“Where’d you go to high school?”
“North Hollywood,” I say.
“Valley boy. Decent football team, more mean than talented. Did you play?”
I shake my head no, trying unsuccessfully to snap a piece of plastic in place so I can sip from my coffee. Yum Yum has shit coffee and equally shitty lids, but at least they don’t write your name on your cup.
“I played at SAMO,” he says. “Defensive end.”
Dean doesn’t strike me as a Westside brat, but then again he has twenty years on me. Back in his day, Santa Monica really was a quiet beach town, which is how the national media describes the place whenever some celebrity makes the police blotter, probably because that’s what it says on the city’s Wikipedia page.
Twenty years ago, a lanky kid who was fast and mean had a chance playing on the defensive line. Back then, the newspaper business had a desk for a local like Dean, who had been a general assignment reporter for a now-defunct daily before a mid-career layoff left him with a few obsolete skills and fewer options. I’m not sure of the specific wrong turns that landed Dean at The Daily Pornographer, but he’s been here longer than anyone. Dean, as they say, is a lifer, and this is his seventh holiday season with porn’s second-best trade publication.
“Today is going to be pretty slow for news,” Dean says, his eyes rapidly coming to life as he mainlines his coffee. “Always is between Christmas and New Year’s.”
My quota still stands, but without the magazine hanging over our heads, I know that this week’s pace won’t feel quite as much like a gangbang. But a slow news week also makes things harder because stories will be at a premium. On the upside, I can use the time between assignments to dig deeper into the Toxic case. On balance, it’s turning out to be a better week than the previous one.
“You want to bet if Sunny comes in today?” Dean asks. “Twenty bucks.”
“Seriously?”
“I never joke about betting,” Dean says.
Suddenly it occurs to me that the sad fact pattern that led Dean here probably stopped at locations like Gardena, where LA’s most degenerate gamblers go because it’s a hell of a lot closer than Vegas, and twice as bleak. Then I remember that USC kicked the shit out of their bidirectional opponent at some crap bowl game this weekend. Dean’s distaste for all things Trojan probably caused him to bet against USC, despite the odds.
I’m pretty sure Dean is here for the paycheck, but I suspect that The Daily Pornographer also has some serious fringe benefits for him. After all, it has a tolerant substance-abuse policy, boobs, and the prospect of using gullible coworkers to climb out from under gambling debts that never quite go away.
“I think she’s done,” Dean says. “The only thing she hates more than porn are pornographers. You saw her on Friday.”
I did see Sunny on Friday, but I’m not really sure that proves anything. Like everyone else, she was frazzled and eager to put the magazine to bed.
“But why now?”
“The holidays,” he says. “There’s nothing more depressing than a porno Christmas.”
Dean could be right. Truthfully, I have no frame of reference, and it occurs to me that while I was eager to prove my worth at a new job, my colleagues saw last week as a meaningless grind, slogging through nonsense and vulgarity when the rest of the world was supposed to be warm and joyful.
“Why don’t we close for the holidays?” I ask.
“Branding,” Dean says. “Oz is a marketing genius.”
I fish my donut out of my bag, hoping the snack break will prompt Dean to explain my mysterious boss. With a nod to porn’s paranoid culture, he looks over his shoulder to make sure Oz’s office is dark.
Oz, it turns out, is one of those tech geeks who was there at the beginning of online porn. That is the secret to his success. According to Dean, Oz had been a clerk at store called Egghead Software sometime in the early 1990s.
“This was back when everything was on floppy disks and you had to go to an actual store to buy a computer program,” Dean says. “The store was next to a food court in the Galleria.”
I assume Dean means the old Sherman Oaks Galleria, where they filmed Fast Times and Commando, because at the new Sherman Oaks Galleria the food court concept was rejected in favor of the suburban cuisine trifecta—P.F. Chang’s, El Torito, and The Cheesecake Factory.
“Oz was a hacker,” Dean says. “But this was way before hackers were cool.”
There wasn’t much cachet in being able to hook your friends up with free AOL access when the only thing the site had to offer was the ability to chat with other geeks, who already knew how to scam AOL.
“Again, this was before geeks and nerds were cool,” Dean says. “For the life of me, I still don’t understand how things got that way.”
“Revenge of the Nerds,” I say.
“Exactly,” Dean says, not catching the fact that I was dropping a reference, which became an exceedingly cool film as a result of the aforementioned revolution.
For some reason, Oz lost his job at Egghead Software. Dean suspects it had something to do with him hacking into the company’s payroll system to squeeze a few extra bucks out of his paycheck. But while Oz strikes me as greedy, I have my doubts about this particular claim. For one thing, Oz seems like a big-picture guy who wouldn’t risk jail just to make a few extra bucks. Plus, Dean can’t explain why Oz dodged jail, which is important because of what happened next.
“Oz was the first man to charge for porn on the internet,” Dean says.
“You’re shitting me?”
“I shit you not, dude.”
According to Dean, Oz had a reputation for hacking into corporate computer networks. He was just a kid pulling pranks. Oz never stole any data or destroyed the sites he broke into, but he’d usually leave a picture of the stars who were big back then—women like Ginger Lynn, Christy Canyon, and Nina Hartley.
“That was back when porn stars were actually stars,” Dean says with a nostalgic smile. “They had two names, first and last, and they only had to take one dick at a time.”
“So the women were his calling card?”
“Yeah, that’s how people knew Oz online.”
Dean is fuzzy on exactly how it happened, but soon after he was fired from Egghead, Oz hooked up with some guys who had invented a method for processing credit card payments online.
“The credit card companies wouldn’t handle porn,” Dean says. “They still won’t, that’s why the third-party billers make so much money. They’re like banks for pornographers.”
One of the original third-party billers had reached out to Oz because he had a reputation for sharing porn GIFs to the handful of tech-savvy wankers who populated the early online bulletin boards.
“Why did they need Oz?” I asked incredulously.
“Branding, dude. Nobody knew these guys. Who would pay them for porn?”
“But people would pay Oz?”
“They would, and they did.”
Oz set up a site, which wasn’t so easy in the early days of the World Wide Web.
“He hand-coded it in HTML, dude.”
It was crude, but functional. The problem was that Oz didn’t have any content. He could have made his own porn, but he didn’t have the money for a camera, crew, and talent. Making porn cost money back then, the kind of money that would’ve taken a retail clerk like Oz a lifetime to amass.
“Besides, can you picture Oz talking to porn stars?”
Despite his title as owner and publisher of a porn trade publication, I have a hard time picturing Oz actually talking to porn stars, or even being in the same room with them. Although for a brief moment an image of him picking his nose in the presence of Mary Jane does flash across my mind’s eye.
“So anyway, Oz just grabbed some pics from some magazines and made some more stills out of videos,” Dean says. “VHS videos, dude. Old school.”
Oz charged $29.95 a month for access to the site.
“Within a ye
ar, he was making money hand over fist,” Dean says without the slightest awareness of his pun.
As other adult webmasters came online, Oz became something of a leader. He wasn’t the best webmaster out there, but this was the internet, where being a founding member of the community counts for a lot.
For a while, business was great. New customers just showed up and handed over their credit cards.
“That was the good news,” Dean says. “But it was also the bad news.”
The studios that made porn movies back then took notice. A few of the more legitimate companies called their lawyers. Some of the more reckless Web guys gave them the finger, but within a year or so they all went down for coke, underage girls, or both. On industry bulletin boards, Oz settled the rest of the herd, and people noticed. But there was another problem because back then, according to Dean, there were also a lot of porn companies that had mob ties, and they weren’t as easy to deal with.
“The business wasn’t totally legal,” Dean says. “You needed the mob to distribute back then. You think you can just sell dirty movies in Bumblefuck, Kentucky, without some shit-kicking cop busting you? You need protection, the kind the mob sells.”
Luckily, Oz wasn’t the biggest target out there. The mob tried roughing up a few webmasters and muscling in on a few more. But Oz knew something the mob didn’t—the internet was about to destroy their business.
Gambling had gone corporate, smut had gone digital, and the FBI didn’t have much else to do in the nineties. There was money to be made, and webmasters from Amsterdam to Florida began pouring into the space. They all stole content, and nobody could stop the horde. But someone needed to organize the business, and that’s when Oz came up with a logo.
“The guy is a genius with logos,” Dean says. “And that’s really all you need to make it in business—a kick-ass logo.”
I suspect that there was more to it than that, but within a few years of the birth of the commercial porn business online, Oz had staked out his territory as the publisher of an email newsletter that reported on issues relevant to adult webmasters. Not that Oz was out of the webmaster business.
“He had his own affiliate network,” Dean says. “MegaCash.”
Most of the affiliate networks use either the word cash or money in their names. This, according to Dean, is porn marketing at its finest. Using the words cash or money is the most obvious way to remind affiliates that sending traffic to a particular network will be incredibly lucrative. And because it works, everyone copies everyone else.
“Naturally, if they all have cash or money in their names, it sort of defeats the purpose,” Dean says.
“Is this where the branding comes in?” I ask.
“It’s all branding, dude. That’s why the internet guys are our readers. That’s why we own the future of porn and PND owns the past.”
I look at Dean and realize that he’s probably spent the last seven years behind his desk. From his vantage point, it’s easy to think that our brand matters to the industry. I don’t doubt the fact that we get traffic, but a week in the field talking to pornographers has taught me that whoever the hell is reading our website certainly doesn’t make porn in the San Fernando Valley.
“The online guys need news all the time,” Dean says. “It’s an on-demand world.”
“So you’re saying we report news even when there is no news to report because we need to keep up the illusion that we’re the authority on adult entertainment?”
“It works for CNN,” Dean says.
“Yeah, OK...”
“Look at our logo, dude,” Dean says, pointing to an image of a clock superimposed over a spinning globe. “It’s all about the logo. Right Oz?”
I turn around, and suddenly I see Oz working on a pesky booger that must be lodged deep inside his nose. It’s hard to reconcile Dean’s claims with what I found on GFY, but I remember Bobby Beauchamp’s advice and decide not to mention the forum in Oz’s presence.
“Hey Oz,” I say. “Did you have a good weekend?”
Oz doesn’t answer. He’s not being rude. People skills just aren’t his strength.
“I fired Booty,” he says.
I’m floored by the news that my office-mate has been fired. I’m tempted to ask why, but Oz has already left the office that Sunny and Dean share. Dean straightens up behind his desk and starts banging away at his keyboard.
“Dude, you better get on a story,” he says. “The boss is here.”
Chapter 35: Typos
When I get back to my desk, there’s an instant message from Oz waiting for me. With one emoticon, two links, and a dozen words, Oz explains why he fired Booty, reemphasizes the imperative of professionalism, and dispatches me to cover a gangbang.
Dean’s half-assed story has enough holes to drive a truckful of porn lore through, but I suspect he may have a point about the secret to Oz’s success. Although Oz’s secret sauce most likely has more to do with a commitment to robotic efficiency than an intuitive gift for branding.
I look at Booty’s desk and wonder if he’ll swing by to collect the pictures of Mary Jane that adorn his corner of our otherwise bare office. That’s when it sinks in—I’m the only reporter left.
In a normal office, this would suggest job security, at least in the short run. But I do not work in a normal office. In fact, I don’t even think normal is a word in porn’s lexicon. The essence of porn is abnormality. Even in its most basic premise—watching two people screw—you’ve violated the laws of normalcy, because that doesn’t happen every day, unless you’re a Hollywood mogul. Then it’s pretty normal, at least according to Miles.
But beyond the premise of the industry, just about every aspect of porn—from the size of the dicks, the clits, and the boobs, to the sex acts themselves—is adverse to normalcy. And while the industry is always looking for ways to market itself, you’ll likely never see a video about normal people with typical genitals and average-sized boobs fucking in the missionary position. Nobody would watch that.
Not that there’s anything extraordinary about most porn, despite the fact that most of it strives to at least appear superlative. Last week, a pornographer who makes lesbian orgy movies told me that volumes one and two of Let’s Be Friends were both the greatest porn films of all time.
“They can’t both be the best,” I protested.
“Sure they can,” he said. “They are both the best.”
“But even if I grant you that volume one, for example, really is the best,” I told him, “Then volume two can’t be better, otherwise it would be the best.”
“I don’t follow.”
Naturally, there was logic at work there, what Booty called pornification. Nobody would buy the second-best fuck film, or click on the lowest-rated clip. They both have to be the best, even though neither one really is. It’s a marketing imperative, even if it’s a lie. All porn movies have the most fucking and the nastiest whores, the biggest tits and the hardest cocks. Admitting anything less would be to admit failure.
Hollywood does the same thing, of course, promising the best explosions, biggest laughs, and yes, the hottest actors you’ve ever seen. The difference is Hollywood is better at lying. Or maybe the standards of porn’s fans are just lower.
I search for the word normal in The Daily Pornographer’s articles. We’ve published nearly seventy thousand articles in a little over a decade. Only three of those articles contain the word normal, and none of them use that to refer to the content.
I do a few quick Google searches for Detective Boyd, but come up empty. He doesn’t even have a Facebook page or LinkedIn account. That would be weird for most people, but I suspect that cops are somewhat immune from the pressure to use social media. On the other hand, I’d love to see Boyd on Instagram, because that site doesn’t have enough food-porn shots of burgers and donuts.
Sunny walks by my office without a hello, and I realize I better get a move on if I don’t want to join Booty on the unemployment line. But befor
e I leave, I run a quick Google News search on Boyd. The query turns up quite a few hits from the LA Times and the Daily News. Unfortunately, all of those articles are old and therefore locked behind paywalls. But two of the articles are somewhat current and therefore free. I email myself the links so I can read them later.
I grab a notepad and a few pens.
I leave a note for Booty with my number in case he comes back to get his stuff. I’m on my own, and I already miss him. He knew what was up, even if he did spell Larry Flynt’s last name like the city in Michigan. That typo caused some kind of shit-storm with the magazine, and apparently, I’m on my way to cover a gangbang as a make-good.
Chapter 36: Ain’t no thang but a gangbang
I’m not in a hurry, but I reach Hustler’s production facility in Canoga Park in about ten minutes because traffic on the 101 is light. With Christmas and New Year’s both falling on weekdays this year, it seems as though most businesses in the city have given their employees a long holiday. But judging from the number of cars in the parking lot, Hustler isn’t one of them.
A fat man who looks like he played offensive line on his high school football team watches me park. He eyes me suspiciously as I walk toward the front door, where he stands guard. I focus on his sweater, a Christmas special complete with Rudolph flying over a forest of lime-green trees that seem out of place in the cold brownness of the Valley in winter.
“Where’s your wristband?” he asks, assuming a natural blocking position that precludes me from entering the building. “You can’t come inside without a wristband.”
“I’m press,” I say, not really sure what this wristband business is all about.
“Oh,” he says.
He’s indifferent to porn’s fourth estate, and steps aside without another word.
I pass through the door, and immediately I see a small army of crusty dudes in their underwear. Boxers outnumber briefs by a two-to-one margin, but all of these guys are wearing orange wristbands.
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