More South Florida
Yes, I am alive. I have totally dropped the ball on the daily updates and for that I apologize. When the sun is shining and the beach is right in front of your hotel…the last thing on your mind is sitting in your hotel room editing pictures and posting them on the interwebs for the 7 people that actually read this blog. So, here I am a few days late…. sioux me.
Every year for this tradeshow several hundred adult webmasters, performers, producers, directors, magazine publishers, billing companies, sex toy manufacturers and nerds who live in their mother’s basements (who build giant networks of sites that drive traffic to the big companies) descend upon the Westin Diplomat in Hollywood, Florida. It’s usually right in the middle of hurricaine season, totally expensive and the food in the hotel sucks. You must have a badge to enter the building and you get stopped at every door. It’s rather annoying, but it’s an attempt to prevent the cheapskates from coming in for the parties and networking without paying the sponsoring companies a dime. It’s quite a racket that AVN has going on…but the place is stunning, so we all do it year after year and suck it up. I have been to this show probably 6 times and the one that I will never forget is the guy who threw his patio furniture off his 17th floor balcony onto the storm windows and into the lobby. Luckily no one was hurt, but he broke 5 windows at $5000 a pop! He obviously got arrested and had to pay the fees before they would return any of his belongings. I think (I hope for his sake) that he owned his own company at that point…but seriously, how do you submit a receipt to your accountant for that one? ummm marketing expense? Everyone sure who knew he was after that night, though.
The circle in the middle pool is perfect for mooning the other people in the bottom pool 
The beaches of South Florida really are spectacular. If they could just ease up on the humidity a little.
After an hour or so at the beach I went into the John Stagliano seminar to hear about his obscenity case (that he won after 2 years!) brought by the United States of America. I was shocked that more people were not in attendance to hear the man himself, along with his amazing legal team speak freely about their victory in the first case that the adult entertainment industry has had in 30 years. Like…shocked. I was all ears and completely fascinated to hear the details of the case. This is a man who has been in the industry as a performer, director, producer, pioneer since the mid 70s. I won’t get into all of his accomplishments, but in a nutshell he was accused of distributing obscene material and fought it and won. Huge huge huge victory for our First Amendment rights.
His lawyers spoke about their roles and duties in the case…essentially the jurors all decided that the videos in question were not in good taste but they ultimately realized that freedom was more important. There were several issues with the prosecution’s actions…namely the trailer that they wanted to show the jury didn’t play. There was a technical problem with the audio/visual equipment! Lol!! The judge was pretty much like “Umm, you have had 2 years to get this DVD to play so you are a bunch of idiots” and he dismissed it. I guess it’s tough to get the jury to agree with you when you can’t show them the evidence, right? Haha! Ok, so do you wanna know what they thought was obscene? The video in question showed girls squirting milk out of their butts. Tasteless? Yeah maybe a little, but so are those nasty abortion posters you see outside of Planned Parenthood. One day in the middle of lunch one of the lawyers decided to walk over to the William Blackstone statue outside of the courthouse and say a little prayer. It worked because magically everything started working in their favor. Does John Stagliano get his legal fees back? Nope. So by all means, buy Evil Angel porn. Help the guy out for helping our freedom. I actually have seen a bunch of his movies for research purposes (I can legitimately say that ya know) and there are 3 that I love…The Fashionistas, Fashionistas Safado, and Fashionistas Safado Berlin. I literally purchased these 3 videos with my own money. High production value, hot rough sex, (average acting, but let’s be real for a minute, ok) and some of the best performers in the business. Sasha Grey got her very first role here and look, now she’s on fucking Entourage this season! I only regret that I never got to see the show while it was running in Las Vegas.
(Side note about Sasha Grey…I have known her since she first got into the business when she was barely 18 years old…I clearly remember her agent coming to me at a tradeshow showing me on his Blackberry the email she had written to him about wanting to get into the business. It was an intellectual, poetic and beautifully written piece by someone who was and is much more mature about her sexuality that most of the people that I know in their 20s and 30s. If you have seen her doing interviews or if you saw her in The Girlfriend Experience, that is truly her personality. She’s quiet, deliberate, mild mannered, intelligent, mellow (yeah she looks like she’s on heroin half the time, but that’s just her eyes)…but if you are watching Entourage…that is acting! She is not even that bubbly in real life. Anyways, at age 22 she should be an inspiration to all women in the adult entertainment industry. She is a rare case, but a bigger mainstream crossover star than Jenna Jameson ever was. Hats off to Sasha Grey!)
Since the hotel was closed to the public there was a camera crew and anchor with body paint doing interviews for Naked News! The guy in the photo is another guy named KB that I have known for years who I spoke to a few months ago about how burned out we were from the chaos of the industry and how awesome it would be to be able to walk away from it and get an amazing mainstream gig. Here we both are at the show, of course. lol. It’s too easy. And fun.
Tommy and his assistant Justin who I love because he laughs at all of my jokes.
I would love to know what they are looking for. A bag of coke? Someone drop a cherry out of their Shirley Temple? A contact lens? A lizard?
Looking south from the 33rd floor of the south tower
I thought this photo was cool… not usually the way you see the Florida coastline.
A suite party with some free snacks and wine!
I love Vanilla DeVille…we have known each other from these events for going on 5 or 6 years now…She’s great fun. Apparently last year I started a food fight with her on the last night of the show. We had been drinking all day and suddenly I just chucked a whole bowl of nuts at her. oopsie daisies. I did not remember that at all. ha.
We headed back to Ft Lauderdale to a nasty dirty creepy gay strip club called Johnny’s because Howard had some boys dancing there this weekend and we needed to show our support.
I was able to sneak a few shots of the drag queen show before the owner of the club caught me and told me to put my camera away.
Then we mosied to another gay bar called The Boardwalk where everyone took a turn at using my very expensive Nikon.
I was trying to teach the principles of photography and lighting to someone, I forget who, and was posing near the TV monitor so he could see that the light shining on my face was easier to shoot. Annnnd that’s why I am not a model. awkward. Is that me trying to be coy and sexy? eww. Or am I pretending to listen to someones annoying story?
Ok now for the breathtaking part of the evening. Last year at this show I was flirting with this bartender and could barely understand him because he’s got a very thick Brazilian accent. (He is straight.) He was trying to tell me his name and I couldn’t understand him so I pushed a napkin and a pen across the bar to him so he could write it down. He was nice enough to add his phone # but I CHICKENED OUT AND NEVER CALLED HIM ALL WEEKEND. What a dork! He is so freaking hot. So this year, I walk in, see him again, pull out the photos I have on my blackberry from exactly one year ago, show him and hand him my business card. We giggled. I got free drinks all night. (**crosses fingers** maybe I will add a 954 to my list this weekend.) I still don’t know his name.
Back at the hotel fairly early. 3am. Yoga is going to be a total bitch in the morning. But fuck, I can’t be missing 2 days already on this 30 day challenge. grrrrrr.
