2006
AEE
The fun, the glitz, and the obvious
(click on pictures and links to
view all the pictures)
The convention was beginning on Thursday and everyone in the jizz biz
was heading out to Vegas on Wednesday. Kami's flight for Tuesday arrival
was cancelled and was re-scheduled for a Wednesday morning. My plan was
to meet her at the airport, as a fun surprise. This would give us all
day to hang out before the hustle and bustle of the convention. Plus I
wanted to get to a hotel room (her's or mine) to watch the Championship
game between USC and Texas. She was thrilled with me surprising her at
the airport. We went to the Venetian to get her room but it was not available
till later. Her stuff was left in Tiana's room and we headed downstairs
to get our badges. The entire day I was in contact with my company, I
needed to drop off flyers at our booth but there were some major issues
going on.
Kami and I spent the entire day at the Venetian wondering around and watching
the game at the sports book. We also hung out for a while with Luke Mason
who was a very cool dude. All of us sat playing the slots while watching
the game. At halftime we wandered to the Circle Bar where we met Bono-One,
Skronker, 
Bill,
Vinh, and Gia Jordan. Soon after we headed to the Rio Grand Seafood Buffet
where we hung out with a group of people from the Industry. I wound up
talking to a guy who used to distribute Rob' XPW's first chore DVDs. We
chatted for a few hours then headed back to the Venetian to drop Kami
off. Before leaving we found out SC lost at the end of the game. Booo!
Around 10:30pm I finally got a call back from Rob looking for me, I met
them at the Golden Nugget restaurant and found out the bad news. Our booth
guy fucked us and many other companies. He just didn't finish the booth
and gave up. We had no booth and all the booth stuff was still at the
guy's house. We sat up until around 2:00am before addressing the other
issue at hand. Lack of room space for the night. We were short on rooms
for the night with another couple coming to town. It was Diablo and his
girl, Kitten. I volunteered to room with them because I figured I can
get some sleep by myself, plus it would be nice to meet new people. One
thing I must mention Diablo
and Kitten are small people with physical deformities who have a very
interesting website (www.gimpsgonewild.com).
They were so damn cool.
I finally arrived in my room at 3:30am and they arrived at four. We sat
up until six familiarizing ourselves and I was up at eight to go handle
the booth situation. Our General Manager Irma, Coffee Ron, and I went
to
the booth guy's house to load up our stuff into my truck. After gathering
the stuff from him and loading up all other shit like flyers, I spent
the next 2 hours in the back of the Convention Center being yelled at
by teamsters. After unloading my truck I headed inside. Our booth was
up with only four grey walls and some posters. The rest would have to
wait for construction.
On the floor I ran into many people from the business. I handed out DVDs
and set-up various interview and review opportunities. Tommy (Tom Byron)
bought Kami and me hot dogs which was nice of him. Last year he bought
us dinner and I think he understands us and our situation more then most.
Our booth
was set-up like a football stadium, football field, footballs, and a blimp
of course. In the booth we sporadically had: Rob
being interviewed, Tom
Byron, Coffee
Ron, Alias,
Chris Justice, Lizzy
Borden, Georgia
Southe, Gia Paloma, and Paris Gables. Plus of course Rob's cool ass
dad, Dominic. The two companies, Extreme and Evolution bought all of us
football jerseys. Extreme's looked like the Falcons and Evolution's were
the Packers. Unfortunately the company that makes these jerseys decides
to make them 2 sizes smaller then they are labeled. Hence my big ass wound
up wearing my personalized "Ivan" hockey jerseys.
On the first day and throughout the convention I spent a good amount of
time making my way to the Elegant Angel booth to check up on Kami. It
was fun watching her work, doing hand
stands, hugging on folks, showing
her stuff, being
interviewed, and just entertaining everyone like only she can. My
main goal was to keep her hydrated and fed. So most of the time I got
her one of those big
ass hot dogs and a red bull. Breakfast of champions or of the tired
and hungry.
Anytime she
managed to bend over or get on the table, a crowd of fans would take stills
of her ass with anything from cell. phones, to digital cameras, to a freakin
wrist watch (click).
I was thoroughly amused.
In the evening we headed to the ADT Party (AdultDVDTalk.com)
It was very cool to meet people
I only 
have
communicated with online. There were a few people snapping
pictures all night long. Some guys from a website store had Kami take
some shots in their shirt (pic.
1 / pic. 2).
I loved finally meeting Terry (WCAReviews.com),
the guy was damn cool, we have corresponded for a while before meeting.
Plus he was on Kami's flight into Vegas ... we wound up talking everytime
we ran into each other. Rog (www.RogReviews.com)
is always great to see. He let me borrow some kick ass horror movies a
month ago. Everyone was so nice, even the grab-happy
ones. We took really cool pics. at the party. Drew and Steph. gave
us free shirts
and were great hosts. There was food and drinks
everywhere! We stayed up until 4:30am playing slots and touching each
other on the casino floor.
Friday was the same on the convention floor except our booth was up. I
did the same thing except spent more time talking to old friends and co-workers.
Seems that many made their way to the Anabolic booth throughout the day.
I spotted Tommy
talking to Chico Wang, Chris
Justice and Alias talking to Michael Stefano, plus I spent many a
minutes hanging out with my bro (Ricky
D), Mark Milano, Sal Genoa, and the rest of the Anabolic/Diabolic
posse. That night we went on an adventure finding a place to eat dinner
with a couple of friends. We finally ate at the Pink Taco which had delicious
potato taquitos.
Kami and I dropped our friends off and headed to a store to buy some airborne
(some new crazy health formula all the kids and porn chicks are using).
The journey to get this stuff was as long as our trek to find food. For
a town that "never sleeps" we found many stores closing before
11:00pm. When we finally found an Albertsons we were evacuated in a blazing
manner as the store was on fire. As we headed towards the back of the
store a somewhat disheveled voice came on the loud speaker and urged everyone
to evacuate the building. Everyone dropped their baskets, women were screaming,
children were crying as we trampled the weak running for the door. Through
the smokey maze we got outside and hugged each other, it was all over
and we made it. A tear made it's way down my ash covered cheek as I realized
what we almost lost. Well, actually the tear was from my tired eyes and
what we lost was an opportunity to buy what we needed and now had to go
to another store. It wasn't really dramatic at all but the smoke was real
and so was our frustration. We finally got what we needed and headed back.
We spent hours playing the slots, finally arriving in Kami's room at 3:00am.
We spent the next two hours chatting with Gerry the make-up artist (Kami's
roommate). She showed us pictures of her grandkids and shared some amazing
stories from her past. She used to pick-up hitchhiking young kids and
take care of them. In "taking care of them", I mean a nice warm
shower and food, not the Henry or the Sopranos type of "take care
of them." This lady is a grandma anyone would love to have. She loves
to talk, but her stories are priceless. I took a nap until six then headed
for my hotel.
I was out cold at 7:00am then was up at nine to a surreal moment. My roommates were flustered and were on either side of their bed trying to catch something. What followed was 30 minutes of all three of us scrambling around the beds trying to catch their pet HEDGEHOG! Yup, a hedgehog ... not that Sonic guy who couldn't keep his hands of those damn golden rings but the real deal. We finally caught him at around 10:00am, then I made my way to the convention.
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My Award
show clothes were in Kami's room and I needed to find a room to change
in before the show. Mark Milano my old bud from Extreme who now works
for Anabolic was kind enough to let me use his room (our Hotel was 20
minutes away).
Kami and I made our way to The Cirlce Bar before the Show, meeting lots
of people on the way. The
walk to the show was crazy, we were like sardines. It was awesome
once we made our way to the Red
Carpet. The Red carpet is for nominees who are then interviewed and
photographed by the paparazzi
and video crews. We were separately introduced to the photographers
as they snapped away. It was so surreal. As they shot us, I shot them
... Kami yelled at me to stop taking pictures. I wasn't having that and
kept being my own paparazzi. I even got one shot
of me in front of the cameras. Jenna
Jameson and her posse were behind us. It was funny listening to her
boss her people around. She wasn't mean or anything just straight forward.
After a few interviews we went inside and looked for our tables.
We
ran into Chris
and Alana Evans before the show started and grabbed some pics. with
them. They are some of our favorite people in and out of the business.
Kami was sitting with Elegant Angel at table #4, right in front of the
stage
... I was with Extreme at table #175. Or so I thought. When I arrived
at my table there was no chair for me. I tried to figure out what the
deal was, even suggesting to check people's tickets but all I got in return
was, "pull up a chair when the show starts." Chair from where?
And where to pull it up? I was a bit miffed especially as half the table
was filled with people not associated with us. Friends and more friends.
I stormed off and Tim Von Swine was kind enough to let me sit with him.
The show was very entertaining, especially the host Greg Fitzsimmons who
was funny as hell.
click on the pics.
After the show we spent the entire walk back with Liv Wylder and afterwards played slots until about 5:00am. At one point hanging out with some business dude who spent $5000 on a one dollar slot machine. Threesomebody (ADT) hung out with us while we watched this drunk spend all his money while his lawyer and doctor looked.
While
hanging out with Coffee Ron we discussed many things and gave each other
pep talks. I love that guy, he is cool people. Our night concluded with
a fight which was resolved Sunday afternoon. It was a great week of fun,
lack of sleep, meeting new people, and just seeing what lies for us in
the future.
It's funny how things go round and round. Different year same ol' thing
in many ways. But with every convention a new step is made forward, for
some another one back. For me ... I learned a lot in this year especially
during this past week, I met some great people, stayed positive during
some ups and downs and now understand how things work.
All I can say is this is going to be a great year.