VEGAS! What happens there, stays there! Unless you're a writer for xoJane, in which case what happens there goes on the Internet in real time. On Day 3, we attended the AVN Awards, which is a glamorous event studded with STARS like DAVE NAVARRO!
This is actually a recap of days 3 and 4, because as you may have heard, Olivia and I stayed up all night and partied before catching our flight at 6 am. Allow me to take you through our awesome Vegas adventure starting with the awards show.
When I come down from my pre-show nap, the place is insane. Guys are taking pictures everywhere. The hallways are lined with creepers, to the point where the hotel has to set up partitions so people can walk from one place to another. Walking around, you feel every pair of eyes quickly scan your body before deciding you're nobody and moving on. Passing the red carpet photographers, I hear them grossly cheer every time someone shows their tits and/or ass.
I saunter to the bar for a Diet Coke some sexual attention. It is here that I am finally mistaken for a porn star! By a possibly very drunk guy, but whatever. I don't correct him, but I do say "I'm not nominated," when he suggests I "should win best artwork." I will pose as a porn actress, but not as an award-nominated porn actress. I know my limits.
Before the night is over, 3 more guys will ask to take a picture with me, which I feel elated by each time. The first time I say, "Oh, I'm not an actress," but the guy doesn't care. The next two times I roll. with. it. A couple of Japanese tourists waved and yelled "Hi" at me. Someone else says, "Oh, I've seen her!" It might have something to do with my neckline.
I know you guys got kind of annoyed with us for feeling all unattractive over the weekend, but what you may not understand is how this crazy environment gets in your head. I imagine it's what it's like to appear on "Rock of Love" or something -- you've got no access to the outside world and everyone around you is acting like a crazy ho and you just get caught up in it. I really think that even if you aren't attention-seeking (I am) and had no interest in ever being a porn star (I do), you'd have ended high-fiving yourself for getting mistaken for one, too.
When we try to go inside the show, we're told Olivia's photography credentials aren't all-access, so she can't bring her camera in. We're too far away from the stage to capture much with our iphones, so future descriptions will be painted with the power of WORDS and your imagination. Allow this brief video to set the scene.
That comes later, though, because the show starts almost an hour late, allowing us ample time to peruse the program, which is lengthy enough that it's dificult to believe that there were porn movies produced last year that weren't nominated.
Categories include the obvious ("Best Actress"), the specific ("Best Threesome Sex Scene G/G/B") and the bizarre ("European Non-Feature Release of the Year"). And, by far the best category, "Clever Title of the Year."
When we get bored of the program, we entertain ourselves by eavesdropping on the guy in front of us, who is bleeding from his face area. Eavesdropping is sort of misleading, since he's actually yelling into his cell phone while holding a napkin to a small head wound. "He fell over and his his head," his friend explained. I'm no sure if his running commentary throughout the show ("WOO! THREESOMES!" and "TAKE YOUR TOP OFF") is a result of his head injury or his personality. Either way, he is an excellent source of knowledge on which pornographic actresses are "hot."
The show opens with Belladonna, aka the nicest sweetest lady in the world, doing an aerial silks performance that is legitimately amazing. Then Dave Atell comes out to deliver a series of jokes on things like how bad jizz tastes and how his penis is small. Bleeding guy loves it. "Anal -- I love it!" is an example of one such "joke."
The event is high glamour for the entertainers -- they're all dressed up indesigner gowns only some of which showcase surgically inflated breasts. They look someting like this:
I looked like this:
Olivia looked like this:
Note the sexy House of Holland garter belts tights from Julie's post.
It really is like the Oscars for the actors and actresses -- some of them get teary and emotional in their acceptance speeches. Olivia and I are rooting for actor Nacho Vidal in every male category, because his name is delicious. Emboldened by Bleeding Guy, we start yelling out "We love nachos!" every once in awhile. My favorite part is when the winner for Best Anal Scene, Asa Akira, thanks her asshole, for "putting up with all these shenanigans." YES! We should all thank our assholes more often.
I also like the guy who dedicates his win in "Best Porn Parody -- Comedy" (not to be confused with "Best Porn Parody -- Drama") for Elvis XXX to his dead mother, who loved Elvis. Most of the presentation banter is delivered with all the awkwardness of a high-school presentation of "The Pajama Game." Joanna Angel is the only one who makes the dialogue halfway charming, laughing excessively, then quipping, "The teleprompter told me I have to do that."
Also, there were a LOT of technical difficulties. Every third award or so, the performance montage video would short out to boos from the crowd. I don't know if someone's getting fired or if it always runs like that. There were minutes-long waits while winners made it to the stage from whatever faraway corner of the auditorium they'd been seated. Some presenters didn't read good.
Joe Francis presented an award and was greeted with mostly silence and a few boos, which made me love porn even more than I already did. There was a musical performance by rapper Too Short, who sang a ditty he'd crafted for the awards entitled "I Need a Porno Bitch." Lyrics not safe for work or life.
By this time, it's almost midnight and Olivia and I, who have a 6:30 am flight, are fast approaching the point at which we must either go to bed or commit to staying up all night. Paralyzed by indecision, we decide to put it to a vote, and you encourage us to PARTY. We decide to leave the awards, which half the audience has already done, with vague intentions of flouting your wishes and going to bed. But when we step back out into the casino, another guy asks for my picture and then we run into some of the new friends we'd met on the previous nights. We lay out our dilemma, to which they respond by chanting "Up All Night! Up All Night!"
How to summarize the next 4-5 hours? Perhaps in a series of "Hangover"-style photographs.
Can I point out that we did this all SOBER? Which is apparently unheard of in Vegas, because nobody seemed to understand that we weren't totally wasted, even though I said I wasn't drinking several times. Just goes to show you that nobody is ever paying as much attention to what you're doing as you think. No sobriety in Vegas and also no children, which I noticed when I saw my first small person upon returning to New York and was briefly confused about what it was.
Also, I have to confess to one major party foul: At one point, our group caught wind of a party happening in The Penthouse of one of the towers, but when we arrived at the door, a large bouncer said only the girls would be allowed inside, which discounted half of our group and the one other female, who was with her boyfriend. Olivia and I looked at them with their sad, sad eyes and were like "Peace, we're going inside."
I MEAN WE HAD TO GO INSIDE, RIGHT? (There were naked ladies in a hot tub inside.)
Eventually it was 4:30 am and we ordered room service (Eggs Benedict for Olivia, french fries and vanilla ice cream for me), which came exactly 5 minutes before we had to book it to the airport, where we wished we were dead. It was worth it!
Oh my god, this post was epic. I hope it gave you an idea of what it's like to attend the AVN Awards. What else can I tell you? Oh, and still to come: Red carpet! Joanna Angel! Phil Varone! Chippendales!
Follow ALL my adventures on Twitter @msemilymccombs.
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