From Jeffrey Goldberg’s Blog at TheAlantic.com:

So I’m watching the Yankees play Cleveland yesterday (it was definitely fan interference on that Posada home run, in my humble opinion), and I leave the room for a minute, at a commercial. When I come back, my eight-year-old son asks, “What’s E.D.?”

E.D., huh? Why do you want to know? He tells me he just saw a commercial for Niagara that promises help with E.D. “Niagara” gives me a way out: “E.D.,” I explain, “is…. Earth Dissection. Waterfalls like Niagara are signs of geological dissection. The river is just going along and all of a sudden it drops over a cliff, like there was a sudden dissection of the earth.”

“That’s not what it is,” he says, but the game starts up and I duck the subject for a while, until the next commercial break, which features a commercial for Levitra. Unbelievable. Does Broken-Johnson Syndrome afflict all Yankees’ fans, or just most? I’m a pretty diehard Yankees supporter, but if this is the ultimate price, I would even pull for Boston. (Sorry about that one.)  

Advertisers surely know their audiences, but is it really necessary during a day game to be assaulted by these commercials?

Sound familiar? It will if you remember reading this last year on Peggy’s blog :

So while Google is busy doing its part to (presumably) keep our nation’s impressionable youngsters “safe” from sexual terminology and content (check out Tony’s blog for more,) I get called upon to explain erectile dysfunction to my nine year old daughter while innocently trying to watch a PG-rated show at 9:00pm on the Sci-Fi Channel.

Hilariously, I’m almost afraid to type the brand name of the product being advertised for fear the Google-bot will find the offending name on this blog and penalize the Comstock Films site as a drug-spamming, malware breeding, den of iniquity. We’ve got enough problems with the Google-bot already, thanks. So let’s just say the commercial was for a drug, name beginning with the letter ‘C,’ famous for featuring attractive and affluent looking middle-aged couples lounging in side by side bathtubs with smarmy faux-cool jazz playing in the background. (Because nothing says intimacy like individual high-walled ceramic pods-for-one, but that’s a head-scratcher for another day.)

So, back to the sofa in the Comstock family den, daughter #1 and I curled up for our weekly dose of implausible science-fictional fun, and whammo: commercial break after commercial break, here comes that smarmy faux-cool jazz and alarming quick-spoken fine print babble about “erections lasting more than four hours.” Wonderful family viewing, piped right into our home, no searching required! Fabulous!

“Mom,” daughter #1 asks finally after being bombarded by these ads, wrinkling her little brow in consternation. “What is E.D.?”

I’m a good little arugula-munching liberal: I’ve talked about sex with her before, she’s got a copy of Where Did I Come From, she’s seen me go through a pregnancy, etc. — she knows the basics. I assure you, none of that made it any less awkward to have this “teachable moment” thrust upon me unawares by the good folks at Eli Lilly and the SciFi Channel while I was just trying to enjoy a little escapist TV.

But hey, this is life as a parent, isn’t it? You don’t always get to pick and choose where your teachable moments come from. Even the best filters don’t always work. Life comes at you and your kids, and you are responsible for seeing them through it. You stay involved with your kids’ lives, you watch what they’re watching on TV, you stay aware of where they’re going online, and you talk with them about their experiences and understandings. Sometimes, you have to explain things that make you uncomfortable. Sometimes, you have to (try to) explain society’s strange hypocrisies and priorities.

For my kids, for my family, this responsibility — no matter the subject — is not Google’s job, it’s not the Sci-Fi Channel’s, it’s not some arbitrary filter’s. It’s mine.

Of course explaining erectile disfunction is far from the most difficult thing a parent might find themselves having to explain to their children. If you’re not careful about what you let your children be exposed to, you might have to explain pre-emptive war and torture.

In no particular order:

Yes, I have thoughts about the AmazonFail thing. We track the way Amazon uses meta-data as closely as we can, and have seen some interesting shifts since the beginning of the year around sexuality. I am not unsympathetic to Amazon’s dilemma. If I ran a supermarket, I wouldn’t want incontinence supplies showing up in the produce section. But what Amazon did was incredibly stupid; and points out huge vulnerabilities, both to the ability of dissenting voices to maintain their visibility in a database driven marketplace, and to mega-merchants whose businesses are database-drive. As the commercial marketplace for ideas becomes less and less distinguishable from what is commonly referred to as “Web 2.0″ these pitfalls will only become easier to fall into — for marginal ideas and merchants both.

We are on the eve of our once a year B2B event, and Peggy has produced some sales materials that I think finally bridges the gap between the educational and therapeutic value I know these films have, and my instinct to recoil from the “educational” fig-leaf. No doubt some of my new-found openness to this marketing approach comes from seeing the writing on the wall (see the above bullet point) but also recent events have reminded me that many people are more than a little traumatized about sex, and that the gentle, yet unabashed eroticism of our films can make these films a source of comfort to people who are in genuine anguish.

Our boat goes back in the water later this month, which I expect will be a source of comfort to me. I don’t know what it is about being on the water, but even on a boat while it sits on it’s mooring, the angst of various travails that seem so dire here at the kitchen table is substantially diminished. I believe there is a Ruskin quote, “If there is magic in this world, it is found in water.”

Speaking of Amazon, BILL AND DESIREE is up to 14 five-star views, and just got this very, very nice write-up from Dina at ThisMarriageThing.com:

“I’m a bit disappointed with myself. Over the years, I’ve been my own DIY project, trying to broaden my views, be less judgmental and enjoy my life more. It’s aggravating to think that I could be ageist. But I guess I am…

“Consequently, I put off reviewing that adult film I mentioned. Tony Comstock, an award-winning director, was kind enough to send me his latest erotic documentary that chronicles Bill and Desiree as they explore love later in life. It sat on my desk until DH asked me to put it away for fear our teenager would see it. Yep, there it stayed until yesterday when I watched the whole thing and was amazed…”

“If you think all adult films are trash, you’re in for a treat when you watch one of Tony’s documentaries. He has a deep respect for love, connection and his subjects, which absolutely shows in his films. We get a chance to meet Bill and Desiree first before witnessing their lovemaking. That really helped me connect with them as people. We see that they are seekers interested in enhancing their own lives and the lives of others. In fact, Desiree even says, “who wants to be filmed making love. No one. But if no one does it how will we learn?” No creepy factor there.

“What most fascinated me was watching them navigate some of the ‘technical difficulties’ that can happen with mature couples. They weren’t embarrassed by the need for toys; it was part of the fun. Things took longer; so what, more fun to be had. Each truly seemed more invested in the other’s pleasure than his or her own. That really jived well with my notion that sex really is about our minds and hearts, not bodies. My heart will never be too old to love my DH.”

I’ve been invited by Marc Randazza to make a guest post over at The Legal Satyricon, and had been thinking I might expand on some of the idea hinted at in last week’s post “What Do Feminism and Pornography Have in Common with Walter Murch?” I’ve slowly hedging my way to debuting my Pornography Is Not a Genre, It’s a Business Model concept, but in candor, I haven’t been encouraged by the reception my trial balloons have received. Across the social and policical spectrum, people just don’t seem to be very interested in the way that economics drives the marketplace of ideas; or maybe I’m being too oblique/opaque; or maybe the things that interest me aren’t all that interesting (until there’s an AmazonFail style blow-up.)

We found the source of all our Sydney Australia visitors from the last week. 

“Sadly, the most healthy, realistic and genuine depictions of sex are still expensive and hard to come by. I don’t want to mention any of the names of the user-generated porn sites because they don’t deserve the publicity. But there is one film company which does deserve a mention and that is Comstock Films, which produces graphic sex films that are so wholesome they even have the seal of approval from Oprah Winfrey’s O magazine.

“These erotic documentaries present the stories of real, loving couples discussing their relationships, interspersed with graphic footage of them having sex, like an X-rated version of When Harry Met Sally.

When the Melbourne Underground Film Festival sought to play one of these films, Ashley And Kisha: Finding The Right Fit, at their festival in 2007, they were refused permission by the Office of Film and Literature Classification because it was too explicit. The technological revolution has given us access to an unlimited quantity of low-quality porn. If only there was a cultural revolution that gave us access to quality as well as quantity.”

Many thanks to Lisa Pryor of the Sydney Morning Herald and to Luke at the Pleasure Chest for the heads-up!

I am working on a sort of a Part 2 of “Learning to Say No to SXSW” tentatively entitled “Learning to Say No to AVN.”

And lastly a tease for the next installment of An Entrepreneur’s Biography, where in were learn how a young Tony Comstock turned a $225 investment in a motor-drive for his Nikon FM into about $4,000 in increased revenue in his whitewater photography business. It’s a tale of gear-lust and accidental marketing you won’t want to miss!

Hello Australians!

Our traffic stats tell us that this morning we have more visitors from Australia than from anywhere else in the world. Welcome!

Since Australian visitors are up up up, especially from Sydney; and searches for [comstock films] are up up up, my guess is we’ve had a mention in one of your newspapers or magazines (if you’ve seen it, please let us know!) probably around the issue of censorship. We’ve been following that whole “clean feed” thing you’ve got going on down there because we’ve had a couple of our own run-ins with your Office of Film and Literature Classification.

Back in 2006, our film “Damon and Hunter: Doing it Together” was banned from the Sydney International Gay and Lesbian Documentary Film Festival. The next year, our film “Ashley and Kisha: Finding the Right Fit” was banned from the Melbourne Underground Film Festival. In fact, the OFLC’s David Emery told me that it doesn’t matter what kind of film I make; apparently my name is on some sort of OFLC secret list, and I’ll never get a legal screening of any of my films in your country.

I know, it’s crazy. Doesn’t exactly fit with the picture that most people have of Australia, does it?

But no matter. OFLC or not, we still love Australia! And we still love Australians. We see more than a few Aussies come through our webstore, and I know that there are folks in Australia who are putting their necks out to make sure Australians can buy our films in their shops too. I never imagined people would ever have to do an end-around the law to sell my films, but here we are; and I have to tell you it’s a pretty amazing feeling to know there are people who believe in these films that much!

Here are your courageous Australian brothers and sisters standing bravely in the face of tyranny!

So welcome Australians! You keep fighting the good fight, and we’ll try to keep making films that are worth fighting for!

-Tony & Peggy Comstock

MA State Rep, Kathi-Anne Reinstein

From Marty Klein’s blog Sexual Intelligence:

Massachusetts state representative Kathi-Anne Reinstein has introduced a bill making it a crime for anyone over 60 to pose nude or sexually for a film or photo. The person taking the photo—whether a lover, artist, or commercial porn maker—would also face jail time.

Adding insult to injury, the proposal amends a bill designed to punish those who make child pornography. It treats fully functional adults who happen to be over 60 the same as children under 18; it explicitly takes away their right to consent to be photographed in a lascivious way.

From the legal blog The Legal Satyricon:

Massachusetts State Rep, Kathi-Anne Reinstein (D) is targeting adult entertainment involving models over the age of 60 as well as private sexual communications between the elderly (if you can call 60 “elderly” anymore) and private sexual communications among the disabled. See State Puts Porn Pervs in Sights, Boston Herald. The measure misses the mark and as it is an affront to the dignity of the elderly and the disabled alike with a heaping helping of unconstitutionality to round out the bad legislation buffet.

And from the proposed legislation itself:

Whoever, either with knowledge that a person is a child under eighteen years of age, an elder or a person with a disability, or while in possession of such facts that he should have reason to know that such person is a child under eighteen years of age, an elder or a person with a disability and with lascivious intent, hires, coerces, solicits or entices, employs, procures, uses, causes, encourages, or knowingly permits such child, elder or person with a disability to pose or be exhibited in a state of nudity, for the purpose of representation or reproduction in any visual material, shall be punished by imprisonment in the state prison for a term of not less than ten nor more than twenty years, or by a fine of not less than ten thousand nor more than fifty thousand dollars, or by both such fine and imprisonment.

I don’t have words to describe how I feel reading this. I can tell you this.

On Tuesday I called Representative Reinstein’s office, twice. On my first call I was told that Ms. Reinstein was in a caucus, but that if I left my name and number she would call me back. I told the woman on the phone with me that I was uncomfortable leaving my name and number because her boss’s proposal criminalized my work and I was not comfortable identifying myself. I asked when I could call back and speak to Ms. Reinstein. The woman on the phone told me to call back in an hour.

An hour later I called back. Again I was told that Ms. Reinstein was unavailable. I asked if I could make an appointment for a time when I could call Ms. Reinstein to express my concerns about her legislation vis-a-vis my work and was told it was her office’s policy not to return calls if a person did not leave their number. I responded (somewhat fatuously) that the policy was unnecessary because it’s impossible to return a phone call if you do no have the person’s phone number. 

I went on to explain that I understood that as a practical matter, Ms. Reinstein had to prioritize what issues she spent time on and whom she spoke with, and that I understood that I was making it difficult by asking for special consideration, but that my circumstance was somewhat unusual, having actually produced a film featuring a 65 year old man in a sexually explicit situation; and that I hoped Ms. Reinstein could find some time in her schedule when I could call her to express my concerns.

At that point I was transfered to her Chief of Staff, to whom I restated my circumstances.

“Are you calling from New York?” Of course they had caller ID. She was going to try and play this off on the constituent angle, which is what I had been trying to avoid by not leaving my number.

“I am calling from a cell phone that has a New York exchange. I am very concerned about this legislation and how it might impact my work.”

“If you are not a resident of our district, we won’t discuss this with you.”

“I fear this legislation will have an impact beyond Ms. Reinstein’s district, and beyond the state of Massachusetts, and I think it would be helpful for Ms. Reinstein to hear my point of view.” 

 At this point Ms. Reinstein’s Chief of Staff said something that indicated that the discussion was over, and that I would not now, nor ever be speaking with her boss.

“That’s an interesting way to address my concerns.”

And then she said it again, and then she hung up the phone.

Calling Ms. Reinstein’s office made me nervous. Contemplating publishing  this post makes me nervous. There’s a voice in my head saying “Why draw attention to yourself. You can do more for yourself and your beliefs by keeping your head down and making more films. The best response to Ms. Reinstein’s legislation is to make another joyful, artful, consensual film featuring adults she would presume to protect. Maybe it’s time to make a sweet, sentimental and sexy film about a pair of wheelchair bound lovers in different states who use the internet  as a way to enjoy each other’s sexual company.”

And then I hear Desiree’s voice. If I don’t call Ms. Reinstein’s office, then who will? If I don’t write and publish a blog post explaining that it scares me when I read things like Ms. Reinstein’s proposed legislation and makes me think it might be better to find another line of work, who will?

A first page return if you google image search this post’s title

For nearly three years now, I’ve been sitting on an essay titled “What do Pornography and Feminism Have in Common? Part 3“. Occasionally I take it out, read it over, add something or tweak something, wonder who I am writing the essay for and what I’m trying to say, and then I put it away again. I’ve just gone through another round of this and decide that I’m not ready, or the world’s not ready, or both.

But this part is too good. Of course this is the part that was written by the polymath genius Walter Murch, so it ought to be. If you care about film, if you care about lucid thought, then I would like to humbly suggest that you  make an effort to pick up copy of Michael Ondjaate’s THE CONVERSATIONS: WALTER MURCH AND THE ART OF FILM EDITING. Yes, the book is that good.

—–

In the chapter, “Seeing Around the Edge of the Frame” from his book IN THE BLINK OF A EYE film editor Walter Murch writes:

The film editor is one of the few people working on the production of a film who does not know the exact conditions under which it was shot (or has the ability not to know) and who at the same time has a tremendous influence on the film.

If you have been on and around the set most of the time…you can get caught up in the bloody practicalities of the gestation and delivery. And when you see the dailies, you can’t help, in your mind’s eye, seeing around the edges of the frame–you can imagine everything that was there, physically and emotionally, just beyond what was actually photographed.

“We worked like hell to get that shot, it has to be in the film.” You (the director in this case) are convinced that what you got was what you wanted but there’s a possibilities that you may be forcing yourself to see things that way because it cost much–in money, time, angst–to get it.

By the same token, there are occasions when you shoot something that you dislike, when everyone is in a bad mood, and you say under protest, “all right, I’ll do this, we’ll get this close-up and then it’s a wrap.” Later on, when you look at the take, all you can remember was the hateful moment it was shot, and so you may be blind to the potentials it might have in a different context.

The editor, on the other hand, should try to see only what’s on the screen, as the audience will. Only in this way can the images be freed from the context of their creation…

I guess I’m urging the preservation of a certain kind of virginity. Don’t unnecessarily allow yourself to be impregnated by the conditions of shooting…the audience knows nothing about any of this–and you are the ombudsman for the audience.

I think Murch’s advice is some of the most lucid advice I’ve ever read or heard about editing, and I’ve found it especially helpful because I produce, direct, and edit my own films. Reading Murch has better helped me identify and understand when and why I may respond to footage in a way that an audience never could.

But as good advice as it is, it’s a simple fact that an audience rarely comes to a film with their “virginity” intact. “Based on a true story,” “Filmed on location,” “Did all of his own stunts,” “Real People, Real Life, Real Sex,” all of these are framing devices producers use to market our films, and to guide audiences toward seeing our films the way we want them to be seen. So is “By women, for women,” or “feminist”. So is “documentary.” As producers we purposely let people “see outside the frame” to try to influence the way they respond to our work.

—–

Part of why I took the P&F essay back out is because of the experience I had at the sold-out screening of ASHLEY AND KISHA at the New York LGBT Center last January; and the fact that despite a sometime tense director’s Q&A, the Center has graciously invited me to give an encore screening and another director’s Q&A next month (May 22, I’d love to see you there!)

There are other reasons, but those are doors I’m not sure I’m ready to open yet.

So last time we were chatting about the paper route that I had when I was twelve. 30 years later, I still have a couple of the fishing rods I bought with my paper route money. As promised the next stop on the Entrepreneur’s Biography is the blackberry wagon. So here we go.

When I was not quite 16 my family moved from sunny Southern California to sometimes sunny Southern Oregon. I went from living a block from the beach to living in a valley with an elevation of about 1500 feet surrounded on both sides by mountains that went up to 6,000 or 7,000 feet. Growing along the creek-sides in this mountain paradise were vast blackberry thickets, that come summertime were heavily laden with sweet purple berries.

I don’t remember how I found out, but somehow I found out that Lenny the Juiceman bought blackberries by the pound — $.65/pound if I remember correctly.

Now you have to keep in mind, this was back in 1983. Minimum wage was $3.35, the timber economy in Southern Oregon had collapsed and the unemployment rate was in the high teens, and the country was still recovering from a recession (actually my experience is that Oregon never recovered, but that’s a different post.)

Anyway, for a teenager a regular job was almost impossible to come by. No one needed a little extra help. So the idea that there was money just hanging from the brambles was too good to pass up. Down to the creek by our house I went with a bucket, and a couple hours later my mom drove me over to Pyramid Juice (Lenny’s outfit) where I sold him the berries. I guess I must have picked about 15 or 20 pounds because I still remember coming away from the transaction with a $10 bill in my hand.

The next day I went back to the creek and started again, and did that for the next week or so.

It was wonderful. I was outdoors in the middle of a beautiful Oregon Summer, making more money than if I had been in the back of a restaurant washing dishes. No boss, no schedule; just me and the sun and the berries. The only problem was within about a week I had stripped all the ripe, easily reachable fruit. No problem. I put my bucket on my bike-rack and headed off to find virgin brambles.

But what I quickly realized is that while one bucket was good enough when I was picking berries near my house, it didn’t make as much sense to ride a few miles away if all I could bring back was a single bucked of berries. I needed more carrying capacity to maximize the return on my investment in transportation. I went to the hardware store and found four smaller buckets that could hang off either side of the rack and off the handlebars. Thus outfitted, my bike was The Blackberry Wagon; capable of carrying about a 40 pound payload.

So what the entrepreneurial take away?

Well the re-investment is the obvious one; take your profits and pour them back into the business in a way that increases productivity. But that’s straight up B school shit. You can go to Wharton for that.

I think the bigger take away was getting that first taste of economic freedom, and the responsibly that comes with it.  If I wanted to go fishing instead of picking blackberries, no one was going to fire me. And neither the fine Summer fishing or the blackberries were going to last forever, so there were choices to be made; priorities to consider.  But I don’t remember stressing of that very much. I remember doing plenty of fishing and making plenty of money too.

But mostly what I remember my juice-stain fingers, the scratches up and down both arms, and the warm sun on my shoulders baking in a deep tan.