How nice to hear from GAYVN Hall of Fame'er Russell Moore a few months after the death of his life partner and business partner Brian (Barry Knight). Russell's back in the swing of things running his award-winning post-production company Delta Productions and he says he's "alive and well."
Speaking of alive and well… a GAYVN judge who pops into town only once a year for the Awards show took a side trip to Palm Springs to look up Daddy Zeus who hasn't been heard from much lately. He also is alive and well after a bit of semi-retirement. The tall, strapping, gray-haired dungeon master is looking good, and there may be a Zeus Studios title coming out before summer hits.
Hetero company Black Ice is enriching its melting pot with a new exclusive named Rico, a mouthwatering stud who may get gay guys picking up straight ethnic vids. With an African-American dad and a Puerto Rican mom, this exciting model "has appeal that will cross over to several ethnic groups," says Ice's general manager Ton Santoro. Rico was a dancer and college football player and, reportedly, has a 12 1/2-inch cock! He's in Crazy Big Booty 2 and White Girls Got Azz, Too.
Gay Sex in the '70s is a documentary scheduled for a June release by Wolfe Video. A big hit on the festival circuit, and one of the highest grossing gay indies of last year, it's a hot, erotic look at sex between the era of Stonewall and the beginnings of the AIDS crisis. It takes a look at sex liaisons in the baths, Central Park, in trucks, under piers and interviews people such as Larry Kramer and Tom Bianchi.
William Higgins and model Misha Medved are teaming up for vids featuring eastern European guys, and have an incredible new series of titles. Beautiful Misha was discovered by Higgins and now the muscle-twink has gone behind the cameras to direct Dreambook. He certainly knows how to make wet dreams come true.
GAYVN reviewer and judge Robert Patrick did a fun and thoughtful interview recently on GayRadio.com about reviewing gay porn. He was nice enough to write a forward in one of my Bad Boys on Video interview books explaining how they were representations of gay life chronicled like nothing else.
Blue Blake is back with a new muscleman film called Strong Man. There's one intense scene with Brad Rock as a bottom, new stud Justin Strong as a top and bodybuilder Nick Mazzarro doing whatever he can in between them.
Not only is "the artist formerly known as Gus Mattox" (Tom Judson) retiring from porn on top (so to speak) after winning GAYVN Performer of the Year, but he's in a mainstream Terrence McNally play and, I hear, a possible big-screen role soon too.
Speaking of mainstream, a reality show producer asked me about a certain porn star's true identity. It turns out that the recently retired star is in a high profile business in the New Orleans area with his dad, and the problem is that the dad doesn't know about his porn career. I didn't support the outing.
Colossal Man is joining the Brokeback craze with Dude Ranch Studs featuring Alex Junior, Allan Santos, Andrew Lopes, Rodrigo D'Kally, and an all-Brazilian cast.
Raging Stallion's latest innovation is a sexy CD of J.D. Slater's award-winning music. Called Naked, it's Slater's eighth disc and, I think, his best. I hear influences from Led Zeppelin, Peter Gabriel, David Byrne, and others in it. He has a middle-Eastern, African tribal flare and says, "I'm very lucky to be in the position to write in as many styles as I do. It's not unusual for me to cover jazz, hip hop, house, delta blues and classical orchestrations all in the same week."
Video 10 just released on DVD Toby Ross' extremely fun Guns of BDF of the Big Dik Factory fame. It's narrated by Brett Collins as a sort of research scientist who studies how to navigate a big one and what to do with it. Another great old re-release is the 1995 musical fantasy Rock and Roll Dreams, where a guy conjures up a 1950s rock star. More than an hour of extras make this a title worth rediscovering.
