Friends keep pointing out that there is a bacon of the month club. Actually, I think there may be a number of bacon of the month club options.

The Pig Next Door comes up quickly in a search engine attempt to locate the bacon of the month club. The Pig Next Door offers artisan bacon from sustainably-farmed specialty breeds. If you are a bacon fan, and I am, this sounds pretty good and they offer six month and one year bacon subscriptions, priced according to just how special the pigs are. Speaking of pigs, my friend senior Blue Blood writer Will Judy has a really thing about cartoons of animals being used to sell meat products. He is offended by cartoon cannibalism. Although I did not come to this concern on my own, I always think of it when I see a comic strip style pig raising a trotter to vote in favor of bacon.

So I do a little more research and it turns out that The Pig Next Door is a Johnny-come-lately, started only a year ago, looking to cash in on the bacon of the month concept pioneered by The Grateful Palate. The Grateful Palate has been selling bacon and bacon-related products online for more than a decade. Ah, the joy of the internet age, when nothing is so esoteric a niche that it hasn’t been knocked off and repackaged by someone. In addition to what may be the original bacon of the month club, The Grateful Palate also offers pig noses and pig T-shirt memorabilia. You can always go with the less cannibalistic T-shirt option of showing off the “I got porked by the Grateful Palate” slogan across your chest. You get a shirt and a little rubber toy pig with your bacon club membership. You also get an official Bacon of the Month Membership Card, in case a bouncer ever asks you to show one. And you get a pig nose, in order to facilitate cannibal role play.

My friend writer/director David Aaron Clark once took me to BDSM club The Vault in New York, in its heyday. And there was the option for gents to be dominated while wearing pig noses or masks. I have trouble eroticizing rubber facial prosthetics shaped like pigs or like anything else really. Yet I love muppets, fun fur coats, and the bottom half of most furry costumes. Go figure. For those less specific in their tastes and needs than I am, there is always pet play. Bet you’ve never seen someone in a pig or panda head do that before. Or maybe you have. I’m going to go fry up some uncured, sustainably-farmed, artisan bacon now, even though I’m not yet a member of the Bacon of the Month Club.

I had dropped the luscious Michelle Aston off at Bar 107 in downtown Los Angeles before, but had never gone inside. For some reason, I had assumed it was a teensy hole in the wall dive. I figured I’d stop in anyway to help Julie Simone celebrate the 12th DVD Release by her company, Julie Simone Productions.

I was happily surprised when the inside of Bar 107 turned out to be larger than expected, with red plush booths and a small stage in the back. The bar could have had more of a selection, especially in the sparkling water department, but it was still very cool.

Julie Simone’s new flick, Audition, was playing on televisions mounted up high by the ceiling. I’m not sure if that violates some sort of zoning ordinance, but I always wonder about such things and the crowd was sufficiently naughty all on their own.

Luminaries in attendance included, of course, the woman of the hour in a black cocktail dress, the aforementioned Michelle Aston, Blue Blood art director and style editor Forrest Black, sexy Aiden, writer/director David Aaron Clark, KSEX and BaadMaster’s Dungeon host Mistress Genevieve, Music+TV and Aural Salvation host Rev Mitcz, and America’s Beloved Porn Journalist Gram Ponante.

Audition is written and directed by Julie Simone and features Gia Paloma, Master Liam, Krissy, Lystra, and, you guess it — Julie Simone.

Gritty nicely-distressed design movie promo bondage posters were on hand for revelers seeking a collectible keepsake. The promo poster implication is that Audition is like Captivity with less ick and more sex, but that’s just going on the nice marketing swag.

I was super psyched to see notable writer Gram Ponante join the Blue Blood forums this week. His writing cracks me up. I was also super psyched by his recent press mention of Blue Blood where, among other things, he said:

“Part of the 1300th photoset hosted on pioneering punk erotica site Blue Blood.com, the photos of Sara X remind me that I really need to watch my diet.“

Gram made the interesting point that he feels labels have to constantly be defined and re-defined because of the human “tendency to aggressively misunderstand.” This was primarily apropos of whether or not I could talk about feminist issues which matter to me and not have my existence become unmitigated hell.

But Gram has, for quite some time now, been promoting the notion that the annoying altporn terminology should be changed to steveporn because steveporn is a term which comes without the baggage. Now, it is my impression that some of the support for the steveporn terminology comes from the same divisive, art-destroying, and scene-damaging camp which coined the altporn terminology in the first place, and that the main point of using the term steveporn is in the hopes of mollifying famous director and writer David Aaron Clark. DAC’s objection to altporn is complex. I should probably have him explain it here some time, but perhaps his view can be summed up as generally feeling that, as an adult video genre, it is neither an alternative to anything, nor particularly quality pornography, nor generally being produced by the best that industry has to offer.

I’ve known David Aaron Clark for many years and I adore him and I respect his opinions. I agree with him on many things and enjoy debating the topics on which we do not agree. And I feel qualified to say that dressing up the same problem with a new name is not going to fool DAC.

Nonetheless, I am entertained by Gram’s blog and his suggestion that perhaps altaltporn could be termed steveporn. Sadly, a rose by any other name and all that.

I see it as, not only a given, but maybe even a goal that things I enjoy in a fringe environment will be picked up by the larger society. The problems come when the overculture, in the process of co-opting something cool, tries to destroy the naturally existing subculture and the people most dedicated to that culture, in order to replace it all with something more easily managed and controlled. The problems come when the marketing shifts from spin to bald-faced lies. The problems come when no one appreciates art without a backstory and the market becomes used to the perfection of fake backstory. It seems like modern press is often more comfortable presenting a tidy and wholly false PR tall tale than presenting something real and true. Part of the reason for this is that modern audiences are often more comfortable reading tidy and wholly false PR tall tales. Real life tends to be more complicated and harder to get your head around.

I could like Avril Lavigne if she were presented as essentially a cute blonde actress in a larger movie. Instead, her managers insult everyone’s intelligence by getting a stylist to put Avril in a Guns N’ Roses T-shirt and having her publicist tell the world the actress is inspired by David Bowie (but neglecting to tell the girl playing the precocious punk songstress role that Bowie does not rhyme with Maui.) Just try and find music magazine press presenting anything remotely true about the teamwork creation of Avril Lavigne. I don’t know if the magazines fear lack of access to stars their audiences want to read about or if they fear legal reprisals or if it is all just some sort of gentlemen’s agreement, but certain specific pieces of truth have more trouble getting out there as overculture chews up subculture.

I’ve been debating with myself whether or not to mention what got edited out of the most recent interview Eros Zine did with yours truly. I appreciate what Eros Zine does for a variety of scenes and I adore EZ’s editor Thomas Roche who did the interview. And I very much appreciate the support (and fun times!) both have given to both me and Blue Blood over the years. I’ve decided to mention part of what was expurgated because I feel like this one small piece was important. Before I do, however, I want to make it very clear that publications such as Rolling Stone and the LA Weekly, with presumably larger legal budgets, have also cut pieces about the world of supposed altporn apparently due to legal concerns. So it is not unusual that Eros Zine’s legal department insisted on cutting a number of comments. (I promised Thomas I would be clear that it was legal and not editorial who required the cuts.) Journalists always want to know my opinion about adult video and the so-called altporn sites I’m supposed to consider competitive. But apparently what I have to say is just too dangerous to actually print.

Assuming that Eros Zine’s lawyers are essentially sensible, I just want to post for posterity the portion which was cut which contained shoutouts to people who deserve some credit. The rest can remain on the cutting room floor for now.

Some of the directors who might object to the current shameless pretension that punk art porn was just invented are Gregory Dark, David Aaron Clark, Nick Zedd, Justice Howard, Michael Ninn, Antonio Passolini, Stephen Sayadian, Richard Kern, and I’m really just scratching the surface with that list. (VCA and Vivid will be trying to get them all under exclusive contract by this time tomorrow. If they want to thank me for the suggestions, they can send checks payable to Blue Blood at 8033 Sunset Blvd #4500, West Hollywood, CA 90046. Or show me some quality product. Screeners are accepted at that address as well. My mind is open and I’m still a journalist.)

I worried about being potentially helpful to outsider corporations by giving shoutouts to people who deserve them, but I decided that I wanted to take the high road because I think it makes one a better person to give credit where it is due. Unfortunately, the legal folks worried about my commentary on my concerns about said corporations using my shoutouts as free consulting.

The biggest challenge of having sort of imperialist types come into a community is, not just to keep them from pushing out the native peoples, but also to keep the native peoples from simply becoming assimilated by the invaders. I’m certainly not immune, although I guess I’ve got more of a rebel/revolutionary mentality than many. I don’t think anyone is immune. (I just came from visiting a Native American art history museum, so please forgive the analogies.) I’m not personally what anyone would consider left wing and I definitely don’t believe cashing a check from a large corporation is intrinsically bad.

Full disclosure: Hustler owns VCA. I’ve not only worked for Hustler, but I’ve stated in public and in writing on numerous occasions that I felt they were the best of the big adult publishing houses, all of which I have done projects for. Vivid does not, to the best of my knowledge, do magazines, so I’ve never worked with them, but there are plenty of photos floating around the net featuring yours truly drinking and eating with with people who work at both Hustler and Vivid. I really like some of those people and think they are good folks.

I’m not sure precisely where one ought to draw the line, but I definitely think it should be drawn before invaders get to assume control of our opportunities, re-write history, and take away our language. There is nothing wrong with doing a lucrative gig for a large corporation. So much the better if the gig is something fun and interesting. But there really ought to be some wiggle room between accepting some money and accepting total annihilation of one’s self-actualization, culture, and ideals. I guess I’m just an optimist.