Depending what website you read, Erotica LA was either half empty or half full. Executive director Ron Miller prefers to think the gas tank was topped off.
Miller: "My numbers were certainly up. People were very happy with the show. The impression from most of the big vendors, people who have been there all three years, was that the business was up from last year. Their sales were up from last year. Everyone that I spoke to at Wicked's [Wicked Pictures was located at the entranceway] booth felt that the traffic flow was a constant. We didn't have any spurts. The first hour that the doors were opened on Friday we had upwards of 1500 people. The room filled up and it stayed that way.
"What we did this year was that the front row between the front wall and where we started booths, we increased that setback by almost seven feet. Between the back row of booths and the back end, we increased that by five feet. We increased each aisle by 2 1/2 to 3 feet, the idea being that that would take care of the gridlock situation that gave us problems last year with the fire marshal.
"Bottom line, I haven't tallied numbers to the extent I need to give an accurate reflection. If I had to give an estimation of people, last year we were something over 12,000, this year we were looking for between 15 to 18,000 people. I'm fairly confident we made that number.
"In gross ticket sales, I made the 15,000. I have to break out the discount coupons and I have to break out the comp tickets and the VIP's and talent. I think that's going to approach 10% of total attendance. From companies like New Beginnings alone, I think I had 20 people on the list.
"We had five dollar-off coupons and flyers at all the Le Sex Shoppes. We also distributed them to as many of the local video stores that carried adult videos. We told them if they wanted more, they could contact us. We did the same thing with all the gentlemen's clubs in Southern California. We circulated those about 30 days out. We took about 500 to each of those locations. I put 100,000 five dollar-off coupons in circulation. Preliminary numbers are indicating that very few of them were used. I don't know what to make of that.
[Miller did go to exorbitant lenghts to get coupons into the hands of prospective attendees. "I felt I made it very accessible to people."]
Miller: "From the vast majority of vendors I talked to, everybody was real happy. We had fewer couples this year than we did last year. We had a different mix. I think a lot of that had to do with all of the events we were competing with. It's real difficult to plan an event, almost a year out, working around the Convention Center's available dates. You just can't call them and say I'd like to come on such and such day. You have to take what you can get.. We were competing with the Playboy Jazz Festival. That's a biggie for a lot of the couples we would draw from. Gay Pride was this weekend. While we don't have a big gay draw, I don't think the festival is necessarily an all gay-thing. It's an outdoor event. It was a nice, warm sunny weekend. I think we lost some business there; and there were also two rock concerts that had major radio station backing.
"As usual in LA, you always have things happening. When we book our event, things like rock concerts aren't always announced, yet. My read on it has been that any advertising I do more than 30 days out is a total waste of time. Usually the two or three weeks before are what really pays. I talk to store owners who told me when they have major events in their stores, like major signings, they don't advertise more than two weeks max. People are not going to plan to come to a non-seated event.
"There were a lot of things that occured this year in so far as major vendors who participated in the past, telling me that they wanted to expand space; smaller vendors wanting more space, and people who have yet to be there telling me that this is a signifacnt event, yes we will be here next year. Next year we're going to see a greater presence of the real major video companies. That's very gratifying. Now I'll go to the Convention Center and see what I can do as far as the camera-issue is concerned.
[People were clicking away like Japanese tourists despite camera ban postings.]
Miller: "I guess it's like life in general. You find people smoking just about everywhere. We had got right to the doorstep of the federal courthouse in a free speech pre-emption suit against the city of Los Angeles. We had attempted to get a license for the Convention Center. We finally negotiated out with the Convention Center, the city of Los Angeles and the District Attorney's office. They drafted show regulations and an addendum to the license to use the Convention Center. In that addendum they said the public would not be allowed to bring cameras. While I believe that we would have prevailed in a federal suit, we would have loast a year's worth of the event. The city knows this. As an attorney, I know that I'm going to be in litigation too long to get this show on the road. Do I make this show happen, then walk into the AVN event three weeks from now and find that there are cameras and that the general public can get into the event, then go back and threaten the city again. [The show is not open to the public.] Or was I better off not doing this year's event? There were a lot of questions to be answered.
"Sure it happened because of the Alisha Klass incident last year. That's what sparked the city to back away from giving us a license. The Alisha Klass is still ongoing, it has not been resolved. At one point in time I represented Klass and the other two girls. It came up as an offhand remark, that I was not going to get a license for the Convention Center until that case was resolved. Basically they had to plead to obscenity in order for the city of Los Angeles to grant me a license. In fairness to all parties concerned, that raised a significant conflict of interest, so I went to Alisha and the other two girls and Seymore Butts and said we need to meet. I explained to the girls with [attorney] Al Gelbard there, what a conflict of interest really was. I felt that this was not just a technical conflict, but a blatant conflict. I had to go get a license agreement for my own business. And, as an attorney, I'm not about to sell out the client. I substituted out of the case based on the fact that there was a conflict of interest. Had that incident not occured last year, I could only speculate that the city would not have had been motivated to attempt to deny us a license.
"The theory they used this year, is that when cameras come out, the entertainers are encouraged to flash and step over the line. I wish Klass and the other two defendants nothing but the best of luck. It's not my place, having represented them and being the creator of Erotica LA to comment on whether I believe their acts were lawful or unlawful, good or bad or indifferent. They've got competent legal counsel. Regardless, there are serious First Amendment issues that come up. The decisions that I had to make this year were, was I going to dance to their tune or find another venue for the event. Exactly what was I going to do?
"The entire ban on cameras came up initially right around the first of the year. That's when we got into the settlement negotiations. We had our dates reserved for the Convention Center, but we didn't have a final ruling on exactly what the camera situation was going to be until May 28. I was asked to come to the Convention Center. I walked into a room with a half dozen representatives from the city attorney's office, from their civil and criminal divisions. On the other side of the conference table were a half dozen ranking LAPD officers. At the head of the table was the general manager of the Convention Center. I was in the hot seat at the other end of the table. I was told that if the city felt there was a breach of any terms of the contract, or if there were any violations of law, they were going to close shop. Initially, the city wanted me to sign a liquidated damage clause that if any criminal activity occured on the premises, or anything surrounding the center, in the parking lots, bathrooms during Erotica La, that I would pay the city a liquidated damges fine of $100,000.
"So much came up at one time, that cutting through the enormity of all this was incredible. During this year's event, the only proplem that LAPD brought to my attention was that at one point, a five year-old child had walked into a back door that a vendor had opened. We got the child out of the room in less than a minute. Yet, on Saturday, mid to late afternnon, I had as many as 15 uniformed LAPD officers standing in a straight line across from the entrance. I went to the officer that was coordinating this, 'Why don't you just bring out the dogs and the riot gear? How much more intimidation do you want? I don't know what you're expecting here, but I have yet to have knowledge about a female breast causing any serious injury. There must be something better going on in the city of Los Angeles.' I was told that Friday night and Saturday day, we had between 40 and 60 undercover officers on the floor of the Convention Center.
G.Ross: "I was playing a game with some people, guess-the-cop."
Miller: "Last year there was one person pointing out undercover cops. This year they said to me you have to keep the people there from doing that. Now how the hell am I going to do that? I have 2 or 3,000 people in this room at one time. The best I can tell you is make your guys less obvious. You should ask Al Gelbard how many photographs they stood and took of Alisha Klass [last year] instead of going in and stopping what they thought was illegal. Which is what I thought a policeman is supposed to do. Whatever Klass and these two other gals did, which in the vice officers' opinion was against the law, why didn't they stop them, instead of photographing them?"
[Miller said the invitation was extended to the Butts camp to attend this year but declined due to internal resaons.]
Miller: "I did talk to LAPD after the event and said I'd like to meet with you guys in the next ten days and debrief this whole event, see where we're at. They said you're welcome to call us but that it was going to take months. Last year they wouldn't meet with me and go over the event. This year before the event I said we'll go over the rules, see how things go and meet afterwards. Yesterday, I was talking to them and said are there any problems I'm not aware of. I was told absolutely nothing they know of. They congratulated me and my staff on being on top of every situation. We cooperated 100 %. All the girls were exceptionally well-behaved. They followed all the rules. They did themselves and the industry proud. They showed the city of Los Angeles that the adult industry can put on a squeaky clean event the public can enjoy. LAPD told me it would take two or three months before we could meet and debrief. They said they wanted to talk to everyone involved. That makes absolutely no sense. There were violations or there weren't.
"I'm going to call today and try to book dates for next year. I'm also going to look for another venue. I'm not quite sure where. Concourse Hall is 31,000 square feet. We've pretty much outgrown Concourse Hall. The biggest banquet room in the city of Los Angeles is 25,000 square feet. Now the question is what do we do?
\n According to a local news story Friday night aired on the Fox Channel, Brandy Alexandre was fired from her job at Forest Lawn Memorial Parks & Mortuaries when knowledge of her porn background became known. Alexandre tells the full story on her website kamikaze.org Alexandre blames it both on a cyberstalker and another porn star.
Alexandre was hired with the job title of Senior Secretary in March, 1996 after five months' worth of interviews. According to Alexandre, who received a number of salary increases over her stay, the job required a working knowledge of computers and Microsoft Word and Excel. She says she ably fit the requirements of a "girl-geek" and built, in her words, "a rather enormous and intricate database for the Forest Lawn Foundation" besides completing a database that would streamline complaint and customer service questionnaire tracking and reporting."
"I had been working on that one for a number of months anticipating the release of our new customer service questionnaire," Alexandre says on her site.
Alexandre: "I finally exploited my "fame" as Brandy Alexandre, for the benefit of the company, to get a VBA developer (whose web site I eventually was hired to design) to write an Access module for me since Access onboard functions would not do what I needed them to do. While I posted my Access help message in a Usenet newsgroup from my work machine, I only signed it "Brandy" and the account name showed as "BrandyAlx."
"I only told the developer who I was in email to heighten his interest and get the module. At the time, I was not aware my every move and message was being obsessively tracked by a cyberstalker. I had used that same account to post messages as "Brandy Alexandre" in my off-time, from my home machine, which was my only mistake with my former identity in connection with my current one. The stalker now had my work IP and it was only a matter of time before he found out the domain name, and then my place of employment."
Alexandre says she volunteered to do a lot of things because she liked the company, the atmosphere, and the people she worked with. "I also felt compelled to bring Forest Lawn into the 20th century before it turned into the 21st."
Alexandre said she thought she had a particularly close kinship with boss John Llewellyn. "I thought he and I were very "close" as employer/employee relationships go.
Alexandre said she fully intended to retire from the company. "If not that, I planned to go away quietly when I published perpetually 'in progress' book, tentatively titled Being Brandy, but I would never have named them as one of the companies I worked for because I was keenly aware and respectful of their reputation, and had a great deal of respect for the philosophies of the company and Mr. Llewellyn himself, who sits as a director on many boards, such as Braille Institute, California Chamber of Commerce, and Boy Scouts."
Alexandre said all of this came to an end when she was "outted" to Forest Lawn via a Usenet newsgroup which what had turned into a trio of cyberstalkers--two unknown. One was "porn star/prostitute" Bianca Trump, Alexandre writes.
Alexandre says she told Dee Pies, the senior vice president of human resources, she was having a problem, that someone was trying to find out where she worked and bring up her past in an effort to get her fired. Alexandre was told me not to worry, unless she had been in jail or something. She was told she was a valued employee. Alexandre assured her she had not been in jail.
Alexandre: "Well, the information collected by the stalkers was posted in a series of articles that began with associating my real name to my stage name--something I have been quite vocally against for plainly obvious reasons--and continued with the publication of my phone number, social security number, address, court records and finally Forest Lawn. They even went so far as to post "troll" messages under my real name to other newsgroups suggesting I be called at work for phone sex, and other things involving extreme ethnic slurs.
"It is important to note that for the average net surfer to link "Brandy Alexandre" to "Forest Lawn," they would have had to be a regular reader of the all-but-spammed out newsgroup where this took place. They also would have had to follow the various threads from the very beginning, because never is "Brandy Alexandre" or my real name used in the same article as "Forest Lawn." Not to mention Usenet articles expire, never to be heard from again, after about a week or two."
According to Alexandre, Pies relayed the information to Llewellyn as "web site." However, there was absolutely NO web site making such a link between Brandy Alexandre and Forest Lawn until June 13, 1999, when Alexandre posted her side of the story on her website - contrary to the statements made by Paula Graber, vice president of Communications, in the Fox news spots aired June 11, 1999. According to Alexandre, Graber claimed she promoted her videos from the site, and that the site was connected somehow with Forest Lawn.
Alexandre: "What went on behind the scenes between my being outted and the news spots is as follows:
"On the morning of Thursday, May 20, 1999, I was called into John Llewellyn's office where Dee Pies was already seated. I knew instantly this was the end of the three years I devoted to Forest Lawn. I was told there was becoming more of a connection between Brandy Alexandre and Forest Lawn and it wasn't acceptable. As Mr. Llewellyn spoke, I could tell that Dee Pies, not having any appreciable knowledge of the nuances of the net, had relayed a tale that made the situation sound as if it were a thousand times worse than it really was. Mr. Llewellyn declared, 'It could only be worse if we were the archdiocese.' Puh-leeez!
In the meeting, Llewellyn was supposed to have bemoaned the company's reputation, about twelve times, and expressed his greatest fear as having the Los Angeles Times call and ask about it. Llewellyn was also supposed to have told Alexandre Forest Lawn traditionally offers one week's pay per year of service as severance, but since she was "so wonderful" that didn't seem right. They were going to offer Alexandre three months continued wages to go away quietly, according to her. The amount would have come out to $5,000, according to Alexandre's calculations.
Prior to this event, Alexandre had applied for a position in the Communications department, about which she was having second thoughts. In the meeting, Llewellyn dismissed that alternative as "out of hand" and immediately went back to the discussion of a severance package. As Alexandre left Llewellyn's office, Pies was supposed to have taken her security card and keys, and had Alexandre clean out her desk. "I was terminated," Alexandre said.
Alexandre: "You would think those four little events meant you were fired, but apparently I was only placed on 'paid leave.' Yeah, they were kissing my butt to get me to sign the severance agreement and go away quietly. I only found this out because I called the next day to refuse the severance and actually go away *mostly* quietly--save a quick mention of this unfortunate event in my book--and asked them to cut my final check."
Pies apparently called and left a message saying the company wanted to come to some equitable resolution of the matter.
"We would prefer that we keep our employment relationship going so that we can see if we can't work something out. And you certainly have time to decide what you want to do, or if you have questions about the agreement, or changes to the agreement, that type of thing, you can certainly call me," Pies is supposed to have said. Alexandre was told she was still considered an employee until she clarified what her intentions were.
"I thought my intentions were pretty clear--I don't sell my first amendment rights," Alexander writes. It's not about money; it's the principle." Alexandre says she didn't sign an agreement. Alexandre called Forest Lawn to say no to their offer of six months continued wages.
Alexandre: "I flat out said no, but they followed up this "offer" with a letter notifying me that I had been "officially transferred" to the Communications department, but it still made mention that they preferred separation a number of times. She replied with a letter of he own. Alexandre told the company she was hesitant about taking a tenuous position over a stable one, that the transfer was not in her best interest or in good faith.
Alexandre's final communication from Forest Lawn was in an email from Dee Pies in which Pies objected to the suggestion the offer/transfer was not in good faith.
In the letter Pies, twice more, indicated Forest Lawn would prefer separation, but that they weren't terminating her for being Brandy Alexandre.
Alexandre: "In the fallout, it appears that Forest Lawn went online to try to find the proof that Brandy Alexandre, the porn star, and Forest Lawn, the closest thing to god ("it could only be worse if we were the archdiocese"), were connected. They failed. So, they put a new spin on it and blamed my web site. The truth is, my web page was never once brought up as being any part or cause for my "paid leave." It only came up after I refused two severance packages and a forced transfer to a new position. Just like the offer of the new position only came up after I had turned down the two severance offers.
Samantha Lewis of Digital Playground writes: "Just a little update on LA Erotica! This was our first time attending. We had Rocki Roads at our booth on Friday night with great success. The rules were a little less severe at this show, so we were able to hand out give-a-ways! (The past shows Rocki has created to much of a riot so we usually could not get away with stirring the crowd up too much.
"Rocki stood up on a high stool having the crowd chant "Rocki, Rocki Rocki" and giving out videos to the loudest fans!! Her fans seemed extremely pleased! On a business level, we were quite surprised how well we did selling Digital Playground product. To sum it up.....for us we had a great show! The LA Erotica staff was great! They were more than accommodating to us!
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While Erotica LA was going full swing Friday evening, Fox News ran a local story about Brandy Alexandre being fired from her executive secretary's spot at Forest Lawn Memorial Park when her porn past evidently became a gnarly issue. More on this intriguing story in today's update. More also on the well-attended Erotica LA.
Noted First Amendment attorney Paul Cambria has been retained by Extreme Associates in the $1.5 million lawsuit filed against them by Van Damage and Tiffany Mynx.
R.L. Distributing is the distribution end of Lolita Productions, a new European line whose first titles are expected to be coming out this Wednesday. Mike Barbella, formerly of Cream, is the new sales manager.
Mike Barbella: "We have 60 European titles in the can. What they did was hire American videographers from the business and flew them to Europe to shoot. We have young pretty girls all shot by Americans. They've been working on these features for over a year. Our production company is based in the British Virgin Islands. We'll have two titles coming out a week, eight titles a month. Our boxcovers are just fabulous and these titles are full of European hot sex."
Call Barbella at 818-997-8515
Before coming over to Erotica LA Friday night with the Kid Vegas entourage, Candy Apples flashed the crowds at Yankee Doodles in Woodland Hills during the Tom Leykis radio show. Leykis signed her pierced nipples. Vegas, who claimed that he was going to be interviewed, said he never got the chance claiming Leykis' producer had something against porn.
Barefoot Confidential 2 is finally coming out, according to Mark Kulkis, whom we ran into at Erotica LA. "It's going to be available exclusively through LFP Video," Kulkis said. "I was going to release it through Extreme Associates, but right before I did, the opportunity at LFP came up. So I was biding my time a little bit until the division got up and running." According to Kulkis, the downtime delayed the release of the tape about six or seven months. "Actually, I've gotten a lot of e-mails on my website www.toetotoe.com from people wanting to know when this was going to be available in stores. "Within the foot fetish community, it seems that they're clamoring for this," Kulkis chuckles. "I'm thinking of starting a second series. I want to keep Barefoot Confidential with the stories. But I think solo scenes can work really well in foot fetish. I'll start a second series called Barefoot Brats which will be six solo scenes. It'll be more interactive." Kulkis says working at LFP has proven to be a definite boon in the hunt for talented feet. "I work on the same floor as the talent coordinator, so I'm always cutting through the lobby to go to the bathroom, and you know how many times a day that is, so I'm always seeing these babes waiting to fill out their applications as models in the magazine. Now they have a video application that they're filling out. I think we're going to start getting some good talent that doesn't come through the usual channels."
According to Kulkis, Barefoot Confidential 3 & 4 have been completed and are being sold on the toetotoe website.
Kulkis: "Barefoot 3 was shot when I was still at Extreme so it has Iroc, Sabrina Johnson and Jessica Darlin. Number 4 has Stella, a girl from South Carolina who came through LFP."
Kulkis says he tries to maintain a three-month window between website availabity and store availability of the titles.
\n Kid Vegas writes regarding a posting made by Brian Amira, who identifies himself as Allison Kilgore's boyfriend, on this site last Friday: "This guy, Brian is out of his freakin mind. I am not in love with Allison Kilgore, I just find her fun in bed & to hang out with. This boy is desperate to keep her around. He is a thief, & by the way she called me, gave me your numbers, & her new numbers. How you can print stuff coming from a idiot that is not even in the industry does not give me a clue Gene. We are in Dominics' office with Candy Apples, she is riding Dominic, & I just finished getting a blow job. I can get what I want, Brian, I am a PORNO-STAR, little man. As far as threats, he better give me my shit back, no direct threats have been made, just leave it at that. You fucken moron this is L.A., Brian, You come out here you can't hide here. Allison will be down this weekend & I will fuck her again & again. I will send you a tape too when its out, Kid Vegas "Superstar".........(already filmed). Peace to all my fans, Dominic & Candy Apples want to give a shout out too....
Mad Jack writes: "I had a wonderful experience this weekend shooting my ex partner's ex wife, Catalina L'Amour. Considering we have something major in common (suffering the lunatic wrath of Damon Younger) I was really pleased to see that now on her own, Cat truly has her shit together. I have little doubt that this is due to the stress factor in her life finally being lifted. We shot Two solo vids as well as an Amateur Hours layout which took most of the day. She then featured for a packed house down at Wild Js Saturday night. It was a pleasure to watch her strut her stuff up on stage. Her attitude has spun a 360 since her break-up. As far as her divorce is concerned, after retaining a lawyer, Damon seems to have disappeared. We know for a fact that he's now living here in Vegas (a foolish choice considering he just burned some pretty heavy people here in town) with his mother. I have no idea what he's doing for a living but Cat would certainly like to know his address so that she can get this divorce over and done with.
I also had the pleasure of finding out why, over the past few years, AVN has praised Sindee Coxx's blow jobs. She had taken some time away from the business and has now decided to return with guns blazing, and let me tell you, she looks awesome!! We got an incredible scene for my latest production"Mad Jack Shoots the Stars." She most definitely gives one of the best blow jobs this perv has ever encountered. And her general attitude was truly a pleasure. She'll be back this week to shoot some fetish for me. In "Shoots the Stars" I also had the pleasure of using Cannibal and Kayla Cupcakes. This tape is fucking hot!! Cannibal is one of the sweetest performers I've had the pleasure of using and only surpasses her great attitude with her blow job skills. I can tell you now that I would have serious problems putting together a top 10 list at this point. "Stars" should be out in August. Gotta go.
\nMetro Global Media Opens New Amazing Stores Franchise with Amazing Grand Opening Week
Metro Global Media, Inc. launches its first Amazing Superstores franchise, located in Providence, Rhode Island, with a grand opening celebration this week, beginning today. The store opened last month, and, according to Metro Global, defines a new state-of-the-art concept for adult retail stores.
Grand Opening Week features give-aways including more than $20,000 in prizes including gift certificates, hats, T shirts and videos. All customers will receive a free promotional video from Metro, Inc., Metro Global's entertainment division, featuring highlights from the company's most popular movie titles.
"We have a jackpot scratch off game where we're giving away $20,000 in prizes just for people showing up at the door," says Gary Cohen, district manager with Capital Video Corp.. "We're giving away gift certificates and free gifts to the first 50 customers every day."
The stars scheduled to sign autographs at the store during Grand Opening Week are Peter North, Jewel De'Nyle, Midori, Cinn-a-bunz, Katie Gold, Tabitha Stevens, Samantha Stylle, Jonathan Morgan and Serenity. Misty Rain is hostess. A June 18 special private party reception is planned for local and national media and other special invitees which include all the stars.
"It's like the Academy Awards," Cohen said. "We have the red carpet out, it's real nice. We're doing it up big because it is big. We're the biggest store in the northeast. It's a new concept, it's a flagship of a franchise. It's the first store up in this area that's targeted to be female-friendly. It's a true shopping experience. It's awesome."
In addition to carrying a vast selection of adult videos, DVD's, novelties and lingerie, the Superstore boasts a large collection of sophisticated adult products. In response to Internet research that indicates 40% of online adult sales are from women, the Amazing Superstores interior is designed to be more shopper-friendly, with added appeal for women or couples. Custom fixtures, speacial colors and an integrated lighting system and floor plan developed by top retail design specialists distinguishes the Amazing Superstores from all other retail stores.
Metro Global Media, through its franchise division, is planning to offer current franchise owners the opportunity to convert their existing stores into this unique retailing format. Following the conversion, Metro plans to aggressively expand the number of franchise locations available on a national level through acquisition and franchise sales. The company expects to award a minimum of seven franchises during the next 12 months, adding to the five existing sites.
Besides creating franchise fees, each franchise sold is expected to generate $750,000 to $1,000,000 annually in additional revenue through its exclusive distribution program.
"We are very excited to get the public's reaction to our new store concept. It's about providing quality products in an environment that is comfortable for the consumer," said Todd Reid, Merchandising Manager for Metro. "Metro Believes that the Amazing Superstores will revolutionize the adult retail experience."
Goofy Obscenity Case of the Day
Timothy Boomer aka "The cursing canoeist" was convicted Friday in Standish, Michigan of violating an obscure 102-year-old Michigan law that prohibits cursing in front of women and children. Boomer faces up to 90 days in prison and a $100 fine for using the F-word in front of kids.
