CK JEANS : The most comfortable jeans I ever found - and thefirst pair of jeans to *convert* me to the idea ofjeans-wearing - were by Calvin Klein. That pair isnow just a shade too tight round the waist to buttonthe top button and have a large rip on the insidethigh (after many years wearing). They were buttonfly front and I can't find a pair like them in the CKoutlets around here, but I'm thinking of removing thewaistband and "distressing" them a bit more (largecolourful patch on the rip, fray the bottom hem, etc)and getting a few more years out of them. I did geta new pair of CK jeans when I was in Colorado lastyear - dark *dirty* denim with a leather and beadedfringe around the bottom of the leg. They cost methe princely sum of $14 + tax.My every day jeans are Marks & Spencers - slightstretch to the pale blue denim, very comfortablebut not particularly stylish. They cost me 25 UKPounds - the same as my first pair of CK jeans.
CK JEANS : Oh, there are reasons why people would buy Falcon (even at those prices):i) Lack of information about alternatives. This is a classic "marketfailure" (can anyone tell I've unearth my old micro-economics textbook?).When people don't know about alternatives, they don't buy them. Falcon isso dominant that it forms an oligopoly with All Worlds, Studio 2000, OdysseyMen, and perhaps Catalina. Flip through the latest issue of "Unzipped"(which more and more is coming to resemble a sickening version of "Cosmo"with dirty pictures rather than a top-flight gay porn magazine); there'slittle advertised that doesn't relate to this oligopoly.ii) No alternatives. Another classic market failure is oligopoly, and in amarket dominated by a few enormous companies it is hard for the smallercompanies to gain the size needed to compete. Even a wildly successfulcompany like FratBoys Videos can't break into the "big boys league." AllFalcon has to do is co-opt a trend, and it kills the smaller studio. BelAmi didn't die after George Duroy broke away from Falcon, so Falconkick-started its "Falcon International" line again and stole a lot of BelAmi's thunder. (It didn't hurt that Duroy stopped making films himself, andis letting his directorettes -- former porn stars, mostly -- direct hisfilms while he sits outside the house, chateau, whatnot drinking red wineand fondling the scared, poverty-stricken kid in the chair next to him.)
CK JEANS : iii) Falcon's the best there is, in some ways. I give Falcon a lot ofcredit: It beats almost every other studio hands-down in terms ofproduction values. Odyssey and Studio 2000 come close (All Worlds is wildlyinconsistent; their A-list features approximate Falcon's technicalexpertise, but then they churn out unwatchable dreck like their all-blackfilms). If you have to watch boring, wooden, frozen sex, I'd prefer theboring, wooden, frozen sex that has good production values over the boring,wooden, frozen sex with crappy production values.iv) Price is often mistaken for quality. When you lack information about aproduct, consumers often look for proxys -- factors that may not be directlyrelated to the product itself, but which can subsitute for them. Twonon-porn examples are: Blue jeans. When Calvin Klein broke into themarket, CK jeans sold for about the same price as Levi's or Wranglers. CKjeans didn't move off the shelves. CK then hiked the price of their jeansover $70, and suddenly CK saw its market share explode. Consumers mistookprice for quality (it is also true that consumers often equate price with"chic" or "fashion"; hence, CK jeans "must" be fashionable, because why elseprice them so high?). Another example are college tuitions. GeorgeWashington University () in the District of Columbia is about onpar with other schools in the area such as The American University(), George Mason University (), GeorgetownUniversity (), and the University of Maryland(). But GWU wasn't getting a lot of undergraduateapplications, and the university was stuck in a fund-raising doldrum. Inthe early 1990s, therefore, GWU began hiking its undergraduate tuition by25% or more a year. Many students had to drop out of school, unable toafford the school any longer. But GWU saw applications numbers quadruple inone year. Within five years, GWU had jacked up tuition almost 200%, but theaverage income of its students' families had risen by almost as much and thequality of undergraduate applicants (measured by SAT scores, the number ofNational Merit finalists, etc.) had skyrocketed. Students mistook hightuition for "good school," absent any other information.
CK JEANS : In some ways, porn is like that. If you have a bunch of similar-looking menon similar-looking box-covers and the cover text is simlar and the sex seemssimilar and the plots seem similar and the whole fucking thing lookshomogenized, pasteurized, whipped and blended to a smooth, sameblandness.........well, then, you might turn to price as the soledistinguising factor in making your purchase. After all, Falcon wouldn'tprice shitty product at $70 a tape, would it? Would it? Well, yes, itwould. And it does. But the consumer probably doesn't realize this, and souses price as a proxy for quality.v) Raincoating in alive and well and living in America. I have to admit it,even though it pains me to do so: There are a lot of closet-cases outthere, guys so lonely and alone and fucked up that they'd pick up ANYTHINGso long as it's close to the exit of their local video store and they won'tget seen grabbing it. Just to push the stereotype further (and piss a lotof people off in doing so): The older you are, the higher your income. Andthe older you are, the more likely it is you are a lonely, pathetic gay man.And the older you are, the more likely it is that you are still closeted,self-loathing, and ashamed of sex. The stereotype of the older, lonely,rich, closet-case is in part true, and in part not true. There are numerousexceptions, but I think we can all recognize that there is a generation ofmen -- largely older men who grew up in the 50s, 60s and most of the 70s --who did not have the benefit of the modern gay rights movement. These menstayed closeted. These men are still ashamed of their sexuality and of sex.These men have the income to buy -- not rent -- gay porn. And sincepurchases -- not rentals -- are what determine profits in the gay pornmarket, it stands to reason that even though my stereotype is inaccurate insome small (or large) part, it's these raincoaters who are driving themarket in gay porn. In which case, one can easily see why dirty oldcloset-cases are picking buff, "classically handsome," fantasy-porn over thereal thing. In other words, they're picking Falcon over good porn. Thesemen know Falcon, they grew up with Falcon, they see Falcon as a brand namethey trust ("even if it's gotten a little bad lately, I still hold hope thatit'll return to the Falcon of old"; my own father used to say that aboutChevy trucks!), and they continue to buy Falcon.
CK JEANS : What in your opinion is the best color neg film for 120 (for scenic shots)? I have favorites in portraits but am still trying to pin down a neg film for scenics. I have tried Ektar 25 (which is very nice, but expensive andavailability is not very good), Fujicolor 100 (okay), and this Agfa Optima (50asa)which is quite punchy but haven't really shot too many rolls of it to know. it is considered "professional" hence availability is not good, one shops now wants an order of at least 20 before they will special order it in, and it's expensive (1.5 times the price of the other stuff). Plus, to be honest, it is slow (25asa). It's good if it's not windy and calm day.Couple of salespeople suggested REALA. I have never used REALA in 120.I recalled REALA in 35mm but I didn't see it *too* much better than super G 100 at the time I tried it. They claimed that it's fine grain and very good for scenics. As I recalled REALA ads promote it as a good filmfor true skintone reproduction. Which means that it's medium contrast.With scenics, I'd like more of a high contrast film, like VELVIA (toobad it's a slide).
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