The “Star Spangled Banner” kicks off the 19th Annual NightMoves Adult Awards. What better reason to take pride in America than by celebrating our freedom of speech via our superior porn? Dostoevsky once wrote, “The degree of civilization in a society can be judged by entering its prisons.” I believe a nation’s freedoms, and general awesomeness, can be judged by the quality of its porn. Is porn produced underground and trafficked on the black-market, or is it created by professionals and celebrated at award shows? Are porn performers fugitives or are they stars who tour the country and have more followers than most politicians?
Over thirty porn performers are corralled in a VIP section at the country bar, The Round Up. To infiltrate their ranks unnoticed, I come prepared. I come drunk. Before walking into the club I sat in my car repeatedly making the discovery that rum can in fact go bad if you leave it in your car to bake in the Florida heat for several weeks. As a side effect of drinking to unleash my social elegance, I have to pee at least ten times. This teaches me an important lesson: urinals are not appropriate places to start, or continue, conversations with porn people.
Just as there is a barefoot, interpretive dancer at every night club, at every porn gathering there is an older woman with attention seeking balloon boobs who crashes the party and pulls down her top for anyone who glances her way. Conversely, the hottest porn stars are often the most unassuming. On stage, Diamond Kitty, is announced as one of the wildest rising stars with eighty percent of her recent scenes involving anal sex. Off stage she spends most of her time quietly standing with her husband, fellow performer, Johny Cuba. Wicked contract star, Stormy Daniels, sits in the corner with her boyfriend, seemingly recovering from the movie, Blow, she has been filming in Tampa all weekend. Of the two extremes, I have more in common with the party-crasher with balloon boobs. I drink too much and attempt to talk to everyone in the guise of networking.
- NightMoves
- Nikki Delano
Nikki Delano does her best to contort her cute features into a menacing glare as I saddle up beside her at the bar. She does a shot of Patron, which briefly dissolves her animosity toward me.
“I thought tequila was supposed to be like water for Latin people,” I say a she coughs.
“You are on my shit list,” she says adding some extra Brooklyn attitude to the words to emphasize that she is probably carrying some sharp implement with which to castrate me.
Her agitation is a result of a previous story I wrote in which I may have implied that she is in love with me.
“You aren’t really mad at me,” I say, strategically positioning my sensitive side toward the bar to avoid a swift knee to the groin from her thoroughbred thighs. “You’re just a little mad because I keep talking to other performers. It's natural to be jealous."
Delilah Strong and I talk shit about people who believe that their appearance in a handful of online videos is enough to classify them as bona fide porn stars. The boom of webcam work and sites that sell amateur sex videos has given rise to a population of semipro porn stars who want to be the next Jenna Jameson but who are too lazy to turn their part-time gig into a profession. This, I think, is the main reason the adult industry needs more regulations, or at least some sort of sanctioned porn actors guild responsible for accrediting performers. Otherwise assholes like me are going to start running around claiming we are in the industry.
When people ask what I am doing at NightMoves, I explain that I have a very popular solo website in which I masturbate while staring at myself in a mirror. It’s new wave. Very intense. Very progressive. It’s huge in Asia. It seems important that I corner the blossoming Asian market with my imaginary porn career.
I have not figured out how to use my business cards effectively. I usually only give cards to people I want to keep talking to but who I'm worried about annoying by lingering too long. I prematurely eject from a conversation with Stormy Daniels by giving her my card. The first time I met Nikki Delano, I left her my card. I always say something like, “In case you’re ever performing in town,” or "In case you ever want to do an interview." They always smile and say, “Okay,” and nod politely until I step away. Perhaps I need something a bit more memorable, like a business card with an attached coupon for a free week membership to my nonexistent masturbation site, just so they know I'm legitimate.
The DJ plays “Night Moves.” The younger male actor, Romeo, says the slow song is a buzz kill. Rebecca Bardoux, who is being inducted into the NightMoves Hall of Fame tonight, dances in her chair.
“I grew up with Bob Seger,” she says.
“Like he lived in your neighbor?” I ask.
“No," she says, shaking her head at my naivety. "Like he made me a lot of money when I was a dancer.”
The NightMoves show is the easiest forum I've found for having conversations with strippers that don’t end in negotiations. Having been lied to all over town by strippers claiming they want to "party" with me, I take the opportunity to lie to strippers about how I want to settle down with them. I tell one unassuming dancer that we should convert to Mormonism, move to Utah, start a modest sheep farm, and start pumping out babies. She doesn’t know what to say. I tell her to be spontaneous, to live a little. She asks what I do, which is a good question, and which I get asked often over the course of the weekend. I tell her about my solo site, and how it is very sexy, and how, if she wants a private session we can work out a two-for-one deal. She chuckles, hoping I am joking. I give her my card and walk away.
Nikki Delano and I reunite beside the stage where we discover our mutual appreciation for the pole dancers from 2001 Odyssey. Delano is also a fan of short, skintight dresses. Tonight, her red dress matches her lipstick. I too am a big fan. Just as the romance begins to spark back to life between us, our flame is smothered by a pole dancer I mistakenly believe is named Tetris. I make a comment to Delano about how this is an awesome name. Presumably a bit jealous that I am complimenting another woman, Delano asks what Tetris means and why I think it is clever. I point out that while she may have a bachelor’s degree in forensic psychology, her knowledge of pop culture beyond the realm of Hello Kitty is terrible. This is enough to again place me at a prominent position on her shit list.
Delilah Strong introduces me to a pair of breasts that work with her at the gentleman's club, Oz. I really can't recall the name or the face associated with said breasts as these things were specifically engineered to short-circuit a heterosexual man's thought process. These breasts inform me that they get $500 some Monday nights just to usher a guy to strip clubs around Tampa. Why aren't there any jobs like this for men, and if there are, how do I apply? Moreover, how does one advertise as a legitimate escort who actually is only selling companionship?
I can’t tell the difference between Shu-Tang Klan’s music and most of the oddly worded hip-hop hits popular at strip clubs. I suspect it’s the band's appearance that is their real barrier to success. Trying to be taken seriously as white rappers is about as difficult as trying to become a male porn star with an average dick. My friend Maria snags a free shirt that references Tang's song, “Dry Humping.” We both question why anyone would write a song praising dry humping. Then again, as the manager of a local gentleman's club, Maria makes a living facilitating dry humping, though she would never describe her job in these terms. So maybe Tang's real challenge is their word choice. If only they had gone with such lyrical wordplays as, "My milkshake brings all the boys to the yard," or "Let me ride that donkey donkey."
Intimidated by the masculinity oozing out of me along with my alcoholic sweat, Nikki Delano nervously spills her vodka and Red Bull on me and her cleavage. I want to be the gentleman and assist in cleaning up the spill but Emily Post's books of etiquette have taught me nothing about the protocol for properly removing a drink from a woman's chest. Others who are more qualified to handle Delano's boobs quickly swoop in with napkins. No matter how dazzling of a man and a conversationalist I pretend to be, I have found it nearly impossible to command a porn performer's attention for more than a few minutes. Their egalitarian approach to flirting is too lax for me. They are too much like men, flirting with anyone who fits basic height/weight requirements, like me.
Sami Sorrentino claims I look like a young James Dean. I'm not sure if she means the movie star who never made it to my age, or the male porn star, James Deen, who has way too much facial hair for this comparison to work. Whatever her meaning, I blush. Her eyes light up like those of a shark smelling blood. She ruffles my hair, tells me I'm cute, and says that she could destroy me in bed. This is not the first time I’ve been threatened with sexual destruction by a porn performer. For many of these women, flirting is a contact sport. Considering the amount of junk grabbing that has gone on this weekend, I have a sneaking suspicion that these porno women are secretly competing to see who can cause the most awkward boners. This is why when you go to a porn awards show it's important to bring protection: restricting underpants, ice cubes, and mental pictures of old people naked.
Toward the end of the night, the NightMoves awards weekend begins to take its toll on the attendees. Five nights of partying in smoke-filled strip clubs constitutes a full workweek for most of the performers. More than a few of them are drinking straight water and are sitting quietly at cocktail tables discussing how long they will sleep when they get to LA. I ask what has been happening back at the hotel each night that has made them so exhausted. Angel Vain claims things have been pretty tame.
“No orgies or anything crazy,” she says. “I mean there have been a few threesomes here and there, but nothing crazy.”
"What exactly is your definition of crazy?"
I leave the awards show alone because that’s just my style. When I get home, I discover that via Twitter, Nikki Delano invited me to a Waffle House with her, Sami Sorrentino, and Alia Janine. Having spent the last five nights hanging out with porn people, I have developed the ability to decipher some of their coded language. By inviting me to a Waffle House, basically, Delano wants me to be the maple syrup atop her three-person stack of sex waffles. If only Delano had kept my business card/phone number the first time I gave it to her. If only it had not taken her a full night of drinking Red Bull and vodka for her to admit her feelings for me, then maybe I would accept her invitation. That and I suspect she is luring me into a trap for writing so extensively about our secret love affair. If there is one thing I've learned while hanging out at NightMoves, it's to never trust your ability to understand the intentions of a professional sex vixen, no matter how convincing, reassuring, or inviting her cleavage seems.
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