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Paul Fishbein's AVN Part One Part Two Part Three Part Four Part Five Part Six Part Seven Part Eight 12/7/98 Luke F-rd caused consternation at AVN Monday by walking in for a 1PM interview with its powerful publisher and editor Paul Fishbein, who is one of Luke's two favorite persons in the industry along with VCA's Russ Hampshire. The internet's DeTorquemada was accompanied by Peter Gilstrap, a New Times columnist who's doing an article on yours truly. Before meeting with Paul, I got to wander up and down the AVN hallways, peeking in the corners to see if Mark Kernes and company were copping any seedy blowjobs from vulnerable porn chicks eager for "Fresh Off The Bus" coverage. Instead I saw Mark hard at work at his computer behind a desk full of papers. The poor guy must've died when he saw me walking by. I guess the 45-minute orgy break for AVN employees concludes at 12:30 PM, so I saw no wild scenes of Gene Ross swinging from vines in the tropical garden. The company overflows with good looking chicks, but hoping to improve on my professional image, I dared not ask any of them to pose for candid Luke F-rd photography. Paul's pretty blond assistant Lisa Love ushered me into his palatial office shortly before 1PM as Fishbein finished off a series of important calls of earthshattering significance for the future of porno. I wandered around his office, looking at his pop music CD collection, Woody Allen posters and his photos, including one of a 15-year old Paul with wrestler George "The Animal" Steel. Fishbein published an award winning magazine when he was a teenager. Over the next 90 minutes Paul delayed calls from such powerhouses as his mother and internet honcho Ted Liebowitz so that he could deal with hard charging Luke F-rd who was out to prove his journalistic macho infront of fellow scribe (who Luke talked to for the first time and met for the first time Monday) Gilstrap. Fishbein offered to do the interview on his couch, but Luke figured that he'd be too intimidated at such intimacy with greatness that he chose to sit humbly in front of Fishbein's desk. Paul provided Peter and I with Snapple Lemonades. The AVN mentch recycles the glasses bottles. Shortly before 8 AM Friday, Paul E-mailed me: "I saw your site today. I am so sick of these people complaining, whining, etc. that if you're interested, I would do an in-depth interview with you about the awards, Max Hardcore, Robert Black, the Mike Albo "feud," the awards being "rigged" or "bought" and all this other shit. I'll show you how the awards process is done and tell you the true stories about these people. "I have one demand that you must meet, however. I want it printed in full, unedited, my words as I say them to you. No juxtaposing, changing sequence, or editing. The whole thing." No problem. Shortly after one PM, Monday, Luke's Sony TCM-323 $20 black tape recorder clicked on and the Sultan of Smut, shrugging off the flu, spoke on the record. Paul: "The reason that I said that I would do this complete and uncut [interview] is that I have been critical of you in the past. I don't read your site that much. Once in a while I check things out when people tell me to. I think that it is incumbent upon you to do proper research to do journalism that is correct and to talk to people... I'm critical of you not talking to all your sources. We [AVN] used to get in trouble [for publishing] hearsay and gossip. We'd talk to one party. And the people were correct. "I think things get printed out of context... So if you print part of what I say, then I have to correct it. It's like the Premiere article." Luke: "Tell me about the Premiere article." Paul: "David Foster Wallice for some reason has it in...either for me, AVN, the porn industry, sex, women... I'm not sure what his problem is...but I didn't know that they were doing this piece. I don't have any problem with that piece except one... You read the corrections in the December issue [of Premiere?]? "It's what we were talking about. If you want to review it [AVN Awards] and say it is the shittiest thing you ever saw in your life, I don't have a problem with it. You want to say it is stupid, I don't have a problem with it. You want to say the entertainment is stupid, I don't have a problem with it. But if you're going to make an assumption that the awards are rigged and you're going to talk to Max Hardcore and other people who may have a burn... And you want to have sources that were using fake names. "We found out that the sources that he used were composites of people he talked to. There wasn't any actual two sources [smut scribes called Harold Hecuba and Dick Filth in the 9/98 Premiere article]. But they were composites of different people. He didn't have the guts to put his name on it [article credited to "Willem deGroot" and "Matt Rundlet", fake names]... I don't have a problem with any of it because a lot of people have burns against us given the opportunity. [But] When they make that assumption in the magazine and don't talk to us... Because the reality of it is, if you ask are the awards fixed, I say, 'come into my office...'" Paul rises dramatically, goes to a cupboard, picks up a huge stack of papers and drops them on his desk. Paul: "I will now hand you all the ballots from last year signed by every critic. This is who they voted for. If you want to know how they are compiled? Sit down and I will show you how. You can compile them yourself. And everyone of them is signed by the reviewer. If you want to call any of these guys to see if they really voted that way, go ahead. Here's your answer to your question you didn't ask. I'm being dramatic, like we're on television. But you two are free to check it out...then I will show you what we're doing this year. We're doing electronic ballots. We just did the gay show Friday night. "Ask me the question. Let me answer it. If you're not happy, write what you want. "So I got really pissed off about it [the 9/98 Premiere article] and called the editor immediately. He took my call. He was very gracious. And I said 'I have some problems.' He said 'put it in a letter.' So I thought about it and called my libel attorney. And they said, 'it is potentially libelous but it would be a hard case to prove. If you want to spend the money, we'll go ahead and spend it. But I think you're better off demanding a retraction.' "So we got corrections and we got my letter printed. Partially, they didn't print the whole letter. We had to put it on our web site. "Again, I don't mind being criticized. I've been doing this for 16 years. I've been sitting here taking criticism from people. That doesn't bother me at all. In the position that we've placed ourselves, obviously we're going to get criticized...as a supposed authority... But this was a cheap shot." Luke: "What role did [HEVG editor] Mike Albo play in that?" Paul: "Well, I've been told that Mike was seen talking to the reporter [David Foster Wallice]. We printed on our web site that Mike [was an important source for Wallice]. Then we immediately retracted. It was a whole big thing. I don't want to get into it. Albo and I are actually fine. With all the rips he takes at me in Hustler and with all the really strange phone call messages that I get, I actually like the guy. He's like a cartoon character. He's like the wrestling manager he played Nude World Order for which he got nominated for Best Non-Sex Performance. "I was told that he was one of the sources. We retracted it. Then my editor swore that Albo was seen talking to David Foster Wallice and put sort of a sarcastic retraction... Then we took that one of as well. Albo told me that Evan Wright [formerly of Hustler now with IEG] was one of the sources [for the Premiere article]. "Do I think that Albo spoke to the guy? I think he might've spoken to the guy. Do I think that he was one of those characters [Dick Filth and Harold Hecuba]. No because I subsequently found out that those characters that he [Wallice] was quoting were composites. "So maybe Albo spoke to him, maybe he didn't. I tend to believe him [Mike Albo] because he went so ballistic. We were burned and we were looking for who was responsible." Luke: "Was there any one industry journalist [yes, Evan Wright]..." Paul: "Not that we know of. He just talked to different people and put together what he wanted. I think it's a work of fiction. You're a Pulitzer Prize winning author and you don't use your real name?" Luke: "It was a really funny article but sloppy. Like my web site." Paul: "It was really entertaining... It was well written. But when you're getting into factual stuff, when you're attempting to hurt someone's reputation... Get your facts right. Ask the question and don't dump it off on 'we spoke to Ellen Thompson (who works for me [Paul]) and if she had told us, we would've put that in.' She didn't even know that it was Premiere doing an article. It was just people she was talking to. She had no clue that this was for an article." Luke: "Does AVN deal in hot [stolen] trophies [as alleged by the Premiere article]?" Paul laughs. "When I met Gene Ross, he started working for me part time while he ran a trophy business with his family. It's a family trophy business in Philadelphia. Because Gene works for us, we get the stuff [AVN trophies] wholesale. That was the funniest thing of all. Insane... Trophies are not that expensive." Luke: "You don't buy them from the Mafia?" Paul: "I don't know any Mafia people unfortunately. Let me put it this way, I don't know any people who are Mafia who say they are Mafia. I am sure that I know Mafia." Luke: "Did Max Hardcore threaten to punch you out last year after the AVN Awards?" Paul: "He hit me up backstage after the awards. He got in my face about this close [Paul gestures about an inch between finger and thumb]. [Max:] 'I f---ing come...' "And I'm paraphrasing because I know that this is going to end up in print. [Max:] 'I f---ing support you guys. I'm here year after year and I don't win shit. Who the f--- is John Leslie? Who the f--- is Rob Black? Who are these f---ing guys? I'm here all the time. I'm Max Hardcore...' On and on and on, in my face, and I'm screaming for security because I'm thinking that we're going to rumble. And he never struck me as a violent guy." Luke: "He hadn't done this to you before?" Paul: "No. I said to him, 'what do you want me to do? Fix it?' And he said, 'yeah, fix it.' Which is like Max proudly wearing on his sleeve the cover of LA Weekly even though the article was about HIV. And proud that he was in the Premiere article where they ripped the shit out of him. Any publicity is good publicity. I don't care how I win, just make me win. "Believe in your product, whatever, but we don't fix the awards. Until that point he advertised a lot and there would've been good reason for us to fix the awards to make him happy. The reality is that there is so much product, no matter how good his product is, it's not against Max that he didn't win. It's just that you're reviewing 6-8,000 features a year [Luke thought there were only 1500-2000 new releases a year, about 200 of them "features," and the rest compilations]. If you get nominated for anything you should be proud of yourself because less than one half of one percent of all the product out there... You should say 'Christ, with all the stuff that's out there, hey, they recognized me.' But it's not good enough for a guy like that, which is fine. If he'd won, he'd won. I don't know if that would've been less controversial than Robert Black winning. "The Max thing... We should talk about this because I want to say some things on the record that I can't say in my own magazine because it looks like sour grapes. This is a guy who somehow thinks that he's the world's greatest filmmaker. His stuff sells well. He has a lot of fans out there. A lot of the people who work for AVN really like his stuff a lot. He gets a lot of good reviews and he gets high on the charts, not for any reason except that distributors and retailers report that his stuff does well... I don't tell my reviewers what to write. "I don't buy into the rape fantasy. I don't like that stuff. So I've never liked his stuff that much. I did review a Max tape this year and gave it a good review because it was a great scene with Marilyn Star because she was giving it right back to him. Long after he accosted me back stage. "He requested that we don't review his stuff. I got his tapes anyway [from Legend] so they were still reviewed. He requested that he doesn't get mentioned in the magazine. My attitude is - if you're putting product out on this market, you're getting reviewed whether you like it or not. Besides it's good press... But he feels that he's above the press. He doesn't need AVN. That's fine. He probably doesn't. I don't care. "There was a ton of Max stuff on the pre-nominations for different categories. These pre-noms come from recommendations from staff that see videos... Or, if a reviewer gives a cue in his review... So we come up with a huge list of pre-nominations. This year it took us about eleven days for a staff of ten to whittle those down to get real nominations. "We sent about three letters out to every producer and distributor saying we need you to send us one copy of anything you'd like us to consider in any awards category. And even if you think we have the tape, send it, because we don't keep the review tapes... We let our reviewers keep them, we give them out as freebies to retailer when they subscribe. We give them to friends... And we ask for multiple copies when it is nominated. "He [Max] didn't send anything in. He refused. So though we had all these pre-nominations, we couldn't look at anything. So, we felt that because 99% of the companies had sent their stuff in, we weren't going to go begging Max to send us one copy of everything so we could look at the stuff. So, there wasn't enough votes to nominate him in any category. So, at the end of the nominations, noting that this was controversial, I said to my staff, 'don't you think we should go look at the Max stuff... in particular this one Marilyn Star scene that I was really pushing to get nominated for most outrageous sex scene. My staff said 'it is not an outrageous sex scene... Just verbal play between the two of them... Max did not have a good year. His stuff has gone down. And besides, screw him. He didn't submit anything for nominations, he doesn't want to be nominated. Why are we going out of our way for him.' And I honestly believed that we should've gotten the tapes and looked at the stuff on the pre-nom lists, and my staff to a man said 'f--- it.' So we let it go. "I believe that if he had sent the tapes in he would've been nominated for Best Gonzo series, for some sex scenes...but we can't nominate him unless we can sit in this room and look at them. "A movie comes in on the pre-nom list. If the majority of the people [AVN reviewers] have already seen it and said it is a great movie, then you don't have to sit here and watch it. It gets nominated. If there's something on the pre-nom list that only one or two people have seen and they're pushing for the nomination, then we have to watch it. We usually have too many [nominations] in everything. I'd like to get it down to five but it's impossible. You have to get it down to anywhere between five and fifteen. "If there are fifteen sex scenes nominated you can bet that we had to watch 150 sex scenes to get down to that number. We sat here for 11 days...Nights. Weekends. That's what the whole outside world doesn't understand. We really do our job, we really work. That's why I wanted to do this interview, to say to those people who are upset about nominations, 'we watched them. With a group of people, we watched the stuff. We don't just make it up.' "Now that the nominations are done, we have 40-45 people who will vote
in the various categories. When the results come out it is real. We think
that we hit it. Maybe we missed some things. It's subjective anyway." "As long as no one is really being hurt, and as long as these are
really consenting adults performing in these movies, I would go to court
and stand up for him.' And as I'm having this conversation with him, he
gets up and says 'I have to go.' I say, 'we're in the middle of a conversation.'
He goes, 'ahh, we'll finish it another time and walks away.' So, on top
of everything else, I thought it was f---ing rude. So I've ceased caring
about him and how he feels though I'd still defend his rights... And it
will still appear on our charts as long as it continues to sell. Whether
it will be reviewed or not... I haven't decided how to handle that yet." "What is that all about? The people who review the movies review
them. Because we're pro-condom conceptually does not mean that we are
anti the companies that are non-condom. We're still writing about them.
We're still going on their sets. This is a fallacy that is being perpetuated
by a few people pushing their sour grapes agenda. Elegant Angel won big
awards before they ever advertised. Patrick Collins of Elegant Angel will
tell you that 'I know for a fact [that the AVN Awards are legit]. I never
did that much advertising and you guys showered me with awards.' He says
that to me. But I don't need poster boys [to vouch for AVN's integrity].
It was nice of Russ [Hampshire] to say what he said on your web site on
Friday. He wasn't either pissed or happy about his nominations. He doesn't
even talk to me about it. If he wins he wins, if he doesn't, he doesn't.
Russ has known me for 16 years. It's [allegation that the AVN Awards are
fixed] is a self-fulfilling prophecy. Someone faxed Luke the following questions for Paul: I talked to Fishbein 12/8 at 9:30AM: Paul: "I did the interview because, after a while, you get sick of being bashed. But you have sources... I think I have figured out who... You've got to consider your source. You talk about there are people out to get me... And people who want to put AVN down... I know that AVN is extremely well respected by the entire retail community which is the purpose of the magazine. It's well respected within the distribution community and its well respected by most of the producers and talent. There are going to be producers, distributors, companies and talent who feel that they are not getting a fair shake. And of course they are going to have something to say negative about us. People don't tend to look at themselves. They tend to blame. And if they don't get on the charts, they tend to blame us for not putting them on the charts, even though the distributors and retailers aren't mentioning their titles. If they don't get good reviews, they think that we don't like them. Nobody will ever understand the concept of doing something objectively. They only feel that they are getting burned and hurt. When you talk to people and you hear this stuff... I don't know. I talk to a million people and I seem to get overwhelmingly negative commentary on the internet. The reality is, the people you are talking to are few and far between. And you, when you come to me with all those questions yesterday, obviously I want to answer them all. Because if that's what people are saying, I want to face it straight up. But you have to consider the agenda that some people might have when they're talking to you." 12/08/99 On Monday, I asked Paul Fishbein a series of tough questions about his managing editor Byrn Pryor aka Mark Logan, that had been sent to me. I held off running Paul’s response, and the questions, until I talked to Pryor, which I did at 6PM, Tuesday. Bryn has worked at AVN fulltime for a year. On Monday, I asked Paul: Your managing editor Bryn Pryor aka Mark Logan, a friend of Chloe’s, has a well documented history with Wicked Pictures. In fact Pryor had a fallback deal with them to direct videos in case his AVN situation didn’t pan out. Pryor is also cozy with Joy King. They belong to the same swingers’ group and Pryor has often invited King to nude orgies which he runs. Doesn’t that kind of behavior disqualify him from being the editor of the magazine much less being a fair and impartial judge of Wicked product? Paul: "I don’t know anything about what he does in his private life and I never heard anything about a Wicked Deal. What guys do in their private life…" Pryor has been described by people in the industry as a hothead and a powder keg ready to blow. Is that the kind of person you want running your operation? Paul: "I can only judge somebody by the way they act here on the job. He’s doing a great job. He does have a bit of a temper but so far good." Does Pryor have a financial interest in Seymore Butts? He reviews all their product and gives Seymore astounding ratings and editors’ choices. Paul: "No, he likes the stuff… I don’t know what to tell you." Pryor is an unemployed actor. Before he came to AVN, Pryor’s only experience in adult was editing stroke books for Elliot Segal… Paul: "He had a lot of retail experience. That appealed to me. Our magazine goes out to retailers. That is the crux of what we do." Bryn said he wished that he did have a financial interest in Seymore Butts and noted that he’d given them a couple of negative reviews of late. "I also edited stroke books for Max Cohen (Champ Distributors which became Champ Periodicals). And I ran adult stores in Arizona for two years. I’ve worked in adult about seven years." Luke: "Bryn, are you a hothead and powder keg ready to blow?" Bryn: "Absolutely." Luke: "Are you an actor?" Bryn: "I’ve been acting professionally since age nine and made a living at it in Arizona doing theater… Almost every movie that came through I got a piece of… Just as I was getting to the point where stage producers in Arizona would call to offer me roles instead of having to audition, I abandoned my small pond to become a nobody (in 1991)." Luke: "Did you have a fallback deal with Wicked Pictures to direct?" Bryn: "If that were true, I’d be there. Absolutely. If Stevie were to hire me, I’d give Paul notice…" Luke: "Pryor is also cozy with Joy King. They belong to the same swingers’ group and Pryor has often invited King to nude orgies which he runs. Doesn’t that kind of behavior disqualify him from being the editor of the magazine much less being a fair and impartial judge of Wicked product?" Bryn: "I’ve invited Joy and unfortunately she has never attended. ‘Member of the same swingers club,’ that confuses me." Luke: "Are you a big swinger?" Bryn: "Not so much anymore. Just because they don’t have good organizations in California. The only groups that they have in CA is a group called After Midnight [popular with porners]… I haven’t been in ages though I’m considering going to their New Year’s Eve party. "I love the people at Wicked. They are dear friends of mine. Joy is one of my closest friends. I think highly of Wicked but often feel that they fail to live up to their potential. And I’ve told them that. "I sat down to lunch one day with Steve and Joy and told them my opinion of their product. I think these are the flaws of your product and this is how you could do better. And this is nothing that we don’t do with anyone who asks. It wouldn’t matter. I offered that in the editorial when I first got in the magazine. I’ve done the same thing with Ray Pistol of Arrow. Ray came in one day and said, ‘you keep giving us bad reviews. Show me what’s wrong with our product.’ And we sat down, and I said, ‘watch this. See that. See that.’ "I think that Joy and Steve are where this business needs to go. They are smart and they’re classy and they pay attention to their product and they care, which I feel that a lot of people in this business do not do. The people at Wicked do not have the ‘f--- it, it’s just porn’ mentality. That attitude is why people in the business say that I am a hothead. It doesn’t make any difference what people think of me. I could care less. "I think Wicked product is often tragically flawed and I’ve told them that. I don’t review a lot of Wicked movies, and when I do I have given them just as many lackluster reviews, more in fact, than good reviews. I’ve written three Editor’s Choices for Wicked… And I’ve given them several AAA ratings…because frequently their product doesn’t live up to the packaging. I supported not giving several of their big movies the ratings they thought they should’ve gotten. Pornogothic didn’t get the rating they thought it should’ve. And I explained to them why. It could’ve been great, but bad editing, bad music and bad acting. "So, if it’s criminal that I have friends in the business, great. Show me someone who doesn’t. And if it’s criminal to try to help those friends make better product, sure… I don’t skew reviews for anybody, I don’t care who it is. It’s not worth it. If they’re my friend, they’ll understand… I can tell them. "I think one of the best videos they’ve done all year is Exile, which caught them by surprise. It was a quick little William Shakespeare remake that Brad Armstrong directed. Maybe even because it wasn’t so focused on, and it wasn’t done by committee, which I think, to a certain extent, some Wicked product is… It was more pure and more clear. It worked on lots of levels. "It’s the opposite with a lot of their videos. Pandora’s Box leaps immediately to mind. What a foul video that was. It was really bad." Luke: "Here’s another Email. Tessio writes: "And Fishbein’s flunky Gene Ross had better watch his ass too. Managing editor Bryn Pryor [Mark Logan] has been out to get him, trying to make him look bad. Ask Pryor how he pimps girls for Fishbein. Ask about Chloe. Isn’t f---ing a porn star a conflict of interest for a managing editor? Fishbein said it is." Bryn: "I wish I were [f---ing Chloe]. If she offered, I sure would [as would Luke]. If I got fired, it would be worth it. I would love to know who I pimped for Paul. I’m so fascinated by this industry gossip. I once heard that I had been struck by a car and killed. "Chloe’s a friend of mine but the offer hasn’t arisen. She’s in love with her boyfriend, a musician from Philadelphia." Luke: "Gene Ross told me on the record that he’d slept with about 600 women in his life. And you?" Bryn: "I wish I were in triple digits. I am in the mid ‘30s [with Luke]. I’m more selective than many people in the business. "No, I am not out to get Gene. I don’t know what I would stand to gain by making Gene look bad." Luke: "You could become the vice-president of Editorial Operations?" Bryn: "Why would I want to be that? I love that few people know about me. Gene and Paul get the complaints. Great. The less people who know about me, the fewer calls I get. Now Paul shuffles a lot of calls to me. Let Gene take the flack. I’m happy laboring in the background." Luke: "Would it be a conflict of interest for you to buff a bunch of porn chicks?" Bryn: "Tough question. I’ve got a libido that won’t quit. If it was someone I was really interested in, I don’t know that I’d be able to say no. I work the other way round [discriminating against his friends]. I would be more likely to give them the short end of the stick. I’d overcompensate. "I was such a conspiracy theorist about AVN before I got in here. I was so sure that everything was rigged. Then I got in here and discovered that it wasn’t even close to that. I was so astonished that I’ve done everything I can to make sure that nothing I do is biased. There are people I dislike in the industry and I intentionally write good things about them, trying to overcompensate." Luke: "Do porn girls throw themselves at you hoping to get good press?" Bryn: "Not nearly as much as I wish they would. No. Most of them have no idea who I am. I can say the magic words AVN and their eyes light up a little bit… Plus, I’m a funny looking guy anyway. "People are going to believe what they want to believe. Nothing that anyone inside this office says is going to change anyone’s mind. And I understand that. Especially for producers in the industry. By believing that the awards and reviews aren’t rigged means that they might have to accept the fact that their product might not be as good as someone else. No one will say, ‘Stagliano’s videos are better than mine. Tom Byron’s videos might be better than mine.’ They won’t say that. Even though they haven’t seen them. Even though half the time they haven’t seen their own product. So I understand why it is easier to believe that it is all bought and sold." Rob Black and Paul Fishbein talked this afternoon. Extreme Associates has pulled all its advertising from the trade magazine in light of its poor showing in the AVN nominations. Rob promises Luke the full scoop TODAY. 12/09/99 Gloria Leonard writes: "Although I shouldn't even give you the time of day after your astoundingly unethical behavior last week, I am compelled to respond to the vitriolic vomit pouring out of your site regarding Paul Fishbein and AVN. It's really interesting how all the losers, who obviously have nothing better to do with their time, attack the winners, the people whose accomplishments have made the adult industry what it is today. Trust me, after being around this biz for 23 years, I am one of the few people who can attest to the strengths and weaknesses of many of the players. I have known Fishbein since virtually day-one of AVN and while we may not always see eye to eye on everything, he is a f---ing genius, which is essentially what all those yellow-bellied yahoos are jealous of! There isn't a business on earth that doesn't generate criticism of its major players and we're no different! Damned if you do, damned if you don't and I like, Paul, think most of the wretched ramblings submitted to you, originate from the shriveled dicks and brains of cowardly wankers who wouldn't recognize real talent if it smacked them in the head, which is what most of them deserve to have happen! "Just remember, if it weren't for AVN, the FSC, VCA, Vivid, and many others who have also fought all the legal battles to keep the government out of our bedrooms and video stores, there would be no adult business." Gina Ryder writes: "I would like to clear up some issues that have been previously printed on your site. I do not believe that I am better, smarter, or better looking than other girls in the adult industry. I believe that in making the decision to get into the adult industry it shows that the individual has courage, strength, and dignity. We have made a choice that will effect us for the rest of our lives and have made the choice to be in the adult industry based on our own feelings and not on what society has portrayed. Therefore, I do not think and would never say that a girl in the adult industry is a dumb bitch. I do not think that a girls ability to become a star is based on whether or not she does anal sex, or does drugs, or even if she does or doesn't have breast augmentation. It is based on her ability to be reliable and to perform. I have no reason to attack talent with such trashy statements that have been printed on this site. I do not judge a persons character based on gossip or rumors. I make my decisions based on my own personal experiences with that individual. And in doing that I have found that there are a lot of unique and wonderful individuals in this business and that the rumors are basically b.s. Moving on, I do not and have not provided Jim South with oral pleasures and I do not f--- for free or use my pussy, cunt, or mouth to get work. I am registered with both Reb at Pretty Girl International and Jim South at World Modeling and I have no reason to hide that from anyone. I was also briefly registered with Damien Michaels. I do presently and have in the past had lunch and dinner with Jim South, along with other directors and talent. And yes I have accepted the invitation to sit at the World Modeling table for the AVN awards show. I would like to clear up that I have f---ed TT Boy, however, I was NEVER RAPED. I don't believe that he wants or needs to do that to anyone. As far as my marriage is concerned, I am separated and I am in the process of getting divorced. I did not leave my husband for PORN; my decision to leave him was based on other issues that I do not wish to discuss. Since the separation he has said and done many harmful things including fabricating lies that have been printed on this site. I would like to end this by saying that I am not interested in outf---ing or outacting anyone. Therefore, I will have to decline the offer to have WAR with any talent." Who Gave Scoop To Luke? Smoking hot interviews coming up with Gene Ross and Rob Black, whose general manager delivered a dozen roses to Russ Hampshire this afternoon to apologize for Rob's nasty comments. Rob says, "I'm a beaten man. AVN whipped my ass. Paul Fishbein beat Rob Black. I'm in shock." I talked Gene Ross from noon to 1PM, Wednesday. Luke: "Is there more bellyaching this year about the awards?" Gene: "Luke, I don’t know. Maybe all the bellyachers are using you as the vocal front? We used to get all these scattered calls. But now you’ve become Complaint Central. Better you hearing this stuff… Now all I have to do is read it. It looks like you’ve been updating every hour." Luke: "Did you have any thoughts on my Paul Fishbein interview?" Gene: "I’d love to know who the hell was writing your script because you’re certainly coming up with better questions." Luke: "Yeah, it’s not me. They’re sent to me." Gene: "It reads like a lawyer is putting this shit together. One question leads to another. It’s like a cross-examination process. It’s well constructed, like someone with legal training. "This is like the movie Dead Men Don’t Wear Plaid. It’s like this anti-AVN cabal out there. It’s hysterical. If some of this stuff wasn’t so out there, I’d have to laugh at this. It’s amazing. "Again, we always talk about perceptions and reality in this business. You can take five totally disenfranchised events that have nothing to do with each other and with a little creativity you can weave a tapestry that is so complex and outrageous, that you have to say, ‘that makes sense.’ "It almost has me playing guessing games. It’s like an Agatha Christie novel [who’s feeding Luke these questions?]. Who dunnit? Who’s the suspect? This question might come from this source and this question might come from this source? Now wait a second…" Luke: "Yeah, it’s somebody who knows Paul. I wonder if it is someone still on the inside?" Gene: "My suspicion is somebody who follows the industry and has been around a long time. I’m reading stuff I’ve heard, this is folklore tales. Now, if you’re in the industry long enough, you’ll hear that this happened, and this happened and that happened… If it gets told often enough it almost becomes truth through repetition even though it might have little substance in fact. "As long as I’ve been with AVN, I’ve heard ‘bribes, bribes, on the take…’" Luke: "What did you think of the Premiere article?" Gene: "I thought it was very funny. Being on the inside of the business, and knowing it better than the average reader, I saw errors in it. I thought ‘they got this person wrong. They were physically describing somebody as Greg Dark. No, it wasn’t Greg Dark. It was somebody else.’ Greg Dark doesn’t wear a feodor. On the whole, it was absorbing. It added a few vocabulary words to my lexicon." Luke: "Do you feel that Paul Fishbein was being 100% forthright in his interview with me?" Gene: "The only thing that I kidded Paul about in that whole article was when he said I was running a ‘family’ trophy business. I said, ‘Paul, that was my business. Family doesn’t have anything to do with it. And when you start saying ‘family business… East Coast,’ Luke is going to think, ‘they’re Mafia. I’ve proved it.’" Luke convulses with laughter. Gene: "Yeah, the trophy business is really attractive to organized crime. "It was my business. I had it for seven years… When I moved out here [1991], that was the end. Goodbye. I’m close with my family and Paul made the logical assumption that it was a family business. I still have contacts with trophy distributors, so I’m able to get distributor prices on behalf of AVN." Luke: "Ok, these questions were prepared for me. I’ve heard through several sources that you’ve accepted bribes for good reviews. True or false?" Gene: "In my life at AVN, I have never been offered a bribe. No one has so much as even hinted or suggested. However, I want to take this opportunity since this is an open air forum, to throw in something that has been gristling at me for a year and a half. There is a producer or company owner out there who accused me… He started spreading word around that he knew for a fact that he knew that Gene Ross was on the take. And he knew for a fact that there was a secret desk at AVN where envelopes of cash were deposited on a regular basis and taken by the staff. I was the head disperser. This guy never had the guts to confront me face to face about it, yet he openly threw that around for a while. And I just want this guy to know that I know who he is and I want him to feel extremely uncomfortable anytime he is my company. That I am looking deep into his black heart and knowing what a piece of crap he is. You’ve written about him from time to time on your web site. So I’ll dangle that in front of you and let your sources try to help you put that little thing together. That riled me [18 months ago]. Everyone who works at this magazine is conscious about what is said out there, and so we go to even greater lengths to maintain our sense of propriety. There’s always the suggestion out there that these guys are on the take…" Luke: "Has any porn star offered you sex in exchange for an interview or a good review?" Gene: "Luke, I only wish that they did. No one ever has and I feel really bad about it. It’s made me self-analytical and wonder what is wrong with me. No, that has never happened. Although there was one time I did interview a girl who felt compelled to take her clothes off and sit naked in my office while I was interviewing her. Perhaps that was a subtle suggestion on her part, but idiot me, I did not pick up on the hint." Luke: "Is the awards show fixed?" Gene: "Oh God, again. No. Every reviewer who participates votes with good conscience. They go out of their way to do the right thing. But it all starts with the pre-nomination process which takes all year. I put together a master list based on reviews and feedback from reviewers… ‘This was a great scene. This was a great tape.’ So I put all of this together. This year we had a 70-page list to wade through. So over the course of ten days we lock ourselves into a room and send out for Chinese…and taking leak breaks… Almost sequestering like a jury. Going over each and every category. Arguing the pros and cons of each and every possible nomination. Someone made the joke, ‘here’s a bunch of college graduates arguing about anal tapes.’ If the awards show was fixed, it would our lives easier. But we chose the path of most resistance and try to do the right thing. The people here work too hard and I really resent hearing that this thing is fixed." Luke: "Some people believe that the Savannah Best New Starlet Award was fixed?" Gene: "Again, popular urban myth. I was around then. Her chief competitor was Angela Summers. It was the first test of the premise of that award, in that we vote for the woman who has made the most impact on the adult business. The argument was that Savannah was everywhere. The counter argument to that was – Savannah was the beneficiary of a company that put her on a bunch of boxcovers. She was a Video Exclusives girl long before she went to Vivid. But she competed for Best New Starlet. But her high profile mostly came from Video Exclusives run by Perry Ross, who was putting her on every doggone boxcover coming out. They’d have four or five releases a month and Savannah was every one of them. She had an advantage. The critics? Everybody was saying ‘Angela Summers. She’s like the girl next door. I love her. I love her. I love her.’ Whether the critics were being forthright with me? I voted for Angela. "I’ve been totally astounded by some of the outcomes in the past so nothing surprises me about the final tally. Sometimes critics bullshit you. ‘Oh yeah, I voted for this girl…’ I never counted the ballots… "Angela was a much hotter performer. I’d look at Savannah on the screen and say, ‘she’s just going through the motions.’ I vote for a starlet who has that screen presence of a hot sexual performer. "A few years ago, Asia Carrera won for Best Female Performer of the Year in a year that I don’t think was representative of her work. She’s nominated this year. This was a much more powerful year on her behalf." Luke: "Summers was certainly a more classy person than Savannah." Gene: "Well… I think Angela just had accessibility. Savannah was cold and aloof. I had been to sets and she was just as aloof off camera. I was told ‘you weren’t in her inner circle unless you were a rock musician.’ I never fit the description." Luke: "Were you ever a rock musician?" Gene: "I’ve long had aspirations, but you know…" Luke: "How about Alex Jordan? Is it just a coincidence that she wins Best New Starlet then is given a contract by Odyssey, a company that Paul Fishbein admits to being a consultant to. How do you feel about Paul being a consultant to companies? Do you think this is a conflict of interest?" Gene: "I don’t know the extent of Alex’s deal with Odyssey. I’m not sure about that. Alex was another interesting case. Industry producers said, ‘who’s she?’ She was looking for a contract with a lot of different companies and I remember the comment that was generally voiced, that she wasn’t box cover material. So again, AVN took heat that she won that award. Again, it was the critics coming to the fore, saying this woman… I don’t know whether she was considered photogenic or not, but every sex scene I saw her in, she was a dynamo. I think the critics voted with firm conviction. It was a good choice. But we took a lot of shit over that one. "Paul does what Bryn does and I do… We’ll talk to companies and offer them suggestions. I can’t sit here and tell you conclusively what Paul did. Paul is the publisher of this magazine. We shared an office building with Odyssey [from ‘91-‘96]. He was aware of the apparent conflict of interest. I think he was sensitive to that perception. He wanted to get out of there." Luke: "Do you get paid for consulting with companies?" Gene: "No, it’s never been offered. I feel bad. This is an industry where people are always trying to get shit for free. I’m always getting pumped for free advice." Luke: "How is Paul Fishbein as a boss? Is he as difficult as many say?" Gene laughs. "Paul can be antic but it comes from AVN being his baby. He’s very protective of it. You have to understand his roots. He developed AVN from a four page newsletter. He was a video store manager when he came up with the idea for AVN. AVN was his midnight oil occupation. He worked during the day while at nights he’s slaving over AVN. He cares about what he does, to the point where he’ll drive you crazy sometimes… He’s follow-through oriented. He eats and sleeps AVN 24 hours a day, seven days a week. He takes many of the criticisms to heart… He’s sensitive to them. I can understand that. I’ve been there with him almost from the beginning. At one time, he and I were the only two editorial people putting AVN out. I used to put in 18 hours a day, taking work home at night and on the weekends. Before computers got really sophisticated, I typed every word of AVN. Reviews came in, not on computer discs, but type-written. Or hand-written. And I’m transferring all the information to computer by hand [1987, when Gene started fulltime. He began as a freelancer in 1986.]." Luke: "How did you and Paul meet?" Gene: "I knew his office manager but I didn’t know that she worked in the adult industry. I knew her from a mutual stomping ground. We had a breakfast club. A bunch of us would hang out at a certain nightclub and afterwards we’d go to a diner and shoot the breeze. My little shtick was to see mainstream movies and do off-hand humorous reviews. Apparently, she got word to her boss who was editing the magazine. ‘Hey, this guy might be good to write reviews for AVN.’ I got contacted by him and it was just a matter of being in the right place at the right time. The original managing editor John Taone decided to leave the business. His wife didn’t want him to be involved in adult anymore. She wanted him to go out and get a "legitimate job" in the printing industry. "I’ve worked in editing and publishing all my life. For a few years I balanced the trophy business and AVN. I worked for a suburban newspaper in Philadelphia for 18 months… Then I took a job in public affairs with a Fortune 500 company. I had ten years experience in corporate PR. Then I went into the advertising game as a hired gun, as a public affairs advisor, for marketing products… I was involved in many things. I introduced Bailey’s Irish Cream to the United States…" Luke: "Is Gene Ross your real name?" Gene: "I’m not going to comment one way or another." Luke: "That’s smart. Did CDI offer you sex with Buffy?" Gene laughs. "I saw that from Rob Spallone one time… They never did. Buffy is a sweet heart of a girl but hardly my type." Luke: "Are you married or single?" Gene: "Single, which makes it real easy for me. I don’t have to deal with that whole wife dynamic and that insecurity factor…" Luke: "Does Paul Fishbein have sexual relations with any of the girls in the business? Particularly Jill Kelly, Chloe, Kylie Ireland and Alisha Klass?" Gene: "I think Paul mentioned in his comments to you that Jill Kelly, he’s probably seen twice in the last two years and she wouldn’t know him to trip over him. Chloe I see from time to time. Alisha Klass comes in from time to time. I haven’t seen Kylie Ireland for ages. Is Paul having an affair with them? I’d love to know how he’s pulling it off. I’d have to seriously doubt that. Paul is a married man and this is a high profile situation… He’s a healthy red-blooded American male who, I’m sure, finds these women attractive, the temptation is there… But you’d have to be crazy. No." Luke: "Do you know of Paul having sex with any of the girls in the business?" Gene: "No, but if I did, there’s job security." (Laughter) Luke: "Is it true that you are not allowed to review any of John Bone’s or Rob Black’s movies and if so, why?" Gene: "We do have that policy. And I think the John Bowen thing was fostered by you after you started writing that shit about me having a financial interest in Cream. That part was to keep it above board. The Rob Black thing. Rob is a friend of mine. At AVN, we’re in a fishbowl where so many people know who hangs out with other people. Rob and I are good friends… We have a mutual interest in professional wrestling. We go to wrestling matches… And Rob is like a kid brother to me. He’s a good person. He’s kind of whacked sometimes but he’s…creative… He has an edge that many people don’t care for… I volunteered not to do his stuff because I don’t want to be in a position in print or otherwise to have to tell him that I don’t particularly like this or get into that whole line of shit. So I take the path of least resistance and say better to have a friendship than sacrifice it over a couple of reviews. Somebody else can do that job. "I arbitrarily pick what I want to review. I take a look at the box cover. I like anal tapes. That’s a well documented fact. I love the Evil Angel stuff… The Bowen situation prevails because I’ve known John for 15 years… I don’t want to put myself in the position of being the cause of bad feeling. It’s just not worth it." Luke: "You were with Paul Fishbein in Philadelphia when he had the mainstream video business that failed. Why do you think it failed?" Gene: "I think Paul was way ahead of time with that. He was promoting
Japanese wrestling. It’s just now that wrestling has become a real big
pop culture thing. Had Paul done it down now, it would’ve been enormously
successful. It’s a timing element that was involved. Paul was way ahead
of the curve. Paul was an avid wrestling fan. He’s drawn away from it
over the last few years. The market wasn’t sharing the passion he was
sharing. The market has now caught up to him but he’s like, ‘yeah, I could
take it or leave Luke: "How good a businessman is Paul Fishbein?" Gene: "Paul does all the right things. He is a list compulsive list maker…items of things to do and he follows through on it. He’s relentless on accomplishing goals. He’ll get ideas at 3AM and get up and write lists. He does all the right things. I don’t know if he always hooks up with all the right people to accomplish those things… He’s intelligent, sharp…" Luke: "Why did Sexpose fail?" Gene: "I was the editor. You have to understand the magazine business. You have to be well-capitalized. You have to be able to withstand… Paul and I used to go to these magazine seminars in New York where they told you that you had to have capital to cover you for a year’s worth of publication. Sexpose was every other month. Sexpose had to, theoretically, be out there for two years to catch hold. Paul had a business partnership…50-50. "It was a combination of impatience to see results… You need capitalization and I don’t think they thought that out… And Sexpose never had a real clear idea of what it wanted to be. Sexpose wasn’t even the original name. The original intention was to be the adult equivalent of Premiere magazine. And it was going to cover the adult business as an entertainment art form… Then someone came up with the idea of let’s do it like National Enquirer. We had six months of meetings where we were going to do it one way, then all of a sudden, it was…try this. Then everybody looks at the first issue and says, let’s try this. I think the key to success on a magazine is that you follow through on your idea from beginning to end. Have one unifying vision. "If it had been given time, it would’ve become enormously successful. And the stock of paper it was printed on didn’t do justice to many of the photos." Luke: "How well do you know Yoram Dohan and what is your opinion of him?" Gene: "Paul’s not going to like this… I like Yoram. Yoram is a slick operator. Smooth. Smart. I respect him. He was an Israeli commando, an office in the Israeli army. You have to have a certain strength of character to have the background he had. "The only contact I had with Yoram at AVN was that sometimes we would chat in the morning for 15-20 minutes. We’d have a cup of coffee and shoot the shit about a lot of different things. Yoram had some ideas about where he wanted to take AVN. I don’t know about what went on between Paul and Yoram. Just boom, after 18 months, that thing went to hell. Paul relied on Yoram. Yoram was the go-to guy for everything and he was the guy able to carry-through on a lot of things. He started making inroads with different advertisers that we had never had before and he was aggressively opening up different markets for AVN. We were getting foreign editions of AVN. I don’t even know where that sits anymore. That’s pretty much gone by the wayside. Yeah, he was an innovator and I liked the guy." Luke: "With Darren Roberts, do you resent that Paul brought in an outsider to run the company, in effect passing you over?" Gene: "Paul at one time offered me that situation, to move from editorial into that. I saw a whole different set of headaches involved. Collecting money and that crap. I was just comfortable in the editorial niche because that’s what I’ve done all my life. I don’t want to put myself in position of going to ask people for money. That’s why I could never be good at taking bribes. ‘Oh by the way, what about an envelope?’ I’ve always been kind of funny that way. I just can’t knock on people’s doors and hound them for money. "I had the Editor title. That’s like asking a Brigadier General whether they’d like to be a Lieutenant Colonel [lower rank]." Luke: "Were there personal repercussions over the Rob Black award last year? The story is that the entire editorial department was banished to the warehouse as a form of punishment, and you, the most visible employee, was given a much smaller office. Do you resent that?" Gene laughs. "A casual observer could say that… I’ve heard people say that. ‘What did you guys do to be out here in the warehouse?’ You get that crazy look in people’s eyes. ‘What are you doing out here?’ "Plans were already being made to expand AVN well before the awards show of last year. They were already building the office here. This was looked on as a temporary thing. We were growing and had no place to put people. True, I moved from a larger office space to a smaller one. But before I was in this glass enclosed thing, I was bubble boy. I had no privacy. Everybody coming in would stare at me as though I was on exhibit. So while it was a larger room, it was an uncomfortable feeling, to feel that I was on display. So where I am now is off the beaten path. Nobody interrupts me. I get a lot of work accomplished. I come in here at 6:30 in the morning and by 9PM I get more work done than many people do all day." Luke: "I hear that AVN is on a youth kick and with your age and salary, you are considered expendable, particularly because the company is overextended?" Gene: "I guess Paul’s admission that I’ve got a job for life rules out the expendable thing. Let’s make everything crystal clear here, with the exception of one person recently in editorial, I’ve hired everybody who works in editorial including Bryn Pryor. I don’t think Mark Kernes would represent a youth movement nor Tod Hunter with his salt and pepper hair would represent the youth movement." Luke: "I’ve heard that you and Bryn Pryor don’t get along?" Gene: "Somebody must’ve picked up a comment that Bryn supposedly made a couple of years ago, before he got to know me… He supposedly made a crack about "the mustachioed editor with the f---ing tan." An isolated incident that became folk legend that’s grown into this whole Hatfield and McCoys rivalry. Nothing could be further from the truth. Bryn and I have the same personality except that I’ve mellowed. Bryn is a firebrand. I hired him because he came with a reputation for fighting on behalf of his people. When he was over at Champion, he made sure that his people were taken care of. That’s a military mentality that a leader takes care of the people who follow you. "Also, it took us by surprise that Mark Kulkis said, ‘I’m leaving.’ And suddenly we had to fill a major position. Bryn was at the right place at the right time." Luke: "Have any video companies or magazines approached you with offers?" Gene: "Absolutely. Not magazines but video companies… In roundabout ways… Nobody has ever said…" Luke: "If you left AVN, would you stay in the adult business?" Gene: "I’d want to become a porn star. Yeah, I’d stay in the adult business. I saw my first adult movie at 16 years of age. At that time I said to myself, ‘I want to work in the adult film business.’ This is 1963. I came from a background and an area where that could’ve been accomplished, but son of a gun, it worked out that way. I’ve found my niche. I’ve done the corporate suit-jacket and tie routine and I always felt like I was a square peg in a round hole. I’ve found my niche. The industry was made for me." An email: "First of all, I would like to identify myself so no one considers me a coward and hiding behind my screen name. My name is Nikki. I was Robert Black's girlfriend from July 97-July 98. "I have been reading all of this bickering back and forth from the various people in the industry who believe that last years award show was rigged because AVN staff "liked" Robert Black personally as well as saying he won all those awards because of the amount of advertisement spent with AVN. I can no longer keep my mouth shut from saying, "Those of you who don't know the whole story should keep your trap shut." I can assure you not only as Robert's girlfriend, at that time who saw things firsthand, but I was also in a "know all" position while working at Elegant Angel, that all of this is crap. If it were true that AVN was "bought into giving the awards" to the directors being attacked, then why did Patrick Collins tell Mr. Black, Mr. Byron, Mr. Damage that they didn't deserve those awards. Mr. Collins believed that last years videos were good however, they didn't merit an award. As a matter of fact, Mr. Collins wasn't happy about many things that happened at last year's award show. Mr. Collins didn't even attend the award ceremony. So please tell me, if these awards were given because Elegant Angel spent a lot on advertisement wouldn't you think Patrick Collins would have expected to win those awards instead of bitching to the directors telling them all they didn't deserve to win? "Also, those of you who attended last years award ceremony saw what Robert Black had to say during his acceptance speeches (e.g. Russ Hampshire) as well as, I'm sure you heard the many actors and actresses make comments regarding Mr. Black during their own acceptance speeches? If Mr. Fishbein was partial to Robert why was Robert cut out of the AVN award show tape? Why was he cut out of the AVN award show that was run on Playboy? Why was everyone's acceptance speech that included reference to Mr. Black cut out? In my opinion, I thought that was extremely rude and juvenile. I believe this is enough proof to stop all this shit about Paul Fishbein "rigging" last years award show because he liked Robert Black. "Also for the record, I am not sending you this e-mail because Robert and I are friends and I wanted to stick up for him, As a matter of fact, the man hates my guts and walks around calling me "Psycho" because we had a bad break-up. Regardless of the personal shit between Mr. Black and I, I wanted everyone to know they had the story wrong and I hope that by exposing the REAL inside scoop it will help put all the jealous gossip to rest!" Folks who loathe Paul Fishbein, AVN, Vivid and VCA combined to produce this: Vivid owner Steve Hirsch is dating the receptionist at Video Team. Does this suggest that Video Team is the new power player in the industry alongside VCA, Vivid and Wicked? In a costly decision, AVN moved last year’s award show to Caesar’s Palace, thus upping the ante on award show tickets because of Caesar’s incredible overhead. The move, however, was made simply to cater to heavy metal music musician Mark Stone’s whims. Stone, head of Moonlight Entertainment and the brains behind the awards show, apparently had long harbored a dream of playing Caesar’s Palace. Fishbein, and the rest of the industry, paid for the dream. A former Moonlight employee still close to Stone, says that Stone pushed for Caesars in the belief that a high visibility venue would secure a record deal for him. Stone apparently was being scouted by a record company and wanted to be seen performing in a prestige venue. But nothing came of the deal, says the source, because Mark’s talent is all in his head. He’s a garage band musician at best. Paul Fishbein’s comments about a vanity project Smells Like Sex during Luke’s recent interview with him prompted response from a crew member who worked on Smells Like Sex. "Smells is a good word for it," says the person, "the script was bad and the shoot was botched from the very beginning. It actually had to be done twice. Fishbein handed the project to a crony of his the first time around and the scenes were shot so badly that the whole feature had to be scrapped and started over. Nothing was salvageable. Probably in an effort to bring Ben Dover more into the Fishbein loop, the British director was tabbed to do the remake. It obviously didn’t fair any better. Outside critics gave the feature a thumbs down. So much for Paul Fishbein’s attempt to produce porn movies." Chuck Zane has really been pushing for son Matt to win AVN’s Best Director Award. Matt was nominated for Depraved Fantasies 5. Sources say that Zane’s pressure on Paul Fishbein has been incredible and if Matt wins, the fix was in. Zane was also pushing hard for Matt to win the Breakthrough Award but to no avail. This email came from a fan who calls himself "Tessio." The fan writes: "Paul Fishbein has no one but himself to blame for the leaks out of his office. He cannot control his liquor. Fishbein gets a couple of glasses of wine in him and winds up confessing to everything including the Kennedy assassination. He’s racked with guilt. And you might want to ask him about Jill Kelly. Ask him about those little afternoon trips to the Airtell Hotel down the street. Most of Fishbein’s girlfriends made the Best Performer list this year. Amazing coincidence isn’t it? Paul’s the cause of his own problems. He doesn’t know how to keep his mouth shut. Now it’s coming back to haunt him. What makes this whole mess really funny is that he is getting sucker punched by Darren Roberts. It’s the whole Yoram thing all over again. Roberts is setting himself up for the takeover. Roberts is a slick little shit and by the time he is through with Fishbein, Fishbein will be begging for Yoram to f--- him in the ass again. Fishbein will never know what hit him. And Fishbein’s flunky Gene Ross had better watch his ass too. Managing editor Bryn Pryor [Mark Logan] has been out to get him, trying to make him look bad. Ask Pryor how he pimps girls for Fishbein. Ask about Chloe. Isn’t f---ing a porn star a conflict of interest for a managing editor? Fishbein said it is." XXX of VCA [supposedly] controls who does and who doesn’t get on a company boxcover. Many say that women have to sleep with XXX to get boxcover consideration. [Russ Hampshire of VCA replies: "I control who gets the boxcover. It's decided on the basis of who is the star of the movie. If someone does three sex scenes, they go on the boxcover."] AVN has been covering up a story that Elegant Angel is being sued for $5 million by the wife of the policeman who was gunned down by Elegant Angel employee Israel Gonzales at the company’s warehouse last year. Another email from a fan: "Paul Fishbrain must not even attend his own awards show. In his interview with you, Fishbein states that VCA has won only one major award in the last five year. Fishcakes must’ve forgotten all the ones dished out for Shock, Latex and Sex. In the last five years, VCA has won 60 awards [11 of them gay]. You can look it up. What planet is Fishbait and Hampshire on?" Another email: "Luke, you got suckered. Of course Fishbein produced a bunch of ballots and asked you to count them. They’re all fakes. This is how he does it. Fishbein gets extra copies of the ballots made up. He fills them in to swing voting whichever way he sees fit, then reattaches the front cover from the original ballot so that what you see, of course, is a signed ballot. It’s all misdirection. When some people started catching on to that gimmick, Fishbein had to go to electronic balloting to make it look good. But Darren Roberts, being the computer whiz that he is, has found a way to fix that too." AVN's Paul Fishbein replies: "Hey Luke: Don't you realize you are being duped? This stuff you e-mailed me is so much shit that I could throw up. This fake named "Tessio" is getting his information confused. And you're buying into it. Another phony taking shots, unable to identify himself because he's gutless. the nature of the internet is that anybody can say anything about anyone, no matter how slanderous or libelous. The kind of shit spewing from this guy is slanderous. And it's criminal that you buy in. First of all, who is saying that I want out of AVN? Is that you? Maybe I should make this clear. I've just started a couple of major adjunct things for AVN that will take years to develop. I'm not going anywhere. You got that. I'm here. I cannot control my liquor? Anyone who knows me knows that I hardly ever drink. There's nothing to confess to. What about Jill Kelly? Same old crap. I've met Jill two or three times and hardly ever spoken to her. I congratulated her for her work in Skin: Cuntrol but at the Hustler party last week, she didn't even know who I was. Darren Roberts knows her and hired her to sign at our booth. This guy is an asshole. Yeah, ask me about those little afternoon trips to the Airtel down the street? It's the only f---ing restaurant worth anything in this area and I take clients there for lunch approximately once a week. So f--- him. "Most of Fishbein's girlfriends are on the Best Performer list?" Again, I'm sitting here denying stuff that i have no right even justifying. Nothing is haunting me and I have no guilt. Like Bryn said to you, nobody outside this office is going to believe us anyway. And if Darren Roberts is sucker punching me, then I am the most stupid person on earth. Everybody should have someone like Darren working with them. They should be so lucky. Bryn already answered the bullshit about him.. AVN has not been covering up any story about Elegant Angel. We've been reaserching it to get the story correct, unlike the people who post on your site and make shit up, we actually research it. Actually, the guy is right about VCA because Shock, Latex and Sex each did win a major award, but Michael Ninn deserved the praise. I was getting my dates confused. It all runs together. The last e-mail is crap again. Luke, you can sit here and count the ballots and check with the reviewers to see if they really voted that way. What else can I do? Nobody caught on to any gimmick so you know this is crap. And if the ballots were fixed last year, why? For what reason? Let this asshole look at the results and then tell me what my upside was to fixing it that way. The part about Mark Stone and Caesar's Palace is stupid because I made the deal with Caesar's. Mark had nothing to do with that. It is a moronic statement beyond belief. As to whether Mark had a long time dream to play Caesar's Palace, I have no idea, so ask him. By the way, the Awards Show is a collaborative effort of a bunch of people. Mark's brother Gary actually produces the show and Mark writes all the original songs and directs the show, if you want to get your facts straight. And with Smells Like Sex, a lot of that is true, but not all of it. The guy from Hustler (Christian Shapiro) who hates AVN and has ripped us in the past, gave it 3/4 erect, for the record. But my attempt to produce a porn movie was a failure and, like I said in the interview, I realized that it is something I cannot do and will not do again. So shoot me. And it was a good gimmick, by the way. With Chuck Zane, we've corrected the mistake about Matt Zane. He was nominated for Lust and Lies, not Depraved Fantasies 5. It's funny that the fix is in because Chuck Zane thinks his son doesn't have a chance. Truth is, nobody has voted yet. And if the fix was in, wouldn't it have been easy for us to just give Matt Zane the breakthrough award. They submitted his name, along with 20 other people, so this information is skewed a bit. Finally, Luke, I don't have the time and energy to keep responding to these people, who obviously have nothing better to do that take shots. So let them say whatever they want, but I'm not buying in after today, This is it. Anybody can stand behind an anonymous pseudonym and try to "take me down." It's the definition of a coward. Your source who fed you all those questions the other day is a coward, and the e-mail guy (perhaps Tessio is your entire source) is a coward. And the power of this medium gives cowards a chance to say whatever they want. All of you out there with your consiracy theories, these pussies who e-mail you without the guts to give their names and all the naysayers who have nothing better to do than take shots: You can all go f--- yourselves. Luke then asked Paul: "Is Gene Ross's job in danger because of a youth movement at AVN? And were the editorial staff moved into the warehouse as punishment for Rob Black's wins at the 1998 awards?" Paul Fishbein replied: "On the record, Gene Ross can work for me until the day one of us dies or until he decides to hang it up. He'll always have a job for as long as I'm in business. Gene was there for me when nobody believed in AVN, worked for practically nothing. We moved Gene's position around for his strengths. People who don't like Gene don't understand him. He's shy, defensive and hard to get to know. That's why people say, "oh, Gene Ross hates me." They just don't know him. It's his personality. He's aloof. But when you get to know him he's a warm, funny, generous, nice person. Many people who thought Gene didn't like them today think differently. "The "banishment" to the warehouse is hilarious. We ran out of space. We are growing so much that we needed to build new offices and people volunteered to go back there or wanted their own office. For the record, we even took new office space because we have an additional four employees who we don't have room for. So much for AVN's financial troubles or me wanting to leave. I should have taken you over to the new office where our new internet division is. Did you know we have a new internet trade magazine, Luke? Forgot to tell you. Oh well, I must be dying here. Now isn't that more interesting than........I guess not." I talked to Mark Stone by phone just after 11AM. He burst out laughing several times as I read stuff to him. Mark: "That's very entertaining. I found much humor in that. I must tell you that the decision over venue is not based on my whim. We [the AVN Awards] pretty much go where they'll take us. There are only a few places in Las Vegas that can handle the show and during the CES, a couple of those places are always booked every year. "We make deals when we can where we can. Some years there are a couple of places that will take it, some years we are forced to go where we can. One prime example is when we were at the Aladdin. If we didn't do the Aladdin, we weren't doing an Awards show. We were relieved to be at Caesars, there was nowhere else really available to us. "I've been doing music for years. I know record companies. I am not naive enough to think that if a record company sees that you've played at Caesars Palace, they would sign you. Two. When we do the Awards show, it isn't even the real band. It is a specialty gig. I don't see how anybody could sign a band from that." Luke: "Do you think the AVN Awards are fixed?" Mark: "We don't have anything to do with the awards. We just put the show on. But from my experience of being around it, the awards are not fixed. Fishbein bands over backwards with the voting... I believe in the integrity of the awards. Otherwise I might've won one or two awards over the years. They always invite people to look at the balloting. They keep the paperwork in the AVN office... I've looked at it. You see people signing off on their votes for every award. Believe me, people have won that I know for a fact if Paul Fishbein were just doing the awards based on his thought, they would've never gotten the awards." Luke: "Are you a garage band musician at best?" Mark: "Music is in the ears of the beholder. We're out there with our balls on the line... I'd challenge any band on the face of the earth to do the wide range of stuff that we do at the show. I'll let the music speak for itself. "Dyanna Lauren plays with us now. We've got four or five tracks recorded. And when we get the CD done, who knows what may happen. "I take umbrage with the heavy metal description. That would insult heavy metal guys everywhere. I'm more of a heavy blues slash hard rock player." |