The first chapter chronicles Zak Sabbath (then named Zak Smith) falling for Joanna Angel (weirdly called Joanna Divine for the purpose of this book) while painting her. In the first chapter, Zak describes his date with Joanna Angel with a self-deprecating but knowing sense of humor. He is smitten and she has sex with some other guy in the restaurant bathroom in the middle of their date and then cries at the table and the table is shaped like a bed. New York seems to have weird restaurants where you can spend a Valentines Day in bed at a restaurant. This was a creatively very productive date, as Joanna Angel and Burning Angel got the Fuck Me in the Bathroom DVD and site out of it and Zak got the kickstart for his We Did Porn book out of it.

The books goes on to chronicle what Zak seems to view as his descent into porn. He points out his fine art cred in a way which is funny and entertaining to read, but it also kind of seems like he is trying to suggest he is somehow better than many of the other people working in porn. He credits some porn people as sharing his love of author Thomas Pynchon and stuff like that, but there is the sense that he mentions the exceptions. It is possible that, because his focus is altporn, he really is talking about the exceptions.

It is hard to explain, but it is like the book gets less smart once Zak starts making porn and not just painting pornstars. Like, in the part where he talks about dating Joanna Angel, he has analogies from other forms of media and he seems really self-aware and like he knows what’s what and is speaking to universal truths. In the part where he talks about making porn, there is a lot of stuff which just does not ring true. Like Zak keeps talking about how porn is the biggest business in the whole world, when I don’t think you have to know that much about business to know that can’t be right. Blue Blood‘s Amelia G did a whole comparative breakdown of complex industry benchmarks to demonstrate how wrong it is to say porn is the hugest industry, but, although understanding what a market capitalization is might be over my head, I still knew while reading We Did Porn that what Zak was saying about how rich porn makes everyone had to be wrong. Zak says he is bad at doing porn, so maybe it would make sense that he is not rich from porn, but most of the people he writes about do not seem rich either, so I do not know where he got the idea. Everybody makes mistakes, but, when I see one super wrong thing where someone is supposed to be expert, it makes me question everything else I read there.

I think that the other thing which made the later parts of We Did Porn harder to read was the way everyone had a fake name. I think most porn performers use a stage name or a bunch of stage names to begin with, but Zak calls almost everyone by a second fake name. Maybe the book publisher didn’t want to give like Burning Angel publicity, so it had to be called Divine Things with Joanna Divine or something like that. It makes it harder to read though because every page had me trying to figure out who I was reading about. This is probably not so much of an issue for someone who knows nothing about altporn and doesn’t care who Joanna Angel is or for something who is really expert in altporn, especially video altporn, and can easily tell who all the fake stage names are referring to.

One of the biggest porn films Zak Sabbath performed in was Hospital (called Medical in Zak Smith’s memoir). APN’s Domina Doll wrote up Hospital when it came out. I can’t seem to find much Zak Sabbath porn since Hospital was shot at the end of 2008. I know the title of the book is We Did Porn and not We Are Doing Porn, but I wonder if he quit or was forced into retirement. I am curious as to what the altporn video industry response to the book was. The book was favorably reviewed by Blue Blood, Penthouse, Fleshbot, and Girls Gone Wild Magazine. I didn’t know there was a Girls Gone Wild Magazine. Anyway, of those media companies which gave We Did Porn favorable reviews, none were mentioned in the book and I wonder what the people he wrote about think.

So I am on the fence about this book. Parts of it are hard to read and not very enjoyable and parts of it are easy to read and laugh out loud funny.

Has Joanna Angel ever worked for Vivid-Alt? I am 99% sure the answer is no. I think Joanna Angel did work for Vivid’s more gonzo lines in non-altporn roles, but she definitely worked in an altporn capacity for VCA after Hustler purchased the company. VCA was candid about getting inspiration for their alt titles both from original VCA titles like Cafe Flesh and from Blue Blood and SuicideGirls, going so far as to explicitly name their inspirations in DVD extras and press releases.

If Fleshbot had asked whether Club Jenna called their altporn imprint Undrgnd without vowels to avoid a trademark infringement lawsuit from Penthouse, that would have been a valid question. Penthouse did launch their largely unheralded Penthouse Underground altporn imprint some years ago. I’m not defending Penthouse as Penthouse Underground did tap porn director Guy Capo to direct for them and he was responsible for Gothsend, possibly the most awful embarrassing example of video altporn ever created. I have never seen a Penthouse Underground video, so they could be great, but the pedigree is questionable.

Back to Joanna Angel. Burning Angel has released video of her directly. Other more mainstream video companies with Joanna Angel in releases they have distributed include New Sensations, 3rd Degree, Digital Sin, Adam & Eve, Diabolic, Zero Tolerance, Video Team, Digital Playground, Mile High Xtreme, Red Light District, 5th Element, Evil Angel, Wicked, and even Penthouse, and of course Vouyer Media who is putting out her upcoming L.A. Pink feature.

Joanna Angel is a successful pornstar, so how is it derivative of Vivid-Alt for Club Jenna to hire her to do her job, a job she has already done successfully for many companies?

SpookyBlog writes:

Oh, so many moons ago, super babe Bella Starr made her debut on EroticBPM. Bella has just finished both a New York appearance and her Penthouse Club three city tour of St. Louis, MO and Denver, CO and Phoenix, AZ in support of her December holiday centerfold Penthouse Pet of the Month appearance in the magazine, photographed by Brett Bereny. Bella is a superstar now, but one who remains true to her roots, still interacting with EroticBPM members online and even signing magazines for them. The Bella Santa photo here is from a holiday set L. Ron Knobi shot of the buxom blonde opening Haley as her present, photographed exclusively for EroticBPM.