To all of you who managed to remember that I'm back open for business today...WELCOME! And Happy Victory Day!!
Well here we are, and another year gone by. And not a whole lot has changed in what was once known as the "Kocisphere," it seems. From a perusal of PC's second blog: Harlow and Joe are still in jail. Harlow is unsuccessfully appealing his sentence, while being successfully appealing to a new pen pal in England. And PC's book has been horribly, horribly delayed (but is now back on track and due out soon).
I guess I'll go ahead and comment on some of that, as well as provide some of my famed "musings" on other matters that have come up this past year as well. And then we'll see which way the reunion discussion drifts from there.
Victory Day 2011: The Blurb Symposium
As some of you may recall from the last comment I made last year, today was supposed to our "Book Symposium." We were supposed to have all read PC's book by today, and perhaps the autobiographical account Brent Corrigan has been promising as well. Well, neither of those books materialized, as yet.
I can't say I'm that surprised Brent hasn't gotten around to writing his. Talented though he is in certain respects, it's perhaps expecting a bit much for a 20-something to discipline his time sufficiently to crank out a serious book. From his most recent blog post mentioning it, he's currently commenced concurrent composition on some sort of new literary frivolity:
"What else?! Well, I’m working on two books at the moment. The second, latest project is a lot easier for me. This book isn’t so introspective or heavy. It’s something that cums naturally to this three time award winner of a particular sexual position . . . a less serious project, something I had not realized I was such an authority on until a new friend came to me on advice on how to become a better bitch, er, I mean, bottom."And PC's book was delayed by reasons completely outside his control (more on that later). But he has a new publisher now, and they've composed a good-sized blurb:
"Cobra Killer presses the “play ” button to uncover the real world of online pornography--an industry that generates billions in revenue and makes ordinary people overnight-stars and millionaires.And so, instead of a book symposium, we'll have to settle for a blurb symposium this year. So, discuss!
For the first time, authors Conway and Stoner tell in full detail the twisted story of a pair of young, aspiring gay adult film producers whose quest for fame at any cost leads to the gruesome murder of the man who stands in their way, gay porn entrepreneur Brian Kocis. News of the killing of the 44-year-old (stabbed 28 times, his throat slashed to near decapitation of his head) in his suburban home sends shock waves through the bucolic Pennsylvania town. Neighbors are horrified to hear about the murder but equally astonished to learn that Kocis ran a small but thriving online porn operation from his home, sometimes employing underage young men as models.
The murder investigation leads police and prosecutors to the far reaches of the country, from Virginia to New York City, to Las Vegas, and to a nude beach in San Diego where investigators facilitate an incredible clandestine suspect surveillance. The manhunt nets a former U.S. Navy veteran and a former Marine, turned male models, turned hustlers, turned porn producers, who ultimately land at the bottom of a delusional conspiracy. Twenty-six-year-old Harlow Cuadra and his 35-year-old partner and lover Joseph Kerekes are implicated and eventually convicted in the brutal January 2007 murder of Kocis. Their motive? An ill-conceived attempt to lure a rising gay porn star named Brent Corrigan away from the grips of Kocis and into their crumbling, self-built porn empire.
Cobra Killer takes readers into the sometimes alluring, sometimes dangerous and often surprising world of gay porn and the deceit, schemes, and ultimate betrayals lying underneath the fantasy."
The Regent Media Scandal
I actually knew about PC's book deal with Alyson Books being in jeopardy back in August, when I read this Queerty post about Michael Musto's troubles with the same company. "Oh no, PC's book..." I thought.
Sure enough, on October 1 Alyson went e-book only, and I had a hunch PC would be having none of that. I was right.
So why did Alyson Books, a wholly-owned subsidiary of gay media conglomerate Regent Media (also owners of "Out, The Advocate, here! TV, Gay.com, and a slew of porn properties") collapse into a rinky-dink e-book publisher? Well, THATS an interesting story. The blog Queerty broke the details, which I'll bet you won't find written about in Out or The Advocate.
Basically, Regent Media is a scam. Instead of making money from the legitimate profits from their companies, the owners of Regent subsisted off the proceeds of a fraudulent loans in the amount of $90 million dollars. They apparantly lived the high life in West Hollywood until the funds ran dry. Then they tried to sell assets like Alyson Books; when that failed, they simply allowed them to wither.
What's most interesting to me is the means by which they conned Bank of America and Merrill Lynch out of that $90 million dollars:
"In order to score $90 million in loans from Bank of America and Merrill Lynch, Regent allegedly created fake movie licensing and distribution deals and passed them off to the banks as legitimate contractual relationships that would drive future revenue."Italics mine.
These fake movie deals were between Regent and some shell companies secretly created and controlled by Regent. And what was it about about these films, that Regent needed to create puppet entities to make fake distribution deals with?
"Defendants knew that these marketing and release strategies and distribution budgets would never be adhered to or executed and that they were inappropriate for the scope of the, more often than not, low-quality straight to DVD film titles, but submitted them to Plaintiffs anyway,..."Hyperlink mine.
So anyways, we now know the answer to a question that's had us puzzled for a while: How and why a pile of poop like John Roeker's EYWTKAGPS*bwata got made in the first place. Answer: It was all part and parcel of $90 million bank swindle. Here TV needed dreck like that in their inventory, so that they could execute fake deals between shell companies to fraudulently turn it into overinflated collateral.
So there you have it! Yet one more mystery of this murder saga, solved in the due course of time.
Harlow Cuadra's Illegal "Cell" Phone
On December 14, 2010 PC made a brief mention of the passing of Joe Kerekes father, complete with a link to a condolences page. Well, imagine my surprise when I saw this entry in the condolences, posted on the same day and only two hours after PC's blog post:
At first I thought this was some imposter's sick attempt at a joke. I could see prison officials letting Joe get a brief moment of supervised computer access to post an appropriate farewell (which he did), but Harlow? No way in hell. Prisoners obviously don't have unfettered access to surf the web and leave comments (I think some prisons may grant access to closed law-related networks like Lexis for legal research, but that's about the extent of it). General internet access for inmates is a BIG NO-NO, for so many obvious reasons I'm sure I don't need to expound on them.
But then I ran across articles like this. Hoo boy.
And you notice how "joe" above is not capitalized? Exactly the sort of shortcut one tends to makes when typing out a message on a smartphone.
I think we all see what's going on here. Obviously, Pennslyvania prisons officials need to confiscate Harlow's contraband phone immediately. He needs to have his cell raided and every square inch of it gone over with a fine tooth comb; he needs to be frogmarched to the nearest inspection room, stripped, and forcibly cavity searched; whatever it takes until this phone is found.
And once it's found, Harlow should be given the Bradley Manning treatment for at least a month in solitary, as punishment for this flagrant violation.
I realize from that article and others that cell phone smuggling is rampant in prisons nationwide, but you have to start combating the problem somewhere. So, lets start by making an example of Harlow. It's ridiculous IMO that he could be reading this very blog right now, with impunity. So, lets take away the impunity by calling attention to it, shall we? Somebody here must know somebody who knows somebody in the PA Department of Corrections, so lets bring this matter to their attention by forwarding them this link.
The Cult of Harlow
And on the subject of Harlow's fans, well, what can I say except: LOL! It's a shame that blog and those videos are no more, as they were indeed entertaining.
But I did manage to run across this. As you may note, it's a closed Facebook group; no one can get in without permission. So who's in there, and what they are saying???
As my previous musing indicates...Harlow could very well be a participant. If's he's using an illegal cell phone, then there's nothing stopping him for creating a Facebook profile. And this would explain why the group is a closed one.
If that's the case, then they could all be plotting a prison break in there, for all we know. All the more reason, I say, for this illegal phone to be confiscated by prison authorities post haste.
The RyanPaul ... On Trial
Well, this is interesting, to say the least.
And by a curious coincidence, the case was just wrapped up a couple of days ago. It appears Ryan Paul Martinez got a plea-bargained sentence of 4 years and 4 months, as tweeted by Grant Roy, with barely restrained glee:
I gather Grant and Ryan Paul were not exactly chummy.As a matter of fact, you can pretty much follow the entire criminal case by just scrolling down Grant's Twitter feed for the past 150 days or so. It's kind of a mini version of PC's blog, with each post under 140 characters long.
I guess I have three observations to make:
1) Chris Henriquez. Bryan Kocis. Grant Roy. And now Ryan Paul Martinez. Does anyone else see the pattern here?
Like I said above, Brent is certainly a man of many talents, but I think it's fair to say at this point mate selection does not seem to be one of them. All of the above, in my opinion seem to...well how should I put this? Have a few rough edges?
2) It would appear that I was a bit ungenerous to Michael Lucas when I downplayed the danger he was in (see folks, when I think I'm wrong, I'll fess up to it); and
3) I must say, besides this small Porn Truth site, I'm surprised this story did not get picked up by any of the other reputable gay porn web sites and blogs. You could argue, I suppose, that Brent's boyfriend was a non-porn star, and hence off-limits. But OTOH, he wasn't exactly a "civilian" (in the Godfather Part I sense of the word) either, as evidenced by that incident between he and Lucas at the GAYVNs.
Maybe all the other reputable gay porn sites collectively came to the conclusion that Brent had suffered enough the past few years, and needed to be cut some slack on this one? Who knows. Personally I think it was foolish for Brent to try to sweep the matter under the table on his blog, pretending his "Papi" wasn't behind bars. He would have been better off just being honest with his fans from the get go (which is a lesson Mason Wyler seems to have learned, based on what I've read about him and his latest escapades).
And one question: Will Brent really wait 4 years and 4 months for this guy to get out of the slammer? Or will he move/has he moved on?
Oh well, those are my musings for this year, folks. This blog is now open until Easter, so let the Victory Day reunion comments commence!
