There’s no way that today’s economy can support both AVN and XBiz. Both perform the same editorial function. Both rely on the good will of industry advertising which is not what it used to be, and one of them, in an all-out scrum is going to have to go.

Because there’s so much duplication of effort, if this were a real corporation or industry, a hatchet man would have already handed out the pink slips.

Lest you think I’m harping on any one in particular, the same shakeout is occurring right now between Adultcon and Victory Tradeshow Management, the owners of the Exxxotica shows. Today the LA Times wrote a pretty good story about a feud between the two entities that no one was apparently aware of.

But if XBiz keeps screwing up simple facts in its industry reportage, the question as to who goes, who stays, and who has the bigger dick, may be moot. Twice last week we saw it. Reporting on a lawsuit in which Pink Visual was being sued for alleged trademark infringement, it was clear that XBiz had not read the lawsuit cover to cover, or, if it had, needed to change the batteries in its calculator. [AVN never bothered to report the story.]

XBiz stated that Pink Visual was being sued for $8.1M, but a quick read of the suit determined its value between $39.1M to $48M.

Rather than own up, XBiz just changed the original text by quietly removing the gaffe. Then it came out with another story, a fairly comprehensive one, announcing that the Free Speech Coalition was celebrating its 20th Anniversary.

Outside of Mark Kernes, I’m willing to bet that no one either on the XBiz or AVN staffs were around when the Free Speech Coalition got started. I guess you had to have been there.

Like Damon Runyon characters, porn company owners over at the Sportsmens Lodge were posturing, springing for drinks and making a vast show of pulling out fistfuls of hundred dollar bills. And everyone was relishing the good times past and the good times ahead.

There were prayer tent revival speeches about how the industry was going to create a “war chest” and lick the opposition in court. A king’s ransom was collected over the years, but no one ever bothers to ask what happened to all the dough. The XBiz article describes it as “frantic fundraising with nothing to show for it” – a quote attributed to lawyer Jeffrey Douglas.

And nowhere in XBiz’s obsequious history of the FSC is there anything but one passing reference to Gloria Leonard, which is embarrassingly negligent; a redaction of the Bill Lyon administration and a subsequent scandal is also amusing.

Because Bill Margold’s, www.billmargold.com also quoted in the article, I had a chat with him and walked away with the feeling that something in the XBiz piece was missing.

“I told Bob Johnson [the author of the XBiz piece] that it wasn’t the 20th anniversary of Free Speech and he writes that is,” states Margold.

“I have all the paperwork. I was there, I was at the bloodbath when Lenny [Friedlander] threatened me across the table and said he was going to take over the Adult Video Association, that it was finished and it was going to be called the Free Speech Coalition.

“I said that’s an amorphous name. He had no idea what amorphous meant. I said, well, that’s because you’ve never been to college. Then we had huge fights about it. Theoretically the Free Speech Coalition comes into legitimate existence in the Fall of 1992.

“I’m on the board, but then of course comes Pinky Stolbach and Chuck Zane and other people,” Margold continues.

“I think Zane had a whole bunch of his people join so they could vote. I likened it to rubber dolls joining and Zane laughed at me. Then, of course, I went to Las Vegas and with the Pure Pleasure bust www.adultfyi.com/read.php?ID=2998 everything went haywire.”

Margold claims Free Speech had “extorted” money from Pure Pleasure only the summer before. Margold says he has paperwork backing up his claim and when Free Speech saw the evidence said, “I guess you’re one of us now.”

“I then made the fatal mistake of bringing Jeffrey Douglas in 1994 and everything changed.”

At this point Margold’s not sure if anyone gives a rat’s ass about the discrepancy in dates concerning the 20th anniversary.

“But it scares me. I gave him [Johnson] everything he needed. I even had the information validated by Al Bloom and Mara Epstein and he still runs it.”

Regarding Adultcon and its apparent feud with Victory Tradeshow Management, I could paint an unflattering picture of Renaud West, but I’ve got a feeling the mainstream media’s going to pick up on it sooner or later, and then we’ll really have some laughs.

I remember one year when Adultcon was locked out of a venue at Hollywood Park because of the porn factor and had to set up a bunch of tables on the quick in Larry Flynt’s poker parlor. And it seems venue has become an issue again.

Adultcon has been setting up camp at the LA Convention Center for a number of years but is now squawking over the fact that Exxxotica LA and the Everything to Do with Sex Show also get floor space there as well. In what sounds like a pretty lame assessment, West tells the Times that it’s confusing to the public.

I’d debate that issue because the porn public definitely knows one show from the other. It might also be the fact that, like Erotica LA, Adultcon has seen its better days.

Besides, a lawsuit filed a couple of years ago by several Big Beautiful Women over alleged discriminatory policies didn’t help Adultcon’s standing in the porn community either. www.adultfyi.com/read.php?ID=33324

Also called into question at the time was the legality of Adultcon, a Nevada Corporation, operating a business in the state of California.

Just last year Adultcon billboards on school district property drew the ire of citizens in El Monte California who didn’t want to be associated with the event. And Adultcon just settled another lawsuit- this one with Exxxotica over who has the right to 19 domain names that included the terms exotica and exxxotica.

In the Times article, West, threatening to pick up his marbles and go home, said he requested that no other adult entertainment shows open within three months of his expo because he feared the other expos would dilute the audience for everyone. West, as a result, is pulling his shows from the LA Convention center.

J. Handy, director of Victory Tradeshow Management, which produces Exxxotica, said his show came to Los Angeles to fill the void left by Erotica LA [a rug AVN and Paul Fishbein literally pulled out from attorney Ron Miller’s feet www.adultfyi.com/read.php?ID=566 ]

Handy also believes that Adultcon has tried to keep Exxxotica out of Los Angeles because of fear of competition.

Comparing Adultcon to Exxxotica, Handy says, “We are the Mall of America and they are the flea market down the street.”

Sooner or later, advertisers are going to have to make the same choice between AVN and XBiz and who’s the flea market.