AVN Awards 2008: Reliving the dream

The AVN Awards show gets bigger every year, and this January the event was covered by Showtime, which is getting chummier and chummier with the adult industry and which recently broadcast the event.

Here are some images from the show.

“You’re one of those people I want to rescue,” Dave Navarro said to Joanna Angel.

“I’m actually doing quite well for myself, thanks,” said Angel.

When he’s not hawking New Balance footwear, Navarro has been working with Teravision as a director and appearing at adult industry events.

People in the adult industry have varied reactions to Navarro. Some welcome his Jane’s Addiction/Red Hot Chili Peppers fame but others say he is another mainstream celeb who has not “paid his dues” to the porn business.

This sentiment isn’t exclusive to porn; it’s just more noticeable. Success breeds contempt, especially when you’re not “one of us.”

A similar contingent within the business begrudges outsiders making money from their takes on porn. The writer David Foster Wallace was beset upon by calling an often vulgar industry “vulgar” and pointing out spelling errors in AVN magazine {excerpt}. “Fight Club” author Chuck Palahniuk had some factual and logistical inaccuracies in his porn-themed book “Snuff” and porn blogger Gene Ross said this:

But in Palahniuk’s novel titled “Snuff,” fiction, it seems, is stranger and, apparently, a whole lot better than truth. Such is the basic fact – that most of what Palahniuk writes about here, bears little resemblance to what you’d come across in the real porn world.

If that’s the case, why should we quibble about minor details getting in the way of a good story, you might ask? Well, for Doubleday to cash in on a really bad, tedious book with Palahniuk’s name attached to it, for one thing. Although I’ve yet to come across a review that hasn’t gone out of its way to kiss Palahniuk’s ass which was one of my reasons, aside from the obvious, for grabbing a copy to begin with.

Or put it this way. If some Joe Blow nobody had submitted this idea, the publishing company would have been firing off rejection slips faster than premature ejaculation.

I say that overcoming heroin addiction has allowed Navarro to test in to the porn business. But Joanna Angel does not need rescuing.

Teagan Presley returned to the AVN Awards after bouts of having a family. Red carpet co-host Kirsten Price said, “You look so beautiful! I can’t believe how tiny you are!” or “You look so beautiful; I can’t believe how tiny you are!”

It looks as if Navarro is talking with a cardboard cutout of Tera Patrick, the way I often talk to a cardboard cutout of Chewbacca. The reality is that Patrick is ready for a pose a millionth of a second before a camera flashes.

Jenna Jameson and Tito Ortiz stop by. Jenna is chipper and talks about the future, what with her company being nominated for 52 awards. She does not tell Navarro of the bomb she will drop onstage.

Jameson’s speech, as captured by the Showtime coverage, seemed rambling. Prior to announcing Stormy Daniels as the inaugural Jenna Jameson Crossover Star of the Year, Jameson said, “It’s apropos that this award is named after me.”

She also talked about being battered in the mainstream press, which had called her skinny and divorced. “But I’m not divorced,” she said, and thanked boyfriend Tito Ortiz for taking care of her.

Then she said, “Everything’s beautiful…I want to be honest for a second. Honesty is key. Honesty is key. I will never, ever, ever spread my legs again in this industry, ever.” (In a previous report I got the number of “ever”s wrong, but I had quoted from AVN).

She moved on after this, and declared Clubjenna to be an adult industry powerhouse. It was an odd moment. Two months later, Clubjenna released a five-year-old “new” Jenna movie.

Navarro with muse Sasha Grey. I am in the background of this shot, thinking, “That Navarro has a look. I don’t personally like the look – he looks a little like a bug, but it works for him – but I’ve got to get myself a look. Maybe I should stick forks in my eyes.”

Awards host Greg Fitzsimmons takes a shot at Max Hardcore, calling him the retarded guy who captured Curious George. That seemed harsh to me, but Hardcore took it well. There is a huge Margaret and H.A. Rey fan base in the adult industry, and all know that the guy who caught Curious George was the Man in the Yellow Hat.

Tera is forbidden by law to take a bad picture.

The first AVN Awards were handed out in a room with fewer than 200 people. Hillary Scott goes to collect her Supporting Actress award before a crowd of 6,000.

Larry Flynt is the Christopher Reeve of the porn industry, except Flynt got his injury on the job. People love him.

Guess which person has two children?

My hood ornament.

See my AVN 2008 gallery here.

Previously: AVN Wrap-up 2008
See also: AVN, Showtime

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Gram Ponante is America's Beloved Porn Journalist

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