|
Goofus or Gallant?
2003-08-15 07:31:36
By Jim Goad
Courtesy of Fetishbucks.com
Rare is the pornographer with artistic
pretensions as lofty as NYC’s Joe Gallant. Whether or not he
succeeds depends entirely on your taste…especially if you have
a taste for feces.
If poop’s your thing, Joe’s got plenty o’ poop for ya. Gallant’s
virtually one-man operation, Black Mirror Productions, (or BM
as he sometimes calls it) has released a video called M’ass’terpiece
Playhouse: Lesbian Paint Enemas, whereby which the scat-lovin’
voyeur can experience “the sights and sounds of winking buttholes
shooting colorful girl-goo” onto canvases, which are subsequently
sold via BM’s website. Gallant describes these girls as “rectal
expressionists” who produce “fine and flatulent examples of
colonic artistry."
Gallant (pronounced “Guh-LONT”) looks like a member of Pink
Floyd, helms an avant-jazz orchestra which re-records entire
Grateful Dead albums, and has often cited Andy Warhol as his
cinematic muse. Operating from a Hell’s Kitchen apartment, he
has issued a series of low-budget vids which seek to recapture
NYC’s scuzzball porno glory days, back before Times Square’s
jizz-splattered peep booths were razed to make way for a germ-free
family theme park.
The only Black Mirror production I’ve viddied is the charmingly
titled Bongwater Butt Babes, starring a “dildo bong” which Gallant
invented. One NYC couple after the next engages in the delightfully
liberating ritual of running an enema tube up one partner’s
pooper, filling it with water, plunging the dildo bong inside
their ass, and enjoying the smooth, refreshing taste of a feces-flavored
bong hit. We are then treated to the repeated specter of enema
recipients squirting the brownish bong water out their poopie-holes,
followed by blasts of muddy turd chunks.
I’ll betcha the Powers That Be are quaking in their boots!
Black Mirror’s actors are more “real”—meaning fatter and less
attractive—than those used in West Coast productions. Every
girl in Manhattan apparently has a clit ring and a tattoo above
her ass.
In other Bongwater Butt Babes action, a girl with labia big
enough to make a Reuben sandwich struggles to find a sexy way
to say, “I have to sh-t.” Interracial lesbians suck the turd
smears off a purple two-way dildo they’ve inserted in each other’s
asses. A black chick has her boobs wrapped up in masking tape.
A Warhol poster hovers above the final credits.
To his credit, Gallant has some credits, uh, to his credit.
He won an Emmy for his sound work on TV soap opera The Guiding
Light. His NYC Underground: Times Square Trash Vol. 2 won an
AVN Award for Best Pro-Am or Amateur Tape in 2003. And Mr. Busy
also teaches a “How to Shoot Your Own Adult Video” class at
NYC’s Learning Annex.
Manhattan public access recently aired Gallant’s impossibly
ambitious Black Mirror Vol. I—Arise and Tell the World, a sci-fi
film in which government totalitarianism is overcome, naturally,
by porno renegades. He also plans to shoot Blood Lust: “a very
edgy, very politically oriented hardcore vampire movie.”
Some might view it as art. Others might simply see it as silly.
It all hinges on how you feel about sh-t.
___________________________________________________
The interview was conducted via e-mail. All answers are printed
as they were received. Joe’s website is www.blackmirror.com.
You seem like a genuinely kind soul. What are you doing in porno?
i'm not sure what you're implying.
pornography (a term i prefer to the prevalent Kulture's easy-goin',
ain't-this-a-fun-and-hip-thing "porno") has it's share of unkind
and agenda'd souls, but certainly no more than the ranks of
the real estate, oil or tobacco industries, for example. in
my day so far i've met some genuine, kind and guileless people
in the amateur porn scene, and some pathetically ruthless scumbags
in the record industry and mainstream media in general- you
get the point.
i ventured into this world after an Adult actress i was dating
briefly (who also appears on one of my orchestra CDs), an '80s
legend, died in her sleep, leaving a (now-12 year old) daughter.
the woman and i were going to start our own very hot and dirty
couple's site. she was also initially very into the idea of
me working in the industry in LA, with her girlfriends and with
each other. sadly, neither of these intriguing scenarios were
meant to be, †but the seed of active participation was planted.
after her death i decided to begin my Adult exploration for
2 reasons- to get money to set up a scholarship fund for her
daughter, and to take a badly-needed break from actively running
an 18-piece orchestra constantly for a 20-year period. i employed
600 players in that time, wrote approx. 120 pieces for the ensemble
(including approx. 50 arrangements of grateful dead music),
spent $300,000, created 8 highly detailed CDs of stuff- it was
time to take a break from the 18-wheeler logistics of that for
awhile.
the longer i stay in this, the more i see that there's both
room and need for alternative †approaches to Adult film. i'm
still codifying my aesthetic, but already i see that some of
the stuff i do has had an impact in that it offers a bit more
humanistic view of sex-on-camera.
i †am in the early stages of a book i've been chipping away
at (hope to finish by new year) which will explain a lot of
this as well.
****************************************************************
What do you find so redeeming about 70s NY porn that you would
want to resurrect it?
i'm not a kitschy-irony-haha sort of person.. i think that the
people who traffic in that toxic, soul-less co-option (particularly
those who write for sit-coms, mtv and the"late-night with" guys)
should be put on work farms till they clear all that nervous-laughter
cultural strip-mining outta their systems.
irony corrodes all original endeavors like battery acid. irony
is the zeitgeist. †it was bound to toxify a generation and a
culture, and quite by design. it's symptoms explain, in part,
why much of the world finds us boorish, attention deficited,
disordered and childish. we need only look at †our media reflections.
having said that, i needn't mention the wakawaka gtr sh-t or
the leisure suits or the stilted dialogue, when it was there
(so spot-on in boogie nights, a great film with many truisms).
i'll also save discussion of the impact of AIDS for another
time. †
i love adult-films made in the 70s for 2 primary reasons:
1) golden showers, fisting, and being f-cked or otherwise penetrated
while being bound were all legal and were all VERY much in play,
through most of that era's productions (all activities that
i would love to put in a film, as they are quite prevalent in
my sex life- another reason that europe beckons, soon!!);
2) simply, because the performers (and consequently, the performances)
were †un-affected. it's the same reason i love most art movements
whose tenets are truly crystallized in their nascency.
i deeply value that mindset, and always try to celebrate it
in my scenes.
they weren't making "porn", they were making (mostly low/no-budget)
pornography.... and, mostly in NYC. †spectacular intense stuff,
here in the hood, 5 blocks away.
that's until around video and the rise of LA.
adult films (and their makers) were not all the rage in the
mainstream. can you imagine, say, walter cronkite having a heart-to-heart
with seka? a little chat about her girlhood?
this sh-t was irony-free, unassailable. no "your porn name is
your middle name and the name of the first street you lived
on" seinfeld/friends schtick.
the only reason diane sawyer or whatever mediawhore today remotely
cares to interview belladonna is for the feeding frenzy attraction/repulsion
that media desperately needs in order to survive in its current
form.
back to the subject- the f-cking was hot, the body hair was
naturally abundant and beautiful, the reactions were real, the
shooting/editing style was more about capturing the pace and
excitement of the act than about groovy tricks in the avid package
(i dig avid and final cut, but the apps are often so stupidly
applied in the LA porno edit suites these days)...
there was no formulaic "reverse cowgirl into the jawbreaker,
into the analdoggie/gape, and end with the cumshot by the couch.
or the stairwell. or the pool.. great, next"....
70s adult films looked and felt real. people sweated for real.
as an amateur film maker, i feel much greater affinity and connection
to that era's actors. †very hot, gritty and poignant people.
little in the way of a safety net. very small industry, lotta
mob vibe, not a respected occupation (tantamount to actors being
buried in unmarked graves through most of the middle ages, their
chosen profession thought to be a slight step above petty thief
or prostitute... jLo and ben, consider yourselves chronologically
blessed).
a minor point perhaps, but back then the performers used actual
names (perhaps not entirely their own, †but real, believable
human names).
the adult industry had yet to recreate itself like the WWF,
replete with clothing lines, action figures and bobble-head
dolls.
that's why i like 70s porn. †man.
Same goes for the Grateful Dead—what is it about their music
that not only justifies remakes of entire albums, but the existence
of the original albums in the first place?
this is my response to an interview question from several years
ago, which was basically the same question you've asked.
i offer it as my answer because i cannot improve on it, nor
wish to; † it is exactly how i feel about the Dead, their place
in the culture and their body of work.
***************************************************************
it's unlikely that i would have become as committed an artist
as i am, if I hadn't †been initiated into the multi-leveled
codes of their music. it's equally unlikely that i would have
developed a restless, searching mind and awestruck spirit if
i had not been exposed to their powerful social alchemy.
†
the dead collectively represent to me everything that's good
and strong and noble in human nature. i can't stress strongly
enough their importance and value as a musical entity, as a
resonant earth-node in cultural history, and as a vehicle for
the Search. †like Saul, thunderstruck from his horse in the
dead of night and awakening as disciple Paul, i got their message
in all it's hues at an early age and never looked back- it was
Time To Go.
the dead's alembic contained it all- rock n roll, country and
city blues, mountain music, whistling back-alley burma-shave
americana, rigorous 20th century orchestral influences, terrifying
dark psychological improvisations, jagged vivisectionist feedback,
gentle celtic whispers, flatfoot carny "hey, rube!" goofiness,
mideastern percussion textures.. like a canal city, their tributarys
wend and twine.
lyrically, few groups working in popular culture had words of
such depth and poignancy to frame; a seemingly endless flow
of profound and subtle imagery was available to them. †their
lyricists spoke a poet's understanding. to witness the construction
of cathedrals, listen to the epic improvs on Live Dead, Europe
72, Skull and Roses... these are life-changing pieces of music,
vital and unique. ††
that they were capable of incredible music during most of their
long history is a testament to the power of their earliest convictions
as a band. †i'm certain that historians will eventually place
the dead among the most important performing-arts groups of
the last century, and will recognize garcia particularly as
one of the most creative, intelligent and lyrical musicians
in modern history.
Do these poop paintings smell bad?
initially, after about a day, they smell like their raw materials.
the "paint" is a blend of fresh yogurt, milk and a bit of cake
dye in each bottle. the canvases smell like sour milk/yogurt
for a bit, but after a few days they are odorless. †
the cool thing is that the colours hold up really well- i have
a bunch from 2001 that look as if they were just made. †i attribute
it to the natural elements used - much like painter's egg patinas
and albumen, and the natural resins of renaissance religious
painting.
Do you get a boner when you’re shooting a film?
oh, sure- almost always- but here's the thing: †as i shoot,
i try to stay very aware of all the scene details in front of
me, as much non-stop mental focus as i can muster, because i
really don't like to stop and reshoot anything.
consequently, i can be leaning on a girl's buttcheek while her
girlfriend is sloppily eating her pussy, like 3 inches from
that, and all i'm aware of is camera movement/shadows/focus/light
angle- †all things related to getting great footage only.
as soon as i look down for a second, though, †i instantly realize
"HOLY sh-t! this is incredibly hot!!" it's like boner-city.
but, i never try to get any of the girls to suck my dick or
let me f-ck them during a scene, if i'm directing/cameraman.
††my rep is really good for that, and i inherited that non-come-on,
friendly-but-focused attitude from some of the greats in the
biz, guys i totally respect.
consequently i have been fortunate to end up having great sex
with them later, as friends attracted to each other, and it's
real and good- a natural friendship was allowed to develop because
i didn't come on all creepy and "hey baby" in the shoot.
Do you think pornography encourages rape and violence against
women?
no, i don't. †quite the opposite.
some of the earliest recorded human art contains erotic images,
along with natural and supernatural imagery. imagistic exploration
and enjoyment of our sexuality is part of who and what we are
as a species.
sexual pleasure- either solo or with partners, through use of
erotic materials or the real thing- has tremendous transformative
power and is used in some cultures as a psychic enhancement
tool.
what we're addressing here are not the real-life tradegies of
rape, incest, or other forms of actual (and abhorrent) violence
against women; rather, an avenue of sexual stimulation achieved
largely through the use of real and explicit imagery, incorporating
fantasy and imagination.
pornography seems to be more of interest to males (with the
surprising exception of the poll statistic below). if that truly
and honestly is the case, then in all seriousness and good intent
SO BE IT. it's just the way of things, just one aspect of the
fundamental differences between the sexes. guys dig looking
at chicks, and they are naturally curious about and aroused
by any aspect of a woman's sexuality- it's certainly been that
way since our species began. †
it is a timeless truism and is unlikely to change; as indicative
of male hormonal activity as the multiple emotional changes
a woman goes through when she has her period (and which are
excused as such). one argument often used against hardcore sexual
material †is that it objectifies women by focusing on their
bodies and sexual aspects. the argument usually concludes that
such objectification is exclusively a male creation, presenting
a warped view of womankind, one suited entirely to male fantasy.
having said that, i read with interest this month's issue of
cosmopolitan-a mag written and published by and for women, with
a loyal readership of several hundred thousand. from the cover:
" SEXIFY YOUR LOOK- BEAUTY MOVES SO HOT, YOU'LL MELT HIS ICE
CREAM CONE!".. †"MAKE HIM CRAZY FOR YOU!".. †"MAN OVERLOAD!
HOW TO REEL IN BUNCHES OF BOYS!".. "SEX SURVEY! WHAT OTHER COUPLES
DO- AND, OH YES, THE SHOCKING ACT THAT 41% OF YOU HAVE TRIED!!"
(that refers to anal sex). ††a question from the survey: "have
you ever watched a porn movie?" answer- 91% yes. "did it turn
you on?" answer- 83% yes (all responses based on 6000 women
participants). a random sampling from some recent issues of
other, women-specific mags: "A HOT, SEXY NEW YOU!".. "HE"LL
†L O V E †WHAT HE SEES!".. †"SLIMMER, SEXIER!" †
i only include this info to illustrate the fact that objectification
of women's bodies seems to cut across some curious lines....
i'd like to point out that virtually every woman i've ever been
intimate with in my life (from very different geographic , ethnic
and social backgrounds) has enjoyed porn. additionally, i am
here to say (like a field reporter back from the steamy jungle
with crumpled notebooks) that women by nature are every bit
as raunchy, lusty and sexually exploratory as men- they just
express their needs and their timings in different (more subtle)
ways. men are truly the dogs, and women the cats, in that sense;
but when a woman is in heat she can be as direct as any man.
an illustration: at the parties where sex happens, i've seen
women from all strata give vent to their "desires" (that reads
very victorian on paper!)... †
a few months ago at a gathering, a woman i know was being double-penetrated
while giving a 3rd guy a blowjob. she wasnt wasted, psychotic,
brain-damaged or suicidal. she is, however, a marketing exec
with a well-known corporation, with a high-stakes, well-paying
gig; multi-lingual and well-travelled. she told me she did it
because she had never experienced that particular combination
of people and sensations before, and the mood of the evening
was right and relaxed enough for her to feel comfortable. all
the guys were friends of hers, and they wore condoms. 90% of
the women who work for me in blackmirror are multi-leveled,
ambitious and smart, using porn to explore their own fantasies
and turn-ons. they enjoy sex, take the work seriously and plan
on either leaving the biz within a specific timeframe, moving
to LA to test the waters as an actual career, or becoming directors
in the genre themselves. they don't consider their chosen work
an assault on their own kind.
i am not naive enough to profess that the sex industry is populated
only by neurosis-free, spiritual beings, all sage wisdom and
illuminated transcendence.. however, the people i'm in contact
with are by and large decent and real.
i think our new, corporate-backed "porn culture" (as opposed
to hardcore pornography), so omnipresent, is the calculated
opposite of the so-called sexual revolution of 35 years ago.
†it's only purpose is to titilate (by holding back the Real
Thing at all cost), to excite the back-brainstems, with no real
release and certainly no humanity- talk about objectifying!-only
the suggestion of a tease, which is satisfied by the desire
to consume. i would rather show my (eventual) kids, when they
were ready to understand it, a really strong, awesome sex tape
showing a couple kissing, having great raw sex and smiling at
the end, than vh1porn to rock/howard stern/jerry springer/"college
girls gone wild" tapes- the release, the electricity, the reality
of real sex is part of our very nature, as opposed to the winking,
leering dishonesty. i would then explain it to them in detail,
and answer all their questions accurately and honestly. why
are we still so afraid, as a society, of our bodies and their
imagistic power? who benefits?
why is it that in corporate media-entertainment, we are repeatedly
shown women getting threatened, raped (a grisly, sickening scene
in the sopranos, or any flimsy-plot rape/revenge movie), cut
(slasher-halloween-type films), strangled, shot-YET, IN MAINSTREAM
MEDIA WE WILL NOT SEE A WOMAN'S BREAST (the earliest source
of nutrition for our species) OR VAGINA (the very gateway for
all humankind), WE WILL NOT SEE A MAN'S PENIS (the vital ingredient
for procreation), WE WILL NOT SEE A MAN AND A WOMAN MAKING LOVE,
CLIMAXING AND HOLDING EACH OTHER.
maybe someday we'll allow ourselves to drop our revulsion/fascination
facades. in the meantime, i intend to create a create a body
of visual work that's brimming over with electricity, heat and
joyous release.
Sum up your philosophy in one sentence.
the most valuable gift is the ability to love and to understand.
Joe Gallant Interview Part Two
2003-08-19 22:08:39
By Jim Goad
Rare is the pornographer with artistic pretensions as
lofty as NYC’s Joe Gallant. Whether or not he succeeds
depends entirely on your taste…especially if you have
a taste for feces.
If poop’s your thing, Joe’s got plenty o’ poop for ya.
Gallant’s virtually one-man operation, Black Mirror Productions,
(or BM as he sometimes calls it) has released a video
called M’ass’terpiece Playhouse: Lesbian Paint Enemas,
whereby which the scat-lovin’ voyeur can experience “the
sights and sounds of winking buttholes shooting colorful
girl-goo” onto canvases, which are subsequently sold via
BM’s website. Gallant describes these girls as “rectal
expressionists” who produce “fine and flatulent examples
of colonic artistry."
Gallant (pronounced “Guh-LONT”) looks like a member of
Pink Floyd, helms an avant-jazz orchestra which re-records
entire Grateful Dead albums, and has often cited Andy
Warhol as his cinematic muse. Operating from a Hell’s
Kitchen apartment, he has issued a series of low-budget
vids which seek to recapture NYC’s scuzzball porno glory
days, back before Times Square’s jizz-splattered peep
booths were razed to make way for a germ-free family theme
park.
If you were charged with obscenity and forced to argue
that your films had redeeming social, political, or literary
merit, what would you say?
not to cop out, but i'd need to know specifically what
title(s) and which scene(s)
were deemed obscene. it would be generally impossible,
given current standards,
to charge my entire catalogue in an obscenity case.
in preparing a defense i would then research testimony
in prior, related cases;
i would also point to existing titles that currently occupy
shelf space, unhindered,
by way of precedent.
even though i've mentioned them previously as still being
in the "illegal" column, i think that golden showers and
fisting will eventually be accepted back into mainstream
porn...
whoever is the equivalent of madonna in 5 years will do
an edgy,
corporate-underground "artbook" that will get busted and
defended successfully (with tons of time-warner $$$ most
likely), and those things will fall under the consenting-adults
category yet again, and become the latest L.A. cashcows.
a strong case for them is that they were legal at one
time... and in the bread-and-circuses world of corporate
sex, things need to keep getting edgier in order to maintain
that cash-flow.
however, these days the one thing that understandably
REALLY gets the lynch rope out is kiddie porn. why anyone
would traffic in that, i have no idea- besides the horrible
karma, it's tantamount to immediate hounds-of-hell prosecution.
keep in mind that i don't go out of my way to put illegal
material in black mirror titles..
meaning, as much as i'd love to start each morning by
pulling a hot steaming turd out of chelsea wells' asshole
with my teeth, my better judgement cautions me against
shooting that as a scene for my next opus... THAT'S what
the european chapter will be for!!
i'd much prefer to first build the sort of financial base
that, say, al goldstein or larry flint or bob guccione
had, in order to fight those huge, expensive, time-consuming
but utterly necessary legal battles (and winning them)
later on.
You're quoted as saying, "I think of Black Mirror as a
porn think tank." Elaborate on this. What are the grand
concepts you guys are hatching there?
these 3 years have allowed me access to a lot of remarkable
people and circumstances. i really believe that true pornography,
particularly amateur porn, is the last rebel outpost in
society. by mining that fringe-ore and refining it, by
studying what it's effects are, what it's strengths and
weaknesses are, i've been better able to understand what
its impact on the cultural psyche is.
the adult-film work i've done in black mirror to date
has just scratched the surface.
so far i'm only at primary school level because it's just
been about learning to create good hot edgy celebratory
smut! but, there's deeper and more sophisticated work
to do in its time. i'm a huge fan of jung and reich, of
their research into the inherent transformative power
of human sexuality and of the dangers of its repression.
i am immersed in all this not for the money (that's been
obvious, so far!!), but for the knowledge- i know that
my street-semiotic observations will catalyze into something
quite interesting some day. i've been very fortunate to
have created something of a porn repertory company, that
is willing to experiment along with me.
i've also been honored to participate in some of the filthiest
fantasies imaginable, requested and initiated by some
of the women i've worked with. mind-blowing stuff centered
around complete degradation and humiliation.. i've also
had women desperate to audition for the company, entirely
unsolicited (i've never been big on the notion of audition-sex
because it always seemed a controlling scam on the part
of directors, but i'm seriously rethinking that... for
some women, that seems to be part of the overall fantasy)..
2 experiences in particular rocked my world. that's another
story.
i'm able to see a bit more clearly into some questions
i've always had, both of cultural attitudes and sex-performer
specifics (coming from both sides of the camera), for
example, i have a little more info now on this stuff-
what are sexual turn-ons for the general population, given
the idea of an extant general mindset.
who is threatened by pornography, and why.
what role does the media play in the formation of an"official"
sexual culture, and why. what acts are socially unacceptable,
and how does that change and shift in our culture.
what are the more offbeat activities that turn on people,
and in what numbers.
are these things likely to evolve into a national trend.
under what circumstances is shooting in a public place
a turn-on or turn-off for the talent.
if there is any girl-sh-t in the scene, is it a turn-on
or turn-off for the viewer DEPENDING on how hot the girl
is.
how comfortable do newly-introduced talent-couples feel
in a scene- and in what ways do longer-term friendships
affect scene activity.
is glistening skin (from sweat, urine, saliva) at all
a factor in heightened sexual response in a viewer, and
why.
how long does it take a guy in an average scene to cum
during pussy f-cking, and ass f-cking.
what female body type and what personality help contribute
to this.
what fantasies enter a performer's mind during a scene.
what are the factors in determining whether a girl will
orgasm in a scene- ie what are the characteristics of
a mutually-orgasming performance.
is a scene generally hotter to watch when there is implied
anger, abuse, degradation or violence, and why.
how much a turn-on is a master/slave relationship, and
in what couplings.
is piss generally something that comes easier to a performer
on camera, or harder. what shooting circumstances cause
male talent to lose wood.
what are a viewer's reactions to scenes illuminated by
flourescent, halogen, incandescent, natural or strobe
light.
what type of lighting doesn't work.
how comfortable are male talent with ass-play, dildos,
fingers, and why.
how comfortable are female talent with role-play rape
and domniation, and why.
what are some universal turn-ons for performers, and turn-offs;
also in relation to specific performers and specific acts.
what are some universal male and female sexually-related
fantasies.
how much does cultural conditioning affect a performer's
fears, desires, turn-ons, turn-offs in relationship to
a performance.
are these inate in structure or are they possible to overcome,
and to what degree.
etc.
like i say, i'm trying to take it a bit farther than that
ol' amateur "how 'bout a no-pay blowjob before the scene
starts, baby? just don't tell my wife, heh heh heh..."
Your videos feature lots of ass 'n' poop. What's with
your sh-t fetish? Was there a defining childhood moment?
Rough toilet training?
no, not really- i just enjoy the primal, animal nature
of body fluids, introduced at the right time, in the course
of sexual activity. the same goes for urine and menstrual
blood.
You once said, "In this culture people don't know how
to deal with excrement." Well, even my own dog is embarrassed
when someone watches her taking a sh-t. I believe that
a revulsion for feces is natural, rather than a society-mandated
taboo. Do you disagree, and can you name any cultures
that DO "know how to deal with excrement"?
i realize that i didn't make it clear, but what i meant
specifically was, deal with in a way that's related to
SEX or its depiction (via pornography).
as an adult-content creator i'm very aware of the desires
of the marketplace. it's my experience that mainstream
america, the majority, likes their porno nice & clean,
with no hint of doo-doo or pee. i've lost major distributor
arrangements cuz my material tends to include those aspects
more often than not.
on the other hand, there is a huge alternative market
for more "out there" stuff in this country, a burgeoning,
demographically across-the-board underground, that really
wants far-out stuff and enjoys watching sh-t play, golden
and brown showers etc. these are the people who usually
totally dig my little epics. it's a really active but
more hidden scene... for example, a small store i know
specializes in harder stuff, and their latest blazing-hot
lesbian scat offerings from brazil are flying off the
shelves.
germany, japan, france, and holland all ship tons of scat-porn
material. i've made connections with a key german scat-porn
company and intend to shoot a bunch of stuff there soon.
i toured europe quite a bit as a musician in the 90s,
and i wanna tell ya, there are some freaky and beautiful
people there, life-stylers, very committed to exploring
this stuff on camera and in their private lives. dirty,
fun people.
jamie gillis and i have a running bit about marketing
various porn-chick's well-shaped brown offerings, preserved
in acrylic as paperweights- makes the perfect gift for
home or office!
What are your aesthetic objections to California porno?
these are only my opinions, obviously. lots of people
really like L.A. porn.
interestingly though, my booths at the AVN conventions
have always stopped many people in their tracks- they
are usually thrilled to see a small, dirty, renegade company
show up and represent- i always get a lot of "oh man,
thank god! an alternative to THAT!" as they point to the
$120,000 booths of vivid/wicked/vca et al.
i take that as a great sign that alternatives are needed
and welcomed.
L.A certainly generates the bulk of this country's adult
flix, and it mirrors mainstream hollywood in its access
to spectacular female talent, big budgets and high production
values. but with all that going for it, the L.A. industry
seems to constantly play it safe in terms of its product,
opting to play follower/exploiter of any new sexual trend
(usually after it's been in the air for a good while,
or when it becomes a howard stern bit), and working from
increasingly-threadbare sexual formulas.
most of the companies rent the same 3 or 4 houses up in
the hills to shoot in- hence, the same couch/pool/stairwell
combos show up all over the place. L.A. has such sprawling
and cinematic vistas and such environmental diversity,
that not taking advantage of that seems like laziness.
something i find strange in a lot of their material is
the lack of natural communication between the performers,
in most of the newer stuff i've seen. L.A. has the sucky-cheeked,
pouty "oh my pussy's soooooo wet" schtick down pat, but
i rarely see the guy and girl share a laugh, or even much
of a genuine smile, between each other.
i really can't stand that zombie routine.
(i had a thing in one boy-girl scene, where a girl intones
in a zombie monotone off-camera, over & over "oh...my...pussy's
...so.. wet..." and "oh...f-ckmewith...yourbig...hard..cock".
it was sort of "dissonant", an experiment).
another strange thing is that there's rarely time devoted
to the girl to cum, to give her space in the scene to
build up to her orgasm; when there IS some of that, it's
so shrill, fake and cartoonish that it all feels rather
depressing and like some carnival get-over routine....
now, i of course realize that this stuff is geared to
guys who wanna jerk off in a no muss no fuss way (hell,
that's why i watch it), and it's definitely not, thank
allah, out of some dialectics-of-post-porn "i honor the
male/female energy as we breathe together and honor our
respective right to the orgasm energy as we mutually energize
the honorings" thing. BUT, there's fantastic erotic porn-watchin'
pleasure to be had by simply by giving a little more camera
time to a girl's natural changes in the course of being
f-cked.
trinity loren used to say to me, "i don't care who you
f-ck, as long as you don't kiss them"... i know that mouth
kissing is a personal thing for most porngirls and not
a camera thing, and i don't expect to see big sloppy kissin'
or truly personal couples-esque private moments between
performers who don't necessarily know each other outside
of the scene- but even so, i still believe there's a passive
misogyny and vague uneasiness, awkwardness, going on in
a lot of mainstream..no matter how hot the girls look,
they don't come off as being allowed to share in the same
comrades-in-arms energy zone as the guys..
L.A. pornchix genuinely seem to be treated as high-end,
ripped, saline/collagenized well-paid cum-receptacles.
and that's a shame, cuz there's nothing so hot as experiencing
a girl REALLY enjoying sex.
Your website says that all proceeds from the ass paintings
go to the "Black Mirror Foundation for the Arts." What's
that?
the idea was to establish a philanthropic arm of black
mirror productions.
really, it's a lot like the concept behind the beatle's
AppleCorps.
i've been involved in a lot of facets of manhattan's avant
scenes over the last 27 years, mostly in the theatre/performance
art/composition/sound design/scoring worlds. i've worked
with hundreds of fiercely talented and committed artists.
many of them would routinely spend all of their earnings/savings/borrowings
to get their vision realized- that complete dedication,
that belief- a kamakaze approach and level of committment
that i've also embodied for the last quarter century.
my full-time entry into amateur pornography, as a respected
and recognized artist in another artform, is seen as one
of the more unique aspects of my little black mirror story.
i always intended to treat this work as my new ART, regardless
of its contents.
i've been the recipient of a number of music-composition
grants over the years.
while they were never huge, quit-your-job amounts, they
always helped enable me to fund some aspect of some current
project, or to begin something new. they were symbolic
recognition, a great confidence builder at the right stages.
i also spent almost every dime from my day-gig earnings
to fund all my orchestral endeavors, to the tune of $300,000.
with that in mind, i'd always hoped to to reach a point
with black mirror's adult-film profits to be able to fund
deserving talent and projects, regardless of genre, with
small kick-start grants- as i had been given. that's what
the foundation was to be about.
unfortunately, i haven't sold any of the paintings!! i
don't think people know about them...or maybe they know
TOO MUCH about 'em!!! and i haven't made enough of a return
on anything else to fund anyone's stuff. yet... i feel
that will change.
my ultimate goal with black mirror is to make enough money
to successfully establish a forward-thinking indie film
& video production company.
This is a quote from a prior interview with you: "[W]hen
I was six years old,
I found a big cache of porn mags in the vagina-shaped
hollow of a tree.
All the other kids on their bicycles went 'Eww, Yuck,'
but for me it was like
the heavens parted". Explain the connection between pornography
and spirituality.
i think i answered the porn/spirit connection in my other
response, in talkng about
the power of sex imagery and its presence in all cultures.
but to address the porn-mag tree thing, the grail in the
ancient twilight grotto....
yeah, that was a profound thing for me.. i remember being
around 6 years old when
my interest in erotic imagery made itself manifest, due
to that-
it was as an important and immediate event as getting
my first bass guitar
or first shot of heroin.
one summer's twilight eve, during our bicycle explorations,
my
boys and i discovered a cache of nudie mags in the freudian
vagina-shaped
hollow of a dead tree out in the woods. basic 60s nudie
stuff- Rogue and Gent, a
Playboy or 2, maybe a Swank- those mags with three-quarters
black & white
pages and a few color pages/centerfold. technicolor outdoor
shots, or in an
office location (with that classic 60s veneer paneling),
the smiling
beehive chicks bent over with cleavage athrust, or rear
shots with the
turned-head come-on smile.. innocent stuff!, compared
to today's pierced
clit/golden shower/lesbo bondage mag-cover shots-
needless to say, i was amazed. the stuff really spoke
to me, as real an event
as the chamber orchestra backyard performance i heard
at 6 years old,
which planted the seed of my musical journey... this was
pre-puberty, so it wasn't
entirely a sexual, young-boy-masturbating thing quite
yet, but something definitely stirred- more like i was
given a glimpse of something outside my known world, and
it was cool and powerful.
flash-forward hundreds of years and many adventures later...
my "porn journey" wouldn't be complete without the trinity
loren story...
i used to hang out in the livesex shows in the times square
joints in the 70s, the great $10
handjobs, peepbooths (which made fine shoot-up spots,
a bit later on) and i got to know
Show World (legendary sex emporium) very well. years later,
when i was
writing my second orchestra CD, Code of the West, i would
go and catch the porn stars
who were now/only stripping (no more sex shows). big marquee
headlines: "ONE WEEK ONLY-
ERICA BOYER! 5 SHOWS DAILY" for example.
i was a big fan of one of the 80s stars named Trinity
Loren, a beautiful, naturally
busty delight who tore up the screenin every one of her
50+ films. Very h o t sex
combined with a sort of..giggly, earthy quality, just
gorgeous.
one night after her set i knocked on her dressing room
door and introduced myself,
explaining that i was a fan of her work (which tickled
her) and that i had written
some interestingtext with her voice in mind, for insertion
in an orchestra piece called
Strata. she was very happy to be asked, so the next night
i took a
girlfriend to meet her , and we all had dinner at the
west bank cafe on
42nd st, after which she read the text into my dat-
"dislodged from static amber, we are slow to waken- we
view ourselves from a distance,
imitating reflections far removed from their source...
pale rays light an unsettling
path."
this was porn imagery, flipped around: a post-scene amber
lynn; porn-scene version
of soul-intimacy, pale (cathode) rays in a darkened room
lighting a possibly unsettling
psychological path for the viewer- a piece of the overall
text relating to tv-screen
imagery which played a part in the fabric of code of the
west..
we said our goodbyes, and a year later (93; i was still
working on Code)
i took tom constanten (ex-grateful dead keyboardist) and
my girlfriend to
see her show. thrilled to see us, great sexy set, "keep
in touch", etc.. i
sent her Code when it came out in oct. 94. she was dating
christian mcbride
(great jazz upright player) at the time, and received
the cd as she was
heading to a christian/joshua redman gig. she played it
backstage for them
after their set and they all dug it immensely and loved
her part on it, as
she wrote in a note to me.
ahead, 4 years, during which time she moved with no forward
address-
a call from her out of the blue, march 98, "how are you,
love to catch up" etc.
i had since done 'blues for allah project' and some live
CDs, also had some
head shots for some film extra-work, so i sent her a big
package.
a week later she called me and said she had never stopped
thinking about me
in those years, that she realized she was in love with
me.. so, that started a
whirlwind romance culminating in some time spent in LA-
the most erotic, sensual,
spiritual, fun chapter of my life to that point. i got
to know her 8-year-old daughter, tess (shadowhead is dedicated
to her, as terrapin is to trinity/roxanne), who really
dug me-
"mommy, you should marry joe, he's prince charming!" the
feelings and
connection continued- a few months later, roxanne and
i were planning for
her to come to nyc.. a handful of days afterward she died
in her sleep.
roxanne and i were going to do a site together (her return
to hardcore),
VERY raunchy but sweet and affectionate, with her as the
star, me as her
guy, and a lot of her porn pals. as a way of carrying
that raunchy-sweet
idea forward, and also as a way to implement a scholarship
fund for her
daughter, i began work on my site last summer.
everything i've acquired from 20 years of illuminati has
been called into play
with the construction of the amateur pornography aspect
of my company,
black mirror- all the organizing, creative and managerial
skills, allthe hard
lessons learned from all the mistakes, all the unexpected
door-openings. it's a different crowd. my site and my
films are pretty out-
though my crowd has gotten behind my concepts, and i respect
their
individual limits.. i've been able to find someone to
perform every
scenario i've come up with, though some are more 'exploratory'
than others.
the black mirror ethos is, simply, an exploration of the
primal, the raw.
for example, a few girls (but not all!) love the feeling
of blowing paint
(milk/yogurt/food coloring) out their butts onto canvases,
utilizing a
degree of joyous abandon and pollock-esque calligraphic
control (the
canvases are quite striking). that was an LA thing for
a minute, but i
think our versions are funnier, more 'comedia boffa',
with a ton of real
interaction and off-the-cuff stuff happening.
i recently had a desert-dream, and had lunch w/ an LA
girl who really dug
the premise and will perform it when her time comes- i
dreamt i was lying on a
red rock in moonlight with a menstruating girl who changed
into a panther then back
again, while always communicating an intense human sexual
love-energy
through her eyes- since she was bleeding, and since i
was exciting her
while playing with her pussy, i covered my fingers with
her blood and
slowly, quietly and ceremonially (with a soul-understanding
telepathy
between us) formed design-lines on her face, and a half-moon
between her
breasts. i then did the same on my face, with a sun on
my chest, then made
great shuddering love with her (actually a piece of this
dream-imagery
really occured last summer, on the beach at dawn, my girlfriend
and i
f-cking on the sand in the rose mist-light, air cool,
her bleedind into the
small waves that came up under her butt then receded,
carrying
blood-tendrils into the ocean).. anyway, not all the stuff
is this
mythopoetic!!.. i do try to push the boundaries as much
as i can.
i'm always going up to couples in porn shops and late-night
bodega hangs and
handing out my card (i vibe it out- got a small but interesting
group of
folks from that approach), got a very street couple, her
a
chinese/puertorican pre-op TS w/ a 6'4" boyfriend who
are working this week
in a boiler-room dirty scene, etc.. some slutty gay-boys
have expressed
interest in a scenario so we shot some slutty gay-boy
raunch as well (since
the superstar of the site is Manhattan island). the more
raunchy stuff
that i enjoy but which became arbitrarily illegal a few
years ago (fisting,
restrained-while-being-penetrated, etc) i'll be going
to europe in the fall
to shoot, then link back to my site. no kids, that's a
given- anything
else, between consenting adults, is fine and will be explored.
i consider my work to be a statement, my small offer of
an antidote to the fascistic,
cancerous black rain of the present "administration" (occupation,
more likely) and
it's pathetic inherent hypocrisy, its insane obsession
with the corporate
death&profit machine.
i've placed as much focus and creative energy on this
work as i
have on illuminati- it's my current art-form; again, my
"sketchpad/diary".
"What's wrong with fisting and golden showers?" you once
asked. And I ask you in return, "What's artistic about
fisting and golden showers?"
to me, they are inherently beautiful acts. if they are
done with an understanding between the people involved,
they can be tremendous electric turn-ons.
most women i've been to bed with enjoy both of these activities
tremendously, even though a lot of them hadn't been exposed
to these things previously. again, it's something about
the primal animal feelings evoked, at the proper time.
even the lez-feminist crowd has authors among their ranks
who extol the various pleasures of fisting and pee-play
in their dyke"how to" books.
sadly, these activities were made illegal to include in
domestically shot-and-distributed adult films in the 80s,
because conservative members of the judiciary/senate/congress
jumped on the adult-industry witch hunt begun by the likes
of the meese commission, and those laws haven't yet been
reversed.
i see similarities to the prohibition laws of the 30s,
especially considering that these are harmless activities
between consenting adults, were around in the culture
forever, and were perfectly legal to shoot before the
politically-motivated laws. |
PICTURES
http://www.accuraterecords.com/5044joe.jpg
Wearing his clothes, Joe strums a guitar.
http://www.blackmirror.com/images/frontpage/06.jpg
Joe facilitates a “butt painting.”
http://www.blackmirror.com/non/images/nov/nov-ron1.jpg
Mustachioed pornographers enjoy a peaceful moment.
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