First things first. To be honest, I was barely familiar with the 50-plus names of the adult film stars who were at the Fourth Annual Adult Film Star Ball at La Boheme on August 25. But after my seven or so hours of walking between the downtown strip club and the huge event tent next door, I could rattle off at least half of their names.
I found out who most of them were early in the evening as they arrived, each of them walking down the red carpet and interviewed by the slightly obnoxious Pleasures guys with their Bill and Ted routine. As the girls walked over to them, one of the guys would say something like “yum yum” and then tell the girl how extremely hot she looked.
While interviewing Jenna Haze, they asked her what she planned to do at the ball.
“I’m here for the pussy,” Haze said with a smile.
Kim Chambers also said she wanted to find some girls to play with.
So before things got really heated up, I was hanging out in the tent, watching a few girls wheel in suitcases filled with DVDs. A guy standing by himself also watching them asked me if one of the girls was Shy Love. I told him how I hadn’t really been keeping up with the latest batch of porn stars to hit the scene.
Then the guy, who just turned 21 a few weeks ago, told me that he came to the ball specifically to see Shy Love. She starred in the very first adult film he’d seen when he was 18. She walked by again and he finally got up the courage to ask her if she was in fact Shy Love. Indeed she was, and he went on about how he was amazed how much shorter and smaller she looked in person.
There wasn’t much happening in the tent yet, so I went back into the club, took a seat at the bar and watched Bridget the Midget on stage. I’d seen the little gal on a few episodes of Cathouse, the HBO documentary series about the Moonlight Bunny Ranch brothel in Nevada, but seeing her in person, well, that’s a whole other ball of wax, folks. I mean, it’s kind of hard to be graceful and sexy with those little legs. It seemed like a few guys sitting around the stage were getting into her routine, but they might’ve also been as confused as I was.
Halfway through her set, a guy took the seat next to me.
“So what do think?” I asked.
He was still looking at her. After about 30 seconds of silence, he asked, “Does it get really crazy at these things? Do the girls start licking each other?”
And since this was my first time at one of these things, I didn’t have an answer for the guy who turned out to be from New Orleans and was in town on business. But let's just say that if I would get asked the same question next year, I might say with a smile, “Maybe.” And I know that’s vague as all hell, but there are some things better left to the imagination.
As the night went on, La Boheme filled to capacity and things started to heat up. Lizzy Borden was wildly gyrating and working up a sweat on center stage. During the second song, she grabbed a pair of nunchakus (a martial arts weapon with two sticks connected by a short rope) and worked them into her routine. Near the end of her set she was on her knees with one of the sticks in her mouth.
After she worked herself, and the crowd into sweat, I headed outside where the Iron Sheik, a former World Wrestling Federation champion, was going on some tirade. I'm not sure exactly what he was yelling about, but this guy who had been watching the whole thing said somebody might’ve brought up the Ultimate Warrior, which threw the slightly intoxicated Sheik into a rage. And if you look up the Sheik on YouTube, you’ll see just how much he hates the Warrior. But he finally calmed down and had some photos taken with some fans.
While still outside, I finally got a chance to take in some of the crowd, which was much more diverse than I’d expected. Since there was a Broncos game earlier at Invesco, there were a few dozen guys still in Bronco attire. I also noticed quite a few male/female couples dressed up and hipped out. I also spied a few possible frat dudes, some wanna-be ganstas, and few cats all pimped out with suits, canes and a serious amount of gold around their necks. And, sure, there were a few of the chubby homely guys there by themselves, taking pictures of the girls with their phone cams, but the majority of the folks there got all dolled up to meet their heroes.
Once I cooled down a bit, I headed back inside and saw Dave Navarro hanging out with Shy Love while being filmed for his Spread Entertainment show on ManiaTV!. Navarro and his film crew then moved to the tent next door where he and Adult Film Star Ball co-host Jesse Jane chatted it up for the camera. Security made it nearly impossible to get close enough to hear what they were saying, but I'm sure it was deep.
It must've been near midnight and I’d been on my feet for nearly six hours, so I grabbed a seat not too far from where the extremely hot Courtney Cummz was sitting. A few minutes later, these guys in their early twenties sat down next to her. One of the dudes tells that me that his friend is in a grindcore band and wrote a song about Courtney and even used a sound sample from one of her films.
Just before leaving, I worked my way through the crowd to use the bathroom. As I was coming out, I saw this guy with a shaved head and dark black oval-shaped sunglasses. I nodded at the guy and asked him how he was doing.
“Just living the dream, man,” he said. “Living the dream.” -- Jon Solomon
