Has Gawker jumped the shark? Oh, wait. That's not the question here. Has porn jumped the shark? Yes. No. Well, maybe. As is the case with Gawker's long history of shark jumping, so, too, is the case with porno. People have been declaring its demise for, oh, a decade now, I suppose. I'd venture it started in the late 90s when porno chic went mainstream. More recently, Reuters, Portfolio, and the Times have been singing a funeral dirge for the porn industry, casting porn as Jonah and the internet as the whale. (Will the porn industry ask for forgiveness and be vomited out from the belly of the beast? I remain dubious.) Personally, I think porn jumped the shark when the Times sent one of its own to cover the porn awards in Vegas. This year, at the 25th Annual AVN Awards, everyone was there. And Jenna Jameson retired. Well, sort of. "I will never, ever, ever spread my legs again in this industry, ever." Ever? I guess if she says it three times, she must really mean it. In all likelihood, Jameson chose this wording not because she is mildly retarded but because her agreement with the now Playboy owned Club Jenna precluded her from saying more. That is, everyone in the porn industry knows she hasn't made a movie in years, but Jay Grdina wasn't going to let his cash cow walk away without some scenes in the can, which he'll likely be releasing in the future. It's like porn retirement snuff. Sort of. Or something. I have to say, that's not the retirement speech Bob in Marketing gave last year at Red Lion. His was better. Looking over the reports, I thought the whole thing sounded kind of depressing. When I went years ago, it was, well, interesting. Today, it's like seeing your junkie ex-girlfriend, and you look in her eyes, and you know she's using again. (Not that I have one of those. I'm just sayin'.) And this guy. Playing standing at a distance Joe Reporter for the public while I'll probably get a letter from him about his real experience of that night at some point in the future. Oh, the hypocrisy. Relatedly, RC pal John S. sent me an email pointing me to a new book by Chuck Palahniuk, Snuff, coming this May from Doubleday. Amazon.com: "Cassie Wright, porn priestess, intends to cap her legendary career by breaking the world record for serial fornication. On camera. With six hundred men. SNUFF unfolds from the perspectives of Mr. 72, Mr. 137, and Mr. 600, who await their turn on camera in a very crowded green room. This wild, lethally funny, and thoroughly researched novel brings the huge yet underacknowledged presence of pornography in contemporary life into the realm of literary fiction at last. Who else but Chuck Palahniuk would dare do such a thing? Who else could do it so well, so unflinchingly, and with such an incendiary (you might say) climax?" Uh, who else? Indeed. I want to know what bespectacled editor wrote that jacket blurb. Or maybe it was Chuck. When gangbangs get literary, it's hard to know what to think. I like how the publisher goes to pains to declare the book "thoroughly researched." O RLY, Gerry? I was on set at the shooting of "The World's Biggest Gang Bang III," and I do not remember seeing Chuck there. Evan Wright was there, though. Must have prepared him for Iraq. I wonder if Snuff will be optioned as a movie. Perhaps Michael Bay could direct. After all, he used to date gangbang queen Houston. I'm sure ScarJo would be a great Carrie. And del Toro could be Mr. 600. Has porn jumped the shark? I suppose that remains to be seen. Either way, before you get into the porn business, a good porn agent, if there is such a thing, will tell you one truth. Porn is forever. O RLY.
