As easy as it might be to forget why I'm here, now and then I am reminded that at all times we must pay homage to Bob Seger.

Here is Holly Morgan on the set of Platinum Blue's masturbation (theirs, not necessarily yours) epic Girls on Film: Solo Edition 2.

Seger's influence on the porn world is everywhere, from Tampa's Night Moves show to movies like this.

"She was a black-haired beauty with deep dark eyes And points all her own, sitting way up high (Here Seger reconsiders, then adds, for clarity): Way up, firm, and high."

You can see a gallery here.

Previously: You can think about the woman, or the peeler you knew the night before; Paige Turner reminds me of Daisy Buchanan; Way up firm and high on Cahuenga Blvd.

See also: Platinum Blue Productions

In my bootlegged copy of Joe Gallant's The Screw Movie, the saucy Heather Pink is captured puttin' 'em on the glass.

You'll have to come over to Gram Ponante Towers, Crematorium, Dairy, and Foundry to watch this movie.

Previously: Pabst Blue Ribbon night with the steveporn kids; Joe Gallant: "The machinery is weird"

See also: Joe Gallant, Sir Mix a lot's "Put 'em on the glass"

Few aspects of our daily lives cannot be improved by porn, and the bicycle is no exception.

(Not that people use bikes in Los Angeles, except as things to steal (and have you noticed that the bigger the person, the smaller the bike, the worse the neighborhood?) and drop in riverbeds.)

Oregon's Reverend Phil Sano has made a film about hot girls on bikes that is playing everywhere from Bellingham to Vancouver. The movie is called The Pornography of the Bicycle, of which the filmmaker writes:

"What is this fascination? Is it the blending of mobility and sensuality? Is it freedom? Independence? Hornyness?

"Whatever the cause, bike porn has griped the consciousness of the citizens of Portland, Oregon. These are a people now obsessed. These are people who are determined to travel under their own power, people who are determined to liberate their bodies, people who cross lines ass-first dancing backwards with their pants around their ankles."

Previously: Hookers have no sense of humor

See also: Local filmmaker takes bike porn on the road, Pornography of the Bicycle

There are a lot of things people are shy of talking about in today's porn industry: drug use, sexual harrassment, malfeasant distribution deals. Now Joanna Angel has the courage to say that Big Boobs Are Cool, and Burning Angel has released a filmic document of her beliefs.

Angel shot the movie here.

"I think boobs tend to be larger (in Los Angeles)," habitual Brooklynite Angel told me. "Maybe because apartments in New York are small, big boob girls can't fit their boobs in them."

Read the full story here.

In the lurking world of the Internet, where the best face we can show the outside is our public unresolved digits, a northern California company has created a site that moans your Internet Protocol address.

Intervis Media dabbles in different projects, its founder says, but "there is a special place in our hearts for Internet security." CEO Richard Stevenson told me the women moaning IP addresses wish to remain anonymous and aren't pictured on the website.

For me, the money shot is the "3".

Stevenson's company also owns Hear My IP, which features a terse, vaguely menacing dude reading the same numbers. It doesn't have the same effect, but it gets to the point.

See also: Moan My IP

I never understood blowjob movies; the same amount of clothing comes off and the result ends up in the same place as it would in a full penetration movie. Is it for people who, like Bill Clinton, don't consider the blowjob sex?

Regardless, Rob Rotten, after nearly a year away from the porn fold after suffering injuries in a racing accident ("I lost my right front brake going 140," he said), has returned with Swallow My Children, a very funny movie that happens to have blowjobs in it.

"Blowjobs are less expensive," Rotten pointed out. "That's why blowjob movies have a million girls in them."

Rotten makes and appears in three kinds of porn movies. Funny ones, scary ones, and porn movies utilizing his tattoos. Swallow My Children is of the first category, and as such it really is fun to watch, as everyone in it plays his or her white trash character expertly.

There are a few people making funny porn movies. Cram and Grip Johnson of Chatsworth Pictures and Jim Powers of JM and Sin City don't put their characters on pedestals but do allow for gallows wit. When the performers are smart, the viewer is left with a winning combination of sexy women with senses of humor. Naughty America's new line, Naughty Flipside, crafts scenarios that are more whimsical, but not so whimsical that the scene becomes something other than the sex people are having.

I forgot to ask where Rotten grew up and how much money he had while doing so, but if you can judge his overall aesthetic from Swallow My Children, I'd bet the lifestyle and characters depicted in the movie and Rotten's weekend world aren't far apart.

There's surf punk/metal playing in the background, purple-haired Daisy Tanks playing shuffleboard barefoot, amiable dudes with nothing to do but lift weights, and Tony Tedeschi pissing on the roof. California affords many a lifestyle that allows them to continue the best part of their high school existences until at least age 42.

There's a genial vagrant serving as narrator.

"I didn't want to narrate the movie myself," Rotten said. "I said 'I wish I had a homeless guy or something' and one of the guys in the crew said, 'Are you serious? There's this gay homeless guy outside the liquor store down the street' and I said 'Go get him."

Angus McGillicuddy wanders in and out of the movie, a stunned Hungarian model sitting behind him ("At first I think she thought she was going to have to blow him," Rotten said) and lends the project its California-inclusive, Nothing But A Houseparty vibe.

I asked how much McGillicuddy got paid. "Four beers? Five beers?" Rotten replied.

I like to think that Rotten had a few women in mind for this large-cast, low budget movie, and he filled out the rest of the roster with blondes. Some of the most inspired and goofy scenes involved non-blondes, including newcomer Daisy Tanks, Jocelyn Jaden, and Sasha Grey.

People talk about exploitation and empowerment in porn, and I've never found an example of either. While there are those who weren't clever in making a decision to appear in a porn movie, they have agreed to a wage and they are not being exploited. In fact, those who would argue that porn exploits the not-too-clever draw a line between the higher-paid mistakes of these performers' mainstream counterparts. Is appearing in an MTV teen drama or Fox reality show not exploitive because an AFTRA contract is involved?

Whereas accusations of exploitation come from the outside, the empowerment defense is employed by pornographers who say that their material actually helps women. This, too, is bullshit.

Anyway, I think that people like Rotten have the right idea; he made a movie full of natural light and women who, given the right circumstances, might actually have fucked these dudes without being paid for it. It almost seems democratic.

"Isn't Sasha Grey hot?" Rotten asked. She plays the bemused girlfriend of a loser who rolls himself down a hill in a barrel. You don't normally hear people in porn saying things like this, because most people who have the confidence to fuck on film at the very least are attractive because of that confidence.

"Yes," I said. "It's nice seeing her in the sunshine."

"I ask them to not show up with all that porn shit on," he said. "It doesn't make them look good."

Read the review here.

Previously: Rotten, "Too Close for Comfort" rift worsens; Daisy Tanks is the solution to Rob Rotten's lap mystery

See also: Punx Productions

Porn Week Vacations was established in 2000 to offset the cost of filming porn movies, and has become an international brand with several revenue streams.

"We knew that fans wanted to see porn being shot, and that they'd probably pay for it, but we didn't want 30 guys hanging around," said founder Dave West, a Chicago native who began his career in direct marketing before capitalizing on Internet porn. "So we kept the guest list small and invited the right girls."

Porn Week will attach itself to one or several movies being shot in a given area and open the doors to fans, each of whom has paid upwards of $2150 for the privilege. Since the company's first outing in the Dominican Republic in 2000 (with a stable of willing porn stars that included Belladonna), Porn Week has traveled to the U.K., Prague, the Czech Republic, and has regular stops in Los Angeles and Las Vegas.

"We tell the guests what's expected of them so that everyone knows the rules," said director Gazzman, production manager of London's Harmony Films, who partnered with West in 2004. "But the environment is light enough so that lines don't get crossed."

That is not to say that guests only watch. If the right guest has been tested and if he (or she) is willing to step in front of the camera, he might be part of the action on film. But most guests are happy watching.

"People ask if we're being laid all the time, but it's not like that," said former Porn Week guest and current production assistant Big Bad Dave. Big Bad Dave (not to be confused with West) was learning how to white balance a camera he had trained on Nikki Jayne, a stunning Manchester native in the United States on her first porn jaunt. "But we definitely try to find the women who are not only comfortable in front of the camera but also with a party full of fans."

Guests must fend for themselves with hotels and transportation, but they attend parties with the performers, which are then filmed for XXX Porn Parties, a regular pay per view event. In addition, the guests are encouraged to bring cameras themselves.

As an executive at Harmony and a partner in Porn Week, Gazzman has a built-in party destination. Born in Scotland, Gazzman worked for several years directing television in the U.K. and then began what he calls his "porn apprenticeship" filming BBC documentaries about porn.

"I followed porn directors around for four years, thinking I knew what to do and what not to do in a porn film," he said. "But I ended up making some of the same mistakes."

Gazzman praises writing partner Victoria Stuart, herself a documentarian, who writes porn scripts keeping in mind "that you've got to write them like interchangeable dolly heads, because some of the dollies don't show up."

Still, Gazzman's first porn film was the big-budget ($100k) The Scottish Loveknot for Private, which won AVN's Best Foreign Feature award. He has since become known for what in the United States are called "high-end gonzos" but what he refers to as "professional low budget features." This translates to porn with good lighting design, attractive international locations, and leggy Euro models.

What is low budget for Gazzman is actually about twice as expensive as a standard U.S. gonzo, but Gazzman tends to shoot at rental castles by the banks of Loch Ness rather than Encino.

I always feel a little awkward when attending a porn shoot if the cast is unprepared for guests not involved with the production. I asked West if there was a learning curve since 2000 with regard to fostering a good dynamic between the cast and Porn Week guests.

"All of our performers tend to be very friendly," he said, pointing out that Porn Week regular Poppy Morgan has become a face of the show, "but we definitely have to get the right mix of people. In the early days we did get a lot of the performers saying 'What are these guys doing here?'"

At a recent party in downtown L.A. at Eli Cross' and Kylie Ireland's Fallout Shelter studios, it seemed the blend of vacation revelry and porn filming had reached a balance. Guests (who asked not to be filmed) milled around an open bar or just outside as a group of women including Poppy Morgan, newcomer Katie K., Nikki Jayne, Gwen Diamond, and others cavorted in hanging cages, on prop beds, or "Star 80"-style bondage chairs for a scene from Gazzman's "Slam It In" series.

The big event of the evening was the U.S. debut of Nikki Jayne who, after disrobing spectacularly, delivered a blowjob to performer Oliver Sanchez, who was posing as a photographer and pretended, at least for a few seconds, that the stunt wasn't staged.

Jayne walked into Harmony's booth at Birmingham's ETO adult trade show on July 22 saying she wanted to do porn. "We had her on a plane to (a Czech Republic Porn Week event in) Brno the next Wednesday," Gazzman said.

Jayne is tall and blonde and looks like a California girl save for her charming accent. Porn Week does not have contract girls (though Poppy Morgan has come to be associated with the company) but a special effort was made to introduce Jayne through Porn Week, and it has been successful; Jayne has already met with Digital Playground and Vivid, she said.

Digital Playground's Samantha Lewis reminded Jayne that the company already had a "Jane", so a possible contract would require her to change her name. Prior to her trip to the states, Jayne was intent on a Vivid contract, but Digital Playground has already wined and dined her and had the good luck of meeting her before her meeting at Vivid. We'll see what happens; this might be the last time you see "Nikki Jayne".

Across Porn Valley in Poltergeist Hills, an area so named because it resembles the rolling housing development built over a graveyard in the movie Poltergeist, the Porn Week guests have gone home but the Harmony crew is still there, filming scenes between Jayne and San Jose's Bobbi Starr. Just before her anal scene with Sanchez, I took a picture of Jayne on the carpeted stairs.

"I don't want a pattern on me bum," she said.

"That's the least of your worries," I said.

Gazzman and West explained Porn Week's marketing forks, starting with Bravo UK's midnight broadcast of the company's exploits.

"We are fortunate to have a deal with them in which we retain ownership of the material, they just broadcast it on the telly," Gazzman said. To that end, Gazzman and West may make DVDs, sign pay per view deals for XXXPornParties, and continue to add Porn Week publicity to productions by other companies. Ownership of the product is great.

It seems like this week witnessed the crossed paths of two exciting commodities, Porn Week and Nikki Jayne, who appears poised to be very big.

I asked Gazzman what advice he might give to Jayne in the American porn market, and he replied with a Scottish brogue, "Ach, she won't listen to an old man."

See a gallery here.

Previously: Wayne doesn't know why he's being interviewed, either; Czechs for cash; 2007 AVN wrap-up

See also: Porn Week

>It is one of life's great ironies that something that should be so much fun - sex for money - is taken so goddamn seriously.

A while ago I interviewed the organizer of San Francisco's Back Alley Cat Bike Ride, an event that in her words will "build connections between communities."

In this case, the communities being linked were Erotic Services Providers and San Francisco's Bike Messengers Union.

You all know me; you know how I earn a living. So you can imagine my excitement to talk further with this person.

The Back Alley Cat Bike Ride is a short fundraising cycle that took place in September. Interested parties met at the feet of Gandhi's statue at the San Francisco Ferry Terminal. The ride was followed by a barbecue and entertainment at The Eagle on 12th Street.

"Gandhi symbolizes community building and spirituality," said Maxine Doogan, aka Mistress Max, organizer of the ride and founder of The Erotic Services Providers Union (ESPU). "Like Cesar Chavez, Gandhi embodies community building."

The ESPU was established to address the safety issues, legal hurdles, and double standards sex workers face. To that end Doogan has created an organization that has raised not only awareness but also the funds to send "two prostitutes, a webcam girl, and a dominatrix" to labor organizing school, which is no mean feat.

Unionization has long been a pipe dream among Porn Valley's performers, but it never catches hold because people stay too short a time in the business to make the idea feasible. The money is too good to offset the occasional (but inevitable) pitfalls, such as non-payment, undesirable conditions, and broken contracts. It seems to me that by the time performers have achieved a certain longevity enough to care about the so-called performer community, it is already too late for them to make the living that characterized their early careers.

But prostitutes have a longer life span, and San Francisco (and Las Vegas) are hotbeds of sex worker union activity. {Many people point out that porn performers, because they trade sex for money, are prostitutes. One key element differentiating the two professions is the presence of a recording device. So next time you're with a hooker, make it legal by bringing a stenographer.)

Anyway, Ms. Doogan devised the Back Alley Cat Bike Ride because, she said, "bike messengers and sex workers are always using the back alleys" for their work.

This sounded like a fabulous idea, so naturally I wanted to know if, based on the success of the ride, bike messengers would turn tricks or provide erotic massage for future fundraising events.

"I don't know what you mean," Doogan said.

"Well, if you've got prostitutes riding bikes this year," I said, "maybe next year bike messengers could, you know, give handjobs."

"We're not having prostitutes become bike messengers, if that's what you mean," she said.

"No, that's not what I mean," I said. "I mean, you've got the prostitutes - sex workers - employing the trappings of the bike messengers for the purpose of this fundraiser. Maybe next time the bike messengers can take on the tools of the sex workers, a quid pro quo role reversal."

"I'm afraid I don't know what you mean."

"Forget it."

Don't get me wrong; I love hookers. But even though an actual streetwalker will be obtained for the occasional Ghetto Booty, and even though porn performers will often escort, their attitudes on the (w)hole are very different. When one is forced to dodge bike messengers all day in a back alley, whimsy is the first casualty.

Previously: Sex workers gather in Poland; It's not sex work when you're just lying there

See also: Erotic Service Providers Union

I visited the set of Cousin Stevie's Pussy Party prior to my vacation and wrote about it for the adult trade magazine XBiz in a story that will be published next month. Because I am so goddamn good at what I do, I rarely get edited and can generally print whatever I please, including my tangential thoughts on natural childbirth, salmon ladders, and alien autopsies.

Still, I did leave a word out of the first paragraph of my XBiz story because folks get touchy. See if you can determine which one it was in this un-self-expurgated version:

After awhile, watching a porn movie being shot seems less like an event than a job, and that’s how it should be. After all, this is a legitimate business. But visiting one of Cousin Stevie’s Pussy Partys allows the observer to rediscover the childlike wonder of watching someone squirt all over a rented Encino wall.

Anyway, Sindee Jennings' squirting was the big gun of the day, but I especially liked Annabelle Lee and Lexi Love. If Jennings' aquabatics was Star Wars, then Love and Lee were like the Falkland Islands Conflict; I was assured that nothing would fly out at me and everything was pleasant.

See a gallery here.

Previously: The Famous Vagina of Amber Peach; Squirting and terrrorism; Masturbation and shame

See also: Cousin Stevie, XBiz

Hooters waitress and San Diego college student Kyla Ebbert, 23, who dressed as a skank for a one-day trip to a doctor's appointment in Arizona, was cautioned by a Southwest Airlines steward onboard her flight that her outfit was too revealing. She requested a blanket to cover the skank costume and disembarked in Tucson without further incident.

She is now thinking of suing the airline.

Upon seeing the skank outfit, Ebbert's mother maintained that all San Diego college students looked like skanks.

NEWS ANALYSIS: People have questioned what kind of medical help might one obtain in Tucson that one couldn't get in San Diego, but that's not the point. Ebbert's Constitutional right to receive medical attention dressed as a skank (I believe that is the Hillary Scott costume Ebbert is wearing) is irrefutable. Myself, I often go to my podiatrist dressed as Chewbacca (and, thanks for asking, my Midi-chlorian count is even higher than Master Yoda's).

Note: Other news reports say Ebbert actually attends college in Mesa, AZ, which requires residents to dress like skanks and douse themselves with melon body spray. Some day I will move to Mesa.

Previously: 2007 AVN wrap-up

See also: Underclad passenger or overreacting airline? (abcnews)