RIP PORN BIZ - WHY THE PORNO INDUSTRY DESERVES ITS SLOW DEATH

Modern day porn movies are notorious for their ridiculous and idiotic titles. Looking at a porn star's list of film names would have been funny to me a few years ago - now, it's just sad and disturbing to realize that such low common-denominator basement-level trashiness serves as some lovely young lady's "resume." Looking at such a list makes me think the porn industry deserves the virtual death it's experiencing circa 2010 -

(4th Avenue Pussycat Theater downtown, circa 1979)

There's nothing sexy or "outlaw" about today's porno movies - it's such a far cry from the early days of so-called porno chic, when patronizing a porn theater (let alone working in the porn industry) was a radical, brave, and even socio-political act.

Perhaps '70s porn only achieved "a PATINA of mainstream Hollywood respectability," as porno cheerleader Bill Margold said in Carnal Comics' Triple-X Cinema Cartoon History. But at least many of those filmmakers and performers ASPIRED for something more, for something elevated and outlaw and unseen in our then-repressive society. Some of them even succeeded. Now that the leash has been off all these years, all the pornsters aim for is pissing down the basement steps.

 The reason porn has become unprofitable isn't necessarily because of its free proliferation on the internet. The reason is because 99 percent of this hideous stuff really IS worthless, in every sense of the word. I pity the people still churning out this crap, and I fear for the dispositions of their souls if they don't knock it off, whether by choice, inspiration, circumstance, luck, or by being forced to quit by the continuing collapse of the porn industry and an ability to make money at it -

 I still have fond memories of the original wave of porn theaters and films, and I marvel at photos and recollections of the Times Square Pussycat era - entire city blocks full of flesh palaces, with giant marquees touting sex, sex, and more sex.

It was a necessary and utterly exciting time and manner in which to throw off so many societal shackles. But we have (hopefully) moved on and far past all that - the porn wars were won way back when Nixon failed to federalize a national obliteration of porn.

Now, the porn industry SHOULD be relegated to the relevance of ancient Rome's vomitoriums, or blacksmith shops, or milkmen, Fuller brush door-to-door salesmen, and so many other once worthy and necessary endeavors that are now useless (or even dangerous) in our modern society.

 Since everybody has a camera in their phones now, and anyone can upload to the net, let them film themselves having sex and load up YouPorn or Pornhub or Pornotube or any of the other half million free porn sites, and we can all watch each other screwing if we want to. For free. No "industry," no "porn stars."

If you think about it, that should have been the aim of porn all along - giving sexual freedom (and the freedom to watch sex) back to the people. To everyone. Not just to 60s hipsters with film projectors in their basements, or 70s adventurers lucky enough like me to stumble thru ShowWorld in Time Square, or to the first early 80s VCR fans whose demand launched the video age (driven, of course, by porn). The internet has achieved this leveling of the playing field.

Now it's time to retire everyone's number - Damiano, Chambers, Lovelace, and my old boss/Pussycat Theatre founder Vince Miranda are dead. The porn industry is almost dead.

But sex will always be #1 on the hit parade, as it was long before porno films and as it will be long after people finally refuse to pay salaries to dimwits and lowlifes and creatively bankrupt misogynists doing what all people do anyway - have sex.

The sexual revolution has been won, or at least nearly so (the final battle probably being over gay marriage).

Sex can finally go back to being just that - sex. Not porn. Film it if you want, watch the film if you prefer, but building an industry or a career around just cinematic/videographic sex?

Give mercenary sex-for-cash back to the prostitutes and pimps who can no longer delude themselves into adopting alterna-titles like "porn stars" and "movie directors."

Sex will always sell, but porn - which is at best a mere funhouse reflection of sex - deserves to go the way of the vomitorium (and don't even get me started about the many similarities between those two outdated, useless, and ultimately unhealthy institutions) ----

 STRIPPER POKER - LOCAL INTERNET CAFE WITH PORN CONNECTION SPECIALIZES IN ONLINE GAMING

BUT IS IT LEGAL?

The low key sign above an otherwise indistinguishable strip mall shop at 6311 University Avenue reads Lucky Internet Cafe, wherein patrons access internet time by purchasing a card that reads “Lucky JOLAR Internet Cafe.” Swiping the cash-reloadable cards (average $20 each) in any of the twenty-four computer terminals opens a startup screen with various internet gaming options, each accessing a website where customers can place bets and – if they win – collect their cash on-site from a Café staffer.

 “Jolar” – which only appears on the internet card, not the Café sign - also happens to be the name of the X-rated peep show arcade and strip club next door at 6321 University, wherein women perform nude shows for individuals in “Private Talk Show” booths.

 Both Jolar and the Lucky Internet Café are operated by longtime local smut peddler Harry Mohney, once called by the Meese Commission the second biggest pornographer in the U.S. Having gained notoriety over a $14 million tax bill and serving a three year prison stretch for tax evasion, Mohney founded and runs the Deja Vu Showgirls chain of strip clubs, as well as operating Larry Flynt’s Hustler Clubs.

Jolar, a combination porn shop, peep show arcade, and strip club, opened on Broadway downtown in 1978, before moving to its present location near College and University in 1983. Mohney’s other local porn endeavors have included everything from 8mm peep show arcades in the ‘70s to x-rated film production (Caribbean Films) at his La Costa home on 2520 La Costa Avenue in the ‘80s. In the mid-'80s, Jolar was taking in from $12,000 to $20,000 per week, much of that in peep show quarters.

 More recent local porn businesses operated locally by Mohney include the Déjà Vu Love Boutique in El Cajon (run by one of Mohney's sons) and the Barnett Superstore near the airport, with the latter locale featuring the same Talk Show Booths (and many of the same Live Nudes) found at Jolar on University.

Of Mohney’s current local business interests, the Lucky Internet Café may be the one most scrutinized by authorities. With all its computers set on internet games like blackjack, keno, poker, and electronic slots, are patrons just buying internet time, or are they gambling? Does sale of the Lucky Jolar swipe cards qualify as a legal sweepstakes, or illegal betting? If the gaming sites themselves are illegal, as alleged by most federal interpretations of current law, is the Lucky Internet Café aiding and abetting illegal gambling by setting all their computers on such sites?

What about the Café paying off the winners on-site – does that qualify the Café as an unlicensed (and illegal) casino? Which business is the customer patronizing - and collecting their winnings from - the website, the Café, or both?

Is even naming itself “Lucky” on the sign out front perhaps Mohney’s bid to attract gaming clientele, rather than the coffee slurping MySpace surfers found at internet cafes where the startup screens AREN’T all loaded with onramps to gambling websites?

 In the past, Mohney has circumvented local vice-related ordinances by creatively and aggressively challenging the letter of the laws. In 1985, the City changed the rules for peep-show establishments, as defined in section 33.3302, division 33 of the municipal code, stating that businesses licensed for booths had to screen at least 51 percent non-X-rated material in order to keep their operational licenses.

Instead of shutting down the peeps, as probably intended, the ordinance resulted in Mohney’s booths running whatever non-X film stock his managers could find, including cartoons and old boxing films. The ordinance was later challenged and defeated, having done little but create porn shops rocking to the sounds of both cinematic sex and Elmer Fudd singing “Kill Da Wabbit.”

 The following year, the city’s vice department began requiring x-rated peep show operators to remove all doors that might hide activities being conducted within. Vice enforced the rule by citing or arresting any employees found on a premises lacking doors on the booths.

Jolar lawyer George Haverstock advised Mohney to install swinging saloon style half-doors that barely managed to meet the new requirements, while still hiding booth activities from prying eyes, including vice cops, successfully keeping the matter tied up in the courts for years.

Mohney has spent a lot of time in court himself. Aside from countless criminal complaints, and the 14 million dollar tax bill that sent him to prison upstate in Boron, he's been sued a number of times, most notably by former mistress and porn star Gail Palmer, with whom he produced the successful "Candy" series of porn films.

The space at 6311 University housing the Lucky Internet Café was formerly home to a Metabolife dealership, an operation that experienced its own protracted set of legal problems. The entire half-block strip mall, which has also housed thrift stores, a check cashing store, and a pizza parlor, is owned by one of Mohney’s companies.

The California Attorney General’s office is looking into the legality of online gaming at internet cafes, as is the local District Attorney’s office, according to a recent Channel 10 news report. 

RELATED BLOG ENTRIES:

"Pussycat Theaters - When 'Cathouses Ruled California" -- for the first time, the detailed inside story of the west coast Pussycat Theater chain of adult moviehouses, which peaked in the '70s but later died out. Told by those who actually ran the theaters! http://www.sandiegoreader.com/weblogs/bands/2008/dec/26/pussycat-theater-history-when-cathouses-ruled-ca-5/

"Battle Of The Peeps" - feature article about a weird gig I had in the mid-'80s, running a strip club called Jolar, for the nation's second biggest pornographer, Harry Mohney (Deja Vu Showgirls founder).

http://www.sandiegoreader.com/weblogs/bands/2008/oct/23/battle-of-the-peeps---an-insider-history-of-san-di/

OVER A MILLION CARNAL COMICS ARE IN PRINT - Here's how and why we made some of the top-selling erotic comics of all time, right here in San Diego, including what Gene Simmons has to do with it all, backstage tales of porn stars, and more confessions of a comic pornographer...

http://www.sandiegoreader.com/weblogs/bands/2007/sep/08/carnal-comics-the-inside-story-jay-allen-sanfor