A Few GAYVN Aftershocks...

OK, I really meant to be done with this story after Update 16 of the penultimate post, but while doing a quick Google search to see if this story was really dead (I predicted it would have a 4-day life span on the blogs, and that turned out to be pretty close) I came across three other stories from actual GAYVN eyewitnesses that put additional little twists and factual revelations on things. Enough to justify one more post I think.

One is the San Francisco Chronicle's coverage of the event. Yes, the affaire made a major US newspaper. Violet Blue is the Chronicle's sex correspondent. And female, which makes her account so interesting, IMO...as a relative outsider to the gay male porn world, she obviously has no horse in the race, and so can hardly be accused of bias:

"...But no: this year's GayVN's brought it better than a San Francisco crime novel, with a back-story of an underage performer, real-life murder, the stage stormed and a tirade unleashed (to boos and hisses), and an early morning SFPD visit (with handcuffs, the not-sexy kind) to the Westin on Third.

Right before Sophiesunset and I went downstairs to get a closer view of Janice's riveting Dickery, at about 8:00 PM, the GayVN's featured the City of San Francisco honoring The Association of Sites Advocating Child Protection. As the people from ASACP accepted their honor for working to keep porn in the realm of adults, director and performer Michael Lucas stormed the stage and yelled into the microphone, berating the audience for being hypocrites for honoring a former underage performer despite its stance against child pornography. The audience booed, hissed and yelled at Lucas. According the The Sword (link NSFW), afterward, Lucas Twittered, "After protecting kids online award-I stormed the stage to ask how they claim they dont promote child porn when Brent Corrigan's been awarded."

To untangle the tweet: before Sophiesunset and I arrived, performer Corrigan -- who is now 22 years old -- had received the award for "Best Bottom", an honor jokingly coveted by Margaret Cho. But what Lucas was referring to was Corrigan's past: how, in 2005 Corrigan stated that his prior work in porn was done when he was underage, and that he'd allegedly falsified documents and voluntarily obtained a false government ID in order to perform.

Brent Corrigan's scandal essentially made him the Traci Lords of the gay porn industry, sans the John Waters films and -- obviously, by the award -- he hasn't adopted Lords' anti-porn stance. ASACP was involved in getting Corrigan's videos (made by Cobra Video) out of circulation. In a twist, Corrigan became close with Cobra Video's owner Bryan Kocis, a relationship that Corrigan now alleges that he maintained out of fear for his own business interests. By 2006, Kocis and Corrigan had a falling out and subsequent legal battle over the use and ownership of Corrigan's stage name. Reportedly, as they were about to agree to a settlement in January 2007, Kocis was found dead in his apartment after having his throat slashed, was stabbed 28 times, and the apartment set fire. Corrigan cooperated with the investigation, testified for the prosecution, and on May 15, 2007; two Virginia Beach escorts and rival producers of gay pornography, Harlow Cuadra and Joseph Kerekes, were charged with Kocis' murder and then sentenced.

You'd think that would be enough drama. I was just looking forward to Margaret Cho's song about Ricky Sinz's ginormous, award-winning penis (he won "Best Top.")

Earlier in the day, Lucas had made it his mission to top Corrigan and get Corrigan off the list of presenters -- despite the strange fact that Lucas had negotiated with Corrigan in 2006 to perform in one of his films. At around 4:00 PM Lucas Twittered, "I just had Brent Corrigan kicked out of the GayVN Awards tonight... that criminal brat has put too many in this industry at risk already." But Lucas was unsuccessful, and it was the beginning of a long, angry night.

The onstage explosion sadly put our girl Janice as second horse for Trainwreck Of The Night. Which was too bad; my money was on The Dick after her exclamation to the audience that her dad taught her everything she knew about sex (and that amazing Malibu Barbie skin tone). At the after party, stories conflict about the events as they unfolded, but there was some sort of confrontation between Lucas and Corrigan's boyfriend, prompting Lucas after the party to call the SFPD to Corrigan's hotel room not once, but twice. Corrigan's boyfriend ended up in the hallway in cuffs (again, not the fuzzy leopard ones), but no arrest has been reported as of this writing."

The second account came from columnist Billy Masters, who almost witnessed the afterparty confrontation; he saw it coming, but tantalizingly decided to pre-emptively avoid it:

"None of that mattered -- you put Michael Lucas anywhere near a mike and there’s a good chance he’ll steal the show and piss someone off. One of the big nominees was Brent Corrigan, an industrious porn pup who got his beginnings as a minor in bareback videos. Add in his notoriety regarding the murder of a former employer and he’s a controversial character in a business filled with ’em. Brent won a few awards. As luck would have it, this year the GayVNs also honored the Association of Sites Advocating Child Protection. After this presentation, Lucas was enraged; how could the GayVNs honor a group trying to prevent minors from being lured into porn and then give an award to someone who did underage porn? It’s a fair criticism, but what made it controversial was Michael leaping to the stage from his front row seat rather than making his ire known at a more appropriate time. The audience reception was mixed -- applause and boos throughout the theatre.

It didn’t end there. At the after-party, I was leaving after snuggling with Michael and the devastatingly handsome Dean Flynn. As I was walking out, I bumped into Brent and his boyfriend. I knew that everyone’s paths were about to cross, but I wanted to avoid the drama (for a change). Michael claims that Brent’s boyfriend threatened him with bodily harm. The next morning, Lucas called the police which led to an interrogation."

The last is by an unnamed GAYVN attendee writing for Queerclick. It's a long article, so I wont quote the whole thing here; but there are a few VERY interesting details we have not heard about yet which I'd call your attention to:

1) "Michael Lucas entered the hotel on Saturday morning before the award show to an amazing number of loud hisses and whispers from others in the industry..."

2) "AT THE SHOW: Once again, people hissed as he walked by ..."

3) "...it was clear Lucas Studios was getting overlooked and Raging Stallion was winning by a landslide...Michael was obviously annoyed...While accepting an award in very broken English, he made a subtle jab at Raging Stallion..."

4) "Lucas suddenly bolted on stage, took the mic and congratulated the ASACP folks (in perfect English) and the shamed Brent Corrigan and the studios involved with him as being an example of how the industry can exploit underage kids. He was immediately boo'ed and told to get off stage..."

5) "Lucas later apologized for the statement on-stage and wanted it to be clear he wasn't attacking Brent, but rather the industry as a whole. The apology (in very broken English) fell flat. People were yelling, music was playing. You barely could understand his message. It seemed his final attempt to sealing that he'd make headlines..."

Read the whole thing. You know, I begin to wonder...was the main target of Lucas' obviously well-prepared "perfect English" stunt Raging Stallion Studios (a VERY bitter rival of Lucas Entertainment, I should note) and NOT Brent Corrigan? That's certainly what this Queerclick witness account seems to imply. By grabbing the mike and creating a faux controversy, he certainly has managed to shove RSS' many GAYVN honors and accomplishments that night into relative media obscurity.

Update: Off topic, but interesting:

"Colin Hardacre, of Los Angeles-based Kaufman Law Group, said he has some advice for adult business professionals who chat it up on message boards like GFY.com, XXXPornTalk.com and others.

“This just reinforces what we tell all our adult clients — stay off the boards!” Hardacre told XBIZ.