I housesat for a friend last weekend — mostly to enjoy her nice pad, hot tub and cute cats. An added bonus is that she has Showtime, enabling me to catch Penn and Teller’s Bullshit! show, (great show) and the much-hyped Family Business. The Penn and Teller show was great, even better that I ran into Penn at this year’s Adult Video News Awards convention. He was tall and very sweaty, (evidence photo on left) and being mobbed by all kinds of circus sideshow porn chicks and suitcase-pimp types. But last weekend, finally watching Family Business was the sort-of highlight, the "reality" TV show about Adam Glasser (aka Seymore Butts) and his gonzo porn business, partially staffed by his family members.
I really like Adam Glasser’s porn, for many reasons. It’s basically like his own home movies, except that his friends are all in the porn business and like to have sex a lot. So the viewer gets the vicarious thrill ride of unscripted, off the cuff sex (the trademark of gonzo porn), but with seasoned sex performers who are having sex because they want to — not because they have to. At least that’s what it feels like: porn stars letting their hair down. Lots of real female orgasms, and the occasional joy of women penetrating the guys (and making them come like firehoses). If you don’t mind the in between scenes of Adam’s shoegazing camera while he’s on the phone, they’re great masturbation material. And Glasser is smart, and quite witty, which reminds you that your porn is coming from someone who has a brain — something that’s important to me, anyway. I became interested in Glasser a while back when he won an obscenity trial, detailed in my article Adam Glasser, Fisting and the Law.
Family Business is a pithy half an hour long — surprising in an industry that is extremely interesting, and wholly undocumented in any unbiased fashion. But unfortunately, this "reality" TV show is packed with filler, about two-thirds very forced scenes of his mom (Glasser’s accountant) and his uncle "just going about their lives" and one third Glasser doing his job — and looking for love. Actually, the show veers between trying really hard to present the family members as characters and coming off as a big personal ad for Glasser.
Too bad on both counts, because Glasser himself is very interesting, and if the writers, or "comic stylists" as they’re listed in the credits, would stop trying to make the family members lives fit into Hollywood’s expectations of what they think would be funny, the show could transcend itself and be very provocative. It’s like the writers forgot the "show don’t tell" rule of writing. Oh, and don’t think for a minute that "reality TV" isn’t scripted. It is. Check out Glasser’s porn on your own, and take Family Business with a big grain of salt.
Meanwhile in reality, I’ve been a member of machine arts group Survival Research Laboratories for over seven years. We’re a diverse and talented group of people who are very close, even with members who live far away, and at age 32, I’m the youngest member. Sadly, one of our dear friends Tim North has been recently and suddenly diagnosed with a lengthy list of cancers, including pancreatic. Severe abdominal pain took him to the ER last month, then an "open and shut" surgery, and they sent him home. Time is very, very short for him. Reality is sobering for all of us. Tim and his wife and daughter had just moved, changed jobs, and were one month from the start of their health insurance.
In an outpouring of love and support from our community, we are all pooling our resources and putting on a huge, fantastic benefit to raise money for Tim and his family. The Tim North benefit will be on Tuesday March 25 at SOMArts cultural center in San Francisco, from 8-12 PM. The entertainment will be an incredible list of performers, many of whom are internationally renowned and making rare public appearances — including my favorite marching band. There will be an auction, raffle, stuff to buy, and all proceeds go directly to the North family. I’m even donating some mystery porn packages!
In addition, SRL has been burning the midnight oil to create the official SRL Nudie calendar! That’s right, us machine geeks peel off our coveralls and pose with our machines and tools in and out of the SRL shop, in a high gloss, full-color 15 month calendar. These calendars will be on sale at the benefit for $25, and not only to you get hot male and female mechanics au natural, but I stripped twice and appear more than four times. See me in white panties engaged in a sloppy girl-girl scene with the sexiest machine in the world, the Running Machine. (Images here are taken by a not-very-innocent bystander) It was chilly on the shop floor, and okay, that’s maple syrup and molasses (not motor oil which is very carcinogenic). But after years of working on the Running Machine and operating it, getting down and dirty and naked with her was one of the highlights of my life.
