Porn Valley- I couldn’t believe my ears when John Bowen back in December told me me he was cutting a deal to direct movies for a new company called Damaged Pictures, www.damagedpictures.com . Not because it was a new company, but because if books could be written, Bowen could be writing them about deals that have taken strange left turns and ended up in creek beds. Except in this case, Bowen may just have the luck of keeping his car finally on the road.

When Bowen was telling me about Blaine, the owner of Damaged Pictures, I’m going shit, that’s Blaine Hensler, what the fuck is Blaine doing starting up a porn company.

And Hensler was saying basically the same thing to me when I was over at his place this afternoon. Hensler, whose reputation in the industry is federal reserve note dependable, started with VCA and Russ Hampshire in 1985. For the longest time Hensler ran Trach Tech. But when Hensler tells me about the additional three years he spent over at Leisure Time under contract – like it was going over to the dark side – I ask Hensler what Mark Carrier is really like. Hensler cracks up. Even now you hear Blaine slipping comments into the conversation about how Russ wouldn’t have done this, or Russ wouldn’t have done that. Russ being a guy who worked on the precepts of honor and loyalty. Hensler who pretty much does things by those same two principles, probably had a good teacher.

Having spent most of his adult career running authoring/replication/duplication, Hensler, who starts shipping product February 9 with a movie called Anal Hazard, sees no reason why he can’t take the production end of the business under his wings and make it work just as well. Especially when he has the luxury of full control of the product, start to finish.

I meet his partner Steve who’s going to be handling the art work, the boxcovers, the website and coming up with DVD designs and extras that can allow Hensler to make statements like “this will rival anything that Digital Playground has”. Maybe even coming up with a director like Nic Andrews. Hensler’s telling me he’s looking at a guy new to the business, who’s shot for Playboy and has a Nic Andrews style. Has a meeting Saturday with him.

Hensler’s currently building a stable of directors and Bowen who’s already finished his first movie for the company is calling it Tabu. Bowen’s saying this is his break out movie which is funny to hear from a guy who’s also been in the business 20 years. But Bowen seems to think Tabu is going to be his defining work. If nothing else, at least from the sense of casting in which he’ll feature two sets of twins, a mother & daughter and a hermaphrodite.

Hensler, who’s already issued a no woman’s face in a toilet or a baseball bat up her ass edict, has his release schedule set up through July. Which is basically to say Damaged will be putting out one movie a week and with uncompromising anals and d.p. lest you think the withholding of a baseball bat or a toilet seat is a cop out. IFG’s also going to cover some of those releases with two gonzo titles a month. And there will be a fetish line with Steve telling me to expect one High-Def title per month as well.

I don’t know shit about Hi-Def with Lurid Entertainment telling me the other day that they’re editing on Hi-Def. Steve’s saying that goes basically the same for them. At the mention of Hi-Def, Hensler starts telling me a funny story about Nicole London, the queen of Hi-Def. Actually too funny for print because if I have the details right, London was running similar patterns of behavior by Hensler. She comes, she goes, she disappears. Hensler’s holding three of her masters and doubts whether London’s even aware of it. It is a funny story when you hear it in context.

But the thing that really killed me was running into Lewis Adams who I know from many a football gathering at Wankus’. Adams, it turns out, left JKP to run sales for Damaged. Came over Tuesday of this week in fact, one day past his two weeks’ notice. Had a big order to finish up at JKP, that’s the reason.

That would have been a funny question for Wankus to have run by Kelly who was on his KSEX show Tuesday night. Lewis Adams. Yeah, that would have been pretty funny. I hear Jill was shitting herself, especially after the Bizarre Video fiasco.

I’m saying to Adams there had to be some persuasive arguments to leave a publicly traded company like that. Adams was persuaded by Hensler’s integrity and reputation with a gut feeling that Hensler was going to do some big things. Of course, Adams knew Blaine from another company that Blaine did business with. And Adams says he jumped at the chance to work with the guy, Adams feeling at least safe in the belief that Damaged isn’t going to inundate the customer with crap.

Adams now begins the process of calling on distributors. And how many times do distributors get that call from a new company- give us a shot. C’mon, give us a shot. No, the pictures ain’t damaged. That’s the name of the company, man.