The movie poster for ‘Scumbag,’ a film by Mars Roberge.
 
I recently had the pleasure of chatting with director Mars Roberge about his upcoming film, Scumbag. Our more cinematically inclined Dangerous Minds readers may recall that Roberge produced and directed the highly accoladed 2013 documentary on fashion designer/stylist/retailer Patricia Field The Little House that Could. Roberge spend a decade of his life working in Field’s New York boutique and the film was praised by the LGBTQ community for the attention it drew to the safe haven Field cultivated for club kids, drag queens, transsexuals, teens and twenty-somethings who were trying to figure who they really were.

Scumbag has a 200+ member cast—most of them culled from the vast world of punk rock and counterculture creatives that Roberge brought together for the film. Among them are Angelo Moore of Fishbone, Kid Congo Powers (Gun Club and The Cramps), underground filmmaker Nick Zedd and other members from bands like Dead Kennedys, Crass, D Generation (our own Howie Pyro) and the Germs, just to name a few. Reflective of his own life experiences, Scumbag tells the tale of a DJ whose day gig has him cavorting with drug addicts, mental patients, ex-cons and murderers. Which makes it sound precisely like the kind of film readers of Dangerous Minds will dig. I spoke with Roberge over email last week about Scumbag.

You’ve been a DJ for much of your life and the main character in Scumbag is a DJ. How much of your life story is told in the film?

Mars Roberge: 99% of it. Let’s just say I never smoked crack but pretty much everything else happened. All the actors look like the actual people except Princess Frank (the musician who plays the lead character of “Phil” in Scumbag) doesn’t look like me. When people ask why I chose him it’s because he’s cool and is living my old life. I think he was the first guy I ever met in LA, he performed at a Red Zebra club kid party. Seconds afterwards invited me and my ex-wife to an orgy at his house. We didn’t go but he did leave such an impression on me that I immediately thought of him when I needed the main star.  He did great job too. Note to all actors out there: if you want a lead role, invite directors to orgies.

I understand Ron Jeremy basically showed up on the set and ended up getting an impromptu role in Scumbag that you came up with on the fly. As this kind of stuff never happens to me, I must know more about this seemingly random event.

Mars Roberge: There was an actor who will remain nameless who tried to blackmail me, so I fired him and had to reshoot 2/3 of the movie. The same guy called Ron to my set in Burbank at three in the morning. I’m sure he was doing it just to impress the girls but in either case, here I am with Ron walking around. Of course with all the selfies going off, it was pushing our production back a few hours where I had to say “you’re either in the film or not,” and he did it.

Dangerous Minds: You’ve managed to assemble a pretty fantastic cast that includes members of punk and counterculture heroes. You also had Jim Sclavunos (Nick Cave & the Bad Seeds/Grinderman collaborator) contribute to the soundtrack. How big of a role does music play in Scumbag?

Mars Roberge: For me, as a filmmaker, DJ, and ex-guitarist from several bands, music plays EVERYTHING for me. I usually have the entire soundtrack picked out before I even start making the movie because all my scenes are influenced by certain songs. I laugh (in my head) when a million people approach me to give me music or want to be my composer because I’m like, I spent 26 years of my life as a DJ where music is everything to me, that I know what I want long before the filming happens. There are scenes in the movie that I had to break straight out into music videos. This caused some tension with a couple crew members who were like “you can’t do that, it’s not a musical.” Which led me to invent a new genre which I call “Rocktopia” just so I could do what I want. I figured if you can’t beat them, start a revolution.

More after the jump…

Porn was a different beast in the ‘70s and ‘80s. Often times, actors, looking for their “big break,” would do adult films under assumed names to make rent while struggling to land legit roles. In the history of porn, only a small minority of stars, such as Jenna Jameson, Traci Lords and Ginger Lynn, were actually able to make the transition from “blue movies” to the “silver screen.”

The Rialto Report is an online historical archive of information related to “the golden age of porn” (mostly ‘70s and ‘80s) in New York. It’s an excellent, exhaustive source of interviews and articles related to the subject. If the topic holds any interest for you at all, you’ll want to check them out by following the previous link.

Prior to the shot-on-video, amateur quickies of today, it could be argued that porno flicks in the ‘70s—especially in New York—made some attempt at “real movie” production value. Indeed, many of the actors in these films were poor souls who had come to the Big Apple seeking fame, but were struggling in bit parts for little-to-no money. As Deep Throat star, Harry Reems, told Rialto Report:

In the beginning, I could get $150 for a few hours in a sex film – compared to next to nothing for appearing for weeks in an off-off-Broadway play. These X-rated films helped prolong my existence as a struggling actor, and therefore increased the chances that I’d eventually get a big break.

Rialto Report has tracked down several headshots of these struggling actors “before they were porn famous,” for a two-part series.

I have to admit some amount of ignorance when it comes to many of the actors featured there, as I’m no expert on ancient porn loops—but a few of them were instantly recognizable, even with my personally limited knowledge (basically limited to woods porn and 10th generation VHS dubs at teenage friends’ houses). Maybe it’s because the male actors “worked” more, but I recognized far more of the men than the women. If you ever watched any porn from the ‘70s or ‘80s ever, then you are bound to recognize some of these.

Here are the ones I found instantly recognizable:
 

Jamie Gillis. Real name, Jamey Gurman. Shown here as “Jamey King.” One of the most prolific male porn stars. His interview at Rialto Report can be found here. Gillis played “Burt The Enema Bandit” in the unbelievably sleazy 1977 film, Water Power.
 

Shelley Graham, better known as Georgina Spelvin, star of The Devil In Miss Jones. Her Rialto Report interview can be found here.
 

Joseph Nassivera, better known as Joey Silvera got his start in adult films in 1974. He currently is a leading director of transsexual pornographic films.
 

Sue Rowan, better known as Bree Anthony, who appeared in many adult films in the mid-1970s. As “Sue Richards,” she was also the editor of High Society magazine for a short time.
 

Taija Rae entered the adult film industry in 1983. According to Rialto Report, the first part of her stage name, came from an Asian cocktail waitress with whom she worked before porn. The last name, Rae, was a tribute to Fay Wray.
 

Ronald Hyatt, better known as Ron “the Hedgehog” Jeremy—for better or for worse, he is the most recognizable male porn star of all time. He has an unbelievable 1,405 (both porn and “legit”) film acting credits to his name.
 
Via Rialto Report

 
A highly unsettling latex Ron Jeremy mask by Hyperflesh spotted at Comic-Con in San Diego.

Via Boing Boing

 
Porno actor Ron Jeremy spoke at a church in Hudsonville, Michigan over the weekend to hundred of people who turned up for his talk, a double bill with California pastor Craig Gross, a minister who tries to help porn addicts.

The local NBC affiliate, WoodTV reported:

Jeremy, who was raised Jewish, spoke briefly about his life in the industry; admitting he still works and has been with more than 2,000 women. Throughout the years, however, he has had several personal experiences that have brought him closer to God; one of them was surviving a car wreck with the late pastor/comedian Sam Kinison.
 
“The car didn’t hit a single tree. It was a forest…[the car] missed every tree at 60 miles an hour upside down,” Jeremy said.

But Jeremy holds the belief that pornography and religion can co-exist.

“I don’t think the Lord above has a problem with consenting adults, having consenting romance, for consenting adults to watch. Period. But again the whole sex outside marriage, The Bible has got a problem with that and that’s where me and most of the people here are never going to agree on that,” Jeremy said.

He added, “The vast majority of porn stars believe in God.”

Jeremy also played piano and harmonica for attendees.
 

Porn star speaks at Hudsonville church

 
Via Christian Nightmares

 
They need a good name for this, like “The Ron Jeremy Effect” or “The Hedgehog Syndrome” or something:

A small Dutch study, released Wednesday, set out to identify the psychology that leads women to willingly, and even enthusiastically, engage in sexual activities despite the ick factor. The results, published online in the journal PLoS ONE, indicate that arousal overrides feelings of disgust and facilitates a woman’s desire to do something that a woman who is not aroused might find flat-out repulsive.

“Women [who] were sexually aroused were more willing to touch and do initially disgusting tasks,” study co-author Charmaine Borg, a researcher in the department of clinical psychology and experimental psychopathology at the University of Groningen in The Netherlands, told The Huffington Post.

Borg and her colleagues separated 90 female university students into three equal groups: one watched “female friendly erotica;” one watched a video of extreme sports meant to get them excited, but in a non-sexual way; and one watched a video of a train, meant to elicit a neutral response.

The women were then given 16 tasks, most of them unappealing. They were asked to take a sip from a cup of juice that had a large (fake) insect in it, to wipe their hands with a used tissue and to take a bite from a cookie that was sitting next to a living worm. The women were also asked to perform several sex-related tasks, like lubricating a vibrator.

Women in the “aroused group” said they found both the unpleasant tasks and the sex-related tasks less disgusting than women in the other groups. They also completed the highest percentage of the activities, suggesting that sexual arousal not only decreases feelings of disgust, but directly affects what women are willing to do, the study shows.

This “repulsion reflex” as it might be called, is there to inhibit women from having sex with men with poor hygiene, getting sexual diseases or I guess from being on the receiving end of some inferior baby batter. Or not.

The thing I kept thinking about, though, as I read this item, was this utterly genius bit by the godlike comedian and national treasure, Doug Stanhope:
 

 
Best of all, I could only find one double entendre in the advertising copy. That makes it even funnier for me. Pure class!. Order your bottle of Ron de Jeremy here.

Thank you Soren McCarthy of New York City!