Penetrating Insights

Pius

Well, it's been a couple of days now and the news of Jamie Gillis' death at 66 from melanoma still has me reeling. Skip the first two paragraphs if you don't want to hear about it, but I'm shocked at how much it's affected me, really - what a funk it's put me into. I guess we all have certain people in life we don't know personally but feel a strong connection to nevertheless: James Ira Gurman was a really big one for me.

I regret my timidity in not simply emailing the guy - as I almost did many times - and thanking him for his work, maybe seeing if he'd answer a few questions. I did try & 'friend' him once on Facebook a couple of years ago, and he thanked me for the interest but politely said he was limiting himself to real-life friends. I know he had a history of answering what he felt were erroneous online accounts and commentary about his life, and I hope that, if he ever saw the profile I did on him, he approved of it, at least overall.

What are we left with? The films of course and, for those that knew him personally, the memories. Looking around online, it's strange, and a bit sad, to see the traces he may have left behind -- an old poker account, for instance. Such things are the flotsam and jetsam of our existence online, and all too soon they'll be washed away and disappear.

His love of many years, Chef Zarela Martinez, has put some wonderful photos of Jamie up on her flickr page. A quote atop her restaurant's website reads "Alone one can not share life" -- my thoughts turn largely to her now, the woman Jamie ended his life with, the woman he left porn for, and with whom he finally seemed contented and even happy. I hope that she finds herself surrounded by loved ones, and will continue to share life (and food) for a long time to come.

As to tributes, I will link the best of what I've found thus far. I'm pleased to see so many people recognize what a unique person he was and how lucky the world was to know him. Will the years to come see any kind of in-depth biography*, whether in print or on film? The subject is there, the life lived. Certainly Jamie moved in circles filled with the sort of talent that could make such a project happen; only time will tell now.

Susie Bright's Journal (contains audio interview)
The Blood Spattered Scribe
Gram Potante
Dangerous Minds
Cinema Sewer
John Holmes: Inches
SerpentLibertine
The Blog of Pro-Porn Activism
AV Maniacs Board
Abomination
PornClerk.Com
The Gore Gore Girl
Alan's Corner
Midnight Fright
Georgina Spelvin
Annie Sprinkle
CJ Laing
Penn Jillette
Randy Squalor
AVN
Denise LaFrance
Luc Wylder
Jamye Waxman
Distribpix
Richard Pacheco
AVN again

There's a particularly good quote in this one, ha ha.

And here's another audio interview I just discovered tonight.

*At present, the closest things we have that I'm aware of are probably Metasex #4 and a chapter in Nicolas Barbano's 1999 work Verdens 25 hotteste pornostjerner. Whether Gillis had in fact written memoirs remains to be seen.

Pius

Here's a fun site for your naked people needs - unfortunate name, but That Hipster Porn has lots of great pics of boobs, butts, wangs and thangs - and not in the usual phony boudoir settings of so much boring porn either.

There's the occasional non-sexy photo to throw a mental monkeywrench in the mix as well. Here's a few relatively SFW choice selections.

[The site has since moved to a .org domain]

Pius

Aw, this sucks. I always hoped Jamie was going to put out an epic level tell-all and soak up some well-deserved next-level fame and money in his senior years, doing talk shows and the like, maybe even landing some breakthrough late-career juggernaut of a role, the kind of thing I always imagined him doing so well in.

He was my very favourite porn star, bar none. An actor as well as a cocksman who could do everything from broad comedy to drama to romance to unbelievably nasty, and all with natural grace and apparent ease. Jamie Gillis was absolutely the King as far as I'm concerned, underrated and slept on as he was. I always hoped to someday shake his hand and thank him for all he'd done, all the images he gave the world. I'm truly sorry he's gone from us so soon.

Here's hoping the next few days bring us tributes worthy of the man. If an afterlife exists, and it somehow involves sleaze, I'm sure Jamie Gillis will be there getting his rocks off and in fine style.

Pius

When I was still a little kid and would have to go to the bathroom in the middle of the night, I would all too frequently get a few tentative steps away from the bed and then flash on this commercial and its somewhat creepy critters, the Scrubbing Bubbles.

I'd imagine that these things were about to rush my naked feet from under a bookshelf, reducing me to bones and pyjamas in mere seconds. Oddly enough, I was not alone in finding those Bubbles disturbing.

If I made it to the bathroom, the toilet lid would inevitably be down and I would have to wrestle with whether to open it, afraid that, should I do so, a severed head would be inside, its dead eyes staring up at me.

If that weren't enough, I was terrified that, should I look at a window on my way to or from the bathroom, I would see the (also severed) head of John Carradine floating just outside it, making one of those scary faces at me that he could do so well. This, I figured, would probably make me crazy.

In retrospect, it's a wonder I ever went to the bathroom at all.