Read Consider the Lobster for Free Online

fizzle-yield, and overall Dick Filth said that we failed, in his phrase, to “penetrate to the core of the essence of what it is to be Max Hardcore.” 30
    The 15th Annual AVN Awards are actually split over two consecutive nights, a tactic that Max H. thought the legit Oscars would do well to emulate: “Get all the bullshit out of the way the first night—best packaging, marketing, best gay, shit like that. Who wants to sit through that shit?”
    Held in a different, slightly smaller Caesars Palace ballroom, Friday’s Awards show is indeed brisk. The ephemeral categories include Best Videography, Best Screenplay, Best Art Direction, Best Music. Each category’s nominees are listed in the program, but only the winners are announced onstage, and they’re announced four at a time, and applause is discouraged, and the master of ceremonies keeps telling the quartets of winners that “If you’ll come on up quickly and help keep things moving it’ll help us out a lot.” Friday’s only food is big wheels of vegetables and dip near the cash bar. The emcee is not headliner Robert Schimmel but a hypomanic guy named Dave Tyree, whose interpolated banter is 78 rpm and consists of stuff like “If God didn’t want us to jerk off he would’ve made our arms shorter.” There are maybe 1,000 people in attendance, most only slightly dressed up, and there are no assigned tables, and everybody in the ballroom is moving around and chattering and treating the onstage proceedings the way people in a cocktail lounge treat the piano player.

Q. $4,000,000,000 and 8,000 new releases a year—why is adult video so popular in this country?

A. Director and AVN-Hall-of-Fame inductee F. J. Lincoln: “It’s always a little funny how it’s called
adult
. What it really is, you get to be a kid again. You roll around and get dirty. It’s the adult sandbox.”

A. Veteran woodman Joey Silvera: “Dudes, let’s face it—America wants to jerk off.”

A. Industry journalist Harold Hecuba: “It’s the new Barnum. Nobody ever goes broke overestimating the rage and misogyny of the average American male.”

A. Porn starlet Jacklyn Lick: “I think a lot of fans are very lonely people.”

Q. There don’t seem to be a whole lot of condoms used in hard-core scenes.

A. Harold Hecuba: “Never have been. They’re viewed as a turn-off. This business is about engineering fantasies.”

Q. But even just venerially—all these anal shenanigans and everything. Is there much worry in the industry about HIV?

A. Harold Hecuba: “There’s not as much worry about AIDS now. Everybody gets tested on a schedule.”

Q. What about herpes?

A. H.H.: “I think it’s rampant.”

    Last year’s Best-Sex-Scene-in-a-Film winner Vince Vouyer’s real name turns out to be John LaForme. Rhetorical Q.: How, if one’s real name was John LaForme, could that person possibly feel the need for a nom de guerre?
    Mr. Tom Byron describes being able to tumesce and ejaculate more or less on demand as an exercise in “control, like meditation or surfing. It’s like a gymnast staying on the balance beam. You practice enough, you can do anything.” 31
    Former woodman and current auteur Paul Thomas was a member of the original Broadway cast of
Jesus Christ Superstar
.
    The tall, crazed-looking, and ever-rampant Mike Horner, three-time Best Actor winner and a member of the AVN Hall of Fame, 32 is actually a classically trained opera singer.
    Deceased starlet Nancy Kelly’s real name was Kelly Van Dyke. She was the daughter of TV’s Jerry Van Dyke and so, of course, the niece of Dick.
    Exotic rookie actress Midori, one of the nominees in the ’98 AVNAs’ Best New Starlet category, is the sister of ’80s pop star Jodi Whatley. Midori has stated publicly that she views upscale contemporary porn as a stepping-stone to a mainstream career, not unlike becoming Miss America or doing a couple seasons on
SNL
. Harold Hecuba characterizes Midori’s career strategy as