First Came EZTV...then Adam & Company

So EZTV, a small-format video post-production house in West Hollywood CA became my school for video production in 1981. And owner, John Dorr became my video fairy godfather, training me as a video cameraman, editor, and producer; in exchange for my services as photographer, art director, and graphic artist.

John was a Yale grad' with connections to AFI (American Film Institute), and AMPAS (Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences). His dream was to bring independent movie production to the masses, and to offer a place where those productions could be shown to the public. My main job (after creating the EZTV logo) was to compile a monthly publication EZTV Guide that listed the month's offerings, along with background about their producers. I also curated art exhibits in the small gallery / theater.

Almost daily some celebrity would come into the facility, to create a rough edit of their project, or to get videotape copies of a scene they were in, or a commercial that had aired. Some of Hollywood's most hard-working character actors, as well as producers, writers, and directors made EZTV their affordable creative haven. Often EZTV was rented as a preview house for Academy members to view movies being considered for that year's Oscars.

Since John himself was gay, he gave special attention and favors to young gay wanna-be producers, like me; becoming known as the 'Mother Theresa of independent video'. And for good reason. He routinely backed the projects (which meant supplying cameras and lighting equipment, as well as access to the editing bay) of struggling artists with a vision. And little did I know that some of the colorful unknowns were well on their way to becoming big names: Eric Bagosian, Michael Kearns, Paul Reubens aka Pee Wee Herman.

Within a year, I became one of EZTV's practicing camera operators, and began editing my first projects; all the time, a working photographer for the magazines and newspapers catering to gay men in the US and abroad. I waited for my opportunity to produce my vision of the gay world, and to make use of the credits I'd amassed working with John.

In my never-ending search for new models, I came across an ad in one of the local rags, for an 'escort to older gentlemen'. The ad read like a dream list of attributes: wrestler's build, classically trained musician, uncut, and versatile. I phoned him immediately. Within the week I'd met Frank Jeffries, and during the next months we'd agreed to be partners in Adam & Company, our first video enterprise. We, as uncut men, didn't see nearly enough of our kind depicted in photos or movies. And worse, Frank had stories about uncut models being made to 'skin back' in order to look circumcised. So we decided we would fill that niche, showing proud, uncut men. And we'd dare to use men who were way above the age of most sex stars in the marketplace.

An ad for our first movie: Foreskin Fantasy One - A Primer to Uncut Dick hit the pages of the Advocate (then, still a newspaper) and we sold our first VHS tape that same day. And in the fall of 1982, my movie making career had finally begun. I couldn't imagine what a roller coaster of experiences awaited me.