Porn Valley- In one of those Mexican standoff scenes from Desperado you got four guys staring at a loaded pistol on the table. You know one of ’em is going to make a move. And that’s pretty much where the fate of XRCO sits for the moment. A move is going to be made but when and who’s going to do it is the guess.

Usually by now, an April date would have been set and voting about completed for this year’s XRCO Awards Show. So far, neither of those have been a consideration, and that’s because four of its major players now sit on opposite sides of the fence. Two of them work for AVN. And that’s become something of a cause celebre for an XRCO purist like Bill Margold.

In an interview Friday afternoon, Margold made comments to suggest that, the way he sees it, nothing may be done on behalf of XRCO- at least in the next couple of months. Jim Holliday is currently wrapped in projects that account for the next month of his time. And Margold’s working on the F.O.X.E. Awards which are scheduled for June 17th.

“I talk with Holliday a lot and we’re sort of waiting to see what’s going to happen with XRCO. It’s their move,” said Margold, the “their” being AVN which employs high ranking XRCO members Jared Rutter and Tim Connelly.

“We can’t wrench it away from them until they don’t do anything with it,” Margold seems to think. “The idea is to see if they think they can do anything without, basically, polluting their own waters. Because, basically, they’d be double-dipping from the same stream.”

Margold’s curious to see if an announcement is put out that AVN has absorbed the XRCO. “That I would love. Then we’d find out who the members are and ridicule them as a group and singly. I would point out the mistakes all of them make, and I’m sure I could find mistakes all of them made. I don’t know what their plans are.”

Still stinging in Margold’s mind are the last words said to him by chairman Jared Rutter. “I told him that Holliday and I would be looking into taking back the XRCO. Rutter said, ‘we’ll see about that,’ which I thought was a mouse that roared mentality.” To which Margold said he smiled. “And that was the end of that.”

As far as Margold’s personally concerned, nothing can be done about XRCO at this point. But given the choice between XRCO and AVN, Margold’s still convinced that XRCO is far more appealing among many writers. From talking to Holliday, Margold also gathers that Holliday wants the Phoenix to roar back from the ashes in a private affair. “A smaller event and selected people,” Margold feels. “But I’ll go along with whatever Holliday wants.” Margold suspects that it would be a semi-private party with selected friends of the XRCO attending.

“Essentially Holliday and I are the last two surviving members of the original founders,” Margold points out. “I don’t think Kent Smith [James Avalon] wants anything to do with it. Jim Dawson certainly doesn’t want anything to do with it. He might, but I seriously doubt it. And then the fifth founder was Lon Friend and he’s god-knows-where.” Margold said Smith was welcome back as an advisor as would be Dawson. “But Dawson is writing whereas Kent does not write and certainly wouldn’t be voting on anything. Nor could in fact, for the most part, Holliday, unless it’s performers.”

As far as his own involvement, Margold isn’t writing X-rated reviews anymore. “I’ve always been accused of being too cruel,” he says. “So now I’m writing mainstream stuff for L.A. Xpress.”

For the new wave of voters, Margold suspects that they will emerge from the Internet.

“But the Internet and I have never been particularly friendly because it’s a mean-spirited medium,” Margold goes on to say. “I have a friend- Steve Nelson of AI News who’s not out to get anybody, basically. So he would be asked to come aboard.” Margold mentions other possibilities, one of whom he calls a Midwestern version of him. “Anybody discarded by AVN would certainly be welcome with open arms,” Margold says, suggesting that Tod Hunter would also be welcome. “I know he doesn’t care much for me but he seems to be a level-headed person and would probably be a lot of fun to have around.”

Margold says he’s not particularly clear on the Cindi Loftus situation, either, and the stories attempting to explain it were equally confusing. “What did she do to be banned from AVN? I can’t figure out what she wrote.”

It was suggested that a shit or get off the pot edict was issued to writers who were attempting to straddle the fences of industry loyalty by writing for a number of media outlets.

“We’ll take all of the people who have been sacrificed under our wing,” Margold ffers as a possibility. “And then it’ll be up to Holliday to sort them out and give them their positions of honor within what will be XRCO.” Margold also stipulated that no one from AVN would be a member of the new XRCO.

“I think that’s fair,” he states. “Let AVN runs its own unique, elitist situation. If they’re forbidding people to write for other publications, all they’re going to do is limit the quality of their magazine.”

Margold said it just dawned on him that the organization’s 20 years old. “That’s amazing. It was so much fun when it came into existence- it as so innocent and wide-eyed and so well-meaning. When it started, it looked into the teeth of a very powerful organization called the AFAA. This was before AVN even reared its head.”

Margold even remembers being told Capone mob-style by “the establishment” that they would not have their first show. The retaliation that evening was the lights mysteriously going out. Margold said the XRCO, nonetheless, carried through and held the show anyway with Shauna Grant on its shoulder.

There was a time, according to Margold, when he felt the organization got too big for its britches. “I came up with the concept of F.O.X.E. because nobody seemed to care about the fans. So I just went off and put together that organization which never had to vote for anything but performers, which I think are the purest form of awards. Because the fans can’t be corrupted. Critics unfortunately can suckle on one tit or another somewhere along the line and be indebted. But fans are not indebted to anybody but what they jack off to.”

Another aspect to be considered in the whole XRCO miasma is that Margold recently lost his position with Free Speech. “It was under suspicious circumstances which will be revealed in due time.” Margold said there was no way anyone could have anticipated what happened to him. “I just simply resigned from Free Speech because Free Speech was told they’d be receiving donations if I were gone. I felt maybe if there was a price on my head, they should cash in on it. But no one paid them anything.”

It was also suggested that an offer like that was an example of schmuck baiting at its best. Margold had to agree in hindsight.

“That to me is a violation of my honor because I did the honorable thing and that means I was dishonored by doing the honorable thing. But that’s a whole other story. I should never have resigned in retrospect.”

Margold said he continually aches over what he gave birth to. “I was very very much involved [with Free Speech]. A fourth of my life was given to the Free Speech Coalition- ten of the years I wasn’t even paid.” Margold feels the biggest mistake he made was accepting a salary, such as it was, the last five years. “I was a lot happier the first 10 years than I was the last 5. Once I learned you could make money doing this I began to feel horribly corrupt. I was a lot happier when I was doing it for the cause with no dollar signs.”

That’s why Margold says he’ll never except a dime from the PAW office. “This is my ultimate cause- watching over the performers.” Margold concedes that Free Speech is the only game in town but how much longer that game will be played, is debatable. “I don’t even know exactly what it really does. And if you ask them what they do, they’ll have a hard time telling you.”

Margold’s also of the opinion that Free Speech pays “overinflated salaries” to this day. “And I don’t think that’s right,” he says. “This was started as a volunteer organization. No one got paid except the secretary. Now there’s a lot of fingers in a very spare pie.”