Porn Valley- Oh his aching back. I was talking to Big Bob [pictured lower left with the baseball cap] at Dane Productions, www.daneproductions.com Monday morning, and he must have had some weekend. In his own version of the KSEX games, Bob zigged when he should have zagged – with his date on top of him. Bob, who for the time being is wearing a beard, laughs because he’s never the bottom in these bedroom equations. This one time he was.

“I keep shaving it [the beard] off; but I’ve got about three people I’m seeing and they like it,” he says. “Besides I’m too lazy. What am I shaving for any more? I’m getting to be an old guy and miserable.”

From talking to him, you get the impression that Bob’s been in the adult business all his life, but not so. He was a clothier for 40 years with some men’s stores in California and Las Vegas.

“I used to dress people, now I undress them,” he laughs. Bob said he made a decision to leave the “rag” trade behind when stores like Nordstrom Rack opened. I asked him if he ever did TV commercials like you see with Men’s Warehouse. Bob says yes that he did a few with Joe Namath when he was a much younger man, obviously.

“He used to be a spokesman for us at one time,” explains Bob. “We hired him back in the Seventies along with [actor] James Darren.

“At the time he was very popular,” says Bob.

“That’s at the time they had Sharkskin suits,” I remind him.

“That’s exactly right- two pants Sharkskin suits- a long time ago.” In any event, Bob decided to retire when Sansabelt pants stopped being a big ticket item.

“I also carried a lot of stuff for the heavier guy,” he laughs. “The heavier guy was forgotten in this industry. And we had the plastic pants, the plastic shirts. That’s what I called the polyester. The two sisters- Poly and Ester. But it got to the point where I couldn’t compete any more. I said this is ridiculous.”

Bob knew Ed Cohen of Dane Productions from the fact that Cohen was a customer of many years.

“He said why don’t you come with me- I go what do I know about this stuff? I know nothing about selling this kind of product. He said you sell something you can sell any thing.” Which Bob is basically doing.

“I’m trying to give the service that I gave in the men’s industry,” reasons Bob. “Then I found out- like a lot of businesses, more so in this business- people think that because it’s porn you don’t have to pay for it. So we’re chasing our money all over the place which is ridiculous. That’s what we do all day long- chase money.”

“Tell me about the multi-billion dollar industry,” I ask him. Bob roars.

“Right, where is it? I want to know,” replies Bob. “I sure haven’t seen it. But what’s amazing to me is so many parties every week. I don’t know where the hell they’re getting the money for all these parties. I don’t know how the hell they’re doing it. The booze is free and there’s hundreds of people. But more power to them. We’re trying to keep our head above water and we are.

“We’re going in a different direction,” Bob explains. “We’re doing Dane Hardcore Plus which is something I thought about for our customers that want something a little bit edgier, something that Dane’s not known for. We just finished shooting our first one which will be coming out in another month. We hired Raven to shoot it for us. He does a lot of mainstream stuff and has various credentials from the regular industry. Then we hired this IM Reel who also shoots for Rod Fontana and does some hardcore stuff; then we also have Dmitri working for us. And we’re basically looking for girls that are totally different from what Dane’s ever hired. We’re going into girls that are totally hardcore, totally out there and totally free with everything, sexually. And we’ve got some real good girls that have shot for us.”

Bob’s also got this thing about VHS which some might look at as the polyester pants of the adult industry. Except Bob claims he’s been selling a shitload of tapes ever since he made the announcement of their availability.

“We’re very strong right now on VHS,” he says. “Everybody says it’s dead but we’re getting calls for it. We decided to make up 5,000 pieces back in August and we sold them in less than a week. To make a long story short, this is the beginning of December, and we’ve sold 30,000 pieces already. We’re going to try and stock 2500 to 5,000 pieces here all the time because people still want them and we get calls for it. We have 100 titles and we saved all the boxcovers so we have the covers. As long as the covers hold out, we’ll make the films and there’s a demand for them.”

I didn’t think there was still anyone in the VHS replication business but Bob claims there is.

“But we do have to pay cash for it,” he states. “So when we do sell the VHS product we tell the customer it has to be COD because we are paying cash. And people are nice and they’re doing it. And the people that have ordered are re-ordering, so it is selling.”

“Next you’ll be telling me Laser Disc is on its way back,” I tell him.

“That’s possible,” he laughs. “But it’s funny how the industry says this is dead and this is dead. Yet people still want them.” And Bob is a firm believer in listening to what the customer wants.

“We try to fill their needs accordingly plus we’re putting in a tremendous One-Stop and getting the product for people. I’m just having fun with it and people know I’m not a pressure salesman. I talk to them. I tell them what I have. If they want to buy, fine. When they’re ready they’ll call me for product; and they do.”

Even with 40 years in another trade, Bob said the adult industry really opened his eyes. He observes the end of his own marriage as an example.

“I was married for a very long time and that kind of started falling apart after I got into this business,” he notes. “Not that it had a direct correlation but it was a big part of it. You grow out of love and the kids are grown and it just kind of happened. I got into a relationship with somebody and that ended badly. But now things are good except for my back. I realized that I’m not 25 anymore. What can I say? The mind says yes but the body says no.”

Bob thinks he was a pretty good kid growing up in New York.

“I was basically a grounded kind,” he continues. “My mom was a single mom raising me in New York. I was a latchkey kid. I had a key around my neck- I grew up on my own, basically doing everything on my own, fending for myself. My grandparents raised me. My mom was always working.”

Then one of Bob’s friends passed away from Muscular Dystrophy. And that would change Bob’s life considerably. He became very active in the Jerry Lewis telethon even at a young age.

“This is my 49th year of helping people and it’s my passion,” he states. “This is more of passion to me than working or anything. I feel that we’re so close to getting a cure and I want to see it in my lifetime. I think stem cell research is going to be a great thing if we can get that on the burner right now.”

In another vein, Bob lost his virginity when he was around 16 and says it was terrible.

“It was a girl named Lynn Cherry,” he recalls. “She was about my age. It was the day we set the clocks back in Fall. Her parents were out and we did it on her living room floor. I remember the night exactly. It hurt like hell- I couldn’t figure out why. Then the next morning I look and I had a rug burn and didn’t realize it. It wasn’t a good experience. She was a my high school sweetheart and she was very beautiful. We never did it, we got close but we were both alone for the first time. We couldn’t do it in a car. It was like an old Chevy.

“The worst time I did it with any girl is when I went to the drive-in and we saw The Ten Commandments. I felt so guilty and to this day, I thought it was a terrible thing to do. Thou Shalt Not Bang. I think about it to this day. Funny how it comes to mind. You always know where you were, and I knew because of The Ten Commandments. This was another girl. Her name was Bev Hollander and her father owned the New Yorker Bakery. I’ll never forget. They gave me a job there sweeping up the place and when it came to the Jewish High Holy days, they said take some stuff home to your family. She was a good girl, blond and very pretty and I used to pick her up at school- she was nice.”

Bob remembers another girl, Marilyn, who had no nipples at all.

“That sticks out in my mind,” he laughs. “She had brown but no nipples. That was weird. Nice girls and all part of very fond memories. But the first one you don’t forget. That was Lynn Cherry. I still have a feeling for her.”

Hard to believe, but Bob didn’t always want to sell suits. His early passion was to write.

“That’s why I come here in the morning and think of things that happened and write about them.” [I bust his balls because he always does it in CAPS.]

Bob mentions what happened to him this past Friday. He was about to leave for the day when a couple of girls walked into Dane. They had come all the way from Orange County, so he gave them the courtesy.

“They came in with their agent- very pretty girls,” he continues. “So I sat with them and I asked one of the girls what makes you think you can do this? Granted, you are beautiful. And the one girl proceeded to take the stapler off my desk and put it in places where staplers weren’t meant to go. I had never seen anything like this. A stapler’s kind of dangerous. And the other one starts eyeing my desk and she makes a beeline for my cell phone. I go it ain’t gonna happen, so she grabs my calculator and put it in there. After we talked a little bit they left and I sat here shocked. I had never seen anything like that. So I went home thinking what a business I’m in. This is crazy going from the rag business to this business. Sometimes I don’t even know what the hell I’m selling. But I’m just having fun with it and trying to help Ed out.”

Which also means attending a few functions.

“I go to about one every two weeks but sometimes it seems like every day,” Bob continues. “But I go to the ones I think are important to go to and support the people that support me, like Batman for example or Wankus- people that have helped us out.”

With the ongoing crunch of numbers in the industry, Bob feels the best way a company can go is with good, reliable service.

“It’s all service,” he says, offering an example. “I have a customer in Florida who has eight stores. He is within walking distance of IVD and he buys from me because we give him service, we pack it the way he wants it. Most companies when you order sell-through stuff they’re not going to take the time to pack it the way you want. They’re going to send you what they already got boxed up. We don’t do that. And that’s what it basically is, a service business. The companies that give the service are the ones that are going to stay in business. Which is what I was used to giving in my stores.””What is the biggest suit you ever sold?” I ask Bob.

“The suit was 76 portly,” he replies. “I had a pair of pants on my wall. We had a store on Van Nuys Blvd. many years ago. We had a size 80 pair of pants and it was on the wall. It was a pair of Levis. People wear those sizes, you’d be surprised. But the main problem is trying to hang them up. What kind of hanger do you put them on? You basically have to fold them and put them on a shelf, they’re that big.”

Bob remembers a time when a private school was one of his accounts and his store sold their uniforms.

“One day Michael Landon came in with his child,” he recalls. “I sent his child to the ladies dept. to be fitted. It turns out he was a boy. And here my gal Vera is trying to put a skirt on him. A good-looking kid but he looked like a girl.”And Bob will also tell you that celebrities are as bad as some of the companies in the adult industry that don’t pay their bills.

“They don’t even worry about their bills- they have them paid by somebody else,” he continues. “Shelly Berman’s another one. I don’t want to say anything bad but I had him come in one time. We had a problem with the account. A lot of people you think who have so much money don’t pay. And if they do, they don’t even know they’re paying. But it’s much the same in this industry.”

Although he hasn’t tried his hand at directing, Bob thinks he might like to try.

“I know the talent- maybe some day I will. I have certain ideas. I think we’ve got some very good talent in this new hardcore line.”