In “Pimpin’ Ain’t Easy,” “Bad Ass Frank” Prather’s self-published bromance of one, the erstwhile porn agent spends a lot of time distancing himself mentally, if not physically, from the people he worked with every day.
“There is no one whose existence is more indicative of what’s wrong with the porn industry than the porn agent,” he writes in his semi-chronological book of blogs and essays from his three years as a video pimp.
Damning statements like these pepper the book and are immediately acknowledged by the author as hypocritical.
“Wait. Wasn’t I a porn agent?” he writes in the next paragraph. “Um, well, uh. I was totally different. Seriously.”
For nearly 300 pages, Prather breaks down the life of his small agency, Bad Ass Models, and the comings and goings of its more famous clients, which at times included Hailey Young, Ginger Lee, and Sasha Knox.
“Girls who do porn suffer from a complete lack of self worth and need to be acknowledged,” he writes. “Even in the most unhealthy ways.”
So there Prather is, shuttling Hailey Young to a bukkake, which he writes is filled with “pathetic, sex-starved outcasts.”
To read this book is to become vividly aware of the amount of time wasted when bright people rationalize extra reasons for being where they want to be. Prather’s book is often witty, informative, and simultaneously a compelling case for and against living a life of porn, but the author’s pages of accusations, the recognition of himself in those accusations, and the resulting backpedaling killed a lot of trees.
“Young chicks are generally dumb as shit,” he writes. “Don’t get mad at me for that. I didn’t make them dumb as shit. I just got paid for it.”
And his descriptions of the agenting process and the fallacy represented by the good-for-30-days selective STD test provided by AIM will doubtless shock those who haven’t lost the ability to be shocked by anything that happens in the adult business.
“Across the board [agents] break all of the laws and regulations followed by the mainstream talent agencies,” he writes. “Yet nobody in porn says a fucking word because they are all too stupid to know any better.”
Prather said his intended audience for this book is not industry insiders. “It’s written for the average person who thinks that the business is what [is portrayed] on HBO or G4,” he told me.
Aside from some of the women he represented and AIM founder Sharon Mitchell, whom Prather labels “a fraud,” the author does not name any names in the book.
“I could have named tons of directors [and] talent,” he told me, “but my personal experience with them wasn’t as extensive.”
For this reason, “Pimpin’ Ain’t Easy” is like the bound printout of an entertaining and semi-personal blog rather than anything more ambitious.
But Prather stresses that, even as an agent, he was not very ambitious, working as little as he could but taking time to marvel, from the limited perspective he allowed himself, how much money the big agencies must be making.
And, lest the reader think that the only thing that separated Bad Ass Models from other agencies was the scale of their operations, Prather says that he was not only a nice guy but that he also never involved his clients in the world of “privates,” which is like porn except without the camera or an STD test.
Since the book is an extended blog, it should come as no surprise that Prather presents as intensely narcissistic, though he will often qualify his egomania with a sprinkling of self-deprecation. This is a sign that Prather is the real deal, because porn is filled with overcompensation.
“I’m sure you noticed throughout the book that a common theme was my delusions of greatness and superiority,” Prather wrote me, but he protests too much; by blunting imminent criticism with vulnerability, the net result is not a zero balance but a sense that the author doesn’t want to create the impression that he believes his own hype. But he does believe it. These reversals made my head spin.
Prather, who was born in Maryland and who moved to Los Angeles to be a comedy writer, now makes his living as a casting agent for basic cable, and does standup on the side. “I’ve upgraded to a business built on honesty and integrity,” he wrote me in a letter that should have been in the book: “reality television.”
Again, Prather hedges his bets. But there are fleeting moments of comic poignance in odd places, such as the threesome he had with a woman named Laura and Sasha Knox. (And it wasn’t a private.)
Prather had an instance of erectile dysfunction in the face of what most men can only dream of. And Sasha Knox, pro that she is, offered him redemption.
“It is at this moment that Sasha reaches down to where my throbbing member should be, only to find what I’m sure made her think, ‘Snausages,’ and she looked into my eyes. The realization that I was unable to get aroused was instant, and with her next move she forever redeemed herself for any past, or possibly future, transgression.”
I won’t tell you the admirable Girlfriend Experience Knox rendered, but her book should be “Whoring Takes Skill.”
“Pimpin’ Ain’t Easy” is a quick read by an engaging writer on a compelling topic. It could have been a better expose’, but, like porn in general, it doesn’t try very hard.
Buy “Pimpin’ Ain’t Easy” at Amazon
Previously on Porn Valley Observed: The Best Porn Books of 2009
See also: Bad Ass Frank
Wow – that sounds very interesting. Might have to take me a gander.
You should. It will be an entertaining part of a good porn library.