Thank you Vince, you ever find yourself in Atlanta let me know
Since porn news and sex trade politics can become old hat stressful, there is a site called the Rialto Report that documents the fascinating tales of porn pioneers and all the pratfalls and illegalities that befell them when 40 foot screens made us larger than lowlifes. And I’d recommend here that more vets tell their stories like me so as to boost readership and attract ad revenue. Since South is a performer personality and dedicated journalist in his own right, he deserves content to keep this site going.
While there are old timers like me who when interviewed come across as bitter, out of touch or disillusioned, I enjoyed every bit of my porn past. On rare occasions, I still get recognized. Talk about destiny. My BD is the same day Deep Throat opened in 1972. I never sweated the stigma or made excuses to appease critics. Though I felt I had unfinished business, seeing the biz fall victim to piracy and fall apart made a comeback much too unsettling to contemplate. Yet I was able to find a good woman and settle down with a love life that’s been a long ongoing private domestic loop for my libido ever since.
It has been 18 years since I hung up my lube. I could shoot tomorrow and not miss a beat except that my cum shots are just about average now and not three times the volume and distance of the average man like in my heyday. In my prime I was meant for this and had a good decade to sew my X oats. What I had to fall back on was my ability to find love the old fashioned way with nothing to offer but my heart. What happens to others who got nothing but awards and plaques to keep them company when the phone stops ringing and video lay for pay is history? Forget about a safety net. Many just want freedom to extend their fame and reinvent themselves. With a will or a way.
This is why it hurts me to see how we don’t put a value on our potential outside of the biz and there are no PR businessmen or savvy agents prone to perpetuate our star power in multimedia. I once heard that Tom Byron went through a stint where he wanted to be a rock star. If he hadn’t given up, maybe it would have sent a message to the rank and file. That life goes on when porn is in the rear view mirror and you can move on with other goals.
I’ve been fortunate to have people skills and humble charm that made me a survivor in life after porn. But some folks aren’t so lucky. The net is filled with stories of former big shots on the skids who have to scout fanboy sites for subsistence handouts or vanity project funding campaigns. Why can’t the industry bond and band together so talent makeovers or rehabs aren’t left to charity from the public at large? Let’s care for our own.
Where are the visionary showmen in our midst to take naked infamy and turn it into a legit star search cause for serious showbiz consumption? In all my years, the only bright idea of note was porn star karaoke over at that dive in Burbank. Adult insider budget business sense should’ve taken that and ran with it. How do I figure this? I was the first Xer to sing there. Word got out who I was and the owner turned it into a virtual porn night club that we could have and should have built on our own. What a waste,
But that was then; this is now. The media likes to talk about Porn Valley like it’s some west SFV amusement park. Ok, then. Where are all the rides, attractions and ancillary gig tie-ins? Are we all doomed to be bit and byte ghosts in digital video cyberspace with no aptitude or opportunity to crossover and no connection at all to the untapped alternatives of acting,song, dance and live entertainment? Where’s our Andy Hardy to put on a porn show? If we turn X into G, the fans will come.
Former starlet Sunny Leone is the most famous celeb in her old country. Why aren’t there others like her here? For all we know, given the right talent promotion, some B girl escorting on the side could be the next It girl in Hollywood. In a reality show culture where the Kartushians are famous for nothing but big assedness, the sky should be the limit for pink ladies of X. So give a bukkake starlet blowing money shot bubbles for a living a break in a Lawrence Welk champagne bubble musical comeback of the wholesome media of yesteryear.
Fed up with where the biz wound up, as therapy I once wrote my autobio memoirs only to be told by an X lifer contemporary that “nobody cares”. I can understand that attitude outside of the biz. But in it, if we don’t respect the life stories of our own kind, then how do we extend our relevance in a world where old school glory defines who we are and the best in pop culture regardless of rating is judged by quality experts to have graced the second half of the big bang of showbiz in the 20th century?
FSF said there are no 2nd acts in American life. But why should X as a profession be a matter of lifelong typecasting? I’m some-what comfortable with my situation since I’ve learned that family is a job you can take on when the simple things in life become more important. But what about the best of us who have fallen on hard times and have no more forum to sell their soul in showbiz? Who speaks for those who have to be on a stage to be happy? Those whose mistress is fame and fortune and have nothing left to keep them busy when it’s gone. This rant is dedicated to them.
Vince Del Rio
2 Responses
Spawn this is a fantastic post (and Mike as well!) Spawn you are now endeared to my heart. Thanks for writing it, I enjoyed reading it.
It’ll be interesting to see. There’s a famous story that years and years ago, when Marilyn Monroe was breaking out, the studios learned that she’d posed nude. A studio exec is alleged to have asked: She didn’t show her asshole, did she. That’s seemed to be the standard back then. I don’t know that that much has changed since. Mainstream starlets have posed nude; they’ve showed us breasts, butts, and maybe some bush. But none has ever really exposed herself. And, I’m not sure that mainstream is yet ready for that level of reveal – assuming a starlet is willing to do it.
On the porn side, we forever wait for the X-starlet who is going to break through into mainstream. Ginger Lynn got a few breaks but could never bust through; Jenna got a chance or two before she became a train wreck; Tara Patrick looked like she might have a chance when she was married to Spyder and he had a reality show – instead they both tanked; Sasha Grey looked like she was going to do it, but she’s never really been able to move beyond her porn image.
So many young girls come into porn looking fresh faced, new, and excited and within a year or so, they’re tatted up, blown up with implants and botox, and just start to look hard and jaded. They become one-dimensional, real life blow up fuck dolls.
That just doesn’t translate to the screen.