Las Vegas Weekly [lasvegasweekly.com/features/up_and_coming.html] features a story, written by Richard Abowitz, about the new area of porn in Las Vegas. Caroline Pierce, Christi Lake, Ray Pistol and Mad Jack are among those interviewed.
"Through the magic of film, the dilapidated Nevada Hotel & Casino's gaming floor was re-opened for one night last February. Not restored to anything shiny and new, mind you. Instead, imagine that the clock had been turned back to the night just before the end: The walls are crumbling and the place is nearly deserted. The only customer on the gaming floor suddenly hits big on a slot machine and four women head for him. Watching the scene is the new casino manager, who walked into the place for the first time just a moment earlier. She shakes her head and smiles ruefully. Though The Goddaughter Part 5 is a porn film--the casino's manager is none other than sex-star Asia Carrera--this footage contains neither sex nor nudity. Requiring multiple takes, it is in the film only to drive the plot. To get everything in the script filmed, the shoot continues through the night and into the next morning. The main event: a casino full of people mixing sex and gaming in ways that would make even Robin Leach blush."
Kim Chambers said she agreed to do The Goddaughter shoot when she heard it would be done at a real casino. "It was really cool to have sex on a casino table," she said. Arrow's Ray Pistol said getting the casino was the key to the shoot.
"It's only natural that the denizens of the porn world would eventually begin migrating to Sin City," says The Las Vegas Weekly. "Often dubbed the adult Disneyland, the XXX movie industry and Vegas go hand-in-hand. From Adultdex to the Exotic Dancers Expo, adult theme conventions have long been a regular presence here. Twice a year, Adult Video News, a trade magazine, hosts a conference in Las Vegas. In fact, the January AVN convention includes the awards ceremony considered by many in the industry to be porn's equivalent of the Oscars."
The article goes on to say that porn roots are being established in Vegas and that Pistol is the nexus of the growth. "Pistol gives off a bit of a Hugh Hefner vibe," says the article. "He smokes a pipe, brushes his hair in a sweep across his forehead and carries himself with relaxed confidence."
A Vietnam vet from Texas, Pistol, unlike Hefner, is more apt to go casual with facial stubble and little time to assume airs. Arrow Productions, Pistol's company, releases about a dozen adult films a year, according to the article. "Pistol's libertarian streak got him into adult films as a response to the Pure Pleasure bust in Las Vegas in 1993." The store was hosting a benefit for The Free Speech Coalition staged by Bill Margold.
"We got busted four hours into the show and went to jail," Margold tells the Las Vegas Weekly. "I was facing 54 years for various types of pandering. They wound up just fining me. Pistol paid my fine and paid my lawyer fees and I am eternally indebted to him."
A couple of years later, another obscenity trial was taking place in town involving the former owner of the then-L.A.-based Arrow. Pistol negotiated a deal to take over the company and since then has made six more Deep Throat movies, the company's signature series. Pistol says his goal is to find an actress to dub as the new Linda Lovelace though the series has hit a bit of a snag because they haven't found her.
Pistol says he hasn't been hassled by local authorities. According to him, California requires a permit for any filming done for commercial purpose. No such law exists in Nevada all of which makes it very convenient to shoot in Vegas. "Between the unions, the government bureaucracy and the red tape, it's expensive, time consuming and stupid to shoot in California as compared to Nevada," Pistol says. It's also pointed out that it's legal to shoot adult vids in California whereas in Vegas, according to Clark County District Attorney Stuart Bell, "It's not against the law to make an X-rated movie using adults." But the law can be ambiguous. To film in Nevada, at least theoretically, is to risk serious jail time.
Though Arrow hasn't had problems, Las Vegas Metro recently paid a visit to Talk of the Town, Pistol's strip club, and shut it down to issue citations to dancers who'd been hired from other clubs and didn't yet have Talk of the Town listed on their sheriff's cards.
"The incident at Talk of the Town leaves Pistol unfazed, but it's enough to spook Thomas Zupko, who canceled interviews arranged for this story," Las Vegas Weekly wrote. Caroline Pierce is also mentioned as one of Pistol's discoveries. "Pierce, who has lived in Las Vegas since she was 4, still dances at Pistol's club, but these days her name is at the top of Talk of the Town's marquee. Named last year by Hustler as one of the 50 most influential people in porn, the magazine noted that Pierce is 'poised to take over the top echelons of XXX stardom.'
"She just radiates animal sexuality," Margold says. "She is just gorgeous." Pierce made her first adult film as an actress for Pistol three years ago. Since then, she's appeared in more than 50 films. From the first, Pierce resolved to eventually make her own films. J.D. Ferguson, an Arrow film editor, brought Pierce in as a partner for his own production company, Breathless Films. The two have just finished editing Humiliated Harlots Part 1, the first in what they hope will be a series of films shot in the Las Vegas area. Pierce said the hardest part was getting experienced talent on a limited budget.
"Among the misconceptions about the adult film business is that it's an easy road to riches," says LVW. "If that was once true, it isn't any more. Competition is now too intense, thanks to the rise of the Internet and popular technology that allows almost anyone to make adult films. Pistol, however, said he expects to earn double the figure of the $50,000 investment on The Goddaughter.
"My retail stores work on a bigger profit margin," Pistol says. "My goal here is not to make money but to make good movies." Kim Chambers says her husband, Scott Styles, with whom she appears in Goddaughter, receives a flat fee of $500 per movie. Chambers says female leads generally earn about three times that. "Porn movies are not a good way to get rich," says Pierce.
Resident Christi Lake says she "earns a comfortable living," despite pumping most of her earnings back into her two companies, Christi Lake Enterprises and Dripping Wet Pixxx. Over the past five years, Lake has starred in more than 275 films.
Lake began making her own movies after spending a year working as an adult actress. "Pistol was a definite mentor," she says. "He was one of the great people who helped me out with this. He just gave me the guidelines, names and phone numbers of who could, for example, be my film crew."
Much of her series Fan Fuxxx is shot in Las Vegas, and according to Lake, locals have figured prominently in the series and the "fans" have included a cocktail waitress, a pilot and a pit boss from the Mirage. "I like Las Vegas," she says, "because the laws are a lot more liberal and you don't have to shell out a fortune to get permits. In California it's $700 for just one location. When you do an entire film and put that in your production budget it's a killer. But here, if I'm shooting on private property, I don't have to go and get a permit, which is wonderful." Lake also says a lower cost of living plus the fact she doesn't have to pay state taxes make Las Vegas another plus. "California is outrageous."
Mad Jack, 40, is another new face on the Las Vegas block. "I'm a pretty average Joe and I always have these gorgeous girls flocking around me," he says. "The guys like to buy my stuff, because they think, 'If he can do it then I can do it.' They can relate."
For the past year and a half, Jack has been making about two films a month here. Jack is known for making gonzo porn films. The budgets for his films run between $5,000 and $7,000. What isn't spent on filming is his pay, an arrangement Jack is happy with. "I like working for myself and the notoriety is kind of neat." Jack who likes the tight comraderie in Vegas, says he also can shoot gonzos a lot faster in Vegas. "That's just the way it ends up working,:" he says. "When I shoot here, you are in and out in two hours tops."
Despite his competitive relationship, Jack thinks highly of him. "Ray's a good guy," he says. Jack is also of the belief that Vegas is a boom town for porno and that the public loves its background of fantasy. Pistol agrees.
