Okay, so it's Friday in Vegas, but I have not finished telling you about Thursday night. At the Pure Play party, we went into the VIP room (where there were very few people, none of whom we recognized as VIPs) for a while. We all sat down on a couch, and I was next to some hunky guy with some kind of accent. Here's how the conversation went:
"Are you a porn star?" I asked. (I mean, why not cut to the chase?)
"Do you want me to be a porn star?" he replied slyly, then "Yes, I'm a porn star."
He was gorgeous, with a buff bod, so I made the obvious conclusion but wanted confirmation, "You're a gay porn star, right?" It was meant as a compliment, he was so well groomed, so good looking, I thought he must be gay.
"Do you want me to be a gay porn star?" He came back. "Yup, I'm a gay porn star. And this is my wife." He leaned back, and a pretty woman, said matter-of-factly without missing a beat, "Yes, I am his wife. I'm a lesbian porn star."
The whole thing was like some weird skit, with him teasing me then about calling him a gay porn star. "Is it my shirt?" he said, "Too many buttons undone?" Then he told me he was the star of the Gladiator spoof film, tried to point himself out on a slick of the cover, then said, "Well, you can't really see me." I found out later his name is Toni Ribas, he's from Barcelona, and he directs for Platinum X. I've since run into him a million times, and when I see him, I just smile, and he says, "I'm a gay porn star."
Although I woke up on Friday morning after so little sleep, I managed to pull it together and head to the convention with Jamye after some breakfast at the Grand Luxe. We stopped by Robert Hill Releasing to see my friend Buck Angel (in pic above with me) who was signing there. This was not just another porn star with a Sharpie and a stack of promotional slicks. He is an FtM porn star with his own porn site, and the first to be signed by a mainstream adult company. He was literally making history right there on the Sands convention floor, and I could not be more thrilled that he has the courage and the guts to put himself out there in such a huge way. I mean he was not just signing completely naked photos of himself, but he was explaining who he was, what an FtM is, and doing major trans education to people who knew little or nothing about the FtM community.
I stopped by the Adam & Eve booth where I saw Nina Hartley and Candida Royalle, had a chat with Buttman at the Evil Angel booth, saw my friend Jef at Kick Ass Pictures, hung out with Seymore Butts and Mari Possa at the Pure Play booth, then did an interview with Suze and Holly Randall for a future Voice column. I met back up with Jamye who was reeling from spotting Jon Bon Jovi and Richie Sambora in the lobby of the Venetian. Apparently, they are staying here; she tried to snap a picture but it turned out dark and he wasn't recognizable, but we giggled about it because we are both total fans.
After an insane amount of begging, we scored VIP passes to the Adam & Eve/Digital Playground party to promote their forthcoming joint production Pirates. All the media were corralled into a roped-off area until Jesse Jane and Carmen Luvana arrived for photography. I was hoping to see my major crush, Digital Playground contract girl Teagan Presley, but had no luck. Got to chat with Nina and Ernest Greene, who made me laugh a lot, as always. Jamye and I were sure there'd be food there, but all we got was goat cheese on endive and not very much of it.
Earlier in the day, Buttman gave me tickets to his big Vegas dance show The Fashionistas at Krave. We fled the Pirates to get to the show on time, but when we walked outside the hotel, the taxi line was insane. I said to Jamye, "We are not waiting on this line," and grabbed her hand. Then I approached an older gray-haired gentleman in a suit, walked right up to him and whispered, "Could we cut in with you on this line? Could you just hug me like you know me so all these people behind us think we are together?" He said sure, patted my butt even. He was headed to Ceasar's which was on the way, so invited us to join him in his cab.
Jamye asked, "So, what are you doing in Vegas?"
"Well, I just had dinner with some friends at the Venetian, now I am headed back to Caesar's where I am staying. So, I had this nice dinner with Jon Bon Jovi and some other people." We were shocked. It turns out he was old friends with him, a producer at NBC, and he gave us some Bon Jovi CDs! It was so bizarre that of all the people to pick on the line, we got him!
We arrived at the theater, and the special dinner that Evil Angel was hosting was still in progress. At this point, our last meal (excluding goat cheese at Pirate party) was at 11 am, and we were starving. We sat down at a table with Travis Knight, Gina Lynn, Jules Jordan, and John Leslie, and we essentially watched them eat while we salivated. We finally ordered bread, which was not satisfying, then went into the theater to see the show. Very ambitious, very entertaining. There were a dozen parties to go to, but we were so tired, so hungry, and so cold, that we went back to the Venetian, ordered overpriced room service, and crashed.
Read my daily reports for the Voice from the AVN Expo in Las Vegas:
Day 1, Day 2, Day 3, Day 4