> Though we’ve said our hellos across a room over the years, Thursday afternoon was the first time I’ve had a chance for a conversation at length with Mike Esposito who runs Gentlemen’s Video. It was kind of a pre-interview, interview over lunch. Esposito, who strikes you as a very humble man, started in the business selling movies to hotels and later had a mainstream company that folded when the B-movie business went belly up.
We exchange stories about our respective deadbeats and Esposito’s of the opinion that the new guard in the industry puts money in front of ethics and friendship. Meanwhile Esposito’s company is serving a niche market and doing very well with it. Even after all these years, he says go figure to know exactly what sells. One of his biggest movers has been a She-Male tape.
And while on that subject, I stopped off at Rob Spallone’s Star World Modeling agency, www.starworldmodeling.com. I don’t want to say anything to Spallone but a girl he’s got in the waiting area could be one of Esposito’s she-males. She keeps making references to having made the “transition” and “gone through the change.” I don’t want to come out and ask at the risk of possibly insulting her if this means what I think it means. But the look on Spallone’s face is that her comments about being mistaken for a Cher lookalike are definitely stretching some bounds of credibility. Meanwhile Spallone’s girlfriend Leah is on the phone.
“You’re 20 years old and you don’t know your bra size?” Leah is asking the girl on the other end. “Look at your bra right now.” Spallone’s looking at his website and is having problems with the e-mail. He calls his webmaster who set it up and his webmaster is telling him to call Mike Barbella. Spallone thinks this is pretty odd but calls Elegant Angel to find that Barbella’s in Norwalk.
“Connecticut?” he asks. “What the fuck’s he doing in Connecticut?” Spallone’s told, no, this is by the airport and so he gets in touch with Barbella who seems to be in a pretty festive mood. Spallone had told me earlier that the reason Barbella was over at Extreme and got into the fist fight in the first place with Jeff Krull was because he was doing him a favor for some old guy. Spallone’s telling Barbella his problem and Barbella’s telling him something about, “Lithium.” Barbella’s making it sound like Spallone should feed his computer Lithium.
“Lithium? What the fuck are you on?” Spallone asks Barbella who tells him he’ll be over later to look at the computer but that he was still in Norwalk. So the tranny Cher chick is telling me her story, that she worked in the aviation industry, is a licensed pilot and flight instructor but now wants to do porn.
“I’m an exhibitionist,” she says proudly. I ask her how she heard about Spallone.
“I’ve talked to a lot of people and they say he has a positive impact on the business,” she replies. I ask her if any of these people are named Duke or Damian Michaels but she doesn’t seem to know. She’s commenting about what a nice day it is.
“The only problem with a nice day is it don’t make me no money,” Spallone tells her. “Now if I owned a car wash or a sunscreen store, that’s something else.” Spallone’s showing her the Adultfyi site and starts reading the story about Mika Tan and the LA Vice bust.
“They don’t need a warrant,” says Spallone who’s had some experience in that area himself.
> Police have apparently visited another of Adult retailer Greg Sakas’ stores- this one in Roanoke Rapids, North Carolina where the manager was arrested and tahen to jail. Sakas has been attempting a pow-wow with police and so far they’ve been ignoring his requests. Contrary to one story, Sakas has not been arrested. Sakas’ attorneys, however, have called the authorities asking if there are any warrants and if so can he make arrangements to come in. The cops have not given him any answers. Sakas doesn’t even know if there have been other charges other than the original third degree midemeanor for selling both dildos and DVD’s in his store.
Sakas has been told that New Bern, North Carolina police chief Frank Palumbo, with some strong affiliations behind him, has been calling the shots and that the city attorney, as much as he’d like to see the case go away, is claiming his hands are now tied. Sakas has been told while he can go back and operate his store minus adult novelties, he can still be busted on a zoning violation.
> Rob Ragan has left White Tiger Releasing and is starting his own company, All Stud Releasing. Ragan will be operating out of Palm Springs. Ragan, who was nursing a rogue wisdom tooth infection, attributed the move to a falling out with White Tiger/Robert Hill Releasing that goes back awhile.
“This has been in the works a little bit,” says Ragan.