Porn Valley Life

There is a Filipino restaurant across the street from my office called Good Ha. Vivid’s new comedy label is known as Vivid HA. There is no connection, other than the Filipinos always laugh at me when I try to order.

I like porn that is intentionally funny, because somehow it makes the women seem hotter. I think it’s because when they laugh the blood rushes downward. But Stood Up, Vivid HA’s first project, about Howard Stern regular Bob Levy, has the distinction of being a funny and sexy movie without him. Everybody in the movie is funnier than the guy the movie is ostensibly about, and now, a week after seeing it, I realize that that was a stroke of genius.

I talked with Stood Up director B. Skow.

“Bob Levy isn’t funny in this movie,” I said. “The jokes are bad, he’s surly, and not even a likeable asshole kind of surly.”

“Yes!” the director said, enthusiastic, as if this had all worked out according to plan.

“I mean, porn is great, but this guy has his life story – or at least his fictional life story – framed by a porn movie. It’s not A Beautiful Mind,” I said.

“You ever hear him on the Howard Stern show?” Skow asked. “That’s his shtick. He’s a hack comedian with old jokes, and he’s bitter because he thinks everyone has stolen his act.”

“So they make fun of him on the Stern show, too?” I asked. I mean, the porn movie is the last place where every man can be a king, and yet Levy is treated like shit in a porn movie about him.

“All the time,” Skow said. “We put the script together based on certain loser qualities.”

“I see.”

“But you liked the sex, right? The sex was good?”

“The sex was awesome,” I said. “Savanna looked amazing and Penny Flame as a JAP was superb. Evan Stone and Kimberly Kane were also very funny. In fact, I would give Evan Stone a show before I’d give Bob Levy a show.”

“See?” Skow said. “We did our job.”

I don’t know if Skow believed what he was saying, but he directed a movie that is amazing for the fact that what it delivered was different from what it promised, but was so much better because of it.