Kid Vegas lost out on a party because of it, but Vegas, last week left phone messages saying he heard a rumor that one of his posse members saw Mike Barbella with the masters of the missing sci-fi blowjob feature, Cocksucking Skank Whores. Vegas originally turned the feature over to his buddy, Master Dominic who was going to edit it. Dominic wound up in jail and the tape wound up missing. John Bowen had placed an ultimatum on Vegas that if the tape wasn't delivered in his hands by a certain time on a Friday, that Vegas' party scheduled for later that evening at the Cream Studios, would not happen. The tape never surfaced, neither did the party which got re-routed to a location in Hollywood, causing much confusion.
Though the information came after the fact of the ECVS, Vegas claims a posse member supposedly saw Barbella, an ex-employee of Bowen's, peddling the masters at the show out of a brown paper bag. The going rate was $12,000. Bowen is supposed to owe Barbella money, thus Kid Vegas perceives motive. "Of course these are rumors," Vegas said at the time. "But I'm pretty pissed off. Barbella's trying to recoup his money from John Bowen. Who knows how he got the tape in his hands."
Barbella thinks the whole thing's pretty funny. "I wish I did have the movie so he can pay back some of the money he owes me," Barbella says. "That's all I have to say. "It sounds to me like a guilty conscience. Tell Bowen to pay me. He owes me $9,000 for a movie that I distributed and never got a penny of. And about $8,000 in back wages. It's not a pretty thing. It's a very shitty way of doing business. Maybe if Bowen didn't feel guilty, these things wouldn't come up. But I don't believe that John has the ability to feel guilty. He has an incredible way of throwing up static and smoke screens and believing his own lies. He's terrible. He's fucked me really bad. I swear he's inhumane. He's a robot or something."
Bowen, who found Barbella's contention that he owes him $17,000 comically preposterous, had this to say. "Whoever has the tapes, they're of no value because there are no chromes or model releases. Nobody can release the movie but me. I've already offered a thousand dollars for the return of the movie. I'll pay that money to anybody no questions asked. If Mike Barbella brings me that movie I'll give him a thousand dollars. I don't care how he got it. I just want my movie back. That's about as much as I can say.
