FROM THE SHOTGUN REVIEWS ARCHIVES: PORNUCOPIA aka THE AMAZING PORN ESSAY (1997)

FROM THE SHOTGUN REVIEWS ARCHIVES: PORNUCOPIA aka THE AMAZING PORN ESSAY (1997)

 

If you’re one of the few, you happy few, who remember the original ShotgunReviews.com, you might be saying, “Wait! I thought The Mighty Shotgun didn’t open until 6-29-99!” And you’d be right. I wrote “Pornucopia” in 1997 while I was still working at Old Towne Video in Terre Haute. Grad school was wrapping up, and I’d depart for Indianapolis in October of that year. But I was still writing things just to have them and would kick off the original version of Shotgun on ComicKingdom.com, a site officiated by my friend Nick Jankowski. This piece, nicknamed “The Amazing Porn Essay” by Shawn Delaney, would end up being the anchor of the Feature Forum section on the Shotgun site.

I decided to put this one up because, in some ways, it’s hilariously quaint. Video stores are basically gone; even the brick-and-mortar Family Video stores went down in January after 42 years. Really, only Redbox is the last kiosk standing, and they’ve had their problems. On the other side, porn is insanely easily accessible online, so the notion that you’d have to go to a regular store, and then into a special room, to get it is oddly old-fashioned.

PORNUCOPIA aka THE AMAZING PORN ESSAY (1997)
By Troy Brownfield

“Dante: The Best of Both Worlds?

Randal: Hemaphroditic porn. You should see the box. Beautiful starlets with
organs that put mine to shame.”

----- from Kevin Smith's Clerks

I used to work at a video store in Terre Haute, Indiana, and I was constantly amazed at the amount of pornography being rented. Now, pornography means different things to different people, so let's define our terms.

By pornography, I do not mean the "Mature" or "Risque" videos. Not the things you'd see on Cinemax After Dark. Not the direct-to-video masterpieces that all seem to star Shannon Tweed. No Night Eyes 3 or Body Chemistry 4. This is not pornography.

What is video store pornography are films like Leather Angels and More Dirty Debutantes Number 54. These are examples of traditional rental pornography. Guy meets girl, guy likes girl, wah-wah guitar starts in background, they fuck like crazy, roll credits.

Now that our terms are clear, let's examine the overall phenomenon of porn renting. I have several trains of thoughts on this, so I'll just address them all as they spring to mind. Shall we?

First off, I would say that porn renting accounts for about a whopping 40 percent of profits at one of the store locations. 40 percent. That's a whole lotta porn coming and going. Blockbuster is really missing the boat on this one. You can't imagine what it's like to open the drop box on Monday morning and see the veritable cascade of clear cases come pouring out like some 16-milimeter wave. After check-in, there are literal mountains of the stuff piled up on the counters. You can't see customers for all the stacks. I guess that's a positive side-effect, though. I'd rather not be able to see the next idiot who's asking when Liar, Liar is due out when it's still playing at the theater next door.

That's actually an aspect of video stores in general: stupid customers. In some specialty stores (book stores, comic shops, etc.), the clientele is usually a little brighter, a little more on the ball. They read, they talk, they function in society to some degree. However, every fucking idiot in the world rents movies. Sure, you get college-educated professors who rent foreign films, or nice people who are into Coppola and Lynch, but for every one of them are ten geniuses who just can't wait to see more of Steven Seagal. And, as you might guess, they make up a large part of the porn fan base.

That's not to say, though, that all porn renters are stupid. Far from it. There are many subtle levels of porn customer. Most of the people who rent porn come in, walk straight back to the "Adult Room", grab their movies, and leave. They're courteous, quiet, and not at all whom you'd picture renting Balls to the Wall. But it's the others that make the job fun.

The others are the hardcore customers. The guys who come in and rent three or four skinflicks every day. And there are many. They'll come in, go back there for an hour, and walk out with a whole stack, then repeat the process the very next day. What do these people do with their time? I can guess, but please! At some point, you would think bleeding or blindness would be involved.

One guy told me he works a twelve-hour shift at a factory. He rented three of the Four Hour Spectacular films. He returned them at approximately the same time the next day. Do the math. Did this guy sleep? Did he run them while he slept? Did he eat? I don't know about you, but I couldn't pop out the TV tray and watch four hours of people pounding each other while I had my dinner. "Wow, honey! This steak is great! Look at her! You know she wants it! Pass the potatoes, son! Look at those tits!" It's mind-boggling.

And then there's the money issue. A brand new adult video rents for four dollars. A slightly older one rents for three dollars. Some of these guys rent four videos a day. For some people, that's sixteen dollars a day! Every day! That's 112 dollars a week! 5,824 dollars a year! How on Earth can they afford it? “Sorry, kids! Can't eat this week. Daddy's gotta see his Colon Cuties and his Heartland Honies.” When you work the counter a lot, you get to know your customers. You know who works where, who's on public assistance, who's unemployed, and so on. Some people don't have the money for anything, but they have the money for porn. If you were spending that much a year, wouldn't it be more cost-effective to just buy a hooker once a week? 112 probably goes a long way, and it's you actually doing it, not just watching. You could actually save money. Just a five-dollar hand job every day, and you'd save 77 dollars a week! A yearly savings of 4,004 dollars! And someone is actually touching you! Think about it!

Now, I do realize that not all of our customers for these celluloid masterpieces are married, and as such don't have a partner, and may be lonely, and so on. But we do get plenty of couples renting them, too.

Here's my formula on that: The less attractive the couple, the more porn they rent.

It's simple, and it's true. Every so often, you have a casual, not-unattractive couple come in to rent a movie. They're either doing it for the thrill, or just for fun, or maybe as a couple's coupling aid.

Most often, the casual couple is dominated by a male, under six feet tall, usually walking with elbows slightly bent, implying virility. My guess is that with those guys, Mr. Monkey isn't up to a spanking, if you know what I mean. The ole tent pole is flying at half-mast. Often they will make sure to tell you they work construction, or they're a Marine or something. Why else would they try to look so tough? You're with a woman, you're renting porn, obviously you're having sex. Or are you? The woman in this case usually looks embarrassed, and focuses on posters for In Love and War and Marvin's Room. She knows the truth. Maybe there's a sadder subtext there: maybe he needs help to have sex with her. Here she is, a nice girl, likes romantic movies, and Boyfriend X needs to see Kahlayn Nicole in eXXXposed or something to get it on. No wonder smaller countries start shit with us all the time.

What's worse is the hideously ugly couples who come in and rent a whole stack of the movies. There's no mistake what's going to happen there. You can't help but momentarily visualize it. I know beauty is in the eye of the beholder, but damn; speaking for myself, I'd need a bottle of Tequila, two-hundred cc's of Novocain, a tab of ecstasy and a stiff bracing shot of penicillin to even consider some of those folks. And still I couldn't.

My two favorite porn couples are quite different. The first is the guy who comes in on Friday nights. He picks out eight to ten videos, and has them held at the counter. When his wife gets off work at eleven, she comes and picks them up. He's never paid once. There's a story there, and I'm sure it's hilarious.

The other couple wasn't quite a couple. I was closing by myself, and these two red-hot scorching alterna-chicks (dressed vaguely like Gwen Stefani circa Tragic Kingdom, one with brown/dyed-red hair, the other blonde) come in with an average looking guy, dressed like an extra from Kids. They spend a while in the back, and come out with a movie, Gang Bang Girls. As I'm ringing them out, the faux redhead says, "I can't believe we're doing this." The blonde giggles, and I look up, and the guy has a smile on his face the size of fucking Nebraska. God bless him.

As for individual customers, there are a number of great ones. My favorite of all them, though, is The Cowboy. Cowboy is at least six-five, and bears a close resemblance to Kareem when he was still Lew Alcinder, playing for UCLA. Cowboy wears an ankle length duster in all weather: snow, rain, or hundred-degree days. Cowboy wears sunglasses everywhere: inside or outside. Cowboy wears a nice, spiffy Stetson hat, denim shirts, a big-ass belt buckle, and scootin'-style boots. I would almost guess he has a Colt .45 in his belt. Works every time. Anyway, he comes in about every other day, gets three films, always calls me by name, and says, "See ya' later, partner," when he leaves. We all feel safer when Cowboy comes to town.

I recently encountered The Penguin for the first time as well. No, Penguin isn't a nun. Penguin is a guy who bears an uncanny resemblance to Burgess Meredith, circa the 1966-1968 run of the Batman TV series. He walks with a cane, wears glasses, and smokes. I'm surprised he doesn't say wakwakwak at the end of every sentence. At any rate, Pengy (who has rhyming first and last names, like Tony Maroney), called furiously every day for two weeks wanting that celluloid masterpiece, Seymour's Squirters. Alas, the grail-like tape was overdue. The Penguin suggested I go to the gentleman's house and forcibly bring it back. All I can say is that this must be some powerful porn to drive a man to suggestions of physical violence. Eventually it was returned, and all was right with the land. I must admit, I've wondered about taking a look at it to see what the big deal is, but I couldn't deal with renting the thing from myself.

There's also the guy I've nicknamed Freak. Not because of appearance, but because he always shows up on Friday nights looking for the Freaks of Nature video. Whatever. It must be his way of kicking off the weekend.

Watching the customers and being entertained by their antics sometimes pales to the actual fun of just going into the adult room itself and randomly reading titles. My co-worker Matt and I were one day assigned to inventory the room. We worked for five minutes in silence before Matt looked at me and said with a straight face, “Foxy Chicks”, indicating exactly where he was on his list. I simply replied, "Butt-Sisters Do Chicago." A few more exchanges as to our progress, and we were helpless, quivering masses of laughter. We left the inventory for the night crew.

It's true, though, that titles are half the fun. My personal favorites are the titles that are parodies (or rip-offs, one might say) of popular titles from other genres. These would include Splatman, Howard Sperm's Private Parts, Frankenpenis (starring John Wayne Bobbit. I'm serious.), and the reigning champions, The Load Warriors and Pump Fiction. I don't know if I would be flattered or insulted. Probably both.

There are also the series. It's amazing how far a series can be drawn out. For example, they are up to over sixty installments of the critically-acclaimed More Dirty Debutantes. Of course they made number sixty-one. There were so many unanswered questions after number sixty.

With all the money being made off of this industry, there are a lot of people looking to cash in. Obviously, the store where I worked reaps the benefits of the rampant libidos of Indiana and Illinois. It therefore comes as no surprise that people want a piece of the action. One night, a man and a woman came in at about ten till midnight. The woman was wearing fishnets, a leather mini-skirt, leather bustier, leather jacket, leather purse, and had bleach-blonde hair. Her make-up was at least an inch thick, and she looked to be somewhere north of forty. Her companion was tame by comparison, wearing a sweater and dress pants. He approached the counter, while she went to the adult room.

He leaned over in anticipation and asked, "Yo, man. You know anything 'bout makin' pornos?"

"Making?" I asked. Of course, I had a pretty good idea, but it's not a question you're asked every day.

"F'real," he replied. "Got some people wanna make one, and I gotta do it 'for they sober up, knowwhatI'msayin'?"

So astounded that I was part of this conversation that I didn’t even question the legality of the sobriety part, I said, "Well, there's always the amateur companies. I suppose you could tape your stuff and send it in?"

"Cool. You got their number?"

Who did I look like? John Holmes? Huggy Bear? "No, but you could copy the address off of the box in the back."

He frowned. "You mean I gotta write 'em?"

God forbid. "I guess."

"All right. You gotta a piece a' paper?"

I gave him paper and a pen, he went to the back, came out with his lady-friend. They both smiled. He gave me the pen. "Thanks, m'man."

I never saw them again. Not a new shipment went by that I didn’t look for her face on the cover of a box.

However, it did get me thinking. How hard could it be to write and plot an adult film? I thought I might give it a try.

Most adult films have a theme of random encounters, right? So we'll have our heroine be a lonely housewife, and our hero be a plumber. We'll call it Plumbing Your Depths. Here we go.

Scene One. Ext. A House. Man gets out of truck. Knocks on Door. Woman answers.

MAN: Hi, you called for a plumber?

WOMAN: Yes.

Man enters house.

MAN: What seems to be the problem?

WOMAN: My pipes need cleaned. Badly.

MAN: Really?

Man goes to sink. Looks in sink.

MAN: It looks bad. Are things having trouble going down?

WOMAN: What kinds of things?

They share a meaningful look. Cue wah-wah guitar.

MAN: Why don't you show me?

That seems like a good set-up for the next 30 minutes. What do you think? Could it be the next Devil in Miss Jones? Maybe I'm missing my calling. Maybe I just expect more of myself, like dignity.

At any rate, that's a variety of my points of view on the subject. Prior to working at the video store, I thought that some of what I had witnessed in Clerks was probably exaggerated for effect. Not so. And here's one last thing to prove it. Refer back to the quote that began this exercise. On my first day of work at the store, the manager asked me to put away a stack of adult videos. Atop the stack, in all of its glory, was The Best of Both Worlds. Every word is true. And like Marco Polo, another explorer in a dangerous and terrifying place, I have not told you half of what I've seen.

Troy Brownfield
July, 1997