Not Safe for Work

The word gonzo pays homage to gonzo journalism. But this is porn, which isn’t the sort of industry where a word like homage gets a lot of traction. The idea, Booty explains, is to put the viewer into the scene in much the same way that Hunter S. Thompson inserted himself into the story. Except it’s not that highbrow. Most pornographers just think T

The Johnny Toxic story hasn’t broken yet. There was a small wire item about a homicide in the Valley. But the report didn’t use Toxic’s nom de porn or identify him as a member of the adult entertainment industry. Thankfully, it didn’t mention the battle-ax either. Omitting those two details probably kept my competition—the LA Times, TMZ, and really

When we finally do get the book for proofing, all the names, companies, and titles check out. That’s the good news. The bad news is that we consistently spell hard-core three ways: hardcore, hard core, and hard-core. I want to fix this, but Dean says we have bigger worries. I need to look for dicks.

Miles is halfway through his second joint when genius strikes. “What you have to do,” Miles says, his voice trailing off into the sweet smoke. “What you have to do is—hang on—I gotta pace.” Miles only paces when a really big idea overtakes him.

“We’re just like the Hollywood trades,” he says. “Most of the people who read them aren’t connected to the industry at all, they just want to feel like they’re in the know. That’s a powerful feeling, because if they believe it, then you can get them to click on anything. It’s the way of the world. Information is traffic and traffic...”

But that doesn’t stop Miles from adding three graphs to the story about Nina, recounting her short but nasty tenure in adult. He reworks my lede about the gangbang, insisting that his version sings, whereas mine “just laid there like a used dildo.” He even goes into The Daily Pornographer’s content management system to add some extra information to

“It’s the law of the three ins,” Beauchamp explains. “Either they’re insolvent, in prison, or in some fucking foreign country where you can’t get their money.”

Such is the slight difference between a model in a racy fast-food ad and a porn star in a gangbang.

For months, Miles has been talking about taking the Israeli government up on their offer of a Birthright trip that would send him to the Promised Land, all expenses paid. My story, it seems, may have rekindled the Judaism that died in Miles the day after he cashed his bar mitzvah checks.

Somehow, the oldest and most reliably profitable product in history, commercial sex, was unprofitable for all but a handful of anonymous disruptors. Curiously, or maybe not, I found the same disruption at work once I went “legit.” As a mainstream journalist, I covered tech, advertising, law, and personal finance. Each beat was unique, but always my