March 15, the Ides of March, was a banner day for Julius Caesar, though history records that he didn't get to enjoy the festivities nearly as much as adult performer Solveig did. According to her, Solveig just celebrated her fifth anniversary in the adult business on March 15. Caesar's memories, on the other hand, are a little vague on the subject.
And, in keeping with the Ides theme, Solveig, like Caesar's consorts, took a stab at something. Only in her case it was a video series called Solveig's Way- a refreshing, change-of-pace gonzo experience that's heavy on the sex, heavy on new faces and ripe with personality - Solveig and her amiable sidekick, Santino Lee, scoring high marks on the charisma report card.
Besides the sex angle, one of the nice byproducts of an interview-intensive series like this, if done right, is its secondary voyeuristic rush. Like a census bureaucrat, or a real estate field operative, you get to see how other people live. In the first volume of Solveig's Way, a line which is now being distributed by Seymore Butts according to Solveig, the featured performers are Rikki Moans, Alana, Chanelle, Lucy Leggs, Nia Foxx, Supremacy, Dee, Nina Hartley, Santino Lee, Mark Anthony, Cuba, Alan and Suave. And as to who's got the better abode, well, you can play Better Homes and Gardens and be your own judge.
For openers, after allowing Nia the pleasure of her chewy nipples, Solveig puts the tentative newcomer at ease by letting her observe, masturbate, then ease into the threesome that Solveig has inititated with the mammoth Cuba and Mark Anthony. [See? There's that Julius Caesar connection, again.] Solveig's literally engulfed by man land mass as Anthony slides a high hard one into her pooper, while Nia jumps in and takes the fourway to doggie town with some excellent camera shots out of that angle, ending with Nia's cultured tongue soliciting donations from the two gents' sperm reserve.
In a follow-up interview, we learn that Lucy Leggs possesses 6 feet 3 inches of thigh bone and not a centimeter goes to waste when Solveig, Dee and Supremacy bring tongues and strap-ons to the lesbian table. Solveig first administers a battery-op dildo to Lucy's clit, then works her finger in Lucy's quivering ass, and, finally, finishes the job with a strap-on.
Dee gets her turn as she's worked into a shuddering, St. Vitus' Dance of pleasure as Supremacy works one side of the fence and Solveig the other, again, with her trusty strap-on. The scene culminates with Dee and Leggs forming a human club sandwich as Solveig works their fissures with alternating terms of endearment.
In a scene that he's supposed to do with another newcomer, Chanelle, a Sandra Bernhard lookalike, Suave prematurely ejaculates during the "stills" session and has to be replaced by Santino Lee - but not before Chanelle and Solveig have compared the relative elastic capacity of their female equipment. Exhibiting mucho pro potential, Chanelle multi-tasks by engulfing Santino's cock with her mouth while fingering Solveig's ass, then exuberantly rides Lee's baloney pony to the delicatessen in the next county.
In their interview with Solveig, Rikki Moans states that she's a sex maniac and Alana doesn't place herself too far behind on the sexual food chain. While Santino fills Rikki's butt cavity up with enough perceived satisfaction to curb her mania, at least for the moment, Solveig and Alana enjoy some interlocking crotch lesbianism before Alan allows the male precinct to be heard from again. In the finale, Nina Hartley and Solveig work a scam to fool the blindfolded Santino into, first, thinking he's fingering the butt of some girl named Tanya from Sacramento, then removing the wool from his eyes in almost the literal sense to wisen him up. The resultant threesome allows Hartley some creative tongue moments, particularly when Satino grabs Solveig in the canine position.
When we caught up to Solveig a couple of weeks ago, she said she was putting the finishing touches to volume #3 but had to dispense time, equitably, between that and committing to her dancing schedule. "This is the first time I'm featuring," she notes. "I did it one time in Indianapolis when I first got into the business years ago, but I don't count that."
That was more out of a sense of curiosity than a desire to be a Ginger Rogers. "Then I started doing more and more videos," she said. "That's when I knew I wanted to produce and direct. I'm an adventurous type of person." So adventurous she's never considered having an agent. She claims making the decision not to have one worked to her advantage by allowing her ample freedom to pursue outside interests and not to be too engulfed by the business. "My whole thing is just becoming an entrepreneur," she says, one of those side business interests being the development of a cosmetics line. When not performing before the camera, Solveig does makeup work in the mainstream. "I finished make up artist school," she says. "I got the license, and I'm going to go back to do advance makeup where I can do monsters, the whole nine yards. I enjoy it. It's a pasttime. I just wanted to get that under my belt, though a lot of people don't know me as a makeup artist yet."
She's also related to the late Oscar Micheaux. "He was the very first back filmmaker," Solveig points out. "He passed away in the 1960's before I was born - he assisted Paul Robeson on Body and Soul and has a star here in Hollywood." A pedigree like that would certainly lend impetus to becoming the "first woman of color" to own, produce and direct a line in the adult business. All of which she's now working to accomplish. The fact that Solveig also chose to do it by way of the Cheesecake Factory, gives the story, in cheesecake parlance, extra substance.
"I was a waitress and an in-store trainer for new employees," she relates. "And I was a medical assistant before that. But money wasn't the thing. I was bored and always had these exhibitionist thoughts that would come to mind. But I didn't know how to go about acting them out, and I didn't want someone screwing me." Turns out the boyfriend of a co-worker shot boxcovers for Henri Pachard.
"I would hear people joking about him doing porno," Solveig remembers. "I thought, 'Wow, maybe that's a way in.' I took my friend aside one day and said can you hook me up with your boyfriend? And please keep this confidential. She said no problem. She got me in right away with Henri Pachard. But I didn't know who he was. I didn't know anything about the industry even though I had watched porn flicks from the time I was 11 and would always critique the girls. Sometimes I'd get jealous of them."
Told that she was certainly cut out more for a career in the porn industry than the cheesecake one, Solveig started getting other jobs through referrals. "I've probably done a little over 100 hardcore scenes," she says. "I've kept good records and have a list of all my stuff, even stuff that will never be released due to certain regulations and laws."
She remembers doing her first anal scene for Vivid Raw with Ron Hightower. "I only did it because I was very curious," she remembers. "I came into the business saying, 'I'm not going to do that.' But now I enjoy anal. I love anal, and I started doing more of that. I think I did my first d.p. for Video Team. I liked that too, and, as I got more comfortable, I found out that I was a natural deep throater."
Even though the first of the Solveig's Ways was released last year, Solveig had already initiated the groundwork much earlier than that and had put up her own money to get the ball rolling. "I felt my way through this," she says, "But after shooting the first scene, I knew exactly what I wanted to do, even though it was so screwy and crazy at first. The betacam was too BIG, and I was like, 'No. This is not right.'
"My whole concept with the video is that it has a guest star in it," she adds. "Someone who's been in the business, someone who knows the ropes and has a big name. I got Nina Hartley in the first volume, Domonique [Simone] in the second one and Tabitha [who used to perform with Jake Steed] in the third one. Tabitha's a very pretty girl, very nice, and she hasn't done a scene for three years. Domonique hadn't done a scene for three years, then she went to Heatwave and got a contract. Then Nina Hartley, well, she's just controversial.
"I appreciate their help in considering my line," Solveing says. "The rest of the girls featured are new girls, most of which I've been finding on my own, or who have been introduced to me. A few of them have been approached by other guys in the business but didn't feel comfortable working with them, but, for some reason, they feel comfortable with me because I'm a woman. Being a woman does have an advantage in that sense, but I think guys have an advantage, too, because some girls are attracted to guys with their own lines.
"I want the performers in my series to do what they're interested in doing," she goes on to say. "I want them to be with who they want to be with. I want them to have natural chemistry. I don't try to do certain types of scenes - I just cast people who like each other. That way, it's very real. The whole approach is that there's no script, and I don't set up any scenarios. Everything's an unexpected thing. What we say and how we act is all unexpected. It's a laid back situation.
"I do talk with the girls ahead of time so I know what they're into and what they're not into. I make sure the girl's going to be with who she wants to be with, and I make sure everyone's comfortable.
"I've also tried to get the fans very much involved, and I've gotten a lot of great responses on my website [solveingonline.com] about it. People love it. They like the reality of it. The message board is where you'll see all the responses. I got responses like, 'You blow Shane's World away.' I only have a couple of volumes out, how can you say that? But it's still a nice compliment."
