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..Gary Dretzka
..Noah Forrest
..Leonard Klady
..R.J. Matson
..David Poland
..Douglas Pratt
..Ray Pride
..Michael Wilmington

God knows, the Internet doesn’t need another column about an awards show. Between now and the MTV Movie Awards in June, there are 200 or 300 more trophy ceremonies than anyone not affiliated with Dick Clark Productions should have to endure in a lifetime, and reading about them is infinitely worse than actually being forced to sit through one.

Saturday night in Las Vegas, however, I attended my first AVN Awards show, and I now beg your indulgence as I attempt to describe the scene.

Having been assigned to cover several Oscar and Emmy ceremonies, I got a huge kick out of witnessing a major awards bash that didn’t appear to be stage-managed by veterans of the Khmer Rouge, specifically for the benefit of studio executives, dress designers, society jewelers and advertisers. Say what you will about the makers of XXX movies, but the people at AVN (Adult Video News) deserve props for staging a ceremony that’s a lot of fun and doesn’t expect its audience to genuflect before the altar of fame after every commercial break.

This was the 21st annual edition of the AVN Awards, which honor all manner of sexual performances in DVD and VHS. The categories run the gamut from Best Film, Best Video Feature and Best Actor and Actress, to Best Gonzo Series, Best Anal-Themed Feature and Most Outrageous Sex Scene. The roster of nominees was longer than the listings in most Nevada phone books.

For my money, the most impressive thing about the whole evening was the turnout of fans and curious tourists not holding tickets. In addition to the 3,000-plus people who paid $225 per ticket, there were enough freelance lookie-loos inside the Venetian to create a human gauntlet extending from the craps tables in the casino, to the cavernous ballroom theater, a distance of nearly 100 yards.

The venue was located between the hotel and the Sands convention center, where the Adult Entertainment Expo was being staged for the benefit of industry insiders and 20,000 non-industry fans. The throng of on-lookers created this virtual red carpet, both before and after the ceremony – if anything, it grew in length -- and, aside from a very few yahoos, the crowd was polite and clearly in awe of the gowns, corsets, slip dresses, exotic footwear, tattoos, jewelry and mountainous chests of the starlets. The male performers got their fair share of attention, as well.

The Adult Entertainment Expo isn’t affiliated with the concurrent Consumer Electronics Show, but it might as well be. Much of the same technology that drives that multibillion-dollar industry was given its baptism by fire in the adult media. This includes VHS, DVD, camcorders, digital cameras and editing tools, streaming video, cyber-finance and, lately, HD filmmaking. Adult videos continue to amass an incalculable fortune in sales and rentals, but, unlike Hollywood, the industry has also learned how to harness the Internet, and, in doing so, propel revenues into the stratosphere. It also helps raise profits for such porn-dependent businesses as the phone companies, cable providers, hotels that offer pay-per-view movies, Internet services and credit-card interests.

The AVN Awards and AEE are a perfect fit for sin-is-back-in Las Vegas. Truth be told, though, nothing the starlets wore Saturday night would have looked out of place at the MTV Movie Awards or a dozen other such events. A surprisingly small number of starlets exposed their breasts for the cameras, and, that too, would hardly be considered scandalous in most zipcodes in L.A.

If any further proof is needed of the mainstreaming of pornography in our culture, remember that Showtime is about to launch its second season of Family Business, starring gonzo filmmaker Seymour Butts; holiday visitors to Times Square were treated to a 4-story-tall poster of Jenna Jameson, urging, “This Year Be Naughty and Nice”; Vanity Fair recently included Vivid Girls Jameson, Taylor Hayes and Savanna Samson in a photo essay about Hollywood "legends, big guns and scene-stealers”; and the estimable Mary Carey got far more free publicity in the mainstream press, as a California gubernatorial candidate, than she’s ever been able to afford in AVN or skin magazines (her performance fees have doubled since the campaign, and she’s also spinning off a movie, Run Mary Run, with Ron Jeremy as a faux Cruz Bustamonte).

The post-awards party was held in Venetian’s vacant Guggenheim space (not the “jewelbox” museum), and a couple of post-post-parties were staged around town. None of these open-to-the-public gatherings, though, came close to matching the annual orgies of egomania and showboating that complete Oscar, Grammy and Emmy nights.

What follows is a highly subjective list of things that, for me, made covering the AVN Awards more fun than doing the Oscar, Grammy and Emmy ceremonies:

1) Reporters and photographers weren’t required to wear tuxedos and cocktail dresses no one in the TV audience would see, anyway.

2) No goody baskets for presenters and hosts; thus, no stories about companies bestowing gifts on swag-starved celebrities.

3) Red carpet was only about 40 feet long, and every Tom, Dick and Harry with a ticket wasn’t allowed to traipse over it and pretend they were VIPs.

4) No watchdog publicists to tell their star clients which reporters were pre-approved for interviews.

5) Stars didn’t take offense if you asked them how they spell their names and those of their escorts (some Hollywood publicists will blackball anyone who asks this question of them).

6) Fans and press weren’t treated like terrorists.

7) Pole dancers gyrated throughout show, not just during commercials.

8) Actors weren’t reluctant to admit they slept with their co-stars.

9) No goofy stories about the how the careers of Best Supporting Actress winners have been cursed.

10) Army Archerd and Joan Rivers stayed home.

11) AVN Hall of Fame inductees included Johnnie Keyes, star of Behind the Green Door, and Rhonda Jo Petty (“I was the first porn star to shave my pussy”).

12) No speeches by Jack Valenti or AVN accountants.

13) Unlike the Golden Globes, no one had to force the nominees to attend, or defend coverage by trying to convince readers that the awards often indicate which actors and movies will win Oscar nominations.

14) No cute name for the Lucite statuette handed to winners, and, unlike Oscar, “Lucite Statuette” isn’t a registered trademark. It's also more difficult to use as a sex toy.

15) No one under 18 can appear in a XXX film; thus, no awards to cute and annoying kid actors.

16) No one cared if show ran long, because the bar stayed open throughout ceremony and food was plentiful.

17) No winner mentioned God, their spouse and their agent in the same sentence.

18) Jenna Jameson served as co-host, in Marilyn Monroe drag.

19) The film clips actually were interesting.

20) Hearing the presenters say, “The winner is … Gag Factor… Crack Her Jack … Weapons of Ass Destruction 2… Spanked Toilet Whores.”

- by Gary Dretzka

January 12, 2004