Chuck Zane’s Musings Of An Old Pornographer

I have always been fond of the Mark Twain quote, “The rumors of my death have been greatly exaggerated”. As anyone in the adult business can attest to, the spreading of rumors has been elevated to an art form within our small community. I once had a person insist that the Zane warehouse and offices had been completely destroyed by a fire the previous day. This rumor in and of it’s self did not strike me as very strange given the propensity of our industry to engage in reality based fantasies. What truly alarmed me, was that while this person was relaying to me this truly horrible catastrophe that had befallen me, he was sitting two feet away from me in my office. An office, I might add, that he had been in at least two times before. The very same office that was supposed to be in ashes.

I am telling this for two reasons. First, I think it’s cute. Second, I want to dispel two rumors. One old, one new. First the old one. I do not now, nor have I ever lived in Germany. I have never entertained the thought of ever moving to Germany, Switzerland, France (God forbid) or any other foreign country. I consider myself to be a good, loyal American of Italian descent. Just because, periodically, under certain political administrations, a person in our line of work can be arrested, jailed and harassed into bankruptcy is certainly no reason to leave the land of the free and the home of the brave. Hopefully, this rumor can now be put to rest. I only have one problem...Does anyone want to buy a used Panzer?

Now I will address the second and newest rumor going around out there in porno land. A very close friend of mine was watching one of those adult cable access shows recently, when much to her surprise, the host of the show informed her and all of the viewing public that “Chuck Zane is retiring and his son Matt is taking over the day to day operations of Zane Ent. “AHA”, she says to herself. Might it be...could it be... Germany!?! (old rumors die hard). Thankfully she had a level-headed friend with her at the time. Her friend reminded her that every thing Chuck owns is in her name and there is no way her husband Chuck, would retire and go anywhere (except maybe Germany, damn those rumors) without her.

Needless to say, a little blonde is still watching me very closely. I must admit, two years ago the idea of retiring (or getting into another line of work) did sound appealing. That is, until my son Matt joined the company. Matt had been working at Zane part-time since he was sixteen. When he started full-time two years ago, there was one condition. He wanted complete control over production. Since production has always been the most difficult aspect of the business and the biggest pain in my ass, I jumped at the offer.

Now comes the good news, bad news part. The good new is, because of Matt’s new and innovative productions, business has never been better. The bad news is I’m putting in twelve hour days to keep up with the workload. It barely gives a fella time for a beer and a bratwurst

Chuck Zane