I watched the Rock Docs: NWA: The World’s Most Dangerous Group documentary about NWA last night. Surprisingly, it made me think and actually somewhat changed my view on some things, most notably Ice Cube. I know, if something on VH1 made me think, apparently intentionally, then WTF is up with the universe?

I loathed Ice Cube the first time I heard his solo music. I first heard it at a time when the hip hop industry was working overtime at making it acceptable for white people to buy rap albums. Longtime Blue Blood readers may recall an article I wrote for the print magazine about my love of Ice T, which I called “I Shot the Sheriff and the Deputy”. (I’m a witty girl.) But the first stuff I heard by Ice Cube was not about the things I could relate to in an Ice T record. If there was anything about rage, disenfranchisement, and reaching for power on there, it was most definitely not for me. Ice Cube went on and on and on about how much white people overall suck and Asian people are this and Jewish people are this and white women are all ugly and blah blah blah. Apart from the deliberately alienating lyrics, this was also a time when rappers didn’t really tend to be that good-looking. Music television was around and MTV was instrumental in popularizing NWA, but let’s just say Ice Cube didn’t really have the good looks of LL Cool J, Nelly, or 50 Cent. Ice Cube looked like the pissed off guy who, if you had a party at your house, would get drunk and start breaking stuff as soon as his friends started having fun or getting laid. Like he should talk about what anybody else looks like. Hmph.

Then, at some point, Ice Cube appeared to have had politician-level quantities of Botox injected into his head and he started appearing in family-friendly comedies. I thought that maybe the deities of irony think that’s funny. But Ice Cube was appearing in exactly the kind of movies which are offensively wholesome. I’m not opposed to wholesome, but I am opposed to the kind of wholesome which makes you believe someone is just hiding most of who they really are. I am opposed to the kind of wholesome which is intended to make regular people feel terrible about themselves. And I thought Ice Cube was, by now, not only a racist misogynist, but a sell-out racist misogynist tool of the overculture.

Watching this VH1 special made me rethink my opinion that NWA was really just an example of Dr. Dre being great and taking a few guys from his neighborhood with him, folks who were just in the right place at the right time with the right friend. Taking nothing away from Dr. Dre’s brilliance, NWA may have been able to be what it was for more of a group synergy than I would previously have credited. Notably, Ice Cube actually wrote a number of raps, but I’ve never seen press coverage of the group talk about that before.

I can see why Ice Cube might have furrowed his brow like that, if he wrote some of NWA’s angriest words and then he saw Eazy-E being all about grabbing all the dough and having sex with as many groupies as possible. And he saw his bandmates settling into making something he saw as important and political into a business. As the seed money for the band and the studio they recorded in came from Eazy-E and much of the band’s street cred came from Eazy-E, he probably deserved a bigger slice of the money pie and, if he was more of a hit with the ladies than the others, maybe he was just plain sexier. He was certainly hotter than Ice Cube. And Eazy-E did die of AIDS from having so much random unprotected sex, so not that there wasn’t, ya know, a downside to being attractive that way.

Knowing that Dr. Dre went on to tap talents including Snoop Dogg, Eminem, and 50 Cent, I just kinda thought he was the brains of the operation. I’m not sure what MC Ren went on to, besides a few solo efforts, at least one of which did very well. DJ Yella went on to direct for mainstream adult video companies. I obviously believe that porn can be political, but calling a gonzo porn series DJ Yella’s Str8 Outta Compton really seems to show a certain willingness to overlook the importance, strength, and pride of NWA’s Straight Outta Compton record.

I feel a certain sympathy and understanding for Ice Cube now, that I did not before. If those words were his and he truly believed in what NWA had to say and changing the world and it was not about the money or the groupies, then it must have been gut-wrenching for him when those around him started talking like it was just business. I don’t know what year he legally changed his name to be Ice Cube, but it seems like he really wanted to be that guy, not just play a character to sell stuff.

On one level, I’m pleased that the internet facilitated the financial viability of my previously costly art project for my scene and community. Money can facilitate freedom and I like freedom. But money can be a really polluting influence as well, one which really brings out the wolves. I know I find it gut-wrenching when I hear “just business” from my peers and compatriots, some of whom are (or at least were) people I deeply believed in. There are people, I would have considered members of my tribe, who help a data mining corporation like Experian simultaneously strip mine our culture and destroy any remaining privacy or control over our lives we might have. There are people, I would have considered members of my tribe, who help a mainstream adult video corporation like Vivid recruit others I would have considered members of my tribe, while paying them far less than they would ever offer someone they considered a full-fledged member of society. There are people, I would have considered members of my tribe, who help a mainstream porn site like SuicideGirls turn once vital sexual and feminist activism into bickering competitions which would be unseemly even in junior high school girls. There are people, I would have considered members of my tribe, who help a mainstream clothing corporation like Hot Topic cheapen our style and make it something for children.

Maybe they have given up on true empowerment and feel like playing the clown is the only option left for them. If they can no longer recall what was supposed to be empowering about what they chose to do, then, in my opinion, they need to check themselves.

I’m not interested in being the court jester with the funny-colored hair in a disrespectful ruler’s kingdom. I’m thoroughly capable of putting on an Izod and having a nice salon do something more natural. I was bad at golf the last time I played at my grandparents country club, before being banned for punk rock behavior. But I could learn. And I love to eat, so I am ahead of the curve in knowing which fork to use.

If I decide to switch things up, it will not be to play the Pied Piper in leading people to work for Experian for free (while giving away their personal data) or Vivid for less than standard wages. I absolutely reject the notion that I should accept second class citizen status because of how I like to have sex or my gender or what I like to wear or what I like to listen to or having an artistic temperament. There is no obvious word for the kind of disenfranchised I am. But I won’t accept working for a corporate master on lesser terms because of it, any more than Ice Cube would for the color of his skin or where he is from.

All I’m saying is that Ice Cube made a reported thirteen million dollars last year and I no longer begrudge him it.

As you all have no doubt noticed, we’ve been working on some video stuff on BlueBlood.net here. It is still in beta, but we are making it live for your viewing pleasure. Feel free to point out anything which is not working perfectly yet, because we know Blue Blood TV is in beta.

We’ve been really enjoying putting together our first segments and I’m really excited to share them with you all. For the most part, Forrest Black has been directing and I’ve been producing. We’ve mostly been taking turns shooting, kinda the same as we do for still photography. We’ve gotten some behind-the-camera assists from the always enjoyable Michelle Aston as well. We are fortunate enough to have the incredibly talented Tim Skold on board for the project to do the Blue Blood theme music. As this is Blue Blood, you probably all know who Tim Skold is, but I’ll give you a quick overview, just in case. I first came across his work when he was in a band called Shotgun Messiah, which I thought was a great name for a band. Other bands he has been in include Kingpin, KMFDM, Marilyn Manson, and Skold. His eponymously titled Skold album is one of my favorite CDs of all time, one of those rare records I can play all the way through, enjoying every single song over and over again. Anyway, I’m really thrilled about doing this video series thang, and the way it is all coming together, and feeling very creatively inspired.

Our video section is just starting out, so, when it becomes a fabulous gigantic internet phenomenon, you can say you were in-the-know when. We’ll be both highlighting videos we think are interesting and bringing you original programming. I just posted our Deathrace Jason Statham interview and Deathrace director Paul W. S. Anderson interview. Coming up this weekend, I interview musician Andy LaPlegua of Combichrist. Forrest Black interviews writer/editor Rachel Kramer Bussel about her Cupcakes Take the Cake blog (and sex.) Forrest Black and I (and a lot of our unsavory pals) attend the Coilhouse magazine launch party and I interview editor Nadya Lev. And there is tons more to come. Feel free to message me or Forrest Black directly or in public (or sidle up to one of us in a nightclub and whisper) about what you’d most like to see us do because we are just getting started.

I know, I know, some of you were probably assuming I was about to announce the launch of a giant adult video section, probably in the members area over on sister site BlueBlood.com. Over the years, just about every major mainstream adult video company, both in Porn Valley and beyond, has pitched yours truly and Forrest Black to do the pr0nz vidz for them. I’m not saying that nobody could ever make me an attractive offer on that front, if we really were on the same page with a company which wanted to make something great. But it has been my experience that these huge multimillion dollar companies will come at us saying how much they want something gothic or punk or alt or tattooed, and then turn around and say that they figure the budget can be small because they can underpay talent with tattoos or black lipstick.

One of my personal rules is that I will work for free or cheap for someone who does not have an office, if I like them and I believe in their project. If someone has a big ol’ office, I expect a pro rate and I expect the same for those I work with. If someone owns one or more buildings, I expect them not to start being cheap when it comes to my subculture and my friends and my collaborators.

But, honestly, it really boils down to art. The thing about artists is that they do not always do what is the commercially perfect thing to do. Artists do what they feel like doing. What I really felt like doing was discussing the meaning of alternative culture with Nadya Lev and what appalling horror movies are fun to sample with Andy LaPlegua.

I hope you guys like what we’ve been making because I enjoyed the creative process and I’d like to make you more videos soon.

1. Pirates of the Caribbean: The Curse of the Black Pearl, Pirates of the Caribbean: Dead Man’s Chest, Pirates of the Caribbean: At World’s End — I’m going to count the Pirates of the Caribbean trilogy which came out in 2003, 2006, and 2007 as all one entry in the pantheon of greatest pirate flicks of all time. I think most modern pirate enthusiasts like them some swaggering Johnny Depp. Costumer Penny Rose was nominated for numerous awards and won a Saturn Award from the Academy of Science Fiction, Fantasy & Horror Films, so I think it is fair to say that Pirates of the Caribbean is the biggest influence on current scurvy costuming for events such as tomorrow’s International Talk Like a Pirate Day.

2. Pirates of Penzance — Next up is the Pirates of Penzance, although it is hard to pick which version. Leap Day plays an important part in this story and Leap Day has been important in my personal life. Plus I think I first learned about pirates when I saw a live production of the Gilbert & Sullivan production in Manhattan. I consulted with my father on which movie version is best because, at summer camp as a kid, he played the part of the boy whose half-deaf nursemaid accidentally apprentices him to a pirate when she is supposed to send him off to learn the pilot trade. Pirate, pilot, anyone could make that mistake. Gilbert & Sullivan operettas are of course intended to be funny, but the D’Oyly Carte G&S company played the roles straight and just allowed the humor of the situation come through. There was also a more recent version featuring Kevin Kline, Linda Rondstadt, and Angela Lansbury. You can go to your Netflix queue and try both the Kline version (either 1980 or 1983) which is played more broadly for laughs and the 1982 version featuring an international cast of Broadway singers, comedians and artists from D’Oyly Carte.

3. Peter Pan — I’m going to go with the 1953 animated Disney version of Peter Pan because I like cartoons. I prefer antisocial cartoons like South Park, Home Movies, and The Simpsons. Peter Pan and the pirates are all pretty antisocial if you look at it just right though. I mean, Peter Pan is the bad boy who comes to Wendy’s window and tells her never to take on adult responsibilities and the pirate are, well, pirates. I’ve been trying to recall whether my first exposure to the concept of pirates was Pirates of Penzance or Peter Pan, but I’m not sure. It was years before I realized pirates were actually supposed to be kinda scary and badass.

4. The Pirate — No compendium of pirate movies would be complete without at least one full-on musical with lots of dance numbers. In the unimaginatively-named The Pirate, Gene Kelly does the swashbuckling pirate softshoe until Judy Garland’s character falls in love with his pirate self. When I was in junior high, I remember adults talking about what a great dancer Fred Astaire was, but, at least at age eleven or twelve, I thought Gene Kelly was foxier. For bonus kink factor, The Pirate was directed by Vincente Minnelli who was, of course, married to Judy Garland at the time.

5. Hook — I’m including Steven Spielberg’s 1991 What if Peter Pan grew up? movie just because I know most people I hang out with would. Personally I found the movie too dismal to be feel good and not nearly dark enough or nonconformist enough to be tasty on that end of the spectrum.

6. The Ice Pirates — I saw this 1984 masterpiece of bad cinema in college with other members of the Science Fiction Club. I actually was personally responsible for getting my university to give us funds to engage in such activities. I’m willing to hear opinions on other movies featuring space pirates, but I really feel any socially responsible pirate countdown should take the future into account and include, ya know, space pirates. The Ice Pirates includes a smokin’ hot young Anjelica Huston.

7. The Black Pirate aka The Black Buccaneer — If we go all the way back to 1926 and the heyday of Douglas Fairbanks, we finally get some really badass pirate action. Douglas Fairbanks is credited with writing the story for the movie and also playing the eponymous Black Pirate. We think we are so much more debauched and dangerous now, but this 1926 film featured a hero who has to avenge his murdered father and save his leading lady from gang rape and a pirate king. Douglas Fairbanks was one of the founders of United Artists and was largely responsible for spawning the whole genre of films known as swashbucklers. I feel special affection for Douglas Fairbanks because his tomb is spectacular and just down the street from me, so Forrest Black and I have photographed scores of beautiful naked gothic girls by his final resting place. Fun fact to know and share about The Black Pirate is that, when the screen action got hot and heavy, Fairbanks’ wife Mary Pickford was the body double for his movie love interest played by Billie Dove. Also, at the time it came out, The Black Pirate was considered to feature the finest and most impressive swordfight ever captured on celluloid.

8. Captain Kidd and the Slave Girl — I admit this 1954 flick is mostly interesting for its skimpy costuming on its female stars Eva Gabor and Sonia Sorrell. The only thing Sonia Sorrell did after Captain Kidd and the Slave Girl was a bit part in the uber-goth May/December romantic comedy Harold and Maude. Eva Gabor of course went on to do about a billion things and be a superstar and international sex symbol. Anthony Dexter’s Captain William Kidd is assisted by his best mate played by Alan Hale Jr., a former child star who went on to play The Skipper on Gilligan’s Island. I really wanted to justify Gilligan’s Island as a pirate film, but was stymied by it really being a TV series. The Doctor Who Space Pirates serial was eliminated on the same grounds.

9. Captain Blood — In this 1935 masterpiece, Errol Flynn really stamped his flavor indelibly on the swashbuckler genre. As Dr. Peter Blood, he is a maverick who is not afraid to voice unpopular opinions. Seventy some odd years later, some of the religious and political dialog in this movie can still shock. Consequences be damned! Of course, the consequences are that he is enslaved and shipped off to the Caribbean and has to ally himself with pirates and swashbuckle his way to freedom and the heart of Olivia de Havilland’s Arabella Bishop.

10. Pirates — The breakout adult film of 2005 is, if this is even possible, less imaginatively named than the Gene Kelly song and dance vehicle above. In a genre not known for originality, director Joone can be forgiven for a simple title. Porn Valley folks who do mainstream adult video are always talking about how they are going to make a porn movie with actual production values, but almost nobody ever actually does it. Pirates starred Jesse Jane, Carmen Luvana, Janine, Teagan Presley, Devon, Austyn Moore and Jenaveve Jolie. An all-star cast to be sure, but that has been done before. The difference is in the elaborate pirate costumes, lavish scenery and effects, and Joone’s attention to detail and quality in both the nekkid parts and the clothed ones. Pirates II: Stagnetti’s Revenge, the sequel to Pirates, is just about ready for release. As I counted the Pirates of the Caribbean movies as all one entry, it is probably fair to count Pirates and Pirates II as both part of the same entry in the Blue Blood Top 10 Pirate Movies of All Time countdown.

September 19th is International Talk Like a Pirate Day, so watch pirate films and arrrrrrrr, yo, ho, ho, ho, and a bottle of rum!

(Click image at the end of the article to view video)

Funny or Die is the first site in a network which hopes to leverage the celebrity of people famous in old media into celebrity in new media. Your hosts at Funny or Die are apparently Will Ferrell, Judd Apatow, Adam McKay, and Chris Henchy. I came across the site today because I heard that Paris Hilton had made a campaign ad about John McCain because John McCain had made a campaign ad about her and Barack Obama. Searching on YouTube, I mostly only found about a lot of new pages promising something to do with Paris Hilton and porn. I never searched for Paris Hilton before, so maybe there are a couple hundred new pornographic entries about her on YouTube every day. It wasn’t very helpful anyway, so I went over to Live.com search and found what I was looking for on on the Funny or Die site.

I don’t live in America, so I don’t have an opinion on the upcoming election, but I still think this video is funny. I guess the John McCain campaign made an ad where they said Barack Obama is a celebrity, like Britney Spears or Paris Hilton, but does that mean he is ready to lead. Paris Hilton is one of the many heirs to the Hilton hotels fortune and a number of her family members donated to the McCain campaign. So her whole family was angry about her being in the ad and she made a response video for the Funny or Die web site.

The moral of the story is that one should always try to avoid insulting good-looking bitchy club kids with trust funds. The least of them will make it their mission in life to get retribution for imagined slights. For an actual slight, the most successful of them will make a comedy video for a celebrity-driven web site and more than four million people will see their video dis.

I did this interview with the wonderful Scott Owens from EroticBPM a while back for the esteemed Thomas S. Roche back when he was editing Eros Zine. Eros Zine was unfortunately not able to post it permanently before they lamentably stopped updating. As yesterday was EroticBPM’s nine year anniversary, I felt like now would be a good time to post it here.

Scott Owens is the founder of and mastermind behind EroticBPM. BPM stands for Beats Per Minute and is an electronica term for how fast the musical percussion is thumping to get your booty shaking. The site initially grew out of the rave culture which Scott was active in. Hence the moniker “Erotic Beats Per Minute.”

Partiers who have had a blast at raves will enjoy the site, but it also appeals to a more general taste in unique young women — and occasionally men. Those who like partying teens will find EroticBPM has a lot of hot stuff to fit that taste as well. And there is a special forum for photos of models and members showing off their elbows. MistyB, one of the star models on EroticBPM, posts, “Elbow fetish is the only fetish.” She might be joking. Then again, the site features a plethora of fine examples of elbow photography.

Scott Owens is creative and always pushing the envelope in terms of how erotic content can be presented online. Although blogging is less of a focus now, EroticBPM was one of the very first multigirl erotic membership sites to feature model journals and structured profiles and the very first in his niche. The site features a thriving community where members and models and Scott and company interact in a friendly and positive way. Scott and his trusty coder Anti are always thinking of new features. Members can post party pictures and such in the members area and you can just feel the fun looking at them.

One of the most striking things about Scott is that, even in the face of trials and tribulations, he manages to remain warm and friendly. He is a genuinely nice guy, enjoyed by those around him.

Fun fact to know and share: The famous, down-to-earth, and very beautiful Bella Star got her start modeling for EroticBPM and still stops by from time-to-time to say hello to members and everyone else. Beauties featured in our exclusive free EroticBPM preview photo gallery include Bella Starr, Seattle, Sky, Genesis LaVey, Charissa, MistyB, Krystal, Zia, Bailey, Tanya, Gwen, Cadence, MerriCat, Jamie, Haley, Faye, Wish, Nails, Bonnie, Hel Inferna, Bubbles aka Bella Vendetta, the always enjoyable Athena Hollow, and birthday celebration girl Money.

Amelia G: How would you describe the theme or themes of EroticBPM?

Scott Owens: EroticBPM started off primarily as an adult site focused on the rave subculture and community. But it has since evolved to include other subcultures as well.

Amelia G: What motivated you to start an erotic membership site? What motivated you to pick the themes you did?

Scott Owens: Well back in 1999 I thought that doing an adult site would be a fun summer project to teach myself photography and web design all at once. Only most of the websites out there at the time did not appeal to me. I decided to start a site with a community focus and use raver models since that was the subculture I was involved in and familiar with at the time.

Amelia G: Was a membership site your first web site?

Scott Owens: Yep, I had never tried to make a website before this.

Amelia G: EroticBPM was originally called RaverPorn. What prompted the name change?

Scott Owens: Several reasons. Many people felt the name was misleading, although we have a variety of content many people described the photos as erotica more than porn.

Also, the rave scene was in decline and so I wanted to keep an electronic music focus while still leaving it open for other subcultures.

Amelia G: What do you look for in models?

Scott Owens: What I look for the most is the right attitude and interesting personality.

As far as looks go, I don’t have anything specific that I look for, but models who have a unique look definitely get noticed more.

Amelia G: How would someone go about getting to appear on your site?

Scott Owens: There is a link on the site for the model application. Just attach a couple photos and tell us a bit about yourself and we will get back to you if we are interested.

Amelia G: You had a lot of buzz early on. What magazines, newspapers, TV, and other press outlets have covered your projects and how did you hook up with them?

Scott Owens: Spin magazine, Wired, BBC, Sex television, CMJ New Music, Mixmag, BPM, to name some. All of them got in touch with me after hearing about the website and checking it out, they thought it was fresh and interesting enough to talk about.

Amelia G: Is it easier or harder to get press coverage now?

Scott Owens: I would say it is harder. My site and others have been covered pretty extensively, so it is harder to attract attention just based on site novelty.

Amelia G: I understand you have done fairly extensive club promotion. What sorts of events have you created? Did you do event promo before the web sites or did that come later? Do the two things go together for you?

Scott Owens: I had done some event promotion previously, and once I started the site it made sense to promote at clubs and raves since that is what I was familiar with. I’ve done several site sponsored events with fun themes, great music, and always involve some of our pretty models. One event in particular involved a lot of chocolate and photos can be seen on the site.

Amelia G: You’ve lived a number of places while publishing to the web. Where do you think are the best places to do what you do? Do you like to move?

Scott Owens: I started in Wisconsin and then moved to Hawaii where I have been the last five years. And now I am getting ready to relocate to Portland. Hawaii has been a difficult place to do what I do because so much has to be done remotely through other people I work with on the mainland.

I think that Portland will be much better for business, they have a good music scene, and a lot of alternative culture allowing me to have much more of a hands-on approach with things, including being able to start doing events again.

Amelia G: Do you consider EroticBPM to be alt-porn?

Scott Owens: Yes, for lack of a better term.

Amelia G: Do you consider EroticBPM to be feminist?

Scott Owens: I prefer to say it is feminist-friendly.

Many women who consider themselves feminist approve of and participate in my website, but people have different ideas on how to define “feminist”. So I would rather let people decide if they think it is feminist rather than try to convince people it is.

Amelia G: Do you think it is easier or harder to do what you do now than it was when you started?

Scott Owens: It is definitely more challenging, there is a lot more competition now. I think it is much harder for people starting out now than it was when I did.

Amelia G: What are your favorite party accessories? Glowsticks, kegs, a certain kind of music?

Scott Owens: My party mood changes constantly, sometimes I feel like a keg party in someone’s house with a local band or DJ, and sometimes I feel like dressing up and drinking martinis at a big club.

Amelia G: Who are some of your favorite DJs?

Scott Owens: One of my current favorites is DJ P, check him out at Studio 54 in Vegas I also like Z-trip, Richie Hawtin, Yoda, Woody McBride, Sasha, John Digweed, Tiesto, Chris Liberator. I could go on, but I will stop

Amelia G: What do you think your members enjoy most about EroticBPM?

Scott Owens: Definitely the community. Everyone is very friendly and interesting to interact with.

Amelia G: Anything I didn’t ask you about which you are dying to tell the world?

Scott Owens: Not that I can think of.

Amelia G: To recap: interactive community of rave and other music fans, unique girls, tattoos, feminist-friendly, altporn. Join the party at Scott Owens’ place at EroticBPM.

So I was chatting with my pal Anders from the band Anders Manga yesterday. I had just been looking at some snapshots of us partying together at a Hollywood hotspot just off Hollywood Blvd. When I say Hollywood hotspot, in this instance, I mean a place variously called White Lotus, The Ritual Supper Club, the local bus station, etc. where A-listers like Mark Wahlberg can go to bang porn stars cast for the next season of Entourage on HBO. At any rate, I’ll post the pics shortly and add a link, but Anders and I were just talking about this and that and he asked if I had heard from Jennifer of The Nuns recently.

Descended from Welsh royalty and initially known as Jennifer Miro in the earliest 1970’s incarnation of The Nuns as a seminal punk band in San Francisco, Jennifer steered the band in a more gothic direction over time and was variously known as Jennifer Anderson or Tiffany Tarantula or Maitresse Jennifer. The Nuns were huge in San Francisco and opened for bands like The Ramones and The Damned and were even on the bill for the very last Sex Pistols show. Jennifer also had a role in Dr. Caligari, the seminal cinema of transgression film from Stephen Sayadian and Jerry Stahl, who were also responsible for Cafe Flesh. However, Maitresse Jennifer or Mistress Jennifer is probably best known to members of the Blue Blood boards as the Blue Blood hottie who asked all the most interesting questions about love in the kinky tumultuous world of fame, wealth, and rock and roll.

[13:10] Anders Manga: hey have you heard from Jennifer? from nuns?
[13:10] Anders Manga: she vanished?
[13:11] AmeliaG: not in ages. I was in pretty regular contact with her, so I wonder if she got married or sex murdered
[13:11] Anders Manga: i heard her friend in the band was murdered in nyc
[13:11] AmeliaG: eep, forget I just said that particular conjecture
[13:11] AmeliaG: that’s creepy

I was just thinking that Jennifer, like a lot of superstar hotties, will disappear when she gets into a new Relationship and reappear when it ends or has trouble. I wish people would not exit their normal day-to-day lives and relationships when they are in love, but it is pretty common. That is what I had assumed had happened. Now that I’ve read a bit more about what was going on at the time, I’m kind of worried.

Apparently, in the fall, Mistress Kris who performed with The Nuns and appeared in many photo shoots with Jennifer was murdered at a hotel in Times Square. Times Square in New York City is supposedly gentrified to the point of Disneyfication. I think a Disney corporation even covered the financing on a bunch of the un-sleazing of Times Square. Nonetheless, the Hotel Carter still stands and is still open for business from vagrants and creeps. At least as recently as 1999, Hotel Carter was the sort of establishment where the front desk personnel might be killing one another with a knife or hammer, and housed the sort of nightclub that Sean Puffy Combs and Jennifer Lopez would have to flee after a shooting incident. In the 80’s, Hotel Carter was the place to throw a half-dressed bound woman out the window. I’ve always liked the word defenestration but not approved of the practice.

At any rate, a housekeeper found poor Kris’ nude corpse wrapped in plastic under the bed, after a guest named Clarence Dean checked out. Clarence Dean was already wanted in the State of Alabama for (a) failure to appear for a property theft trial and (b) a rape charge and (c) not keeping the folks who track convicted sex offenders aware of his whereabouts. Apparently the vile Clarence Dean had been found guilty of attempting to do horrible things to a nine-year-old girl in Florida, but he had not maintained his sex offender registration. He was also accused of meeting college girls via online dating sites and then raping them. According to the New York Times, Clarence Dean also had prior convictions in Texas and Tennessee for sex-related offenses. Apparently, Clarence Dean got to New York by stealing the car and credit cards belonging to the Tennessee woman he was supposed to be helping care for as a home health aide. (The only other person I’ve ever heard of stealing from the person he is supposed to care for, in this sort of situation, is one of the very worst people I have ever had the misfortune to meet.) Clarence Dean’s ill-gotten gains could only take him so far because he was forced to stay at the Hotel Carter because it was bargain-priced at only $99.23 a night before tax. Consider how expensive Manhattan is if $99 a night gets you a place described by the AP as “a threadbare accommodation that stands as a throwback to Times Square’s seedy past . . . for budget travelers who don’t mind insects, grimy bathrooms, stained furniture and broken telephones.”

So anyway, the whole thing is totally appalling. It appears that the perpetrator of this awful deed is probably standing trial round about now and may get the death penalty. Certainly, given his long rap sheet, Clarence Dean does not sound like a candidate for rehabilitation and no amount of remorse on his part, if he had it, would bring Kris back. To be 100% even-handed, I’ll mention that Clarence Dean’s brother apparently claims the guy is a simpleton who is being framed, but I can’t think what the motive would be for the New York City police to frame a fugitive serial sex offender for murdering a hot girl from a goth band.

At any rate, I hope Jennifer is okay. Does anyone know how she is doing?

I’d like to take a moment out from my busy schedule of rolling around on the floor laughing at the recent obscenity prosecutions in the United States, in order to comment on them. Veteran adult video performer and producer Max Hardcore was just found guilty of obscenity in Florida. For those who are unaware of his oeuvre, Max Hardcore was the first guy on the extreme-hardcore-with-teens bus. Whether or not you really want to see gaping anal or watersports or puking in a sexual context or even naked chicks who look younger than twenty-two, Max Hardcore certainly deserves both credit and responsibility for bringing such things into the popular culture. Apparently, along with credit for his ground-breaking work in rough sex on camera comes an attempt by the State of Florida to nail him on 20 counts of distributing obscene materials through the mails and internet. Now I have it on good authority that various government agents have been so anxious to bust Max Hardcore over the years that one such over-eager and nervous gent once accidentally discharged a firearm in Max’s house, during a study of paperwork, such that repairs were needed. Now, don’t get me wrong, Blue Blood magazine in print used to get screeners of Max’s movies way before they got as extreme as they supposedly are now. And I couldn’t sit through one then. At the time, I was just like, how did some construction worker manage to parlay an interest in sex into this huge career?

Now Blue Blood art director Forrest Black and I used to enjoy going to all the adult industry trade shows. We attended the adult video shows in Vegas since the pre-Internet times when the adult video show was a little room in the Sands which was part of CES, the Consumer Electronics Show. The very first time I encountered Max Hardcore in person, we shared an elevator at one of those shows and Max told Forrest he liked his fun fur coat. That was about the extent of the interaction and it was still enough for me to be blown away by Max’s charisma. Max Hardcore has that kind of rockstar thing where you stand next to him and he just exudes hotness. He has perfect manners, only you just know he is nasty as all get-out in the bedroom. He has that total Madonna in the living room and whore in the bedroom thing down and he is just very appealing on a basic lizard brain level. Everyone knows a guy where chicks do things with him that they would normally never do. Max Hardcore is one of those guys.

So the State of Florida indicted him on a robust 20 counts of being bad without artistic, literary, or scientific merit and determined that a jury of his peers would have to sit through five of his films back-to-back in a room full of strangers. This sounds like some surreal form of torture out of Brazil (The dystopian science fiction movie by Terry Gilliam, not the country where the unwise film porn movies of HIV-positive tranny hookers.) If “Fist of Fury 4 — Euro Edition” and “Pure Max 19” are not your thing, they are probably really not your thing. If they are your thing, can you imagine having to watch many hours of your specific personal taste in porn, while fully dressed, in a room packed with people you do not know, for hours and hours? Ouch. The defense felt, reasonably I believe, that showing only part of the videos could allow the prosecution to, err, cherry pick only the most appalling scenes and leave out the parts which defense attorney Jeffrey Douglas described as “substantially more light-hearted.” So there was quite a lawyerly tussle over how much of the movies in question to show.

Max Hardcore is no stranger to the legal hot seat, but the bizarre thing here is that he actually got convicted of ten counts and his company got convicted of ten. I’m not sure how it works if a corporation has been naughty, but whatever. One of the freakiest things about this case was that jurors have actually come forward and said that they found against Max because of how the law was explained to them, but they felt he deserved to go free. A jury of his peers felt that the law was unfair and Max was doing no wrong. The State of Florida was actually trying to take the man’s house in California and the jury was having none of it. Full disclosure: I have been a guest at said house and enjoyed Max Hardcore’s hospitality and, yes, that is a photo of me with him at a bar, but, unlike the unfortunate jurors in this case, I have never been forced to watch one of his movies all the way through. I remember when I was a wild girl, but now I am a total prude because I draw the line sexually way before I start vomiting on someone’s cock. This has really messed with my sense of self, but I digress.

Now, of course, Max Hardcore will be appealing the ruling against him. I think he stands a good chance of winning because (a) he always wins this sort of thing, (b) the charges are ridiculous, (c) he just really does not come across as a bad guy, and (d) if even the jurors in Florida were sympathetic to him, the higher up the legal chain he goes, the more likely I think things are to go his way.

A number of adult industry chicken littles (Sky-is-falling ninnies not to be confused with Paul Little aka Max Hardcore aka Max Steiner.) are all aflutter about how this means the end of adult video and adult internet and freedom of speech etc. etc. etc. They are quick to point out that people who live in more liberal parts of the country such as California should be freaking the fuck out because of the Ira Isaacs case starting this month. Round about now, you are probably asking, who is Ira Isaacs? I know I’d never heard of him.

Apparently Ira Isaacs makes bestiality and scat videos. Inside the United States. It seems that nobody ever pointed out to this Ira Isaacs guy that there is a reason there are countries like Holland. According to adult industry publication XBiz, the titles in question in the Ira Isaacs case include “Gang Bang Horse — ‘Pony Sex Game,’” “Mako’s First Time Scat,” “Hollywood Scat Amateurs No. 7,” and “BAE 20.” I’m not even going to ask what BAE stands for, as I previously thought it stood for Best America Erotica, a fine series of book anthologies, edited by Susie Bright, which I have been published in. And I’d like to keep thinking of BAE that way.

Now, while poor Max Hardcore was found guilty for distributing videos of consensual heterosexual human sexuality in Florida, the Ira Isaacs case had to be halted yesterday. Because the Los Angeles Times reported that the judge in the case had a personal website with naughty materials on it: “Alex Kozinski, chief judge of the U.S. 9th Circuit Court of Appeals, granted a 48-hour stay in the obscenity trial of a Hollywood adult filmmaker after the prosecutor requested time to explore “a potential conflict of interest concerning the court having a . . . sexually explicit website with similar material to what is on trial here.” In an interview Tuesday with The Times, Kozinski acknowledged posting sexual content on his website. Among the images on the site were a photo of naked women on all fours painted to look like cows and a video of a half-dressed man cavorting with a sexually aroused farm animal. He defended some of the adult content as “funny” but conceded that other postings were inappropriate. Kozinski, 57, said that he thought the site was for his private storage and that he was not aware the images could be seen by the public, although he also said he had shared some material on the site with friends. After the interview Tuesday evening, he blocked public access to the site. Kozinski is one of the nation’s highest-ranking judges and has been mentioned as a possible candidate for the U.S. Supreme Court. He was named chief judge of the 9th Circuit last year and is considered a judicial conservative on most issues. He was appointed to the federal bench by President Reagan in 1985.”

So, just to recap, a sexy and well-known guy who gets chicks to consensually do crazy stuff on camera has to spend bank on attorneys because of a ruling in Florida that even the jurors do not agree with. An obscure bestiality and scat aficionado in California can’t get a fair trial because the State is having difficulty finding a judge who does not collect bestiality-related porn pics. In California, it is apparently acceptable to post a repository of same to the internet, provided you think the content is “funny” and are not tech-savvy enough to know that people can, ya know, see things which are posted to the web.

You just have to see the humor in all that. To keep from weeping.

I handed Gene Simmons his laundry once. This was more than ten years ago, so my memory is a bit murky, but, as I recall, I may have both handed him his clean laundry and picked up his dirty laundry to run back to the stadium. It was one of my last gigs as a stagehand. I was a runner. A runner is someone who will work for stagehand wages but has a working and ideally presentable car. At the time, I had already mostly transitioned into doing contract design work, corporate presentations and that sort of thing which paid better. My car actually was not terribly presentable, but some of the staff for the KISS tour recalled a nicer-looking (but less reliable) car I had owned at the time of an earlier gig and they liked me. I took the job because they had specifically requested if “the girl with the kinky zines” was still available. Plus working at a rock stadium was generally pretty sociable and fun, especially at a job which, unlike many I’d done there, was unlikely to cause injury.

I was never a member of the KISS Army or anything and my parents felt the KISS logo was unacceptable Nazi regalia and boys who wanted me to like KISS (and them) had always played me “Beth”. I guess guys always think the chick will like the power ballad better than the rocker, but it always struck me as really ill-conceived to try to seduce a girl with a song about blowing off your girlfriend. (Talk about “Lick My Love Pump” being in the saddest key!) I did think KISS had some fairly listenable music, but I was not crazy familiar with them either.

So, when my runner job afforded me the opportunity to watch part of a KISS concert, I didn’t have a ton of expectations, except that I’d vaguely thought they wore their makeup different. I missed the whole trauma the hardcore KISS fans endured when the band went from monster makeup to hair metal makeup. They are probably the only band in the history of the universe to get less pussy after donning hair metal makeup than they got without it.

Regardless, the thing which struck me most when I worked for KISS was that there were ridiculously hot unfamiliar girls at the show. Like super hot and super into the band. And, at the time, I was at least minimally acquainted with a pretty high percentage of the hot sluts in the DC/NoVa/Baltimore area. So it was surprising to have so many incredibly hot metal chicks at a KISS concert and not recognize any of them from other events I’d been at. I commented on the anomaly at the time to everyone I mentioned the show to, but I didn’t understand what the likely reason was that there were such hot girls there who I’d never seen at shows by Guns N’ Roses, Skid Row, Poison, Aerosmith, Warrant, Kix, Child’s Play, and countless good-looking national and local bands in related genres.

I joked at the time that the band must bring the girls with them or something. This went way beyond just what a band bringing groupies from the last city would entail, but it didn’t occur to me that it really would be beneficial for a band like KISS to in fact hire a hottie crew. A lot of their fanbase was homophobic, but there were persistent rumors that their lead singer Paul Stanley was homosexual or bisexual and Gene Simmons had this demon fuckmonster persona where he lived out fans’ male adolescent fantasies, so, from a PR perspective, it really would have made sense for them to cast some amazingly hot women as enthusiastic fans and pay them to come on tour at cheer them on. I mean, sports teams have cheerleaders and that is kind of the same benefit. The only difference is really that cheerleaders have uniforms and everybody knows what their roles are, but hired rock fans are kind of more disingenuous. The first time I photographed someone who made rent pretending to enjoy The Rolling Stones in concert, it was like I found out Santa Claus was a lie. Actually my parents never lied to me about Santa Claus, so I think I got that childhood trauma at a later age, when I realized that rock n’ roll was kinda dishonest.

The music industry has a long history of putting fake publicity out there. The habit greatly pre-dates rock and roll. It is ironic that the internet has put such a damper on music sales. On the one hand, the web has made it so much easier to disseminate dishonest presentations of self, but it has also made it easier to steal the music industry’s primary product. So, the industry is taking a huge hit to the wallet at the same time that its PR machine has destroyed any trust music fans might have had. Their disingenuous behavior makes it hard for anyone to feel much sympathy for the record industry.

It seems obvious to a teenager that a squeaky clean band might have a dark secret life, but it is less obvious that someone might be drinking apple juice out of a Jack Daniels bottle on stage. At this point, I pretty much disbelieve anything stated more than twice in any press release. I figure whatever they are trying to sell me is probably a lie. I used to listen to music every day and base large portions of my life around music and music-related events. But I’ve lost my faith.

So a site calling itself Gene’s Secret launched this week with a seven or so minute video purporting to be of Gene Simmons fucking some blonde. A couple of clips from the video have also been circulating the web and blog empire Gawker received a cease and desist from Gene Simmons’ attorneys for running them. If you care, the sex is not particularly inspired or emotional and the blonde actively avoids kissing the KISS bassist and they are apparently doing it to the dulcet tones of Steve Perry. Gawker feels the clips are sufficiently newsworthy as to not require them to comply with the C&D. Now I could go off about celeb sex tapes and Paris Hilton and Pamela Anderson and Tommy Lee and Fred Durst and why these types of videos tend to have unappetizing sex and why our Puritan society refers to anyone in one as B list and what is wrong with a society which invades people’s privacy like this. But I’m not going to because I, perhaps cynically, believe that the whole thing is an orchestrated publicity stunt. I have no faith that this is a real stolen video or that the subjects did not know they were being recorded or that any of what is being presented is remotely as real as WWF.

At first glance, some people felt the Gene’s Secret Gene Simmons sex tape was a hoax and utilized a lookalike. I mean, there are an awful lot of KISS cover bands, so I can understand how people would believe it would not be hard to find a Gene Simmons demon lookalike. Through the Manatt law firm, Gene Simmons confirmed the authenticity of the sex tape but denied that anyone but Gene Simmons’ Allied Industries corporation should be able to profit from it. Nonetheless, the video is still live on the Gene’s Secret site, which one would assume would be the first target for a C&D. If this reminds altporn fans of when a site called SuicideGirls unsuccessfully pretended it was not really them licensing their content when they decided to resell unretouched versions of photosets they had promised models they would not resell . . . well, it reminds me of that little fiasco too. (Full disclosure: At the suggestion of SuicideGirls head honcho Sean Suhl, Blue Blood has previously consulted with the law firm of Manatt, Phelps, & Phillips.) Both scenarios feature a lawyer letter which purports to be trying to stop the distribution of the content, while simultaneously giving the content authenticity. Of course, this is the internet, so Gawker promptly posted the C&D on their tech industry blog Valleywag under the heading “Gene Simmons lawyer confirms sex tape’s authenticity“. While this may prove that the man in the video is in fact the tongue-wielder from KISS, it doesn’t prove that the whole thing is not a hoax.

The Gene’s Secret site features the following copy:

“This isn’t Shannon, this isn’t the same Family Jewels that you can catch on late-night cable. This is Gene giving you his best on screen performance yet! Find out all the benefits of being the spokesperson for a the latest energy drink, Frank’s Energy. Although it looks like Gene would rather gulp done one of Frank’s Energy Girls! . . . What is Gene’s Secret? Actually, it’s a WHO, and she is a hot little Austrian babe, named Elsa. She is a model, and one of the Frank’s Engery Drink Girls, a brand which Gene endorses (apparently to fuel his sex drive.) Elsa and Gene party like rockstars, and we have it all here, EXCLUSIVELY on GenesSecret.com.”

Now, I’ve never heard of this energy drink before, but I’m guessing a lot of people, who never heard of it before, have now heard of it. Most of the copy on the membership site tour is about how Gene has a reality show called Family Jewels and he uses this beverage. Celebrity sex tape site tours usually have a lot more text about how you just have to see this video and you should sign up now now NOW! This tour seems less interested in making sales and more interested in telling everyone about projects Gene Simmons gets paid on. Gene Simmons keeps his shirt on during the video and most people prefer to get naked for sex or at least don’t pay attention to the clothing they have on, but a video of an older guy having sex is less embarrassing if he is wearing a smoothly adjusted T-shirt for the whole thing. A publication called AVN, which is primarily about mainstream Valley porn video, puts on an award show for pornstars every January. Last year, Gene Simmons was a presenter at the AVN awards show and AVN was apparently the first to break the news about the Gene’s Secret celebrity sex tape. Coincidence or evidence of the occult? You be the judge.

When something like a celeb sex vid scandal happens, it is hard to parse out the truth, so people tend to partly believe the whole thing is fake and partly believe the whole thing is real. So many things like this have been presented to people in the Digital Age that most people carry constant cognitive dissonance around in their heads 24/7/365 now. No wonder prescriptions for antidepressants are so common. Cognitive dissonance is painful. It is bad for society when people suffer from constantly having mutually exclusive ideas in their heads. Aside from the mental health costs, when people are used to the puzzle pieces in their brain not fitting, then they become much less able to make decisions, less able to run their own lives well, less able to vote for candidates who hold their values, less able to form lasting relationships. People may think they are just doing internet marketing, but they are causing real world damage.

I wish I believed that hot chicks, who can really strut, just want to rock and roll all night. I wish I believed that some callous big titty whore tricked a genuinely promiscuous and wild rock star into starring in his own porn video, blackmailed him, and then cashed in anyway. I wish I believed that Gene Simmons was a victim here. That might all be true, but the music industry has cried wolf too many times for me to believe any of it. They’ve put too many snake oil salesmen behind the pulpit. I wish I believed that anything in music culture was real now. Viral marketing has destroyed any trust music fans, or people who would otherwise have been music fans, might have in music or musicians.

Viral marketing might get the word out, but it has destroyed my faith.

A few weeks back, my good friend TC, lead singer of Satiate and Blue Blood writer, celebrated her birthday. TC is into her Americana, so the theme of the evening was bowling and Pabst Blue Ribbon (and later tittays, tittays, tittays.) We started off the evening at Lucky Strike Lanes. The bowling alley at the flailing Hollywood and Highland mall advertises itself as upscale and I generally end up there fairly regularly when various porn companies rent out the VIP for parties. The teams were roughly divided along band lines of Satiate versus Dead Girls Corporation. I played on the birthday girl’s team and we were utterly pasted by DGC. In my defense, although I do not do an approach, I am not a terrible bowler, but Lucky Strike Lanes has an awful ball selection on a weekend night and their lanes are non-standard length and a bunch of their machinery seems oddly timed. Not in my defense, the other team also had to contend with the same sucky ball selection and non-standard lane length and oddly timed machinery. I swear all the balls seemed like they were made for giant steroid users with baby hands, like sixteen pound balls only a little kid could get a finger spread in. At one point, I accidentally threw one of the balls our lane was using when the system was actually changing pins and my ball went down the middle of the lane, got stopped by the pin-sweeper, and just kind of hung out there. I finally went up the lane to retrieve it. To my friends’ amusement and the bowling alley personnel’s annoyance. I can’t help it if I’m a DIY problem-solver.

Continuing my beer-related sports activities for the night, we all went across the street to Powerhouse afterwards. Powerhouse has electronic dart boards. There is something tremendously and poignantly Hollywood about producing something as basic as a darts game for hole-in-the-wall bars as a big budget extravaganza with special effects. I am not a terrible bowler, but I have always been a wretchedly bad darts player and I haven’t played in years. I am undaunted by fear of failure, so I decide to have a go at darts. Throwing darts into cork board is difficult. Throwing darts into a dart board structured like a Lite Brite is even more difficult. The only plus being that, if you suck so bad that you don’t hit the dart board at all, it does not count as a turn and you get to keep playing until you sink a dart into one of the holes and it registers electronically. So I am determinedly attempting to connect darts with the electronic dartboard. Pretty soon, it seems like most of the bar is watching me play darts. Badly. Probably because, if they were going to lose an eye, they wanted to see their blindness coming. Finally, a cute boy named Deacon comes up to me and starts to say, “I’m only saying this because I work here . . .” At this point, I kind of expect him to tell me to, for the love of all that is holy, put the fucking darts down. Instead he gives me pointers on how to throw in such a way that I am less likely to turn those in line for the men’s room into pin cushions. The Powerhouse is awesome! Forrest Black beats me at darts. TC double-fists beers until she got to the “Is there anybody here who has not seen my tittays?” portion of the evening. Happy birthday, girl!

Afterwards, we hit Miss Kitty’s pervy club night at The Dragonfly. Billy, aka Deviant Designs from the Blue Blood boards, entertains us by making out with his friend JT. Scar watches intently for a while. She has been peer-pressuring Billy to do this for pretty much the entire evening, from before they even got to the club. Finally, she says that she has the oddest feeling like someone just walked in on her masturbating. I point out that now she knows how she makes all the guys she knows feel. She doesn’t seem to get what exactly the similarity would be, but I’m not sure there is all that much blood in her brain at the time.

I should probably never play strip darts.

Strip bowling would probably be okay though.

So it has been crazy busy in the Blue Blood compound this week as we ready ourselves for the 2007 SXSW extravaganza in Austin, Texas. Gotta paint my nails and make sure my purple hair dye is fresh and, oh yeah, make sure BlueBlood.com and its associated sites will be updating in our absence. Blue Blood hottie Halcyon will be moderating the panel I am speaking on. Halcyon and I are returning speakers and I’m looking forward to meeting long-time camgirl Seska, who will be joining us this year. Forrest Black will, of course, once again be doing press photography of the whole shebang and some editorial afterwards.

If I remember to bring them in all the hullaballoo of modern air travel, I will also be giving out some free SpookyCash T-shirts. They are 100% cotton black T-shirts with kickass original artwork by the incomparable Ed Mironiuk.

Here are the details of my panel for those who wish to stop by, reap the fabulous benefits of my wisdom, and say howdy:

Panel Title: Pay Up! Should Publishers Choose the Porn Path?
Panel Location: Room 9AB, Panel Date: Saturday, March 10th, Panel Time: 5pm-6pm
SXSW Panel Description: “As the public becomes more comfortable paying for premium content and services, what can we learn from the pornographic trailblazers? What billing models and payment systems are working online in porn that would successfully crossover to mainstream? What types of content and services are ready for the Porn Path of Pay to Peruse? The panel will include veterans in the online adult industry discussing relevant trends and lessons learned.”

Despite the lurid title, the main topic is essentially a discussion of the pay-for-content business model (which allows Blue Blood to give back to the community with all the free goodies you all get to enjoy.) I’ll have more to say on the SXSW panel and I’ll probably post more here later, but, in brief, SpookyCash is the Business2Business affiliate system by which people with high traffic websites can make some beer money by linking to some of the membership sites we support. I’ll explain more later, but that is the core of it.

I’d also like to state for the record that Halcyon totally came up with the name for our panel. I don’t make porn and I tend to be suspicious of people who really segregate their sexuality from who they are as human beings. For example, if you like light bondage and you also like Nine Inch Nails (Thanks for advertising again, Trent.) then you would ideally seek a partner who enjoys both. I think porn porn tends to isolate the act from the personality and I find that really lame. But “Pay Up! Should Publishers Choose the Porn Path?” is a catchy title. Last time we spoke, our panel got one of the highest ratings of any panel at SXSW and I’m hoping Halcyon’s inflammatory title will incite even more interested souls to attend. Hopefully, despite the raunchy title, our audience this year will be as interesting and friendly as last time.