Array Seka - Inside Seka

In the booth where I was signing, there were four new young hot-bodied babes also doing promotion. I was extremely worried; they were so young and gorgeous I feared this old porn queen would be sitting there twiddling my thumbs. It was astonishing, though, that I had a steady line all day long for all three days. And these little girls didn’t know who I was! One of them said, “I’ve never seen anything like this. I’ve never had lines like this for me.” One of my customers overheard her and said, “And you never will.… There’s only one Seka!” They don’t have a clue about who came before them or that we made it easier for them to do what they’re doing now. They were very naïve to the business and it concerned me they would be eaten alive by it.

Amber Lynn, Nina Hartley, and Candida Royalle were all there. Candida’s one of the best directors out today with her couples’ films. We always have nice conversations because we don’t see each other that often. One of the reasons we all lose touch is I’ve lived in Chicago and Missouri, and most industry people are in California or New York. I’d done layouts for Club with Amber Lynn, and a movie with Nina, but never really worked with Candida. We talked about each other’s lives, not so much the business.

Not too long ago I did the AVN Awards for Video-X-Pix, who picked up Careful, He May Be Watching for distribution. What was interesting about that show was there were so many people I had not seen in years. It was like a class reunion. Herschel Savage, Randy West, John Leslie, Serena, Kelly Nichols, Ginger Lynn, Amber Lynn, Veronica Hart, director Roy Karch, and Bill Margold were all there. I’d worked with and for all of them except Kelly Nichols. It was a lot of fun. We gabbed like old hens. Amber is working on getting her domain name back. She’s doing real estate and has returned to making movies. Ginger’s still doing films as well as radio. Veronica is producing and directing horror and sci-fi flicks.

John Leslie was directing tons of adult films in Europe. Things were better between us. We sort of patched things up shortly before he died. His death was, though, rather untimely — a stroke — so it wasn’t like he was consciously making deathbed amends. Maybe the soul simply knows more than the conscious mind does.

Randy West does some adult industry work, but not a lot. He lives in Vegas, where the lifestyle certainly suits him. Serena is somewhere in Northern California but I have no idea what she’s up to. Kelly’s a makeup artist. Nina’s still active making movies, too. The MILF thing is very popular now. I could lose a few pounds — or maybe even not — and get back into it if I wanted, and could probably command a pretty penny, but the thought of it just doesn’t do it for me. Been there, done that. Time for new chapters of my life to be written.

I got a lot of their contact information and ultimately it served me well because I got together a group of them for another signing in Seattle. That event wasn’t all fun, though. One nicely dressed, normal-looking fan wanted a picture taken with me. But as I posed with him I felt his hands sliding down my back. One of the things I do with fans when they put their hand around my waist is I get a firm grip on their thumb. If they try something, all you have to do is pull straight back on their thumb and they’ll go straight down to their knees.

So I feel his hand sliding down my back to my butt. I pull slightly and he says, “That hurt.”

“I know.” But he did the same thing again. So I pulled harder and said, “You see those two guys over there?” I pointed to my two rather large male friends who weren’t bodyguards but could have passed for them.

He said, “Yeah.”

“Well, if I so much as nod towards them, they’ll come over and pulverize you.” He behaved very nicely after that.

I tried to get more events together for “The Golden Boys and Girls of Classic Porn,” but it became an exercise in frustration I soon gave up on. I would get a call for an appearance and I’d ask, “Will it just be me?” If so, I would consider the venue and wonder if I’d have to sit around all day in an empty store or something, so I’d ask if they’d go for a whole bunch of us. Usually, they’d jump for joy, and with all our names on the ads, people would flock to the events. Since we’d all sell photos, autographs, and swag, we’d all make out.

Since it worked so well, I figured there would be reciprocation. What a cool set-up we could all have!

Nope.

The business had ruined us all when it came to money. Everyone thinks porn messes up your mind as far as sex and love goes. No, at least not for me. For me, and for most of the others, the mind-fuck was money. We’d been stars in a multi-billion dollar industry — bigger by some accounts than regular Hollywood. But the actors, the stars up on the screen? We made pennies, if that. Crumbs from the table.

We should have had a union. We should have had something. I know a bunch of people got together during the AIDS era — Sharon Mitchell and Bill Margold come to mind — to organize us for better health services, but as far as salary goes, we were still treated like children working in Third World sweat shops.

What it did to most people’s heads is make them paranoid and greedy — greedy over pennies. It was every man and woman for himself or herself. We all could have helped each other more economically but instead, if someone got a gig or a lead of some sort, they kept it to themselves, even if it was for just a couple hundred dollars. Together, we could have been a power — we could have had power. But once a person has been burned over and over again, they get that way — like squirrels hiding their nuts.

When I see people like Ron Jeremy and Nina Hartley, people who are still making movies, and I watch some of their older stuff, I don’t see what other people see. Others notice the difference between age and youth. Me, I see the faces of people who’ve been ripped off so many times it’s changed who they once were. The contrast between the youthful faces of people happy to be making $200 a day, to the faces of people who now realize a lot of people became multimillionaires off their labors. Money that’s gone and will never be theirs.

I am no better than any of them. My wanting us to all band together was less altruistic than realistic — it was a way to make more money, or at least I thought so. I’ve gotten so paranoid from being burned so many times I call a lawyer when someone asks me to sign a voter registration card!

Events like the AVNs are just the tip of the iceberg. We porn people get invited to all sorts of functions. My first horror/sci-fi/comics show was New Jersey’s Chiller Convention in April 2005. I thought, “This is going to be interesting,” because I had no idea how I would do at a show of this nature. I was a little frightened. One of the things I can’t stand to do is bomb. But I ended up doing very well. I hadn’t been out doing appearances for a while and figured they wouldn’t remember me, but they were so nice and polite. It was also good for my ego to get the response and kinds of comments I got.

“I wondered where you were.”

“I can’t believe you’re here.”

“When are you coming back?”

“Why don’t you do more appearances?”

I didn’t understand the connection between sci-fi, horror, and porn, but somehow it’s there. You know it’s weird when guys dressed as Star Wars storm troopers come up to the porn queen asking for an autograph, but it happens. These things often blend in classic TV and movies in general, as well as professional wrestling and regular pro sports, so when I attend I never know who I’ll run into. There’s no connective tissue at all, just famous and semi-famous people of all sorts, all congregated under one roof. Quite the autograph orgy.