My goal this year is to post at least one blog a month (hey, that's better than my current average, so quitcherwhining). I figure that way I can at least do a catch-all of miscellaneous shit before it's so old I can't remember what happened anymore.

So, housekeeping first.

• BREAKING NEWS UPDATE - - No bullshit, this item has just been added into this blog because it couldn't wait. Industry "agent" IT Models (itmodels.com) has a girl on their site whose stage name is -- no joke -- Chlamydia Caine.

Chlamydia Motherfuckin' Caine!!! I can't wait until her sister, Gonorrhea Gash begins performing. I hear Chlamydia only does anal scenes with her boyfriend, Syphilis Steel.

And god wept, I believe is the next verse...

Okay, where was I... *sigh* 

• Forgot to gloat over Best High-End All Sex and Best Director Non-Feature for ICON. {BEGIN GLOAT}

• Thinking about starting a Twitter account to eliminate the need to blog shit like gloating over awards. I also think it would be delicious irony for someone who hates texting as much as I do to have a Twitter account.

• Since I started going out for auditions I've gotten cast in a web series, a cheesy slasher flick (uh, y'know, sorry T.K. but it IS covered in cheese), two student films and a pilot. Not bad. Starting to look for an agent (which is like looking for a good colonoscopy). Details on availability of said projects as they progress.

• Beginning prep on the next big project for SexZ Pictures. It's a sword & sorcery epic called Daughter of the Wolf. {/GLOAT; BEGIN TEASE}

Okay, so the fucking Oscars. In the interest of bludgeoning you with my own opinions, I thought I'd list each of the major movies of the year and tell you what you think about them.

THE WRESTLER - My overall reaction is a big shrug of the shoulders. I was unimpressed by Mickey Rourke who struck me as bulky, plastic-faced, and largely unmoving. I thought the script was immature and emotionally retarded, and Aronofsky once again utterly failed to impress me as a director.

Evan Rachel Wood is unbelievably, breathtakingly, incredibly bad and belongs nowhere near a movie unless she's paid full price for her ticket. Marisa Tomei was amazing, and deserves all the praise being heaped on Mickey Rourke.

CURIOUS CASE OF BENJAMIN BUTTON - Yeah, I've heard all the arguments; it's a ripoff of Forrest Gump (bullshit); It's emotionally distant (it should be, it's Fitzgerald); It's slow (you mean it's not a music video).

I think the pacing and emotional tone are entirely appropriate, and I really enjoyed BB. It's also fucking gorgeous. As for the Gump argument, it's really easy to turn that around and say that Winston Groom's retardopalooza novel was nothing but a lift of Ludovico Ariosto's Orlando Furioso from the 16th century. Wait for a completely original plot, and you wait forever.

Was this the best film of the year? No, but worthy of a shitload of praise? Hell yeah.

MILK - Okay, I realize that the passage of Prop 8 was a big, and unjust, blow to the GLBT community in California, but that's no reason to inflict "classic" status on Milk's narrow shoulders, or on us as viewers.

Like all Gus Van Sant movies, Milk is a mess. It's structurally indulgent and emotionally sloppy as hell. Sean Penn's performance is only remarkable if you're watching the movie constantly aware that you're watching Sean Penn acting. If it were just some guy who wasn't incredibly butch and didn't beat up paprazzi on a regular basis, you'd say, "the guy in the lead didn't really have the chops to carry the movie, though..."

Milk is fine, but that's all it is. It's a Lifetime movie for gay people. Absent it's political agenda this movie is no more Oscar-caliber material than Transformers.

SLUMDOG MILLIONAIRE - I admit I haven't watched this yet, and it's because of the hype. I have the screener. It sits there laughing at me. But every time I finally break down and watch something the critics have bukkaked with praise, I end up loathing it (I'm lookin' at you Blue Velvet and Sideways and Breaking the Waves).

I admit I've got issues. I hate Bollywood movies. I find them silly, garish and irrelevant, and it makes me really nervous that they're the new flavor du'jour in Hollywood.

Also, while I really like Shallow Grave and 28 Days Later, I find it hard to believe that the director of The Beach and Sunshine has crafted something that is to the medium of film as fire is to human civilization. This is my skeptical face...

THE READER - Haven't we all seen this movie about 22 times already? Really, this movie is a such a retread of a dozen other projects, it makes me wonder if someone didn't just sit in a room and say, "Hey, there's no holocaust documentary this year... what can we make that the old Jews in Hollywood will ensure gets nominated?"

FROST/NIXON - I love this movie, and while I'm just as blown away by Frank Langella's performance as everyone else, I have to admit I thought Hopkins was better. Also, I'm never quite sure I believe Sam Rockwell as a real human being.

GRAN TORINO, REVOLUTIONARY ROAD - Were these movies robbed? Not necessarily, but there was definitely an attempted mugging given some of the weaker contenders. I think both were much stronger than narrow-appeal, politically-correct pap like Milk and The Reader.

THE DARK KNIGHT - Best. Movie. Period. Nothing else even comes close, and it isn't because I'm a geek and it's about Batman. I loved Iron Man, but I'm not bitching because it didn't get nominated. Dark Knight got fucked because it's percieved as a superhero movie, but it isn't.

It's a modern day film noir. It's complex, dark, brilliantly acted and flawlessly executed. If the 70s were the golden age of American cinema (and they were), Dark Knight is the only film this year that deserves to be mentioned in the same breath with the anti-hero classics of the 70s. It's emotional breadth and intensity is unmatched by anything I've seen in years, and it's only the fact of its broad appeal and critical success that kept it from getting the attention it deserves.

I stopped paying serious attention to the Academy Awards in 1982 when Raiders of the Lost Ark lost Best Picture to Chariots of Fire. After this, I might have to give up completely.

One of the third-rate porn gossip columnists (since "first-rate gossip columnist" is an oxymoron, he's really just an also-ran, but being second-rate to second-rate makes you third, right?) has given me my (probable) final award fo the year.

I've been presented with the coveted "Porns [sic] Worst Director Who Thinks He is Gifted" award!

I'm really excited by this because -- as the presenter himself acknowledges -- I'm a rampaging egomaniac, and any award just excites the bejeezus out of me! Plus, do you realize how many worthy contenders I had to beat out to win this? There are a crapload of talentless wannabes with cameras in this business, and believe me, we all think we're Orson Welles, Martin Scorcese and the Coens rolled into one, but I am the worst of them all!

That is huge! I mean, you realize, some of these guys even have websites!

Sadly, the agency presenting these awards is little more than a rabid, hobbling hillbilly typing out his angry, semi-literate missives through a Bud Light haze from a rusting trailer somewhere in the backwoods of Buttfuck, Arkanssippi, which makes me doubt my worthiness to accept such an accolade... but fuck it! I'm an egomaniac, and an award's an award, right?

It would be nice if the guy giving it to you were invested enough to spell-check his own posts, or even put the apostrophe on the "s" in your award, but my ego can ignore the shortcomings of anyone giving me any award! Besides, us trailer trash boys gots tuh stick tuhgether!

I'll post a photo of myself with the statue once it arrives (personally, I'm hoping for a second-hand Pop Warner trophy!). In the meantime, I'd like to thank Ethan Cage for alerting me to my new award or I might not have know about it at all.

In honor of all the worthies I've bested for this singular compliment, I'd like to have a little contest: post the three directors who comprise your favorite over-inflated porn egomaniac. Best-in-Show gets a free copy of ICON, my latest pretense at achievement.

Here's two obvious ones to start you off:

Greg Araki+Jean-Luc Godard+Clive Donner=Eon McKai

Michael Bay+Brett Ratner+Robert Stevenson=Joone

Have fun, and happy '09.

I'm not a big fan of the word "douchebag." For one thing, it's a lazy, vague insult open to far too much subjective interpretation. More importantly, if I use it, I sound like I'm trying pretend I'm from the East coast, and that's the last thing I want to be mistaken for.

Hey, not for nothin' (whatever the fuck that means) New Yorkers, I'm not sayin' I don't love ya, I'm just sayin' I don't love ya... yo, whatevuh, whattayagonnado?

Jesus...

The relelvance here, inasmuch as there is any, is that I've finally started watching Entourage, and I honestly can't decide if I like it. On the one hand, the "plots" are paper-thin, the interactions with women are more offensive -- from a feminist standpoint -- than anything I've ever shot in porn, and the characters are so poorly-drawn and two-dimensional that they aren't even stereotypes; they're cardboard cutouts of stereotypes.

On the other hand, I can't deny that the dialogue is pretty snappy and well-written, the acting is solid, and I like the way the show is shot and cut. It's certainly watchable, although I've been putting it on while I do other things. I don't know if it would hold my attention solo.

My problem is that I really, really despise the four main characters. These fucking douchebags from Queens are the epitome of everything that makes me not want to be mistaken for the kind of guy who says "douchebag." For me, the show should be called Schadenfreude because I'm only watching to see these idiots suffer. I want to see them crushed. I want Turtle to get testicular cancer. I want Vince to break down and spill his teary-eyed revelation about being sodomized at the age of 11 by Father O'Malley which is why he can only masturbate with a summer sausage stuffed up his ass.

You get the picture. I fucking hate these guys. Unfortunately, I can't tell if I'm supposed to. See, I'm kind of a snob in that I like to know the filmmaker's intent and factor that into my judgements. If I'm supposed to be rubber-necking the train wreck of these numbnuts' lives like a... well, like a train wreck, then I'm in. I love it.

But some nagging little voice tells me I'm actually supposed to like -- and worse, possibly even envy -- these jackoffs. If that's the case, then I hate the show's creators even more than the characters and I'm going to have to start buying DVDs just to incinerate them. That could get expensive.

Maybe I should just stick with Doctor Who.

Gene Ross has come a long way from his beginnings running a trophy shop in Philly. Time was, he had customers, clients and responsibility. Now all he has to do is stir up shit day-in and day-out. Really, that's his one true gift; dispensing fresh manure with a vituperative skill that would make a Holstein blush.

There's a long history of bad blood between Gene & I. For about two years, I, along with Paul Fishbein, Mark Kernes and a few of my close friends, were top-of-the-pops on the hit-list when Gene and Luke Ford were out to exorcise AVN from the adult business nearly a decade ago. Between the two of them, they did everything they could to wreck all of our lives (well, everything that didn't involve more effort than simply typing up whatever nonsense popped into their pointy – or, in Gene's case, well-carpeted – heads).

Luckily it became quickly apparent that both Gene and Luke were completely irrelevant and, like athlete's foot, if properly treated (i.e. ignored), would go away. The first time I saw Gene in person post-fusillade was a few years later when he showed up to cover a Lauren Phoenix project I was shooting camera on. We said not a word to each other, and he didn't mention me when he wrote it up. Since that time Gene and I have had an unspoken, tacit agreement to essentially pretend the other didn't exist.

Until today.
 
This industry being the gossipy communal equivalent of Gladys Kravitz, Kylie and I got a few calls when Gene posted a juicy piece about a recent shoot that rented our place as a location. According to the article, Kylie – who Gene sez was banging John Strong on the side during that rental, even though she wasn't in the movie – was not only bad-mouthing me and SexZ Pictures and just about everyone else in the industry, she was digging up little bits of gossip from 2001 to bitch about all over again.

There's only one problem. It's bullshit. Kylie wasn't here. At all. She wasn't even in the county; hadn't even slept here Monday night. She was in Rosamund, CA working on an Adam & Eve movie Gene claims I was directing (long-distance, apparently).

Audrey Hollander – who actually was here that day – even made a point of asking where Kylie was, and made me promise to tell Kylie she wants to work with her (Incidentally, Audrey, I passed it along and she blushed).

I would say I'm surprised by the foolishness of the whole thing, but I'm not. Style over substance has always been Gene's trademark. His patience for fact-checking begins and ends at how much dust he thinks he can kick up with any given story. In that regard, I'm adding fuel to the fire by posting even this, but really, this isn't a response to Gene. It's to those of you I've been telling for years not to believe ANYTHING posted on Gene's site.

It's myth. It's fantasy. You'd have better luck trying to catch a leprechaun or believing in unicorns. Here's an example of something posted – at length – shouted from Gene's digital soapbox that is patently, demonstrably, and easily proven to be untrue. There are more than a dozen people from two different sets who can be contacted to verify that it didn't happen.

It's not just a lie; it's a stupid lie, bordering on retarded. That doesn't make it unique among Gene's postings, it simply makes it one of the rare occasions where it's a black-and-white fact that can be proven.

So for those of you who love to believe Gene's happy crap, let me give you a quick primer on a man I worked with for years (I would never claim to "know" Gene as I believe Gene fancies himself to be dark and unknowable, and goes to great lengths to create his public persona).

First off, there is no "Grand Vizier." He's a front. A blind. A convenient fiction to allow Gene to shit on people who consider Gene to be a friend while maintaining plausible deniability. He did it in his final months at AVN when he was feeding gossip to Luke Ford (go back and look up the posts from "Clemenza"), and he did it again to Rob Black and Tom Byron when he got bored at Extreme Associates and starting posting inside gossip from there as retaliation when they began to shut him out (don't take a viper unto your bosom, boys). This is Gene's S.O.P. Don't fall for it.

Also remember, no matter who you are, Gene is not your friend. Gene used to expound at great length about how no one in this business is really your friend, ever. Everyone is out to get you all the time. Y'see, Gene has this romantic notion of himself as the hard-boiled newsman from a Dashiell Hammett novel who sees friends as luxury detrimental to honesty. To Gene, people are a commodity, nothing more. It always made me feel slightly sorry for Gene because truly I've never met anyone as utterly alone as he is.

Lastly, always remember that, to Gene, accuracy is nothing but an impediment to drama, and truth is a flawed concept suitable only for lesser mortals. I can't tell you how many times Gene came out of his office at AVN with some piece of gossip, giddy with the prospect of calling the target to get their side, knowing it would set off a flame war (before anyone had coined that term) he could dine out on for weeks.

Gene's greatest – perhaps his only – joy in life is setting people at each other's throats and sitting back to watch the furor grow. For him there is no greater pleasure than instigating and nurturing ill-will. If you've been slandered on Gene's page, I encourage you not to write to him in response. As long as he can get a rise out of you, he will never, ever stop. For that reason, you won't see this incident mentioned here again.

If you must respond – and I felt this occasion was worthy – do it like this. You see, I copyright this blog, and since Gene makes income from his site, he can't cut and paste this and claim fair use. If he uses it without my permission, I can force him to take it down, and if he doesn't, I get to sue him and his hosting company.

Winner!

The most he can do if you follow suit is link to you, which means you know you're getting your side of the story out there. And really, that's the point, right? If you can't ignore it, at least you can control it.

I also recommend a hearty dose of what I'm doing right now: shake your head and laugh.

Copyright ©2008, Bryn Pryor

I had an encounter with a lunatic today.

Quick digression -- this isn't the promised rant, but it will have to tide you over.

So the nut. I ran errands today including getting my car serviced. Decided to walk to the chiropractor from Nissan (which woulda been great if I hadn't picked the hottest day in weeks to do it), get some lunch and then walk back when they were finished.

On the return trip, I came upon a young black guy stopped at the edge of the sidewalk, staring at the wall of the Ralphs I was passing. He was groomed, thin, ripped biceps, wearing a basketball jersey and shorts (essentially the school uniform for twenty-something black dudes in L.A.), standing like a statue looking at... nothing.

The only things off-kilter were the battered leather briefcase he carried in addition to his newish backpack, and his shoes. Now, I'm comprehensively ignorant of modern fashion so this could be a whole look (I've seen far worse accepted as "hip"), but he had on thick, black dress socks and cheap brown loafers, sort of like Hush Puppies. From the shins up: Aspiring L.A. actor on his day off from Micelli's. Shins down: Old Jew in St. Petersburg.

I shrugged mentally -- who am I to tell anyone how to dress? -- and plodded on. As soon as I walked past him, he turned and fell in step behind me. As anyone who's lived here for any span of time can tell you, an event like this engenders one response: I'm About to Get Hustled for Cash.

There are three basic kinds of -- seems foolish to call them homeless, since a majority of them aren't -- I dunno... Vagrants... indigents... solicitors... bums...? When I'm homeless (and, really, given the way things are going in this country, isn't this an eventuality we should all be planning for?) I'll ask to be called either a hobo or a panhandler, just 'cuz I like the old-timey, railroady feel of 'em.

Anyway, bums come in three basic flavors in L.A. There's the sad-eyed, battered sign, shabby, Emmett Kelly freeway offramp bum; The South Parkian, shambling, "spare some change... god bless you anyway" bum; and the shaggy-dog story, "just need a tank of gas/bus/train/plane/space shuttle ticket so I can get back home" bum.

When I'm in the right mood, I prefer the latter. If you actually pay attention to their stories, often there are holes in the logic you can catch them up on, or you can make them dance out of non-cash help (Well, where's your car? I have a gas can. We'll go fill it up).

Also, when you frequent the same areas, paying attention allows you to bust them for hitting you up with the same lie over and over again. Just last night, K & I were getting noodles in Little Tokyo, when a middle-aged woman with a slightly desperate, Geraldine Chaplin demeanor came up.

"Can I bother you for a second? I've been out here now for about an hour..."

I took her by the arm and said, "Hon, you hit us up with this story a couple weeks back."

I expected to get some kind of lie or claim of misunderstanding. Instead, without missing a breath, she launched into her backup shaggy dog story about the real reason she was out there scamming change.

What. Fucking. Balls. Right then and there, I decided that if I ever own a company whose primary business is sales, A: I'm going to eat a fucking bullet, and B: my sales staff will be comprised entirely of Bums. Vagrants. Whatever. Those people have got a fucking tenacious desire to close!

Sorry. So Basketball Guy. Today, I really wasn't into the mood for the hustle, but I knew it was coming. The shaggy-dog bums are generally a lot cleaner and neater than the god bless bums, and this fucker was clean, man. In fact, shoes aside, he was wearing expensive-ass Lakers gear, was in better shape than I've been my entire life, and when he smiled at me he flashed a set of flawless fuckin' teeth. Before he'd said word one I'd already decided I should be asking him for money.

Then he lays it on me. "Whew, man, it's only now, when you came by I was able to move."

This is a new one. I'm curious, but silent.

"I'd still be standing there if you hadn't come by."

Well-spoken. Perfect grammar. Smart. Walking with purpose next to me, not just tagging along. I'll bite.

"Why's that?"

"Oh, you know, energy, man. Energy."

Now I'm realizing there's no hustle coming. At least I don't think so. I look him up and down out the corner of my eye. He's sweating; been out here in the sun a while. No cologne, but maybe a whiff of deodorant? Certainly no homeless B.O. From the way he's whipping the briefcase around, I'm fairly certain it's empty. I'm not even sure he's aware of it in his hand.

He's just looking straight ahead, smiling; happy. Then he looks at me, guileless.

"When they killed me, and I came back, my soul just got split up all over the place, y'know?"

He tells me this as if I know exactly what he's talking about. It isn't a confidence; just casual conversation. The plotlines of a dozen sci-fi movies and t.v. shows plop into my head. He chuckles.

"I never know when I'm gonna meet someone that has another piece of me."

With that, he turns off onto a side street. In my mind's eye, he's the godlike alien from the future who's been sent back to save our world, but something went wrong during the trip and his mind has fractured. Once the pretty blond girl from the record store helps him track down all the pieces of himself that have taken refuge in unsuspecting prols like me, he can stop the alien invasion.

If my part in that movie didn't suck so hard, I might have changed course and followed him to get more of his story. As it is, I prefer to believe he's just some harmless schizo whose mother lets him off the tether during the day. Fuck him anyway for giving me such a shitty role in his little fantasy world.

Okay, so it's been a tough week. Poor me, right? I promise I'll quit whining shortly. I'm giving myself the weekend to wallow in self-pity and self-loathing, and then Monday I have to snap out of it.

I promise a really vicious, snarky and (hopefully) entertaining blog first thing next week, so quit complaining, all y'all. In the meantime, I'll let you folks vote on the subject matter. I've had rants brewing about a few different topics, so I'll let you pick which one it is. Either e-mail me or post a comment to vote...

You can have

Why Violet Blue (the writer) is a total asshole.
The story of the bike-riding douchebag I almost ran down intentionally.
A grab-bag of thoughts about recent and upcoming movies and shows.
The Eli Cross career update (c'mon. Really?).
That political tirade I've been keeping stifled for months now.

Lemme know what you want. I live to serve... or serve to live... or something... (and ain't that the fuckin' dismal truth).

In the meantime, if anyone out there can score me an invite code for Demonoid, I'll not only love ya forever, I'll send you free porn.

Just a quick note to say goodbye to one of the finest American actors that ever lived. Paul Newman didn't always make great movies (Quintet, anyone?) but he did always give great performances.

I'm gonna spend the next six hours with Cool Hand Luke, Slap Shot, and Road to Perdition.

We'll miss you, Mr. Newman.

There's a fairly obscure (in this country, at least) John Cleese film called Clockwise that I really enjoy. Cleese plays -- as he generally does -- a man who's wound too tight, and falls victim to his own intractable nature.

Draw from that what parallels you will.

At one point in the film, after a crushing string of frustrations and defeats, Cleese falls onto his back and cries out, "It's not the despair. I can handle the despair. It's the hope!"

The past several weeks have involved a frequent pattern of keeping my chin up... just to have it smashed. Holding my head high... making it a more obvious target. Taking bold steps... and getting kicked solidly in the balls.

Today was the green cherry on top of this creamy shit sundae. At every turn, something else ranging from mildly irritating to positively crushing. Faced with this kind of adversity, I find it helpful to pout and wallow in self-pity.

If only I could finally abandon all hope.