Toshi Gold

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"Toshi Gold" and his wife Julie own the porn companies Astral Ocean, Eurotique, Sacred Pools, and Mind Candy Emporium. A rockn’roll guitar player, writer and performer from New York, Gold holds a Masters Degree in organizational psychology.

At age 22, he graduated Columbia University with a degree in industrial psychology. "And I went to California because I was a musician [rock guitarist]… I had done everything in New York City that a guy could do big… So I thought, ‘if I am really big here, I am going to go to California and be even bigger. And get my big record deal. Then it comes to a time where you have to think about money. I met my wife in a nursing home where we both worked. And I had worked in the mail room of the Wilshire Blvd temple, just so I could play music… I found it hard to get a job because I was overqualified.

"My wife and I quit our jobs and put an ad in the paper saying that we would manage somebody’s business. And we found an American guy selling Sesame Street [TV show] to Japan. We worked his company…then he disappeared and left us with tons of bills. So I decided to contact the Japanese to see if there was any Japanese adult video because there wasn’t any in the market then. So with the six tapes we found, we started selling them mailorder classified ads, bringing in three or four orders a day, about $100 a day. We invested that in new product and new catalogues."

Toshi entered porn in 1987 via a mail-order company (Astral Ocean Cinema) specializing in Japanese sex tapes. He became a prominent pornographer in 1996 when he started producing the Skin line.

"It’s [Astral Ocean] a reaction against the other companies like VCA, Vivid who are great at story-driven porn. We have product from all over the world, anything you can imagine, so long as it is legal. From pregnant people in India, Africans, Israelis, American school teachers, hairy, whatever… We started with six titles from Japan and we mainly catered to people looking for asian stuff. But in 1992 we broadened out to amateur stuff, and kept the name Asia Blue for our catalogue. I have as many amateur tapes as Homegrown Video. We focus on the people who get our catalogue in their hands, it’s not what these adult magazines say about us. With the exception of Evil and Elegant Angel, 4-Play and Extreme, I go out the door with more pieces than 90% of every company. It’s that special unique fetish market. For instance, if I have Lips – The Movie, and I have 100 girls come in to show their pussies, and their not porn stars, it’s not fetish like bondage, but it’s different from a typical white bread movie from another company."

Gold’s Sacred Pools company sells tapes to special video stores that don’t compete with Toshi’s distributors. "Sacred Pools buys other people’s product at catalogue prices and then sells it [6-7000 tapes a day] to stores across the country. Astral Ocean and Eurotique never goes to catalogue [reduced prices, frequently less than $2 a tape]. They hold the highest prices in the industry. The day I do that [go to catalogue with Astral Ocean], you should start writing my obituary.

"Sacred Pools distributes tapes from Leisure Time, Vivid, etc… Why would I want to sell my stuff [Astral Ocean, Eurotique] for $2 when I can get $60 for a videotape. And I can sell some of Leisure Time’s videos for $60 and buy them for $2. It’s special marketing.

"I ship around the world, but there are eight states we won’t ship to, based on theme and content. For example, a Southern state, because they are racist while I am not, does not want a white female with three black guys. You can ship the reverse [three white guys with a black chick]. I find that racist, disturbing and disgusting. Nor would I send an all-cum shot tape to those states because it would have no story [and be more difficult to defend against obscenity charges]. Every day I pull out orders, for $200, to be safe. Because I don’t want to ever go to jail. I only want to sell stuff that I can defend [in court]. I have a wife, family and home, and it is not in my interest to break laws. I’ve never taken a bust.

"Even though our catalogue is extreme and wild, I am not going to have a tape in there where a guy is calling a woman a bitch. If we have a bondage tape, it is not women being tied up by disturbing dudes and abusing them.

"When I shot the first Skin movie [made by Germany’s Harry Morgan in 1996], I thought that I had finally found a concept unique enough to build a production company around. And it worked, selling 8000 pieces out the door.

"Our [Eurotique] lines include Maximum Perversion, Flesh and Little Women. As opposed to our [Astral Ocean] mail order catalogue which is not deceptive but it is somewhat deceiving. A lot of that product is horrible [in technical quality] but people buy it anyway, because if they want to see a Hungarian woman with pussy hairs as big as an old Lubavitcher [Hasidic Jew] beard, the only way they can get it…even if it is the 30th generation [copy]… We have legal ownership."

Astral Ocean distributes Jill Kelly’s new production company Jill Entertainment. "She’s loved by fans. And has done well on her own without every being a contract girl. We thought, no women are given an opportunity to shine with their own company. Except for Ona Zee, who has a horrible reputation, you haven’t seen too many women owners. So we told Jill that she could develop a series and hire her own directors, but she needed to put up money too. And she was able to pull her weight… I let her guide her productions. People say she’s my contract girl. Well, my wife and I are her contract boy and girl.

"We have no partner in our other businesses."

Toshi’s been too busy as a pornographer to play much music over the past two years. "I have CDs out [Them Generation]. I used to think I was a black guy [imitated Prince]. The guitar player (Tom Morello) for the band Rage Against the Machine came from my group. Morello was in Time magazine last year with a big picture saying he was the next Jimi Hendrix. He’s a black Harvard educated communist."

1/13/00

Owner of Astral Ocean, rocker Toshi Gold, has invested hundreds of thousands of dollars and hundreds and thousands of hours moving into the internet. He's set up netbroadcastservices.com which will encode video and other original media such as DVD into various formats for internet broadcast such as Windows Media, RealPlayer, QuickTime4, MPEG and mp3.

His encoding process offers up to 30 framers per second and real-time movies in stereo sound with no downloads. The video will be streamed. I took a look at his technology at CES and it appears among the best around, though it still falls short of video and TV quality.