Of all nights, XRCO night was one of them.
A night, it could be said, with words, and things to describe it, a night. A night, it might later be recounted, by the scholar, the historian, the enthusiast, of all things, in that place – for our time – yes, a night. A night. Words fail. The fisherman, the cleric, the hairdresser. A room. What I’m saying is: it happened at night.
Doors opened at 7, I showed up at 8. I got in at about 8:30, the sidewalk outside Vine Street’s Forbidden City pleasantly clotted with adult industry people, also wondering why it was taking so long, people being checked off lists. A being who looked like Spinal Tap’s David St. Hubbins pointing its camera at celebrities, being ignored, paparazzi outnumbering the people they covered, penned behind barriers.
“It didn’t used to be like this,” AVN’s Mike Albo said. “Ten years ago, there wasn’t a receiving line.”
I shuffled through the line with the stunning Jessica Jaymes. She could not wreck my marriage, but I could see how she might do a number on one less stable.
A quarter of the way up the line, I heard the first “Did you call me a fag?” of the evening. It was to be the first of 41. My situation has brought the adult industry together. It is a rallying cry that appeals to the business’ seventh-grade recess self. It has united people I used to think were smart with the ones I’ve always thought were idiots.
“‘Did you call me a fag?‘” Albo asked, about an hour after we first talked. “How many times have you heard that???”
“A bunch of times in the late 1980s,” I remembered. “And a bunch of times just recently.” The difference, of course, is back then I also had the taste of state-assisted tater tots in my mouth from lunch the period before.
Inside, the joint was jumping. I saw Ava Rose and Angie Savage. They need to open a really-short-skirted maid service. I think it should be called Really Short-Skirted Maids of America. I was surprised to find that Savage only performs dialogue scenes reluctantly.
“I don’t want to stand around all day to say, ‘You’re the only one who can save me’ or something,” she said. I have not yet arrived at her pragmatism.
Ava Rose is going to Hawaii at the end of next week to shoot Eden for Adam & Eve. It is to be one of their tentpole movies this year. I want to go. If Eden were “Fantasy Island”, I could play a Ted Lange-style guest star, because I am black, have a moustache, and can bartend.
I ate some mints. I didn’t drink a thing.
At about 9:30 the show still hadn’t started. I set up shop in a courtyard booth, where I spent the rest of the night. Because the show was so late in starting, and because the courtyard gradually filled with people and only got more crowded, I was surprised to hear the show had started and was finished.
Eyewitnesses say former Teravision contract performer Lucy Lee and Tera Patrick, the evening’s co-host, got in a scrape involving Lee throwing a drink (not coffee) at Tera and Tera throwing water back at Lee. The motivation is said to have been bad blood about the terms of Lee’s departure from the company and, perhaps, a non-compete agreement that had kept Lee from working. Money might have also been involved. I am being vague. Sources say Lee was the instigator but that she was the one who called police. Tera was interviewed by the LAPD inside the club. Lee departed. At about 9:50, Tera and her husband, Evan Seinfeld, opened the show.
Outside I saw jessica drake. “Hi Teagan,” she said. Our love began at the 2005 XRCO show. She did not ask if I’d called her a fag.
Inside, I am told, Hillary Scott won everything, even the California Democratic primary. Bill Margold was not there, so the show was short and enjoyable, though sound problems plagued the evening and Forbidden City’s stage was not the central area it should have been for the deployment of awards.
Also inside, another writer was jostled into the table of ClubJenna performer Chanel St. James, whose dress was covered with drinks (not coffee).
He apologized profusely. She replied, “I don’t care if you’re sorry – I’m all wet!” She left early.
It’s a good point. While it would have been worse if he hadn’t apologized, or if he had somehow tried to blame the situation on her, she was the one forced to leave the venue. I have become an advocate of victims’ rights.
Meanwhile, a steady procession of people stopped by our booth. I know plenty of people who go to Las Vegas in January but have long since stopped going to the AVN Awards. I never understood why, but I was missing the awards show I’d arrived to cover. I wish I’d known.
Michelle Aston came by.
“My armpits stink,” she said, her armpits stinking visibly. She had been the camera assistant on a shoot that had gone on unnecessarily long, and had only the time to make herself look pretty, rather than smell that way. Sometimes I think I look like Aston’s armpits smell.
I was sitting between Albo and The Floating World‘s Terri Redor. Aston looked us over.
“I could blow all three of you in ten minutes,” she observed.
I was feeling uncharitable toward Albo. I was going to ruin it for him. “Then you’d better blow me first,” I said to Aston. “Because you will never recover.” The Gram-hammer of the gods will drive your ship to new lands.
Adrianna Nicole, upon whose back I directed the seminal porn scene of this or any century, and who has been extending and then retracting offers to drink in our neighborhood, finished my evening.
Before I left, though, a mock fight broke out between two guys I have never met, and who I didn’t know. It happened about 20 feet from where I was sitting.
One asked the other, “Did you call me a fag?” and the other guy said, “Don’t take off your shirt.”
I heard the show was good. I am sorry I missed it.
Previously: “Shut up, please”
See also: XRCO
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