AEE 2008: Day 2 – Non-porn-related Fiascos

I got a late start on the morning of day 2, which was basically according to plan. I got up, did some work (though never enough, of course), Bella and I ate a glorious breakfast and I enjoyed the fact that all restaurants in the west have sourdough bread as a matter of course. We arrived at the Sands Center and AEE around 12.30, where I checked in at the press booth and then promptly dropped my treo on the concrete floor, rendering it completely useless.

The first business of the day was having lunch with Buck Angel and his lovely wife Elayne – we four (Bella was there too) chowed down at the Grand Lux Cafe. We talked about porn and sexual identity and argued about whether or not its necessary to give porn genre labels like gay, straight, bi – or if it will ever be possible to move beyond the labels and just make cool media with people fucking. I am very inspired by Buck’s work, but in a lot of ways I’m very on the fence about making more porn. I feel like so much of this struggle is an uphill battle, and I’m not always especially convinced that it’s worthwhile. There are other things I can do in the realm of sexuality that don’t make me want to pull my hair out at every turn. But on the other hand, the circle of people making cool movies and interesting products in an ethical way is definitely expanding. And we’re all talking to each other, sharing triumphs and frustrations. There’s a miraculous lack of competition between all these people as well… and that’s something special, for sure.

I met up with Jennifer Lyon Bell next – she directed a shot erotic film called Headshot (the Live Girl Review of which you can see here). We met in Amsterdam last June and have since hung out in NYC and Berlin, so we hit the floor together for a while before I decided that I couldn’t bear life without a phone, so we took a detour to go fetch me a new phone – an iPhone to be exact. I’m excited about my new toy, but it wasn’t really in the budget for this week, and I’m mad at myself for busting the old phone. Also, this fiasco took up a good part of my day, so I didn’t spend all that much time on the floor.

I got back from the phone mission just in time for my interview with Christy Canyon on Playboy radio.

She interviewed me back in June when my book first came out, and she’s just a pleasure to talk to. I’ve done Playboy shows a few times and they’re just awesome – it’s so awesome to do radio interviews with a woman who has worked in the sex industry, as opposed to interviews with dudes who lech after women in the sex industry (the majority of radio dudes).

After the interview, there was some regrouping, some resting of tired legs, and then Bella and Jennifer and I headed off to a private party the Village Voice hosted for Tristan Taormino and Dan Savage. There’s a picture below of me and Bella with Tristan – I said it on my Flickr and I’ll say it again here: her hair looks goddamn fabulous. I didn’t get a chance to talk to Mr. Savage, but I was intrigued and somewhat mystified by the fact that he was wearing a t-shirt with a tiger on it.

This was a good, low key party, where I met plenty of interesting people, including a porn performer who I’ve had my eye on for a few years, Lorelei Lee. She first caught my attention in a photo set Violet Blue took at a San Francisco house party a few years ago, in which Lorelei was being enthusiastically fucked with a stiletto. I, of course, told her this, and stressed that I downloaded these photos to my desktop and have looked at them a lot. I also mentioned that I kinda like shoes a little, which Bella overheard and had a good laugh about. What, a girl can’t have a shoe fetish that involves said items being inserted into girl orifices? Anyway, Lorelei was fun to talk to, which is terrific because often I am disappointed by people I’ve admired from afara and then met in the flesh. She exceeded expectations. Excellent.

Everyone seemed to be heading out to an Evil Angel party, but Bella and I stuffed ourselves full of shrimp and spring rolls and decided that dinner with Jennifer, and then a little bit of work and a lot of sleep would be the better plan. And so it was.