Finding myself back at home in North Carolina means, among other things, that I am reunited with my gigantic video library, from which a magical treasure trove of informational documentary footage concerning the Los Angeles porno industry is just waiting to be liberated.

My interviews with Wesley Pipes, taken during the summer of 2002, are a great place to start. Wesley Pipes (neé Wesley Lawrence) was by far the most charismatic and articulate member of a proud gang of ladysmashers that I had the pleasure of videotaping for delirious fun and extensive profit. To this day I feel that Wesley existed somewhat “under the radar;” for, in a perfect universe, he would be more famous than Perez Hilton and at least as highly lauded as Ron Artest. But because he worked in a degraded industry with poor PR, he was never considered “mainstream material.” Regardless, I find him as funny as Dave Chappelle; and I suspect that even Dave Chappelle would find him as funny as Dave Chappelle, had he had the pleasure of meeting him and understanding the Pipes mystique.

As is probably evident in the video, I clearly idolized Wesley for being everything I could never be: honest, open, effortlessly hilarious, and even compassionate in his own way. He was a huge part of a definitive chapter of my porno life, and I’m so pleased that some of the footage from that bizarre summer of love still exists. Here the young white director and the all-star black performer discuss the vicissitudes of the porno experience.