Array Seka - Inside Seka

One of the ways I pay the bills these days is to go on the road to a variety of fan and industry conventions to sign autographs and sell product. It’s a combination of heaven and hell.

I don’t mind being on the road as long as I’m making money. At the Adult Video News (AVN) show — the “Academy Awards” of adult entertainment — they want you to come out and help draw people to their booth, but “we don’t have money to pay you.” This is a multi-billion dollar industry, mind you. So I won’t do one unless a company working the event contacts me and offers me a fee.

One year John Holmes’ widow, Laurie Holmes, who worked under the name Misty Dawn, contacted me about a signing at the AVN show. She worked for one of the sponsoring companies and she agreed to my terms so I figured I’d give it a shot. I’d never met her before and she turned out to be a very nice girl. We talked about John quite a bit and she knew I was one of the few people in the industry who continues to defend him. She was madly in love with him and still has to fight every day against people ripping off his estate by taking his name and likeness and putting it on t-shirts and other merchandise. I can certainly relate to being ripped off, so we hit it off famously and it was a good time.

Arthur Morowitz of Video-X-Pix is a wonderful guy and I was glad to see he was also at the event. Unlike many in our industry, he’s just plain honest. Whatever he says he’s going to do, he does. He’s also fun to be around — just a nice man.

When I heard he was getting ready to leave and it was so busy that I had yet to see him, I made my way over to him. He was talking to somebody so I waited for a minute, but had to get back to work. When he saw me he gave me a big smile, pulled me over closely, and said, “Do you know who that is standing next to me?” I had no idea whatsoever. It looked like a little old man with a cane. His hair was completely white and he was pasty and unhealthy looking. But there was a certain way he moved his mouth that made me finally recognize who it was.

“Holy fuck, say it ain’t so!” I thought I was absolutely going to crap my pants. It felt like I had seen a ghost. A chill actually ran down my spine and stayed there all day long.

It was Ken.

He started to say something and I simply went, “No, don’t do it,” and just turned and walked away. To this day, the man sells my old belongings on eBay. He’s still making money off me. And I continue to find out thirty years later about deals where he stole from me. I’ll meet an industry exec who’ll reminisce about “paying me well” for a film. I’ll respond by saying “I was paid okay.” Then the real numbers come out. Ken would tell me the pay and I’d say, “No problem.” But I found out decades later, I got a third of what the fee actually was and he’d put the rest in his pocket.

On a lighter note, I also met Seymore Butts at AVN and he’s a very nice fellow. He’s always a very busy boy who was surrounded by photographers since he had a Showtime reality show at the time. We did some kind of ribbon-cutting ceremony together — what it was for, I have no idea. But the publicity was good anyway. Seymore (Adam Glasser) introduced me to his Cousin Stevie, who was also on their reality show. He’s a little older than I am and he’s the funniest, nicest, sweetest person. His wife is just wonderful also and she thinks his career as a porn director/producer is a hoot. She’s very supportive considering there are naked young women having sex in their living room. Hey, it pays the bills.