As my wife and I pulled up to a porn party in the Valley, as guests of porn legend Ron Jeremy, I momentarily reflect on just how the hell I got there.
Just six years ago I was a penniless heroin addict living in Los Angeles, with a child on the way. My teeth were falling out and my veins had mostly collapsed. With my back against the wall, I started to write an account of exactly how the hell I had found myself in this situation.
Flash forward to 2008: I live in NYC, and my second novel, Down and Out on Murder Mile, is due to be published in November. I am back in L.A. for the Book Expo. At a party thrown by my publisher, I have been downing vodka tonics and meeting a surreal list of celebrities, including John Landis, Jerry Stahl and Slash. And now Jeremy has taken my wife and I deep into the Valley to meet some of his friends “in the industry.”
Jeremy is someone who has transcended the porn industry. He’s a renaissance man: a singer, an author and a figurehead—he’s also a short, hairy, middle-aged man with a 9-and-a-half-inch cock. Sure, there are other porn stars—like Jenna Jameson or John Holmes—who have achieved mainstream fame, but not to the extent that Jeremy has. People who have never witnessed the spectacle of an on-camera double penetration still know who Ron Jeremy is. And within the industry, the man is a god.
Inside the house is pandemonium. The first thing I see is an enormous pair of breasts coming straight for us. They’re attached to a blonde with an impossibly tiny waist and enormous lips. She introduces herself by popping one of her breasts into Jeremy’s mouth. Suddenly the place erupts in the glare of flashbulbs, as people struggle to capture this moment for posterity. Ron is incredibly congenial: He takes the nipple out of his mouth and introduces the woman to Vanessa and I.
“Do you guys wanna feel my breasts?”
We look at each other for a moment.
“Sure!”
“I love your nipples!” the girl squealed at Vanessa before we moved on, as if she was complimenting her shoes. I looked and saw her squeezed down the front of Vanessa’s corset. These are the risks of being married to a writer, I guess.
The key to porn parties is to look for camera flashes. Every few minutes they would start, as if Lindsay Lohan had just entered the building.
Following the flashing lights you’d arrive at a pool of onlookers watching a girl spreading her pussy, the crowd chanting, “A little wider baby,” or “Put your finger in your ass!” Over the course of the evening, Jeremy would keep rejoining us, introducing us to girls and sneaking us into rooms where the action was happening. A girl in a red plastic mini-dress posed for pictures with him before turning her attention to me, waving a serious- looking riding crop with a pink heart at its tip.
“You should spank him!” Ron laughed.
“Ooooh! Let me spank you! Come on!”
Does this shit happen to Jonathan Safran Foer, I wondered?
“Sure.”
The porn people were particularly interested in Vanessa. At one point we were in a group of guys watching as a huge-breasted redhead went down on a brunette with an intricate reproduction of a rose garden tattooed right where her pubic hair used to be. A guy in a wheelchair, straining his neck to see, looked up at Vanessa and said, “Hey baby, you should join in!”
“Tonight I’m a voyeur,” she laughed.
After another round of squeezing various breasts, we headed for the Sunset Strip. On our way out a girl walked an enormous Collie into the house, which seemed like an omen for where things were headed. We hitched a ride with the guy responsible for making hardcore movies based on classic American television shows.
“We did The Brady Bunch,” he said. “That’s a big hit at the moment. We also have I Dream of Jeannie and Bewitched.”
On the radio, Jennifer Rush was singing “The Power of Love” while the Brady Bunch guy tried to navigate the tricky situation of whether a girl he met at the party was saying she wanted to fuck him, or she wanted to fuck him while her husband watched. This called for Ron’s expertise.
“What did she say exactly?”
“She said ‘We’re going to the Rainbow too. If you need a ride, you can catch one with us.’”
“Oh, yeah. He’ll be watching alright.”
“Shit. That’s what I thought.”
“So,” Ron said, as we pulled up on Sunset, “What did you guys think of the party?”
“Wild, man. Totally fucking wild.”
Ron shrugged. “I thought it was kinda tame myself. Right?”
“Oh, sure,” the Brady Bunch guy said, “Totally fucking bogus. Too many dudes. Not enough action. Wish I’d stayed at home.”
Tony O’Neill is the author of Down and Out on Murder Mile. His other books include Digging the Vein and Songs from the Shooting Gallery. He can be found at www.tonyoneill.net.
Just six years ago I was a penniless heroin addict living in Los Angeles, with a child on the way. My teeth were falling out and my veins had mostly collapsed. With my back against the wall, I started to write an account of exactly how the hell I had found myself in this situation.
Flash forward to 2008: I live in NYC, and my second novel, Down and Out on Murder Mile, is due to be published in November. I am back in L.A. for the Book Expo. At a party thrown by my publisher, I have been downing vodka tonics and meeting a surreal list of celebrities, including John Landis, Jerry Stahl and Slash. And now Jeremy has taken my wife and I deep into the Valley to meet some of his friends “in the industry.”
Jeremy is someone who has transcended the porn industry. He’s a renaissance man: a singer, an author and a figurehead—he’s also a short, hairy, middle-aged man with a 9-and-a-half-inch cock. Sure, there are other porn stars—like Jenna Jameson or John Holmes—who have achieved mainstream fame, but not to the extent that Jeremy has. People who have never witnessed the spectacle of an on-camera double penetration still know who Ron Jeremy is. And within the industry, the man is a god.
Inside the house is pandemonium. The first thing I see is an enormous pair of breasts coming straight for us. They’re attached to a blonde with an impossibly tiny waist and enormous lips. She introduces herself by popping one of her breasts into Jeremy’s mouth. Suddenly the place erupts in the glare of flashbulbs, as people struggle to capture this moment for posterity. Ron is incredibly congenial: He takes the nipple out of his mouth and introduces the woman to Vanessa and I.
“Do you guys wanna feel my breasts?”
We look at each other for a moment.
“Sure!”
“I love your nipples!” the girl squealed at Vanessa before we moved on, as if she was complimenting her shoes. I looked and saw her squeezed down the front of Vanessa’s corset. These are the risks of being married to a writer, I guess.
The key to porn parties is to look for camera flashes. Every few minutes they would start, as if Lindsay Lohan had just entered the building.
Following the flashing lights you’d arrive at a pool of onlookers watching a girl spreading her pussy, the crowd chanting, “A little wider baby,” or “Put your finger in your ass!” Over the course of the evening, Jeremy would keep rejoining us, introducing us to girls and sneaking us into rooms where the action was happening. A girl in a red plastic mini-dress posed for pictures with him before turning her attention to me, waving a serious- looking riding crop with a pink heart at its tip.
“You should spank him!” Ron laughed.
“Ooooh! Let me spank you! Come on!”
Does this shit happen to Jonathan Safran Foer, I wondered?
“Sure.”
The porn people were particularly interested in Vanessa. At one point we were in a group of guys watching as a huge-breasted redhead went down on a brunette with an intricate reproduction of a rose garden tattooed right where her pubic hair used to be. A guy in a wheelchair, straining his neck to see, looked up at Vanessa and said, “Hey baby, you should join in!”
“Tonight I’m a voyeur,” she laughed.
After another round of squeezing various breasts, we headed for the Sunset Strip. On our way out a girl walked an enormous Collie into the house, which seemed like an omen for where things were headed. We hitched a ride with the guy responsible for making hardcore movies based on classic American television shows.
“We did The Brady Bunch,” he said. “That’s a big hit at the moment. We also have I Dream of Jeannie and Bewitched.”
On the radio, Jennifer Rush was singing “The Power of Love” while the Brady Bunch guy tried to navigate the tricky situation of whether a girl he met at the party was saying she wanted to fuck him, or she wanted to fuck him while her husband watched. This called for Ron’s expertise.
“What did she say exactly?”
“She said ‘We’re going to the Rainbow too. If you need a ride, you can catch one with us.’”
“Oh, yeah. He’ll be watching alright.”
“Shit. That’s what I thought.”
“So,” Ron said, as we pulled up on Sunset, “What did you guys think of the party?”
“Wild, man. Totally fucking wild.”
Ron shrugged. “I thought it was kinda tame myself. Right?”
“Oh, sure,” the Brady Bunch guy said, “Totally fucking bogus. Too many dudes. Not enough action. Wish I’d stayed at home.”
Tony O’Neill is the author of Down and Out on Murder Mile. His other books include Digging the Vein and Songs from the Shooting Gallery. He can be found at www.tonyoneill.net.
