Not Safe for Work

by Michael Estrin

That is bad news. I wrote the first story on the Toxic murder, but I know it’s going to take more than a few phone calls to write the last one.

  “The battle-ax is a pretty compelling headline,” I say.

  “No shit, Heywood. We don’t get a lot of murders with medieval weapons in this town.”

  Boyd stares at me.

  “No more stories,” he says. “Got it?”

  “No.”

  “No, you’re going to publish more stories? Or no, you don’t get it?”

  “Actually both,” I say. “Besides, don’t you want the publicity?”

  “Eventually, yes. I want two stories: arrest made, jury convicts. As long as they get my name right in both and I get my promotion, I don’t give a shit what else they say.”

  “But they won’t say anything. You’ve got to build the buzz in a story like this.”

  “You’re some kind of an expert?”

  “I work in the media.”

  “It’s not the media if people jerk off to your work.”

  I’m pretty sure that rules out all the cable news channels, at least metaphorically speaking, but I’m not sure I want to hear Boyd talk politics, so I let it go.

  “All I’m saying...”

  “Never say that,” Boyd interrupts. “You’re obviously going to say more, so just say it. Who has time for meaningless phrases?”

  “Media attention doesn’t just happen,” I say. “You need to build on it. That’s why the industry talks to me. That’s why The Daily Pornographer exists. They don’t read what I write, but there’s always a chance that some mainstream publication will, and when they do...”

  “I don’t want the media attention right now,” Boyd says. “In case you hadn’t noticed, the LAPD and the DA’s office don’t exactly bat a thousand with high-profile murder cases.”

  Boyd reaches for the fries again, but rethinks them.

  “These fries are shit,” he says.

  “I know. I forgot to say no to the combo.”

  I pick up my burger, which feels cold and less appetizing than it did a few minutes earlier. Perhaps, I think, these In-N-Out Double-Doubles aren’t built to last.

  “You really think TMZ will just drop it?”

  “Sure,” he says. “It’s a weird story, but as long as the victim is a dude and there are no follow-up stories, they don’t really give a shit.”

  “Girls are more compelling?” I ask.

  “Didn’t you learn anything in college?”

  “Fair enough,” I say reflexively.

  “No, it’s not motherfucking fair. Not all victims are created equally. Whites are worth more than blacks, women are worth more than men, and known criminals ain’t worth shit.”

  “The economics of victimhood,” I say. “Same thing with porn. White women bring in the big bucks. The condo I was at...unreal. Like Cribs-unreal.”

  “Cut the pseudo-intellectual bullshit and lay off the pipe,” Boyd snaps. “I need your word that you’ll back off. So what do you say? Back off and I’ll give you a lift home.”

  “I can’t do that.”

  “Why not?”

  “Freedom of the press,” I say.

  Boyd laughs. A lot. Like an embarrassing amount. People are looking at us, and I feel stupid, because I’m not laughing.

  “That’s a good one, Heywood.”

  “I need this story,” I say. “It’s my ticket out.”

  Boyd gets up.

  “There’s no such thing as a ticket out,” he says. “You work in porn, that shit stays with you.”

  “I’m still writing the story.”

  “Good for you,” he says. “And good luck getting a cab to drive your ass home.”

  Boyd walks toward the door.

  “I’ve got a lead,” I say.

  Boyd turns around, a serious expression on his face.

  “Toxic’s lawyer,” I say. “He was pretty chatty.”

  “Bobby Beauchamp? That dick-brain doesn’t know his ass from a hole in the ground,” Boyd says.

  Chapter 23: Civilians

  Miles does brunch every Saturday at Aroma Café, which is about as Hollywood as you can get without going over the hill. It’s also a stone’s throw from where Robert Blake allegedly shot his wife, so Miles thinks Aroma is the perfect place to discuss the progress of the Toxic case, which he has taken to calling The Untitled Miles Steinberg Porno True-Crime Hit Project. Miles is nothing if not ambitious, or rather, delusional. But in this town, ambition and delusion are two sides of the same coin.

  I bring Miles up to speed while he eats an eighteen-dollar egg-white omelet with goat cheese and sun-dried tomatoes, which makes about as much sense as a Double-Double and Diet Coke. I’m working on a coffee and a phonebook-size wedge of Blue Velvet cake because it seems like the most meta way to get bang for your buck at a place that serves eighteen-dollar omelets.

  Frequently, Miles stops me to glad-hand the local celebrities—a producer who has passed on three of his scripts, a first assistant at a second-tier studio, and a series regular on cable show nobody watches, including Miles, who seems genuinely interested in the actress, despite not quite knowing her name.

  “She would make a perfect Rachel with that sweet Texas twang and dirty blonde hair,” Miles says, eyes lingering on the woman’s backside. “Pilates.”

  “Pilates?”

  “Yes, Pilates.”

  “You sound like that guy in The Graduate.”

  “Never saw it,” Miles says. “But for Rachel...am I right? Right. I mean, that Pilates-ass. God can’t make an ass like that, it takes a visionary like Joe Pilates.”

  “Rachel isn’t even part of the story,” I say.

  “Sure she is,” he says. “There’s got to be a girl, it’s like a rule of storytelling.”

  “She doesn’t look anything like Rachel,” I say.

  “Yeah, well audiences expect conventional depictions of beauty,” Miles says.

  “Rachel is pretty.”

  “OK, don’t get so defensive. You like alt women, maybe a little emo, pretty, but not hot. It’s cool.”

  “We’re way off topic,” I say.

  “You’re right,” Miles says. “We’ll worry about the love interest later. What we need to know now is how we’re going to crack the case.”

  “We?”

  “You need a ride, don’t you? I didn’t pick you up in the deep Valley last night for my health, right?”

  Miles stops eating his omelet and lowers his sunglasses to look me in the eye.

  “I was playing Madden with these guys from WME,” Miles says, his voice dropping noticeably when he adds, “the mail room.”

  I sip my coffee and nod because I know Miles needs another prompt before he will continue after name-dropping an agency like WME.

  “Anyway, we did some bong hits, had a nice charcuterie and Pinot, and I pitched The Untitled Miles Steinberg Porno True-Crime Hit Project—they loved it! I mean loved it, like jizzed their pants for it, metaphorically. They’re all over it, like...like...like...?”

  “Cum on a porn star’s tits,” I suggest.

  “A little too on the nose,” Miles says. “But they’re totally, totally into it. In. To. It.”

  “Miles, listen...”

  “Am I an idea man or what, partner?”

  “Miles, we’re not partners here.”

  “Why not?”

  I sip my coffee, not sure if a week in porn gives me the right to explain to Miles that he’s a civilian, unwelcome in an industry that runs as much on silicone and bad life choices as xenophobia and perversity.

  “I’m a third wheel in my own story,” I say. “I’m a liability, you’d be...”

  “I get it,” Miles says, saving me from explaining the inexplicable. “You work alone.”

  I finish my coffee. Yes, I do work alone. But I also don’t know what the fuck to do with it, as Boyd might say. I’m in so far over my head only an “idea man” like Miles could think this is a good situation.

&nb
sp; “So what’s your next move, ace?”

  “Please don’t call me ace.”

  I look at the series regular. She’s sitting with the producer, laughing on cue and smiling often. She’s not a bad actress.

  “I need to find my car.”

  “Then what?”

  “Get a tape recorder,” I say.

  “Then what?”

  “Then I ask anyone who’ll talk to me a lot of really stupid questions.”

  Chapter 24: Supplies

  The Best Buy on Van Nuys Boulevard is on the way out to Mary Jane’s.

  Miles occupies himself in the camera department—certain that one of the overweight men browsing for an HD camera just has to be shooting porn in his basement. Miles, it seems, has taken the San Pornando Valley moniker literally. Although I’m not quite sure he understands that pornographers usually don’t invite dudes they meet at Best Buy to set. Unless, of course, those dudes are hung like horses and can fuck all day. But I’m pretty sure that’s not Miles.

  I find the cheapest digital audio recorder they sell. At the register, I cross my fingers that there’s enough room left on my credit card to make the purchase.

  In theory, I could use the recording feature on my iPhone, but there are a few problems with that.

  First, I don’t like the idea of a phone call messing up the rhythm of an interview, or of an interviewee sneaking a look at my caller ID while I’m trying to get them to tell me something they’re not supposed to. Besides, a tape recorder just looks more professional. A guy who pulls out an iPhone could just be a guy who owns an iPhone, but a guy with a pocket tape recorder is probably a reporter. It’s a fine line between amateur and pro. Such is the nature of journalism in the age of the citizen reporter.

  The second problem is Boyd. While waiting for Miles to pick me up at In-N-Out, I did check the privacy settings on my phone. Turns out, I didn’t check in at In-N-Out, or anywhere else, and that has me worried. Either the weed or the police intimidation is making me paranoid. But because the former long predates the latter, I find myself paying out of pocket for an essential tool I know Boyd can’t hack and Oz won’t reimburse me for.

  Chapter 25: Last dance with Mary Jane

  Squinting into the setting winter sun, Miles and I head west on the 101 toward Woodland Hills and Mary Jane’s condo. Geographically, we’re about two dozen miles west of downtown Los Angeles and only a traffic jam away from the Westside, which is where Hollywood really lives, because the eponymous section of the city is kind of a shit-hole. We’re close to the City of Angels, but not really. People who live out here trek to Los Angeles without thinking twice, but those who live on the other side of the hill don’t come this deep into the Valley without an antidepressant and a good reason.

  “Talk about the ass-end of the universe,” Miles says as he exits onto Canoga. “Why does she live out here?”

  At the bottom of the ramp a homeless woman with sun-bleached hair and a crooked smile holds up a sign offering her prayers in exchange for enough money to buy malt liquor. At least she’s honest.

  “Porn has been on a westward migration for a decade,” I say, paraphrasing and polishing a quote from a budget-conscious producer of MILF content who spent most of our interview complaining about the rising costs of set rentals, talent, crew, and lube.

  I start to explain that the industry is predicated on undercutting the competition, but when I use the phrase bottom-feeder, Miles falls all over the pun and laughs himself silly.

  As we sit at the light, I can’t help but think that porn really is—no pun intended—a race to the bottom. It has probably always been this way. Feature-length movies shot on film gave way to assembly-line sex vignettes released on VHS—something any dude with a cursory understanding of Boogie Nights and college economics can wax intellectual about for at least a few minutes. The internet just accelerated that trend by lowering the barrier to entry, opening the door to a generation of Web-savvy jackasses.

  As a rather jaded self-described “anal impresario” told me, “If you can white balance a camera and use a Mac, you can produce porn.”

  Back when Oz started The Daily Pornographer, anal was rare and Van Nuys was like the Silicon Valley of smut. At least, that’s what Dean told me while lathering his hands and forearms in sanitizer—a reaction to story I had written about the aforementioned “anal impresario” returning to work after surgery to repair her prolapsed anus. Dean hadn’t asked for art, but he was in a mood to talk history, and I was in a mood to escape the content mill.

  A few years ago, he said, every studio leased warehouse space in Van Nuys so that they could distribute their DVDs all over the world. Today, the DVDs are gone, and even the biggest studios kowtow to the tube sites, because there’s no such thing as undercutting free. Today, the industry is scattered among the houses and strip malls of the West Valley, but a film—really just a clip—without double-penetration seems quaint, and maybe a little old-fashioned for the fans who crawl the Web in search of the perfect tube site to cater to their preferred niche. Over time, the content gets cheaper, and it gets cheaper to produce. Such is the nature of innovation.

  The tube sites, Dean explained, sell ads for dating websites and penis pills. The ads don’t cost much, but it’s a volume business. Someone is getting rich, but nobody at The Daily Pornographer seems to know who that someone is exactly. What I do know is that the democratization of content butt-fucked the industry. Hard. A week with Booty and I too am reading Matt Taibbi so that I can know what’s up. Such is the nature of sharing an office.

  The light changes and Miles turns right toward Warner Center, a sprawling office park built on the cheap so that multinational corporations can have an LA office without paying LA rents. Of course, the people back at the home office don’t realize that Warner Center is right in the middle of today’s porn industry and two hours away from the rest of LA during weekday traffic. But on the upside, Warner Center is anchored to a new Westfield Mall with one of those modern food courts that has multiple Asian options, not just Panda Express, which lost its exotic credibility when people in flyover states started eating Thai food.

  We head north on Canoga, passing chain stores and dingy strip malls. We turn at a corner where there’s a weed shop with valet parking and a dry cleaner with bars on the windows. It’s the suburbs, but definitely not the flyover state version.

  “How fucked up were you last night?” Miles asks, almost like it’s an accusation.

  “Porn people party pretty hard,” I say, hating myself just a little for using party as a verb.

  “You shouldn’t have been driving,” Miles says. “I don’t want this to be a car wreck movie-of-the-week type story.”

  We turn onto a side street, pulling the sun visors down to shield our eyes. A few modern condos crowd out the West Valley shit-shacks that were too grimy to appear in The Karate Kid.

  “This is Daniel LaRusso country,” I say.

  All the cars look the same, because only people who drive beaters in LA park on the street.

  I thumb my clicker.

  “Was that you?”

  I thumb my clicker again. Miles parks near my car, and I get out. I am relieved to see that my car, piece of shit that it is, hasn’t been stolen or damaged.

  I wave goodbye to Miles, but he doesn’t leave. I’m about to tell him to get lost, when someone kicks me in the balls and I go down like a bad cliché.

  I look up, but the sun blocks out my assailant.

  “What the fuck?” I hear Miles yell.

  I never figured Miles for the hero type, but hearing his voice I imagine him opening up a can of whoop-ass, or at the very least, umbrage, on my attacker.

  But I’m wrong.

  “That was so fucking awesome!” Miles says. “I wish I had my camera rolling—instant YouTube classic!”

  Miles starts to say something about the studios optioning social media content like YouTube videos and tweets, when he gets the same foot to his groin.

>   “Fuck you and whoever the fuck he is, Heywood!” a woman’s voice screeches.

  She’s backlit by a glowing orange sun and I can’t quite identify her.

  “A fucking pig cop came here because you pissed off my balcony!” she screams.

  Suddenly, I put it together. With my hands on my balls and my face kissing the pavement, I explain to Mary Jane that she’s slightly mistaken.

  “I didn’t piss off your balcony,” I groan.

  “Who did?”

  “William H. Macy,” Miles groans.

  Despite his present agony and the ongoing roadblocks in what he’s taken to calling “the case,” Miles has already begun thinking about casting.

  “Wait—what the fuck? William H. Macy was at my party and I didn’t blow him?”

  “No, Johnny Toxic’s lawyer,” I say. “The one who looks like William H. Macy.”

  “Ugh—Beauchamp. I blew him once. His spooge tastes like whisky farts.”

  “Maybe he farted,” Miles says in weirdly helpful tone.

  “That fucking cop took all my coke,” Mary Jane screams. “That cost me like ten grand.”

  I’m not sure if my eyes actually bulge like they do in cartoons, but the mention of that much money sends a shock wave across my face. If Boyd took all of my stuff, it wouldn’t amount to half as much as Mary Jane spends on cocaine in a month.

  “You OK?” she asks.

  Mary Jane cocks her head sideways, reappraising her punching bag.

  ***

  Upstairs in her condo, Mary Jane rolls a fat blunt while Miles and I sit with chilled Skyy Vodka bottles between our legs.

  Mary invited us up, saying she felt bad about kicking both of us in the balls without knowing all the facts. This seems reasonable to me, but Mary’s sudden change of heart didn’t sit well with Miles until I explained that porn stars aren’t known for being stable or rational.

  Mary twirls the blunt between her dick-sucking lips, sealing in the pungent dope with saliva and a smear of red lipstick. She lights, puffs, and passes.

  “To take the edge off,” Mary Jane says. “My guy is on his way with more coke, but you know how dealers are.”