Hi all,
"Daze In The Valley" was meant to be fiction -- at least most of it was meant to be fiction.
Still, in the time since I started to write it (2007) a great many portions have turned out to be prescient.
1) The file-sharing fiasco.
I wrote that section before the whole SOPA, PIPA, Megaupload fiasco. I'm a little disheartened at how our federal government has taken it upon themselves to police the Internet. It is frightening to me to consider that a bunch of 60-year-old, tight-assed old men with one hand on their secretaries' asses and the other in the pockets of their benefactors has the power to stall a huge segment of online activity. That is just my personal opinion, by the way, so don't send the FBI to my house with a no-knock warrant because I have an illegal copy of the latest "Harry Potter" movie.
I do believe, as I wrote, that copyrights are worthless in the digital age. The dinosaurs in D.C. seem intent upon protecting the profits of the multi-millionaires in L.A., who are crying poor and threatening to lay off the lowest-paid employees they have in what can only be described as a temper tantrum.
Still, the movie industry has enough money to pay some essentially worthless actor or actress $35 million to film a picture; the television industry routinely pays its actors and actress $250,000 per 23- or 44-minute episode; the literary industry can afford a $3 million advance to a writer who hasn't had a unique story since the 1980s. Perhaps the Occupy Wall Street gang should move over to Rockefeller Center and head out to Hollywood. Oh, that's right: they're looking at a different segment of the "1 percent." They all land in the same boat, if you ask me (which you didn't).
2) The non-agency and educated starlet.
Again, when I started the story, it was almost unheard of for an actress to work for long without an agency (or a suitcase pimp) to represent her. Now it is coming more and more prominent. Some of the biggest young stars are going without representation, preferring to make and schedule their own bookings. I hope this is a wave of the future because, from what I've read, one of the biggest factors in shortening the careers of female performers is the agent assigned to her. There also appears to have been an influx of better-educated talent -- or they have a great P.R. machine working for them -- if the posts on some of the chat sites are any indication. That portends well for the future, too.
3) The fall of AIM (or AMS in my story) and the rise of condoms.
In summer 2011, AIM mistakenly identified (apparently publicly) a performer they thought to be HIV positive. It turned out to be a false-positive but the damage was done. The industry called for restrictions on what AIM could do and I read last month that mandatory condom usage in the adult industry has been been proposed and passed a first reading in Los Angeles City Council. Studios and performers have already said they will move the industry from the city. Other U.S. cities are already lining up for the influx of cash that would come from moving the adult industry outside of Los Angeles (and completely ignoring the rash of problems that it will bring with it).
4) Softening the product (no pun intended)
In the past year and half, many web sites have purposefully moved away from the Gonzo element of porn. Sites such as X-Art and Only Blowjob took the lead. Now places like New Sensations have launched a series of "Romance" porn films and even compilation web sites have added one or two sites that feature less ass-slapping and choking and more sexual content like the rest of the world seems to participate in.
5) The non-nude model brigade.
When I wrote the section about Rita Looker and Cassie Charms moving from "modeling" to adult entertainment, it was pure fiction. I searched and searched to find someone who had "taken the plunge." Now there are more than a dozen starlets who started in "non-nude" modeling and have worked their way up to hardcore. Most prominent among them is Lily LaBeau. They are bringing a ready-made set of fans with them. Sadly, Lily LaBeau does not appear to have taken advantage of that fact (or she enjoys the harder-edged portion of pornography, because she certainly doesn't shy away from it).
So, it seems my time was wasted in writing "Daze In The Valley." I should have sent the story to Porn Valley and perhaps I could have reaped some of the benefits of the changes and been seen as a "soothsayer" for the next big wave to hit porn.
Oh well, at least I can still steal things from a few of the file-hosting sites for another week or two.
Alas,
Jay C.