Page 54 - AVN November 2015

HOWARD
LEVINE
FEATURE
Raw Deal
HOWARD LEVINE, a longtime adult
industry salesman, has branched out into
radio, hosting Hill & Howard Raw.
“The very talented, intelligent, funny
and highly-awarded Melissa Hill and
myself started doing a radio show on
XXXPornStarRadio.com and we moved
to LATalkRadio.com. We were not really
interested in just being a porno radio
show. It’s a stream-of-consciousness
kind of show. We may be talking about
politics one minute and then talking
about sobriety the next minute. We
could be talking about back problems.
We wanted to know: After years and
years of doing porno, are there certain
injuries that some of the young ladies
have experienced, especially with
back and neck? So we brought in a
chiropractor to discuss the sexual
injuries, work-related injuries. It was
very interesting.
“Coming up, we have a really great
musical group called Jason Heath and
the Greedy Souls, who are releasing their
third album. Jason Federici is my very
dear friend; his dad was Danny Federici,
who was in the Bruce Springsteen band
from day one. Danny and I were really
close, close friends, and he passed
away from skin cancer and they opened
the DannyFund.org so we wanted to
combine talking about skin cancer and
also introduce the band. I have Bobby
Slayton slated to come in. He is the
past emcee of numerous AVN Awards
shows and in my opinion was the
funniest one they ever had. I was always
heavily involved in the standup comedy
54 | AVN.com | 11.15
community and I was asked, “Who do
you know to host the AVN Awards?”
and I said Slayton was perfect. He’s
irreverent and there is no filter. No
boundaries.
”Topics are predicated on what
happened that day. A topic of
conversation that’s coming up right
now because it’s just so damn funny
to me is Donald Trump. I can’t stop
looking at that train wreck, and
commenting on it is, you know, funny
to me. Melissa and I are working on
what to do the first 10 minutes, what
to do the second 10 minutes, the
third 10 minutes. We’ve always done
it that way. Melissa and I are kind
of opposites but we tie in together
really well. I really don’t have a filter
and she is my filter. She wants to talk
about serious things, and that’s not
even a word in my vocabulary. She’ll
be talking about something really
serious and I have to chime in with
my sophomoric humor and sarcasm. It
could piss her off at some stage. ...
“Our first show at LATalk was our
first show in a studio behind a real mic
with a producer and an engineer. Prior
to that it was Melissa coming over to
my house or me going over to Melissa’s
house and setting up the computer. ...
LATalkRadio was the perfect fit. We
need to come into a studio and do our
show without being the engineer and
the producer. Forbidden Fruit [Films]
sponsors our show, AdultEmpire.com
is also an advertiser, and when we
discuss X-rated movies listeners can go
right there and get it streamed or buy
the movie. We still are going to review
some movies and we talk about the
industry, but it’s not the number-one
go-to topic.
“We’re doing this for self-expression.
It certainly isn’t money. I’m not a
self-promoter in that way. I used to
do standup comedy in the early ’80s
in San Francisco and I always loved
improv and I love performing. This
was just an opportunity that presented
itself: I could get behind a microphone
and just have fun. How I live my life
right now is one day at a time, and
during that day I like to have the best
time that I can possibly have without
being arrested and being a fucked-
up individual. We both have a lot to
say. I’m an extreme left-wing liberal
Democrat, which is, apparently, an
irritation to right-wing conservative
people. I like that. On my Facebook
I’ve got, like, 4,000 followers. Why,
I have no idea. But it gets so heated
on my Facebook page that it’s, like, stupid. I thought it’d be great to take this to
radio, live.
“We’ve been doing this around four months. We did Amber Lynn’s show on
LATalk and Amber asked me to come on and I said I wanted to bring Melissa with
me. And I did. And we looked at each other and said “We could do this, easy. It’d
be fun.” I inquired about it and it was what I consider to be vanity radio, in the
beginning, and I didn’t want to have anything to do with that. Then I found out
people are selling advertising, people are getting sponsors. After two phone calls I
had two people who said, ‘Yeah, we’ll do that.‘ I’m not really in it for the money.
If I was I’d be starving. I’ve been blessed in this industry over the last 30 years and
I’m very okay how I am. I just want to have fun. Boys just wanna have fun.”
AMBER
LYNN
Rock & Raunch
AMBER LYNN, an AVN Hall of Famer, hosts Rock ‘N’ Sexxxy Uncensored on
LATalkRadio.com.
“Rock ‘N’ Sexxxy Uncensored started out as a blend of the mainstream feature
film industry, the adult industry—including Playboy and Penthouse—and rock ’n’
roll. Then we brought in TV. I had a co-host on the show, Kristen Renton, who
was on Sons of Anarchy playing a porn star. We had a running gag about how I was
the real porn star and she just played a porn star. We brought in the TV element
with Sons of Anarchy, which has a huge fan base.
“My theory was that people who watch adult movies also listen to rock ’n’ roll,
they watch other types of films, It’s an audience that we’re all trying to reach, get
our stuff out there so they can enjoy it, buy it, [we can] make a living. It worked.
I started bringing in things like comedy, and UFC girls and wrestlers, and now
I’ve had everyone from Dennis Rodman to Ron Jeremy, Neil Turban, people from
Megadeth. We’re a big industry but we’re really just a small town.
“I’ve been doing this show for two years. I did a porn-based show before that
for a very short time with Ginger Lynn. When I decided to do this show, I found I
have many friends in the music industry and TV industry who wouldn’t do ‘a porn
show’ so I decided to do something more friendly. When I first said I was going
to do mainstream music and sex, they were like ‘there’s no way.’ But it worked.
Once, I had Michael Bellisario—very conservative mainstream actor—Jessa Rhodes
and Danny Boy O’Connor from House of Pain. Jessa was talking about porn and
Michael shushed her, because he was a little affected. His face was red. She looked
at him and said, ‘What the hell do I know, Michael? I suck cock for a living.’ And
Danny Boy falls out of his chair. He’s like, ‘Oh my gawd, she can’t say that.’ I’m
like, ‘Dude, what is wrong with you? You write songs about dropping bombs on
people’s moms.’ It’s 100 percent uncensored, so you have this kind of free run to
say what you want.”