Homegrown Video's Best Porn Industry Pranks

Homegrown Video's Best Porn Industry PranksHomegrown Video is known as the original amateur porn company and for taking on industry adversaries like Acacia, but over the years Homegrown Video has also played some of the most notorious pranks on the industry. In the spirit of a good jest, neither taking themselves or the industry too seriously not to have some fun along the way, here are some classic punked moments from the annals of the world?s longest running porn series. 1. Don?t make fun of our names?Homegrown Video was approaching the 15 year milestone of being in business. Newsweek Magazine had declared the landmark amateur porn series ?the longest running series in the history of porn?, but AVN Magazine didn?t think it was too much of a big deal. Especially then current editor Mark Kulkis who decided the milestone really didn?t merit much consideration at all; he would sum it up with a small paragraph. The buried and tiny headline read ?Big Fucking Deal?, then he went on to describe the brothers with ?Dr. Seuss sounding names? and paid little attention to the achievements of the company that literally invented the amateur porn niche and thereby changed the face of porn, literally and figuratively, forever. Pissing on Homegrown, at a time when it was paying thousands per month to run multiple pages in AVN was a serious affront and it meant a war of words, ad revenue deprivations, and the wrath of Thing One and Thing Two, the brothers Timlake. They were learning the hard way that you really can?t buy love even in the adult industry, where even renting it for a page or two of fluffing some egos would be problematic.Thing One and Thing Two were not having any of it. They waited until the AVN convention in Las Vegas to exact revenge, Homegrown style. They decided to buy Kulkis some breakfast as a gesture of peace and love. Mark was appreciative. AVN shows are the busiest time of year for the AVN staffers and getting a meal delivered was a welcome gesture. He opened the container. Inside was a generous serving of? Green eggs and ham, of course. An entire ampule of green food coloring rendered the food greener than the clover pasture fields of Ireland. On the inside of the lid, the words ?I do not like them here or there, I do not like them anywhere? had been inscribed. But that was just the set up.Later, Thing One and Thing Two made a point to shake hands and make peace once and for all. The brothers stood on either side of Kulkis, shaking his hands, the photo would be used for a press release demonstrating that a peace accord had been reached. Somehow the photo went to Hustler, somehow it was doctored for an article, somehow the words ?I?m with asshole? and ?He?s gay? with corresponding arrows pointing at Kulkis found their way onto the blank black sweatshirts the brothers were wearing. Hustler gave a few pages of praise to Homegrown commemorating the Homegrown milestone. Kulkis left AVN to run his own video company and learn the hard way what is was like being on the production and manufacturing side of the biz. AVN never saw the ad contracts reach the same levels. 2. If no one is listening the roar like an ocean.Homegrown Video, forever and still the red headed step c***d of the industry, the slutty one that gets asked out on dates all the time but always wakes up to find the bed empty, might be the black sheep of the adult industry, but it has always fared well with mainstream press. Over the years, Homegrown Video has enjoyed positive interviews on everything from 20/20 and Good Morning America to Larry King Live, 60 Minutes, Huffington and many more. The Press tends to be positive as Homegrown strives to put an industry marred by negative stereotypes in a better light. As a voice standing up for a much maligned industry, it might not have had the bodacious curves of the porn star d?jour, but at least it didn?t come off sounding like a cracked out starlet one anal gang bang away from cracking up completely either. At the very least, the owners, staff, and people that submit their videos to HGV tend to be literate ? meaning - capable of reading off a teleprompter. Unfortunately, no one from the company has ever been asked to speak and represent the industry at any of the events where putting up illiterate train wrecks to speak for the industry always trumps the educated geeks for the spectacle of the moment. So getting rejected to be a host or even a presenter for the Annual Halloween Bash, an event held at the legendary Palace in Hollywood (now the Avalon) was another snub in a long line of ?thanks but no thanks? moments. But even though they said Homegrown couldn?t take the stage, Homegrown president Farrell Timlake didn?t hear them say he couldn?t take the floor. Making secret arrangements with the Palace management, and securing his friends in the band Crash Worship, whose reputation for lighting venues on fire and causing riots preceded them, a diabolical prank was conceived and executed.Besides chaotic music Crash Worship was known for unusual audience participation involving elaborate floats, for example one concert featured two classic Roman era warships borne aloft by attendees and carrying warriors floated above the crowd in the vessels and fired roman candles at the other boat. So building code was not really a consideration as Homegrown employees and the band staged floats consisting of a giant water dragon consisting of three sections, a huge clam with a burlesque dancer inside and a bunch of pearlescent balloons, and finally a section of swirling waves. As Gun?s and Roses guitar legend Slash?s solo project band hit the stage, playing a musical improvisation to welcome the parade, Homegrown and company crashed through the side doors like a tidal wave.A huge military grade fog machine blasted the room into pea soup thick clouds within seconds. The dragon spit frosty co2 blasts from its nostrils while its eyes blazed with sparks. The giant clam was deposited on stage and the dancer emerged to do a slick liquid number in front of Slash and company. A dozen drummers beat a terrifying cannibal rhythm, bugles, horns, blasted, while others squirted blasts of water from fire extinguishers and the audience of porn stars and their throngs of fans parted for the wave of the procession to roll through. Everyone that wasn?t in on it didn?t know whether to run in terror or stay and be consumed, trampled, rolled up and run over by the spectacle of it all. A few minutes later, the procession evaporated back outside. Everyone that remained inside was drenched or drained by the excitement, overwhelmed by the flood, a Homegrown deluge. That was the last year for the event being held at there.3. A price will be paid?During the halcyon days of the early boom of adult online, Homegrown worked with a company called C_A. The relationship seemed fine until Homegrown realized that they were experiencing many of the same issues that had caused others to leave in droves before them. Suffice to say that an eventual win in arbitration was necessary to prove the point, but the terms of that are still confidential. The details that can be discussed concern how Homegrown Video punked C_A while still embroiled in their entanglements and trying to resolve things and move on. There was once a time when companies pulled out all the stops and dumped big time cash into hugely expensive epic gala events. Tons of money would be spent on boozing and entertaining affiliates like they were foreign ambassadors from royal families. No expense was spared in bringing in heavy weight entertainment, handing out sexual favors, and even the occasional Rolex wristwatches. C_A was known as one of the heaviest hitters in hosting such events. Homegrown on the other hand was not. But that didn?t mean HGV didn?t know how to have fun. We just had to scale to our budget. But while the big huge parties were over the top, many people would say that they didn?t really have that much fun because they were too packed, getting drinks could be a pain in the ass, ratios of guys to girls were like 100:1 so big parties, little fun. Homegrown on the other hand decided to focus on little parties and big fun. Of course the first thing to address was the ratio of guys to girls. We came closer to the one to one ratio and not only that, but also people might even actually end up having sex? in the party? in the back bedroom, the bathroom, you never knew when and where but you knew it was going down literally and figuratively. At a Homegrown party people actually feel like they are at a porn industry event and not like a cheesy corporate soiree. But since the budget was tight, certain considerations had to be made. That is where the idea of a treasure hunt became useful. Not only could a bunch of revelers be sent to find and do all manner of goofy shit, they could also become accomplices in securing more booze from the big companies that were giving it out for free anyway. Grabbing booze from C_A might not have really leveled things but it sure did lubricate the mood in the HGV suite. The next night, the HGV crew was seated next to the C_A posse at a fancy steak dinner. They were entertaining business prospects, and by the looks of the fancy tailored suits, collared shirts and conservative ties we knew it was the cable licensing reps or bankers because those are the only guys that dress that way at an adult convention. Hopefully they didn?t want to talk about anything business related because we kept distracting them by getting our freak on at the candlelit white clothed tables. A little hand job here, a Homegrown girl jumping under the table to give a blowjob there, we kept throwing down little distractions that kept resulting in long silences and longer longing looks. The moral to the story? Don?t fuck with Homegrown because they might just end up fucking.That isn?t so bad though come to think of it.