Rage on Rage for SkinFlicks

There is apparently a new journalistic phenomenon: The practice of having people write about themselves for periodicals. While autobiography is not in itself a new form, surely this proliferation of self-revealing articles in publications as divergent in purpose and readership as People and The New Yorker is indicative of something. Then again, perhaps we are only reading the results of cost-conscious editors who can save themselves the price of a writer by having the subject double as scribe.

Today I received in the mail a request from the editor of SKINFLICKS to contribute some few words about myself and my work for his thoughtfully sleazy magazine. Mr. Johnson wrote that he was quite willing to accept any drivel I cared to pen, in any format that suited me. He suggested that I could do the piece as though I were being interviewed, or that "better yet, and probably easier for you and a lot more honest for SKINFLICKS would be to do what Arch Brown did some issues back when he wrote a brief piece in the first person."

Now I have to admit that in my ten or more years in and around pornography (excluding the years prior when I was only a masturbating consumer) this is the first and only time someone has brought up the topic of "honesty" at all. I was so shocked by the very idea that (in spite of my trepidations about such self-serving efforts) I could hardly refuse. Therefore, with the assurance that the reader understands I am only out for self-aggrandizement, I will proceed.

Speaking of the truth, I have always felt that I came by my career in pornography honestly. The very first thing I ever remember writing for myself (outside of class assignments) was a one-page, one-paragraph description of a man standing at a urinal stroking his cock. I must have been about twelve when I wrote this and was no doubt describing an early sexual encounter. I don't remember much about it except that it got me so aroused that I went immediately to the bathroom and masturbated, after which I tore the paper into tiny pieces that I flushed. My mother could be trusted to discover any wandering from the proper path to salvation and I didn't dare save the thing, however erotic I thought it was.

It was ten or so years before I attempted any more graphic sexual writing. I had just moved to New York and was making a feeble attempt to support myself by hustling at the infamous intersection of 53rd Street and Third Avenue. My chief problems as a hustler were two-fold: I hated having sex with men I didn't find attractive; I was only good for one trick a night. Since this meant that I made forty dollars on a good night and nothing on an average night, I was forced to try and find some way to supplement my income. As is true of many would-be performers, I resisted the idea of taking a regular job since it would interfere with opportunities to audition.

In reading the Village Voice I came across an ad soliciting pornographic manuscripts. I decided this was work I could do without having it get in the way of my acting or my prostitution and I immediately set to writing the first of twenty-six dirty books. Twenty of the books were "straight" and the remainder were gay. The longest it took me to write a book was three months (the first one) and the shortest was eighteen hours (the last.) Practice may not make perfect in the case, but it did make speedy.

At about the same time, I was strolling through Central Park one summer afternoon when I happened across a beautiful young man who was tripping. I took him home and later he invited me to a private screening of a porno film he had just performed in. At the screening, I met the director of the film, Arch Brown, who eventually asked if I would like to do a film for him. Although by then I didn't desperately need the money, it did sound like fun and I agreed immediately. A few months later when Arch asked if I'd like to do another one for him, I did need the money and again agreed. It was during the filming of the second movie that Arch introduced me to Jack Deveau who was just setting up his own film production company, Hand in Hand Films.

Jack first asked me to write and then appear in his second feature, DRIVE. The script I wrote with Jack called for an evil drag queen (the part was originally written for Lyn Carter) who was out to eliminate sex from the world. Mr. Carter was interested but unavailable. Jack and his partner Bob Alvarez decided I would be perfect for the part, although I'd never appeared in drag before, on or off screen. I guess they say potential.

DRIVE was some eighteen months from conception to completion and during the time I worked on several of Jack's other films.

For the first time I found out what it was like to be on the other side of the camera: casting, writing, promoting, advertising, and partying. Jack Deveau is without a doubt the BEST party-person I have ever met. (He could easily be the basis for an "Uncle Mame" book.) During succeeding years I worked primarily in advertising and spent some time managing several of New York's premiere and not-so-premiere all-male theatres. About six months ago, several of the people with whom I had worked approached me with the idea of putting together a video tape production on my own. Since I had done quite a bit of still photography for Arch Brown and others, and since I had managed several live sex shows in Manhattan, I had the contacts with performers to get a cast of good-looking men together for the tapes. They had the money. Now we have the tapes.

What was originally going to be one tape starring Richard Locke quickly turned into a three-tape project. The stars we rounded up included George Payne (very image conscious, always with a hardon during taping, somewhat difficult, always The Star); Scorpio (one of the sweetest and most attractive men alive today); Lee Marlin (looks tough, acts likeable, one of the better actors in hardcore films); Richard Locke (handsome, articulate, perfectionist and a royal pain in the ass); Casey Donovan (who gets my vote as the most cooperative and sexiest man I've ever had in front of my camera); and many 'newcomers' who were for the most part sexy and easy to work with.

The question I'm asked second most (the first is "What is ____________really like? ) is do I fuck with all the people I take pictures of. The answer is, of course, no.
No more than I fuck with everyone I meet in bars. The trouble with most of the performers (trouble isn't really the right word) is that they are very into their own lifestyles, which frequently involve hustling and almost always involve "performing" which is to say being on stage. Those of you who've had (or tried to have) affairs with actors, models, hustlers or bartenders must know what I mean: These are very difficult people to become involved with, mostly because they tend to be very self-involved. I don't hold it against them. On the contrary, it's what makes them who they are. I just would rather be on the opposite side of the camera.

And behind the camera is where you'll probably find me in the immediate future. If the public goes for these tapes as I think they will, then we'll be making more of them. And I'll continue looking for the hottest men around...not just for me, but for you too.