What If AVN Had Hired Michael Thomas Strothers

The previous post made me think of this and since all have moved on now there is no harm in telling it all.

Way back around the turn of the century when Luke Ford was carving out a niche blogging about porn, AVN had decided that they wanted to counter Luke Ford and expanded Gene Ross’s responsibilities to include that failed endevour. (for the life of me I cant remember or find what that site was called.)

Anyway, Gene chose to leave the employ of AVN for an offer at Rob Black’s newly formed Extreme Associates.

I got a call from Paul Fishbein and he asked me point plank how I would feel about taking Gene’s place.  It was explained to me that I would have to move to Los Angeles. My first reaction was hey shouldn’t this be offered to Tod Hunter?   (I have always liked Tod and wouldn’t have wanted any hard feelings)  Paul explained that it had been and that Tod had no interest.

An offer was extended and it was indeed, generous.  It would have made the move worthwhile for sure.  I asked for time to think about it and that was granted.

I actually had difficulty with the whole idea, I have never really liked L.A. As I sit and write this I can only consider one place to go that would be equally bad…Hell, and I expect i’d rather go to hell than L.A. but I digress. I guess I knew at the time that I was inclined to take the offer, because I was envisioning myself in the AVN Officers in Chatsworth or wherever they were and I was picturing myself in  Los Angeles.

On Monday I got a call from Paul and I was ready to accept.  Paul was hesitant, he explained that he felt very badly about making me the offer because Tod Hunter had changed his mind and decided he wanted the promotion after all.  I told Paul that I understood and not to worry about it because it had been a difficult decision for me anyway so no hard feelings.

I can’t help but wonder how that might have worked out had Tod not changed his mind and I had accepted.