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Porn Valley- After 11 years of absence, I’m proud to announce that the URL GeneRoss.com has come back to daddy.

The website was launched in March 1999 as something of a counter-strategy to the anti-porn agenda going on at Luke Ford’s site. I always give Luke kudos for being the innovator, and it took nearly two years of convincing before AVN decided that maybe this web-thing was the right way to go.

After I left AVN and took off for Extreme Associates, Tod Hunter wrote for geneross.com while I continued doing my thing under the banner GeneRossExtreme.com.

When I talked to Luke a couple of weeks ago, we both came to the conclusion that the Internet’s nothing like it was in the Dodge City days when shootouts were a daily occurrence and dead bodies in the gossip wars piled up faster than you could bury them.

While I haven’t determined exactly what to do with the geneross.com domain, my suspicion is, at least for the time being, it’ll be devoted to archiving some of the wackiness Luke and I encountered. Then we’ll see what happens from there. In the meantime enjoy this story from October 3, 1999 when Rob Black and his goon squad invaded the AVN offices:

During a Monday mid-day press conference in which he announced his candidacy for the Los Angeles mayoralty race, Rob Black promised some other excitement with Extreme Associates’ highly publicized E-days beginning in October.

And that’s exactly what Black got when he was presumably arrested two hours later by two LAPD [or thugs dressed as LAPD] after storming the AVN lobby accompanied by ten Extreme Associates employees, clicking cameras and beaming with major attitude.

When asked what the cameras were about, Black said he wanted a record of how AVN has been systematically “screwing” his company. Black also insisted that AVN publisher Paul Fishbein was calling him a “deadbeat.”

Black immediately launched into a tirade of profanity and threats that would blanch a teamster, prompting someone from the office to call the cops.

Because Fishbein wasn’t in the office at the time, Black asked to see Gene Ross. When Ross came to the lobby, Black began a one-sided dialogue that consisted of exaggerated finger-pointing and snarling accusations among which that AVN was totally blasé about everything he was trying to do on behalf of his company.

Black particularly brought up the fact that AVN staffer Suzie Mid America had attended his press conference and seemed totally unimpressed judging by the way she “was rolling her fucking eyeballs.”

During the course of the press conference, Black played a videotape featuring him and his goon squad invading an AVN awards nominations’ meeting two years ago. At the time, with video cameras rolling, Black along with pro wrestler Bubba Ray Dudley entered Fishbein’s office unannounced, disrupting the AVN staff meeting.

Black had subsequently boasted that “someone famous” on that tape would be joining Extreme Associates. When pressed on the issue Monday afternoon, Black poked Ross and admitted that it was Dudley but said the whole effect was completely lost on Mid America who’s not a wrestling fan.

Ross advised Black to “get off the steroids,” that he was taking the wrestling-thing way too seriously. Black responded by taking a swipe at a lobby plant, knocking its contents to the floor. Simultaneously, an LAPD black & white showed up in the company parking lot. In a matter of split seconds, two cops rushed the lobby, pinned Black’s face against a wall, slapped handcuffs on him and took him out to the squad car.

It was later surmised that by the no questions-asked nature of the arrest, the “cops” may have been actors and that the event was staged to garner even more publicity for Black. Such bogus arrests are a commonplace feature in pro wrestling shows.

A follow-up call to the local police determined that there was no record of arrest that afternoon. Nevertheless, Fishbein, stressing that the safety of his employees was a paramount issue, filed a report with the police who admitted they couldn’t act unless Black returned and trespassed on private property.

The police said they couldn’t even press the issue of impersonating an officer unless someone from AVN had actually been involved.

“It looks like one of us,” said one of the cops.

The only other alternative, according to the police, was to file a vandalism report which turned out to be an assault on an Aeschynanthus longicaulis, a $35 plant that was sitting in the lobby minding its own business.

The police also suggested that Fishbein could file a restraining order. Fishbein said he’s planning it but realizes that’s exactly what Black probably wants him to do.

Fishbein stressed that never at any time did he refer to Black as a deadbeat.

“But he is a coward,” said Fishbein. “What kind of businessman settles a business issue by bringing 10 guys to someone’s office, with a video camera, puts on a show, tries to bully and intimidate the employees and then has his own arrest faked? We have the whole thing on tape from our security camera and if there was sound, I’d stream it on our web site. This is retarded.”

Fishbein was particularly miffed that Black hadn’t returned calls about money Black’s company owes AVN for past ads.

“I guess this started because I called Rob Black for money he owed AVN and he refused to return my phone calls,” Fishbein said.

“We’ve been doing a lot of business with Extreme, and my partner handles all the financial situations. This one got away from him, and I noticed that Extreme was several months behind in paying their bills. Since Rob wouldn’t call my partner back, and he had trouble getting Tom Byron on the phone, he asked me to call.

“I called Rob six times over three days,” Fishbein added.

“His guys took the messages. They told me he was out buying new turnbuckles for his wrestling ring or something. Anyway, he never called back. I told my partner to just handle it the way he would anyone else who was behind in their bills.

“Why didn’t Rob just answer the phone like a normal human being? All he had to do was pick up the phone and explain to me when he was going to pay his bill. That’s all I cared about. And, as I said to you, why should we continue to give him all this publicity when he won’t return calls.”

[Gene sez: “I got a phone call Sunday evening from Black who inquired if I was going to attend his press conference the following day. I told him, no, that Suzie Mid America was going to attend. Black immediately copped an attitude asking me if I was “too good” for him.

To which I responded that it appeared to be the other way around since at ECVS, Black’s Atlantic City goon squad headed by wrestler Big Dick Dudley found it incumbent upon them to flash daggers and create a barrier of ice, presumably in retaliation for a series of disgruntled employee articles that appeared on the geneross.com website in recent weeks.

“Truth be told, Black hadn’t been that upset about those stories but conceded it would be good publicity if it seemed that way. Atlantic City, however, was a totally different thing when the Black crew turned on its patented street thug charisma.”

Those facts were brought to Black’s attention. And I also relayed to him Fishbein’s concern about Extreme catching up with their bills, the alternative being they’d be cut off from publicity as one recourse, notwithstanding legal action.

“Black immediately went into a tirade claiming that the company had caught up and passed the phone to Byron who mumbled about checks being delivered to the AVN office. Over the next forty minutes Black and Byron alternated discourse, with the situation getting so muddled, it resembled a dialogue with Leo Gorcey and Huntz Hall.

“I told Black it would be in his best interests to come into the office and talk the situation over rationally. As if implying a threat, Black said he’d be in Monday afternoon after the press conference. Fishbein also confirmed that Byron had delivered some money to the office, previously.]

“Tom Byron brought some checks in,” Fishbein continued, “but it was only a little bit of money. Gene, you and I spoke about this and I guess you tried to help. I said to you, ‘these guys want all this extra publicity on the web sites and in the magazine and why should we cater to them when they won’t even pay their bills.’

“I suggested to you that you don’t go out of your way for them and I guess you expressed that to Rob and Tom.

“Everyone wants publicity, so why should he [Black] get more? ” Fishbein continued.

“Extreme has had more publicity than any one company over the past couple years and that’s fine when they make news. We’ll review everyone’s tapes and report on real news, even if we don’t do business with people. We’ll always review their tapes. But why jump on the publicity bandwagon when the guy won’t even give me the courtesy to return calls.

“Why didn’t he discuss this like a man?” Fishbein went on to say.

“Yesterday [the lobby incident’ was the act of a coward. He comes in here with ten guys to try and intimidate me? No such luck. Hey Rob, this is real life, not professional wrestling. One return call and this would be avoided. Instead, all you did was scare my employees.

“So we filed a police report and my lawyer told me to get a restraining order. You know what, I have to protect my employees. If it’s just me, I could give a shit. You know what, I’m not interested in playing a wrestling game. I’m running a business. Just pay your bills. When you have news, let us know. Cut the bullshit. Maybe he has time for this, but I don’t.

“So Rob, since you only deal well when you have henchmen and you can’t pick up the phone like a human being, I ask you in public. Are you going to pay your bills? If we’re done doing business, that’s fine with me. Do you want to handle this like gentlemen? I’m not interested in participating in your show.

“And you owe me $35 for the plant and you should apologize to my employees who you tried to intimidate and offended. Are you a businessman or are you Lou Albano?”

By the way, Black’s press conference earlier in the day was attended by several industry journalists including AVN’s Suzie Mid America. Part of the press conference was the announcement that Black was running for mayor, that Extreme Associates was relaunching its website, extremeassociates.com with a completely new design.

Part of it was Black introducing the company’s new foil boxcover design.

Part of it was introduction of the company’s directors and their future projects. And part of it was a catfight that erupted between Jessica Darlin and Kristi Myst [pictured with yours truly] that Mid America said “didn’t look real and seemed fake – like wresting.”

“He was saying a lot of interesting things about what they’re doing with their new web site and other company stuff,'” Mid-America said.

“But every few minutes he kept breaking off from the subject to talk about AVN and how AVN has wronged him because he had to share a marketing award with Wicked, even though it was fairly voted on.”

About Black’s comment that she rolled her fucking eyeballs, Mid America said it was a natural reaction since she felt she had walked into an ambush at the press conference.

“All they kept talking about was how they were going to fuck up Paul Fishbein and Gene Ross,” she said.

Fishbein noted that he had a meeting scheduled Thursday with Byron to settle the money issue and that Byron, as far as he was concerned is the only member of Extreme welcome on AVN property.

“Tom’s a good guy,” Fishbein said.

“He’s the real deal, but I don’t know how he ever got involved with those dopes. If Tom Byron wants to get out of that insane asylum, there’s plenty of people that will do a deal with Tom Byron. Byron’s the only normal one there. I’ve been friends with Byron 18 years, and I can’t believe he’s putting up with this. He’s a great filmmaker, and his talent is being wasted there.”

Contacted this morning, Black said he had no comment. “Anything I say will be ‘ miscontruded’ anyway by you cocksuckers,” said Black.

Asked how much his bail was, Black again said no comment and that the only statements he’ll issue will be formal ones through his “fuckin’ publicity retard, Tom Zupko.”