from www.lasvegassun.com – It’s a few hours before the 2012 AVN Awards are scheduled to begin, and punk porn queen Joanna Angel is seated atop a toilet in a cramped Hard Rock Hotel room bathroom. It’s cramped, in part, by her stylist, Nikki Hunter, who flits about the space juggling makeup brushes, a curling iron and an assortment of other beauty products spread out across the sink.

“I’m a performer, too, I just don’t feel like going tonight,” Hunter says, explaining her loose jeans, T-shirt and pulled-back hair. “But we all help each other out.”

Angel, an industry veteran and owner of the alt-porn Web site BurningAngel, is most certainly attending — she’s up for 22 awards (though with around 150 categories in the show, that’s par for the course). Dubbed the “Oscars of porn” by numerous mainstream media outlets, the AVN Awards is arguably the biggest night in the adult entertainment industry.

Which is why, after four nonstop days of signings and industry events at the Adult Entertainment Expo this week (four hours of signings Saturday alone), Angel and hundreds of other nominated performers are submitting themselves to further hours of beauty prep.

“In this industry, we don’t have a lot of opportunities to wear a nice dress and get really dressed up,” she explains as Hunter pulls a curler through her black-and-pink locks. Tonight, Angel is modeling her look off a cell phone picture of burlesque icon Dita Von Teese.

“There’s no dress code, but I think we like showing off to each other. Besides, when else do I get the chance to dress up like I’m in ‘Boardwalk Empire’?”

She pouts in the mirror to examine her makeup, a dark, elegant pin-up look complete with false lashes and sanguine lips. She stands up to get a better look, and it’s disarming to see her tattooed 4’11” frame — normally clad in vinyl, stilettos or, well, nothing at all — barefoot in cut-off shorts and a Wonder Woman tank top.

While the awards are mostly good-natured fun for industry members, Angel says they also play a role in validating the careers of new performers and opening the door to new opportunities.

“I do think that once my company started winning AVNs, people in the industry started taking us more seriously,” she says of BurningAngel, which describes itself as “The Home of Alt Porn, Emo Porn, Tattoo Porn, Goth Porn.”

“In porn, there’s no real way to determine if a new company is legitimate. A lot of them are shady, and the industry knows that. So winning is a way of being acknowledged.”

But this is Angel’s fifth AVNs, and while she’s enjoying the prep process, there’s a sense that the evening’s event is just another box to be checked off on the week’s to-do list.

“The awards are probably gonna be boring. It’s the stuff that leads up to them that’s fun,” she says, checking her phone for the time.

Hunter sets Angel’s ’do with hairspray, and she’s out the door to meet the other BurningAngel girls in their room across the casino in the HRH Tower. She and her date, a childhood friend from her native New Jersey, march across the casino floor, past numerous gawking fans who manage to stammer wishes of good luck. Angel mumbles something about feeling awkward in her street garb and done-up face.

Some fans came from as far as Australia to meet her this year, but her reaction to such devotion, and to the general onslaught of in-person attention at AVN, is non-committal. It’s unclear if she’s holding back what she really wants to say about it, or if she’s truly indifferent to it all.

“I dunno,” she says, with a long pause. “I guess I’m just grateful.”

The BurningAngels’ hotel room falls somewhere between a girl’s room on prom night and a college freshman’s dorm: Every functional surface is covered with takeout boxes, makeup, clothes, liquor bottles, more clothes. The air is thick with any number of perfumes. Seven or so girls run frantically between the living room and vanity, some putting the finishing touches on their makeup and others still at a loss for what to wear.

Angel quickly steps in as the mother, picking outfits, lacing up dresses, loaning comfortable shoes, assuring the nervous. The scene is many things, but in the hour leading up to porn’s biggest night, it’s a far cry from the raunchy, scandalous image one might conjure of a porn star’s Vegas hotel room. In their sleek, fashionable gowns and elegant coifs, the tattooed crew looks beautiful, by anyone’s standards; a few could easily pass for mainstream movie stars. As they pose and pout before the mirror, Angel calls out the time: “Ten minutes, ladies!”

As if an afterthought, Angel finally slips on her own gown — a custom-made, fuscia satin number modeled after one of Von Teese’s dresses; Angel looks the part. As she tries on black pumps, her date inquires about post-show plans.

“I dunno. If I don’t win anything I’ll be really grumpy and probably just come back here,” she laughs, then pauses. “But I would like to win one. Just one. That’s all.”

If she could take her pick of the 22, Angel would take home Best Comedy, for a certain kung-fu-themed film done with the whole BurningAngel team.

“Comedy is a tough genre to do in porn. That, and it would be a win for all of us. We’d all share it,” she says. “I know it’s just, like, this ridiculous trophy to have on your mantle. But I’m not gonna be able to do this forever.”