Sex, Death and Eyeliner

I was up late watching porn last night.

Or not really porn but a documentary about porn called Inside Deep Throat. In short (sort of), Linda Lovelace (Boreman), then 22 years old, starred in a low budget, silly and wildly successful adult film. With it's success came public scrutiny, not only of the film but of the stars themselves. Linda found herself in the middle and through out her life went back and forth between allegations that she was not a willing participant (she stated matter-of-fact that Deep Throat was recorded evidence of rape) to publishing "pro-porn" books back to anti-porn campaigns then back to nude pictorials for the magazine "Leg Show". I don't assume to know what really happened. I do know that things ended badly. She was plagued with problems, from growing up in a less than stable home, getting involved with abusive boyfriends and a seemingly constant money issue (haven't we all been there?), her life at times seemed like an uphill battle. She contracted Hepatitis then was involved in a fatal car accident in 2002. She had one hell of a difficult life. And the more I think about it, the more that it makes me wonder: Is doing porn like a barrel of monkeys or a can of worms?

It's true that certain occupations have statistically higher instances of suicide, murder or both.  (see the link to the national database below) Funeral directors, doctors and dentists are all up there. But I've noticed another trend, perhaps not at such a ratio to compare to lawyers and wall street workers, but significant none-the-less.

With the horrifying ex-porn star Luka Magnotta in the news as of late, a man who streamed images onto the internet that will never cease to be, the gruesome death of a young man forever at anyone's fingertips, I see more sensational news about his dabbling in porn at the forefront, before his own abuse or psychopathy. The public seems to feel that porn is the gateway drug at times. So I started reading and asking myself: Does being a porn star ruin your life and/or shorten your lifespan?

Porn stars seem to be dropping like flies and tragically so. I started my foray into the seedy science of pornography by reading Jenna Jameson's How to Make Love Like a Porn Star. Talk about a sad story. In the book, she talked about her favorite star from the years before, Savannah. Yet another sad story. And the more people's bios I started reading, the more I noticed this trend. Here's a few.

Savannah-

Her real name was Shannon Wilsey. Best known for her platnum blonde hair, sweet girl-next-door face, giant fake tits and that X factor. (pun intended) She grew up with divorced parents, bouncing from home to home and was sexually abused along the way. She quickly rose to fame in the porn industry and just as quickly became involved in heavy drugs (coke and heroin) and heavy shopping habits.
She dated rock stars like Axl Rose and Billy Idol (famously stating that Axl was a 2 pump chump which I totally believe). Like many abused and deeply sad women of porn, she found love with another women. She claimed to be deeply in love with Jeanna Fine, another porn star. July 11, 2004 she was driving home wasted and crashed her white Corvette. She survived with a broken nose and face lacerations. She called her manager, somewhat incoherent, saying she needed plastic surgery, that her face was a mess. Maybe it was the drugs, the head injury or the fact that her beautiful face was never going to be the same again. She took a .40 Barretta and shot herself in her garage. She stayed in a coma until her family took her off life support and she died. She was 23.

Dorothy Stratten-
Her real name was Dorothy Hoogstraten. (I can see why she had a stage name...) This was a gorgeous girl in a very 80's kind of way. The hair, the smile and the generic good looks of a Benetton ad. Except, she was naked and creepy guys were taking pictures of her. Yet, I digress. She met Paul Snider when she was under 18 (ew) and they married when she was 20 (he was 29) and it was hell for poor Dorothy. He was controlling and psychotic; she suspected that he poisened her dog because he was jealous of the love she gave the little pooch. They seperated after a year. She moved on, he did not. Stalker McStalk-y was everywhere, even creeping up to her new boyfriend's house, Peter Bogdonovich. (director of Paper Moon, The Last Picture Show, etc) Paul called Dorothy, asking for money. She arrived at his house to give him $1000 to get him off her back for good. She sadly wouldn't make it out alive. Snider put a shotgun to the side of her face and ended her life. Then he did some other very bad things that I won't mention. Then he shot himself. Bogdonovich was said to be devastated. He married her 20 year old little sister a short time later. Hm. The film Star 80 is based on her life and death.

Lolo Ferrari -
Lolo had the largest breasts in the world. You notice I said 'had'? Things don't end well, obviously. Her real name was Eve Valois. She was born in France and reportedly had a sad childhood. No father, a mother who disliked her and at 25 married Eric Vigne, an ex-con drug dealer 15 years her senior. He was her "manager" although the cops saw it more as prostitution when they arrested the pair. Lolo had some amazingly low self esteem. It was said that her husband didn't help this problem. He pressured her into numerous plastic surgeries and in the end, she had a 71 inch bust, several new noses, giant lips and who knows what else. None of which made her happy. Her official cause of death was an overdose of antidepressants and tranquilizers. Some think her husband had something to do with it. We'll never know.
Oh, and she was a recording artist. I use the term loosely.

There are dozens more just like that. And this is not to mention all the deaths by alcoholism, drug overdose, HIV/AIDS, and an amazing amount of car accidents. And even those who survive don't have happy endings. Lori Michaels faked her own death to avoid creepy stalkers. Max Hardcore went to jail on obscenity charges. Hyapatia Lee suffers from dissociative identity (multiple personality) disorder which worsened after years in porn.

Most would point out first that many (some would argue all) have suffered from abuse, broken homes and/or addiction thus leading them to a life of pornography (not the other way around). Although, I imagine many getting hooked on drugs after starting their careers. How many people out there can do a rough gangbang totally straight? Not many. I know I would have to be coked out of head. Regardless, something about the business inherently brings tragedy.

For better or worse, it will change the way I watch porn from now on... Not that I do in the first place.



P.S. Amanda Seyfried will be playing Linda in the new film, Lovelace. I will probably see it.

Check out more porn stars fate at a strange and fascinating site:
Frances Farmers Revenge 
NIOSH and CDC database of occupations and death
LA Times article about Savannah

Mourning with benadryl

I'm covered in hives.

I'm not sure why, but I guess it's because of the funeral.

Last week, we got a terrible call at 8:30 in the morning. My husband's best friend, a young man with a young son, a wonderful friend and an amazing story teller, had died.

We are still in shock, a week later. We will continue to be for quite some time. As we will continue to grieve and cry and do all things we do when we lose someone we love, I feel my sweet Mad Scientist struggling. I try to be there but I'm not sure if I'm helping.

This has brought me screaming back, five years ago to my brother's funeral, where I was covered in hives and giving my eulogy, shaking hands and consoling friends and talking with people I didn't know about funny stories that I wasn't there for, the whole while a little voice, selfish and angry, whispering to me how all you want to do is tell everyone to shut up and slink away to sleep for 100 years.

I'm not a wise person and I don't have any answers but I am living proof that life goes on and I have found a way to be. I guess that's the only thing I have to say on this subject in life with certainty.

It's not much. But a little benadryl and a nap might help too.

Marr-wige!

Mariana believes in love.

Sappy sweet lovey dovey love. It's torture.

She sat on her couch, me zooming in and out of her kitchen checking the roast she was trying to burn, while she jumped from youtube video to youtube video. I knew it would be a long night when she turned on the Wii, booted up the web browser and typed in "Will you marry me?".

She spent half the evening crying and yelling, "Isn't that so romantic?" She watched the surprising and inventive ways all these men asked their girlfriends to marry them. I wanted to scream back "NO! Can we please watch Frankenstein now?"

So as a backlash to my evening of sappy and annoying love, here is a list of some "romantic" relationships.

• Burt and Linda Pugach

These two are a piece of work. Burt and Linda went out but when she found out he was married with a child, she broke it off. Like any rational human being, Burt hired thugs to throw lye in her face, scarring and blinding her. He continued to write her from jail and 14 years later he was release and they got married. Psycho, both of them. Thank the busy bugs and furry creatures they found each other. I know I wouldn't want either of them interested in anyone I cared about.

• Lana Turner and Johnny Stompanato

After Lana's 4th marriage she met Johnny at a nightclub. But once she found that he was involved in LA's seedy underworld she tried to leave. Apparently his charm and good looks were too much for her to resist. (that, and his giant shlong and his propensity to kick the crap out of her.) When she was filming Another Time, Another Place with Sean Connery, it's said Johnny became insanely jealous at the idea that Lana and Sean were having an affair (they weren't) and brought a gun to the set. Now Sean, being a badass muthafucka that he is, landed a "I'll mess you up homie."single punch BAM! bitch goes down and he takes the gun from him. (Seriously though, if your gonna be bitch slapped in front of your lady, wouldn't you want it to be Sean Connery?) I digress. On the evening of April 4, 1958 Lana and Johnny were having another knock down drag out fight... so Lana's daughter freaks out, grabs a kitchen knife and gives him a new hole. I bet Joan Crawford would have loved to have her as a daughter instead of that whiny Christina.

• Dan and Betty Broderick

He was an amazing asshole and she was probably a little crazy to begin with but in the end, he drove her to be one crazy hoe. It's the typical starter wife story. She puts him through medical and law school by working while she bore him 4 children and ran the house. After he graduated and got a nice big job (cha ching) in San Diego, she went on to be June Cleaver mom wife and caretaker while he banged the ex-stuartess secretary on his mahogany desk. Nastiness ensued. She flips out when he dumps her and the kids in a rental house so he and the receptionist can play house in Betty's home. Yep. And Betty didn't help her situation. Dan sold the house without Betty's permission...so she ran her car into the front of the house. She was awarded alimony of 16,000 a month which seems like a lot, until you realize he's making 300,000 a month. (so much for 50/50; Remind me not to get divorced from a lawyer.) So to get back, she smeared pie on their bed. He'd drop the kids off without notice. She would leave threatening messages on their machine; she said things that would make a sailor blush. In the end, the multi millionaire was ordered to pay his wife of 20 years less than 30,000. And then she went full on loony tunes. Got the gun. Drove to the newlyweds. BANG BANG. She'll be eligible for parole in 2011.

Ain't love grand?

An article that makes my point for me

• Beginning of the end for marriage?

Our History

The tragic lost and the places they departed from...

I'm not sure when exactly my interest with history and death came to fruition. I knew I always loved history in general. I stood in the green, seeming boring fields in Gettysburg when I was 10 and knew I was somewhere very important. I stared at pictures of the great Hartford circus fire and wanted to ask Emmet Kelly what he felt when we was carrying children from the fire. I saw WW2 vet pilots and I wanted to crawl their minds and see what they saw. I wanted to know what color underwear Louise the 14th wore. I was always a curious and strange kid.

And it seems where ever history is, so is death. They go hand in hand, most times. With the death of Queen Mary the first of England, her sister Elizabeth took over and united England after much upheaval and confusion.

A little boy named Adam Walsh was kidnapped at a Sears in Florida. His head was found weeks later. The horrifying death of this one little boy changed America and even the world. John Walsh, his father, a successful business man who built luxury hotel, began a life long mission. It resulted in the capture of over 1000 criminals, the foundation of The National Center for Missing and Exploited Children, and multiple pieces of legislation passed into law to help protect children.

Jayne Mansfield, her boyfriend, driver and 3 children were driving to New Orleans for a show when 20 year old Ronnie Harrison, the driver, continued to drive through a fog of insecticide without slowing and slammed into the back of a semi. The three adults in the front seat were killed instantly while the three children were spared with only cuts and minor breaks. Because of this horrifying accident, all large semis have a protective bar underneath the trailer to prevent smaller cars from hitting under the bottom and shearing the top of the car off. (Sometimes called 'Mansfield Bars', or so I'm told...) How many lives has this saved?

Of course, there is a kind of morbid fascination, but only to an extent. I am not one who gets their rocks off by looking a crime scene photos or masturbates to car accidents. It's the history and the life that was lived and the events that took place. If you don't recognize the dead, then you ignore everything they did, what they died for and even how they lived. Lionel Barrymore said in the movie Grand Hotel, "Believe me, if a man doesn't know death, he doesn't know life." That pretty much covers it.

And it's about loss. Because we all die. We all have to deal with our own mortality. Some are lucky and get to drift away in their warm beds. Others not so much. This is one reason why I am so fascinated by the lives and deaths of the people that touch my heart, even if only a little. If they are a part of me and they shuffle off this mortal coil, I am compelled to know what happened to that little piece of my heart.

The actor that made me cry when he sat in Rick's Cafe and wept over the girl that had come back into his life... with another man. Drowning his sorrow, barely holding his head up, listening to their song over and over again. I know you have felt this kind of sorrow; haven't all of us? He died of cancer at his home.

A young woman, only 22 years old, was executed via guillotine for opposing the Third Reich by distributing anti-Nazi leaflets at her college. When you were 22, did you believe in something so much that you were willing to die for it? She was an amazing person.

And in 1967, my cousin was driving to New Orleans and accidentally hit a semi, killing an aging Hollywood starlet.

History happens all around us.

When I was 19, I stood in the side drive at Griffith Observatory and watched James Dean fight with the other boys from school. The beautiful boy, only 24 years old in his red jacket and heartbreaking tears. When he shot his last scene for Rebel Without a Cause, he only had 4 months before his fateful drive on Route 466. His passenger walked away with a broken collarbone and a few other minor injuries. (He would die in a different car accident in 1981.)

When I was 24, I sat at the Eiffel tower and watched as the people of France wept as the Nazis marched into the city in June 1940. I saw the spot where Hitler stood for a photo op in front of the tower. (I am determined to visit the same spot where he took his own life and Europe was truly free from that piece of evil.) Over 2 million allies were killed or wounded. In the end, the world was free from the Nazis hold, but at such a cost.

And now, I've just booked myself a seat on the Dearly Departed Van Tour of old and new Hollywood to visit the places where some of my favorite people lived and died.

It's about history. It's about death. It's about a three hour tour. And I plan to have a great time. See you there.

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