Porn Valley- Oh for the old days at Metro when paper clips at 20 paces or fist fights were the normal way of resolving issues. But now they’re obviously settled by sneak attack and Charley Lynch, who has toiled in the adult industry as long as I can remember, was one of the casualties of war this week. Lynch who designs feature boxcovers and is probably one of the best there is at it, was given the unconditional boot this week in a set of circumstances that still have his head spinning.

I spoke to Lynch Thursday night. Lynch, who left Digital Playground to take the job at Metro, told me how he got the heave-ho from Metro General Manager of six months Neil Persky Wednesday and heard that Joey Wilson, director of sales and other things got the similar heave-ho Thursday.

Lynch said his job over at Metro was to take care of the high end features, take care of the ads and try to add some level of logic to the whole system. But what happened to Lynch seems to have defied it.

Reminding you of an instance back on 9/11 when people going down on planes were talking to their families, Lynch was on the cell phone with Wilson Thursday morning as Wilson was giving him a play-by-play of his imminent demise.

Lynch said Wilson originally called to extend his condolences about Lynch being bucketed. “I can’t believe this, what am I going to do? They’re taking all my department heads,” Wilson reportedly said.

As he pulled into the Metro parking lot, Wilson then expressed the feeling that the same thing was going to happen to himt. Wilson and Persky were reportedly locked in a do-or-die power struggle.

“He [Wilson] was pretty upset- I could hear it in his voice,” Lynch said. “He wasn’t happy. I’m sure that he was a little bit mad that I was gone, but I think he was madder because his authority got completely usurped. Not only did he not know about it, he had nothing to say about it.”

Lynch said Wilson was walking into the building with Lynch on the phone. “I know it,” Wilson told him. “Now I know I’m going to get nailed because they’re changing the locks on my door. I’ll call ya later.”

In a follow-up conversation about 2:30 in the afternoon, Lynch and Wilson again spoke. Wilson confirmed with Lynch that he got fired. “He was obviously not happy- not surprised but still felt like he was betrayed, I’m sure.” Lynch was curious as to what Wilson was told. According to Lynch, Wilson told him, Metro really didn’t give him a reason but it was expressed that Kenny [Guarino] wanted to make room for a new guy.

Lynch would venture to say such a move is illegal tantamount to wrongful termination. “You can’t trade employees like cars.” Lynch asked Wilson what he was going to do and Wilson told him he was going to golf Friday. Wilson promised to talk more about it. On one hand, Lynch got the feeling that Wilson was amused by what was going on and indicated that he was working on something. “He goes, well, this place is going to hell. He almost sounds like he’s relieved by the whole thing. He said he knew this was coming for two months.” Lynch said that pretty much corroborated what he had heard from other sources within the building. And there was one instance where Wilson reportedly said he was leaving Metro over his dead body after a previous run-in with Persky.

On Persky’s behalf Lynch said, “Well, he did engineer a spread sheet release schedule. It’s more complicated than bomb instructions.” Lynch also said he had heard there was an assembly held in the Metro warehouse Thursday with Persky announcing they they had done some “rearranging.”

“Basically we fired people, but nobody here has to worry,” Persky reportedly said. Lynch, however, said he had a gut feeling that another high level employee was also going to lose his job, Friday.

“Neil is like going through with a chainsaw,” Lynch continued. “Now everybody over there is scared to death about losing their jobs.”