BijouBlog

By Josh Eliot

**WARNING: Contents May Upset Your Stomach **

It was my love of movies and movie-making that brought me out to San Francisco at age 17 to try to make a go of it. For some reason, my brain retains movie trivia like nobody's business. Things I shouldn’t remember, but just do. Having said that, there are a few things I would like to forget about my time working for Catalina Video from 1987-2009. Not anything related to my co-workers, our ethics, or decisions we made, but things that grossed me out. I often felt like an impostor when I was working in the industry, because my focus was easily shifted if something I was watching made me a little squeamish. For example: when one of our directors was shooting a hot sweaty scene, I would focus on the sweat. Sweat in general grosses me out. I don’t want to see it, I don’t want it dripped on me during a moment of passion, all I want to do is wipe it away. I don’t know if I’m alone in this thought process, but it is one of the many turn-offs I witnessed on the set over the years. The sex we were shooting could be super-hot, but as soon as I saw something that triggered my squeamish side, it was my focal point, it would throw me off my game.

When I started with Catalina Video in 1987, they hadn’t yet embraced the condom. However, director John Travis and producer Scott Masters where trying their best to be responsible by using a spermicidal ointment when we shot fucking. Conceptrol with Nonoxynol-9 came in a tube, much like a tampon, and was a vaginal contraceptive to prevent pregnancy. In our studio, the shower had a douche attachment for the models to use prior to shooting the anal portion of the scenes. Once clean as a whistle, the model would come onto the set and the director or make-up man would insert the tube of Non Oxy 9 into their butt and push the gel up into them. This was short lived, and condoms came a few movies later. While using the Non-Oxy 9, it wouldn’t just magically stay inside - at any given moment it would fly out, most often when I was shooting the underneath shot. It would fly out and land on my camera lens, my arm, my ankle (if I was sitting instead of kneeling) or the top of my head. I made damned sure to keep my head down and mouth shut. An underneath cum shot with a load splattering, not a problem, but this stuff? UGHHHH.

In one of Scott Master’s movies, The Young Cadets, Mike Ryan‘s co-star could not keep a boner to save his life. Scott Masters made some calls and got Chris Burns to come in to do the fucking. Chris Burns (Below the Belt, Dangerous, Men of the Midway) had worked for Catalina Video in These Bases Are Loaded, Skin Deep and NightCrawler, but didn’t have the current “pretty faced jock” look that Catalina was now casting. He did, however, agree to come in as a “stunt dick.” It was very lucky for me that Dan Allman was doing the camera work for the insertion shots, because it went on forever and poor Mike Ryan was screaming his lungs out because Chris’s fat dick was ripping him a new one. Mike was a gay for pay model and really didn’t have a lot of anal experience, and probably could have used a lesson on how to properly douche. Chris was merciless, but the worst thing was that the damned Non Oxy 9 kept flying out and landing on the fill light. 400 watts of burning Non Oxy 9/butt juice that was literally smoking and filling up the studio, and it did not smell like Fabreze! Poor Dan got a cloud of smoke right in his face.

If you are still with me, it’s time to move onto another repulsive (in my book) liquid: spit. For some unknown reason, Chi Chi LaRue came up with this idea that spitting was hot. Now, I was fine over the years with a little appropriate spitting, like in someone’s ass crack, perfectly fine. But for a good year, all of Chi Chi’s movies - straight, gay and bi - had this non-stop spitting all over the place. Chi was also directing projects for Catalina during that period and I happened to be filling in on camera when the spitting started. Luckily, I was able to use my producer card and stopped that shit tout suite. Sorry “girl,” we don’t do that in Catalina productions, think of something else. Chi Chi obliged without an argument because he knew how much that churned my stomach. He did, however, like to keep the sweat on the boys instead of calling for make-up to wipe them down (like I always did), but I just grinned and bore it.

We always save the best for last, don’t we? I was shooting the movie Furry Men Do and there was a Latino actor named Gabriel Rocas that we used from time to time who had the biggest balls I’d ever seen. Like many models, he had his own specific routine to get himself hard prior to running onto the set and shooting a few moments of video with his erect penis. I learned about it on his first pair of movies for us, BEAR Skin & Latin Men Do, in 1999.

He would disappear into the adjoining room and soak his giant nuts in a bowl (that he brought with him) of warm water while he stroked his dick to get hard. Ok, no big deal, sounds pleasant enough. It worked, the scenes were completed and we all went home happy. Then on the set of Furry Men Do in 2000, Gabriel returned, bowl in hand, to shoot another scene. This time, one of my crew members was assisting him in the adjoining room. Always up for a good chuckle, Brad Austin and I snuck a peek into the room to see the crew member carefully blowing Gabriel, being extra cautious not to spill the water out of the bowl that his nuts were soaking in. I wish I had a photo. We finished the scene quickly, the models went to shower and we started to pack up. The crew member came walking into the room with the bowl of water and we turned our heads to look at him, when we heard him say, “Ahhh… Ball broth!” Without missing a beat, he put the bowl of water, pubic hairs and all, up to his mouth and drank the entire thing. Brad and I nearly lost our lunch. That was the very last time I ever booked Gabriel; nothing against him, but I just couldn’t ever witness another serving of Ball Broth!

Bio of Josh Eliot:

At the age of 25 in 1987, Josh Eliot was hired by Catalina Video by John Travis (Brentwood Video) and Scott Masters (Nova Video). Travis trained Eliot on his style of videography and mentored him on the art of directing. Josh directed his first movie, Runaways, in 1987. By 2009 when Josh parted ways with Catalina Video, he'd produced and directed hundreds of features and won numerous awards for Best Screenplay, Videography, Editing, and Directing. He was entered into the GayVN Hall of fame in 2002. 

Early on in my career with Catalina Video, we had a pretty regular list of repeat actors we used in the movies we were shooting. As I mentioned before, a number of those actors were gay for pay or bisexual. I was 25 when I started with Catalina and before actually meeting these models, which included Johnny Davenport, Eric Manchester, Mike Gregory, Derek Jensen and Chad Knight, my friends and I would always scoff at the fact when someone said they were bisexual. It’s was just how the world reacted to the word bisexual at the time. We would roll our eyes on the set when the models had to watch straight porn to get hard in between shots. We thought that they were doing it for appearances' sake but they were really getting hard looking at the guys. You know, the way silly ass 20 somethings thought back then. In our minds it was always “cut and dry” - you were straight or you were gay, there was no in between. They were performing a gay sex scene so of course they were gay, right? Luckily life experience has shown us all to have a different perspective on things. Bisexuality is alive and well in the world.

 

Kurt Bauer & Mike Gregory

 

I became aware of a director named Paul Norman, a pioneer in the industry who some would call “The King of Bi-Sexual Movies.” He made The Big Switch and Passion By Fire in 1986, turning the industry on its head, and Bi and Beyond in 1987. I worked with Kurt Bauer from my first day on the set and many times afterwards in the movies Top Man, My Best Buddy, and The Big One, and he even did a non-sexual walk on in my directorial debut Runaways. Kurt also so happened to grace the cover of Bi and Beyond, which Catalina was distributing at the time, and it happened to be in our pile of tapes for models to watch while jerking their dicks to get hard. I borrowed it from the studio one day and took it home to watch. This was my first time watching a bisexual feature. The movie also featured Mike Gregory who I had literally just finished shooting for a movie called The Young Cadets. Watching Kurt and Mike performing with girls added another layer of understanding for me, opening my cynical mind to the fact that the world was not so black and white as one might think.

Unfortunately, an open mind was not something the straight porn industry was experiencing when it came to the idea of bisexual features. I felt like any connection to the gay world was just not something the industry would embrace, on any level, at that time in history. I think Paul Norman brought a sense of legitimacy to them, but they were not having any of it. At the yearly adult video conventions in Las Vegas, the gay and bisexual companies were literally in a completely different room or building! It was hard to get straight porn actors to even consider performing in a straight scene for a bi movie for fear they would be shunned. Paul and his fiancé Tori Wells became the toast of the town after she became a mega-star in the 1989 movie from director Andrew Blake called Night Trips. Blake shot it entirely on 35mm film, while most others were shooting on video. If you’ve never seen it and appreciate straight porno, it’s a “must.” Winner of the AVN Award for Best Film, Cinematography and Editing, it is truly the most stylish adult film I have ever seen. Tori Wells led a star studded cast including: Porsche Lynn, Victoria Paris, Randy Spears and Peter North. Did her mega stardom help move forward the acceptance of Bi movies, directed by her fiancé, within the industry? I’m not sure, but I feel like it opened the door.

Two actors that were able to go from gay movies to decades-long careers in straight movies under the radar without any push back from the industry were Jamie Gillis and Jack Wrangler. Back then, things weren’t streamed or online so it was easy to sweep the fact they performed in gay movies under the carpet. One of Jamie Gillis’ best roles was in Boynapped, re-released by Bijou - a Hand in Hand classic directed by Spencer Logan. Jack Wrangler (Gemini, Hot House, Heavy Equipment), well we all know his success story, and Bijou has tons of content featuring his hot-ass-self! Gay for pay? Or bisexual? I’m truly stumped. Another star that comes to mind is Matt Ramsey, made iconic from the desktop scene in The Bigger the Better with Rick Donovan, who went from gay movies to straight movies under the name Peter North. Luckily, by the time I met Peter North, the industry had come to its senses about bisexual movies and Peter was on my set shooting a straight scene with Leanna Foxxx for my Bi-Dolls series. I asked if I could credit him as Matt Ramsey instead of Peter North, but he respectfully declined, we came a long way getting him to act in the movie, but that might have been pushing it.

Then there is Paul Barresi (alleged lover of John Travolta and porn icon). Now, that hot number is in a league all onto himself! YOWZA! I saw him in person once, wearing super tight black slacks, at a movie cinema in West Hollywood some hot chick. I was with Catalina editor Chet Thomas and he pointed him out to me while we were in line... Gay for pay or bisexual? Who the hell cares!!! All Chet and I could focus on was that hot hairy chest and tight ass on him! I’m sure there are dozens more examples I could give of guys who were or could have been gay for pay or bisexual, but quite honestly I can’t stop thinking about Paul Barresi right now, I think I need to go stream Men of the Midway.

Correction: Bi-Coastal, previously cited as a Paul Norman movie, was a 1985 movie by director Tom DeSimone. We at Bijou apologize for the mix-up. We do make mistakes and are happy when they are pointed out so we can correct them so that we can make sure that the history is properly recorded.

Bio of Josh Eliot:

At the age of 25 in 1987, Josh Eliot was hired by Catalina Video by John Travis (Brentwood Video) and Scott Masters (Nova Video). Travis trained Eliot on his style of videography and mentored him on the art of directing. Josh directed his first movie, Runaways, in 1987. By 2009 when Josh parted ways with Catalina Video, he'd produced and directed hundreds of features and won numerous awards for Best Screenplay, Videography, Editing, and Directing. He was entered into the GayVN Hall of fame in 2002.