Las Vegas- The other day I’m having a chat with Ray Pistol, the boss man of Arrow Productions, www.xxxdeepthroat.com

I commend Pistol on his choice of Robert Interlandi as marketing director.

“He likes being the one out there on the point,” says Pistol. “He loves what he’s doing, and he’s a better front for the company than I am. Nobody wants to hear about old guys.”

“But the old guys got the real stories, the history,” I’m arguing with Pistol.

“People now don’t care about history,” he says. “If it didn’t happen while they’re watching, it didn’t happen.”

“Thank you very much, maybe I’ll just urinate on the parts of the book I’ve written so far, and call it a day,” I tell Pistol.

This weekend, Arrow will be presenting its new line of comic books based on their classic films at the Comic-con in San Diego.

“It’s kicking out in a different direction,” says Pistol. “And the energy drink, www.deepthroatenergy.com , we’re just branching out like an amoeba.”

Arrow has exploded in the ancillary markets and Pistol concedes there’s no money to be made in basic DVD any more.

“I suppose the next step is the Deep Throat computer game,” I tell Pistol.

“One of these days we’ll probably do a real re-make of Deep Throat,” he comments.

“Robert showed me some story boards for a proposed re-make and I thought this was really getting into the story with the historical characters shown making the actual film,” I tell Pistol. “A movie within a movie. I thought it was a great idea.”

“What’s more interesting than watching the foibles of how it happened and kicking into it,” Pistol agrees. “We’ve crossed the line and now we can intercut from the movie to the Seventies period and back to the movie.”

But Pistol’s wondering if audiences would have patience for that kind of story telling.

“They gobbled up Boogie Nights pretty well,” I comment. But Pistol has some reservations in that area.

“I like the concept, and if we shoot it on film and try to go theatrical that might be the way to go,” he adds. “Because then we’d pick up a new audience. We could do it three ways: R, NC-17 and XXX. Okay, which one you want.”

“You kind of have that Sopranos audience in this story as well,” I say.

“You hope we could tap into all of that,” he replies. “You don’t know until we try.”

“You’ve got a series on TV called Mad Men that’s bringing in the retro crowd,” I remind Pistol who used to be an advertising guy from the Sixties era which that show portrays.

[Another TV series Swingtown, about the Seventies, just aired a Deep Throat episode.]

On another subject, I ask Pistol how the sex industry is doing in Las Vegas.

“I don’t know if you’ve run across the fact but sexual libidos go down when ever the temperature goes up,” he reflects. “That’s a fact.”

We get into generous debate on this topic, but I won’t bore you with details. Although I was about ready to whip out the Sonny Crockett, Miami Vice, no socks argument to slay Pistol’s objections once and for all.

“I’m talking about society at large,” says Pistol. “While vacations might be part of it, guys aren’t as horny in June, July and August as they are in other months.”

I suppose Pistol never heard of a bikini.

“That’s just the reality,” he says. “I’ve seen it year after year.”

Then, again, Pistol also owns a strip club and video stores so he might know something the rest of society doesn’t.

“I see it first hand and all kinds of areas- from Arrow to the strip clubs to the book store,” he says.

“Is that why summer’s always considered the slowest time for the adult video industry?” I ask him.

“That’s right,” he says. “Go all the way back before porn and look at the birth rate. June, July and August will wind up being nine months later the lowest birth rate months.”

I mention to Pistol how my balls become overactive once the temperature goes over 80, and he says I’m out of the norm.

“I always thought I was.”

“Now you got confirmation,” he says. “And this is why we don’t sell as many videos in June, July and August.”

“One more thought thrown into this whole recession story,” I comment.

Pistol tells me the overall Vegas economy is down and we chat about the slow, bill paying element of the porn industry.

“They think paying a bill is a criminal act,” Pistol reflects. “The sad thing is when ever enough of them hit, it’s a steamroller through the industry. I often times had a theory- there’s one million dollars in the industry. And if anybody holds it for a day it fucks up the whole system. And everybody wants to hold it for a day or days.”

[Rob Spallone’s similar theory states that there’s only $10,000 in circulation, but who’s counting.]

Pistol’s also in an enviable position because his titles have built-in branding.

“You go into a store and see thousands of titles- you’ve never heard of any of them,” he continues. “They don’t mean anything to you. Then you run across a Deep Throat. You go I’ve heard all the hullabaloo about that. I think I’ll pick that up.”

“But if you can’t figure out how to stand out from the rest, you’re just part of the pack,” says Pistol. “Otherwise it’s just a morass of titties. So far I’ve been doing just fine sitting on the sidelines selling my old stuff which has more cache than the new stuff. My movies have names they’ve heard of, and that means something.”