by Gerrie Lim
Cool beans, I said, let’s rock!
I did two things first. I did an Internet search for Shane and located the phone number of her company, with an address in Van Nuys, California (actually a mailbox, I later found out, the actual premises being farther west out in Tarzana). The second thing I did was scour my trusty porn bible, the 1999 AVN Adult Entertainment Guide, which I had the foresight to procure (for US$11.95 at Hustler Hollywood, back in March 1999, my first actual purchase from that newly opened West Hollywood store). It was a voluminously large compendium of information—large because there were a record 9,000 adult-film titles released in 1998, and it covered everything that was of essential importance in the past year, categorized into genres (Specialty, Amateur, Ethnic, Couples, Cult, Big Boob, Oral, Anal, etc.)—and I was sure that it would have everything I needed to know about what Shane had done. That, coupled with whatever I could trawl over the Internet, would serve as the basis of my research.And I was right. I have this insane belief that if you do the research, it will show in the eventual results somehow, even if you end up not using half of what you’ve actually read. It took me quite some time to get all the information on Shane that I needed. And then I picked up the phone.
Underwater fibre cables buzzed across the Pacific, from Singapore to Los Angeles. And that’s how I “met” someone who would become one of my best friends in the industry, Shane’s World owner Jennie Grant.
I explained who I was and what I wanted, and she said sure. Anything to do with Penthouse was a really big deal, especially to small companies like hers, and she said she’d be glad to get Shane for me. We could do the interview by email, no problem. Just send her the questions. She would get them to Shane and then send me back the answers.
Now, here was something else I didn’t know at the time: Shane had, at that point, decided to retire from the business and had actually sold her company to Jennie. But they didn’t want to make a big deal of it in public. Jennie and her husband Brian were now the new owners. The deal was in transition at the time, and so Jennie had decided to not tell me and merely introduce herself as Shane’s “publicist.”
Shane was now on the other side of the camera, directing the series, and by the time I had made contact with Jennie, they were about to release Shane’s World 19 and several volumes of two spin-offs, Slumber Party (an all-girl series) and Pornological (a gonzo series in which girls get up to all kinds of spontaneous real-life sex with strangers on the street). They would soon sign, that July, the company’s first contract girl, a blond vixen named Sky, who would then leave to sign a contract with Vivid Video, a mere two months later! (Jennie had fired Sky, formerly called Skylar Chase, for being an irresponsible party girl who wouldn’t comply with on-set instructions, but Sky would later leave Vivid for much the same reasons, and end up returning to work for Jennie. Weird, but this happened in porn all the time.)
And so, I started preparing a questionnaire for Shane. As with all my “Cinema Blue” columns, I had to keep to V.K.’s brief—concoct a scenario featuring the subject at hand, and then write the interview in Drew McKenzie “cinema verite” style. I decided that I would be “interviewing” Shane in the backyard of a friend’s house in the San Fernando Valley, with Shane naked and skinny-dipping in the pool while I made notes and tried to keep my professional decorum despite my obvious erection—thus injecting a sense of comedic interplay. Shane would torture me with sexy stories about her various sexual escapades while filming the Shane’s World series, for the reader to enjoy.
At the time, I had only done one piece like this before. I’d “interviewed” Asia Carrera on the beach near her home in Malibu, California (also done by email but under very different circumstances, since Asia and I had already known one another for a few years so it was easy as cream pie.) “You write very well,” Asia told me later, after she’d read the piece, “and you make it all sound like you were actually there with me on the beach. You manage to make our interview sound so risqué when you weren’t even here to do it. I wonder what you’d write if you WERE actually next to me when we did it!”
High praise from Asia (who doesn’t ever say anything she doesn’t mean) and, bolstered with courage from this morsel of encouragement, I felt ready to take on Shane’s World.
Actually, it wasn’t all Dutch courage; I had asked Jennie to send me their latest release for my research, and she sent me by snail-mail a VHS copy of Shane’s World 19: Tropical Paradise, which I watched. In my favorite scene, Cheyenne Silver and Vivian Valentine staged a “spontaneous” ménage a trois with Chris Cannon in a tropical Florida rainstorm, very sultry and soulful, like listening to a Sam Cooke song. Wet, wanton and wild at heart; I think I got the idea. (And at least they shot in “tropical” Florida, unlike some of the company’s later releases; Asian Vacation, made in 2004, was actually shot in Mexico!)
Before I proceed further, let me riff on a wee bit about gonzo. Sure, the genre might’ve been new to me then but it had already existed for some years, supposedly the brainchild of director John Stagliano, under the auspices of his company Evil Angel. The premise was that porn could be made fast and cheap—with one camera, no script, no clothes, and sometimes even no actual confirmed location—but always shot with spunk and zest, necessity being the motherlode of invention. A typical gonzo costs one-quarter of a typical feature.
Some of those tapes were making serious inroads into the homes of porn-loving pervs who didn’t care to fast-forward past all the dialogue found in actual feature movies that had pretty people, picturesque sets and, for crying out loud, an actual plot. This might perhaps be evident to most people only today, since Shane’s ex-beau Seymour Butts is now the subject of the 2005 Showtime television series Family Business (all about Seymour and his shenanigans, via his extended family), and gonzo porn is now as commonplace as the next mainstream reality show.
Human history abounds with gonzo sex, only the technology to record it had just never been around. The Chinese empress Wu Hu, from the Tang Dynasty, had apparently displayed her power by making all visiting male dignitaries show their respect by pleasuring her orally; her practice was to throw open her robes and her guests would prostrate themselves before her, kneeling down to muff-dive her genitals. (How nice to know that such practices had been part of my own genetic makeup, courtesy of my ancestors.) So what was the big deal? Was there a giant conceptual leap from going down this yellow brick road, enacting sexual rites with or without a camera to record events as they transpired? Truth is, in a sexual context, always stranger than friction. Gonzo was merely the modern-day method of enshrining sexual habits for the viewing pleasure of millions. I had no problem with that.
My starting point was Shane’s official bio from her Shane’s World website: “As the story goes, one day Shane and her girlfriend were watching a Seymour Butts video and decided that it would be a kick to make a tape of their own, so Shane borrowed her dad’s video camera and taped her friend masturbating. Seymour loved it, so when Shane wrote him that she would be visiting L.A., he picked her up from the airport and they promptly moved in together. The Seymour and Shane series was born. They became the porn couple of the 90s. But all good things must come to an end. After a six-month break from the business, Shane decided that it was time to go out on her own.”
The Shane’s World series, also produced and directed by Shane herself (with her starring as well, in the first dozen or so volumes), came about because “she wanted something that would appeal to young people and to women, so she knew that the sex would have to be real … Shot MTV style, she usually takes along a group of her friends on a trip and keeps a camera rolling the whole time. Also included are segments like ‘Shane’s Helpful Hints’ that teach things like proper pussy eating techniques and how to manicure the pubes.”
On porn gossip hound Luke Ford’s site (www.lukeford.com), Shane was quoted from an interview in Oui magazine: “In Playing With Fire, I gave a fireman that was on duty a blowjob on the back of his fire truck. I was aski
ng him for directions and I don’t know how we got on the whole thing, but somehow all of that ended up happening. It was on A Current Affair and it was a big ordeal, especially back East. They were trying to sue us—the fire station—because it was a community-owned firehouse, and I didn’t have permission from the community.” I made a mental note to ask her about this, and some other less salutary facts from Luke’s write-up—“Shane was molested in fifth grade by her stepfather. She dropped out of high school in her freshman year, lost her virginity to a man at age fifteen, and began modeling nude at age eighteen. She sent pictures of herself to various magazines and was surprised to get published. After a year of teaching gymnastics to preschoolers in Sacramento, she became a stripper at age nineteen. At age twenty-one, she did a woman …”
Now, here’s a trade secret I will now disclose: V.K., in assigning me the piece, made it clear that I would have to abide by one cardinal rule—in the world of Penthouse publications, porn stars are sex goddesses, with a sanctity that is inviolate. “If they have been sexually abused as children, we don’t want to know. If they have drug problems, we don’t want to know. If they have anything of questionable taste, we don’t want to know. This applies particularly if the girls are Penthouse Pets. Bob believes his girls are angels.” She said this last bit with a smirk, but made it clear that Bob Guccione’s word was law. I was not to write about Shane’s childhood molestation and her drug use (since marijuana use was rampant on porn sets, and certainly de rigeur on gonzo productions like Shane’s World). Blah blah blah.
So I did the interview with Shane, and set the scene in as romantic a way as I could without being too coy. Under the column head “Cinema Blue, by Drew McKenzie” ran this subhead (not written by me): “Our man inside the world of adult film chats with Shane, the sex star famous for the hit video series Shane’s World. They discuss her exciting career as she bares all for our intrepid reporter.”
Of course, she would be baring nothing, since I had interviewed her by email and wrote the entire piece while ensconced in a condominium in Robertson Quay, Singapore. (That was the real challenge, for me, but who really wanted to know that?)
Here then are the opening paragraphs of my Shane story, which ran in Penthouse Variations, December 1999, with bright cadences worthy of F. Scott Fitzgerald:
Her golden hair cascades down past her shoulders, the summer sun backlights it with a gossamer glow, and she looks every bit the all-American cheerleader you fantasized about. Today, her tank top and blue jeans, her preferred attire when she’s clothed, fit her snugly and leave little doubt she’s wearing nothing underneath.
“When I first started modeling, back when I was eighteen, I used to be very shy,” she says, taking a slow drag on her cigarette. “The first photo shoot I ever did, the guy had to practically pry my clothes off. But the more I did it, the more comfortable I became with it. And the same is true for video. Now I love being naked.”
We sit by a swimming pool in the backyard of her friend’s house, located in the San Fernando Valley, which is the sprawling home of America’s $23-billion-a-year porn industry. She sips her favorite drink, Captain Morgan spiced rum, and I tell her something my friend, the Swedish porn star Linda Thoren, recently said: “If you talk to her, tell her I am a big admirer of hers—the way she does deep-throating is absolutely fantastic. When I look at her, I realize I still have a lot to learn.”
“Yes, giving blowjobs is one of my all-time favorite things,” the object of such ardor agrees. “There are some things you can do to deep-throat—like practice, practice, practice. Grab your partner and shove his cock down your throat, if you don’t gag you’re onto something.” She pauses and grins. “Just kidding.”
I’d gleaned her personal information directly from Jennie, who had told me: “Shane is definitely the Captain Morgan’s-drinking, jeans and tank-top type girl. And she does smoke.” She wrote this by email, dated June 7, 1999 (I even surfed the Captain Morgan website—www.rum.com—owned by Joseph E. Seagram and Sons, Inc, no less, to check on spellings, hence “spiced rum”). The rest, I culled from Internet and AVN research; it’s really all out there if you know where to look. All you need is a dial-up line, a modem, and a printer.
And that’s how I could write in the eventual piece about movies I never even saw, like Shane’s World 6: Slumber Party, since I had read the review in which it was plainly stated that “Shane wears a ‘Girls Rule’ knit cap and surfer-boy clothes while zooming around on a go-cart and shopping for sex toys.” And then “in Shane’s World 7, she visited New Zealand and blew a surf-shop clerk. In Shane’s World 3, she sucks off some roadies from Ministry, the porn-loving rock band known for the come-shot inspired A Mind is a Terrible Thing to Taste.” The Ministry tidbit actually came from my own rock-critic, trivia-addled brain. The key was to set the mood with some aptly descriptive details and then intersperse it with quotes that can both enhance the context and make a point.
For instance, when I took Shane back down memory lane, I wrote about her first Shane’s World project: “The very first video, shot mostly in an RV careening out of control toward the Mojave Desert, remains Shane’s favorite.” Then I followed it with an answer from Shane herself, from our email interview when I asked her to describe her favorite “close encounter” with a fan.
“In Volume 1, I went to visit a fan at his job and ended up giving him a blowjob in the elevator,” she told me. “That’s something that I really love to do, because they’re not expecting it. And I know that it’ll probably provide them with masturbation material for life!”
I followed that with her reasoning behind the series, in her own voice: “I just like to go out and try to find my own guys, rather than use the guys in the industry. It’s not really too exciting for me to book a guy to come over and have sex with me. I’d rather go out and meet someone and tell them I want to give them a blowjob and for it to be in a video. It blows their minds.” This was the kind of soundbite that fitted perfectly into the Penthouse Variations scheme of things, since it had the kinky edge our magazine prided itself on. I took the interview transcript and looked for things that had these elements, like the way I ended the piece:
Then, in the spirit of openness, she divulges to me a secret. “Some of the biggest orgies happen in my personal life, when the cameras aren’t rolling, when we have big parties at my house and things get crazy. I’ve never been into the whole gang-bang type thing. I like orgies better.” … She laughs as she climbs out of the pool and flexes her thighs, and I get that funny feeling again between mine. “This is how I like to look,” she announces, as if I hadn’t known. “It doesn’t matter if it’s for a photo shoot, video or just when I’m out having fun. When I am featuring, I actually prefer to dance at all-nude clubs.” She caresses her light brown patch gently with her palm, parts those famous pink lips for me to see and flashes me that famous cheeky grin. “What a bummer, huh?” she demurs. “I wish I’d brought my video camera with me today.”
I still remember typing those very words and then heading out to the corridor outside my condo, overlooking the swimming pool, to re-think that ending. I originally wanted the piece to end with Shane actually giving me a blowjob, but I decided that the piece would end beautifully right there. Brevity is the soul of wit. The reader could be left hanging, to wonder if anything more actually transpired between Shane and myself.
The bit about the video camera, I thought, was truly genius since it represented Shane’s career choice, porn (which, of course, can’t be done without cameras). I remember feeling quite exhilarated when I knew the piece was done, and felt certain that it was very good, that it didn’t matter that the subject was Shane and, more importantly, that I hadn’t even met her or even seen her films, but that I had crafted a narrative based entirely on both documented fact and actual quotes from the subject, and fashioned something that was readable and also sexually enticing.
On June 11, 1999, Jennie sent me an email: “I really liked the article. I thought y
ou captured Shane perfectly. I’m glad you left out the blowjob, since she is a married woman now (ha ha).”
Wow, I thought, if only she knew! I’ve still never told her, to this very day; you can’t tell a publicist, much less a company owner, that you wrote a whole piece without ever seeing any of her stuff. The key issue was that I was in Singapore at the time—I would move back to Los Angeles only that coming November -– and so had no access to her films, since all hardcore porn is officially banned in Singapore.
It was my way of beating the system. Honest subversion has its intangible rewards. And I’ve still never actually met Shane.
V.K., in an email on June 15, 1999, said: “Congratulations on the Shane interview! I do believe you have done it again. You have assembled a lot of data from Shane’s actual story, and crafted it in such a way that it works for our magazine. And you have again created the illusion that you are sitting with the celebrity in her sophisticated domestic world, and we the Variations readers are eavesdropping on this fascinating situation. And our journalistic reporter, who has managed with his sex-industry jet-set connections to get himself in this situation, while a perfect gentleman, is nevertheless fully awake to the sexual possibilities of the situation … What you have managed to accomplish for us without moving just amazes me.”
I really liked “nevertheless fully awake to the sexual possibilities of the situation.” It would set a standard for the months to come, as I crafted similar tales based on the lives of other porn stars, for my “Cinema Blue” column (Shane was followed by such luminaries as Silvia Saint, Shay Sweet, Jill Kelly, Nina Hartley, and Jenna Jameson; Shane, interestingly enough, remains the only one I have still never met in person). I also did long conceptual pieces, like one on the marriage of rock and porn, in which I interviewed Janine Lindemulder (on her part in appearing on Blink-182’s CD cover, their hit album Enema of the State) and Dyanna Lauren (on her dual career as porn star and rock singer with her band Thousand Year Itch), and some other girls for their participation in a porn-and-rap album called Deep Porn with the likes of Kid Rock, Cypress Hill, and George Clinton.