Mug shot redux

I haven’t talked online about last week’s thermos incident because I didn’t want to dilute the facts of the event with speculation about it. I and a few other parties have been enjoined to be as precise as possible.

That does not mean there isn’t some fantastic discussion going on. I wish I read other sites more but I know I’d get too involved in them and not get any work done. Still, there is some thought-provoking commentary on ADT and XPT.

There is a person on ADT named AstroKnight whose exchange with the defendant I used without proper credit. I am sorry, AstroKnight; that conversation was e-mailed to me without attribution and I just reprinted it.

Someone on one of the boards referred to me as “tubby”. That was hurtful. But was it true? If so, I will accept it proudly without resorting to violence.

If I were writing for the news departments of either of the trade magazines I would frame this story, in descending level of importance, thusly:

• Unethical business practices. The defendant (allegedly) verbally threatened one employee and (definitely) physically assaulted an invited guest. Despite this being witnessed by employees of the troubled movie in question, the defendant was allowed to work.
• Assault on media. Yes, yes, I know: Is what is written on these sites really news? Often enough not, but the difference between these blog sites and other advertiser-supported publications is really a matter of degrees rather than substance. These publications and blogs are the only games in the business except every so often when the L.A. Times or LA Weekly drops in.
• Trade publication writers: have you ever been sold out by your management in favor of an advertiser?
• Is something not newsworthy unless it is written in a press release? Porn publicists write most of the news in this business; editorial departments are often reduced to copyediting.
• Media representatives sent home at the demand of the defendant (Mike South speculates on why the director in question hasn’t had any work released in some time).
• Talents’ views on media, particularly the idea that writers “take potshots under cover”
• An ordinary fracas on a porn set (and yes, in that all parties involved moved from the street to inside the building, and in that the assault happened under the auspices of this troubled movie, it was on the set).

That, of course, is moot. I have not heard from those publications either. One of the top stories on both AVN and XBiz today was that SugarDVD has asked an “American Idol” participant to be its spokesperson. Nothing against them, but that is as newsworthy as the things I want to balance on Nicole Austin’s bum.

It has only been in the past few days that anyone from the production has attempted to contact me directly, but they have been vocal elsewhere in both downplaying the incident and saying – ridiculously – how good the movie is.

I received the following e-mail from Britney Rears marketer Jeff Mullen on March 2:

Gram,

Sorry I was not yet on Jennifer’s set yesterday when that altercation with {the defendant} and you took place.

I am sorry it took place but it has given some wonderful viral marketing opportunities to {the troubled movie}. I hope you are OK.

Jeff

I have learned from cast members of the defendant’s latest directorial effort, and have confirmed with Sex Z Pictures Production Director Eli Cross, that the movie will not be released due to wholesale lifting of the script of P.T. Anderson’s 1998 movie “Boogie Nights”. I have further heard that this information had been delivered to the defendant just before the defendant showed up to the troubled movie’s shoot last week.

As I had not written or said the thing the defendant so stridently accused me of, I and others have been trying to figure out what the defendant’s actual impetus to violence was, or if, as it has been suggested, that those who have been talking about this incident not as a crime but as publicity might have engineered the whole thing, putting the defendant in a position to be criminally charged.

After Monday’s assault and the dismissal of the media from the property, the defendant e-mailed blogger Luke Ford the following:

Guess who’s next?

This is reason 2 why I’ve been spending such little time talking; a paper trail is creating itself.

I’ve received many supportive calls and e-mails, earnestly expressing the desire to drum the defendant out of the business. I’ve received accounts of other threats and bad behavior allegedly committed by the defendant in a career that is remarkable for the number of detractors and ridicule it has generated in so short a time.

But the LAPD is not going to drum the defendant out of the business; the power to do that has always been in the hands of the people who have hired (and might yet continue to hire) the defendant.

The defendant met with an LAPD detective. Part of his exlanation for his actions of March 1 included the words “the adult indiustry is so ignorant that they would not hire someone they thought was gay for a straight movie.”

I don’t think this is true. No one I talked with was surprised that the defendant starred in “For Gay Men Only” movies like Rim Shot; one of his former employers, who won’t use him because of his lack of professionalism rather than his sexual orientation, sent me to the website. The website lists the defendant’s name several times, but I was only able to find an identifiable picture for the above title.

The adult industry isn’t ignorant of the defendant’s filmed past; but they might be ignorant to continue using him.

Yesterday I opened the mail and took out a new thermos. Thanks Gamelink.