counter Paul Morris / Treasure Island Blog: June 2005

Tuesday, June 28, 2005

Out of Office Autoreply

Sam Sugar’s interview with me went up today on Sugarbank. Check it out and let both him and me know what you think.

Thanks to everyone who’s been keeping up with Treasure Island Media through my blog. I’m going away for the next month- I’m headed down to Peru in search of the notorious and legendary Candiru, a spiny 2-inch catfish that is attracted to urine and attacks the anus. I’m going to bring back a sample specimen and our scientists at Treasure Island Media are going to find out what gene motivates this piss-loving, asshole-seeking fish in the hopes that we will one day be able to synthesize the perfect man.

Can you guess who I’ve gotten to fill in for the month of July?

Paul Morris.

That was kind of the whole point of this blog, at least as far as the press release for this blog was concerned. To get Paul to start writing, rather than just shooting porn. He’s promising some kind of photoblog, so keep an eye out for updates.

I’ll see you boys in August.

Thursday, June 23, 2005

Safe as Milk

Reuben just finished the editing for the film by the Anarcocks that we’re going to be releasing soon. They’re these two lean and sexy skinheads, Massimo and Pierce, and they’re making art by combining hardcore sex and homemade industrial music. They’re part of a European art collective called Black Sun Productions, which, in turn, has been a part of Coil, a seminal experimental/industrial project that’s spanned a few decades now.

Paul, in his omnivero-sexuality, loves stuff like this. So does Reuben. And now that I've seen Massimo and Pierce, so do I.
pic posted by Saul Austin

All of this has made Reuben's editing job more difficult since he's very sensitive to the Anarcocks' work and doesn't want his edits to be contrary to their pornographic or artistic intent. Integrity is very high on Reuben's list of good things. So he's been editing, sending his edits to Zurich for their ok, reading their notes, re-editing, and so on. Fortunately, Reuben and the Anarcocks seem to be on the same wavelength, and now the video is ready.

It should hit shelves in about a month.

We have caught up with the 2257 regulations paperwork, leaving us free to continue to legally and patriotically make the hardest of the hardcore pornography. If you’re not up on current industry news (and why would you be, if you’re not actually working in the industry?), the 2257 regulations are the ones that are (essentially) meant to guarantee the legality of the models in porn. This goes back to everyone's favorite underage-porn-model-cum-vocalist Traci Lords, who gleefully broke into the adult industry 400 years ago with a fake I.D. and a Penthouse spread. The U.S. government, world-reknowned for being moralism's little bitch, has released new 2257 regulations, but unfortunately forgot to tack on a translation to the multi-million page slab of legalese intentionally designed to be obtuse and self-contradictory. The entire industry went on a bit of a break as it scratched its head, looked confusedly towards its lawyers, and waited, uncomfortably, for the full-on federal crackdown.

A few weeks passed, and everyone started to realize that the new regulations were navigable, but that there was a nightmare of paperwork ahead of them. We here at Treasure Island Media (actually, when I say we, I mean Paul, Reuben, Nick, and our newest addition, our 2257-czar, the lovely, grinning Randy) cracked our knuckles and started watching porn. Every film was carefully scoured to make sure we had documents proving the legality of each of our models that spent time under the sweaty gaze of our cameras. And guess what? We did! (Again, I really had nothing to do with any of this- as a matter of fact, I got shooed out of the room pretty frequently. Which is good. I have an entropic effect on my environment, and it’s entirely possible that I’d set the room on fire or something. Thank you so much, Paul, Reuben, Nick and Randy for saving the rest of us.)

In any case, we are now completely, gloriously clean (at least with regard to the Federal Government), and we are once again free to do our duty as patriots and make seriously hardcore porn.

It’s all a result of the current administration throwing the adult industry to the Christian Coalition as a way of saying “thank you” for guaranteeing another four years of fundamentalism and people who want creationism taught in public schools. Politics. Censorship. Bah. All in the name of getting a few more spiritual cap-feathers for the Christers who live in mortal fear that someone, somewhere, might be rubbing one out. But we weathered the storm, as did the rest of the industry, and while the Free Speech Coalition is currently fighting it- and maybe even winning- we'll have our fingers crossed.

I just got interviewed about this very subject by Jackson West of SFist. The “-ist” ring of sites is like a blog of all the important and/or cool stuff going on in your town, provided you live in Austin, Boston, Chicago, London, Los Angeles, New York City, San Francisco, Seattle, Toronto, or Washington DC.

Tuesday, June 14, 2005

"What's felching?"

"Merci !
J'écris en français car je ne sais pas ne anglais!
J'attend avec impatience l'arrivée de vos new production
en france et rest un fan de vos films!
I kiss you!!!!"

Can you believe that? French fan letters are now officially the reason I come in to work. "I kiss you" is the best signoff I've ever seen.

Completely unrelated: Today the words drifted up from behind me, small and a little bit scared: “What’s felching?”

My desk is the first thing you see when you walk into our offices. Every day at least three new models saunter in and announce themselves to me, because I am the first thing they see, and am therefore the secretary. They walk in and say, “I have a 2:30 appointment,” like they’re in my little black book, and I peek over the little wall that separates me from Nick, and I point at the model. “I think he’s for you.”

The model almost always sits directly behind me. I don’t mind an audience, but they’re (understandably) nervous- hell, it’s probably the first time they’ve shown up at an interview that requires them getting naked- and they’re all fidgety and they have to comment on whatever’s immediately in front of them, which happens to be my computer. “Oh,” they say, “I also use the internet,” or something equally urbane. I suffer. They have, on occasion, moved up and actually fucked with my computer, or used my desk as a writing surface.

One of the very few ways I have been able to deal with these petty annoyances is by basking in the glow of their ignorance. A remarkable percentage of the men who come through here looking to break into gay porn are 100%, homogenized, card-carrying heterosexual with nary a glimmer of an idea as to the mechanics of two men fucking each other. So when they’re filling out the forms Nick gives them, they get a little anxious when they see words they don’t know, most commonly felching, rimming, and fisting.

When I first started working here, I was always gentle when answering them. It was like giving the “birds and bees” speech to a five year old, only sans bees. “Well,” I’d say, “rimming is when two men- who love each other very, very much- are naked beneath the covers, and one of them caresses the others heinie-hole with his tongue.” They’d get all wide eyed, the innocent child coming to terms with the gritty reality of copulation. I’d hold their heads to my chest and rock them back and forth, maybe get them a hankie.

After a while I got sick of it. I’m not that nurturing a person, especially when it comes to strangers, and as I started feeling more comfortable with my position at Treasure Island Media, I decided to leave the coddling to Nick, and focus more on coming up with ways of cutting the models fucking fingers off when they touch my keyboard. Soon, when I got interrupted by the uninitiated with a “What’s rimming?” I wouldn’t skip a beat- “It’s when you lick another guy’s asshole.” They’d go pale, and I’d get back to work.

Then I started feeling bad. They didn’t know. It wasn’t their fault. They weren’t sure what books they should read to study up on how to break into homosexuality. So I looked up the dictionary definitions and now I simply give everyone a clinical description. But oy!- the guy that asked today. I wasn’t really in the mood for it- and the guy’s attempt at dressing himself this morning was a horrible failure, which kills my sympathy glands. But really, boys: I know you’ve worked hard on those pectoral muscles, but don’t wear a fucking yellow mesh football shirt with too-tight jeans and sandals. It’s completely inexcusable, especially seeing as how you fucking live in fucking San Francisco and you should fucking well know better, no matter where you fall on the Kinsey scale. And when you’re sitting behind someone, waiting for your interview, don’t tap on the wall, don’t read over their shoulder, and don’t sigh every other goddamn minute. When the question finally floated up- “What’s felching?” Nick saw the evil flooding its way towards my mouth, and he cut me off- “Funny you should ask,” he said, “we’ll talk about that when we’re doing the actual interview.” I’m constantly amazed at his ability to deal with the slew of people that flow through here.

But for future reference:

Felching: a sexual practice in which a person sucks semen out of his or her partner’s vagina or anus. The semen is usually that of the person doing the sucking, although this is not always the case.

Rimming:a sexual activity involving contact between the anus or perianal areas of one person and the mouth of another. Thus, analingus is simultaneously anal sex and oral sex.

Fisting: a human sexual behavior that involves inserting the entire hand, and sometimes part of the arm, into the vagina (vaginal fisting) or anus (handballing or anal fisting) of a sexual partner. Fisting is also called “Fist Fucking,” Which is sometimes shortened to “FF.” The medical terms for these practices are brachiovaginal eroticism (vaginal) and brachioproctic eroticism (anal) respectively.

Monday, June 13, 2005

Shake it like...

I found these sitting around the office and thought you'd all get a kick out of them...

Damon being fey and getting ready for a shoot.
pic posted by Saul Austin

Nick (the casting director) looking pouty with his ass in the air.
pic posted by Saul Austin

A wall of a man with a phenomenal body.
pic posted by Saul Austin

Damon drunk outside the Eagle.
pic posted by Saul Austin

Damon shyly telling someone to fuck themself.
pic posted by Saul Austin

Daddy's naked.
pic posted by Saul Austin

Daddy's naked from the front.
pic posted by Saul Austin

According to my stat counter, there's something like 1,000 of you pouring through here on a daily basis. Leave me comments! Critique! Demand! Use me!

Wednesday, June 08, 2005

Today's Lotto Numbers

Frank came up to my desk yesterday.

Frank: “Hey, Saul. Can you pull a name out of this pile? It’s for the raffle we had.”

Me: “What? What raffle?”

Which is illustrative of the high level of inter-office communication that goes on here. Apparently we had a raffle. Who knew? It was for the entire Treasure Island Media library.

Bob Barker: “A 2.7 million dollar value!”

Thanks, Bob. The winner was Matt in Michigan, aka PackRattMatt. Mazel tov, Matt. Prepare to develop the strongest forearm in Michigan.

Monday, June 06, 2005

Healthy Curiosity about Our Environment

The week kicked off with Paul calling me into his office and asking me to walk with him to get coffee. Coffee is a morning tossup for me- if I get it before I come in, then Paul hasn’t gotten his yet, and he wants me to walk with him to get his "triple espresso with ground glass" fix, and if I decide to wait, then Paul’s already chewing his coffee. There’s really nothing I can do. Either way I wind up making an extra trip.

Not to say that I don’t enjoy our morning walks. Paul is even worse than I am when it comes to conversational filters, and is prone to talking about the details of our most recent film as he is to discussing A Remembrance of Things Past. And watching everyone standing around at 9 a.m., waiting for their doubleshot half-caf nonfat mocha Frappuchinos and trying desperately to not listen to a rather loud deconstruction of 70’s-era cumshots, well, that more than makes up for the trip.

There’s an adventure aspect, as well. Recently, Paul and I were standing in line and I was talking about this book I’m reading- Dangerous Places. It’s like Lonely Planet for places that you head to if you have a death wish- Afghanistan, Sierra Leone, or maybe even the United States- and I was specifically talking about some tidbit I’d picked up about Libya. Paul interrupted me: “Whatever happened to Qadhafi?”

“I’m pretty sure he died, or he’s not in power, or something.” I have a remarkable grasp of international politics, and am regularly sought after by politically-minded San Francisco groups when they need a poster-boy for “the apathetic twenty-something responsible for our country’s rapid descent into Republican tyranny.” I usually refuse to go unless there’s free food.

Paul: “Really?”

Me: “Yep. Anyhow…”

I trailed off because the guy ahead of us in line, a cute, fashionably disheveled guy (he looked like he had just rolled out of bed and into a tub of hair product) about my age had turned around and was making gentle “pardon me” type noises. He very kindly corrected me. “He’s not dead, and he is still in power. He’s just not having people shot directly in front of other people anymore. But, you know, baby steps…”

We thanked him- he was so polite! Afterward we tried to figure out what it was, exactly, that made him so great, and we decided he was just magnetic. So magnetic that we followed him a few blocks to see where he was going. It was less stalking and more a healthy curiosity about our environment. Anyhow, as we ran a little bit to catch up- he had just turned a corner into an alley- we almost ran head-first into our UPS delivery guy, who loudly greeted us and told us that he had a package for Paul. Which sort of killed the whole not-stalking thing. We do, however, now know where he lives.

Anyhow, when we got back from getting coffee this morning, Paul fast-forwarded to the hidden bit at the end of What I Can’t See. I’d never seen it before. I’m not giving anything away, but everyone needs to watch their porn more carefully.

Then Damon Dogg came in with the latest issue of Paper Magazine and a proud grin. The very last page of Paper has the Drunk Klowns website and some stills of Damon and Co., wearing full makeup and a couple cans of beer. Mazel tov, Damon- you’re one step closer to making inebriated, hypersexed clowns more socially acceptable.
pic posted by Saul Austin

In other news, Paul brought this article by Matt Sizemore to my attention. It’s about his “debut” as a bareback performer, and the narrow attitude of people towards what the phrase “personal freedom” means. The only real problem we have with it is that it’s not really his debut- he already made his bareback debut with Treasure Island Media in “Riding Billy Wild”. No matter, it’s a good article, and it’s nice to hear from someone else who thinks that Will Clark is kind of misguided in his zealotry.

Thursday, June 02, 2005

Playing Catch-up

As soon as he walked in the door, fresh from Chicago, Damon goes, “So here’s some pr for you- I got kicked out of IML.” Which is true. Even better, he was kicked out within 10 minutes of getting there. Apparently, as the rest of the crew was setting up the Treasure Island Media booth, Damon pulled his dick out and Christian (from Damon Blows America 6 and the up coming DBA 7), dropped to his knees and got his suck on. Faster than you could say ,”coitus interruptus,” the people in charge of making sure no one was having too much fun charged in and demanded that the whole TIM crew leave. Fortunately, all wasn’t lost, as Frank sweet talked the guards, who finally decided to let the TIM booth alone provided blower and blowee leave.

Despite that one little setback, the trip was a success, with the boys at the booth making both friends and money, and the whole crew getting gobs of footage which they will edit down and pass on to you, so that you can enjoy the fruits of their labors.

In other news, Treasure Island Media is supporting a documentary about methamphetamine use in the gay community by director Todd Ahlberg. Todd approached us a little while back, and showed Paul his last film, Hooked, in which he explored the “online cruising” phenomenon through the stories and reflections of gay men from around the country. Paul loved it, and generously contributed to ensure the films’ completion. Look for a Todd Ahlberg movie about meth to hit worldwide film festivals in the next few months.

Speaking of non-pornographic films by Treasure Island, we just picked up a sexy young director named Matt Cote to film the biography of Alan Helms, the man novelist Edmund White called “the best piece of ass of my generation,” and Gore Vidal called a “homme fatale.” I’ll keep you up to date on any new developments.

(On a side note- Paul introduced me to Matt by calling me into his office. “Saul, this is Matt, I picked him up to film the Alan Helms project. When I picked him up, I pulled up next to him- he had one foot propped up against a wall and was smoking a cigarette- and I said, “How much?” and he said, “Twenty-five cents. Fifty cents and I’ll wear lipstick.”

“Did you get the lipstick?” I asked.

“Of course not!” Paul fumed. “You think I’m made of money?!?”)

We’re out-of-control busy here. The Plantin’ Seed 2 intro special has been keeping our phones ringing for most of the day; New Barbary Coast, the distribution company we’ve started, has been keeping our phones ringing the rest of the day; all the side projects, regular projects, research projects, and Paul calling us all in to watch an episode of Mr. Show has been guaranteeing that we, the office of Treasure Island Media, are paying Starbuck’s rent.