Photographer John A. Mozzer (who is also known around these parts as performer Alan Adrian) shared a bunch of photos he took around the 1988 Winter CES – when the adult exhibitors were tucked away on the second floor of the Sahara, and private parties were where you rubbed your elbows.
We can’t recommend enough getting lost and clicking around John’s meticulously captioned galleries over on SmugMug – it’s a cornucopia of the NYC downtown scene (and elsewhere) peppered with some familiar faces and a really great eye for the candid…
Click on the picture below to see the rest of the CES gallery:
Oh, it’s been quite a year. I’m not talking about the pandemic but the actual amount of reviewing that it takes to vote for the AVN Awards. As AVN founder, Paul Fishbein, once said, “It is a very long, horrible process”. You would think that with production stoppages this year there would be less things to vote on, but there seemed to be even more categories with 10-15 nominations in each. Apparently, everyone on the nomination committee worked for Oprah at one time, but you can’t please everyone. Sure, we have the option of not voting in every category – this year we voted in 69 of 89 categories – but you still have to watch all 10-15 nominees in order to fairly rank them in that category!
AVN doesn’t give us guidelines on how to vote so every voter has a different criteria on what they look for. As I mentioned last year, and for all of you analytic-minded masturbating prognosticators out there, I use a hybrid clinical approach in judging the technical aspects in the production and director categories and an overall feel for the scene and performer categories. People have asked whether voters have biases based on their experiences with the industry, and the answer is of course we do. Experience does impact how we view a product. No one has offered us blowjobs or even a handjob for a vote though, but that’s a lot of work to coordinate even for those that have publicists. Most of the performers just know me as a photographer while the producers/directors tend to be more savvy in their discussions around me.
But for the sake of transparency and further rumour mongering, here are some of our picks for the 2021 AVN Awards:
Movies
Best Cinematography: Mistress Maitland, Deeper/Pulse; Set Walker & Winston Henry
Best Episodic Movie or Anthology: If It Feels Good, Deeper/Pulse
Grand Reel: Under the Bed (Vols. 1 & 2) : Pure Taboo/Pulse
I wish Rocco would come to America more. He is a legend and his performing prime may be behind him, but you get see the excitement of the American performers that get to work with him which we don’t see as much in his European work. Jane Wilde is such a filthy performer and Jonni Darko, who I believe is the most technically adept director out there, make a great pairing for her showcase.
I realise that feature directors have a very difficult job juggling more factors on their sets than their gonzo, umm I’m sorry, non-narrative counterparts. However, I still place a lot of weight on the heat of their scenes/movies which is why I favour someone like Miles Long or Chris Streams who show a workmanlike approach to their craft; technically proficient in capturing the heat without being glossy or abstract. I also find that female directors/producers like Casey and Scarlett are stronger at answering the “Why are these people having sex?” premise beyond “THEY ARE HOT & HORNY!” and bridging the “Why are they taking so long to have sex?” filler that differentiates features from gonzo non-narratives.
Angela White would have made an excellent phone sex operator in the days before we had camming. Her dialogue and charisma would turn a eunuch on. I think it’s the Australian accent. Penny Pax has shown great range in the movies I’ve watched over the years. She can go from shy housewife to goofy nerd to seductive vixen. Even though Mainstream Venture is not a traditional acting category, Lily Labeau was the only nominee there for her acting. I found her acting chops and comic timing appropriate in the series where she switches between being the straight woman and comic foil.
After the year we had, I didn’t want to repeat any winners from 2020 so we voted for a new group of performers. Mary Moody is the first performer chosen that I knew mainly from camming. Every time I see her in public at the conventions, her delighted interactions with her cam colleagues also translated into her partnerships in scenes. She is very easy on the eyes and incredibly nice to boot. Anna de Ville and Erik Everhard, both veterans of American porn, continue to put out great scenes in Europe. I would be hanging out at my buddy’s house all the time as a kid if Sarah Vandella was his mom. Last, I am a big fan of Kenna James’s scenes. They do not involve much theatrics, but there is something about how her squinty eyes, the curl of her lips, and crooked smile contribute to her girl next door charm and accessibility. Her costars, men or women, all seem to be really into her. I may be clumsy compared to say Don Juan DeMarko in describing her appeal, but there was a reason why she was Penthouse Pet of the Year and why we feel she should be Female Performer of the Year.
We’re always excited to get an email from photographer John A. Mozzer (who is also known around these parts as performer Alan Adrian) because he’s almost always sharing a bunch of photos from porno days gone by – this time, the 1991 FOXE Awards held at Gazzarri’s in West Hollywood. FOXE is the Fans of X-Rated Entertainment, a fan collective headed up by Bill Margold.
I do love their tagline: “X is just another letter in the entertainment alphabet.”
We can’t recommend enough getting lost and clicking around John’s meticulously captioned galleries over on SmugMug – it’s a cornucopia of the NYC downtown scene (and elsewhere) peppered with some familiar faces and a really great eye for the candid…
So, click on the first page of the evening’s program below to visit the gallery…
Program page 1 of 4 for Bill Margold’s FOXE (Fans of X-Rated Entertainment) Awards at Gazzarri’s, West Hollywood, California, 1991.
Two weeks along with a bout of the AVN flu have passed and I still feel fatigue from thinking about the show. Must be because of all the “lived experiences” that happened in the frenzy of that week.
In reviewing my photos, I can see the mortality of continuing to cover the show. I took much less photos this year, not because the show was smaller (it was only slightly smaller than last year). I had broken my foot in September, and it started swelling again during the show. I was content to have longer conversations with my friends and then allowed random people to stop me from doing what I did best which is take more photos. I even had an assistant for the first time which unintentionally slowed things since everyone tried to flirt with him. This, in turn, led me to see less of my industry friends overall.
Abella Danger
Adriana Chechik
The most popular people signing were Angela White, Riley Reid, Abella Danger, and Adriana Chechik. I don’t like cutting in line, but I did for the first three because they agreed to it beforehand while the logistics of doing so with Adriana due to the placement of the Evil Angel booth was impossible. If I were to line up to see all of them in a day, it would take a combined 2-4 hours of waiting to see them. They are popular not just for what they do on the screen, but how they interact with the fans. Riley absolutely crushed it by signing for her own booth from opening to closing every day despite a bout of food poisoning on the second day.
Riley Reid
Angela White
Jules Jordan had the best booth overall in terms of talent and access. Angela had her lines there. The Evil Angel – Manyvids corridor was the most frustrating since it wasn’t navigable whenever Adriana was signing. Having the Manyvids women elevated inside their booths made them inaccessible in general.
AVN Awards
I attended the AVN Awards for the first time in four years. It felt weird going this time as a guest without my camera, but it was fun to catch up with friends that I didn’t talk as much to on the convention floor. There weren’t too many surprises with the winners since I knew many of the voters. Even though we didn’t practice groupthink, there seemed to be a consensus around specific winners in polling the voters.
Charlotte Stokely
Gianna Dior
Congratulations to Angela for winning Female Performer of the Year for the third straight time and to Charlotte Stokely for repeating as G/G Performer of the Year. Congrats also go to Gianna Dior for winning Best New Starlet.
About Ginger Banks
I used to spend a lot of time on camsites. So when I first met Ginger Banks nearly five years ago in Dallas, I knew her as the girl who cammed from her university library. I’m not sure exactly how we hit it off, but I found her to be more mature and adept at engaging people than the typical camgirl I meet at cons. The years go by, and Ginger became more prominent advocating on issues pertaining to the adult industry. If you have read an article about performer rights or mental health in the past three years, Ginger is likely to be quoted. Why do I bring this up?
Because I photographed her before the con! She was a riot. If you would like to see more of the photoset including the naughty, it’s probably on her onlyfans.
Acknowledgements
I would like to give a shoutout to my boys at IAFD, ADT, and XCritic. I’d also like to thank Mark Spiegler, Miles Long, and Evil Angel for their hospitality that week.
It’s that time again! Time for the most irreverent, engrossing, and extensive awards in the adult industry: the Spank Bank Awards. Show host for life Missy Martinez revealed the nominations via podcast for the 9th annual Spank Bank Awards presented by iafd.com. while eating mozzarella cheese sticks as trophy girl Charlotte Sartre cooled Miss Martinez’s freshly waxed butthole with a fan of palm fronds.
The Spank Bank Awards were founded on the ideals of all inclusive, good natured fun, with categories giving recognition to the performers in the adult industry who may (or may not) receive the accolades they so richly deserve from some other awards shows. Once again, this year’s list includes a record number of major categories for female performers, as well as those for the directors and male talent within the industry. And, as usual, there are plenty of ‘technical’ awards as well (to be given out on the red carpet before the awards ceremony) giving kudos on a wide variety of subjects.
