Here is my blog entry about my trip to LA. Click the link for pictures.
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http://www.lavenderlounge.com/blog/2..._total_la.html
I just got back from a gay porn industry event in LA, the Gay Webmaster Retreat, put on by GayVN. As I think back over the weekend, it was one of those "only in LA" experiences.
First, the event was all about PORN. Porn and Hollywood go hand in hand, plus it took place at the Hollywood Renaissance Hotel, which is connected to the Kodak Center at Hollywood and Vine. (The Kodak Theater is where they hold the Oscars, right next to Graumann's Chinese Theater and across from where they tape the Jimmy Kimmel Show.) The Kodak Center is actually a shopping mall, and since the conventioneers didn't have much time to run around, all our meals and parties took place at the mall. So when people ask me about my LA trip this week, I can just say, "I spent the entire trip at the mall." (Very LA.)
The GayVN Retreat was the first time I had an opportunity to be a panelist at one of the seminars. The topic was Online Piracy, which isn't my specialty, but I was able to wing it. I got complimented for bringing the conversation back to reality when the two straight guys on the panel went off on tangents about topics that only apply to much bigger companies than were represented in the audience.
It was the next day, though, that I dropped a bomb at the seminars. During the State of The Industry Seminar, three of the panelists were straight guys from credit card processing companies. Neither of them had any clue about what was actually happening in the gay side of the industry. When I dropped the bomb about bringing up the topic of barebacking, one of the clueless straight guys (wearing a diamond watchband...) had to ask another panelist what "barebacking" was. From the moment that seminar ended, I was bombarded with questions, comments and feedback about barebacking for the rest of the trip! (The text of the flyer I handed out about barebacking, "Sister Zsa Zsa's Epistle to the Gay Porn Industry", can be found here.)
My point in bringing up the topic is that it is such a hotly debated topic that no one wants to talk about! There will be much more to say about barebacking later.
Since it was close to Halloween, some of the locals showed up at night in costume. To our queer eyes, it was evident that the Halloween costumes all came from a mall. And it makes sense. If you go to a mall on a Saturday night to party, you'd probably buy your Halloween costume from a mall, too.
gay pornWhenever I go to LA, I always make a point of finding at least one celebrity. Besides the gay porn stars (like Johnny Castle!), there was a promo event in the mall for the new season of Nip / Tuck, that will now take place in LA. They also put a fake office of McNamara/Troy in the mall and hired an actress to sit in the lobby and pretend to make phone calls.
If you don't know about the FX show, Nip /Tuck, let's first quote Parents Television Council who considers Nip/Tuck ''one of the most profane, sexually explicit and violent shows in the history of television''. (See my analogy about porn and Hollywood?) The show is about two sexy plastic surgeons and has had more than a few homoerotic subplots, plus guest appearances by Rosie O'Donnell, Richard Chamberlain (playing a gay sugar daddy), and Joan Rivers (playing herself). It's totally queer and twisted - can't wait to see what happens when they move to LA.
Near the end of the Friday night party (held in one of the clubs in the mall), a local girl plopped down next to me and started chatting. She's one of those LA hairdressers that really plays the part - big hair, heels and white lipstick. She was proud of calling herself a fag-hag, but I to inform her the more politically correct term is "fruit fly". She also proceeded to tell me the list of cosmetic surgeries she's had - at age 23!
Saturday night, after the scheduled festivities ended, we headed to West Hollywood to party at the Abbey. I was having fun playing tourist just watching the scene happen in front of me. Didn't have much opportunity to mingle with the locals, though, as no one made eye contact with me. After the bar closed, I walked around to check out more Holloween costumes in front of the afterhours clubs. While standing on the sidelines in front of Rage, the first person to speak to me all night walked up and said, "Aren't you about two decades too old for this?"
I replied, "Should I leave?" I was so flabbergasted, I didn't hear anything else he said, but it certainly was not a backward pickup line, I think he meant it.
To recap my LA trip: gay porn, celebrities, plastic surgery, shopping mall, Hollywood, rude people and ageism. I love LA!
