NJG: "Should I call you when I get home?"

Luke: "Whatever."

NJG: "Whatever?"

Lynne L-patin writes: "Happy Sabbath. Thanks for connecting. I should be on personal time myself any time now... I hear the gun photos made a ruckus. I explained to Slammy the whole history of my discussions with you about guns, and explained that it was just a fun thing for you to finally be doing, and I'd helped instigated it. He said, "Okay. That's understandable." If you think you actually have any clue as to how the universe operates, I am planning nothing but personal time until the alarm rings Monday morning. You might call and explain it to me. I think my new work schedule will be 11:00 a.m. to 9:00 p.m. as far as letting people reach me other than for the occasional exception for good sex, which one has to catch as one can sometimes, and the hell with schedule. It has been a very long time since I have even thought about having sex with you. I can smell how those thoughts frighten you. You said "never" to me, and I respect your need to choose that word. Plus most people are very afraid of you, my husband included. I can justify it to myself & say, "Well, it's just the religious cult upbringing plus being unusually smart and physically attractive -- makes a person a little confused." But I would probably have wandered off with Ted Bundy."

Dad's father, the preacher, wrote Luke a week ago: "There is probably no need to reassure you that you are so often in our thoughts but I have to say that these thoughts are mainly anxious thoughts. I have the feeling and dread of coming catastrophe for you unless you redirect your considerable talents. Your present course is tempting Heaven and inviting Hell.

"Anyone who read your website asks if that can be the product of the fine young man they once knew---much of it is demonic or to use a more common term--filthy or perhaps the word should be lascivious. Whatever it is termed it leads to death. It can only influence people downwards. I would hate to have that guilt on my conscience, that I have contributed to the eternal ruin of many beings made in the image of God. But we fear not only for those you are harming by inviting them to fleshly indulgences that can only destroy---we fear for you the author of this downward course that depraves. God alone judges without prejudice and I believe he will judge that life harmed you greatly without any of your original choosing but that in these latter days of your experience you put up little fight against the evil propensities now reigning in your life and work. Let me assure you with the certainty of a prophet though I am no prophet---things will not continue as they are. The bubble will soon burst and we are scared to death that you will burst with it. O that you might see how unnecessary is this coming debacle! O that you might see that you are greatly loved by God and your parents and friends. O that you might see that all evil leads to death and goodness to life. And so that you would do something about it. Don't wipe this away with a grimace. I love you. I want the best for you. But while you choose as you daily choose neither I nor anyone else can help you. Why not choose life and light and love rather than death, darkness and eternal loss? I beg of you-consider and consider well. Time for you may be very short. Much love from us both, Dad."

Fred: "Jerusalem is a pretty conservative town. There's not much shaking there on a Saturday night, so you probably won't get into too much trouble, or be tempted into immoral activites. Safed is another fairly religious town. We won't need to send a chaperone after you. Are you going to become one of the haredim, with a black suit and pais? Tel Aviv and Haifa are almost Los Angeles-like (complete with smog and traffic jams.)"

The Mastur Race

An Interview with Dian Hanson by Mark Kramer

Pornographer Dian Hanson’s ventures in the skin trade span the almost twenty years that have elapsed between the age of porno chic and today’s devitalized era of sexually transmitted death. As editrix of such popular newsstand magazines as the mammocentric Juggs and Bust Out and--until recently--Big Butt, Hanson is widely regarded as the doyenne of anatomically specific smut. In a field where anonymity is generally prized by purveyors and consumers alike, the buxom, Brunhildesque, fortysomething Hanson has generated a widespread cult following through an intimate--albeit epistolary--dialogue with her readership. Dian Hanson’s mailbag is an embarrassment of raunchy riches that totals thousands of reader-written letters each year, and it has afforded her an almost preternatural insight into the obsessions that send raving the race of men. In this candid interview, Hanson discourses on sex, sin, and the culture of masturbation.

Mark Kramer: How did you make the transition from respiratory therapist to pornographer?

Dian Hanson: Well, I always liked pornography. I was interested in pornography from the first time I saw it, which was down in the furnace room where my father kept his stash. My brother and I used to sneak down there and look at it. We’d find wherever it was hidden. I was always curious to see whatever it was I wasn’t supposed to see. But I was also extremely curious about the human body. And about animal sex. I lived out in the country. Animal sex was very exciting. I knew something very powerful was going on there. Here was your own pet dog, who was very predictable and normal, and then sex would enter in, and he’d become this other creature: he’d be slobbering and barking and acting very strange. It became evident to me that sex could completely transport a being into another world. And that could not escape a child’s attention. When I was seventeen or so, I saw my first really hard-core pornography, and it just absolutely riveted my attention. I couldn’t believe it. It was really exciting to me, and I just wanted more. I wanted to buy my own pornography. And when I turned eighteen, and then could legally buy pornography in Seattle, which is where I grew up, I took the birthday money which my mother sent me (I was an emancipated child living in another state from my parents) I went right down to the “adult” bookstore and bought hard-core pornography.

Kramer: What was the first porn mag you bought?

Hanson: It wasn’t a magazine. It was the Illustrated President’s Report on Obscenity and Pornography from Greeenleaf Classics, which was just a ploy to show everything we’re not allowed to talk about: bondage, SM, gay sex, straight sex, everything. I loved it. So I always sexualized everything. I was a respiratory therapist, but I was always the one who was getting in trouble for thinking about sex, contriving to peek under the sheets to look at the patients naked, noticing if a patient got an erection, and always wanting to talk about it. So I always had a reputation for being sexually obsessed. And when somebody I knew got the opportunity in 1976 to start a sex magazine, which was Puritan, I was eager to hop aboard and work in pornography.

Kramer: Puritan seemed notable for its attempt to balance “name” writers with quality art direction....

Hanson: There was an interview with Norman Mailer. To their credit, they decided to do just hard-core, and were so pretentious about it that they were able to get these name writers. The late Marco Vassi was one of our staff members. It was really started with the kind of misguided notion--this was in 1976-that things were getting more and more open. This was the year of the greatest openness on the national newsstands. Magazines like Cheri, which came out the same year, were actually showing finger insertions. They were showing women pissing. They were showing things that you never see anymore. And the people who started Puritan, who were watching this Puritan, who were watching this progression, thought that the next thing was going to be open hard-core on the newsstand, and they were going to be the first to do that. And of course, as we know, that never happened. It’s gone steadily back the other way--which most people aren’t aware of, because pornography as a social evil is such a beloved subject to American politicians who want us to think that pornography is getting ever more explicit and violent and vicious. Whereas the truth is that ever since 1976 the censors have drawn the noose tighter and tighter around our necks until we can hardly put anything in sex magazines. We can’t even use the word “rape” , let alone show imagery of it. We can’t acknowledge that people have sexual urges under the age of eighteen--not even in letters written by readers. Details such as being aroused by a teacher in the sixth grade --that just doesn’t happen in the world of American pornography, because, Lord knows, if we write about something like that somebody might think that a sixth-grade boy gets aroused by his teacher and then...who knows what the boy might do? There’s that fabled connection between normal sexual urges and violence. I don’t know where that came from. but that’s another one of the myths that’s propagated in our country. It puts politicians in office and keeps them there.

Kramer: Child pornography seems to have taken on a mythical, folkloric dimension, along with vanishing hitchhikers and mice in Coke bottles. But there’s actually very little reality behind the hysteria. Isn’t it true that the only child pornography being produced in America today comes from the federal postal authorities?

Hanson: By the postal authorities and by European countries. It’s produced in Amsterdam, although it’s just become officially illegal there. And it is produced in Scandinavian countries--very, very small quantities of it. People will say, “You pornographers don’t want to admit that child pornography is being created.” But let’s look at it cost effectively: besides the fact that most pornographers are as morally repelled by the exploitation of children as any other Americans, how many people do you know who are turned on by prepubescent children? There aren’t very many. It’s not like this is the common thing, that everybody in the United States is saying, “We’re turned on by prepubescent children, but we’ll take women with huge breasts since we can’t get children.” It’s a very small group of people who are interested in this material. Meanwhile, the penalties for producing this material are immense, while the amount of money to be made by producing and selling it is infinitesimal. It’s tiny. So it’s not cost effective for any pornographer--for anyone who wants to make money from pornography--to produce child pornography. It just doesn’t make sense. And so it’s not done. If people thought about it logically, this would occur to them. But nobody does because you can’t say the words “child pornography” without everybody screaming hysterically and rushing around hitting you. So it never gets discussed, and they don’t want it discussed, because, once again, we need an enemy. We don’t have communism anymore, so now we have these enemies within: child pornographers and drug abuse.

Kramer: What is the psychographic profile of the average American masturbator?

Hanson: Virtually every American male is a masturbator. Ninety-eight percent of American men masturbate throughout life, from puberty or pre-puberty to the grave. But if you’re talking about a person who masturbates in preference to interpersonal sex--certainly a lot of my readers fall into this category. I encourage my readers to write to me about their masturbation practices and to be more open about their masturbation practices and to feel more at ease and less ashamed about being masturbators. I find they often come from very rigid, often religious households. They’re taught at an early age that sex is sin. And masturbation is much safer. They often grow up with parents who do not give an inspiring example of married life. Their parents fight a lot. Maybe the father’s a drunk. Maybe their mother’s overbearing. Maybe they’re beaten. they don’t want to grow up and repeat what their parents have. They look at that relationship, and marriage and family life don’t look very appealing to them. They’d rather not get that close to a woman. It’s frightening to get that close to a woman because then they might repeat what their parents had. An, anyway, they’re looking at the average American once again--and most of us grow up in dysfunctional families. But I think those are a couple of elements: somebody who learns at an early age that sex is “bad”, and marriage and family life are frightening.

Kramer: So...do you feel that society benefits from the abundance of masturbatory opportunities available today?

Hanson: Pornography and the proliferation of pornography is a sign of our becoming more civilized. People today have the leisure time to explore and enjoy their sexuality. Most men biologically have a higher sex drive than most women. Being visually oriented, they’re more easily aroused, but more easily satisfied. Man satisfying their greater desires through masturbation, providing themselves the variety they crave through pornographic fantasy, is far more civilized than coercing or cajoling uninterested women.

Kramer: When one invokes the category of “Women in Pornography”, the names that come up are Dian Hanson, Candida Royalle, and Annie Sprinkle. And on the male side, there’s Al Goldstein. It seems as if there’s no one, other than the usual suspects, willing to speak on behalf of--or identify with--pornography anymore....

Hanson: This has to do with the absolute national shame about sex. How come we don’t have an institute of sexuality? How come there is nowhere in the United States an institution whose sole concern is American sexuality?

Kramer: The Kinsey Institute...?

Hanson: The Kinsey Institute is a gathering of objects. They take your diaries, they take your dildos, they take your pictures--you can get a tax write-off if you send them that stuff. I know people who do it every year. Photographers who send them all their outtakes, and they get a write-off for giving to the Kinsey Institute. It’s just a museum. But they’re not dealing with people’s problems. If a person, a young man, say, finds himself compelled to dress up in his mother’s dress--and we know this isn’t an uncommon thing--where does he go for help?

Kramer: Oprah?

Hanson: There should be an 800-number! It should be up in the subway! “Are you worried about your sexual urges? Call this number.” And you’d have real people who understand this stuff talk to the person and help him? Or they can write to me--describe it in detail. And send photographs. (Laughter)

Ginger Lynn Stars in Torn

LOS ANGELES, Aug. 18 /PRNewswire/ -- Ginger Lynn, the original "Girl Next Door" is releasing her first adult movie in 13 years! This long awaited and dreamt about comeback from Ginger is sure to please old and new fans alike. Even better "Torn" is the first of three movies that Ginger will be shooting exclusively for VCA Pictures!

Everyone is invited to join in Ginger's comeback celebration with a screening party/ autograph signing at the fabulous Hustler Hollywood store on Sunset Blvd. from 6-8 pm, Thursday August 26th. Don't miss the "Torn" billboard, soon to be gracing Sunset Blvd., beginning late August!

Ginger Lynn's star has risen well beyond the adult film world -- in addition to her 70 XXX adult titles she has appeared in 38 mainstream movies including a starring role in "The Independent" (starring Janeane Garafalo, Jerry Stiller and Johnny Rotten) to be released this November. There are five network television shows that have featured Ginger including a guest-starring role in the first-year, three-time Emmy winning episode of NYPD Blue. Ginger Lynn's credits are so diverse they encompass a variety of work, from the Metallica video for "Turn The Page" to a recurring role on the children's' Superforce series.

In "Torn", directed by adult superstar Veronica Hart, Ginger Lynn sizzles as Clarisse Bijou, soap star extraordinaire. On a fateful trip to Chicago Clarisse is reunited with her two best friends from college, both ready to love her, both willing to do whatever it takes to have her. Torn between the love of a beautiful woman and an incredible man -- whatever is Clarisse to do? Maybe she can have her wedding cake and eat it too....

In addition to starring in five steamy sex scenes the lovely and talented Ginger Lynn also co-wrote the script for "Torn." The project co-stars fellow contract players Stacy Valentine, Juli Ashton, Kylie Ireland and Julian. "Torn" will be released on video September 7, 1999. In conjunction with the movie and Ginger's comeback you can expect a brand-new comic book featuring Ginger herself from Re-Visionary Press as part of their Carnal Comics line. A DVD version of "Torn" complete with behind-the- scenes footage and in-depth interviews will be released before the end of 1999. Ginger has made herself available for interviews the week of August 23- 27. To reserve your time please contact Kylie Ireland in Publicity as soon as possible!

SOURCE VCA Pictures, 818-718-0202

XXX: "I find it sad to see this butterfly return to the spider's web from which she once escaped."

Temptress Tempts Fireman

A shoot at Bobby Galagher's Studios on Chandler and Tujunga was cancelled this week because of an electrical fire in the roof. When firemen came, Temptress tempted one of the men to get an AIDS test so that he could "work" with her in a hardcore scene.

Shakespearian Porn

English professor Richard Burt (burt@english.umass.edu) writes: "I saw your book A History of X today and thought you would be interested in a chapter of my book Unspeakable ShaXXXspeares that is devoted to hardcore pornographic adaptations of various plays by Shakespeare (they are mostly staight, with a few gay ones like Romeo and Julian). There are quite a few and they seem to keep coming, as it were. A Shakespeare in Lust was recently released over here (It's, sadly, only an anal comp). My book is available in the UK from Macmillan. It's carried on Amazon.com as well. By the way, AVN is supposed to review my book soon. Some more Shakespeare porns have come out since my book came out last Fall. Also, I've some scripts for Shakespeare porns called Shrew You and Titus Androgynous, so if you know anyone in the industry who might be interested, let me know as well."

Bunny Ranch at www.salon.com

From www.salon.com: "It's hard to imagine the "Jesse 'The Body' Ventura Suite" will be as popular as the current fan favorite, "Monica's Oral Office," but Dennis Hof, outspoken owner of the Moonlight Bunny Ranch brothel in Carson City, Nev., wants to show his gratitude for all the primo PR the good-time-lovin' Minnesota gov has given him.

"While promoting his waaaaay too informative autobiography, Ventura told -- and retold -- the story of his Navy SEAL-days visit to the Moonlight Bunny Ranch, where he traded his belt for sex and even managed to convince the service-minded gal to fork over a little extra cash to him. Now, the brothel will commemorate his pecuniarily challenged patronage with a room decorated with Navy SEAL memorabilia, feather boas, governmental knickknacks and -- that most dependable of aphrodisiacs -- photos of Ventura. "If a guy wants to act like a governor, he can," said Hof, who once offered complimentary sex for newly elected officials interested in getting a little scandal-free action on the side and hired John Wayne Bobbitt as his chauffeur (firing him two years later for "tampering with the merchandise"). But a fancy bunk ain't all Hof's hoping to provide for the randy Reform Party poster boy. Plans for a sign out front declaring "Jesse Ventura got laid here" are in the works, as is a lifetime pass to the brothel. (Only four or five of those have been given out in the brothel's 45-year history, Hof says, though he can share the names of only two lucky recipients: porn-peddlers Larry Flynt and Al Goldstein.) That means The Body can partake of, say, a $2,000 visit with Teri Weigel -- "the only girl ever to be a centerfold for Playboy, Penthouse and Hustler," boasts Hof -- gratis. Hmmm ... wonder if Hof has considered a "Jerry Springer Suite"-- for the guy who wants to act like a trash-talking ex-mayor. Available only to those who pay by check, of course." (From www.salon.com)

Luke F-rd Caught Plagiarizing Again

Kid Vegas told : "The thing about Luke F-rd, he bought a gun and stuff. He said it's cool because girls like it. I think he's kind of copying my idea about guns and stuff. I'm the one who said it was cool. Now he's doing it. I think he saw too much of my Superstar movie, now he's getting out of hand walking around with guns and stuff. He needs to give me a call if he's looking for some quotes to go with his new apparel. I can hook him up with some Kid Vegas clothes."

Rob Spallone Phones

Luke has received the results from his PCR DNA test for HIV at AIM on Tuesday. Luke tested negative.

Porner Rob Spallone phoned Luke Thursday around noon.

Rob: "I can't believe that you got your HIV test from AIM."

Luke: "Sharon Mitchell's a friend of mine. I like her."

Rob: "She listed me as one of her supporters... Is she stoned? Is she on drugs? I think so..."

Luke: "I picked up my gun."

Rob: "We'll go shooting next week for sure..."

Luke: "Where's Kendra Jade?"

Rob: "She's at the Bunny Ranch through Sunday. [Shelle Pearson mumbles in the background.]

"My movie, The Sopornos, will be finished this weekend. And then we'll shoot another feature for Russ [Hampshire, VCA owner]."

Luke: "How's your brother?"

Rob: "We shipped him to New York for a few months. How are things with you and Gene Ross this week?"

Luke: "Good, nothing going on..."

Rob: "You guys are back together?"

Luke: "I don't have anything on him so things are quiet there..."

Shelle Pearson says in the background: "Gene Ross won't talk to me because Luke put something on his website about Gene and I going out..."

Luke: "How's Jim South of World Modeling?"

Rob: "Jim's good. I saw in Las Vegas this weekend. I was down with my family and Jim was down with his family."

Luke: "If someone offered you $250,000 to find a girl for a snuff film, would you do it?"

Rob: "Absolutely... All I have to do is find the girl or do I have to kill her?"

Luke: "Just find her."

Rob: "Absof---inglutely... Do you know somebody? Tell them to give me the $250K and I will give them Shelle."

Luke: "I was just thinking about that 8MM film..."

Rob: "250K is a lot of money. All you have to do is find a girl willing to kill herself..."

Luke: "I thought Shelle had a boyfriend and is out of the business?"

Rob: "Yeah, she's in love. But you can still come over and bang her.

"Next Wednesday I'm shooting for Legend ten blowjobs and a gangbang... Then we're going to shoot a feature for Russ at the beach and up in the moutains on horses... Would you like to go horseback riding?"

Luke: "Yeah..."

Rob: "Then I'll take you on the set..."

Luke: "How's your wife?"

Rob: "Breathin..."

At 11:30AM, Rob phones back with corrections.

Rob: "Okay, Luke, the only f---ing gun range that I would take you to is one where you run up and down and I shoot at you... I am not your friend and protector anymore, eversince you screwed over Russ Hampshire...

"Luke, you know you're not allowed to come on any of my sets because you get me in trouble when you come on my sets.

"Luke, you asked me a stupid question, would I whack somebody for $250,000? You know I can't do anything like that Luke. For two-and-a-half million dollars maybe... I'd snuff you for $250,000. But a regular person would be two-and-a-half million...

"Luke, I'm not your friend and I am not your protector anymore, stop writing about me and making stuff up."

Pissing in Porn

Kraig writes: Owing to a couple of trips to Europe and the internet it has become known to me that there is a genre of Porn which centers itself around Piss and other things unknown in American Porn. Are there American Porn stars involved in this genre? To what do you attribute this divide and do you see a change? A reply would be most appreciated.

Luke: More American chicks do this now as Yank porn becomes increasingly vile and heads towards the snuff film.

Nice Jewish Girls

Nice Jewish Girl phoned at 6PM Thursday.

NJG: "All these girls who are doing you... Four now... They're brainless. Why do they even let you go near them?"

Luke: "They find me interesting."

NJG: "You are interesting but you are bad."

Luke: "You're right. I'm a writer."

NJG: "The Gambler was good?"

Luke: "Yeah, Kenny Rogers plays The Gambler... About Dostoyevsky.."

NJG: "Your site was boring today."

Luke: "I know. Because you weren't on it."

NJG: "What's with you and the gun baby?"

Luke: "Did you like that? Make you moist?"

NJG: "Just because I told you about Jim Goad, you had to go and do a Jim Goad. That was so Jim Goad [author of The Redneck Manifesto], I can't even tell you."

Luke: "I had to show you that I was more of a man than him."

NJG: "Competing with Jim Goad for me... Oy ve. You don't sound like yourself. Are you depressed?"

Luke: "I'm not feeling good. I'm not sick, I just have a headache and stuff... I'm in a slump."

NJG: "You're depressed. Why?"

Luke: "I don't know..."

NJG: "I'm your new shrink. Tell me."

Luke: "I'm getting mixed up with all these chicks but I only want XXX..."

NJG: "Does she have plastic surgery on her nose? Most Jewish chicks do. She doesn't like you, sweetie. So you're depressed that she doesn't like you. But you have five million chicks who like you including f---ing porn stars... But you don't care... I'm sorry, sweetie. I'll never be XXX. I'm too wild. But you can love me."

Luke: "I love you."

NJG: "I can make you very happy. But we have to be married. Because do you think I trust you? Oh, I'm sorry that XXX doesn't like you sweetie, but she's never going to... You're going to have to let go... She'll never like you, you don't make enough money... Your car is crappy and you are in the porn biz... And none of those things are going to go with an executive chick... Not in a million years."

Luke: "I'm afraid you're right."

NJG: "The problem with you is that you think you want a conservative chick... Really normal and makes good money and wears business suits... But that's not who you really are... There's this other side of you that is really out there and wild... You're really alternative. You're very punk rock. You're controversial... You're a stalker... A person who is really normal doesn't have the experience to deal with you. They will never know how to deal with you. I know I'm getting you even more depressed. Oh sweetie, if I was only there I'd give you a big hug but of course I wouldn't have you that close... If we were married, I'd have you very close. We're kinda mentally married to each other...

"Have people been saying that? Your wife Nice Jewish Girl... I am your like wife in a way... Because I'm right there. I'm just like you. Your sex thing. Uh uh uh uh no. I'm not into it... And now you have three or four chicks that you're doing but that doesn't mean anything to you, does it? It's empty, just like I told you... It's like you're having desert every day and it's really f---ing boring. I don't know what to do. I don't know how to help you. I want to save you, Lukey."

Luke: "I want to be saved."

NJG: "Why do you think God sent me to your website? To save you. I envision you yesterday.

"Oh, I have to go pee. I'm going to take you with me. I'm walking home from puladeze right? And I got this clear vision of you... I hope you don't mind me taking you into the bathroom, I do this with all my friends..."

Sound of a toilet seat slamming down.

NJG: "I have to go pee really bad and I can't wait... I got this vision of you... I was saying to you, Luke, why, why are you doing this to yourself? Tell me why. I said, Luke, I was sent to save you."

Luke: "From my sins."

NJG: "I was sent to save you. What's wrong with you?"

Toilet flushes.

NJG: "And you called me goddess. You said, I'm sorry, I can't help myself. I just want to partake. And I said, you're strong, you're so f---ing strong, don't partake. Don't go that route. You are really strong Luke. You are so brilliant and so amazing and so great, really. But for some reason, your thing with women is so bad. And all those chicks that you have, on the one hand, you think that you're the man... The dog of the day, with all those chicks, including porn viruses that want to do you... And they're just viruses...

"And those Jewish chicks that you pick up at synagogue right away that allow you to just partake of them because they want something more from you but they're not going to get it... Oh Luke, I don't know how to change you. If I was there, I'd be able to help you and to get in touch with those feelings that are locked away under rocks. Maybe I can help you. I promise I'll save you."

Luke: "Thank you."

NJG: "I'm going to break through those rocks of you. They want to be broken through. Your heart wants to come out and be loved and love..."

Luke: "Oh yeah... I'm loving a lot of people..."

NJG laughs in frustration. "That's not love. That's dick."

Luke: "I keep getting them confused."

NJG: "No you don't. Don't lie to me. Don't lie to the goddess. Call me goddess."

Luke: "Ok goddess."

NJG: "I know how to break through to people. I'm really good. I have ice picks..."

Luke: "You have ice tits?"

NJG: "Ice picks. I will get through to your heart."

Luke: "Then will XXX love me?"

NJG: "She's never going to love you."

Luke: "Why does she go out with me?"

NJG: "Because you're her dog. You are her slave. There's probably someone else she's in to, and it isn't you. She's into exec guys... You're a rebel... I understand that and I understand everything about you. I understand your being conservative and a Republican... But I don't get your thing for exec chicks... They think so different."

Luke: "They complete me."

NJG: "Those exec chicks will never complete. You think they're going to ground you, not complete you. While someone like me, who is more like you, we'll just go out to the moon together. No grounding... Nobody knows how to bring the other one back in. You and me are like, oh man, mars? Oh fine, let's go there. Neptune... Venus..."

Laughter.

NJG: "You have all those chicks who just want to f--- you and to me it is gross and horrible... Like having homeless people on the street who want to f--- you... But you make them not care about you. You put up those boundaries... You say, don't love me. Don't care about me.

"I'm going to go. You're no fun today. You're so sad. But it is good that you are in this state. You need to suffer. This is good for you. You're not being good to chicks... You don't care about these chicks that you're doing...

"I've known guys like you. There's some girl there who loves you but the guy is like, oh yeah, my ex girlfriend, I really love her. But what about the girl who is sitting next to you?

"And the thing with you and the gun. It made me think that you are losing your cookies. I thought, bloody hell... In those pictures of you, you look like you are losing your cookies. Why did you do that?"

Luke: "It was cool. Did you see all the emails I got?"

NJG: "And they all thought you were losing your cookies."

Luke: "I thought that was amusing."

NJG: "I know you do it for drama."

Luke: "Do you think I need attention?"

NJG: "Don't I give you tons of attention? Hello, am I not totally on you like a cheap suit? Am I not always there for you and am I not totally f---ing concerned about you all the time. I was kinda scared yesterday by the gun pictures... I didn't know if I wanted to call you back."

Luke: "If you don't call me back, I'll shoot you. It felt really good holding that gun."

NJG: "And you're going to bring that to porno conventions? Sweetie, I don't think you should have a gun."

Luke: "I'm stable. Did you like the pictures of the medicines in the background as I wave my gun around?"

NJG: "Those really bizarre looks in your eyes... And that you thought you were a Clint Eastwood type?"

Luke: "I'm crossing new boundaries in journalism, me and Hunter S. Thompson."

NJG: "Hunter Thompson is a crappy writer... You are a great writer... That thing with the gun was disturbing... You need someone to pull you back a little bit...

"These Jewish chicks who've changed their last name... And gotten nose jobs... Please. Jews who've changed their last names to be acceptable, I don't like it. It's not Jewish. You don't want to be involved with someone like that.

"It is f---ing hard being Jewish and hard to grow up with the last name Goldberg but at least my family stood by their Jewish name... f--- everybody. They were strong and nobody had a nose job.

"Luke, do you love me?"

Luke: "I love you."

NJG: "And only me."

Luke: "Only you."

NJG: "I will help you forget about XXX. I'm really good. Luv you."

7:25 PM. Luke's in the shower.

NJG calls: "Lukey pick up the phone. I just sent you this email... And I want you to check it out. I know you're home and you're depressed and you don't want to pick up the phone. Booboo, I want you to check your email. I think you'll love it. And sweetie, put that gun away right now! If I have to come over there and take that thing away from you, I'm going to, ok? Call me when you feel better, or like, call me even if you don't feel better."

NJG writes: "This letter is being written while listening to Hole's "Malibu" record, a great record.

So Luke calls me yesterday, and after those gun-in-the-mouth pictures I was kind of scared to call him back!

So I finally call him today, and he is sooooooo depressed, Executive Chick doesn't love him. He is just down in the dumps! It doesn't matter that All These Other Women want him. Oy! And the new chick has a changed jewish last name, my father would never speak to people like that. Changing your name or nose is really really frowned down upon in my family. Of course, we could feel that way, we don't really have big noses, and I have blue eyes and pretty light colored hair. I was a blonde for most of my life. But my last name....there's a BIG CLUE!!

Anyways, like I said Lukey is feeling so sorry for hisself. Because EC doesn't want him. You know, other guys on this site would LOVE to have several chix chasing them and DOING THEM, but no not Lukey. He doesn't have feelings for any other chick. Well not totally. He does have feelings for me.

"Why doesn't Executive Chick love me???" Lukey wails to me and my answer is simple. She is never gonna. You don't make enough money, you drive a heap, you live in a crappy place. Lukey, why do even go for these types? I don't understand it. "She completes me.." he says to me. I want to say puleeeeeeeeeeezzzzzzzzeeee. Because Luke thinks he is "normal", you know, that Jim Goad move of his with the gun in his mouth, what executive chick would go within 10 miles of him with that stuff? He even scared me, and I don't scare easily. I do think it was a Jim Goad move though, Jim would easily do that, so maybe he was slightly jealous of Jim writing me.

Luke, you are edgy, and no normal chick is gonna go near a guy like you. Just a girl like me, but I am your twin anyways. Except for the sex part. I would never sleep with anyone I don't love. It's gross. I would never do anyone like that, nor porn guys neither.

Ah, but Lukey your problems are boring me right now. So I'm gonna change the subject. Melissa Etheridge had a free concert here and so I'm getting off the train and I hear loud music, some gay guys playing, sounded good though. But I am sooooo tired of gay stuff. It's kind of passe. It was cool ten years ago. So I go to the library which has 3 copies of Luke's book, one in the Reference Section yet! But I go looking for his book and it's not there, so I put it on reserve. BTW here's the call #'s in case anyone wants to look for it. I think the call #'s are the same everywhere in every town.

791.4365 F753h comes under the subject of: Erotic Flim History and Criticism

One book is checked out, I don't know where the other book is. Oh and the other thing I will share. I had a vision of Luke. That I was a goddess and sent by g-d to save him. And you just wait. I will save him. I asked him why he had sex without being in love with people. And he called me "goddess" and he said "Goddess I cannot control myself". And tonight I told him that I would save him, that I can break down those walls, that I am fearless, that I am strong. So you all should give me good luck because I don't know what's on the other side of that steel door of his. But I can do it. And I think you all know I can and will. Love To You All :) NJG

oops, I had to go pee, so my train of thought went all over the place. I wanted to talk about the free Melissa Etheridge concert, can we say Dyke Heaven. There were all kinds of dykes out there. This is what Real Dykes look like, not porn dykes who are just male-fantasy looking dykes, because let me tell you guys, when dykes get out of work from their stuffy jobs in the sex industry this is what they look like. There were dykes with colored hair (a few), and I saw 3 tanned bleached blonde women, not sure if they were dykes though, they looked awfully straight, but as I went past them their conversation seemed kind of dykey, so I can't say for sure. Maybe they were sex biz dykes, because they didn't look like the other women that were there. There were the usual fat dykes, tons of jewish dykes (there's seems to always be a ton of college educated jewish dykes for some reason--maybe they hate men and intellectually become dykes. I think that is why), physically challenged dykes, some fat and black dykes, and tons of bleached short haired major dykes. Didn't know that was still trendy. There were your hippie-overalls wearin' dykes, and I'm sure almost everyone is a vegetarian and a "vagitarian" heh heh heh as the old saying goes.

And so I was close to the stage somehow. I don't know how that happened, but I got to see Melissa come out with a really tacky looking leopard print cowboy hat and wearing black pants and shirt. Her energy was great. She was smiling. Of course there were tons of men hogging the front of the stage, and I was thinking, if this were Courtney Love and not Melissa, Courtney would tell the MEN to move back, because Courtney only wants girls in the front, not guys. But ME isn't that radical. That's why Courtney is my heroine. Anyways, the first song she did was cool, the second was ok, so I left, but it got better as I heard it walking down the block. She's not my favorite. She looked better than she did recently on VH1. And she's really thin.

Dennis Prager writes in the August 1996 issue of Commentary magazine:

I BELIEVE in God, the God of the Bible. This God is good, holy, supranatural, personal. As good and holy are self-explanatory, I will briefly explain supranatural and personal.

Supranatural: God created nature and is in no way part of it. All movements—from Spinoza to Mordecai M. Kaplan to contemporary nature adulation—that place God within nature are forms of avodah zarah, idol worship. The greatest single purpose of Torah teaching is to separate God from nature—hence, for example, Genesis begins with God creating nature.

Personal: God knows each of us. If God did not know us, there would be no practical difference between atheism and belief.

I believe that the Torah is divinely revealed. This does not necessarily mean that every word is divinely dictated, but I treat the Torah as if it were. The Torah is not merely “the Jewish people’s search for God” or anything else that places the Jews, rather than God, at its origin.

I accept the binding nature of the Torah’s values, but not of all the rabbis’ laws. God is God, rabbis are human. Therefore, for example, I observe each of the Torah’s festivals, but do not observe the second day added to each one by the rabbis—it is irrational and it contravenes the Torah; the Torah specifies the number of days for each holiday, and it prohibits adding to or subtracting from its laws. I also use musical instruments on the Sabbath to make religious music, just as the Psalms directed us, but which the rabbis later prohibited.

If I did not believe that the Jews were chosen by God, I would not raise my children as Jews. To bequeath the suffering that may attend being Jewish to my descendants is defensible only if we have a divine calling. And since a good Christian can lead as good and holy a life as a good Jew, I see few compelling reasons to stay Jewish if we are not God’s messengers.

Being a messenger is what chosenness is about. We are here to bring the world to ethical monotheism, i.e., the one God and His one universal moral law. Few Jews, tragically, believe in this religious mission to the world: most religious Jews ignore the world, and most Jews who talk to the world ignore Judaism.

Bringing the world to ethical monotheism ought to be the distinctive role of the Jewish people. In reality, however, perhaps the most distinctive role that many secular Jews play in the modern era is working to overthrow Judeo-Christian civilization, the closest thing we have to ethical monotheism. Examples include those Jews who embraced Marxism, or those Jews today who toil to undo the mother-father-based family (through advocating same-sex marriage, removing the stigma from single motherhood, etc.) and to replace God-based ethics with “every man doing what he thinks is right in his own eyes” (Deuteronomy 12:8).

Jewish messianism has caused more problems than it has solved. Let God bring the messiah in His good time. In the meantime, I have to worry about genocide in Rwanda, about children being taken away from loving homes and given to abusive birth parents, and about the gender confusion being foisted upon the next generation by the elite of the present generation.

The Holocaust only confirms for me what I learned in yeshiva, that people are not basically good, and that those who hate the message from Sinai will hate the messengers from Sinai.

The state of Israel, on the other hand, had a profoundly positive impact on my Judaism. It enabled one young Jew, born three years after the Holocaust, to stand tall as a secure Jew. As a Jewish adult, however, I no longer rely on Israel for my Jewish strength; I get it from Judaism.

The greatest stimulus to my Jewish belief is the present decline of America (and the West generally) emanating from its abandonment of God. Once-great universities no longer seek truth, or even believe truth exists. Once-great museums now offer displays of men urinating in other men’s mouths and “art works” made of menstrual blood. We have gone from the God-touching music of Johann Sebastian Bach to the anus-touching art of Robert Mapplethorpe, and from seeking truth to deconstructionism—all because, as the Psalms put it, “Wisdom begins with fear of God.” No fear of God, no wisdom.

Thus, I came to my passionate beliefs in God and Judaism primarily because I have seen the abyss to which the alternative, secularism, leads.

I look to the denominations for their many excellent schools and summer camps, and for their many fine rabbis and cantors. But when it comes to leading a religious Jewish life in the modern world, the denominations have little to teach. And what they do teach is on occasion quite distant from the Torah as I understand it.

For example, what is one to make of Reform Judaism’s calling upon society to redefine marriage? Judaism fought against the world to channel the human sexual drive, which is naturally bisexual rather than exclusively heterosexual, into heterosexual, monogamous marriage—and Reform rabbis, in a voice vote in Philadelphia, vote to reject this awesome value and accomplishment. Meanwhile, at the other end of the denominational spectrum is a denomination in which fear of the frum (observant) often determines religious practice more than fear of God; in which women can be told to live alone until they die because their husband will not grant them a divorce; in which congregants read every Friday night that women who die in childbirth do so because they did not observe proper customs concerning the hallah (the Sabbath bread) or the laws of niddah (sexual purity) or Sabbath candle-lighting.

I do not call for Jewish religious unity because anyone who calls for unity really means, “Unite around my beliefs.” Instead, I work to make Jews serious Jews. By this I mean becoming learned in Judaism, using Judaism as the basis of their value system, and practicing essential Jewish ethical and ritual laws. Serious Jews do not have to be entirely unified; there are a number (though not an infinite number) of roads to God inside, as well as outside, Judaism.

A large-scale revival of Judaism in America would be possible under two conditions: the rise of a widespread and passionate non-Orthodox religiosity and/or widespread Jewish hunger for God and Judaism. I see little chance of the former, as Reform, for example, still tends to equate Judaism with social activism and to redefine God in terms of whatever is acceptable to the postmodern, secular, egalitarian mind. And there is little hunger for Judaism because most Jews are already deeply committed to another religion, one that is aggressively secular and man-centered—liberalism.

The only other possibility of a large-scale revival of Judaism is large-scale conversion of non-Jews to Judaism. It is unlikely, but it may actually be more feasible than a large-scale revival among born-Jews. There are millions of nonreligious God-seeking non-Jews whose lives are not given meaning by liberal politics and who would be receptive to the beauty and profundity of Judaism.

The commitment of secular Jews to liberalism was exemplified earlier this year in Tennessee, where the state Senate voted 27 to 1 to urge—not legislate, just urge—the citizens of Tennessee to post the Ten Commandments in their homes, businesses, and schools. Guess who the one dissenter was? A man named Steve Cohen, the only Jew in the Tennessee Senate.

The Jews gave the world the Ten Commandments, and with the same fervor that we gave them, many Jews work to remove them. This does not bode well for a large-scale revival of Judaism. It does bode well, however, for a large-scale revival of nihilism—which is already well under way.