Porn Valley- About that lunch I had earlier in the week with The Grand Vizier. I bring along a carton of Auchincloss cigarettes for him and he turns his broken nose at them.

“Do you know how much these fucks cost?” I ask. The Vizier cared not a want as he produced a packet of Abdullah cigarettes, with a certain posture and pose, and lit one.

“Abdullah. That’s straight out of Henry Miller’s Tropic of Cancer,” I tell him which, I feel, gets the point across that I’m no ordinary literary buffoon. The Vizier, unimpressed, lights up and begins his tale.

The Vizier’s full of information about the recent Michael Ninn-Spearmint Rhino bust up.

Until the deal had already been signed, no one in the Ninn organization had the knowledge of John Gray’s rather colorful pass which involved some yabba-dabba-do contractual deal with the US Navy, not to mention a few checks issued with Alfred E. Newman’s signature on them. Not literally, but you get the point.

“There were rumors and whispers, but they began Googling in earnest after Ninn was locked out of his office a couple of weeks ago, ” says The Vizier. “That’s when they discovered all this.”

“Actually Ninn had kept mum on the imminent Spearmint Rhino deal- none of his people knew,” adds The Vizier, noting that besides Ninn now changing his name, Gray had changed his.

“Gray is Mexican,” says The Vizier. “And it’s also a known fact that he’s had a load of plastic surgery to make him not look south of the border. And I think his father owns a bar.”

According to the Vizier, there have been stories about Gray that could be turned into a movie.

“An Al Pacino movie,” says The Vizier with a nudge and a wink.

“He also tried to run for mayor of Norco one time,” laughs The Vizier. “Rumor has it he keeps a life size bust of Napoleon in his office. Actually more than a rumor.”

“Considering Gray’s nationality, shouldn’t it be Benito Juarez?” I ask The Vizier.

Another story- unconfirmed- says The Vizier, is that Great Western had to make a trip to the company headquarters in Norco to demand immediate payment via credit card or else they weren’t getting their slicks.

“Adam Film World was also owed money for advertising,” says The Vizier. “And there’s rumors of a class action suit headed up by Nic Steele. It concerns The Four project and ten people who apparently didn’t get paid. Another guy who designed the company booth for AEE had to take out a mortgage on his home because he didn’t get paid.”

“And then you wrote about the contract that John Gray had with AVN for ads,” The Vizier points out.

“Including the fact that they were supposed to be doing 3-page ads five times a year,” I tell The Vizier.

“Correct,” says The Vizier. “Then it came down to no, we’re not doing any of them.”

“There was also a big boondoggle regarding the handling of the contract girls for the AVN Award show red carpet,” continues The Vizier.

“No one knew what was going on. No one was talking to nobody. And then John Gray insisted that he had to be on the red carpet. And Gray wanted to be at the AVN table instead of his own. He was accommodated. It was a comedy.”

“I think Adult Store Buyer might also be owed some money on a contract as well,” adds The Vizier.

I’m wondering if, in all this, Ninn’s going to go to court.

“The first thing they might ask him is, what, you can’t do a Google search on your prospective business partner?” says The Vizier.

“If Ninn Worx ran out of money it was with a little help from Spearmint Rhino who brought extraneous suits and their payroll on board,” says The Vizier. “Ninn Worx sales were doing fine. But the money was being sucked out of the company to pay for these people.”

“Then the biggest boondoggle of all was Ninn losing his name,” states The Vizier.

“There’s different versions of the story, but the one most told is that Ninn was handed a contract the size of War and Peace to go over.

“And Ninn is dyslexic,” says The Vizier. “You figure it out. Ninn is a guy who trusts too many people. He trusted the wrong ones. And then you got to think Ninn was looking at Gray as some rich uncle with big pockets and a bag full of cash.

“Michael looking at this guy like Buck Adams looking at a dentist,” I chime in.

“And Gray told Ninn, basically, what Ninn needed to hear,” adds The Vizier. “Someone got reeled in hook, line and sinker. So as a result of this mess, Spearmint not only owns the Michael Ninn name, they own Ninn Worx and the back catalogue. They own everything that was shot under their time of production.”

Another point everyone’s confused about, says The Vizier, was Ninn’s exact status with the company.

“He wasn’t a partner but a director for pay,” says The Vizier.

In the wake of this bomb blast which left charred trees and scorched out buildings were a lot of outside promises and broken deals which also involved the contract girls and their agents.

“I believe Shy Love and Derek Hay got screwed on money,” says The Vizier.

“The contract girls were getting paid, but late, most of the time. The girls were also being told the $2,000 a month they were getting was a retainer. And then money was being taken out of that for whatever bullshit reasons.”

“And then Gray was requiring that all contract girls get boob jobs,” says The Vizier.

“Then one of the girls, allegedly, freaked out because she was being required to do privates. Don’t know if that’s true, but that’s the story. Ninn supposedly went ballistic. Although it’s always been an unspoken fact that production companies would soften up buyers and distributors with sexual favors provided by industry girls at the trade shows.”

I ask the Vizier if he had heard anything about the Eddie Van Halen deal.

“Did you see the film My Favorite Year?” The Vizier asks. “Eddie was playing the Peter O’Toole role- for real.”

“Remember The Gathering- the lavish industry party at Van Halen’s house? There was supposed to be a deal with Showtime to defray the costs of that party. But Eddie pulled the rights to his appearance. That left Ninn Worx $200,000 in the hole with no mainstream deal.”

“And there was some story, even in the LA Times, that the former Metro P.R. girl Janey Liszewski was Eddie’s girl friend,” I say to the Vizier.

“I don’t think so,” chuckles The Vizier like he knows something but ain’t saying.

[Gene sez: after the posting of this story I get the following e-mail:

“The Grand Vizier implies in your story that Janie is not the girlfriend of Eddie.

She’s actually engaged to Eddie. Is that a rumor? No, it’s fact. There’s a close friend to Janie who has been invited over to dinner with Eddie and Janie on numerous occasions. There is first hand knowledge that they are engaged!”]

“And then there was the distribution deal with Red Light,” laughs The Vizier.

“Red Light was charging the company $1500 just to send out review copies. And there’s so much more to that story.”