|
Mike McPadden aka Selwyn Harris Interview Mike is the editorial director of MrSkin.com and the editor of Mr. Skin's Skincyclopedia : The A-to-Z Guide to Finding Your Favorite Actresses Naked. Under the name Selwyn Harris, he wrote the funniest stuff (equal to the best work of Mike Albo and David Aaron Clark) I've ever read on the porn industry. We speak Tuesday night, February 15. Luke: "Bring me up to speed on your last five years." Mike: "I got laid off from the Chemical Market Reporter, which is a fine job." Luke: "How did you come to work there in the first place? How did you come to leave porn and how did you come back?" Mike: "I left porn in 1997 when Genesis was sold to Swank. I then went through a desperate two years where I was trying to scrub my resume clean in this frantic delusion that it was possible for me to be happy doing anything else. I worked for a weekly theatrical trade paper in New York called Showbusiness. Then I worked for a mega-billion dollar Hindenburg disaster dotcom called Organic. Briefly I was rich, in theory. "The only job I've ever been ashamed of -- I worked for eight miserable weeks for a hideous art-and-fashion quarterly in New York called Black Book. "I ran the editorial department of the Brooklyn College web site. "I got all these jobs through friends." Luke: "What were you doing at Genesis?" Mike: "I was the creative director. I was there from early 1996 to late 1997. Before that, I was at Hustler and briefly at Crescent [October '95 until January '96] aka Drake aka Blue Horizons. I worked on Cheri Undercover and High Society Insider. These were the last days of when they could put out anything in magazine form. They were just reprint books." Luke: "Did you meet [Crescent owner] Carl Ruderman?" Mike: "Never once. I'm fascinated by the guy. I'd love to know more about him. I'm not going to be the investigative reporter on that one. I'll leave that up to you." Luke: "Did you know [Crescent CEO] Bruce Chew and [Crescent exec] Norman Chanes?" Mike: "I knew Bruce Chew. I really like everybody there. I like Carmine [Belluci, VP]. All the higher-up guys. The Satanist guy [Bob Johnson]. A very good guy." Luke: "Did they consult with you before they set up their Internet scam?" Mike: "I can neither confirm nor deny anything like that." I ask Mike if knew various Mafia figures connected to the Crescent scam. Mike: "No. But as long as you are on this litany of musical-sounding names that end in vowels, the way I got that job was through one of my dear friends in life, Mario Grillo, who has been there for a long time. We both went to art school at SUNY (State University of New York) Purchase in the mid '80s." Luke: "Can you talk about your AA days?" Mike: "I drank insanely and I stopped." Luke: "Then you called everyone and said you were sorry?" Mike: "I did that with a couple of people I was particularly onerous to. Rick Hall, who worked at Crescent and presently worked at Evil Angel. He published a zine called Pantyline Fever, which I both disliked and viewed as competition to my Happy Land zine. "Like all good cowards, I think I saw him once, and thought I could beat him up, and then proceeded to bully him as much as possible. In print. "I didn't actually meet Rick until years later and I was never brave enough to bully him -- or anyone -- face-to-face." Luke: "Does porn go hand-in-hand with alcohol and drug abuse?" Mike: "No. Not for me. "The obvious answer is yes, because everyone I know is involved in some history of drug and alcohol abuse. But I'm happy to work in this business free of drug and alcohol abuse for a long time now as are a bunch of other people I know." Sexwrecks.com is owned by people in Chicago who would rather not be named. "None of us are going to jail though. It's not Mr Skin." Luke: "What's your role on sexwrecks.com?" Mike: "I'm going to give myself the title of creative director." Luke: "Who's Robin Bougie?" Mike: "He publishes an excellent magazine called Cinema Sewer out of Canada. He's obsessed with '70s porn. He's a dedicated researcher and he has no agenda other than being a fan. "I saw Inside Deep Throat this past weekend. I was appalled by it. It was the same story. Hollywood is the only defense between you simpletons sitting in the audience and fascism. Don't even bother thanking us. We'll make this movie and thank ourselves. Just show up and pay for it. It was just awful. "There are so many fascinating stories to be told and all of it ignored so that we can have Larry Flynt sit there [and gurgle] his ridiculous spiel. "The one guy who came off great was Harry Reems. They paint him to look like an ass at the end. At Gold Coast Chicago art theater where it was playing, they got the big guffaw they were hoping for... They freezeframe on him with a big stupid grin while playing golf and say, 'Harry Reems became a Christian.' And so everybody laughed. "That guy's story in and of itself would've been a much better movie than what they came up with." Luke: "When did you return to writing on sex?" Mike: "I always freelanced for Hustler until Allan MacDonell got fired. It was Spring 2002 when I went back to Crescent [for a year] and worked on Celebrity Skin. "I liked everybody at Crescent except my direct boss at Celebrity Skin [who now writes for AVN, what's his name?]." Mike moved to Chicago in April 2003 and went to work for MrSkin.com. Luke: "How are you different sober than when you were drinking a lot?" Mike: "I finish things. I'm able to hold a job, show up to work every day and get things done. Come up with goofy ideas and follow them through." Luke: "When you were a kid, what did you want to be when you grew up?" Mike: "I wanted to make movies. I ended up going to film school for a brief period." Luke: "What were you expected to become?" Mike: "I don't know. I was an odd character. I grew up in working class, ethnic, outer borrough New York City. It's cops, firemen and Wall Street guys. I was not one of those guys. I was tagged 'gay' very early on. I wasn't gay but I went into the arts as a gay youngster might. I went into the decidedly not-gay arts. "I graduated [the Jesuit all-boys] Xavier High School in 1986 [oy, if the priests could only see him now]. I wore a uniform. I went to twelve years of Catholic school. I only have good memories of it. "My father is a businessman and my mother worked for the city of New York. "I started publishing a zine called Happy Land in 1991. A friend of mine worked at the New York Press. She brought the zine in. Their art director, Michael Gentile, had previously worked at Hustler. He sent Happy Land to Allan MacDonell, who called me in 1992. So I simultaneously started writing for the New York Press and Hustler. "I was a drunken 23-year old dips---. There was such an enjoyable shock value in telling people you worked for Hustler. There was an immediate gratification in writing for the New York Press because it would come out the same week I wrote it and I could hand it to girls in the bar. "I lived in LA from 1993-95. I was trying to quit drinking. I spent a year dry. I started writing movies for Greg Dark. I had a nice apartment and a lovely girlfriend. Then I started sneaking drinks. I decided it was too hard to drink in LA. I should move back to New York where it is easy to drink." Luke: "How did you come to make peace writing about sex again? While you quit it, were people in the real world ragging on you about your porn past?" Mike: "No. This is the Internet age. This is the post-Girls Gone Wild America. I was working with hipsters in these Internet companies. They were all amused by it. The Larry Flynt movie (1996) was such an effective piece of propaganda. Everybody thought that I was fighting for their freedom on the frontlines cashing that paycheck. Everybody was tickled by me being a bad boy. The stigma is largely gone. "It's just what I'm most comfortable with. I like looking at vagina all day. If I can get paid to do it, I'm crazy not to." Mike has never married. Luke: "How have the women you've fallen in love with appreciated your line of work?" Mike sighs: "At this point, I have a reputation. They sign on knowing the deal. The last woman (Tivoli Fox) I was involved with writes for me. She was a major contributor to the book. When I was at Hustler, I dated a woman who worked for Flynt. I don't poke around outside the realm that would find this acceptable." Luke: "What's your favorite part of your job?" Mike: "I like making dumb jokes about boobs and making a nice living at it. It's what I would do anyway." Mike says MrSkin.com occasionally gets letters of complaints from actresses featured on the site. MrSkin.com has a lawyer write back that the site is just reviewing their work. They can play their clips by the Fair Use doctrine. The site contains thousands of movie reviews, which then allows the site to claim that showing clips of naked actresses is fair use. Luke: "What happened to the angry Selwyn Harris?" Mike: "I can get pretty angry still. About a year ago, there was a guy from the Chicago Sun-Times who came to the office, hung out with us for a day, and wrote a standard-issue profile of MrSkin, isn't this funny, and then ended it with: 'And the list of reasons why they hate us keeps growing.' "Here we are, another nugget of grotesque America, to hold our noses and point at. "I hit the ceiling over that." Luke: "Why did that get you so angry?" Mike: "It was just a disgusting example of hideous elitist snooty crap. "I like America. I like big stupid stuff. I'm not going to distance myself from wet t-shirt contests and chickenwings. "The New York Observer, another embodiment of everything I despise, did a snarked-up article on our Skin scouts at the Sundance Film Festival last year. .......... "Writing about that first Annabel Chong gangbang did shake me to the core. I did talk to those guys and paint them as ghoulish and bizarre and the whole thing as Roman circus disaster. All the human desperation on parade. It ceased to be amusing to me and became sad. "I can't stand people. I'm not into going out and doing things. I do play in a rock band called Gays in the Military. We do incorporate elements of pornography into the show in the form of nudity and bizarre displays of horrific excess. I'm the rhythym guitarist. We are four large men who play almost nude and a tiny girl drummer." Mike stands 6' and weighs 230 pounds. "I got beat up really bad once in LA by a homeless guy. I did not fight back. He jumped me in front of the lovely Seventh Veil strip club. One week after moving to Los Angeles. I was walking home from the Sunset Five theater at 2AM. He jumped me from behind. I ran up to the door of the Seventh Veil and said I had to get in to use the phone. They said, no, no, we're closing. They pushed me back down the stairs into this guy's waiting embrace. He started to whale on me. The bouncers watched. Then he took off his belt and whipped his shirt open to show how serious he was in his performance before his audience of homeless onlookers cheering this on. "He started cracking me with his belt. That's when the bouncer intervened. He said, if you are going to hit him with the buckle, take him across the street. "In that one second, I went flying into traffic and hopped in a cab." Luke: "Does your band Gays in the Military have a large gay fan base?" Mike: "Yes. Miss Julie Fabulous, Chicago's reigning drag icon, is our mistress of ceremonies. "We're playing next month with a band called The Rotten Fruits. They're a lot like us but they're actually gay. They play nude and are a sight to see as well as a sound to be endured." Luke: "What would you like to say to your large gay fan base?" Mike: "Please come on to me because it boosts my ego." Luke: "Seriously, it does?" Mike: "Yes. Once I was walking out a Times Square porno theater in the late '80s, and there was hispanic midget sitting on the stairs going up to the balcony and he saw me and started going, 'Pssst, papi. Come on. We go upstairs. Me and you.' "I passed on his offer but my self-esteem shot up through the roof on the way out." Luke: "What type of men normally hit on you?" Mike: "None. That's why I'd like them to start." Luke: "How many porn stars have you been with?" Mike: "One. In my office at Hustler. I don't know what her name was. She was in two movies that I know of. She came and went quickly. "A porn director [Greg Dark?] I knew told me how to get any girl in pornography. We called it the Polaroid trick. He said, you get a Polaroid and say you are working on a story on the wildest new girls in porn. You have to make sure that this girl is new to the industry. "They come up to your office. You say, I'd like to take your picture naked. You take some Polaroids. While you're taking Polaroids, you say to her, why don't you play with your pussy? They'll start doing that and then he assured me this will work. They go into professional mode then. All you have to do, your only leap of faith, is to reach out and touch, make some advance, and you will definitely close the deal. "I tried this once and was successful. I really am this uptight Catholic guy. I was freaked out after the fact. Immediately upon wiping up afterwards [Mike just received oral sex from her]. I felt not nice for having taken advantage of her. "I am not a smooth operator." Mike says he's been with about 25 women in his life. Luke: "On the Kinsey scale, with one being completely hetero and seven being completely homo, what are you?" Mike: "One-and-a-half because I did have sex with the hand of a transvestite when I was drunk. It was at The Vault [S-M club] in New York with David Aaron Clark who did not know I was doing it at the time and who I lied to afterwards. "I told him that a fat housewife had come over and whacked me off, when in fact I saw a drag queen offering free handjobs and I took my dick out and put in his/her hand. "I was completely out of my mind the next day. I immediately started doing this damage control. I called David and said this crazy housewife was whacking me off in the corner. I checked to make sure she was a woman. "My fake story got printed in Screw. "I apologize David for feeding you bad information. "It took me two years before I admitted it to anybody. "This was after a year of being sober in Los Angeles. I came home to New York over Christmas and met some of my old cronies. We started at Billy's Topless and we ended up at The Vault. "We tried to get an interview with Al Goldstein for MrSkin and whoever was representing him said he would require $200 before giving an interview. We had to pass." Duke: "Who are the most obnoxious editors you've had to deal with in the sex industry?" Mike: "In his prime, Allan MacDonell. Hands down. The king. He was a powder keg. He was a nutjob. But a great editor. I was talking today about how much he taught me. He was certainly prone to explosiveness." Duke: "Mike Albo?" Mike: "Albo was a good guy to me. Albo writes for sexwrecks.com. Albo to me was always this gentle soft-spoken funny guy. "I'm one to talk. I was an asshole in my day. "Now I live the life of a 16-year old with an incredibly good allowance. I watch movies. I play cards. I eat pizza. I go on dates." Luke: "What about personal growth?" Mike: "Huh? I try to be a decent person." Cafe Feh Selwyn Harris writes on sexwrecks.com:
She tells sexwrecks.com: "The family has no problem with it, mainly for the fact that I made so much money--and legally. My best friend since third grade caught her dad and brother--at separate times--watching one of my films on the Spice Channel. That’s when it gets weird." 'There’s something very lovable about the big-breast lover' Dian Hanson tells sexwrecks.com: "They tend to be open, outgoing, physical, accepting of the flaws of women, happy with the functioning female body. They like the body that gets pregnant. They like the body that gives birth. They like the body that lactates. There wasn’t the picky demand for perfection. They tended to be more rural men. They tended to live in the red states rather than the blue states. They were often slightly less educated. They were the kind of guys who in their personal ads would say, “Fats welcomed! All ages okay!” They loved mom." Detective Magazines As Porn For Sadists Dian Hanson tells sexwrecks.com: "When I lived with [artist] Joe Coleman I bought him as a gift a subscription to Forensic magazine and became familiar with Park Dietz in there, who was always the prosecution’s witness in forensic cases. He’s the most famous forensic psychiatrist. He had written about detective magazines as porno for sadists. There is no more perfect pornography for sadists, and he campaigned to have them suppressed in the 1980s. Going from that and having some knowledge of sadist behavior and knowing what’s found in the homes of sadists, you find detective magazines. This is something they were regularly masturbating to. If we allow that sadists do have sex lives, this is going to be far more interesting to them as masturbatory material, and certainly was through the ’70s, than any of the men’s magazines out there."
|
|
|
|