Thursday, May 27

Email Luke Archives May 25

Taylor Rain - The High School Years

Mutt writes on GFY: Taylor Rain, - 'The Girl Most Likely To Sell Her Ass For Fun, Profit and Weed' as a freshman, sophomore and senior in high school and the vixen she is today.

Awkward Encounter Not Awkward At All When Masturbated About

OLYMPIA, WA-An uncomfortable exchange between Brad Leydner, 25, and Ginny, the cute redheaded waitress at Hugo's Bistro, lost all awkwardness when envisioned in Leydner's masturbation fantasy later that afternoon. "So, would you like to grab a coffee after your shift?" a nervous Leydner asked Ginny in both the real and imagined scenarios Monday. "Oh, Brad, I can't wait four hours to see you. You should f-ck me hard, right in this booth," replied the Dream Ginny moments before Leydner achieved orgasm. In the fantasy scenario, Ginny did not hide in the kitchen to avoid speaking to Leydner while he paid for his meal.

Howard Stern No Longer A Porn Pushover

Porn companies trying to place billboards on Sunset Blvd or buying ads on Howard Stern and doing other mainstream promotions are having a tougher time these days. Ad copy is getting scrutinized and rejected with a frequency not seen in recent memory. There's definitely a chill in the American air for porn. Radio hosts are far more reluctant to book porn guests.

Rob Spallone's Excellent Vacation

10AM. I call Rob.

Duke: "Dr Spallone, when are you shooting next?"

Rob: "I was going to shoot this week but I can't. I'm going away. So next week."

Duke: "Are you going to prison?"

Rob: "No, I just got out. I just walked out of the courts."

Duke: "What was it for?"

Rob: "They said I had a warrant for violation of probation. The judge said, what violation is that? I said, I don't know. The cop pulled me over yesterday and said I had a violation. The judge said I was not in no violation."

Duke: "Were you in prison last night?"

Rob: "I got out this morning. They said I didn't surrender a gun. I said I don't have no gun. How do you surrender something you don't have? I don't have to pay the rent any more."

Duke: "Did you have a big black roommate?"

Rob: "No, no niggers."

AVN's Mike Ross Piece

A source says: Mike hung up on AVN's writer [Scott Ross?] when he didn't like the questions he was asking. AVN will be calling him back.

Contrary views here and here.

Director Guy Capo Interview

I met Guy at Tom Byron's Evolution Erotica booth at the AVN Expo in January. I call him Tuesday, May 25.

Guy: "When we met at AVN, I'd completed my sixth film. I had done three teen films for Evolution under a different [Timothy Tyler Thomas] and three Guy Capo-esque features, the most recent of which was just released this week, Payback, a gangbang film.

"I left Evolution to do my own thing. Everyone I had met in my first year in the industry and admired had one thing in common -- they had all struck out at one point and knew they had to do their own thing to grow, Rob Black and Tommy included.

"Now I'm doing a film a month for DVSX and a project a month for Mark Kulkis at Kick Ass Pictures.

"I came in with Extreme Associates on March 3, 2003. A month later, there was a federal raid [leading to federal prosecution for obscenity]. Within a week or two after that, Evolution was spawned. I became part of that organization because it was obvious that Rob was going to have to downsize drastically to fight the battle."

Duke: "How did you select the name Guy Capo?"

Guy: "I went through a lot of names. I wanted Italian-Sicilian. Extreme had seen its fair share of Italian names come through its doors."

Duke: "You mentioned that the teen thing wasn't your thing. What does it take to get you excited about a project?"

Guy: "The more drama and grit in the storyline, the more I dig it. The more it rubs people the wrong way, the more I like it. I like a little bit of controversy. I like things to be provocative on multiple levels. I like statement films to make the viewer reconsiders their stance on what pornography is. That's what drove me into the industry. I reached the point where I hated porn. I was sick of it. Ninety five percent of the porn out there assumes the viewer is nothing but a mindless jackoff. I found it insulting that every producer in the Valley assumed I was doing nothing but jerking off, when I was looking for just a little entertainment value out of my pornography. My quest for that led me to drop what I was doing in the Mid West and to head to Porn Valley to make a run at it."

Duke: "Have you ever regretted that decision?"

Guy: "No. I wish someone would've told me when I was 19 and going into college -- don't waste your money. Drop what you are doing and become a pornographer. You'll be much better off in the long run. Nobody was going to give me that advice so I had to go through a ritual of life experiences before admitting that if I don't do this, I'm going to wonder for the rest of my life, what if I had?

"I'm blessed to be able to make a living in this industry. I got the expected amount of flack from people close to me, my family, friends back in the Midwest and New York. They assumed I was going into the dirtiest, grittiest, most disgusting foul industry. The things that I have witnessed in this industry do not hold a candle to the atrocities that I saw committed in daily corporate life."

Duke: "What were you expected to become as a kid?"

Guy: "An athlete. I had a successful hockey career. I was playing pro hockey at 16. A lot changed in the course of a year. I suffered a bad injury to my ankle, which put me out of commission as a goalie. My father died. At that point, I realized I had to go to college. I became a funeral director and worked as an embalmer for several years as I went through school. Even though that was gratifying and fulfilling work, I knew that I just didn't fit in with that crowd of professionals. That crowd of country club, conservative, white America professionals was not my bag."

Duke: "Did you ever have relations with any of your corpses?"

Guy: "No, but funeral directors are the craziest, most partying, tripped out, whacked out group you could ever meet. If you want to have a good time, go to mortuary school for a couple of semesters."

Duke: "Did you see the movie Miracle?"

Guy: "No. For someone who is a film buff, I see little film. I'm very particular about what I watch."

Duke: "What has surprised you about this industry?"

Guy: "I am surprised at the amount of self-censorship that has to be exercised in this business. From the outside, it appears that once you cross over into making XXX-rated films, you can do about anything you want to do. That's what I liked about this industry. That's part of the reason I did not take my abilities mainstream because I knew it would not offer me the artistic and expressive freedom that adult would. But once I got here, I realized you can't do anything you want to do. You can get away with a lot of things but you are probably going to catch more flack than the average commercial guy just based on the effort to stay out of trouble. You are going to have to censor yourself more than the government will censor you. It's an amazingly conservative business when you look at what we could be doing as opposed to what is being done."

Duke: "Any particular stringencies that surprised you?"

Guy: "I've had multiple scenes that either had to be edited down to nothing or completely ditched because they were in violation of laws that really don't exist but are just guidelines to keeping your ass out of trouble. Bondage and sex was one thing I never really understood. It was obvious to me as a consumer watching films that included some kind of bondage that they were just never convincing. They were half assed. When I had an opportunity to shoot a scene that included some bondage, I neglected to unbind my female talent before having her penetrated. Immediately, my superiors Tommy and Rob, said no, you can't do that. It's rape. She has to be unbound before you f--- her.

"That was just ludicrous to me. It was obvious that I was going a theatrical representation of a scripted piece of material. How am I supposed to portray this as accurately as possible if the girl is unbound? What captor releases his captive at the point of insertion? Who knew. I didn't know. I thought everybody just chickensh-- out at the last minute. It's not right that a shot of insertion makes the difference between the rape scene in The Accused and the rape scene that Guy Capo had to cut from his film. How come mainstream Hollywood can get away with [portraying rape] and I can't just because I show insertion?"

Duke: "What percentage of your movies are non-sexual in content?"

Guy: "I'd say it's 70/30 sex. If I had my druthers, it would be more like 70/30 content over sex. I can still make a helluva film that is highly erotic and that you can jerk off to. I find the storylines and the emotions that get charged through good writing and good production to be a greater turn on than the typical what's your name, what are you here to do interview with a porn starlet who doesn't have much to say.

"What turns me on is seeing how things progress. I want to know why these girls are in these situations. What led them to be f---ed by seven guys on the back of a flatbed truck. If it was up to me, I would have much more elaborate productions. I understand that [porn] is an assemblyline. We could be making toasters and the process wouldn't be that much different than it is now."

Duke: "What's the point in an X-rated movie having substantial content that is not sex?"

Guy: "To raise questions or to spark controversy or encourage people to take action. To make them think. My non-sexual content is intended to pick at the most sensitive elements of the human psyche. To turn on those little areas of the brain that don't get hit very often.

"I like my films to feel like independent films that just happen to have a lot of really good sex."

Duke: "What is important to get good sex?"

Guy: "The natural pornographer's reaction to that would be chemistry. I think the most important thing is to understand the energy you are trying to communicate in that scene. Sometimes it is happy go lucky sex. Sometimes dark eery sex. Whatever. The talent needs to understand the vision of the scene. Far too often, people just want to show up and f---. That worked in the'80s and damn near ruined the industry. Nowadays, I think the viewer wants more."

Duke: "What do you love and hate about working in this business?"

Guy: "I love the creative freedom. There is probably no other artistic venture that would pay my bills and offer me this kind of creative freedom. Also, I love the people I work with. There's little pretension. That comes from being buck naked all the time. There ain't much you can hide.

"Of all the businesses that I've worked in, this one seems the most disconnected from its end consumer. The people who make or break you [as a pornographer] are not the consumers but the distributors. The consumer has to choose between what happens to hit the shelf. He has little say in the market. The marketplace is flooded with s--- that nobody wants but has no choice but to consume from.

"The industry needs a bloodletting. There's just too much s--- on the shelves."

Duke: "What do you do in your spare time?"

Guy: "I don't have any. I try to raise my daughter the best I can in this f---ed up and crazy society. I write. I paint. I compose music. That's why I am so happy in this industry. It caters to all the things I used to do in my leisure time. Now my play has become work."

Duke: "How long do you want to stay in this industry?"

Guy: "I have a life long commitment to being a pornographer."

Duke: "Have you done much sleeping around in the adult industry?"

Guy: "I have not. I got married three days before I came out here. Though I like watching these girls f---, I would not ponder for a moment becoming physical with any of them."

Feel the Love

Nicholas writes: One of the cool things about being a Luke fan is that I'm part of a very exclusive club. In fact, beside myself, I can't think of another fan club member. This is why I have the shortest blogroll in the blogosphere. I suspect that it will soon get shorter still.

It's not just that almost no-one likes Luke. More interesting is the intense loathing that he provokes in otherwise tolerant, caring, and reasonable people. I've seen this in my own social circle. All I have to do is mention his name and my usually placid Canadian friends become enraged.

Substantiating evidence is hardly lacking, but here is a small selection of reader comments from a website during Luke's short stint as a guest blogger:

When are you leaving Protocols?

Luke, I don't understand, is this some sort of sociological experiment on your part? ... We can't take much more, and it has only been one day.

stop! please! no more!

why is this person tolerated on this site? He's offensive!

I'm not sure what the point was of having you as a guest blogger. You seem to have taken over Protocols -- where are the usual contributers? ... Have you ever considered trying to look at life from other people's points of view, and not purely your own?

This man is a sicko

Luke, in essence, is an asshole.

What has happened to Protocols this last week. Amzing [sic] how one guest blogger can ruin this formerly thoughtful, sophisticated meditation. I used to look to Protocols every day ... Now I grimace at the immuturity, unbridled anger & hatred (self hatred?) and general creepiness.

goodbye. I've had enough

This site has hit an all time new low

When is your stint as a guest blogger over?

Aren't you supposed to be gone by now?

Oh Crap!!!! You again, ? Dammit, can't you just GO AWAY

Luke, you've violated us all by imposing your sick self upon us and by misrepresenting yourself as a frum jew when really you're a very very sick man.

That's it. I'm not looking at Protocols again until the week is over. More time to check out other blogs now, or rearrange my sock drawer.

I think I am beginning to understand why LA, rather some of it's self-absorbed residents are so hated.

we dont like when a person who isnt too intelligent, funny, clever, or interesting posts non stop on a blog that used to be informative and entertaining.

Your posts are so long and boring its unbelievable. Never before have I seen someone write so much and say so little. Please stop. Now.

i can almost guarantee that this luke is one weird creepy freak in real life.

Don't try to stuff your religious position down everyone's throught. (God, you are worse than Prager.)

You are a very sick person ... I do not accept you as a fellow Jew. You were converted under false pretenses, and you have failed to live up to even the most basic standards of what it means to be a frum Jew. We didn't ask you to join, but we're now asking you to leave.

I don't find your satire funny ... you come across here as a bigot

Luke - You are the worst kind of white jewish trash.

I truly hope to never see you on this blog again!

your endless posts felt like the guy who shows up at a dinner party and won't stop talking, interrupting, pontificating until all that remain in the room are him and his exhausted hosts.

leave these poor people and their blog alone!!!

How about writing about something other than your narscistic little world. Other than your friends, and your personal predilications?

this page has gone to hell

The bottom line is, he's a sensationalist jerk. Regardless if people call him bad names. What's his deal? When is his guest-blogging stint done? I want to know because if this goes on much longer, I'm going to remove the Protocols link from my blog.

Personal insults aside, the problem with Luke - or, shall we say, one of the more serious problems - is that he uses very provocative language but his meaning is never clear. What is satire and what is not? Is he trying to convey a point, or simply to upset people? He certainly has succeeded at the latter.

I want to put the link back up on my blog, but I have to wait until he stops posting.

Most people simply hated the interminable, self-referential posts, many of which were copied verbatim from his personal blog, some from as much as two or three years ago.

Get Luke off of here!

Luke - From reading your posts the past few days, I've come to one conclusion - you're one strange dude.

Soon, soon it will be over.

go away Luke

SHUT UP NOW!!!!

This luke individual is a truly horrible read. Truly horrible. Too horrible even to be fun-horrible. F--- your awful blogging, Luke, and go write something else.

Hey Luke mate! I don't bloody understand why you insist on writing about nothing but rubbish on this blog.

You have such a hard-on for that windbag Dennis Prager. You guys both deserve each other and I wish you'd stick to what you both do best pontificate about religion and morality, rather than pretend to be experts on the Middle East.

I am encouraging all readers of Protocols to call Luke at home. Number available through anywho.com

WTF is going on here? I've landed in planet WTF.

I'm confused. I thought this was a religious site, not a sex blog.

you are a sick man

I would say this site has turned into pure garbage

Luke, you are truly dumber than I thought.

speaking on behalf of the Protocols readership, its time that you stopped posting altogether. Instead of spending your time posting this stupidity, why don't you go and talk to a psychiatrist

When did this site become the new luke.com?

How much longer, Lord, how much longer?

Luke, you are one big sicko. Get lost and get some help.

Luke, I am assuming that this is another one of your pathetic ironical little test(e)s. Get a life

I am really losing intest in this blog. Is the point now solely to shock, I thought that is what Maddona is for. I don't get this or most of your comments, this is really just getting old.

I too am getting very sick of this blog and I am fed up with Luke making Protocols his own little freak show.

Luke, we don't like you and we don't like your B.S. attention grabbing announcements. Please find some other blog to ruin.

Yeah. Get rid of Luke. Give us back the old protocols

I need some Midol. Anyone here got some?

OK, damn Luke, this is too much!

YUCK!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Luke , you are a moron.

someone wake me up when luke is no longer posting.

END THIS MADNESS!!!!

Still making friends wherever you go, I see, Luke.

This is getting painful.

Luke makes me ashamed to be Jewish.

Luke, do you have a life? What happened to Protocols? Farewell, I'm getting bored to tears

This is too much. Shut up and go away!

luke , go away.

This site has hit an all time new low

You love to push your limits and see just how far you can go ... you really have to sit down, listen and learn from some good mussar shmusses from a good rabbi and live your life by the credo "do unto others as YOU WANT THEM TO DO UNTO YOU".

Luke, yuck, your posts stink

Get rid of luke, bring back protocols. Protocols is my cup of coffee every day and now this sludge all week long. Help!

Get this long-winded pervert off the site and bring back the type of bloging that made protocols interesting

Enough Already!

When is this jerk's turn as guest blogger over?

Give Protocols back to those that can write, (not u Luke)

this really sucks. like trying to promote luke all the time. what fun. cant imagine it sucking any more

what the hell is going on around here?

Dude, get a life. Your posts are way too long and boring. One post about a subject is enough, we don't need 5 of them!

We miss the days when Protocols was pithy and interesting.

Why is this guest blogger so obsessed with sex?

this guy is really freaking me out

Is this another one of your "satires"?

This is an absolute ghoul.

Most of these guest bloggers have been awful. There is no question that this one takes the cake. Its so highly irritating and not interesting.

grow up, this was a serious blog once upon a time

If any of us were interested ONLY in you, we'd go to your blog, Luke.

I can be the first to say Goodbye and Good Riddance. You succeeded in making the last 7 days feel like 7 years. Perhaps now you can spend more time with your therapist, trying to figure out why you are so dedicated to antagonizing others.

Thanks. You love me. You really love me.

I have criticized you up one end and down the other and it's wonderful. It's the most fulfilling thing in the world because you don't defend it. You don't fight it. You don't get angry. You just take it. And for people who don't like conflict such as myself, it's a beautiful thing.

Director John Quinn

Most of Playboy TV is located on the eighth floor of 5055 Wilshire Blvd. The building is home to a variety of trade magazines including Billboard, Ad Week and The Hollywood Reporter.

About 30 full-time staff and about 60 freelancers work on Playboy's floor. The place is largely cubicles with Playboy posters and art work all over the walls. A few beautiful women were hanging out for a casting session.

While I wandered the corridors 2/19/02, I ran into Gary Gray aka Helmetcam Man. I last spoke to him about a year ago and he was quitting Playboy. They'd just canceled his Helmetcam Man show. It was replaced by Alisha Klass's Inside Adult.

A few weeks ago, Gary was chatting by phone with his friend Juli Ashton, co-host of Night Calls. Then he got a beep from his call waiting, and it was Playboy wanting him to come back to work for them producing Night Calls.

Playboy has fired numerous executives over the past few months, including the party boy who were ploughing through millions of dollars. Jim English has reasserted his control of Playboy TV.

I interview Playboy director John Quinn whose credits include:

Sex Court: The Movie (2002)
Staying On Top (2002) (V)
Hollywood's Hidden Lives (2001) (V)
Beauty Betrayed (2000)
Fast Lane to Vegas (2000) (V)
Girl for Girl (2000)
Passion's Peak (2000) (V)
"Passion Cove" (1999)
TV Series Beach Movie (1998) ... AKA Boardheads (1998) (USA)
Key to Sex, The (1998)
Sheer Passion (1998)
Fallen Angel (1997)
Magic of the Golden Bear: Goldy III, The (1994) ... AKA Goldy III (1994)
Total Exposure (1991)
Cheerleader Camp (1987) (V) ... AKA Bloody Pom Poms (1987) (V) (UK)

John: "I went to high school in Santa Barbara. I started at San Jose State thinking I'd be a business major. My high school girlfriend, who was a drama major, asked me to try out for the Edward Albee play "The Zoo Story." I enjoyed the experience and I decided to minor in theater. Then I transferred to UCLA and studied film, graduating in 1971.

"I'm not cut out to be an actor. I started at UCLA with an acting major but I didn't feel at home. Most actors are so into themselves, that I didn't have many friends in the theater arts department. I had more friends in business, or painting, sculpture, still photography departments. So one day I went to the Royce Hall student film screening and determined to study film.

"After graduating from UCLA, I was admitted as a fellow to the American Film Institute. I worked as a line producer on this student project with David Lynch as the art director and Caleb Deschenel was the Director of Photography. Caleb likes to instill fear within the crew members while David is totally relaxed.

"I got sick of being in school. I dropped out of AFI and traveled around Europe for a year. When I came back, it was all about getting a job - crew member, grip, gaffer... I worked in film distribution for ten years. I had the rights to David Lynch's Eraserhead but lost them in a legal battle. It had been on the circuits and nobody wanted it.

"I wanted to get back to the creative end. I made these 'Golden Bear' kids movies: Saga of the Golden Bear (1986), Search for the Golden Bear (1988) and finally The Magic of the Golden Bear (1994).

"One night a couple of buddies and I sat around drinking beers and talking about doing a horror movie. I said, 'Chicks, mountains, being killed.' Bloody Pompons was the original title for Cheerleader Camp but the American distributor didn't have the guts to use that title.

"It was the easiest movie I've ever financed. I went to the American Film Market in Santa Monica and walked the halls and said, 'I've got a horror movie. It's called Bloody Pompons.' It's like what Roger Corman used to do. You'd have the poster and the concept. After you sold it, you wrote the script.

"Barry Collier of Prism Entertainment dug the idea. He financed the American rights. Then I sold the Japanese rights and the rest of the foreign rights to Manson International. It blew me away how much of the money went in legal fees.

"We went up to Camp Nelson in the Sequoia National Forest where I'd shot the Golden Bear movies. I took four weeks to shoot. Now the features I make for Playboy take ten days. It was a good pace for a first-time director. It was good being on location because everybody was right there. They weren't stuck in traffic on the 405 freeway.

"There are always the emotional things going on. Who's schtupping who? Who's falling in love with who? Since it was up there in the forest, that happened a lot. Unfortunately, I had to go in each night and do my shot list. So there wasn't much [nookie] for the director. I was single at the time. There were a lot of lovelies in the film. My line producer was a female. She told me, 'Don't make the big mistake that all directors do when they start screwing their leading lady.' I said ok. I was really concerned about making a mistake. I look back on it and realize that I missed out on Teri Weigel, Betsy Russell... Teri Weigel was looking for a relationship.

"When I'd see Teri, she'd flash me. This was 17 years ago. Nudity was less prevalent. And she did it so fast, nobody would catch her but me. But I thought I was doing the right thing in staying home and doing my shot list. The producers, the ADs, and crew had a great time.

"There was only one bar nearby. After you got off work, you'd go there and have a drink. The only time I've had similar was when I shot a video for Playboy last year called 'Girls of the Hardrock Casino.' After we finished shooting at the Hardrock, we partied on.

"I love that Cheerleader Camp plays on late night cable like USA. It's one of their highest rated films.

"After Cheerleader Camp, producer Jeff Prettyman and I wanted to do higher budget films. We both had a ball doing Cheerleader Camp. But it's very hard to move up. We developed some good scripts and got close to a movie with Miramax. Countless times we came close to having a $20 million movie. But we couldn't make enough money to sustain a company together. Looking back, we should've stuck with the low budget erotic thrillers. And now, 12 years later, I'm doing erotic thrillers.

"Total Exposure [1991] was my next movie. That wasn't a fun shoot. The executive in charge of production Steve Beswick and I didn't see eye to eye."

Lynn Dahlgren and John wrote the script and future Hollywood producer Dean Devlin played an adult bookstore manager.

When the ambitious photographer Andi returns from a modeling session in Mexico, she finds a kilogram cocaine in her bag. In panic - and thinking of her prior convictions - she immediately dumps it in the sink. She suspects her star model Cathy and calls her to account for it, but she denies everything. When Cathy's found dead shortly after, Andi is under suspect. She employs ex-cop Dave Murphy to help her out and to protect her from the psychopathic dealer, who wants back his cocaine from her.

John: "We did The Magic of the Golden Bear kids movie in 1994 with Cheech Marin and Mr. T.. I wore too many hats in that film. I directed, co-wrote, co-produced and acted in it. You can do that when you're really experienced, like Woody Allen or Clint Eastwood. But since it was only my third feature, you're still grasping.

"The reason that I acted in it... When you're producing a low budget movie, you're taking on credit cards, you're borrowing money from your mother, you're taking from your grandmother's bank account, you're stealing money from wherever you can... We couldn't pay for another person to be on location. I took one of the minor character parts. While I'm making sandwiches, I'd jump in and do the part. Jeff and I split up and I went for seven months without anything to do.

"Our Hispanic neighbors had a friend who was a limo driver. He came across the street to me and said, 'I'm driving these really rich Philippino people and they're looking for directors.' I look at my wife, who's psychic. She says, 'I think Victor is going to change your life.' I said, 'You're kidding? Phillipino people who have money and run a blood screening lab?'

"The Philippinos, the last name was Jaren, had an office in Van Nuys in a funky building. I sat in front in my car and wondered if I should get out and see them. One of the things in this business is that you never know.

"Mrs. Jaren had less than $100,000 to make this movie [Broken Rose]. I couldn't believe that I was going back to my roots. But they were willing to pay me $10,000 to direct and $5000 to work on the script. I asked who will be the actors? They said, we have stars. We have two girls who just won the Miss Phillipino contest in Los Angeles. They were beautiful girls but they'd never acted a day in their lives. And they wouldn't do nudity.

"I asked, 'How do you plan to do an erotic thriller if the leads won't take their clothes off?' They say, 'No problem John. We will cast pretty girls around them who will take off their clothes.' I said, 'I'm sorry but the guys watching this are still going to be disappointed. If you've been watching a film and you're getting hot and steamy watching this beautiful Asian girl, and then she never takes her clothes off, it can be disappointing.' But that was the way they wanted to make it. They were also setting up a management firm and they wanted to manage these two girls.

"We made the film for under $100,000. I have a couple of shots on my director's reel. It never got a domestic release. We tried to sell it to Playboy and they turned it down. Not enough sex. But Playboy became interested in doing joint ventures. We made Fallen Angel starring Kira Reeds and Samantha Phillips (Penthouse Pet 6/93), who now has a talk show on KLSX.

"I served as executive-producer and show runner for Passion's Cove, a 26-show series that Playboy made for HBO. So many of the erotic genres are done indoors. We broke ground and took a lot of love scenes outside. We rented a house from Fred Segal in Malibu with 200 acres. We had privacy. That's a typical problem you run into when you rent a house. You have neighbors looking in. We found private beaches, which are hard to find. There's a lightness, an airiness to the show. It's not all dark and red velvet.

"My first feature for Playboy was 1998's Sheer Passion. We do these features in ten days for under half a million dollars."

A lingerie model has been strangled inside a wealthy fashion designer's house, and the designer is the obvious suspect. When the police appear to be dragging their feet on the investigation, private detective Cassandra decides to do her own investigation, posing as a model.

John: "Playboy's competition is shooting features in as few as six days. Playboy is shooting 12 features this year, in eight to ten days each. I produced four movies for Playboy last season, directed two movies and wrote one. You'd think that with these smaller budgets, this would be where you could break in your first time directors. It's not. When I did Cheerleader Camp, I had four weeks. But with ten day shoots, you have to your stuff together. It's not a place where we are breaking in first-time directors.

"With the series, we shot the 30-minute episodes in three days each. I got hired last week to produce 13 episodes of this new show, Sexy Urban Legends, which will premiere on the Playboy Channel. We're shooting them in two-and-a-half days each, starting March 11. There will be two segments per show, about 12 minutes each.

"Last year, on a similar show, they had a serious Rod Sterling-like host. "To true to be real? Or real enough to be true?" It's hard to find these real urban legends. We're finding them. We're not making them up. We're going through these comic books. There are books written about urban legends. I could tell you stories that you've heard."

Luke: "Would Penthouse Forum count for urban legends?"

John laughs. "I guess so. They figured they'd lighten up the show this year and make it more filmic. Instead of re-enacting, use more creative film style and editing with younger hosts. Two collegiate guys, more mature than Wayne's World, more like the guys on Friends. 'Hey man, did you hear this? This guy was driving around a country road and he saw this beautiful girl and he picks her up...'"

Luke: "When did you marry?"

John: "My first marriage was in 1979 and I divorced in 1986. I was single for Cheerleader Camp. I needed a mercy f-ck. I was single and not knowing how to date. Then I married again in 1990."

Luke: "How does your wife feel about you specializing in erotica?"

John: "She's doing fine. She goes, 'I met you when you were doing kids movies.' We have a strong secure marriage. She's very secure in herself. She was nervous. 'Jesus Christ, all that screwing.' She saw some of the movies. What blew the whole bubble, was when I brought home the dailies and she could see me saying, 'Now more your hand over her breast.' She saw how mechanical and unerotic the process was. It reassured her. She realized it was just a job. She never smelled me with perfume. Maybe I was just lucky?

"I've had this conversation with other directors like Bob Cubellus, C.D. Harding, Valerie Landsburg. We are sure that less boning goes on on erotic sets than on regular sets. On erotic sets, you see sex in front of you and you behave more professionally. When I did childrens films, the crew members seemed to shack up all the time.

"Two of my leads on one of my movies. They had never met before. And the love scene I directed got them so turned on that after wrapping, the PA was trying to get the wardrobe out of the guy's trailer. The window was open. She looked in and saw them doing the nasty. Instead of stopping when the PA looked in, the guy, without missing a stroke, reached over and pulled the shade down. They let him go at it for a bit longer but the crew wants to get out. So they got one of the line producers to get the wardrobe.

"I heard about it the next day. It was sweet. They were both single.

"I think my wife would prefer me to go back to making kids films. But the people at Playboy are an excellent group of people to work with. It's a good gig. When I'm not working for Playboy, I'm trying to develop other projects that are not erotic. One is horror script that should do well called Fear Dotcom."

Luke: "I was interviewing producer Moshe Diamant who just made a movie called Fear Dotcom."

John: "Who?"

Luke: "Moshe said it was coming out this year."

John: "God no!"

Luke: "There's a movie coming out this year called Fear Dotcom."

John: "Oh no! Moshe Diamant? He's pretty big. What's it about?'

Luke: "It's a horror movie about a ghost that travels through the internet."

John: "Oh good, it's a ghost. We were always worried about this idea. Our's is about an intelligent group of college kids who get killed one by one. The onboard computer in the car is taken over by someone with a satellite who can drive people over a cliff. Everybody's killed by those technological means. But if his is about a ghost... Our tagline is, 'The boogie man turned in his hook for a computer.'

"I enjoy what I'm doing and every film is different but it is the same genre. You want to do a different genre. I say that to some of my friends and they go, 'Oh God, you've got the best job in the world. You look at beautiful women all day.' I can't complain. It's funny when you are on a break from films and you get used to looking at ordinary people. One day I was driving along the freeway and this good looking blonde in a convertible... And I almost broke my neck and caused an accident trying to look at this girl. And I started laughing at myself, 'Jerk, what's the matter with you? You used see girls like this constantly, and now you're acting like this panting dog.' You get away from it and you forget. I don't think there's a man out there that gets tired of looking at a beautiful woman.

"Teri Weigel was great in Cheerleader Camp. I liked Teri more when she was fresher. She's a little bit in your face now with the porn thing. Kira Reed is a tremendous actress.

"My favorite films were The Key To Sex, Fast Lane to Vegas and Girl to Girl.

"I have found only one of these actresses to have an attitude. They're eager to do their job and come across as a professional. While in my other films, it takes a long time for me to break down their better-than-thou attitude. The most difficult thing with the bigger budgeted films is dealing with people's egos and getting people to get along.

"In the erotic genre, the main thing is to be very specific with the male and female actors about what they will have to do. What kind of camera angles. Where the guy may touch the girl... You have to do that in the casting. I've never had a problem with Playboy. I've never gotten into an embarrassing situation where the girl said, 'I never knew I had to kiss the guy.'

"I had that happen to me on one of the Phillipino movies I was doing. I had to get angry with the girl. I knew she knew what was happening. But she kept going, 'I didn't know that.' She'd been in a movie with me before. She kept saying, 'I thought this was a lovey scene.' I go, 'Yeah, but you have to move your body. You can't just embrace the person. You're having sex. It's not tantra sex. You've got to show some enthusiasm. You've got to have an orgasm. I've got to hear something. What you're doing is not translating back into the film.'

"We lost 45 minutes until she was ready. I felt like a sleazeball, like a guy trying to take advantage of a date. I talked to her afterwards and said, 'I feel really bad.' And she replied, 'No, no, it's fine.' I think she thought she could push back once she got the part, and wanted to be a prima donna and back out of the part.

"I have been in a situation where somebody came up to me and said, 'We want the girls to be really going at it.' And I reacted, 'No, we didn't cast the girls to be really going at it.' 'Well, if they want to really go at it, let them go ahead.' 'No, no, no. Those weren't the parameters we set up.'"

Luke: "Would you direct hardcore?"

John: "No. I'm just not interested in it because so much of it is not creative. We're still trying to make a film. You can take these movies from Playboy, snip the love scenes down, and they're in Blockbuster. They're still an entertaining movie. Playboy only asks that the love scenes be longer with more genital shots, but they're not hardcore. They're supposed to look like they're really doing it. I've directed hardcore actresses who are trying to make the jump up... I've been surprised at how many are talented. I guess they get into hardcore because the money is so good."

Annie Cruz Update

David Aaron Clark writes:

Just had a call from Annie yesterday from up in SF, and despite her horrible experience with her first two weeks in porn, she's not out of the game. She's a very intelligent, funny young girl who actually does love sex -- she just had no idea how the system here can chew you up and spit you out in an instant if you're not familar with who's who and what your options really are. Though she said she's certainly not interested in doing any more anal creampies or probably DPs, she will be back in the game. If you see this show you'll see that even when a scene doesn't go right she really takes over the screen with both her irrepressible personality and a genuine love for sex. Her only mistake -- which is certainly easy to commit at age 19, no matter how high your I.Q. -- is that assuming the people she was doing business with were as straightforward and decent as she is.

David Aaron Clark's New Show

Video Team contract director David Aaron Clark writes:

My new gonzo series, AZN SUPER IDOLS, will be released June 2, 2004 by the kind folk at Video Team. See the trailer here: AZN SUPER IDOLS

Shot in late March and early April during the HIV outbreak here in the porn industry, it traces the movement of fate through the shoots I was doing, and provides distinctly non-fluffy behind-the-scenes glimpses at the heallth risks of making hardcore gonzo. We see how one brand-new girl, 19-year-old Filipina nympho ANNIE CRUZ comes down to L.A. from San Francisco to f-ck and instead gets f-cked by the industry ...

Features the debut of ANNIE and Tokyo college student KAMMY, the return of LUCY LEE (taking the LAST anal creampie this director ever intends to shoot), and a special nasty-talking, cock-sucking guest appearance by KYLIE REY. Guys are: BRIAN SUREWOOD, MR. MARCUS, SLEDGE HAMMER & MR. HENTAI. Main show runs 2 hours, 40 minutes on DVD cut, which also has BTS and 2 bonus scenes: Marcus/Luci Thai anal; Violet/Surewood/Matt Heston double-cream pie. BTS.

My next show is probably the most controversial thing I've done as a porn director, hidden behind a straightforward gonzo title: AZN SUPERIDOLS VOLUME ONE. When this HIV mini-epidemic hit, I was trying to shoot scenes for my next BANANA CREAM PIE. Not only did the crisis bring all filming (at least by responsible directors) to a halt, it also quickly led to a personal revelation that in shooting that series in the first place I had given in to the hardcore rat race and placed myself in a severe state of denial -- unlike a lot of the uneducated mooks who make porn, I really knew better. I had never even meant to shoot anal creampies, but when some actresses suggested them because they weren't on birth control, I went with the flow. The series was doing really well, though I might note that most of the reviewers who praised it weren't even fans of creampies, and liked it for other reasons.

Anyway, right before Darren's status was announced, I had tried to shoot Annie Cruz, a Filipina teenager from San Francisco I'd been looking to shoot after I'd been sent her picture and contact info by a photographer up north last Fall. At the time, she hadn't done any hardcore except a girl/girl scene with Loni for a website. By the time she made it to L.A. she had been scooped up by an idiotic cockroach of a pimp/agent, and I was forced to book her through her. Since I was still in my denial, and since Annie was eager to do it, I booked her for a potential DP ending with creampies in both holes. I was very adamant with the agent about the size of the guys -- Surewood and Sledge Hammer -- and that she not run this new girl ragged in her first three official days in the industry, before she got to me.

So of course the conniving bitch lied through her teeth, and sent Annie to do a DP and anal creampie on her very first day -- with Darren James and another guy. She was sore after that, but the agent sent her to ANOTHER anal in the intervening two days before my shoot -- and told me she was at Disneyland. When Annie showed up she was absolutely raw and sore, began bleeding when the guys tried to f-ck her, and admitted she had been in bad shape since Monday's gig, which I had known nothing about. She insisted on trying to finish the scene as planned, but I called it and finished with a double-BJ instead. It was the culmination of a couple of weeks of gonzo shoots where sh-t had gone wrong because the girls weren't properly prepared and seen to by their agents, not to mention I had been running myself ragged and had been exhausted and frustrated at the shoots because I was too fatigued to think quickly and shoot the scenes in my proper style. It certainly shows in my performance in the short bj scene I had done with Annie earlier in the day, I'm chagrined to say.

Three days after the Annie shoot, I thought I was back in the groove when I shot the newly unincarcerated Lucy Lee in an anal creampie with Surewood at my place which went fabulously well; a very friendly, mellow shoot on a Sunday afternoon between people who all know each other quite well. And then, of course, a week later we all find out about Darren, and not only are Surewood, Sledge and I on the quarantine list, but I realized I had unwittingly exposed Lucy to a potential transmission. That, as well as seeing Annie being so instantly cannibalized by the industry made me reconsider everything, and I decided no more creampies, ever.

Since I couldn't shoot anything new, and Video Team needed a show from me, I ended up using a lot of stuff from the three shoots I had done at the end of March, beginning of April that I would otherwise have relegated to bonus scenes, at best.

But now it all made sense; I was telling a story, a REAL story, through the professional sexual encounters. It had to be told in chronological order, but since that would have resulted in the first scene "boasting" ME as the male talent, I sought inspiration and found it: Taking my cue from Philip Noe's IRREVERSIBLE, I told the story backwards, in this case starting with an innocent, fun scene that as the movie travels back in time we see was actually rather dangerous and irresponsible, all the way back to the fairly dark, exploitation scenarios I had devised for the scenes with Kammy, a brand-new Japanese girl who is actually a college student from Tokyo here in L.A. studying English, just as the movie presents her.

In between scenes I note the potential chains of infection that have occurred, and after the entire middle segment with Annie's scenes I detail the fallout, including the incredibly inhumane behavior of her agent. Despite the fact that when I returned Annie to her at the end of the day I gave her a HUGE piece of my mind about not only delivering a girl in that state to my set but allowing a basically clueless-to-the-ways-of-hardcore newbie to damage herself like that, her response was to work her for another week in as many gangbangs and anals as she could get Annie to try to do, until the girl had to show her messed-up nether regions to the bitch in order to be allowed to crawl home.

If I sound a bit emotional about this, I guess I am: I didn't go into directing porn because I wanted to be rich or "get back" at women; I'm here because I adore and am inspired by them. It deeply disgusts me to see what level of humanity a sizeable portion of my "colleagues" functions at. Anyway, it's a very unique show; the scenes are all classic gonzo-style, and as it turned out I was shooting the "failed" scenes much better than I thought, and was able to do some magic with them in editing.

The tagline I came up with for the trailer is "gonzo gets real," and I think that's, um, a marketable catchphrase ... seriously, though, I don't think anybody but an absolute hater will be able to deny that's an exemplary gonzo, with great sex and lots of nods to the original Evil Angel crew that still inspires me, particularly my unofficial mentor of porn directing, Joey Silvera.

I think the unavoidable political message will cause the audience to split into two distinct camps, though -- those who prefer to stay in denial and are angry to have to deal with the reality that adult performers are fragile human beings like all of us, and that they are at great risk working in the industry in the state it has currently devolved to, catering to a Roman Coliseum/fratboy gang-rape mentality, and those who can take a little reality with their porn. I guess it's obvious which side I consider myself on ... which is one of the reasons I'm grateful to have developed such a strong relationship with Video Team, which is the polar opposite of some of the cesspools ("Rob Black," cough cough) that I had to wade through to find my way there. I suspect this show will do well with my particular audience, which has just started coming out of the woodwork now that I've found a permanent home. But despite how good it is, I'm sure it's not exactly going to be an AVN Editor's Choice ... but that's not why I do this, anyway.

Wank the Dog

By Gregory Bowman

A fly on the wall at a certain porn production house reports overhearing:

"Mabel, get in here, we have news!" Escarole Manx sips his macrobiotic lunch shake and leers at the computer monitor. His office adorned with rare dinosaur ejaculate amber, smelling of pachauli, and a case behind him adorned with dozens of porn awards. LUCID VIDEO was big.

"Mabel, we have confirmation; HIV positive, and he's a darkie. I told you about those darkies, they have dirty dick!"

Good thing we rethought shooting that "Anal in Angola" series.

"LOOK, heres an email from AIM, "Zimbabwe Bob has the HIVers" Quarantine going into effect, lists being made. I told you those f-cking low life hack producers would f-ck themselves using coloreds and Brazilian hookers!"

"I say "A chaleyre" on all of them!"

Mabel interjects, "Well, look at that Canadian slut with the herpes on her ass, yeast infection, genital warts and a sore throat......she was a terrorist threat if you ask me...a weapon of mass distraction. I BET SHES FRENCH!! f-ck THE FRENCH! no one likes em anyhow." As father used to say "Sie haut gevain a courva in de momma' s bouch"

"OMG, Escarole, this is wonderful!, you know what this will do for the slump in sales?"

Mabel parks her fat ass on the desk with a note pad. "Ok, this is the plan, major news hype; remember, we are condom only and knock on man wood, none of "our" people shared anus with that shwartza. This is gonna be a great promo. I'll contact the local news for your interviews, LA TIMES will want at least a phone interview, and I'll get to work on sending out a press release to all the stations who may want to pick up the story....oh and Leno, gotta call his people."

"Mabel, this is gonna be BIG! Let's celebrate. I love it when we get free media attention. And besides, I look SO HOT on TV. Send in the reporters, we got a story!"

The fly buzzes around the room a few times then heads out the window, due west, to CHATSWORTH!