Page 21 - AVN Men 2021

It might come as a shock to people that in
high school, legendary gay porn director mr.
Pam—a self-described “crazy, freaky, bisexual
hippy from San Francisco”—was in many ways
so…conventional?
“I was senior class president, I was on
student council, played volleyball, swimming,
cheerleading—that type of high school student
that a lot of people hate,” she says with a mix of
pride and disbelief. “That was me. I was friends
with everybody.”
Growing up in Marin County north of San
Francisco, she went to Catholic school for 12
years (yep, uniform and everything).
“So that explains a lot,” she laughs. “For some
reason, I was always getting in trouble.”
At her first job while in high school—waitressing
at Bobby McGee’s—a new world opened up. It
was a pivotal point in her life that would shape
not only her social circles, but her career as
well—coming full circle this January when she
was inducted into the GayVN Hall of Fame.
“It was like all gay guys and Mexican bussers,”
she recalls. “I just loved it. … I just completely
fell in love with gay men at that restaurant job.”
While going to grad school for video production
at San Francisco State in 1996, she secured an
internship editing gay porn, which enabled her
to meet iconic directors like John Rutherford,
Steven Scarborough and Chi Chi LaRue. The
opportunity was there, but she took a different
path, accepting a job at CNET as an interactive
designer: “I just thought it was too soon. I was
intrigued, but not really enough.”
But when tragedy struck in January of 2003
and 2004 when she lost her father and sister, mr.
Pam reassessed what she wanted in life.
“After those two big hits, I’m trying to go back
to my dot-com job, and I’m like, ‘This is dumb.’
My sister always said, ‘You need to travel, you
need to go out.’ She had just gotten back
from this huge backpacking trip through South
America, so I’m like, you know what? Fuck it.”