Porn Valley- Apparently the Bloom is back on the Metro rose. After a reported blow out yesterday Noel Bloom was seen leaving the Metro building lending the impression that all was not well. But Bloom is back at Metro today.
> A couple of weeks ago there were rumors abounding of Xotic Studios closing down. I had a conversation www.adultfyi.com/read.aspx?ID=10999 with Nicki Hunter’s husband Josh. Josh told me that such was not the case, but that Xotic was moving to a new location. Then I spoke to Nicki Hunter last week who gave me some story about the studio closing down for having problems with the guy next door who was running an indoor batting cage. Well yes and no. Xotic Studios has not closed down. It’s Hunter and her husband who have moved on. I spoke to David Simpson who runs the studios because Xotic has been announced as the location where Dane is going to be holding a talent casting call next week.
“We’re not closed,” said Simpson. “I read that article and I didn’t say much about it because I didn’t want to make a big deal out of it. We’re not closed. What we have done is that we’ve separated as partners. The studio is not closed. We’re still open for business. Nicki and Josh have gone their separate ways but I still have the building here and we’re still conducting business as usual.” I asked Simpson if Josh’s comments had screwed up his business.
“I wasn’t part of the decision making as far as what they decided to do,” he says. “That was something for whatever reason they felt they needed to do. They had plans of opening another studio somewhere. That’s what I understood what they were planning on doing. But to say that Xotic Studios was closed was probably a big mistake. But we’re not closed.”
> Jessica Darlin is suffering from cancer, and from what I’m told she’s bed ridden at least five days out of seven. Her husband is attending to her. But what makes matters worse is that Metro is apparently screwing her on her website money. Calls placed over to Metro are met with: we don’t know what you’re talking about.
> In our conversation www.adultfyi.com/read.aspx?ID=11468 yesterday, Shy Love challenged me to be a journalist and “research” the fact that she came up with the idea of an eBay audtion long before Taylor Rain. I researched to discover this was true- that Love auctioned herself off on eBay three months ago and the promotion was a dismal flop. I guess her “fucking fans” didn’t appreciate a good thing when they saw it.
> Wankus posts on http://wankus.blogspot.com/: Yes, I know the site is down. Yes, I know it’s been over 12 hours. Yes, I’m pissed off too but in the internet business, sometimes you have to deal with technical bullshit and that’s we’re we are at right now.
Our servers got fried somehow and our tech team is frantically replacing them and getting us back up and running. We expect to be back on the air by Thursday afternoon.
Be patient, have a smoke and we’ll chat with ya on air in a little while. 🙂
> Mr. Metro calls me Wednesday night to say that Shy Love’s story about how she ran a Nasdaq company of 180 employees is strictly fantasy. “She hooked in Florida,” Mr. Metro tells me. “Then she came out here then was used as a ‘hostess’ for clients of Metro and the TeN Channel. When Shy came out she told everyone that her husband was some rich guy, but actually they shared an old, beat-up car. They needed money bad and the car wasn’t running well. Shy and her husband met when she was dancing. Somehow Shy and her husband were hired to do this bisexual movie for Metro. The whole thing was a disaster.”
> Metro, the company spiralling out of control, spiraled some more this afternoon when Kenny Guarino and Noel Bloom had a screaming match. Bloom, who once ruled the adult industry roost with Caballero, was seen leaving the building with his possessions in a box.
> Defiance Films’ first movie, Pleasure, gets the October cover of the Adam & Eve catalogue. That’s 1.9 million catalogues.
> Digital Playground got a notice from Disney that the posters for its pirate movie were too much like The Pirates of the Carribean. So instead of being sued, Digital had to scrap thousands of promotional posters and re-do them. I hear Digital has spent something like $1,000,000 on this movie and that the budget went way over what was originally agreed upon. Ironically, the ship used in Pirates of the Caribbean was rented for this movie. Ali Joone’s brother, Moe, is a mainstream special effects guy and has done movies like Shreck. Moe apparently had a lot to do with the making of the trailer.
> Jeff Mike is driving around in a brand new orange metallic Lamborghini.
> I talk to Mr. Metro Wednesday afternoon. I’m told that Gustavo Chavarria walked out of the building in a huff today. Apparently Metro hired someone who’s proficient in production and 2257 records keeping. This is Pam Anderson, but Mr. Metro doesn’t know if this is the same Pam Anderson who used to be with Sean Michaels. In any event, Gutavo was not too happy about the hiring. Gustavo has actually sworn to Kenny Guarino on the life of his kid that the stories of kickbacks are all lies created by Skeeter Kerkove as a “smokescreen”.
> Mr. Metro calls me Wednesday morning discussing Gustavo Chavarria’s hidden talents, one of which is the ability to impersonate Kenny Guarino to a T.
“Gustavo makes fun of Kenny whenever he can,” says Mr. Metro. “Especially using Kenny’s east coast voice to brag about how much grease and clout he [Kenny] has with one particular judge. It’s very funny.” According to what Mr. Metro also tells me, Gustavo likes dropping Kenny’s name into conversations, lending impression that he’s in tight with the boss. Mr. Metro then tells me about an attempt by Lenny and Phil at Astrux to start their own modeling agency.
“They decided to start an agency,” says Mr. Metro. “What they started doing was going around recruiting girls from Direct Models and Spiegler girls. They did take some of the girls and word got out pretty quick it was them doing it. They had some attorney/investor in on the deal with them. They tried doing this with Taylor Rain and it failed. This got out what was going on. They were sent a letter about stealing girls from Direct Models who felt completely disrespected especially with all the tons of business they have done with Metro. Direct Models then said Astrux could not use any of their girls any more.
“The agency eventually collapsed. So Gustavo keeps calling Direct Models trying to use Kenny’s name and saying that Kenny’s pissed and there’s going to be problems because the boss is mad. Direct Models said, no, that it wasn’t going to accept that type of behavior. There was a meeting, and the Astrux boys apologized to Direct Models. Derek then allowed them to use the girls again. As it developed, Kenny wasn’t even aware of this situation but Gustavo tried to solve the problem using Kenny’s name. He had already told Direct Models on at least one occasion that they fucked up big time and that the boss was mad. Gustavo throws out Kenny’s name all the time trying to act powerful.
“Here’s another example of Gustavo kickbacks,” says Mr. Metro. “Outside vendors would give Gustavo 20% kickbacks. For instance if you did freelance artwork for Metro, you brought the deal in to Gustavo. The price of your work would be jacked up 20%.”
Gene sez: Despite the fact that I heard from three different sources Tuesday that Metro salesman Mike Barbella talked to another company owner and admitted that Bridgette Kerkove told him that she gave Gustavo Chavarria kickbacks, Barbella is denying everything tonight. Barbella called me to say the whole Gustavo issue was nonsense and that Gustavo is a “loyal employee”.
“I’ve never even talked to the girl [Bridgette Kerkove],” said Barbella. “I’ve been introduced to her once.” However, Jennifer Antone, a fired Metro employee/publicist, did attempt to arrange a blind date between Kerkove and Barbella.
“Gustavo ain’t going nowhere,” Barbella insists. “He’s got a good little gig there. Your Mr. Metro is way out of line, dude. First of all, he ain’t talking to me. I can guarantee you that. Gustavo is a very good employee and he’s very well liked. He does his job and he gets his job done. For that matter, Bridgette puts out good movies. But I don’t know who the fuck is telling you she’s admitting something to me. I haven’t talked to her about any of that nonsense and I don’t care about any of that nonsense because it’s all nonsense and drama. Gustavo is a good worker. Whatever Skeeter or who anyone else has got against him and they want to cry, or whatever vendetta they have, it’s pretty damn sloppy to air your dirty laundry after the fact.” Barbella is calling all the talk lies and nonsense.
However, Mr. Metro called me late Tuesday afternoon. He says Bridgette Kerkove’s admitted that both she and Skeeter gave kickbacks to Gustavo Chavarria and has told several people including Mike Barbella and a couple of other higher ups at the company.
“But these aren’t Metro’s only problems,” he says. “The company made a deal with Seth Warshavsky for the so-called rights to the Pamela Anderson tape. Except there were no rights and Metro struck 100,000 DVDs. But this is peanuts. Besides the Anderson situation, there’s also rumors of more litigation that might have some higher ups facing very serious allegations. Maybe sexual harassment?”
Gene sez: I hear it involves a thickly-set secretary with a New Joisey accent.