Remembrance of Porns Past

Some time in the past decade (about two or three weeks ago), I found myself in a diner in Williamsburg, the Aughts' epicenter of hipster. Never mind what I was doing there. Not important. While in the bathroom stall I looked up and saw scrawled on the wall an advert for Burning Angel.

Usually a sign like that would send me into a Proustian voyage of memory that would lead into extraordinary hours of viewing Burning Angel's archives. But I was already there weeks before, the trigger being a sweet little thing with an asymmetrical haircut, non-sequitur tattoos, funky wardrobe, and telltale orthodontia betraying a suburban upbringing. Yes, the reason I've been spending time in Williamsburg. Whenever she's away, I've been consoling myself with my extensive Burning Angel collection.

So what came to mind in that stall was not the recent video backlog, but something from way back. Way back in 2003 before the site became all about Joanna Angel. I thought about Ash. Sweet sweet Ash and her bottle of vodka. The first and only time I've signed up for a site from a single picture set. It took several girls' pic set, including one from a girl I knew personally, to get me to pay for Suicide Girls later that year. But it was Ash alone who got me digging for my wallet and later digging into my pants.

As much as I avoid solo sets, and prefer video to pictures, Ash put me in a happy place. I have, however, been unable to find her in anything else. The years have gone by. My subscription lapsed. The pics on my laptop disappeared with computer upgrades, crashes, accidental deletions. But I find myself remember her vividly at all the right times. Like this one.

Where have you gone, Ash?

Scramble Porn In 5 Easy Steps!

Are you like me, friend? Did your adolescence frustratingly end before broadband and effortless access to porn? Did you spend an embarrassing amount of your formative years watching Scramble Porn? I bet you're glad those days are over. But, do you find yourself, strangely enough, missing them?

I do.

If you do too, then you're in luck, friend. I've stumbled onto a simple way replicate that Scramble Porn Look right on your laptop. In a few short steps it'll be like you're 13 again.

1. I use VLC media player 1.0.1. If you have a way of doing this on other players, please feel free to share your method in the comments. First, open your video. For the sake of pornstalgia, I have selected a scene from Hard Evidence starring Jeanna Fine.

2. Click TOOLS. Then EFFECTS AND FILTERS

3. Click the VIDEO EFFECTS tab, then the IMAGE MODIFICATION tab.

4. You will see on the bottom a choice of check boxes. Checking WAVES will reproduce that squiggle we love so much. You could get a more authentic squiggle by checking WATER EFFECTS. This, however, decreases the contrast once the color's inverted, so this option is for the truly masochistic. Additionally, checking NOISE will add static, but again this will increase the squint factor. Whatever works for you. My eyes are bad as it is so I just choose WAVES.


5. And finally, the coup de grâce. Click on the COLOR FUN tab and then INVERT COLORS box. and voila! Scramble Porn.


Now you're ready to go. If you truly want to recreate that experience from oh so long ago, you could simulate your mother knocking on your door (the anxiety makes it work that much more).

Nothing beats a inverse cum shot!

Porn Star Haiku: Amber Peach

She's a bit fat, and
no beauty. But she sure has
one meaty pussy.

(paraphrasing Wheelster, clearly a connoisseur of womenfolks).
(for the record, I disagree. I think Ms. Peach is quite lovely).
(her pussy is pretty meaty though).

Porn Star Haiku: Jaylynn Sinns

Even beneath the sheets,
Even at night, smiles like yours
Will light rooms and hearts.

I Love Love Love Fatty D

I used to room with the coolest chick. We lived in a one story bungalow at the edge of Berkeley and all was awesome. She used to keep the bathroom stocked with issues of Vice she stole from work. It was in one such magazine a few years ago where I first encountered April Flores (AKA Fatty D).

There was a review of The Voluptuous Life. "Who is this beauty on the cover?" Love at first sight. Smitten on the can. A week later, Rose was able to steal a copy from work. We watched together straight away even though we weren't intimate and we had only known each other a few weeks. Our shared love of April Flores was the first of many bonding experiences. She also shared my disappointment at not seeing Ms. Flores in hardcore action.

It was a lovely day when I found out about Waist Watchers 4. I had long since moved back to the East Coast but I was on the phone with Rose within minutes of finding out about Fatty D's first Boy/Girl. Why a 35 year-old lesbian has as much interest in seeing a bbw do some dude as I do, I'll never know, but God bless that woman. We were unable to watch it together, but she sent me a copy (snagged from work, of course), with her remarks on a Post-It note. And I was happy for a while.

But you know me. When it comes to porn, I am never satisfied. Just one scene won't do. I waited impatiently for the next.

So I'm laying here with my laptop on my lap. I'm taking a break from my nearly done paper and listening to April's appearance on "The Sheena Metal Experience". Clicking around on the internets while I listen, I find that she's done another boy/girl, interracial at that!

I have quite a few issues with IR, but watch it anyway because I'm a conflicted bastard. But a big pro for me is identification. I identify with the dude onscreen. As a brown fellow myself, seeing a fellow brown fellow have sex makes it easier to see myself as him. Anything that makes it easier to see myself having sex with Fatty D, in particular, makes me happy.

Just now on the show, Fatty mentioned that very scene in passing. Now she just said how she won't be doing another Boy/Girl for a while. Oh well. Hopefully I'll stay happy with this (but you know I won't).

As soon as I'm done writing this post, I'll be on the phone with Rose. I'm in no rush; I won't be pulling my pud for a few months. But it's good to have a (most likely stolen) copy of Belladonna's Dark Meat 3 with Rose's notes waiting for me when I go back to being a deviant.

The Sasha Grey Experience

I took forever to watch the movie. Then I put off writing about it for forever more days. Here it is, way after everyone else, my review of The Girlfriend Experience.

What can I say that hasn't been said by someone more articulate six months ago? The Girlfriend Experience is a stunning movie, even more so when you take into account the tiny budget, and the lightening-quick speed it progressed from conception to release. The cinematography is gorgeous. The mise en scène is perfect. Soderbergh shoots Sasha beautifully, perhaps better than any porn director (I know that's a "no shit" statement, but it's something that struck me immediately). I was expecting something akin to Bubble, another low-budget Soderbergh movie shot on digital with no name actors. The Girlfriend Experience exceeded those expectations.

I could go on about the substance of the thing, about how TGE is about the intersection of Beauty, Commerce, the question of Identity, and the very human need for Intimacy, but it isn't a review per se I set out to write.

This is supposed to be my first impression of Sasha Grey. It's kind of impossible to have a pulse these days and not have heard her name, or see her picture naked more likely than not engaged in some sort of gangbang activity, or hear how much smarter she is than the rest of us. Somehow I was able to get all that and not have sat through a porn movie with her in it. Bizarre!

I've condensed my impression into thoughts (not all about Sasha Grey):

1) Who has eyebrows like that? Like, really!

2)They should rename the movie When Will Sasha Grey Smile? I kept going "Almost, almost. Yes! No! She was just getting something out of her teeth. Maybe next time."

3) Dude looks like Casey Affleck!

4) Imagine where this could have gone if it had ten times the budget and Natalie Portman playing Chelsea...and Casey Affleck!

5) Sasha Grey is actually not a bad actress. I mean, she's a bit wooden and emotionless, but I think that's the role.

6) I'm so in love with Christina Nadeau, the girl who plays Chelsea's friend. I would so date her. Much more so than Sasha Grey.

7) This movie is like American Psycho Lite. A chunk of the dialogue is Chelsea mechanically listing high end consumer items. Yep, like American Psycho with none of the gore, and oddly enough, less of the sex.

8) Another girl I would date over Sasha is Meriam Benezra, who's onscreen literally for three seconds as a street musician. Three seconds is all I need to launch into fantasy. We'd spend our days busking for change on the F train platform, our evenings crashing open bars and gallery openings (free wine), our nights in each other's arms engaged in conversation much more riveting than anything you could get out of Sasha Grey.

After it was all over, after I got my first prolonged dose of Ms. Grey, I checked out Anal Acrobats 3 and watched her pop croquet balls out of her ass. She seemed so much more at ease, as if she was genuinely enjoying herself.
Ah, the strange future we've made for ourselves!

Oh, Chasey. Oh, the Humanity!

She was billed The Most Beautiful Woman in Porn. I was 13 and in love.

Fast-forward fifteen years and the once smitten boy finds the remains of Chasey Lain at Porn Star Update. My heart is broken. Is it awful that I'd rather found she died?

The good news is that I've seen worse (admittedly no one I've lost fluid over), and rehab is always an option even for the hopelessly cracked-out. Whitney is making a come back. Maybe Chasey will in a year or two. There's a lively Milf/Cougar market waiting for her. I'm pulling for you, Chasey. You can come back from this: