We Did Porn

by Zak Smith

Blending memoir with Smith's own drawings and paintings, We Did Porn will do for alt porn what Hunter S. Thompson did for motorcycle gangs and Tom Wolfe for psychedelica. Blending memoir with Smith's own drawings and paintings, We Did Porn will do for alt porn what Hunter S. Thompson did for motorcycle gangs and Tom Wolfe for psychedelica. Punk artist and icon Zak Smith made a name for himself by visually interpreting Thomas Pynchon's Gravity's Rainbow and drawing pictures of girls in the "naked girl business." His artistic pedigree and acute observation landed him in high-profile shows from the Whitney to the San Francisco Museum of Modern Art. Somewhere along the line, Smith went from the observer to the observed, from the guy in the corner with a sketchpad to the guy on-screen doing the unnamable for anyone eighteen or older to see. We Did Porn follows Zak Smith (or Zak Sabbath) from the New York art scene to Los Angeles's seedy, yet colorful, underbelly―the world of alt porn. Smith narrates his own foray into pornography and gives his readers a new understanding of the industry, its players, and its audience.

Genres: Nonfiction, Art, Memoir, Sexuality, Sex Work, Biography, Pornography

488 pages, Paperback

First published January 1, 2009

Reviews

[Jasmine · Rating 1 out of 5]

I am giving this book one star in a vindictive manner, but fuck it at least I am honest. I actually did consider not reading this book when everyone I knew suddenly admitted to knowing the author and well all had miserable things to say about him (Well except lesley who had a sort of complicated I dealt with him because my friend liked him but then, type story, which still felt a lot like "he's an ass hole"). Here is the thing about Zac Smith... there are apparently two Zac Smiths: there is the one all the people I know met who is a complete ass hole and draws when he should be out socializing and objectifies women, and there is the zac smith that wrote this book who is honestly not even interesting enough to be a fucktard.

In reality, lets be honest, I like creeps most of my male friends fall a lot closer to creepy side of the spectrum than the normal one (Well at least the ones I like, although they also tend to consider themselves normal and their version of creepy well lets not get into it). There are all these stories about my father who apparently was the type who would turn the chair around and face a wall when my mom had friends over (I know a bit like me). My brother well his positions in high school about the correct manner for women to look, well lets say left something to be desired in the empathy department. I love all those novels greg thinks are redundant that are simply about middle class ass wipes being middle class ass wipes. All of this would lead me to believe that I would love a book by the Zac smith that I heard so much about.

On the other hand, [Author: Legs McNeil] has a wrote a book ( The other hollywood ) In which he claims that nothing interesting happened in porn since 1970. Zak Smith was born in 1976 and if he is an example of porn since 1970 I would say that we should all agree with McNeil and go back to fighting about whether Linda Lovelace wanted to get eaten out by a dog or if her manager, whose name I forget, beat her up and made her do it... Is she bruised in the video someone go watch it and we can start with some lovely conjecture on the matters of interesting porn trivia. On this note, this is zac smith:

Now I don't know about the rest of the world but I knew that look stopped being edgy or interesting when I was 15. seeing as Smith is 10 years older than me I am left to hope that picture was taken about 20 years ago, wikipedia is probably updated more often than that, although he has clothes on and based on his complete inability to not be having sex according to his memoir... Okay but now we are just devolving into ad homs. I apologize to, well nobody because after that load of shit well I have to do something to entertain myself.

Connor a lovely fellow I know is reading Joyce it is unclear how long he has been reading ulysses but we had a nice chat in which he asked me what would happen if someone were to write Ulysses now. My first though swimming inside the sun and despite my love of ulysses I mean this as an insult. Although I believe that Zweig(was that his name) actually had the mental capacity to create a work of similar "genius" to ulysses and failed (what I mean is he had a unique ability to live inside his own head in an irrational and mildly endearing way which I find truly impressive and if better edited may have actually been able to create something great. But now I have to move on before I convince myself that book deserves a second chance). We did porn is what would happen if a pretentious idiot who wouldn't know a mental process from a hole in the ground tried to write ulyssess, or perhaps if someone decided that they wanted to be mark dainelwinski but copied only revolutions instead of house of leaves. Instead of a study of the complex thoughts of the human mind we run across random lists of what the president was doing today. And you know what Zak It is completely awesome that the vice president shot someone in the face, now learn how to present that fact in a manner that implies you are a necessary part of the process and not an annoying middle man who has wasted a good portion of my time that could be spent reading books about things like buddhism that you don't have the time for. Well I have less time for them too now thanks so much for spreading your misery.

Right I have gotten off subject. What I am saying here about joyce is that he liked to pull in all his random bits and bobs. He liked to talk about everyone in a situation and everything that is happening well zac smith is the same except the everything is the daily news headlines. I was alive I know them. They have no thoughts attached to them no added sentences really just a list of this happened, this happened, this happened. It is what you would get is Zachary German decided to write a book about current affairs, which I hope to god never happens.

Historically porn is a super interesting topic. I don't mean watching it. I have never seen a porn and the way things are going it is looking like I will probably never watch one. Now before you decide that makes me not the audience for this book, I also know a creepy level of porn trivia, given this is slacking off in recent years since I started reading more fiction than sociology, but lets be honest a good portion of that might as well be porn, high quality but the story of o is certainly not a bed time story. I keep coming back to this because there is one thing I find truly amazing about this book it is the most boring thing I have ever had to read. (I didn't have to but I really want to throw the book away and I will feel guilty if I do that without actually finishing it.) To truly understand the problem of this book here is what you have to do. Go out make and porn and then try to comeback and explain it to me in a way that I will find horrifically boring? don't think you can well Mr smith can teach you. I get it you did it so long it was no longer interesting. As a weird sidenote I don't actually think zak smith likes porn, or women, or possibly breathing at least he gives no indication of liking any of them. He does seem to have a weird canada fetish but we all have out things I guess.

Right so I am giving a vindictive rating based on the fact that I wasted so much time reading this book. I apologize to the people who gave it to me free but I will need at least three more free books to pay for the time I have wasted, and I think it is just wrong how high the average star rating is on a book this bad. I mean I use those to choose books and it scares me that one could be so off.

I don't know that I have gotten a point across about the terribleness of this book, but seeing how everyone I know already hates him I think that will work out fine in reality because I have no actual convincing to do. The people that are already kissing his ass deserve what they get and I don't desire converts, so I simply say yuck to the book.

The art is clearly 4 possibly 5 star in my opinion though, if only the words hadn't been so shitty.

[Audacia Ray · Rating 4 out of 5]

A few disclaimers before I write about this book: Zak Smith is a friend. He writes about me (as Auspicia Clay) in this book. In general, he writes about my/our friends in this book and some of the events he writes about were ones I was present for or have heard stories about through other channels.

I took this pic of Zak and Mandy in July of 2007, when I was in Los Angeles on the book tour for Naked on the Internet: Hookups, Downloads, and Cashing In on Internet Sexploration. They'd just moved to LA. This picture really cracks me up every time I look at it.

So, I'm involved.

All this means it's hard to write about this book. But here goes:

We Did Porn is definitely a page-turner, and not just because I was nosy about how Zak would write me (I was pleased and amused by what he said about me), but because it was a genuinely enjoyable read. And the drawings served as great punctuation to the written bits.

One of the things that struck me upside the head as I read We Did Porn is that most of the books I read about the sex industry are written by women who at some point are or were activists. Women who write memoirs or other stuff about the sex industry frame their work in some way in relationship to feminism. If you’re a woman writing about the sex industry, you kind of can’t help it. And that's a very different kind of read than this book. Zak just has a different perspective on the porn industry, which is not to say that he’s necessarily feminist or anti-feminist – the subject just doesn’t really come up (and I’ve never really hashed it out with him either, it’s never seemed like the most pertinent of conversations we could be having). He's not apologetic about the fact that he signed on to make porn because he made a joke to Benny Profane about fucking girls on camera. And this simple fact - that Zak would like to fuck more girls - remains his reason for being in the business. The rationale being: if you were a dude, and you got offered the chance to fuck hot girls and get paid for it, you'd be insane not to go for it.

The pieces of the book that really shine are the moments where he draws the parallels between the art and smut businesses. There's a lot of depth there. Though his style throughout the book is somewhat disaffected (see above bit about the simplicity of his porn-doing motivation), there are great moments of intensity, when he gets fired up and not just in a cantankerous way (though that stuff is delightful too). For example, this moment (pg 391 for those playing along at home) in which he's writing about a conversation between me, Bella Vendetta and Mandy Morbid that he listened to as we were doing late night food after the 2008 AVN Awards:

Their basic attitude -as they dissect the convention and the people in it- is that everything about sex and porn is really stupid, except the sex and porn that they like.
And this, again, is strikingly similar to the way I feel about art.

In writing about the sex industry, it seems that women have to more carefully negotiate the issues around exploitation, good and bad experiences of sex, all that touchy stuff that people get crazed about – but seem much less concerned about when it comes to thinking about men and the sex business. Zak runs with this, but also cracks open tough stuff around abuse, negative experiences of sex, and mental illness in porn business folks. Zak isn’t afraid of writing ugly things about the nature of the porn business and the sadness that touches the people who are in it – but he doesn’t get too heavy handed about it either. And actually, characterizing Zak and the writing as not being afraid is kind of silly and trite – that really sells it short, like it’s some other kind of book, like it’s a brave thing and there should be head patting and reverence. And that’s – just not really it either.

Let’s boil it down to this: I love how Zak mixes writing about porn and art without any of the tired old "is it porn or is it art?" garbage. It just is. These things are in parallel and also entangled universes. It's a mess. There aren't any stupid questions in this book and no overly simplistic answers, just tough, weird, messy stuff. Coiled together, this stuff isn’t nonsensical, but it doesn’t have a neat and tidy narrative either (and my use of the word “narrative” will be funnier to you once you read the book. Which you should).

Zak has a bunch of book events coming up in cities like San Francisco, Los Angeles, New York, Chicago, Seattle - you should see what he's up to and go to one of his signings if you can.

[PG "I ain't finna read that" · Rating 5 out of 5]

You already know if you want to read this book or not.

We Did Porn is the memoir of artist Zak Smith, who’s primary claim to fame is his series of paintings from 2004 illustrating the events on every single page of Thomas Pynchon’s Gravity’s Rainbow. Smith’s other works are primarily paintings of porn stars and strippers. Smith’s proximity to the adult industry evolved into a his own career as an Alternative Porn Star under the stage name Zak Sabbath. This memoir reflects upon the events of his life from 2004 to 2009 giving insight into the culture of America, fine art and alt-porn worlds during this time.


Much of the book reads like an onslaught of character traits, events, settings, and cultural commentary in first person omniscient perspective.

-“I don’t know if you’ve ever done heroin before,” says Osbie Feel, standing in a bathtub and holding out a fishnet stocking and a syringe full of flat Coca-Coal, “but the thing is—it feels really good. So I need you to imagine the best thing ever is happening and just like lie there with this look in your eyes like its the best thing ever.”-

Smith’s writing style appeared confusing confusing at first with so many subjects being shoehorned in mid sentence, but considering the influence Thomas Pynchon had on his visual art it follows that his writing style is also influenced. The information-assault style of writing is common to post-modern authors, here Smith adopts a concentrated pace comparison in comparison to Pynchon or Wallace. Once accustomed too Smith’s style allows for a panoramic perspective of the scene he is writing. Each subject’s presence, motivations, and actions are revealed at pace quick enough to seem instantaneous in the reader’s imagination.


Zak Smith has been charged with multiple accounts of sexual abuse from employees of Wizards Of The Coast (who he worked with after this book was published) as well as from his ex wife Mandy Morbid who in the book is given a second pseudonym Candy Crushed. There is no allusion in the memoir to any unhappiness in their relationship.


The details of his time working on porn sets, traveling on promotional tours for his movies, and other Alt-Adult industry anecdotes seem dated now that the industry currently holds very little space for feature length films of any sub-genre. Tube sites re-post sex scenes from feature films without paying the producers, and the massive popularity of Gonzo and amateur style production reduces the chance that a large studio will recoup any money on a film idea that doesn’t have clear mass appeal. Smith speaks to this conundrum in one of his many poignant parallels between the fine art and alt-porn industries

- The art world has so successfully eliminated so many people from its audience that it’s created not only the illusion that what people most want to see is some quote from Alexander Haig written in Hunt’s ketchup across a photo of Mary Kate Olsen but also the illusion that the only kind of art an art person would ever want to make anymore would be something roughly equivalent to some quote from Alexander Haig written in Hunt’s ketchup across a photo of Mary Kate Olsen.
Would-be good and innovative pornographers have this same dilemma. If you don’t see how, reread the paragraph above with the word porn where it says art, adult video store where it says museum, and Ass-Whores from Planet Squirt where it says some quote from Alexander Haig written in Hunt’s ketchup across a photo of Mary Kate Olsen -


As an artist, pornographer, or post-modern literature fan this book will speak directly to you, but these same genres as well as the author himself are may just as soon turn many people off from reading this book. If you want to read it you’ll enjoy it, if it’s not your cup of soup you’re likely to spit it all over the counter.

[Simeon Berry · Rating 5 out of 5]

When considering how to review this book, I immediately thought of the competition in writing about porn. Aside from Jenna Jameson’s utterly forgettable and careening memoir, there just isn’t really much to compare it to. (The exception here is David Foster Wallace’s essay from Consider the Lobster on the Adult Video Network Awards--“Big Red Son”--which is a brilliant and hilarious encapsulation of the porn industry). Like sports narratives, such writing tends to be, “I did this. I did that. This happened to me. I thought something... eventually. Then something else happened.” There’s no point of view, per se, just a narrative sock puppet that fitfully tries to spritz meaning onto a sequence of events.

Considering that narratives about porn are inevitably female ones (in line with the industry, where the emphasis is clearly on anything but the effaced and usually embarrassing male performer), this book becomes even more of a rare artifact.

Zak Smith is clearly a very smart person, and a pretty decent stylist. The scenes are often lushly detailed, with startling metaphors, and the action is selectively edited, for its suggestive (and I mean that in the literary sense) power. Sometimes, the blanks and the chronological leaps feel a bit frustrating, but the leaps from chapter to chapter and from commentary to commentary prevent the book from lapsing into mere sequence, which, aside from simple boringness, is the primary danger of memoir.

Like the aforementioned Mr. Wallace, his agenda is sociological. Indeed, one of the central theses of the book is that the trauma and the absurdity of the alt porn industry (not much differentiated from the mainstream porn industry in the book) is consonant not only with the dystopian desires of America in general, but the maddening qualities of the past decade. For much of the Oughts, public life mutated into a bizarre, straight-faced recurrence of the 80’s, unmitigated by the 80’s ridiculous music, clothing, and movies. I thought the invention of irony in the 90’s would have inoculated us somewhat against that, but it didn’t, and I am grateful to Smith for resurrecting the slack-jawed outrage that many of us felt after 2001. I suppose that alt porn is a perfect position to stand outside the culture and take a good, long look at it, as someone in that position has no choice about whether or not to pass, as it were.

Granted, as the punk aesthetic that underlies the book makes clear, Zak Smith places himself in this position--disbelieving, bitter, sardonic--because that’s where he wants to be. Because it fits with his emotional tenor. One of the regrettable weaknesses of the book is that he sometimes substitutes literary deadpan for emotional insight.

Why he chose to enter porn, especially when he already had a successful art career (previously, he had work exhibited at the Whitney) is mostly obscured. He implies that porn is somewhat of an antidote to the hypocrisy of art industry, though in truth the book is rife with indictments of hypocrisy in the culture at large. Whatever specific desire he had to have sex professionally is subsumed in an explication of basic primal urges, which, I think, is sleight of hand. From the onset of the book, he describes being near or involved in disquieting, depressing, and bewildering interactions in porn, which very naturally makes the reader wonder why it’s worth it. This question is essentially side-stepped, and the reader is left to infer this crucial piece of information.

Another big silence in the book is Zak’s background. He doesn’t really seem to exist prior to the opening scene of the book, and the book is shot through with such reticence when it comes to personal details about himself, which would be unsurprising in a memoir about porn, but a little startling when he is so frank about the details of the lives of the other, only lightly pseudonymous characters.

That being said, he does do a spectacular job of excavating his unease with the industry and the personalities that power it, and, as another reviewer has noted, the last portion of the book where he falls in love with Mandy Morbid is quite charming. I also found the drawings included throughout the book to be compelling and lovely (not to mention insanely meticulous), and a rare instance where a writer is able to simultaneously establish his bona fides in another medium. Aside from the art, the touchstone of the book is Zak’s compassion for the performers, which is deep and authentic, and helps to ground some of the cultural criticism.

[Erez M. · Rating 5 out of 5]

Well this is my favorite book so I kind of have to give it 5 stars. Now of course when people ask “what’s your favorite book?” I can’t say “oh it’s this porn book” —I have to go for a more presentable placeholder and that is extremely ironic because that is exactly what this book is about, at certain chapters.
The real deal is: this book isn’t really about porn at all. It’s about American life in the 2000’s, the art world, subcultures and their intersections, and about defamiliarising the mundane, looking at things for what they are under the surface.
It’s a book about life in a way that is really impressive in how sharply observational it is. It sticks in your head and explains things in a way you never thought about: what is a style, what is a date, what is a film, what is a pornographic film, what is a train, what is a city. This is a long way of saying “it’s deep.”

It basically does everything a good book does: good cover art, page turner, funny and real-feeling dialogue with character (I laugh out loud even on re-reads of my favorite chapters) —each person’s mannerism is conveyed in their dialogue, beautiful sentences and language, and different people in the book have their own kind of storylines happening, intersecting with the writer’s life at different points. It feels like life.

[Steve · Rating 4 out of 5]

I bought this book because I am obsessed with porn as it exists through every door except for the fleshy one. trust. there's something about people being attached to other people by the places that they hide that is absolutely awe inspiring to me, and the fact that there is a teeming, profitable industry that exploits it is amazing. it's not only that, really. porn wouldn't be porn if it were just people copulating, porn has [d]evolved to a place where there is literally something for everyone who has ever been turned on by something weird or embarrassing or fringey. this book is written by a man who sort of stumbled into porn through his art, which is exactly the type of voice I wanted to explore porn's behind-the-scenes with. there are no excuses, no justifications, he calls things as they are through the voice of someone who likes Dr. Pepper and hardcore music and anime. the voice he employs is 90% perfect, save for a few moments of being a bit TOO sardonic, and even that might just be my mood while I'm reading it. this was a great, funny read which looks at sex objectively as an action that just happens to propel him to orgasm on a video screen. it's a modern voice and a modern vision and if this were a blog that were updated daily, I'd STILL be reading it. great book.

[James · Rating 5 out of 5]

Best book I've read all year.

Excerpt:

"Like the question of how to treat they gay, the black, and the bug-eyed unborn, pornography is a "Hot Button Issue" - meaning an issue so UNconfusing that any lead-poisoned third grader has all the information he or she needs to have an opinion on it, and probably does."

The above of course from the chapter "Of Braindead Fucks."

Zak Smith's diction is breathtakingly refreshing. Because he does not write. I mean, he writes, but he doesn't "write." His style is so stripped down and bare (raw?) lacking all pretension and unnecessary linguistic pyrotechnics. It reeks of honesty, truth, and intellect.

Zak Smith defines tradition as "a conspiracy of unimaginative parents and unloved old men in funny hats." Which is true. And funny.

I am inclined to re-read the book and simply recount my favorite excerpts in order for you to properly appreciate the immediacy, bluntness, and sheer enjoyment of a Zak Smith experience.

It's really quite good.

And did I mention it's about porn?

[Tara · Rating 4 out of 5]

This guy is wicked smart. He's also a fine wordsmith and a funny storyteller. I'm a person generally confused over the issue of pornography so I appreciated the perspective of someone in the business, someone who's also very energetic when writing asides prodding political figures and media snobbery among other things. There's tons of talk about sex in the book and people having it, but Smith also chats about things like art, psychology, and even death.

The ink drawings included throughout the book aren't directly related to the stories he tells but are a fine addition nevertheless. It's a nicely bound book with thick, glossy pages and some are in color.

My only complaint about the book is that sometimes I literally did not know what was going on. The narrative jumps from place to place and sometimes...I just didn't get it.

[Paul · Rating 3 out of 5]

There’s actually some good (and at times appreciably better than good) writing here, but it’s all cleverly tucked away behind 250 pages of meandering demi-reportage laced with interminable run-on sentences of the sort that were apparently thrilling when new, but which seem like nothing so much as empty flailing masquerading as style for at least 40 years now. When the author actually gets pissed off describing the sleazy Tyra Banks hit job on Sasha Grey, there’s suddenly a real focus and the writing is powerful in its scorn and contempt of hypocrisy. Similarly, some free-wheeling divagations about the genesis of kinks are surprisingly thoughtful and plausible.

[Abbe]

From Publishers Weekly

Visual artist and recent alt-porn star Smith—known in the adult film world as Zak Sabbath—takes readers on a frenetic journey from the New York art scene to pornography-saturated Los Angeles. Interspersed with his drawings, which have been displayed at MoMA and the 2004 Whitney Biennial, Smith's memoir is more a series of linked vignettes than a chronological account of his foray into alt-porn. As distinct from mainstream hardcore porn, alt-porn tries to do with sex the kinds of things ambitious young filmmakers might try to do after graduating from art school. It was Smith's collection of illustrations for Thomas Pynchon's Gravity's Rainbow that first attracted the attention of pirate porn director Osbie Feel. As Smith puts it, I ended up in porn because one day I sat down and decided to draw one picture for every page of a very thick book no one I knew had read. In addition to attending the Porn Film Festival Berlin and the Adult Video News Awards in Las Vegas—and having sex with countless women with names like Tina DiVine and Trixie Kyle in countless warehouse sets—Smith is also a cultural critic, dissecting everything from Valentine's Day to the grammar in antipornography laws. Just as porn, alternative or otherwise, has its fans, Smith's memoir is an acquired taste and will appeal to those who like things a little kinky. (July 1)
Copyright © Reed Business Information, a division of Reed Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.

Review

"Intelligent, frank and often hilarious meditation on the author's dual career...The pleasure in this book comes not from living through the author's atypical experience, but in being taken deeper into areas of thought commonly perceived as taboo—a wild, entirely worthwhile ride." ."—Kirkus Reviews

"Smith’s take on the industry is vivid and insightful, including observations on people, politics and American culture—the push-and-pull between the Right and those who want the right to screw."—Kirkus Reviews, Nonfiction Supplement

"Will appeal to those who like things a little kinky."—Publishers Weekly

"A fascinating synthesis of words and art..."—LibraryJournal.com

"An intelligent, funny, and self-aware reminder that intelligent, funny, and self-aware people do in fact choose to work in the porn industry...It is all incredibly interesting and entertaining."—Alison Hallett, The Portland Mercury

"The subject matter — combined with his clever imagery — couldn’t help but keep it fascinating... It reminded me of David Foster Wallace’s hilarious, equally dense essay “Big Red Son”...Smith and Wallace have similarly breathless, heady writing styles and We Did Porn could easily serve as a porn insider’s compliment to Wallace’s journalistic-outsider perspective."—Alex Peterson, Willamette Week Online

"Artist Zak Smith injects some life into the moribund genre of the memoir with this thoughtful and hilarious look into the alt-porn industry." —Drew Toal, Time Out New York

"Wildly entertaining." —Fleshbot

"...a page-turner...a genuinely enjoyable read..." —Audacia Ray, author of Naked on the Internet
"Alongside 'fine artist and 'porn star' on Zak Smith's unique resume, you can now add the phrase 'entertaining and resourceful writer'...[We Did Porn] is exhaustive, perceptive, empathic, and very funny."—John Bolster, Penthouse

"...reads not unlike a George Plimpton-style adventure in immersive investigation, as the artist chronicles his adventures in front of the camera as eager rookie Zak Sabbath, with words, pictures, self-awareness, and dark humor." —Shana Nys Dambrot, Flavorpill

"...Smith is an outrageously talented observer, which makes his writing almost as arresting as his images, which are superb. Smith's detailed descriptions of 'life in the zeros' both on and off the set make We did Porn a fascinating x-rates documents of a cynical age." —Jim Ruland, Girls Gone Wild Magazine

"...combines words and images, mixing memoir with gorgeous paintings...Smith's art is exquisite, intensely drawn with splashes of electric colors, sharp lines and energy throbbing in every complex detail...We Did Porn is an excellent book and Zak Smith is an incredibly interesting artist and writer."—Alyssa Bianca-Pavley, Fanzine.com

"The many crosscurrents in Smith's works are fun, but more compelling is the fact that Smith does not seem so much involved in critique as something else from literary post-modernism—he's leapt into his own work as a character...Smith seems headed towards the historiographic, creatively narrating an alternative history, in this case, of a very recent past moment, from what might be perceived as the center of our authentic cultural life." —Joe Fyfe, Artnet.com

"Smith's 'artwork is impeccable. There is tenderness, daring, heat in his pieces. With a Nan Goldin compassion, he captures an intimacy that is often lacking in the movies he and his comrades make.'"—The San Francisco Bay Guardian

"This book is beautiful and complicated and riveting... I think there's no doubt that Zak Smith has genius, or that thing that we think of as genius that is really just the urge to get up every morning and spend long hours struggling with art." —Stephen Elliott, The Rumpus

[Kevin Armstrong · Rating 4 out of 5]

I discovered Smith via his graphic opus 'Pictures Showing What Happens on Each Page of Thomas Pynchon's Novel Gravity's Rainbow'. The fact that the latter even existed swayed me to want to like WDP, but the book stands tall on its own. Smart, smart-assed, he writes keen insider POV on art and porn with a swinging dick and heart when it comes to friends become casualties. The contrast works well because his take on art vs. porn maintains a similar sense of enticement and absurdity. Hard to imagine a better tour guide for such a grim realm...

[Aaron the Pink Donut · Rating 3 out of 5]

Beautifully illustrated and an enjoyable read. highly recommend

[Паша · Rating 4 out of 5]

Not so much about porn, and more like a non-fiction version of Pynchon's Inherent Vice. I wonder what came out first.

[Matt · Rating 3 out of 5]

Things would be so much easier if I didn't like Zak Smith's drawings so much. He's almost aggressively obnoxious at times, particularly in interviews, in which he generally seems to be attacking his interlocutor. Despite making work that could be seen as problematic from all sorts of perspectives (one could see all sorts of issue with the "male gaze" as portrayed in his paintings of women, but when asked about these sorts of things he simply says "I like looking at women, so I want to paint them"). Unfortunately, the dude can draw.

Surprisingly, it turns out that he can write, too. Part of what makes his drawing some compelling is the almost phantasmagoric details - whether abstract or representational, his painted spaces are practically overflowing with minutia. We Did Porn proves that this keen eye for detail is not restricted to when he's painting - in the first few pages, he narrates a car ride through Bushwick, and those Brooklyn-specific oddities, other-wise-uncaptured moments, tumble out in a page-long paragraph. Though the intensity of these long descriptive passages can lead to a kind of reading fatigue, I was impressed by how well Smith's writing style reflected his paintings.

Smith remains as caustic on the page as he does in other situations. This can also be wearing at times, although he is frequently redeemed by the fact that he's right. He frequently skewers the absurdities of the art scenes, both it's wealthy benefactors and it's hanger-ons, whether at an art opening (his) or a somewhat perplexing award dinner. He is equally sharp when tackling the anti-pornography crusaders (although, their hypocrisy, be they senators, religious zealots, or Tyra Banks, makes them somewhat easy targets).

It's sort of difficult to figure out, in the end, why Smith wrote the book - what the larger purpose was. But then again, his paintings can be equally mystifying, and he's certainly no help on that score - when asked about deeper meaning behind his works, he usually just defaults to "I want to make paintings that look good." Fair enough, I suppose, although I try to take a little more than that from artwork, be it painted, written, drawn, or sculpted. If that is his only goal, however, he's succeeded with flying colors - the book actually contains reproductions of many of his paintings and drawings, divided into four different sections, spread throughout the book. In the last one, after the last bit of written text, there's a painting of his girlfriend, sitting on a table, surrounded by the clutter that may be their shared room. Like all his pieces, it's immaculately rendered, and its so overflowing with objects that one's eye can barely stay still while looking at it. I could stare at it for hours.

[Jim · Rating 4 out of 5]

4.5 stars...

If you’ve ever wondered what it would be like to have sex with a bunch of porn stars (and who hasn’t?) then Zak Smith’s memoir-in-porn is the book you’ve been waiting for. It may come as something of a surprise that a porn actor not named Sasha Grey (who makes several appearances in Smith’s book) has their shit together enough to write coherently about their experiences, but Smith proves to be the notable exception. Not only is he Yale-educated and fiendishly smart, he’s also a visual artist whose work has been shown at the Museum of Modern Art, the Whitney Biennial, and galleries around the world. Not bad for a guy who draws naked chicks. Smith is more than a one-trick pony. We Did Porn is Smith’s third book, but “his first with writing in it” – and is lavishly decorated with over 100 pages of illustrations – mostly of girls in their unnatural habitat. We Did Porn is the story of how an overeducated, super-talented artist came to get involved in alternative porn (think: pale skin, piercings, and lots of tattoos) and a behind-the-scenes look at the pernicious and predatory world of pornographic film. (For example, here’s a producer’s idea of humor: A man goes to the doctor and says “I feel great but look terrible. What’s the matter with me?” “Easy,” the doctor replies, “you’re a vagina!”) Readers accompany Smith to the doctor’s office to get tested, to Las Vegas for the adult video awards, to Barcelona for a humiliating shoot where he can’t keep it up, and back to Los Angeles for a delirious and unexpectedly dangerous threesome. Smith, whose porn name is Zak Sabbath, doesn’t tell his whole life story; he just focuses on his involvement in the industry during a time that produced an average of 36 new pornographic videos a day. Of course, it helps that Smith is an outrageously talented observer, which makes his writing (“Wit consisted of coming off as the least bitter complainer”) almost as arresting as his images, which are superb. Smith’s detailed descriptions of “life in the zeros” both on and off the set make We Did Porn a fascinating x-rated document of a cynical age.

[Kay Prime · Rating 3 out of 5]

I'm not sure what I was expecting from a book by an artist/alt- porn star. I am pleased to say that it is at least three times better than Jenna Jameson's memoir How To Make Love Like A Porn Star. (A porn star who, when referring to genitals in her book, insists on regularly using the word 'ding dings'. Nauseating.)

His artwork shows that he is talented but I imagine no more so than any other punk rock kid who makes elaborate doodles during class instead of taking notes. (To be fair, I'm not artistically inclined and have never understood the guidelines for distinguishing good art from bad art. For example, Minimalism. Acclaimed artist Frank Stella painted a square on a canvas and said it was a portrait of a man. An innovative piece of work in the art world; a square painted on a canvas to me.)

His ramblings are a distinct cross between Hunter S. Thompson and Tom Wolfe, as advertised on the back cover. Like these cult greats, many of Smith's observations are a delicate balance of intelligent and trivial social commentary- but in relation to porn. For example, when he is recalling a Q & A session that included anti- porn activists:

'The cum-face-question woman seems to be indulging in the popular myth that male sexual requirements are relative. This is likewise transparently not so. If you're pretty, there will always be men who want to ejaculate on your face. It's not porn's fault any more than it's KISS's fault some people want to rock and roll all night and party every day.

The popularity of porn is not the cause of sexual dissatisfaction in men, it is an effect. Which is a much more frightening fact, if you think about it.'

I really had low expectations for this book but was delightfully surprised to discover more depth than I believed Smith to be capable.

[Brian White · Rating 3 out of 5]

This is one of those books that could have been shortened by a hundred pages or so. This is because the author has a tangential style and will amble off on a random bit of thought while making his point.

As for the content, it's honest and it's there. Zak doesn't seem to have an agenda other than Telling What Happened. It's this that makes the book good.

His prose is a little hard to get through. If you have ever heard Zak Smith/Sabbath talk- it's how he writes, which makes it a little hard to follow at times. I chalk this up to style, and it's not a criticism on my part.

The content, I think, can be summed up in the last few lines of the book. After hearing all about Zak and his friends' experience in the porn industry we are treated to a line of dialogue from his girlfriend and sometimes co-performer about how a lot of people won't talk to you when they find out you are/were in porn. Zak opens a window: "The morning air is good, and belongs to us as much as them."

This is maybe the closest he gets to an agenda. At the end of the day (and the book), we're all still people.

[Hannah Snyder · Rating 4 out of 5]

Porn is fascinating and this book gives great insight into the alt porn world. Like other reviewers I could've done without 100 pages or so, and his prose is so condensed that it makes the book feel longer than it actually is. Still there are some brilliant and funny things he says in here. Stylistically reminiscent of DFW in the way he sort of ambushes you with description. I have to roll my eyes at the reviewers calling Zak Smith pretentious (I mean he's a porn star Yale grad of course he's an asshole what were you expecting). I don't mind an ego as long as it's deserved, and I think Zak Smith justifies (and admits) his own dickishness in the book. A reviewer below made a great point about it lacking the feminist conversation most female sex workers bring up in their writing. Didn't consider it a huge loss because it would've been forced otherwise. Would recommend this book to anyone pissed off about the art world, or who's ever been curious about what the porn industry is like. Great read.

[Jesse K · Rating 4 out of 5]

I was expecting WDP to be, at best, an enjoyable simple light guilty read within which a few people that I somewhat know might be amusingly scandalized. It was a bit better than that. I mean, it wasn't perfect: the run on sentences were even worse than mine at points; some of the premises were very occasionally, pardon the pun, hammered home a bit repetitively; and I definitely know that the scandal quotient could have been exponentially higher without straying from the realm of the truthful; but it was also a "fun" book with a greater deal of depth than one might expect in which hypotheses, many of which I agree with to varying extents, pertaining to bigger ticket lofty issues, both related and unrelated to the stated topic, were posited. Plus, it's fairly telling when you read a 500 page book in one sitting.

[Josephine Beyke · Rating 4 out of 5]

I'm not usually a fan of memoirs (being against the "Truth is stranger than fiction" malarky), but Zak Smith's book reads more like a series of short home movies interspersed with conversations with the reader and excerpts from his art portfolio. Given the controversial topic of pornography and those who perform it, Smith effortlessly toed the line between condescending disapproval and naive defense; at one point, however, he reminds the reader, "this part probably won't be funny or hot--but we *are* talking about my friends here." That is what the whole story boils down to: a man telling stories about his friends, and the people he meets who aren't his friends, and the people he never meets, and the people he hates...and almost everyone involved has sex in exchange for money.

[Jrock Rock · Rating 2 out of 5]

I was disappointed in this book. It seemed like it would be an interesting bit of reading about the underside of the LA alt porn scene. While it had its interesting parts, I could not get past the writing style. Zak is one of those people who can't tell a story without taking a twisty turvy detour before making it to the point. He so very much wants to be Hunter S. Thompsonesque because he's a free thinker and Zak wants to seem like he's an artist who goes against the grain and all that and it just seems forced.

[Roxy · Rating 3 out of 5]

I'm giving it three stars because I felt like the writing was rushed. It read like a first draft. I don't think it went to an editor. There were some interesting stories and I liked how he interweaved his own experiences with both porn and art, but I was hoping he would have went into a bit more detail in some areas, rather than writing it like a script or journal entry.

Also, Zak tried changing the names of the many adult performers, but most were obvious who they were.

Candy Crushed=Mandy Morbid
Tasha Rey=Sasha Grey
Among others

[Elisabeth · Rating 4 out of 5]

Surprised me in a good way.

I really had no idea what to expect from this book. Its a memoir that combines stories from the artist/writer's life punctuated throughout with his own artwork. Smith weaves together personal stories with objective cultural observation. His description of the world of the alt-porn industry gives a sense of normalcy to an industry that is often viewed as anything but.

[Antonia Crane · Rating 3 out of 5]

Zac Sabbath is snarky and brilliant.He speaks of life in the double zeros like a modern day sensualist. I loved his brain, his characters and his insights. The only thing lacking for me was the storyline, which floated off into space- lost in tangent; very smart, snarky tangents, but a tangent nonetheless. What this book has in it's corner is it's uniqueness. Smith's drawings are incredible. I've had the pleasure of seeing them up close.

[Shawn · Rating 4 out of 5]

I started reading this book because the title caught my eye as being funny. When I opened it and saw the artwork I was truly pleased. Sometimes you should judge a book by it's cover but not necessarily the author's intelligence or talent by his jacket photo. This book is rife with crazy insight and downright funny stories and observations.

[Rachel · Rating 5 out of 5]

4.8 stars. This book is the literary translation of Zak Smith's art. Yes, there are a lot of details that aren't directly about the main topic of the text, but while they may not inform the narrative, they inform the setting (literal or mental) and understanding the context is just as important as understanding the events taking place. I love his art, and now I hope he writes more as well.

[Libby · Rating 3 out of 5]

This book was pretty weird, but there were lots of cool drawings to look at, and it had interesting insights, primarily about the similarities between art and porn. I would recommend it if you're up for a weird read, and the paper quality is terrific.

[Jason · Rating 3 out of 5]

At times brilliant and thought-provoking, at others, painfully self-indulgent, and to my eye, pointless. I think it would have been a whole lot more enjoyable if it was 300 pages instead of 479. Frustratingly good?

[Marye odom · Rating 4 out of 5]

This one's in progress. I'm lucky because one of my favorite artists is also a good writer. I love the mix of narrative and paintings/drawings in this book, the mix of hearing a person's mind with seeing their view.

[Eugene · Rating 5 out of 5]

A memoir with an interesting premise written by a great young painter and written astonishingly well. It's compelling, it's funny, it's brave, it's heartfelt, and it's deep. The best thing I've read all year.

If you don't at least like this book, we probably do not get along.