That is why I was not surprised when newly-minted Vivid Girl and Gram Ponante Towers, Aviary, and Heliport Interior Designer Lux Kassidy invited me to her first-ever shoot, Lux's Life.
"Of course I will help out your marginalized outfit," I said.
"And could you invite Self-Hating Lew, too?" she asked.
I contacted Porn Journalism's Grand Old Man and told him the news.
"Tell me what the times are," he demanded. "I don't have much time today. Give me her number."
He did not even say thank you. Baptist Guilt.
I arrived at a house south of Ventura Blvd. in Encino yesterday afternoon. Encino was originally known as Los Encinos, or "The Oaks".
"I am an oak," I reminded myself, trying to reach my arms around my massive frame.
Kassidy was inside. She and I go way back. I met her boyfriend, the photographer Kaden, on the set of Elegant Angel's Squirtwoman 3. Together they manage a studio and loft space in downtown L.A. in which I became the World's Greatest Porn Director.
"I modeled before, high-end art nudes, so when I was at AVN this year I decided to take it to the next level," she said. She eventually met Vivid's Steve Hirsch and the two hammered out a deal for six movies a year and several personal appearances. Lux's Life is her first porn movie and her scene on Monday with Samantha Ryan was the first time she touched another woman's vagina, offscreen or on.
This was hard to believe, but not because I didn't believe her. Is today's discerning porn audience really expected to accept a lesbian scene between two women who don't really love each other and who have never before shared the softball-playing fruits of their love?
"I've been friends with Samantha for a long time," Kassidy offered.
Well, OK.
I busted off a couple of shots. Lux was being all serious and badass, like her Twentynine Palms cell addresss would portend. "Could you please smile like a UCLA cheerleader?" I asked.
The house we were sitting in had been purchased exclusively for the purpose of shooting porn. There were views of southern Porn Valley, privacy from the neighbors via a hill and a retaining wall, a guest house, cable, Internet access, several bedrooms, an attached garage, a makeup room, and a gaudy chair shaped like a high-heeled shoe. The rental was $1850 a day.
I began to formulate an idea about housing the homeless in vacant porn locations when Missy Monroe walked in and my thoughts journeyed elsewhere.
I like Missy Monroe. A lot. There are those who don't. They are fools.
Missy was to play a punk rock chick (she changes her haircut every three months to confound consumers) in the movie, which was to be shot reality-style.
"I didn't know you were going to be here," she said.
"I didn't know you were going to be here," I breathed. Monroe has appeared in every porn movie ever invented, and she's not even 22. It doesn't matter if its Assphyxiated or a Pussy Party or a Vivid movie, she's in it.
Director B. Skow has been shooting Vivid's boxcovers for more than a decade and has been directing for about a year. He also recently launched Rockstar magazine, which he described as "sexier than Playboy". He caught me drinking the production's Kahlua and demanded I write a scene.
"You want a hit, give me an hour plus a pen and a pad," I said.
"You need an hour?" he asked.
"No, just a piece of paper," I replied, feeling a Margoldian wave of grandiosity wash over me. "I will create a scene so gorgeous that even the neighbors will get into the AVN Hall of Fame." (I knew that in this part of the Valley the neighbors probably already were in the AVN Hall of Fame.)
Here is the scene:
Peter Garrett lookalike Christian is cooking at the barbie. Missy Monroe sits down.
Missy Monroe: Where's the punk rock party? I'm here for the punk rock party. That's why I'm sitting down. You know, for the punk rock party.
Christian: That was yesterday, baby. It's today now.
CHRISTIAN continues cooking.
MM: Are you a cook?
Christian: Yeah.
MM: I like food.
Christian: Oh really?
MM: Yeah. I like the way it tastes. I like to put it in my mouth.
Christian: Yeah?
MM: Do you know what else I like?
Christian: No, baby. What?
MM: To suck cock! I like sucking cock!
Christian: Well today's your lucky day, baby.
MM: Why's that?
Christian: Because I've got a cooler full of meat. In addition to my pants. Which are also full of meat.
The scene was executed flawlessly. Would that those hacks at Lincoln Center had realized my vision half as well? The cast and crew stopped shooting for a moment to reflect and to cry.
Missy Monroe and Lux Kasssidy are both 21. Missy, God bless her, has had so much traffic in her ass it should be staffed by the TSA. "Lux's first anal?" I asked.
"13 months," Monroe predicted. "By August 22, 2007. My 23rd birthday."
Later on, Kassidy did her second-ever porn scene with Chloe Dior, who was preparing by eating a McDonald's salad. Dior seemed like a nice person, but I couldn't stay.
"Lux," I asked before I left. "You realize that Girls-Only is a gateway drug. Do you think you might ever do guys or ... worse?"
"Well, I'm leaving my options open," she said. I didn't want to be indelicate and ask if she'd never been with a man before, either.
