"getting it on in one hardcore scene after another just isn't as much fun." -- Savanna Samson
looks like things just keep getting worse for our friends in the adult entertainment industry. coming on the heels of the news that an HIV scare was sweeping through the biz, comes this article from the ny times detailing the recent decrease in plot and dialogue from porn films.
the reason why. the internet.
"on the Internet, the average attention span is three to five minutes,” said Steven Hirsch, co-chairman of Vivid Entertainment. “We have to cater to that.”
sigh.
don't you realize what's happening people? all of you who only use sites like youporn and redtube for your porn watching needs, you're killing the porn star.
sure you laugh now, but extrapolate for a moment. consider a future when being a porn star no longer requires anything other than the ability to give or take a dick on camera. is that really a future you want to live in?
i for one, do not.
i want my porn stars to be well rounded. i want them to not only be able to give or take a dick, i want them to do it with a winning personality (see: Jeremy, Ron and Lords, Traci). otherwise why have porn stars at all? we might as well start replacing porn stars with digital people (like in that al pacino movie, Simone). is that what you want? to watch digital people fuck?
no, i didn't think so. thankfully, there is still hope.
Wicked Pictures, which averages one production a week, still plans to make two to three bigger-budget releases each year, including the recently shot “2040,” which is about the pornography business of the future.
Mr. Steve Orenstein, president of Wicked pictures, described the movie as “an almost Romeo-and-Juliet story between an aging porn star and a cyborg.”
now that's smut i can get behind (figuratively speaking).
so please, next time you're gonna watch some porn, remember, your choice matters.
this weekend took quite the toll. so much so that i considered holding off on posting a recap of events until tomorrow, but i figured that decision might incite a riot in the blogosphere rivaled only by the post palin resignation announcement buzz from friday...speaking of which, have you watched her rambling speech yet? jesus man, i love me some good career self-immolation, but sarah took things to new levels with this one.
i've probably watched/listened to her speech about 10 times and i'm still undecided as to what my favorite part is. i mean, given that this was a speech about how she is resigning there's this passage which definitely gets the irony prize:
"Life is too short to compromise time and resources... it may be tempting and more comfortable to just keep your head down, plod along, and appease those who demand: "Sit down and shut up", but that's the worthless, easy path; that's a quitter's way out. And a problem in our country today is apathy. It would be apathetic to just hunker down and "go with the flow". Nah, only dead fish 'go with the flow'."
and then there's the award for best mixed metaphor --
"Let me go back to a comfortable analogy for me - sports... basketball. I use it because you're naïve if you don't see the national full-court press picking away right now: A good point guard drives through a full court press, protecting the ball, keeping her eye on the basket... and she knows exactly when to pass the ball so that the team can WIN. And I'm doing that - keeping our eye on the ball that represents sound priorities - smaller government, energy independence, national security, freedom! And I know when it's time to pass the ball - for victory."
but i think if forced to choose i'd go with her final lines, as they seem to encapsulate best everything we've come to know and love about her...
"In the words of General MacArthur said, "We are not retreating. We are advancing in another direction."
brilliant.
anyway...back to the weekend.
things started out on friday with a viewing of "the hurt locker." an excellent film that i highly recommend about a bomb disposal unit in iraq.
the party continued saturday morning as joey chestnut successfully defended his I.F.O.C.E. nathan's hot dog eating championship belt by eating 68 hot dogs and buns in 10 minutes, 3 1/2 more than takeru kobayashi of japan, his arch-rival.
it was a glorious moment to kick off independence day and it brought tears to my eyes, as we are, as one commentator put it, "entering the golden age of competitive eating," and we are doing so with an american seated at the head of the table.
at this point the party shifted from watching other people eat and drink, to actively participating.
and as for what followed...well, i actually assign partial blame to joey chestnut for what followed, as it was his rousing and motivational performance that led me to begin consuming margaritas, eating bbq, and celebrating at a pace better left to the trained professional athletes of the competitive eating world.
suffice to say by about 6:30pm i was in bad, bad shape. like walking up to the edge of disaster, leaning over, and almost falling in, bad shape. basically, i was nascar drunk (maybe more).
but i managed to hang on (or in this case lie down for a few hours) and by around 11:30 or so I had recovered enough to eat some cake, and i think this would have made joey chestnut proud.
as for sunday, well most of the morning was spent recovering, but the evening was spent at the hollywood bowl for the death cab for cutie (w/ the la phil) concert. the new pornographers and tegan and sara opened.
all in all a very good show (although, i was a little upset that the new pornographers only played for 30 min. and death cab only played for about 75).
but nit picking aside, the finale of the show was death cab playing transatlanticism with the phil, culminating with a fireworks display. it was simply put, transcedent, and easily 9 of the best minutes of my concert going life...
after seeing the news yesterday that two more blogs, Texts From Last Night and Look At This Fucking Hipster, landed book deals at Penguin's Gotham Books imprint in the past week, i spent the past 24 hours considering whether this blog might have what it takes to score the next deal. sadly, the conclusion i reached was no, not yet at any rate.
but i did come up with an idea that i think is a bona fide winner and sure to one day land me a sweet six figure contract.
drum roll...prepare yourself for...coming soon...Ask A Mime!
the concept is simple really. basically the site will work just like the well known site Ask A Ninja, except all answers will be acted out by (me dressed as) a mime via video posts.
two words: gold mine. or falling short of that, at the very least i suppose it will be good cross training for next year's air sex championships.
my god. is there any part of the body that's not for sale to advertise on.
personally i'm waiting for someone to put ad space in their womb up for auction...then when they get pregnant, i'd have 9 uninterrupted months to create a loyal customer.
one of the first things people say to me when i tell them i live in los angeles is, "you must love living in a state where weed is legal." i'm not sure whether this says more about me and the vibe i give off or the people i'm hanging out with at the time, but my response, typically, is "yes, it's glorious."
of course, even better then the fact that medical marijuana is legal, thanks to prop 215, is the fact that there are medical marijuana dispensaries scattered all over the city. in fact, depending on where you live, marijuana is probably no more then a 15 min drive away (even with LA traffic).
but, you ask, what if i don't own a car or what if (for whatever reason) i'm in no condition to drive? well, thanks to the nice folks at the Artists Collective it appears your problems are solved.
that's right kids, los angeles county now has their very own FREE medical marijuana delivery service (to clarify the delivery is free, not the marijuana).
of course, in order to qualify you'll need a valid, current recommendation from a medical doctor or a specialist licensed in California.
well you ask, how can i get this recommendation?
easy. first you're gonna need to be diagnosed as having ANY serious condition for which medical marijuana can provide relief (of which there are a remarkably wide spectrum, ranging from chronic pain, muscle spasticity, nausea and appetite loss to psychiatric conditions such as post-traumatic stress disorder, anxiety and depression). see the pictured lists for over 250 possible conditions to choose from, i mean that medical marijuana might provide relief for.
next you're gonna have to visit a doctor to get a letter of recommendation for medical marijuana use to provide relief from the symptoms of said diagnosis.
okay, you say, so how do i find one of these doctors? won't that be difficult? hardly, thanks to the good folks at CA NORML. as they've been thoughtful enough to provide a list of medicinal cannabis practitioners for you to choose from.
now, diagnosis made and letter of recommendation in hand you're ready to...
looks like the LA weekly was on hand at the air sex championships. the competition is mentioned in the over the weekend blurb. and they also have a slideshow, as well as an air sex vs. air guitar comparison.
put it in the books. the 2009 los angeles air sex championships are over.
by now most of you probably know that i ended up unexpectedly competing in the competition (and for those of you who didn't know, these pictures are probably quickly bringing you up to speed).
when i first learned of the air sex championships a couple of weeks ago, upon seeing a listing for the competition on the echoplex website, i instantly knew this was something that i wanted to be a part of, something that i wanted to experience live and in person (and after a brief search of youtube to watch some of the past performances, wanted, quickly changed to needed), but i never in a million years dreamed of competing.
so, you ask, how did it all happen? well, like most things in life, it started with the promise of free alcohol...
while waiting in line to get in, one of the organizers began making his plea to try and find some "walk-up" competitors, as they only had around 5 people who had signed up in advance (clearly not nearly enough to provide a full evening's worth of air sex entertainment -- not to mention not enough to maintain the integrity of the championships by providing a field of competitors large enough to ensure the los angeles crown, when won, would be fully earned).
as i heard him begin making his pitch, offering free drink tickets, free admission, plus the opportunity to become a legend, i began to contemplate. maybe i should compete. maybe i should go for the glory. i mean, how often does an opportunity like this come around? at best this was a chance to do something that could instantly alter the course of my life. a chance to start me down a path that would eventually lead to my travelling all over the world, living like a rock star, and representing los angeles as an air sex champion...and at worst it was something that might look good on my resume.
after a brief consultation with my friends, it was decided. i was in. alex lerner was gonna air sex.
the announcement sent shockwaves through the crowd (and by crowd, i mean the 3 other people i was there with). i hadn't seen excitment like this in a really long time...arguably, perhaps, not since it was announced that daniel larusso was gonna fight in the finals at the all valley karate tournament.
immediately i started to focus. the first thing i had to do was decide on a name and pick a song to air sex to. i settled on captain jack hammer (w/ apologies to nick for any copywright infringement) as my air sex name, and chose "afternoon delight" for my song.
the second thing i had to do was to start drinking. heavily. i made my way to the bar and ordered 3 kamikaze shots and a beer. after throwing the shots back and chugging the beer it was on to the next step, ordering another beer and figuring out some sort of routine.
unfortunately, having decided to do this at the last minute, i was at a serious disadvantage next to some of my fellow air sex competitors, some of whom had arrived with costumes and props (including, but not limited to: condoms, silly string - to spray the audience with when they "finished," bedazzled underwear, a glue on pornstache, a gay porn magazine, and a steve urkel doll).
i began to scour the club (and the deep, dark recesses of my mind) for anything i could use...and there, in the far corner tucked away behind the merchandise table, i spotted a swivel chair, and a plan began to take shape.
i took the chair and made my way backstage to the holding area, where i met my fellow competitors. they had come from all over: from the westside, south bay, the valley, hollywood, los feliz, and downtown. they had names like cockalicious, mister amy, nine inch nailing, shanghai slammer, and brown town, and they were all ready to get their air sex on (or in the words of brown town ready to "grip it and rip it").
there was a real sense of camaraderie between us, an instant bond if you will, forged by what we were all about to do.
soon i struck up a conversation with a young lady whose nom de air sex was veronica feather. her dress was short, her speech was slurred and she had trouble standing, but who was i to judge. veronica quickly informed me that she was a) really nervous b) bi-sexual and c)going to air sex a threesome in which she would be air eating a chick out while she was getting air pounded from behind.
classy, i replied, and wished her luck.
but veronica wasn't done talking to me, as she then proceeded to drunkenly whisper into my ear (and by drunkenly whisper, i mean scream) that perhaps if i held her hand it might help calm her down. and so, being the gentleman that i am, i reached out and grasped her hand in mine and told her that everything was going to be fine.
at this point, ms. feather pulled me into the nearby hallway and asked if perhaps i might be willing to take her into the bathroom and "sex her for real." her theory being that having real sex would help her nerves and allow her to give the best possible air sex performance she could.
i politely declined, but again expressed my confidence that she would probably do just fine (or at the very least given her current state of inebriation, remember very little of it the next day).
she laughed, grabbed my crotch, and tried to shove her tongue down my throat. but in a classy kind of way.
again, i politely declined her advances (seeing as how i had no intention of coming home from an air sex competition with a real case of herpes), and luckily i was saved from having to deflect any further attempts on her part to maul me, as the competition was about to start...and lo and behold the emcee announced veronica feather was first to compete.
slowly, she stumbled her way onto the stage. the music began to play, the crowd began to cheer, and veronica feather began to air sex. the result was as expected.
afterward, veronica stumbled down off the stage and exited the backstage area to "get some air." she was never seen or heard from again.
but the competition continued and i'm pleased to say the air sex bar was raised higher and higher as the night wore on:
soon my name was called and it was my turn to perform. the soothing sweet sounds of afternoon delight filled the room...
Gonna find my baby, gonna hold her tight gonna grab some afternoon delight
and i gave it my all.
unfortunately, my all was not quite good enough and i didn't make it to the finals (shanghai slammer was eventually crowned the la air sex champion). but i did have two nice (reasonably sober) young women come up to me later in the evening to tell me that i had delivered their favorite air sex performance of the evening, and that regardless of the official outcome, i was their air sex champion (hearing this warmed my heart).
and so i left the echoplex with my head held high, proud of what i had accomplished.
all things considered, given the circumstances (i.e. deciding to compete and putting a routine together at the last minute) i think i did quite well.
now it seems the question everyone wants to know is, do i have any regrets?
yeah. i have some regrets. i regret that i didn't win...
