Porn Valley- Adhering to the old chestnut that no p.r. is bad p.r., Vivid’s Steve Hirsch was on the Adam Carolla Show Friday morning collecting chestnuts.
Hirsch had an agenda. Carolla obviously had an agenda. Hirsch wanted to promote the Kim Kardashian tape and the fact that Vivid’s got it.
“I thought we were going to talk about how great the tape is and how excited you guys are,” commented Hirsch after 30 minutes of brutal, courtroom-style grilling.
Carolla, on the other hand, wanted to talk about the sleazy, back alley deals that bring such tapes out in the open. Hirsch wasn’t budging on some points and Carolla was getting annoyed that Hirsch wasn’t more forthcoming about the sleazy, back alley deals. At the same time, it was also annoying listening to Carolla, circuitous and argumentively stupid throughout the entire discussion. Here’s what happened.
Hirsch phoned in around 7:30 AM PT. Hirsch said Vivid was going to distribute the Kardashian tape and Carolla immediately asked him how it worked.
“Legally- and I’m sure she’s planning a lawsuit, because her father before he was deceased, was an attorney, one of OJ’s attorneys- she plans on suing, does she not?” Carolla asked.
“That’s what we’ve heard,” Hirsch replied.
“How does it work legally?” Carolla continued. “I don’t know how the Tommy Lee-Pam Anderon one worked. I don’t know how the Paris Hilton tape worked. How does it work through the eyes of the law?”
“I’m not going to get into all of that stuff,” Hirsch answered. “We have signed a confideniality but we were approached about a month ago with the tape. It came along with some documentation our attorneys took a look at and gave us the go ahead.”
Danny Bonaduce who’s co-hosting the show, told Hirsch he believed tapes like those are given “to you and people like you by the celebrities who then act outraged that they were stolen somehow- you pay them a million dollars whatever it is under the table and you both sign contracts and you promise to never tell that this was a legitimate business arrangement.”
Carolla wondered aloud if Pam Anderson gave up her tape with that purpose. Bonaduce thought she had.
“Maybe it’s because I’m sane I can’t imagine that she would,” said Carolla. “You’ve got money in the bank. You don’t need the publicity. Why are you handing this tape out?”
According to Bonaduce, that was the genius of it, he of the belief that Anderson’s career was in the tank.
“She was going away,” Bonaduce said. “So was Tommy Lee.”
Hirsch said he was enjoying the conjecture. His pleasant demeanor would soon change, though, as the discussion got more testy.
Carolla assumed there were specifics about the Kardashian arrangement that Hirsch couldn’t get into.
“How does that work?” Carolla again asked.
Hirsch said he didn’t distribute the Paris Hilton tape so he couldn’t comment on the arrangements there.
“I bet you have some idea of how it really works,” Carolla continued.
Hirsch insisted that he didn’t. Asked if he had a secret “deal” with Kardashian, Hirsch said he appreciated the “cynicism” but said it wasn’t the case.
Bonaduce went on to opine that this being a litigious society, it would be easy for Kardashian or whoever to lock these tapes up in court.
“You can freeze the guys assets by saying something to the court- you don’t have to prove anything. And then you just sit there until the court says you didn’t do anything. My thought is that most of these big celebrities can put a stop to these tapes being delivered if they truly wanted to.”
Hirsch responded by saying that appeared to be what Kardashian was going to do.
“If you make a tape you have to expect at some point it may come out,” added Hirsch. Carolla and company then jumped on that comment, arguing rights of privacy.
[Carolla might have to check court rulings to discover that celebrities tend to forego those rights.]
“Why do you have to expect that?” Carolla wanted to know.
“I have a safe and a dog and a gun,” Bonaduce added.
“It’s like saying if you own a Rolex you have to expect some day it’s going to be stolen,” Carolla argued. “I wouldn’t have that expectation.”
“I guess that the point I was making is that don’t make a sex tape then you don’t have to worry about it,” said Hirsch, a remark that seemed to singe Carolla’s feathers. Carolla brought up the Rolex argument a second time, then added a Mercedes to the right-to own pot.
“Don’t you think people have the right to have things that they own that they don’t want to share with the rest of society?”
Hirsch repeated that he wasn’t going to get into the specifics of the Kardashian deal.
“That was a very general question,” Carolla replied. “I asked a question that couldn’t be more general. Could you answer it please?”
“If we were not comfortable that we could put this tape out…,” Hirsch started to say.
“That’s got nothing to do with the question,” Carolla interjected sarcastically. “Thank you for answering the question I didn’t ask. The question I asked is do you believe or do you not believe that people are allowed to own things that they don’t want to share with the rest of sociey?”
“That may be,” conceded Hirsch.
“A second ago you said you shouldn’t have made the tape if you didn’t want everyone to see it,” Carolla went on to say.
“My point was very simple,” replied Hirsch. “We wouldn’t be having this discussion if there wasn’t a tape made in the first place. That’s all I’m saying.”
“And if they didn’t make airplanes, John-John Jr. would still be allowed,” said Carolla grasping for pointless, philosophical straws.
“Okay, I understand what you’re saying,” said Hirsch, his voice searching for some middle ground of appeasement.
“I’m not going to get into the legality of it…here’s the bottom line…”
“I’m just extending your logic, that’s all,” argued Carolla. “According to your logic, they shouldn’t have made the tape if they didn’t want it shared with the rest of society. So I’m asking what else shouldn’t you have.”
[At this point a referee should have blown the whistle and penalized Carolla 15 yards for beating a dead horse.]
“Should you not make a quilt if you don’t want the quilt taken and stolen?”
“Look, people make sex tapes, the tapes come out,” Hirsch answered. “I don’t want to go into the specifics.”
Carolla began mocking Hirsch about his “rap.”
“That’s why we’re speaking in generalities for that one reason. You have to adjust your rap for the conversation you’re having. We’re asking general questions. You’re saying if people make a sex tape they deserve to have it shown to other people on the Internet.”
“No, I’m saying if people didn’t make a sex tape then there would be no chance that it would be shown on the Internet,” Hirsch stated.
“You’re one of these guys who sees a car with the window rolled down,” Carolla continued, “sees a briefcase in it, grabs it from the passenger seat and says if the window wasn’t rolled down, that guy would still have his briefcase right now. Yes?”
Bonaduce told Hirsch he wasn’t against him nor was he completely disagreeing with him.
“I think celebrities have sold a certain part of their privacy- that’s what they did in exchange for money,” Bonaduce added. “But if in fact they made a private tape which they did not want shown to anybody then the tape would had to have been gotten by illegal gain if you will. Somebody had to appropriate that tape and then gotten it to you. That’s where you and I run into a moral conundrum.”
Carolla, who in fact was using retarded logic, said he wasn’t against Hirsch but retarded logic.
“I want to know how this stuff works but I feel like you’re kind of defensive about it. We can’t even scratch the surface.”
Regardless of specifics, Carolola assumed that Hirsch would be making more than enough off the tape to cover legal contingencies.
“Would that be close?”
“I guess we’ll have to see,” said Hirsch.
Bonaduce, like millions, probably, wondered if Kardashian was that big of a star to warrant all this attention and money.
“I’m not completely clear who this person is.” It was then explained to him.
“Is that good enough for you- the daughter of a lawyer?” Bonaduce wondered. “If he were still alive I’ll bet this would not be frugal, financially. This would not be financially prudent. He was a good lawyer and would bury you.”
“We also have good lawyers,” said Hirsch.
“But those lawyers are not working for their daughter’s honor,” Bonaduce reminded him.
Conceding that they didn’t have good lawyers repping the station, Carolla wanted to know within the boundaries of good taste if Hirsch could talk about what’s on the tape. Hirsch said it was about 45 minutes long of which 30 minutes is explicit sex.
“I know there’s been some rumor out there that there’s some extremely kinky sex,” Hirsch went on to say. “I guess you’d have to define kinky. But I don’t think what people are saying is on the tape, is actually on the tape. But I will say that the quality is crystal clear, perfect, unlike some of the other tapes that have been out there. This one you can actually see what’s going on.”
“The Paris Hilton-stuff is like some CNN reporters embedded with night rangers over in Iraq and they’re going on a recon mission. You can’t tell anything that’s going on over there,” mused Carolla. “But this thing looks like it was profesionally lit, and professionally shot. Is there a third person in the room that’s working the camera or is it just set up on a tripod?”
Hirsh said he didn’t know and Carolla sounded very skeptical.
“I don’t know if it was on a tripod,” clarified Hirsch sounding annoyed. “There was not a third person in the room. I think that he was holding the camera and she was holding the camera. That’s what it looks like to me.”
According to Hirsch, the tape is available February 28th through local video stores and online at either www.vivid.com or www.kimksuperstar.com.
Carolla made another wise crack about it being Black History month.
“You’re a tough group over there,” Hirsch commented.
“Well, look, Steven, please- you should listen to yourself every once in awhile,” said Carolla. “You’re ridiculous. The problem is we’re smart and you’re not used to talking to smart people, evidently.”
Hirsch at this point said he wasn’t going to go over old ground with Carolla.
“Steven, you’re a delight- has anyone every told you that?” snapped Carolla.
“I have been told that, actually,” said Hirsch. Carolla said he couldn’t understand why Hirsch was put off by the discussion of the tape.
“I’m just curious how the protocol works and how the legal system works,” he added. “Something like this I think would be almost impossible to do legally. Yet it can be done. How is it done legally? Just in general legal terms?”
“Sometimes there may be a third party involved,” replied Hirsch. “That’s all I’m going to say.” Hirsch opened up a can of worms by mentioning the fact that the Pam and Tommy Lee tape was brought to him by a third party.
“They had all of the legal documents- we felt comfortable with it. We distributed it.”
[If that’s the case, it refutes Lee’s contention that the tape was stolen.]
Hirsch was told that it was “ethically uncomfortable” what he was doing to Kardashian.
With Hirsch’s mention of “documentation” concerning the Anderson tape, Carolla wondered if there was a settlement or lawsuit.
“These things seem to go away is what I’m saying. Did this one go away or is it still pending?”
“We were never sued on Pam and Tommy,” said Hirsch. “I believe that the person who originally acquired the tape at some point was sued.”
“According to them it was a construction worker [Rand Gautier]- cause that’s how the legal system really works,” added Bonaduce. “You go after the construction worker, not the big video store.”
The Rolex argument surfaced for a third time and Carolla said he wasn’t getting a satisfactory answer.
“I feel if I was chained to Steven Hirsch with a bottle of scotch to a lamppost, I would never get a goddamn answer out of him, stated Carolla ending the discussion.
“Steven, you’re doing the Lord’s work, brother.”
After Hirsch got off the phone, Bonaduce said there are “scummy people in the world.”
“There’s no two ways about it and he [Hirsch[ is in fact one of them. If he had a tape of Anna Nicole Smith it would be out today.”