11 Points About Our Penthouse DVD Release Video
Published Saturday, June 21, 2008 at 06:14:40 PM

As part of my job at Break.com, we get sent to cover a lot of different events... Paul and I show up, film everything we can, interview everyone we can, then put together the funniest video we can.

A few weeks ago, we got sent to a Penthouse DVD release party and fashion show. We got to interview close to two dozen porn stars. We made a video, which has done extremely well online.

This entry has some behind-the-scenes info about that video, answers some questions people have been asking about it... you know, all the good stuff.

  1. Watch the video! It will really give you a frame of reference for what the hell I'm talking about in this blog posting.
    The most common question people asked is: Did you pick up/try to pick up/get a number from/have sexual intercourse with any of the porn stars you interviewed? And the answer is, definitively, no.

    Although this will surprise you as much as it surprises us, we really are professionals. When we're filming, Paul is focused on getting the best shots, I'm focused on getting people to say the most interesting and funny stuff, and neither of us breaks out of that for personal reasons.

    Also, I don't know if I could handle dating a porn star.

  2. But, yes, in retrospect, there were two female porn stars I think I might have been able to woo (if I'd wanted to). Which ones? From the video, the women are the one at the 0:41 mark and the 1:32 mark. And possibly the 0:35 mark (the woman, not the guy, naturally). But there was no wooing. I don't know that one can really pitch woo at a porn DVD release party... especially if said person actually uses the term "pitch woo."

  3. The stuff the porn stars were saying was pretty shocking. They would say anything. It was a very different experience than when we were at NBA All-Star weekend and none of the players wanted to talk about anything.

    I guess it makes sense -- for porn stars, saying crazy stuff might help get attention, which might get fame, which will directly lead to more money. But still... I was shocked at just how crazy some of the stuff got. I just haven't reached the point in life where a total stranger puts a microphone in my face and within 20 seconds I'm talking about the ins and outs of anal sex.


  4. Me interviewing porn star Angie Savage while Paul films.
    By the end of the night, I was completely and totally desensitized. People could say anything and I wouldn't even flinch. It was like... getting punched in the face once would catch you off guard and hurt... but if you've been punched in the face 200 times, the 201st punch wouldn't hurt at all. (Maybe that's not the greatest analogy. Eh. I'm going to stand by it.)

  5. There's only one moment the whole night that really threw me (It starts at the 2:11 mark). I didn't know how to respond to a woman saying "I just did a shoot for FuckingDungeon.com. I'm tied down and fucked by Otto Bauer." You can see it in my face as I rack my brain for a response and can only muster an awkward "That's cool."

    Honestly, what really threw me was trying to remember who Otto Bauer was. I knew it was some World War One or Two figure... but I didn't realize it was also the pseudonym of a male porn star. Or maybe I was still focused on the concept of a Fucking Dungeon.

  6. The female porn stars said crazy stuff, and, of course, they were a very interesting group of women... but I found myself almost more intrigued by the male porn stars. Since I can grasp their perspective a little more... what with being a man and all... I just had an endless stream of questions for them. None of it made the final cut, but I asked about performance issues and anxiety, how it affects their dating lives, how it affects their perspective on sex and more. Of course, nothing came out more interesting than what male porn star DJ Foothill told me (at the 3:00 mark) -- when I asked how many women he'd been with, he answered "It's five digits."

  7. Of course, running the math on that means that, if he's 40 years old and started at age 18, that means he's had sex with an average of about 1.25 women a day, every day, for his entire adult life. Which just sounds exhausting.


  8. Laughing at some ridiculousness from porn star Kayla Paige.
    I don't really focus on the comments people leave on our videos -- Break users are arguably the most negative and immature commenters on the entire Internet -- but when we were filming, I said to Paul, "How many people going to write stuff like 'That guy shouldn't be interviewing porn stars, he's gay"? Paul guessed it would be hundreds.

    So we were surprised that the vast majority of comments about me focused more on the size of my nose. But, to the credit of the racist kids commenting, only about one out of 10 nose comments included an anti-Semitic slur. So maybe there is hope for the future generation.

  9. To answer another question: Yes, we did send the video to Penthouse. And they loved it. In fact, they already want to book us to be at their next event, in August.

  10. Something I never realized about on-camera interviewing is that it completely drains you. Like, being "on" for hours and hours, keeping things interesting, pushing the limits of what we're allowed to do, simultaneously trying to be a producer... it ultimately all adds up to me completely shutting down at the end of the night.

    Once the interviews and fashion show were over, we could've hung out at the club, talked to people and had fun... but I really just wanted to sit down on a couch and drink water.

  11. Paul chose not to send the video to his sweet Midwestern parents. I, on the other hand, chose to send the video to my sweet Midwestern parents... who said they actually enjoyed it. (Mostly for the parts with me talking though -- they enjoy seeing my journalism degree go to good use.)

    My sweet Midwestern grandma, on the other hand, was, according to my mom, "Disgusted at what those women do and say." Of course, this is the same grandma who sat me down before I went to New Orleans a few years ago and warned me to be careful of "hoochie-coochie girls" and remember "they don't drink like Jews down there"... so her response was not a surprise.
This list was published on Saturday, June 21, 2008 at 06:14:40 PM under the category Dating & Sex.
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11 Points is a collection of exhaustively-researched, meticulously-written, theoretically-humorous 11-item lists, covering topics ranging from TV and movies to the Internet and video games to food and dating to politics and race relations.

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