Porn Valley- I ran into Metro’s Mike Barbella Saturday night. Barbella’s telling me that the VSDA show last week in Vegas was fantastic. Earlier in the day I had a chat with Steve Volponi from Wildlife. Volponi told me the show at the Bellagio sucked. Actually I like Volponi’s rendition better. It was funnier, Volponi telling me how he lost 30 pounds in Vegas the hard way.

“We’re hanging out- there ain’t a fucking thing going on,” Volponi recaps in a sentence. “It’s dead.” Volponi says that Romy from Wildlife sets up a bar in their suite. “We had the movies playing on the main TV, and I had the 3D-thing [an interactive movie with Lauren Phoenix] going on in the bathroom. Two days we’re sitting with our thumbs up our ass.”

Volponi says he’s showing the movie in the bathroom. “It’s a more controlled atmosphere for lighting. And the 3D looks better when it’s a little darker. So we set up a monitor over the tub and it looked great. So Bobby [Rinaldi] goes in and says, man, I got to take a shit. He goes in there. The only people roaming the halls were mainstream people hoping to see a porno girl. So we’re dragging anybody in including the guy who works the halls in the Bellagio cleaning up the rooms. Hey want to come in and see a 3D movie? A little Mexican guy with a suit on. Bobby’s in there taking a shit and we have on the loop, the reverse cowgirl anal scene. Lauren Phoenix is riding Steve Taylor’s dick.”

Except the door’s locked because Rinaldi’s taking a shit. “Is somebody in here?” Volponi calls out. “Bobby’s yeah, it’s me. I’ll be out in a minute. Bobby walks out and starts laughing. These guys walk in and Bobby goes, oh, they’re going to throw up. Then Bobby yells out from the chair- hey, isn’t it realistic? When he pulls his dick out it actually smells like shit! Not only is it 3D, it’s smell-o-vision.”

On the third day, Volponi is telling me someone welcomes him to the halls of desolation. And Bobby is telling him to roll a bowling ball down the hallway- see if maybe he can hit somebody. “This sucked- all we did was watch porn and drink,” Volponi is laughing. “We watched our own movies. Bobby is saying he’s never watched so many of his own movies in his life. “If I never fuckin’ shoot a movie again, it’ll be too soon.”

Around noon time, Volponi says a girl from Redlight invites them to a free lunch at the Redlight booth. “We cruise down,” says Volponi, “we” meaning his business associate Robert along with Rinaldi. Volponi says there’s this enormous spread- pasta salad, potato salad; Black Forest ham, turkey, and cheeses. “They even had a Cobb salad there.

“I had been eating nuts for three fucking hours and drinking and I really wasn’t that hungry,” he adds. “I said what the fuck, I’ll make a half a sandwich. I grab a piece of whole wheat- I put two pieces of ham, a couple pieces of cheese and tomato- I don’t even use mayo. I fold the thing over, I say thank you. I grab an Amstel light and I go back down the hall. I ate the sandwich and I drank the beer. Me and Bobby are walking downstairs. I said, fuck, man, Your stomach feel alright? He goes I got kind of a cramp. I go, me too. But I think I got more than a cramp. I got to go to the room. Bobby goes I’ll go up there with you. We’ll relax for a few minutes then go back down.”

As soon as he gets into the room, Volponi’s got to take a mean shit. “I was pissing out of my ass for an hour straight,” he says. “I get up- I figure it’s finally over. I’ll take a shower. I hop in the shower. I’m in the shower for two seconds. I run back out. I wasn’t done. Another fuckin’ twenty minutes. Finally I’m finished. I think everything is fine, I lay down for about a half hour. Me and Bobby are talking- after that fuckin’ lunch. I said let’s have a nice dinner tonight. If we don’t have a nice dinner, the fuckin’ whole trip’s been a loss.”

Volponi is saying even if he had to shell out a hundred bucks, he was going to have a big steak that night. The one restaurant they wanted to go to was packed, but they could eat at the bar. Volponi tells Rinaldo let’s try the Aqua Knox restaurant at The Venetian which has a waterfall. Volponi says the menu is fairly pricey- $18 bucks for a shrimp cocktail. There’s also steaks, lobsters and crab on the menu. Volponi says he loves crab. “Let’s eat here.” They had no problem getting in. Volponi says he starts off with a shrimp cocktail; Rinaldi gets a lobster cocktail. “Fuckin’ awesome,” says Volponi. “Then we get the Caesar salads- awesome. Guy comes by. He says I have a special tonight. You’re not going to be able to pass it up. I’m telling you right now it’s the best meal in town.” It was Filet Mignon and half a lobster tail stuffed with lump crabmeat.

“$81 for the plate alone,” says Volponi. “I said I’ll have that. Bobby goes, fuck it, I’ll have that, too. At this point we didn’t give a shit. I was fully prepared to spend a buck twenty on dinner.”

Asked how it was, Volponi said the steak melted in your mouth. “The lobster was so good I wanted to shove my cock in it. I saw Bobby crunching on the actual shell itself. I told Bobby I’m going to get a little d.p. going- I’m going to stick it in the lobster and the steak. He started laughing his ass off- is this fuckin’ good or what? We eat the dinner. I fuckin’ get up. We’re walking down the hall- I look at Bobby. I got to go to the fuckin’ room. He goes, again? I said yeah. I go upstairs. Another hour on the fuckin toilet. I lost my whole $120 dinner. The minute I start moving around, that was it. I barely made it. That elevator ride couldn’t move fast enough for me. I barely got my fuckin’ pants past my ass crack and I was already pissing out my ass again. I said holy fuck. I shit all over the bathroom and then I rubbed my fuckin’ ass across the tub and then I ran into the shower like a fuckin’ dog.

“That ham and cheese sandwich with the fuckin’ tomato killed me,” Volponi continues. “I had two pieces of ham. What could have been bad in there? The Redlight ptomaine luncheon. What a nightmare. Bobby was like, every time I walk I feel like I got to shit. I said you probably do. And he had the turkey. I had the ham.

“I haven’t been sick like that since I was a kid,” Volponi continues. “I remember the last time I was that sick I was so confused. I didn’t know whether to shit in the bucket or throw up in the fuckin’ toilet. I go holy shit, you motherfuckers. I just had a $120 fuckin’ dinner. It wasn’t in my body more than 30 seconds. The Redlight fuckin’ free luncheon.”

Volponi then compared notes with Robert his 3D guy who also went to the luncheon. According to Volponi, Robert attended a yoga class that his back was hurting him. Then he was going to go to the hotel. “He said he was in the yoga class bending around. All of a sudden something leaks out.”

Volponi also says that any reports about this being a good show were exaggeration. “They set us up on the 27th floor [of the Bellagio],” says Volponi. “In order to get to that elevator you had to have a laminated pass. We had more people trying to sell us stuff like replicating and encoding and this and that. Who does your cases? I don’t know some Jap in Japan. Who the fuck knows. Who cares? If you’re not buying anything get the fuck out of here. More people were trying to sell us shit than we were trying to sell. It was amazing. I wanted to stab my eye with a spork- a plastic spoon/fork-thing. I wanted to dig my eye out with that thing. On top of that, what do I get? The shits. Brutal.”

The admission was something like $75 and Volponi is saying this is ridiculous. “Basically we could have all gathered at the Lamplighter in Chatsworth and looked at each other over there. That’s all we did. All we did the whole time- me and Bobby laughed out fuckin’ balls off. You had to laugh. If not, you would cry.”

Volponi’s saying that Metro also came out with a big pirate movie. “Of course we walk in and somebody out front is handing out Digital Playground pirate books to get signed by Jesse Jane,” Volponi relates. “So Bobby walks up and says what the fuck is it with all these pirate movies? He goes why don’t we do a fuckin’ pirate movie- Screw My Pirate, Please. Or Pirates Home Alone instead of Girls Home Alone. Or Otto and Audrey Destroy the Pirates. It was fuckin’ hilarious. All we did the whole fuckin’ time was make up stupid titles. I said Bobby, you know what we should do? Go back and make 40 pirate comps. We’ll superimpose pirate patches over everybody’s eyes. It’s the year of the pirate, I guess.”

Thinking about the Redlight luncheon, Volponi still has to chuckle. “David, what did I do to you? I didn’t come out with a pirate title? It’s timeless. It was out of control. We laughed the whole fuckin’ time.”

But the best was Barbella, according to Volponi. “This is the funniest thing. I’m telling you right now,” says Volponi. “You couldn’t hit a customer with a fuckin’ bazooka. Barbella comes into our room- man, this is my best show, ever. I said how do you figure. I just wrote up a $50,000 order! I said who? Casper the Friendly Ghost? He’s saying, no, blah-blah-blah. The next fuckin day, I’m breakin’ his balls because he’s workin’ for Metro now. Every hour he comes into the room. I go, where you workin’ now? You still at Metro? I’m breakin’ his balls and he’s laughing his ass off the whole time. Jeff Mike calls me- hey Steve he goes I’m downstairs, do you have another badge? I said I’ll get you a badge. He comes into my suite. We’re sitting there laughing. Barbella comes in. I just wrote up another forty grand. I’m up to ninety grand. Jeff goes get the fuck out of here. It’s the same fuckin’ story with you every year. I’ve been hearing the same story for ten years- it’s my best show ever. He goes it is my best show ever. Then Tony Cleary comes in- how’d you do? He goes I wrote up $30,000 to people I already sell. I didn’t have to come here for this. I could have called them in the Valley. I said Barbella got all the business. He goes, I heard. I see Barbella later. What did you write another $50,000? “It was a good show,” states Volponi somewhat sarcastically. “Bruce and Jack from Legend left two days early. Anyone’s got balls sayin’ that was a good show. What I’m telling you is what really happened.”

Volponi says if he saw three porno girls the whole time, he saw a lot.

“It wasn’t like the AVN where they’re all running around with their asses hanging out. Not a fuckin’ one. I saw Sascha. Brett Rockman was there. Basically it was like all the porno people got together and were hanging out in the rooms. What’s goin’ on in your room? Nuthin. Linton is two doors down from us. He’s going what the fuck is this? Are you busy? Fuck you, are you busy?”

I tell Volponi given the VSDA track record of past shows, I was surprised to hear that a lot of people were going this time around.

“If you went on the site and you saw all these vendors, you’re, like, maybe it’s going to turn into something,” Volponi responds. “It turned out at the Bellagio they went after the vendors; they didn’t go after the clientele. They basically sold the vendors- yeah, this is going to be great.” According to Volponi, the show had a Philadelphia theme. “I walked in. I said, hey, they knew I was fuckin’ coming. They had a giant Liberty Bell hanging from the fucking ceiling- a big eagle over that and everything was kind of bicentennial with a red, white and blue theme.

“It was really cool,” he goes on to say. “Other than that, Bobby’s saying I didn’t need to be here for this. I could have been back at the office scanning fuckin’ 2257 folders. We wound up giving most of our movies to the guys who were refilling our ice and our nut bowls. That was the biggest clientele- the three or four guys from the Bellagio who were roaming the hallways. What a joke. This was worst than the east coast show I went to the year before. Last year was at Baltimore. I didn’t even go. The year before that- and I got short legs- I walked 25 paces forward. I made a right. I made 25 paces back and that was the end of the show. I least I got to see my mom in Philly on the way out. But never again will I go to the VSDA.”

Volponi says they were on the 15 on the way back when the suggestion was made to pull over and get a drink. “The damn fuckin’ traffic was ridiculous,” says Volponi. “We see these three little black kids running across the freeway bridge to go to where the McDonald’s is. I point over to the kids. It had to be a hundred and four out there when we were driving back. I said those kids were white when they left the house. Bobby goes you’re a sick fuck.”