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Naughty Talent Sunday

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4/17/05

I stop by the Naughty Talent house Sunday at 3:40pm. I see about eight porn girls and even more photographers (as well as columnists Gene Ross and Tod Hunter).

I meet Gabriela Banks. We sit down on the couch.

Duke: "When you were a kid, what did you want to be when you grew up?"

Gabriela: "I never did know. I didn't think porn star. I wanted to be active and athletic. Something not boring and monotonous. Porn isn't boring.

"I was born and raised in San Diego. I've been living in LA for four years."

Duke: "What expectations were you raised with?"

Gabriela: "Everyone asks me what went wrong with my life [to go into porn]. I had a perfect family. They are well-off. I have three older brothers who are doing awesome -- aerospace engineers [and the like]. Very intelligent. My dad was lenient. My mom passed away when I was seven. I don't think there's any relation between that and porn. People always ask me if I was abused. 'You're too normal.' It [porn] was just a totally random occurrence.

"I was expected to go to highschool, continue to get perfect grades, and go out-of-state to college. All of us were lucky enough to be offered [scholarships to colleges out-of-state]. School is your job. Until you're done with school, I'll pay for your school.

"I just didn't know what I wanted to do so I didn't follow his plan.

"I've always gotten good grades. I played sports. I was varsity point guard. I could've played in college if I had wanted to. Water polo and track. Now it's boxing and running. I don't fight or anything. I don't want to break my nose.

"I did Girls Fight Club a year ago. It's topless. The fighting was real."

Duke: "What kind of crowd did you hang out with in highschool?"

Gabriela: "I got bored with the good people. All my girlfriends played sports and hung out with the guys who were athletes. I made other friends. They were the bad kids."

Duke: "Stoners."

Gabriela: "Exactly. I've always been friends with both groups."

The brother closest to Gabby in age is ten years older. "I was an accident."

Duke: "Were you a good kid in highschool?"

Gabby: "I got in a lot of trouble, but not bad bad trouble. I was very independent. I didn't like any rules. I didn't want anybody telling me what to do. I had easygoing parents considering. It was my bad.

"I got good grades but I would ditch school a lot. I'd disregard and disrespect my parents and then some. The first time I tried to do any drugs, I got caught, which was good.

"In tenth grade I started experimenting with drugs. I started with pot. I never had a problem. I was never dependent. But they always caught me. I'm not a good liar. I talk a lot. My parents know me. They'd drug-test me once they knew it. My dad caught me on the phone once. I busted myself. We were talking about coke and the first time I ever did it and they heard a conversation they shouldn't have.

"I first did coke at 17. The white ones are always bad."

Gabby graduated highschool in 2000. She started at San Diego State where she first did porn. A friend of a friend said, 'My friend has this big boob website in San Diego."

Gabby measures a natural D-cup. "I've had the same sized boobs since sixth grade. They were bigger when I was bigger.

"I did one photoshoot [six months after turning 18] for BustyAmateurs. After the second one, they asked me if I wanted to come to Las Vegas with them in January. I said, what's that? For the convention. To sign. Sign what?

"So I went with them to Vegas and little 18-year old Gabby is writing her name on pictures all through the convention."

Duke: "How did you get your stage name Gabriela Banks?"

Gabby: "On the first shoot, they said, 'What do you want your stage name to be?' I said, 'What's a stage name? I get to pick it?' I went with Gabriella. Long and pretty. My first manager, Tabetha Yang, she tacked on Banks."

Duke: "How long were you with Tabetha Yang?"

Gabby: "Not long at all. It was so long ago I don't remember all the particulars. It was a bad period. It was right when I started seeing the money and stopped going to school. I did what most girls do -- I'd get all excited and then crash."

For the first time, I notice Gabby's big blue eyes.

Gabby: "When I first got started [in porn], I did have a boyfriend. I had already done a shoot and I didn't tell him about it, even though it was only solo pictures. We were in an adult videostore one night and I said, 'I could do this. I could be naked. I'm as pretty as them.' He freaked out when I showed any interest. When I even spoke about it.

"I decided I was never going to tell him anything. Then he found out and oh, boy. He was so mad and so upset. We were kids. His mom found out too. That was the funniest part. She hated me. She'd call me up: 'Whore. Slut. I don't want you with him or near him.' I'd say, 'I didn't even do anything.'

"I used to be uncomfortable. I didn't want anyone to know that I did it. It wasn't my plan to make my money like that and live off of it.

"One thing porn did was that once I did it, I could be embarrassed and hide from everyone or I could be, 'Yeah, I did it. So what?' It totally changed confidence levels. I had to stand up for myself or I'd have no friends back home.

"It made me more comfortable with myself and outgoing. I went out and f---ed people on film. Not everybody could do that."

Duke: "How long after your first photo shoot did you do your first sex scene?"

Gabby: "I don't know. Do you think we write these down? Probably six months."

In the past four years, Gabby says she's done about 70 scenes.

Duke: "Have you worked any other sort of job since then?"

Gabby: "I'm going to get my certification for personal training next month. But that's just going to be testing the waters and seeing where that goes. Otherwise no. I was a booker for a friend's escort service. I was everyone you called. 'Yeah, this is Trish.' 'Yeah, this is Tina.'

"It was good money. It was easy. It was for friends' of mine. It was at night. But I got bored with it. It gets annoying talking to guys on the phone all night."

Duke: "What about porn?"

Gabby: "Porn is great. It's never boring. There are so many sorts of people from every spectrum. It's not just whitecollar businessmen. Porn is everyone."

Duke: "What do you love and hate about the industry?"

Gabby: "I love meeting everyone. It's fun. The money is good. I hate the whole unprofessionalism of a lot of companies. People are flakey. Expectations are so low. Why aren't people treating it like a normal business? Everyone could be making even more money if they were."

Duke: "How did your family react?"

Gabby: "I told them before anyone else. The first time I did my first shoot. I thought, 'Who knows what will happen? I don't know these people.'

"They weren't happy. I don't say, 'I did my first anal scene, daddy. I bet you didn't know that.'

"They support me, not what I do. They get mad when I go to porn sites on their computer at home and get all these popups and invade their computer with porn."

Duke: "How have you been able to set your limits?"

Gabby: "Sometimes you show up and you think you're going to do this and they say you're going to be doing that, and it happens to be something I don't do. I always say I don't do that. But if it's something I'm comfortable with, I'll say, what the hell. I might as well. I came here to work.

"I don't do girls. Everybody thinks I'm weird, but I'm not into girls. I'm not scared of them. I've done a boy-girl-girl. But if there's no dick, it's not interesting to me. I do anal, but that's so weird to me. It's all the mood and the people."

Duke: "What about the partying and the drugs?"

Gabby: "I don't party like that anymore. I smoke weed all the time and I love to drink. But I always go home and go to bed.

"That's the problem with most porn stars. You don't have a schedule. That's one thing I wish I had continued to go to school or had a regular job for a while. My mentality is messed up. But I usually wake up at 9, 10 on the weekends, and I always run three miles, even if I reek of alcohol and I don't feel right."

Duke: "What else do you do aside from working in porn, jogging, working out?"

Gabby: "I specialize in laying in the sun. Nothing exciting. I play basketball a lot."

Duke: "Have you dated anyone inside the industry?"

Gabby: "No. I'm not trying to date anyone at all."

Duke: "Not even outside the industry?"

Gabby: "No. It would be a double standard. I wouldn't ever want someone I was dating doing porn. I've yet to meet someone who would be able to tolerate it. I'd give it a shot if I met anyone who peaked my interest.

"I had one boyfriend for 18-months. That's when I stopped doing scenes and worked as a booker for that escort agency and went back to college. Porn was irrelevant to our relationship. Six months after we broke up, I started doing movies again.

"I'm good at school but I hate it."

Duke: "What's your primary attraction to doing porn? Fame? Money? Sex?"

Gabby: "There's no fame. The money is always the first thing."

Duke: "What are some of your dreams?"

Gabby: "I don't have any dreams. I don't have any secrets. There's nothing I love to do at all except for sports. I want to raise kids one day, not anywhere near LA. I'll move out of here when I'm done with the industry. I don't see that happening for at least ten years. I don't want kids any time soon."

Duke: "How would your best friends describe you?"

Gabby: "I can be assertive. I can be a bitch when the situation demands it. It's hard to find good new friends in LA, especially in the industry. The girls like you or they don't. I stay away from the gossip and hang out with bitches like her [points at Ava Ramone]."

Ava: "She's not as bitchy as some girls."

Duke: "Ava, Gabriella says you drink too much."

Gabby: "No, I didn't. You just did what I hate. That's what I'm talking about. I work hard and just have a few friends who are cool."

Duke: "Best and worst experiences in the industry?"

Gabby: "My first time in Vegas. That was amazing. I was 19. There's been no big drama. I'm owed money from a shoot a long time ago. If I was a guy, I'd be killed, I guess. That's what Sylvio told me. I hate him because he still owes me money. The scene he owes me for is already out. He owes me $600 [from a scene from February]. He owes Jim at World Modeling. They had to pay a girl out of their pocket for him. I told him I knew that. He freaked out. He said, 'If you were a guy, I'd kill you.'

"He said that he was feeling really bad when his grandmother died. That he's going through a divorce. Don't shoot for him unless you get cash."

Picture of Sylvio with Violet Blue.