September will be here in another week or two, with its strange mandate to “get back to work”. I might heed its stricture, then again, I might not. Meantime:

Jennifer Lyon Bell’s Matinee is a very excellent little film, and one which quite effectively destroys the notion that explicit sex has to be contextualized in a negative way to reside comfortably in a cinematic and satisfying narrative arc. Naturally Jennifer’s reward for creating a ground-breaking depiction of sex in a positive context is to have her film banned from the Melbourne Underground Film Festival by the OFLC. (I guess this is some sort of  rite of passage.) Whether or not Australia’s “artists and intellectuals” will come out in support of Jennifer, MUFF, and Matinee they way they came out for Bill Henson or Ken Park, who can say? I’m not holding my breath. Experience teaches that both the OFLC and Australia’s intelligencia hold dark treatments of sexuality in higher esteem than (mere?) love, consent, and affection.

Last week Peggy sent a note to our warehouse asking for an inventory count and we were slightly startled to find out that Marie and Jack, Xana and Dax, and Damon and Hunter were all under 200 units. Demand is still strong for these titles, so fresh pressings were ordered immediately, and we won’t have any stock outages. But I am wondering; these have to be the eighth or ninth or tenth pressings of each of these titles, putting them well past 10,000 units each. That has to be some sort of record for self-produced and distributed erotic films. I’ll go over our replication records for exact numbers. Maybe we’ll have some sort of celebration!

My debut as “Guest Lecturer Tony Comstock” at the New York University Film School is less than a month a way. In all honestly, as pleased as I am with the writing I’ve been doing at TheIntentToArouse.com, it’s made me aware of two things that aren’t so good for my out look.

First, simply summarizing all history and the various forces – intentional and unintentional – still arrayed against trying to make a serious cinematic treatment of sexual pleasure, the sort of forces Jennifer is coming up again right now, makes me wonder how it is I ever thought my films could ever make a difference. The von Triers and Larry Clarks of the world understand the rules about sex and cinema and play by them perfectly, and their films play at Cannes and Sundance (never mind the theaters are half empty by the time the house lights come back up.) People who try to buck the system (like me and Jennifer) get run over, or have people like Allison Croggon tell us about dead-eye Russian girls getting raped by dogs, as if that has anything to do with the films I make. The next person who says “artistic merit” will get a punch in the eye; even if I have to book a transpacific flight to do it.

The second is that by becoming “Guest Lecturer Tony Comstock” I feel like I’m am now employing the exact same tactics that I started making these films to try and tear down; getting my bone fides. Hell, maybe I’ll even one of those sham doctorates (or even a real doctorate from a real university!)  so I can put Dr. Tony Comstock Ph.D on our box covers, and we’ll change our URL to TheCenterForCinemaAndSexuality.org

Whether or not that will make a difference with the OFLC, or help spare us when the shit hits the fan (again) at Amazon, I don’t know. But it can’t hurt, right? Except down in my guts. I’ve always preferred to think of myself as an entertainer first and artist second, primarily because entertainers can’t get away with resumes, credentials and clever artist’s statements. Entertainers have to make people laugh or cry, and would be horrified to find a theater half -empty at the end of one of their films.

CameraPlayForCouples.com has laid fallow for the past couple of months, ironic because after 5 or so weeks of living back aboard our sloop, my Bitchen Boat Bod has returned, tanned and lean(er) than the plumper, paler body I inhabit for the rest of the year. I am contemplating changes that might allow the Bitchen Boat Bod to be my default state rather than the other way around.

I have no idea how this listing for Ashley and Kisha found its into the New York Magazine website. Usually I can suss it out, but this time I can’t. None of our other films are listed, which tends to rule out machine database propagation.

Our garden, pictured above, is quite lovely. Some of our tomatoes are fancy-pants “heirloom” varieties, some are common hybrids. All are delicious ripe from the vine. One thing I really like about the culinary arts is it doesn’t matter what a chef says about his food - where he went to school or where he’s cooked.  At some point you cut into the dish, put it in your mouth and chew. And it either tastes good or it doesn’t, and if it doesn’t, no artist’s statement can change your mind.

As a part of the ongoing DIY colloquy that I’ve been having here on the blog, today I’m posting an interview with Courtney Leigh Newman of New York based Dirty Dolls Lingerie.

I met Courtney through her husband Brendan Koerner, writer and host of the ever fascinating Micro Khan blog. Like me, Brendan is a SoCal transplant to NYC, and while chatting on the phone one day I found out his wife Courtney was a lingerie designer and with her partner Erica had started their own company.

Entrepreneurship and sexuality? Tell me more! And before long Courtney and I were gabbing on the phone about the thrills and spills of staking your family’s livelihood on your creative vision.

Anyway, that’s the preamble. Save a couple of prompts, I’ll shut up and let Courtney tell the rest of her story:

TC: Why Dirty Dolls Lingerie was started?

CL: The answer to that question is easy. First off, sheer desperation compelled me to escape my job. I’d reached a point in my career in which I realized that it didn’t matter who I worked for—the fact was, I’d never be happy creating mass-market lingerie in a cubicle. If I continued down the path I was on, what would life be like? I knew that I’d probably be deeply unhappy, and would always wonder whether or not I could have done things my way. So I had to try.

TC: I think a lot of people can identify with that cubicle-fuel quite desperation to escape. What was missing from your work?

CL: I’ve have always had a deep passion for all things vintage, and for all things lingerie. The idea of creating a line which married these two loves truly stirred something inside of me.

TC: How did this go from a cubicle-bound day dream to a reality?

CL: I met my partner Erica at one of my first jobs. She and I became fast friends; I was inspired by her active spirit. I remember taking a sick day from my job to “find myself,” and I came up with this idea that I should open a lingerie/boudoir lifestyle boutique in Harlem. When I ran it by Erica, she was completely onboard from the get-go. Of course, the concept and the idea changed quite a bit during our frequent brainstorming sessions. We realized pretty quickly that there was no way we would be able to get enough cash together to open a storefront in NYC.

TC: I’m always interested in how people get around financial obstacles. What did you do?

CL: We decided to base our business on the home-party/shopping-night model, along with building a spectacular retail webstore. The more we worked out the details on this plan, the more excited I became—I sensed early on that things were really going to happen for us. Still, it took three years of after-hours meetings to finally figure out a way to make the plunge. It was really scary to leave a well-paying job and invest every cent I had ever saved into this dream. But, we’d reached the point where there was no turning back. Dirty Dolls Lingerie would definitely not exist without the positive partnership I’ve managed to create with Erica. Both of us have said time and again that we would never have had the guts to do it alone.

TC: So how does it compare to being an on-staff designer?

CL: When I worked for other people, my tasks were relatively easy by comparison. I had to design, execute and help sell a collection each season. With Dirty Dolls, each step along the way seemed like this monumental challenge. We saved every penny we could in order to buy an insane amount of high-end fabric—just so we could complete our line as we’d envisioned. I remember feeling that as soon as we had this fabric, the rest of the process would be smooth sailing. A few months later, I felt the same way once we’d finally secured a small-business loan to pay for our product. Every time we cleared an obstacle, in fact, I was sure we’d never encounter another—but sure enough we always did.. But I just believed so strongly in the Dirty Dolls dream, I kept on pushing forward..

TC: After many years of this, I’ve come to the saying that, “Every success is merely the chance to work harder and take bigger risks…

CL: We’ve had a lot of lucky breaks along the way. Our very first photoshoot is an excellent case in point. We managed to convince an unbelievably talented and professional photographer, Eric Tu to shoot our gorgeous Dirty Dolls models. We somehow managed to rent The Slipper Room for an afternoon, and we survived a few last-minute changes to our models lineup. We were also fortunate to have some friends show up to help with lighting, hair and makeup. Once our shoot was done, fate brought us in touch with a Detroit-based web designer who goes by the name of “Z”< http://www.i-am-z.com/>–the visual genius behind our site. As so many pieces magically fell into place, I got to feeling as if nothing could stop The Dolls.

TC: What about bad luck?

CL: Well, there was no plan for launching our business during the biggest economic nosedive since the Great Depression. And The Dolls have occasionally been bruised by the rough times. As you might imagine, that’s resulted in some moments of sheer terror and stress. The bottom line is that I’m staking my family’s future on the idea that ladies with hard-to-find bra sizes want lingerie inspired by vintage burlesque—sounds so crazy when I type it out! I have an eighteen-month-old son, a mortgage, a start-up business, and lots of debt. Thankfully, I also have a very supportive yet overworked husband who understands how much I want this to work.

TC: I hear you there. When we made our first film everyone said “This is great! But there’s no market for it. It’s distribution proof.” We had just bought a house, and had our first child, and somehow I thought the right thing to do what make more “distribution proof” movies. But every step along the way, my wife said, “Do what you need to do. If it doesn’t work out, I can always get a real job.” Still, sometimes I feel like I must have lost my mind.

CL: I’m still fighting for the Dolls’ cause on a daily basis. I just can’t give up, because I know deep down that we’ll survive the recession—and grow to prosper! Besides, how could I turn my back on this? I’d so miss the buzz of getting those “thank you for creating this bra” reactions from our satisfied customers. Those are hard to come by amidst the cubicles of Fashion Avenue.

Be sure to head over to Dirty Dolls Lingerie and check out Courtney and Erica’s work. And if you like what you see, buy something!

For the next post, I’ll be giving a shout out to one of the great entrepreneur’s of the sex positive movement, Good Vibrations founder Joani Blank.

Joani was one of the first people to recognize  that Marie and Jack: A Hardcore Love Story was something special, and a person who gave me the encouragement to continue when nearly everyone else said it was “distribution proof”. 

Joani’s been living the courage of her convictions, ethically and economically for several decades, and she’s got a new blog up where she is laying it all out; what it actually takes to live your life on your own terms, and what kind of an impact just one person can have if she is willing to do it.