Stephanie Swift was not returning the calls. I gave up. We would have to find someone else to sign at our booth in Las Vegas at the AVN show. Worse, I know I sounded like a frigging didn’t know  he’d been dumped yet high school boyfriend that hadn’t taken the hint yet when I left the messages basically pleading with her to return my calls on the promise, made weak with such hesitation and uncertainty, that it would hopefully, maybe, possibly be worth her while. Time was running out. We would just have to try and find someone else that would stand there and look hot and keep a smile through grueling hours of slobbering guys paying her greasy compliments all day long. In addition, I had other concerns to deal with because our genius graffiti artist hired to spray our booth had not come in yet to discuss the artwork and he was becoming just as hard to get a call back from. I am not sure if that is a compliment to porn stars or a critique of artists but either way I was going nuts and was ready to throw the artist into an anal gang bang scene or spray the flaky porn girls with a can of rust-O-leum.

Finally the artist came by the office to discuss the booth. I told him we wanted it to tell a story about the evolution of Homegrown Video, how we started as a purely amateur porn company but blossomed into something completely unique and how far we were looking into the future as we grew and matured as an adult entertainment company. He nodded but when he nodded he seemed close to nodding out since I think he had worked perhaps one too many late nights with a can of paint spraying out mind altering vapors of toluene without the protection of a gas mask. This may have had some benefit to  the creative side of the process but nailing down some sort of  business arrangement was becoming increasingly complex; I might as well have been dropping acid and trying to take the police entrance exam.

I couldn’t be sure that he actually understood that we needed the work done by a specific deadline in order to send the booth to Vegas in order to be set up in time. I couldn’t even tell if he had actually started work on it. He asked if I could provide some reference material to help inspire the female figures that he wanted to paint. Well, in an amateur porn company that certainly was not  going to be a problem. Why it took so long to get to that point, dude wants a porn handout, fine, not like I haven’t  heard that before, was a bit beyond me. I wasn’t about to sniff paint to figure it out though; I went to the rack full of all the porn mags that we had and grabbed a few for him to review. He showed me some pictures that he wanted to use and I said no problem, good luck, ok I will advance just a bit  more of the cash that was not due until completion, please, please, please  get this  done in time and sent him on his way. He tore out the images carefully and went on his ethereal, dopey way.

A few days later, the magazine was still on my desk.  I opened it up to see if we had any of our movies reviewed. Nothing. But there was something that certainly got my attention faster than a porn star faking her first orgasm. I turned the page and there was Stephanie Swift. Not only was she very clearly and prominently featured absolutely blatantly in a porn rag, but also she was engaged in an act that truly represents the very pinnacle of porn sluttiness. There was sweet and shy Stephanie Swift, who didn’t  want her boyfriend to know that she did anal or other guys and didn’t want her boyfriend’s parents to know that she did an amateur porn for Homegrown Video, pure and natural amateur Stephanie Swift in a gang bang video. Anal, oral, vaginal, the triple penetration crown of dirty nasty whorishness, massive multiple loads of spunk plastered on her face from a bunch of meat heads and mooks, even a line of guys bending over for her to lick each and every one of their assholes, including the hairiest and nastiest puckered sphincter of the king of smut himself Mr. Ron Jeremy, Stephanie was doing it all and with a sly smile on her face. Maybe she was just happy that she had a multi-video contract. Maybe she knew that once people saw her licking Ron Jeremy’s sweaty stank of pubic twirled and curled anus they would know that she was capable of going where not porn star had gone before.

After a few vagina shaped cupcakes dripping with hot white frosting, enjoying a cup of coffee or maybe some pinot then interested parties can attend any of a number of lectures that are presented regularly. Who wouldn’t want to be informed about the relationship between economic prosperity and pubic hair? Everyone needs to learn about how amateur porn altered the perception of celebrity in popular culture and how that has positively impacted society. The implications of how porn has inspired and propagated emerging recording technologies would appeal to the tech geeks.  How dull a life would seem without the benefit of knowing how Homegrown Video inspired the world to a more exciting sex life, to be the star of the movie, the object of desire, and an inspiration to others so that they too might achieve better, more invigorating, and satisfying orgasms. And we all know that will make the world a happier place.

Lucky us.

This is not just the name of the game but the purpose of the business. That is why I sincerely hope that this vision of a Porn Hall of Fame can one day leave the world of sex fantasy and become a reality. Increasing and inspiring the erotic on this planet can only do more good than harm.

 Well, the unfortunate truth is that I won’t even have to worry about making the cut because I don’t even merit walking the red carpet. Apparently, those who were intended to walk the carpet and get interviewed by Showtime were accorded a special badge and though I might be a Hall of Famer I guess I am not worthy of any time with the camera and the microphone. That’s it. I am getting a boob job. Why else would they possibly rebuff me and put the kibosh on my saying anything important, idiotic, patriotic, or mundane? Haven’t I paid some good dues? I was one of the last of a nearly extinct form of male porn dude – the generation of studs that had to service their co-stars free of Viagra, Cialis, or any other form of penis enhancing drug. Didn’t I fight for the industry to prevent it from being unfairly taxed and make a great impression on the California legislatures when I talked about our Mom lending us her life savings to buy the company. What about initiating the Defense Group which took on a $100 million dollar firm of attorney patent pirates and gave them such a lashing that the industry has been virtually untouched by similar rogues ever since.

I guess none of that matters without a great set of tits properly placed by a pre-eminent Beverly Hills plastic surgeon. I suppose I should take great consolation in the fact that supposedly I will be receiving a plaque of some sort which I will be able to proudly display on a wall in an office that precious few will ever be able to see. There is not a porn hall of fame museum in some place like Canoga Park or any place like that where fans can come and steep themselves in all the great porn memorabilia of days gone by. Wait, that is a great idea!

The day is approaching. The moment is near. My date with destiny lies at the end of a long red carpet trampled by a thousand pairs of heels so high girls can see the full circle of every balding pate of their respective dates. I am a bit nervous. Showtime is taping for the show to air on cable television. I am worried about them being able to edit the event down to something watchable, free from the boredom that is an inevitable by-product of delusions of grandeur. Probably shouldn’t worry though since there is enough cleavage and bare mid-riffs and tight dresses draped on shapely asses to make viewing bearable. I shouldn’t be so cynical about it since I have been there so many times across so many years. I should be considerate to those that are trapped some place far, far away trapped in some sort of dull existence that does not include the reality of the porn business, only the fantasy, which is hopefully what the Showtime editors will regale them with by leaving the dull and stupid parts on the cutting room floor.

Oh snap.

What if I get left on the cutting room floor?

At that point I suppose I would probably be dodging a gaff that some huge bruiser of a stage hand would be extending to try and get me off the stage. The microphone would screech with feedback and ears would be crunched in the distortion as I was wrenched from the stage. The stage hand and I would try to smite each other mightily off in the curtains while the hostess porn starlet scrambled out with a  look of pure terror and not knowing whether I would return for more, or if someone would show up with a spare microphone by the time she took to the podium. As I clawed desperately into the floor trying to scratch my way back to the stage literally crawling on my belly until reinforcements showed up for the gaffer and attempted to beat me into a pulp.

My mantra. Sex is food, people have to eat. Just saying, thinking, feeling it gives me a warm fuzzy feeling and gives me a renewed sense of purpose to face each day in the porn industry. I have always felt that a lot more positive things could come from working in the adult entertainment biz than negative. I still feel that despite all those distributors that told us to “fuck off” in no uncertain terms when we first took over the company, regardless of those unscrupulous webmasters that ripped off our domains and all the receivables from our sites, never mind those directors that wanted me to work all day for peanuts, literally, because they expected me to just work for the sex and the snacks. I know in heart of hearts that the same so called “hippy” altruisms that I stood for when I came into it still exist today. I believe that orgasms are good for people. I believe sexual repression leads to all sorts of problems of the spirit as well as mental and health issues. I think porn can serve a positive function in a truly free society.

The evils of this industry are in the same selfish motives that ruin every other good intention. Any place people can make a buck you are going to find folks trying to steal that dollar any way possible. That is the way of the world and I don’t profess that porn will change any of that. I only say that sex, properly revered, brings smiles to an otherwise dreary world. Sex is the ultimate act of creation, the art form that can be practiced by nearly every living thing. No gangster, suitcase pimp, pervert fuckwad is going to change that.

Just barely able to squint through the glare of lights I would see the un-amused, the bored, the drunken blank stares of my peers which would be facing me down and I would have to act quickly or else go down in flames.

“I came into this business with little more than my dick in my hand but I didn’t know dick.” If I was going immolate myself then I might as well do it with rocket fuel, then at least the fire would be twice as hot and hopefully the pain would be over quickly in less than half the time. “I didn’t have mafia connections. I didn’t have a set of perverts for parents. I wasn’t a runaway hustler out on the street looking to step into the big time with a drug habit that only doing porn would pay for.  I didn’t have a big shlong. Everyone knows I was never going to make a good suitcase pimp. All I know is that I didn’t have a clue what a liberal arts degree would bring to the bank account and I was never going to make it working for the Man in corporate America. In fact, I didn’t have anything more than a healthy sexual appetite.”

You bet I would be grinning lasciviously at whatever starlet happened to be sitting close enough to the stage that I could see her to offer my smile, wink, and nod. Of course, there would have to be a quick prayer that it wasn’t actually one of the trannys waiting to receive his/her award moments later after they gaffed me off the stage.

“But that was not going to stop me. Put that video camera in my hands and I knew that I could fuck just as easily as I could pick up a fork to feed myself. And I knew this, sex is food, and people have to eat.”

I would see that very first amateur video that I shot with my ex back in the fancy suite at the Mandalay after that Grateful Dead concert at the Silver Bowl; the time our house mate shot our first naked shots in preparation for getting in “the book” at World Modeling, the first agency to specialize in handling porn stars; my first time on a big budget porn set shooting for John Leslie and dealing with all the male co-stars trying to psyche me out of being able to perform back in the days when there was no Viagra to be a crutch to your cock; there would be the time I took revenge on Bowen for trying to make my wife work with that drug addict Jerry Butler; my heart would beat faster recalling those anxious moments when Max Hardcore started a riot on Cinco de Mayo with Anna Malle taking her clothes off in the middle of a celebration in South Central LA but that would dissipate recalling the time Anna Malle took on the entire cast and crew and the term “Homegrown Moment” was coined; having sex on the prop truck while the cult film “Orgazmo” was being shot and the time we made Carrie Fisher believe I was Trey Parker and Trey Parker was me while we shot amateur porn with her and Richard Dreyfuss and Tim Hutton and Buck Henry; the time I froze up from being star struck with the opportunity to ball Christy Canyon in a Vivid Video until they had to call in Randy Spears to stunt cock for me; the fantastic orgies at the adult trade shows when sex was like a handshake in the process of getting to know folks; so many more scenes would streak by, each one punctuated by a cry of “cut” and “change position”.

I would grab the microphone in my sweaty palmed hand then say, “I guess all those hard days at the orifice have finally paid off.”

Then I would I would flip everyone the bird just like Johnny would.

Not really. But I would have to consider the possibility.

I would consider it. Then I would fight those impulses until I was literally sweating. Hopefully I would be far enough away from the audience that they would not be able to see how uselessly bad the perspiration flowed like a field sprinkler in a spring rain. Of course, that would be the dream because the reality is that the cameras would be in tight on a close up capturing every drip drop drip that ran from the tip of my nose or down the edge of my jaw to wet my tuxedo, eventually drying out later in the night to leave a nice yellow stain on my shirt collar. At least the time I took to overcome these issues and actually begin talking would deliver a sweet pregnant pause that would lend an air of authority and gravity to the moment. I would look around with a bit of confusion mixed with amazement and a touch of fear, much like a newborn before the spank that would make it wail and gulp for air in order to wail some more.

Then the audience would lean in a bit closer and move to the edges of their seats.  Just when they were about to fall off, or probably more appropriately fall asleep, or fall back to the security of the bars set up like bunkers at the back of the venue, then I would lean back into the microphone to begin speaking. Before a single word came out though I would experience something akin to a near death experience where one’s life flashes before their eyes, only it would be filtered out of everything not having to do with my time in the porn biz. It would play like a movie across my eyeballs, “The good, the bad, and the fugly”.