Director John Travis is gone (for the AVN obit, click here). From his early days at Brentwood, Falcon and Huge, to his Catalina blockbusters in the mid ’80s, to the co-founding of Studio2000 in ’92, Travis has helped shape gay porn like few others. He is… he was the golden age of porn. With lofty budgets, large crews and even bigger production values.  We stand on the shoulders of giants –even when we forget them (and it happens all too often). I learned my trade from Kristen Bjorn, Gino Colbert, George Duroy. And yes, I was lucky to work for John as a PA on a Jeff Stryker’s production (“JS Big Time”, ’95) and as a Production Manager for VCA’s blockbuster “Stryker’s Underground” (’97).

Much of the  online ‘amateur’ wave of the 2000s stemmed as a reaction against what Travis (and Studio2000) stood for: beauty vs reality (or pseudo reality), the ‘studio system’ and its aesthetics (the ‘star system’, the formulaic scripts and the Hollywood-style cinematography/decoupage) vs. no aesthetics at all. And yet, where’s porn today? I remember each and all of Travis’ lush productions, I don’t remember, nor care for the majority of fungible online porn ‘loops’ produced these days –with little money, 0 skills, 0 ambitions and little imagination. Thank you, Jim (John’s real name). For the memories and the beautiful dreams.