“Pornographers, some of them anyway, co-opted Thompson’s jargon since they fancy themselves as heirs to a kingdom never bequeathed,” Booty says. “Fucking poseurs.”
“You know a lot about porn,” I respond. It’s an obvious thing to say, but this is the best I can do while watching two costars from a previous scene eat Papa John’s and talk about tanning salons.
Booty nods and directs my attention to the man in the scene. The actor looks like a Marine with a slight steroid problem. He’s holding the camera, angling it down toward his partner’s face.
“It’s not just fucking,” Booty says. “Dude’s a cinematographer and shit.”
It’s a strange skill—filming your own sex scene—and I find myself wondering if the guy listed camera operator on his acting resume, or acting on his camera operator resume. Either way, watching him in action I’m pretty sure he has a unique, albeit peculiar gift. Most men wouldn’t be able to get a blow job and keep the shot steady and in focus.
I’m about to ask Booty if the guy gets paid extra for performing and running camera when someone taps me on the shoulder. I turn around and see a woman who I quickly guess isn’t a porn star because she’s wearing pants, which seem to be a workplace no-no.
“I can get you five minutes with Johnny,” she says.
I’m not sure I want to spend any time with Johnny, but it’s not like I’m going to write about lackluster fellatio. So I stand up and follow the woman through an open sliding door out to the backyard.
“I didn’t catch your name,” I say.
“I didn’t tell you my name,” she says, pointing to Johnny, who stands shirtless under an avocado tree.
“Should I wait for him to get off the phone?” I ask.
“I don’t know. Do you usually interrupt important calls?”
“Are you a publicist?”
“How’d you guess?”
I smile, but I don’t get one in return.
We stand together in silence, watching Johnny Toxic pace under the avocado tree. It’s too cold for sunbathing, which makes me think his decision to go shirtless is either a show of solidarity with his cast, or proof that he’s somewhat unbalanced.
We wait.
I shift my weight to steal a glance at the mystery woman. She’s pretty in a sad sort of way—taller than me with a pearl-white complexion and hair as black as ink. I consider flirting, but this doesn’t feel like the time or place. There’s nothing like the stink of a porn set to dampen your amorous ambitions.
“OK, reporter guy!”
Johnny hangs up the phone and beckons me to join him under the tree. I step forward, noticing Johnny flexing his pectoral muscles. The right part of his chest is dominated by a tattoo of a headless green knight. On the left side of his chest, there’s a tattoo of a red knight. As he flexes his pecs, both knights appear to bristle for combat that will never quite materialize.
Apparently, I’m staring too much, because Johnny says, “Don’t worry, I’m just getting pumped for my scene.”
Grateful that Johnny’s prep involves his chest and not his dick, I unfold my reporter’s pad and lob him a softball question.
“Why did you decide to make this latest installment of the Fuck-Whores franchise?” I ask.
Johnny lights a cigarette before answering.
“They put a gun to my head, that’s why.”
I write down the quote and circle the word gun. But before I can ask who “they” are, the mystery woman intervenes.
“That quote should read, ‘I signed on to make Fuck-Whores 8, which streets January 4, because I wanted to give fans of extreme gonzo the ride of their perverted lives.’”
I chuckle, but I am alone.
“You should write that down,” she says. “Or I can email you the quotes.”
I look around to see if I’m on some kind of prank show, but the only cameras I see are inside, where Semper Steroids is fucking Bored Blonde, who keeps telling him to hurry up so she can get to her pot shop before the happy hour discount ends. Thankfully, the camera is pointed at her ass, because Semper Steroids has a vicious case of butt acne.
I toss another easy question to Johnny and get an equally toxic response. Without hesitating, the flak polishes Johnny’s turd of a quote. And once again, she manages to jam the release date into a parenthetical.
“Hey Johnny,” I say. “Maybe we should do this without your publicist?”
“She’s not my publicist,” he says. “She’s here for TubeWorks.”
I circle TubeWorks in my notebook. I’ve never heard of them, but I make a note to ask Booty.
“You can’t print that,” she says.
“What?”
“That I work for TubeWorks.”
“Do you?”
“Yes, but you can’t print it.”
I continue the interview, but there’s really no point. Our pattern is as predictable as the porn scene being filmed behind us. I ask a seemingly innocuous question, Johnny spits out a venomous, if cryptic, response, and the publicist translates it into promotional gold. And so it goes until someone screams out “cumshot” and I turn around to see Bored Blonde on her knees, a forced look of anticipation on her face.
“Don’t you need to be there for this?”
“What’s the difference?” Johnny says. “Everyone knows what their job is here.”
I turn to the publicist, waiting for a translation, but she doesn’t offer one.
“Shoot it on my fuck-whore face,” Bored Blonde shouts with the manufactured enthusiasm of a telemarketer hooked on painkillers.
As Semper Steroid adjusts the camera for the close-up and a grip leans in with a bounce board to get the light just right for the money shot, the publicist signals an end to our interview.
“Yeah baby I want it,” Bored Blonde says.
I compliment Johnny on his tattoos because I’m not really sure what else to say.
“Yeah, I’m into all that Arthurian shit,” he says. “Motherfucking knights and badass dragons, you know?”
We walk back to the house. I notice that the publicist is just out of earshot, so I decide to press my luck to see if I can dig up some industry gossip.
“I wrote an obituary about Big Juggs,” I say. “Did you know him?”
“Big Juggs is dead?”
“Yes,” I say. “I guess you didn’t see the story.”
“What story?”
“The one I wrote.”
“I don’t read industry news. Nobody does.”
Johnny stomps out his cigarette and grabs his leather duster from a dirty deck chair.
“They got Big Juggs,” Johnny mutters.
I press him to explain what he means by that, but Johnny cuts me off.
“You got to quote me in the article,” he says.
“It already ran,” I say. “I was wondering if you knew anything about why Legit Productions is filing for bankruptcy?”
“I want my quote to say...”
Johnny thinks for a second, clearly working on a gem. I humor him, pressing my pen firmly against my reporter’s pad.
“Big Juggs was a pioneer,” Johnny says. “He was a titty-fucking legend.”
Johnny looks at me like he’s just handed me a brick of pure gold. I scribble chicken scratch onto my pad, making it look good by muttering, “titty-fucking legend.”
“Great,” I say. “Now about the bankruptcy. Isn’t it unusual for a porn company to go bankrupt?”
“The whole Valley is going broke,” Johnny says. “Sorry reporter guy, I gotta fuck this chick.”
Johnny takes the camera and points it at Bored Blonde.
“Aren’t you a nasty fuck-whore,” he says in a voice modulated to be just a little creepy.
Bored Blonde admits that she is a fuck-whore, while Johnny zooms in on her face. With his free hand, Johnny drops his pants, which is apparently the signal for Bored Blonde to part the drapes of his black leather duster.
“Let’s see if you can fuck the whor
e out of me,” Bored Blonde says.
“Great, that’s the trailer,” Johnny says. “Hey Ron, next time try and last a little longer. I had to cut my interview short.”
Ron turns his back and I notice a tattoo. It’s a depiction of the Marines raising the flag on Iwo Jima. Only instead of Marines, the flag is being raised by porn stars, each one bustier than the next. I’ve seen this image in our office. It’s the logo for the Free Speech Coalition. They’re the closest thing porn has to a trade association, Sunny told me before adding that they’re “a bunch of scumbags and dirt balls.”
“Suck it, you fuck-whore,” Johnny says. His tone is urgent, like everything in the world depends on the fuck-whore sucking it.
“She’s not going to get cleaned up before the next scene?” I say to no one in particular.
“It’s called Fuck-Whores 8,” the publicist explains. “And it streets January 4.”
Chapter 5: Heywood Jablowme
It doesn’t take me long to turn my Johnny Toxic interview into a story because there really isn’t anything newsworthy to say, except that the eighth installment of a franchise I’ve been told is “undeniably popular” will be available on DVD and online January 4.
I’m not sure why, or if, it makes sense to sell a DVD at the same time that you’re giving away the title for free online, but when I ask Booty for his input, all he can say is “typical dumb-ass shit,” before turning back to his desk.
The contradiction strikes me as odd, but I don’t dwell on it. For one thing, there’s work to do. A lot of it. For another, I’m the newest reporter on what’s supposed to be a multibillion-dollar beat. I know about as much as the next guy, which is to say that I know someone, somewhere must be making some serious cash, even if every masturbating cheapskate on the planet knows you don’t pay for porn, assuming you have an internet connection. So I copy and paste the cast list into the story, cross-reference that information with some of their other seemingly notable credits, and work in a few canned quotes.
Next, I comb through our previous stories on the Fuck-Whores franchise and decide to write a quick retrospective for story number two. It’s book report journalism, and it takes about twenty minutes to research and another ten to write.
For my third story, I take a tech angle, stitching together some internet research with a couple of quotes that Johnny gave me about the camera he used in the shoot. The story is mediocre, but at least I’m able to work in a still photo of the Bored Blonde blocking out her scene with the acne-crusted ex-Marine. The behind-the-scenes “skin” ought to appease Dean, I hope.
It’s not exactly what I thought journalism would be, but as I proof my copy, I take satisfaction in knowing that I’ve filed four stories on my first day. Best of all, I haven’t been downsized or fired. All in all, things are looking up, even if I’m laying in a media gutter.
“The pace is pretty brutal, huh?” Booty asks.
“Yup,” I say, not really sure that I agree. But I’m eager to connect with a colleague.
“Is it always like this—shitting out as many stories as we can?” I ask, trying hard to commiserate.
“Pretty much,” Booty says. “Porn is a volume business, same with porn journalism.”
Booty hunts and pecks on his keyboard, laboriously banging out his copy one key at a time. Not wanting to show anyone up, I sit on my last story and try to look busy.
My mind drifts to the publicist. I find myself wishing I had gotten her name. Professionally speaking, I should have gotten her name and contact information. That’s what pros do, right? Of course, if I’m being totally honest, my interest isn’t all that professional. She was pretty in an understated way. And the way she talked kept me on my toes, like a sparring match where the sting of each jab on your face feels good because the electricity reminds you that you are alive, that whatever else you do on this planet, you owe yourself a chance with a person like her. Maybe it’ll amount to something, maybe it won’t, but you know that you had better try before some sucker gets the assignment to write your obituary.
I try to put her out of my head, but her eyes keep coming back to me. They are dark as the night and oval-shaped, like a pair of almonds laid out horizontally. Her eyes are sad, like they conceal an irresistible lie, or an unknowable truth. Whatever it is, there’s a question mark behind those eyes, and I’m forced to admit to myself that I am a sucker for a woman with sad eyes. Such is the nature of lust in disappointing times, I suppose.
“Hey Booty,” I say. “Do you know anything about TubeWorks?”
Booty sniffs out my ruse with the acumen of a veteran detective.
“Rachel doesn’t date porn journalists, man. Sorry.”
Rachel. OK. I have a name. That is progress.
“I’m not trying to date her,” I say.
“Why not?” Booty asks. “She’s banging. A little emo, but I’d hit that shit.”
“OK. Good to know.”
I let Booty go back to his typing. But when he asks me whether I think cumshot should be one word, two, or hyphenated, I take another crack at picking Booty’s big brain of porn knowledge.
“One word,” I say after a quick internet search. “That’s the common usage. Listen, about TubeWorks, what’s their deal?”
“Assholes,” Booty says. “Total. Fucking. Assholes.”
“What do they do?”
“They’re a tube site,” he says. “Actually, they own all the tube sites.”
“All of them?” I ask, not bothering to mask my incredulity.
“Pretty much,” Booty says. “There are a few other owners, but they’re like eighty percent of the traffic. And they’re ruining porn.”
It’s hard to imagine how anyone could ruin porn because porn doesn’t seem like something that is capable of ruin. Or maybe, porn is something that already comes ruined. I don’t know. But when I see an instant message from Sunny appear on my screen, I am reminded that ruined or not, the porn mill chugs along.
I press send on my story and decide to kill the last hour of the day by reading up on TubeWorks, figuring the topic might make a good story to pitch, whether they’re ruining porn or not.
As it turns out, we have several dozen stories that mention TubeWorks, but not a lot of information. All I learn is that TubeWorks owns an unspecified—possibly unknown—number of tube sites, which have become the primary platform for delivering adult content online.
None of the articles identify an owner for TubeWorks, or an executive, or even a spokesperson. In fact, none of the articles about TubeWorks even had a comment from TubeWorks. The stories were all about content distribution deals. The general gist of each was that TubeWorks had acquired the rights to stream the library of X or Y company for an undisclosed sum. Beyond that, the company is a total blank.
Frustrated, I Google TubeWorks, but all I get is porn.
“No looking at porn on the job,” Sunny barks. “That’s frowned upon.”
She has her bag slung over her shoulder and a battered brown jacket on. She says it’s quitting time and reminds me that we’re closed tomorrow for Christmas.
“By the way,” she says, “Dean took the liberty of assigning you a porn name. We needed to put something up, and we didn’t know if you wanted to use your real name, or what. You can change it later if you want.”
I call up the obituary I wrote in the morning. The byline says Heywood Jablowme, as in, Hey, would you blow me?
The name is a subtle jab at my brief stint as a mainstream journalist. At one time or another, most newspapers have attributed a quote to a Heywood Jablowme, or an I. P. Freely, or one Amanda Huginkiss. Evidently, Dean is fucking with me. But I’m not sure why. Either he always messes with the new guy, or Dean is just a dick.
I decide to keep the name. For one thing, I don’t want Dean to think he’s gotten under my skin. But more than that, the name makes me feel as though none of this is real, like my stop here in Porno Land is a hazy detour of raunchy make-believe. It’s as if I’ve s
tepped into an alternate universe, and in that way, the name suits me, not so much as an identity, but as a shield from the consequences of a reality that is incapable of penetrating porn’s bubble.
So I am Heywood Jablowme, I guess.
Still, I wonder how on Earth the name could possibly be compatible with Oz’s vision of porn professionalism. For a moment, I consider the possibility of another awkward conversation with the man who explained the difference between girlfriends and whores in my job interview, but I quickly put the thought to rest. I share an office with one Booty Blunt, who apparently left without saying good night.
I turn to the door to wish Sunny a merry Christmas, but she’s gone too. Apparently, my new office isn’t big on manners.
I shut off my monitor, and close the book on my first day.
Chapter 6: Merry fucking Christmas
December 25, 2011
The streets of Los Angeles are cold and empty on Christmas morning. You can drive for miles without seeing another car—it’s like heaven, or the apocalypse, I can’t tell which.
I use a small check from my parents to buy gas for my car and treat myself to a pancake breakfast at Du-par’s on Ventura. It’s one of the few places open on Christmas, but no self-respecting native would go anywhere else for pancakes.
I use the day to write a few blog posts for a content farm that’s been my only steady source of income in the last year. If I hustle, I can make a few hundred bucks a week, which is just enough to keep going, but too little to live on. Such is the economics of the search-engine-friendly content that litters the Web.
One post is about how to choose an energy efficient dishwasher, a topic I know nothing about because I rent an apartment that doesn’t come with those kinds of creature comforts. The other post is about cars with six-figure price tags. Again, I am out of my element, a feeling that has taken on a whole new meaning recently.
Not Safe for Work Page 3