Sample 07/09/08 - Erotica LA & Stephanie Swift
[You've probably learned to worry a bit when we start a post with "editorial blue" — right? Still, we did think it best this way, as the following convention report seems odd, even for D.Minion. At least this time she did not inadvertently change the mpeg settings on her camera, so they're not itty-bitty, but that doesn't change their … um … uniqueness it seems. Rather than pump too many more words into this, maybe we should just show you "Angels Wiggle" and you'll be up to speed here real speedy quicko. Just press "play" here, but don't say we didn't warn you. It looks to be a fun day, no?]
Erotica Los Angeles, 2008
The past few months have been studies in chaos for me. Nothing linear. Nothing routine. So instead of my usual, “First we did this and then we did that,” story about Erotica LA, I will present it in a vaguely chaotic, non-linear form. As Friedrich Nietzsche said, “What doesn’t kill us makes us stronger.” [Please understand that D.Minion exists as one of the most linear (read: binary) humans on the planet; she really doesn't see the world the way other people do. When we informed her some years ago that as an adult she could have cold pizza for breakfast if she wanted to, she reacted as though we had given her the gift of fire. Also, despite our best efforts, she remains fully convinced that if a woman is "nice" then she is "pretty" — oddly enough completely regardless of said woman's physical appearance. As for Nietzsche, well, DM is fairly certain that eating chocolate on strawberries will kill you. So there's your bit of "salt" for this entry (which DM maintains you never, ever put on fruits, by the way).]
STEPHANIE SWIFT
Silly me. When I saw Stephanie Swift this year in Vegas at AEE I got hugs, kisses, photos, and autographs, but no contact information. Dang.
Lucky wanted me to make it right at ELA. Oh, and he wanted an audio interview, too. The contact info was easy. The audio interview was difficult. Music blaring, people talking, and the echo of the convention center hall made interviewing Stephanie almost impossible. And dragging her away to a quieter place was out of the question. Stephanie was working! And even a five-minute interview would take at least 15 minutes if you count travel time. So Stephanie and I huddled up at the Sweetheart Video Booth, and she happily and loudly answered my questions into my mini recorder. It sounds better than I could have hoped, and our audio guru will make it sound even sweeter! [Right. This will happen just as soon as we let him know he should be doing it. Oops. … On the upside, we'll include a fascinating inside story about Stephanie and risqué somewhere on the bottom of one of these pages. We'd have just put a footnote here, but then Steph might read this and realize that she'd become a footnote entry, and since she's back working again, she might not like that. Just so you know, it never pays to irritate women that look good naked. … Just so you know.]
Also as Erotica LA played out, chaos was going on at Ninn Worx_SR. There were no Ninn Contract Girls in evidence at the show, and there wasn’t a NW_SR booth. However, Spearmint Rhino provided the banners that identified the various corridors. [Just to add some perspective here, last time we checked it cost about $20,000 for the privilege of hanging those banners. And then you have to pay for the banners, of course. Also, convention appearances are very typically included in "the deal" with a company, and since the show happens in L.A. NW_SR wouldn't have even had travel or lodging costs associated with bringing their stars in. Good thing they saved all that money by not buying the contract girls lunch, right?] About half were Ninn Worx banners with Ninn Worx Contract Girls, the others were Spearmint Rhino. [Although other than the wholly average box cover for The Four none of the pictures were actually Michael's imagery. The more you think you understand in life … .]
It was great seeing my buddy Julia Ann on one! (Although I’m not sure how much feature dancing she’s doing nowadays.) The Daisy Marie one was interesting, also. Daisy has a huge cherub tattoo on her back, but SR must have "Photoshopped" it out. [Call me crazy, but I'm thinking the "cherub" doesn't really fit into the "SR Philosophy". At least they were good pictures of these two, though. Not all of them fell into that category.]
I don’t know about you, but I’d ask my General Practitioner, my family, or my friends if I were searching for a doctor. I wouldn’t take the word of someone at a booth at a convention. [Really? So we shouldn't pay attention to all the stock tips or penis enlargement options that end up in our spam folder? Hmm.]
There were an unbelievable amount of companies hawking everything from “rejuvenating” your vagina, to breast implants, to male toys that help your prostate by “stimulating” it. [Yeah, we noticed this one. You can call it whatever you want to make it sound better, but it still means somebody's shoving something up your butt.]
My favorite booth, though, was one that purported to detoxify your body through your feet. Every time I walked by, different convention goers had their toes in tubs of water. The water bubbled around their ankles, changing from clear to brown, to downright muddy! Gross!!! [Indeed.]
According to their signs, the various colors and odors extruded meant that different toxins were escaping from the body. R-I-G-H-T….. Or it meant that the people working the booth had added chemicals to the water that when stirred or heated up turn disgusting colors. Not that I’m cynical or anything …. [So maybe we're a bad influence, but we think DM's correct on this one. And it doesn't make us feel all that much better, but at least she explained this rather unsavory photograph.]
Because Christy Canyon was busy doing her Playboy Radio Show with Vanessa Blue, I didn’t get to talk with her. (Dang. Got her photo, though!) But I did get to talk with the folks from Pussywhip.com. We’d heard them on Playboy Radio while we were driving to the show, and I was excited to meet them in person! The whip is just a little toy that berates your partner using five different audio clips as you whip him. Excellent for boys that just don’t want to behave! (Hee, hee, hee!) [A contrasting point of view might consider the item a complete waste of time and planetary resources.]
[As with many of our "convention posts" this has somehow grown well beyond our initial complication expectations. If you don't want to read the rest of D.Minion's observations — or our editorial additions, for some inexplicable reason — you can just jump to the pictures below. You'll be missing a lot of wonderfully entertaining exposé, however. Also, you'll be missing the former host of Night Calls 411 in her new gig teaching people how to pole dance, and who knows what else. (We never read these stories before we're all sitting down to provide the editorial blue. It makes for a fun time that way.) Finally, for now, we're pausing with one of those fun times that happen when DM takes video. According to her, the motivation for this clip came from her desire to shoot "Ron Jeremy" at the convention. We should tell you that if you look closely, you can sort of see Ron in the clip too.]
 DM at ELA'08 - 1 |
DM at ELA'08 - 2 |
DM at ELA'08 - 3 |
On to more observations.
We're not giving guarantees as to their value, however.
Erotica Los Angeles, 2008
[intermission]
Before we get back to DM, we thought we really owed you members the benefit of our own opinions regarding some of our favorite photographs from this show. And, yes, we're offering them knowing full well that oftentimes our opinions don't really turn out to be all that helpful. We live with it. So … in the order presented:
- Stephanie Swift's legs, which we would not wish to escape swiftly.
- Not a cigar, but presumably of similar political purpose.
- Fashions we wish both were true and we were brave enough to wear.
- Proof that tattoo artists sometimes have interesting lives.
- An outfit we hope never to see at a party we attend.
During ELA, various shows rock the stage while the stars signed autographs and the many vendors hawked their wares. My favorites were the Hollywood Men and the Fashion Show. I loved seeing the beautiful women dance onto the stage in clothes that went from cute, to sexy, to downright strange! (Note how I caught the final confetti pop at the end of the show. A happy accident!) [Well, it happens to be at the first of this clip, but she was very proud of it, so we felt obligated to include it. Pick your battles, y'all.]
[Videdo Files Deleted in Sample]
The guys were adorable, too. They didn’t get naked, but got down to their g-strings as they paraded around the stage, dancing, posing, and showing off to the crowd. (I especially enjoyed the “angels’” reaction to them!) [As you probably guessed, that was the first clip we showed you today, so if you really want to see it again, just go back to page one and look at the top movie clip. The following two clips created some controversy in the office. We saw the first one (boys) first, and actually went into the other office to advise DM that it seemed likely that people wouldn't really want to see clips with foreground elements being overly prominent. … Then we went back and put in the second (girls) clip and watched that. … Then we went back to D.Minion's office and said, "Oh. Never mind."]
[Videdo Files Deleted in Sample]
Yeah, I’m getting old. I used to know the entire Wicked stable of Contract Girls, and now I’m down to just jessica [who still doesn't like capital letters in her name] and Stormy [who does, and then doesn't, use a last name now]. (Not that that’s a bad thing!)
Jessica showed her Los Angeles “patriotism” by donning Laker gear! I’m not much into basketball, but now I’m a die-hard Laker fan! Rah, rah! And showing how people are the same, no matter what their professions, jessica’s guy Brad Armstrong snapped photos of her in front of her poster. [As the attire didn't exactly spur the rest of us into Laker-Mania, we did get a kick out of the picture at the right here. If you look closely you can see what DM's talking about. We have jessica's boyfriend, taking a picture of jessica, in front of a big picture of jessica. There's probably some deep psychological conclusion you can draw from that, but we've really wandered off-topic enough for one day.]
I peeked into Kaylani’s box (No, not THAT box, the one on her desk.) when she went backstage. It had extra Sharpies, candy, and hand sanitizer in it. (Didn’t you always want to know that?) [Ah. We wondered why DM took this picture. If you can't figure it out, the first shot is Kaylani, the second her "box" (but, again, not the fun one), and the third would be Alektra Blue.] I think that new Wicked Contract Girl Alektra Blue looks a lot like Shy Love. [Hmm. Shy Love happens to be very nice, you know. That makes her pretty.]
Heather Vuur (AKA Vandeven) and Justine Joli shared a booth with Kimberly Kane. They sold photos and magazines as well as posing for pictures and signing autographs.
I desperately wanted to do an audio interview with Heather and Justine, and they would happily have given me one, but with the constant noise and with the hustle and bustle at the booth, it was impossible. They look gorgeous, though, don’t they? [You see Heather, Justine - Kimberly - Heather, then Justine. And, yes, they're beautiful.]
Miyoko (AKA Flower from Playboy TV’s Night Calls 411) is one of Carol’s favorites. Mine, too! Miyoko is another of those beautiful, sexy, intelligent, nice, down-to-earth, people who make up the best of porn! Retired from making movies, she now owns her own business that sells Adult toys a la Avon. She also teaches the art of strip tease and pole dancing! Pole dancing was what Miyoko was teaching at Erotica LA. Seven very brave folks from the audience (not me!) volunteered, and I watched in awe as men and women of all ages and sizes learned some basic pole moves! I was impressed!
[Videdo Files Deleted in Sample]
After the show, there was a raffle, and Lon won a “How To Pole Dance” book. Lon was pretty sure that he wasn’t going to take advantage of that knowledge, and he knew how much Carol admired Miyoko, so he very nicely asked Miyoko to sign the book, and we sent it to Carol. (Hey Carol, you can show us some moves next time you visit, OK? Hee, hee, hee!) [We were warned at the time not to tell Carol of this thoughtful gift, and we did not. Clever people might have checked to be sure Carol had actually received the book before we posted this. … That would be clever people, you see. … If you didn't know about this Carol, um, here's a picture of Miyoko signing the book for you. … Occasionally we're more nice than clever really.]
Ah, Rayveness …. Ray was one of my first friends in the business. I remember meeting her at the East Coast Video Show with Lucky, Juli, Gary Gray, and the gang. I’d just met her and she asked to see my ta-tas. “I’ll show you mine,” she whispered. As nice as that sounded, I was too shy to take her up on her offer. “I’ve SEEN yours,” I said. (On the plus side, Ray wasn’t too put off by that remark, and we’ve been buddies for years!) Rayveness usually dates a man and a woman at one time. She introduced us to her latest lady – although I don’t remember her name. Maybe Lon remembers. I know she was gorgeous, though! [Hey, if you never learn their names, you're not responsible for remembering them. Think about that. And while you're thinking, we might as well explain this last "video" clip. If you've been a member for awhile, then you know that on occasion DM get's a little excited with the photo taking opportunity. Sometimes she accidentally hits the mpeg button instead of the still button, and sometimes those end up as some of our funniest moments. (Remember the video clip of the lizard sitting on a window sill?) That said, she's getting much better about noticing when she's done this, and so the "clips" are really quick these days. We could have just not used this one — which you may have to "play" a couple of times to really get it — but then we'd have missed out on another pretty lady. We try not to do that.]
[Videdo Files Deleted in Sample]
DM at ELA'08 - 1 |
DM at ELA'08 - 2 |
DM at ELA'08 - 3 |
