So you finally got a taste of Los Angeles, my online porn brethren. Despite the constant refrain of “I don’t know how you can live here; the traffic is terrible,” I know you loved it. I know you were disappointed when you had to leave. I know you wished you could handle the monster that is L.A.
I’m talking to you, Sleazy, you, Mr. Jester, and you, the entire Phoenix contingent. Yeah, you fuckin’ heard me.
Now that you’ve returned to your quaint existence in Bumfuck, Nowhere, I know you’re pining to repeat the brief period of excitement that Webmaster Access West brought to your life. Because you know that Dave Levine, Tina Ballina, Nader, and I are still eating it up with a spoon and, man, it tastes good.
When I initially wrote my first-day coverage of the event I explained that “going to these things is a lot like a crime scene—the usual suspects are always close by and you know somebody is guilty of something.”
This is still true. What made this show differ from all the others, though, was the locale. After all, you can drink and ogle strippers in just about any town in North America. L.A. is so much more.
“The godsend for us is that we’ve had a triple threat this week—the show, the Xbiz Awards, and tonight it’s the Playboy party,” said Eric Matis, the event organizer and GFY marketing director on the final day of the show.
The what? The who? The where?
Webmaster Access West, which ran from Nov. 16-18, abandoned Santa Monica, the 2004 venue, for Universal City’s tourist attractions and easy access to Hollywood. It also became more about the events than anything else.
Festivities more or less got underway Tuesday evening when SmashBucks and LocalBilling treated early arrivers and locals to dinners, and the evening devolved into debauchery. Wednesday night started things officially with the Porn Poker Tour and Warm-up Party warming up the festivities.
On Thursday there were some seminars, but I don’t really recall what they were about because Thursday was the day this show took a turn from every other show (except for Internext of course, which is its own animal). It was the day that began the L.A. Experience—not be confused with our long-forgotten U.S. Football League franchise, the L.A. Express, or Jimi Hendrix’s band.
The Key Club on the Sunset Strip was the setting for some sort of awards show. … Oh yeah, the Xbiz Awards. While the results may have been predictable, the evening was one of excitement, particularly for those who were a.) nominated, b.) from Alabama, or c.) drunk on free booze. Afterwards the excitement continued at the fabulous Hollywood Hills home of Mr. Sextoy.com Dave Levine, who held one of his infamous afterparties. The difference between this get together and his usual guest list was clearly the number of male webmasters uglifying the joint.
Friday was more of the same. Sure, there were some seminars, but all that was really on anyone’s mind was that evening’s VIP party at the Playboy Mansion. Either you were patting yourself on the back for being such a high roller and scoring the invite or you were begging Adult.com’s Joe Lensman to get you on the guest list so the perception of your prominence and stature wasn’t completely destroyed.
Alas, it was mighty swell chilling at the Mansion, but there was no Hefner to be seen and the number of flighty, naked bimbos didn’t quite meet the imagination’s expectations. This, of course, didn’t stop most of the sponsors from slapping each other on the back and proclaiming it the “greatest party ever.”
No offense guys, but you’re obviously not from around here.
As a friend of mine who is a concierge at the Mansion would later say, “Corporate parties at the Mansion? You want celebrity birthday parties, movie premiere afterparties and stuff like that. That’s where it really goes down.”
That may well sum it up. However, the most important thing in all of this is that I’m now able to lord this over my non-Mansion-going friends for the rest of my life.
Luckily, the Mansion was just the beginning of the night. Another Hollywood hot spot, the Lucky Strike bowling alley, housed the rest of the show’s attendees, who enjoyed bowling, booze, and the realization that Alec Helmy and Oystein Wright are really bad bowlers.
And that was it, the show was officially over. Of course, that didn’t stop anything or anybody. Many of the far-flung pornographers stuck around through the weekend.
The culmination of things was NichePay’s Saturday night party, which surprisingly featured more tits than the Playboy Mansion and – as an added bonus – lap dances.
Maybe it was the free drinks or perhaps the following day’s lack of scheduled responsibility, but it seems fitting that it took Nader, a fellow Los Angeleno, to finish the week off properly.
Of course, not everyone was pleased. Our own intrepid reporter Tripp Daniels felt there was a little something missing from Webmaster Access West.
“Not enough whores!” Daniels said.
Some people will never be pleased.
