Through the marine layer of a Valley October morning, the Xavier Productions’ shoot, Leave It To Cleavage, got off to a questionable start Wednesday when it’s lead character, The Beaver, didn’t bother to show up.

The Beaver being Ian Daniels who had pulled this once before, said assistant director Steve Drake, telling a story about how Daniels didn’t show up for a scheduled part only to return a call many hours later insisting that he had taken his girlfriend of the time to a hospital.

Drake was on the phone calling all over town to find a suitable replacement. “Clean-cut,” Drake kept insisting over the phone. Brian Surewood not being available, Drake got Brad Baldwin who kind of reminds you of a goofy Jerry Mathers, but considerably pumped up. A very polite man, Baldwin likes to lift the iron he tells me. I asked him if he could kick Lee Stone’s [also in the cast] ass in a pose down. Baldwin smiles and says he doesn’t think so because Stone’s more ripped.

I chatted with XP’s- boobsville.com – director Robyn Powers, who, despite having landed a wonderful ivy-covered cottage location, was just gushing with ivy-covered sarcasm over the prospect of having to re-write elements of the script to accommodate Daniels’ absence which fucks up the first sex scene of the day. It’s a scheduled poolside threeway with KSEX’s Lisa Sparxxx [looking like some calendar pinup from the fifties] and Matt Dixel. As a two-way, Dixel’s penis has difficultiesand the scene takes over 2 1/2 hours, maybe longer, to shoot.

Gene: A little bit of a flake-a-rino this morning.

Powers: We have a lead, Beaver Cleavage, and he’s in two scenes and he’s on covers and opening credits and everything. He’s not here. He’s booked all day long and he’s not here. He was going to be in a threeway in this scene right now. And we’re now going to write him out of that part. Hopefully we will get somebody here in time.

Gene: I see we have a nice, Leave It To Beaver-type cottage here.

Powers: Isn’t it great? It’s a perfect location and we almost lost it which means we were going to cancel the shoot because apparently this house has been rented out a lot. When we tried to get the permit, there was trouble with that because the place was being used so much. We actually had to send somebody out to the neighbors with piece of paper that everybody had to sign. The neighbors said it was okay for us to shoot.

Gene: A neighborhood petition.

Powers: But they didn’t know it was porn. I thought that was funny. I thought what neighbor is going to sign- sure you can shoot porn in my backyard!

Gene: My most porn standards this is a very sophisticated-looking set.

Powers: Thank you. That’s why I don’t shoot very often. I try to- within a limited budget- get as much production value into our movies as we can. But it’s really hard to do that when your lead doesn’t show up. Are you going to be ready to shoot this scene.

Gene: I’m always ready.

Powers: Because Beaver- you got to play a guy, we’re going to make him about 22 or 23. bringing home his girlfriend from college to meet the family.

Gene: I obviously answer that description to a T.

Powers: Do you have tattoos or anything like that?

Gene: I’m just a clean-cut all-American lad. So what’s the first scene you’re going to attempt to shoot.

Powers: We were going to be doing a double penetration with Lisa Sparxxx and Matt Dixel. We won’t be doing a d.p. because I don’t have time to wait any more. So now it’s just going to be an anal scene. That’s it for sex for awhile. Then we’re going to be shooting dialogue, all the stuff I need for opening credits- the beginning of the television show- you know how they all walk out the front door and June sends everybody off to work and school. We’ve got a great cast and Wally- everybody knows Wally- he’s now a degenerate, lives at home, has no job, he’s off to jail.

Gene: To tell the truth, I think I’d be better for that part.

Powers: You want to be Wally?

Gene: I can summon something.

Powers: He’s got an Australian accent. Oh yeah. Wally’s all grown up with an Australian accent and tattoos and piercings.

Gene: The back story is that he had been in an Outback penal colony.

Powers: That’s a good idea! I never thought of that. I can write that in. He was sent off to a penal colony.

Gene: Having written enough porn scripts myself, this is second nature.

Powers: Every single time we’ve shot a movie, I’ve had to re-write the script as we go along. These things happen all the time. You can’t set yourself in stone with these things or you’ll drive yourself crazy.

Gene: How long have you been directing?

Powers: I haven’t directed in three years. I started in ’99 and did about 5 or 6 movies. Maybe 7, I’m not sure. My first feature was Busty Pom-Pom Girls.

Gene: How could we forget that one.

Powers: Then there was Boobsville.com, Return to Boobsville.com

Gene: I have a thing for sequels.

Powers: And there was Madam Chambers’ Big Tit Whorehouse. Then we had, not so much feature movies in there. We had some girl-girl movies. Then in 2000 I stopped. I got really exhausted. I do a lot of other work for the company. I’m not just on hand to shoot movies. I’m the production manager, I’m the marketing director. I’m rebuilding the whole website for boobsville.com

Gene: Which looks very good from what I’ve seen so far.

Powers: Thank you. And it’s been a lot of work. We’ve had to rebuild the entire database. Everything. I’m very busy also making sure that all the DVD covers are done on time, that the DVDs are authored on time. I basically keep my hand in everything. And I’m also my own production manager on the movies. So I’m booking talent; I’m booking locations. It’s just absolutely exhausting So I took a break for three years. Then we’re sitting in a staff meeting, and this one employee said you should do a movie, Leave It To Cleavage. We thought that was just a great idea. That was about two months ago and here we are. We’re going to be missing a threeway but I’ll probably work it in with Ava [Divine] later.

[Powers did with Lee Stone taking on Ava Divine and Sah]