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The Adams Report
by J.C. Adams
09/07/00
NEWS ALERT
Folks, I received word last week that porn-model/author Jamoo has died of a drug overdose. Jamoo was also a contributor to the biweekly Unzipped, as well as our sister publication, Freshmen.
Tim Evanson, one of the moderators of rec.arts.movies.erotica, sent along this obituary that he wrote and posted to that newsgroup.
— J.C. Adams
Gay porn star Jamoo died last month from a drug overdose. He was 26.
Investigators are still determining whether the OD was accidental or deliberate.
Jamoo was a native of Texas. He had a mixed-race background, having French, German, Black, Cherokee, Spanish (all from his mother) and Irish (from his father) heritage. Jamoo often wrote about his childhood and his experiences with racism and poverty, and he had a life-long fascination with men with mixed racial and ethnic backgrounds. His closest friends were gay porn stars with varied racial backgrounds (like Talvin DeMachio). His idol was gay porn director Kristen Bjorn, who often features multi-racial men in his films.
Jamoo saw the television movie Shattered Innocence (about straight porn starlet Shauna Grant's suicide) when he was 15, and told his mother he wanted to be a porn star. He managed to get his first issue of Advocate Men a year later. The hard-core sexuality (erections, masturbation, exposed assholes) depicted in the magazine helped frame his burgeoning homosexuality. Photos by Kristen Bjorn were showcased in the magazine, and
it was through these images that Jamoo discovered that other men had foreskins and were mixed-race just as he was. At the age of 17, Jamoo obtained a copy of Bjorn's seminal film Caribbean Beat, which helped to further raise his awareness of his racial background and sexuality.
Jamoo wrote his first published piece of fiction at the age of 17. The short story was "Screwing Sergeant Steiner"; it appeared a year later in Advocate Men magazine in November, 1992. Jamoo left home in 1992 at the age of 18 and moved to Los Angeles. According to the myth Jamoo himself told repeatedly, he was "a virgin with only $200 in his pocket" when he arrived there. He shortly began going to the gym, and having large amounts of sex. A year later, he was a gay porn star.
Most of Jamoo's films were made during his first three years in the industry (1993-1995), when he worked primarily for now-defunct Planet Group. A top, Jamoo preferred working with multi-racial casts featuring hairy, uncut men. But Jamoo's on-set antics, his increasing inability to get an erection, and his drug use lost him work as time went by.
Jamoo suffered from a two-year bout of depression that began in 1994, during which he largely withdrew from porn, friends, work and writing. His drug use increased dramatically in 1996, and he overdosed in August of that year. Friends say he began putting his life back together after the incident, but he continued to take drugs extensively. He continued to suffer from recurrent episodes of depression. Although his peers and friends held numerous interventions for him, Jamoo refused all their offers of help. In the last year or so, Jamoo had been stalked by a former assistant who had insinuated himself into his life and fallen in love with him. Jamoo struggled to rid himself of this man, and had to fight repeatedly to counter rumors and innuendo this individual spread about him.
Jamoo was a difficult person to work with. His ego was over-sized and fragile, and he was touchy about his looks, weight and ability to get an erection. Industry insiders say he suffered from massive insecurity, and needed constant ego strokes to adequately perform on film. Jamoo was fond of wearing fur coats; when confronted by the un-PC nature of such actions, Jamoo countered with the narcissistic response: "I'm worth it." Jamoo often fought back viciously when he perceived he was being criticized; he published the real name of one performer he had fought with, and revealed that others abused steroids, alcohol and illegal drugs. He had largely been ostracized from the industry at the time of his death.
Jamoo was the author of three books: Superstars (Companion Press,1996), The Films of Kristen Bjorn (Companion Press, 1997) and Superstars 2 (Companion Press, 1999). His most famous short story, "If New Orleans Were Paris," appeared in John Preston's edited anthology of gay erotic writing, Flesh and the Word 2, in 1993. He had written it at the age of17, and it originally appeared in Daddy magazine. Jamoo wrote for a number of gay adult magazines, including BLACKfire, BLK, SLC, Black and Gay, Daddy, Advocate Men, and Freshmen. He had columns appear in Freshmen, Unzipped, and Skinflicks magazines.
Jamoo's most recent on-screen appearance was in the documentary 101 Rent Boys (produced and distributed by World of Wonder), which recently screened on the Cinemax cable network. It's making the rounds at various gay film festivals.
When asked why porn is so important, Jamoo responded: "I think gay men rent so much porn because it's like watching God."
The Films of Jamoo:
A-B-Cs of Sex (Planet Group, 1993)
Afternoons in Hollywood (T&T Video, 1996)
Anal Attraction (Planet Group, 1993)
Bacchus (Planet Group, 1995)
Butt Service (T&T Video, 1996)
Diary of a Gay Producer (Filmco, 1995)
Dicks and Robbers (Planet Group, 1993)
Dominique's Bi Adventure (Leisure Time, 1995)
Firmest (Planet Group, 1993)
Geared Up (Planet Group, 1993)
Gilligan's Bi-Land (Karen Dior, 1994)
Hair Plug (Brute Films/Planet Group, 1993)
Hard Drive (HIS Video, 1995)
Hoghounds 1 (Leisure Time, 1995)
Hoghounds 2 (Leisure Time, 1995)
Hunk Hunt 1 (Leisure Time, 1995)
A Latin Adventure (N/A)
Latin X (Planet Group, 1993)
Models Unzipped (All Worlds, 1995)
Naked Ghosts (Planet Group, 1994)
The Naked Man (Stallion, 1994)
Off Beat and Path (Planet Group, 1993)
Officer Dick (All Worlds, 1995)
Party Partners (Leisure Time, 1994)
Personally Yours (Planet Group, 1993)
Ready For It (Studio 2000, 1994)
Refried Dreams (Planet Group, 1996)
Rock Bottoms (Red Board, 1996)
Sex f/x (Video Resource/Planet Group, 1994)
Spring Meal (T&T Video, 1994)
Summer Licks (T&T Video, 1995)
Sunsex Boulevard (HIS Video, 1994)
Toilet Tramps (Stallion Video, 1994)
Tyler Scott--A Day of Decadence (Vivid Video, 1994)
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