I have been at the U.N. Conference on Porn, Sex Work, Erotica, and General Waywardness in Trieste this weekend so I did not have the time to write in depth about last week’s XRCO awards. Here is the most comprehensive coverage you could ever read.
The Highlands Nightclub in Hollywood has become the de facto adult industry event location in Los Angeles, hosting several events over the past year. There is inexpensive parking, a bank machine two floors down, easy access to the Guinness Book of World Records Museum across the street, and an excellent view of where I interviewed Joey and Evanka Buttafuoco.
Also, former Digital Playground contract star Adrianna Lynn, now known (again) as Adrenalynn, gave me a visual aid in remembering how to spell her new old name. Adrenalynn is not at liberty to say why her time at Digital Playground was so short and I knew without asking that her reason for leaving involved a lack of access to me.
“It must have been difficult,” I said.
“You said it so I won’t have to,” she said.
Her pose reminded me of this picture of Mika Tan.
The XRCO Awards were one of the first reactions to AVN’s yearly adult awards, and are determined by a group of critics from around the world. I am one of the voters but I don’t know how they are funded; I only know that they are a very homey awards show that people are nevertheless paying more attention to.
That is not to say people really pay attention at adult awards shows, but this year I checked in about midway through the ceremony and saw that three quarters of the people who were seated at the beginning of the show were seated in the middle. This is a higher percentage than graduation rates in the L.A. Unified School District. It is also better odds than the national divorce rate after five years of marriage, as adult award shows tend to take five years.
And I’m not saying that I know who won anything, save for Upload, because I saw some Upload people on the stage, Jenna Haze, because she won one of the first awards and I was turned in that direction, and Suze Randall and Shayla Laveaux, who won Hall of Fame awards and I was making my way to the balcony. I also knew that Not the Bradys XXX got Best Porn Comedy because at one point its publicist and director, Jeff Mullen said to me, “Best Porn Comedy two years in a row, huh? Huh?“
But at no time did I hear the XRCO’s genial chairman, Jared Rutter, tell the crowd to shut up, as I’ve often heard his ousted predecessor, Bill Margold, shriek. The rabble seemed to respect him. So that’s something. And when a man can walk into an adult awards show and still see people paying attention 45 minutes into it, well, I’ll say the porn business is doing just fine, considering.
It was important for me to move around because I am like a shark. I need to move or I’ll die. I am also like the wind. Also: a lone wolf. By those means I saw much and little. I saw Scott Fayner and thought, Didn’t he die? He was sitting with married porn graphic artists Jodie Marie and Dave Goodman. I thought: Didn’t I give them the meat hammer? You know, for their wedding? Like in Braveheart?
I got a grand idea to photograph every porn star I knew with my shot glass of Jagermeister but the project began and ended with Ava Rose.
Adrianna Nicole refused. I don’t know on what grounds. She needs to loosen up more. She needs to know that I won’t hurt her. She’s so goddamn meek.
I’d been there for three hours when a security guard noticed I didn’t have a wristband.
“I just walked in,” I told him. We had a conversation in which he repeated everything I’d just said, but changing the pronouns and adding italics and a question mark.
“You just walked in?” he said.
“No one stopped me,” I said.
“No one stopped you?” he said.
“I can go get one now,” I said, “but I’ve been here for three hours.”
“You’ve been here for three hours?,” etc.
At the front door I told another security guard that I needed a wristband to go back in.
“You need a wristband to go back in?” he said. I’d say the guards were related, but then all security guards look the same to me.
Outside I talked with Ashlynn Brooke, who is from Choctaw, OK.
“I love Oklahoma,” she said. “I’d go back and live there if I could. But Tommy loves L.A. too much.”
Tommy Gunn and Brooke are dating. I think the world must be peopled.
“Do you cook?” I asked. I don’t know why I asked this.
“Oh, yes!” she said. “Chicken fried steak, southern food, fried chicken … “
“Okra!”
“Yes.”
“Do you ever fry anything with another animal, like steak fried steak, or jaguar fried donkey?”
“I could, but I use chicken.”
Veronique Vega came by and I asked them to pose like they were in Gia.
Then Sophie Dee happened along, barefoot. She posed in a pile of cigarette butts. She has the most beautiful eyes. I imagine her appearing to Mexican children and the community making a statue out of her.
Before I went back in (now that I was legal), I took a picture of Manuel Ferrara, Flower Tucci, Sunny Lane, and John Stagliano. I complimented Ferrara on his diplomatic handling of Robin Leach’s photographer at the AVN Awards red carpet.
“I am a very gentle man,” he said.
Earlier in the evening Ferrara had walked by my XBiz colleague Joanne “Cha Cha” Cachapero and she had called out “Manual! Manual!” as if he were some kind of transmission. But maybe that is the way all men seem to Joanne, so hard is her heart.
Back inside I had another idea. My drinks gone, I would take pictures of women leaving the men’s room. The first was former performer/current AVN photographer Gia Jordan.
I am embarrassed to admit that I said something that made her respond thusly:
“All Gentiles think I’m Jewish.”
“I’m sorry,” I said. “So you’re Italian?”
“Half.”
“And what’s the other half?”
“Pakistani.”
I bet that courtship was fascinating. She showed me her shoes as she sat on the bar. I think she said they were Mario Rossis.
“Is that good?” I asked, feeling like I knew nothing anymore.
“Yes,” she said. “I got them at Goodwill.”
Speaking of shoes, Aiden Starr was wearing Dana Dearmond’s flip flops, and looked so small that, had she not just walked out of the men’s bathroom, I would have popped her in my mouth and blew a bubble with her.
The Highlands was closing for the night. I had worn my wristband for about 15 minutes.
After some internal debate, I went to an afterparty and didn’t regret it. I left this year’s XRCOs secure in the belief that next year Pirates 2 will have won something.
See the gallery here.
Previously: XRCO afterparty blind items; XRCO voting: One patriot’s story; XRCO night: A night to rememb; “Shut up, please“
See also: XRCO
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