A Thousand and One Night Stands: The Life of Jon Vincent

Rating:
Summary: Excellent book about a major figure in erotic films
Review: A truly excellent biography.
Jon Vincent was handsome, driven and talented. He was extremely charming and seductive -- a man who could persuade nearly anyone to do nearly anything. He had the talent to succeed in major league baseball, perhaps the looks and talent to succeed in Hollywood, and was phenomenally successful as an actor in gay/bisexual adult films.
Vincent was a thrill junkie: a compulsive seeker of sexual adventure, physical danger, steroids, alcohol, cocaine and finally heroin. Heroin was stronger than he was; it took over his life and finally killed him.
H.A. Carson recounts Vincent's life. The book is a narrative: the judgements expressed are those made by Vincent himself. It is seems lurid in places, but only because certain aspects of Vincent's life were lurid. The book has photos of Vincent in his prime, which will appeal to his fans.
Heroin addiction is a cliche in our culture. Few readers will be surprised at the downward spiral of poverty, prostitution, deception, theft, arrest, futile detoxification efforts, near-fatal drug overdoses, delusion, paranoia, despair, homelessness and eventual death -- although the details are often startling and chilling.
However, there is much in this book that the average reader is not likely to know. I was unaware, for example, that a detoxifying junkie (going cold turkey) can experience 30 or more days of near-absolute insomnia. The book reveals aspects of junkie life that are odd (the Geographical theory of
sobriety), disturbing (the link between pornography, prostitution and drug addiction; the tendency for heroin addiction to spread among friends like a common cold) and very disturbing (the devastation that addicts inflict on those who love them and want to help them).
The book shows how heroin addiction is a day-by-day, night-by-night battle to stay alive. Jon Vincent was victorious in many of his daily battles; but eventually, there was always defeat and readdiction.
The book is a damned good read, a powerful anti-drug message, and also a perfect place to start for anyone curious or concerned about pornography, prostitution, drug addiction or addictive personalities in general. One bad point: it is available as a paperback only, not in hardcover (I have checked).

Rating:
Summary: Excellent book about a major figure in erotic films
Review: A truly excellent biography.
Jon Vincent was handsome, driven and talented. He was extremely charming and seductive -- a man who could persuade nearly anyone to do nearly anything. He had the talent to succeed in major league baseball, perhaps the looks and talent to succeed in Hollywood, and was phenomenally successful as an actor in gay/bisexual adult films.
Vincent was a thrill junkie: a compulsive seeker of sexual adventure, physical danger, steroids, alcohol, cocaine and finally heroin. Heroin was stronger than he was; it took over his life and finally killed him.
H.A. Carson recounts Vincent's life. The book is a narrative: the judgements expressed are those made by Vincent himself. It is seems lurid in places, but only because certain aspects of Vincent's life were lurid. The book has photos of Vincent in his prime, which will appeal to his fans.
Heroin addiction is a cliche in our culture. Few readers will be surprised at the downward spiral of poverty, prostitution, deception, theft, arrest, futile detoxification efforts, near-fatal drug overdoses, delusion, paranoia, despair, homelessness and eventual death -- although the details are often startling and chilling.
However, there is much in this book that the average reader is not likely to know. I was unaware, for example, that a detoxifying junkie (going cold turkey) can experience 30 or more days of near-absolute insomnia. The book reveals aspects of junkie life that are odd (the Geographical theory of
sobriety), disturbing (the link between pornography, prostitution and drug addiction; the tendency for heroin addiction to spread among friends like a common cold) and very disturbing (the devastation that addicts inflict on those who love them and want to help them).
The book shows how heroin addiction is a day-by-day, night-by-night battle to stay alive. Jon Vincent was victorious in many of his daily battles; but eventually, there was always defeat and readdiction.
The book is a damned good read, a powerful anti-drug message, and also a perfect place to start for anyone curious or concerned about pornography, prostitution, drug addiction or addictive personalities in general. One bad point: it is available as a paperback only, not in hardcover (I have checked).

Rating:
Summary: A tale of depravation and sickness!!
Review: I am not sure just how I managed to wade through this sorry account of the worst of the human experiences. I can't understand just why anyone would chronicle these events, or make any positive comments about such a complete failure of a poor human being.. This person sunk to every kind of perversion and should only be looked at as an example of almost every depraved activity. Save your money! It really soesn't deserve even one star.

Rating:
Summary: One of the best reads this year
Review: I loved this book and could not put it down once I started it. I knew of Jon/Jeff for many years through his films and was surprised to find out that he was gay for pay. But still he remains a complete gay icon known for his "verbal action scenes".
He was honest in this book and revealed all the crap that he pulled and the struggles that he was having trying to get off of drugs. The only downside to this book were of the photos (including the cover) being censored. I came away from the book feeling sad about his life, but it will never stain the image I have of him the first time I saw him on video.

Rating:
Summary: One of the best reads this year
Review: I loved this book and could not put it down once I started it. I knew of Jon/Jeff for many years through his films and was surprised to find out that he was gay for pay. But still he remains a complete gay icon known for his "verbal action scenes".
He was honest in this book and revealed all the crap that he pulled and the struggles that he was having trying to get off of drugs. The only downside to this book were of the photos (including the cover) being censored. I came away from the book feeling sad about his life, but it will never stain the image I have of him the first time I saw him on video.

Rating:
Summary: A private disintegration on the public stage
Review: Just as "Wonder Bread ..." detailed the rapid rise and just as rapid fatal fall of gay porn icon Joey Stefano, so it goes here with H.A. Carson's treatment of Jon Vincent, another gay porn actor who also crossed over into bisexual films. Endowed with the handsomeness that only billboards are made for and a body to match, Vincent used both to wrangle his way to fortune and fame (no pun). Once there, however, according to Carson, Vincent, like so many others in the apparent cut-throat adult film business, obviously found fame, money and envy either unfulling or too much to handle. Either way, heroin became Vincent's comfort, and his business of sex became nothing more than a mechanical, emotionless state of being with the hope for love being so elusive as not even to be dreamable. With the heroin, Vincent went the only way that an addiction goes if not arrested: downward, in all its poverty, isolation, maybe well-intentioned but half-hearted attempts at sobriety and, sometimes mercifully, death. In the end, Vincent lost his battle to heroin, and his story in this book comes across more as one of decline and fall in a public profession and the torment of heroin addiction and less a psyco-biography to explain the reason for Vincent's (and others') self-destruction. Is it the nature of the adult business that directs its performers to drug dependency, or is it an already-present void in the souls of its performers who seek fulfillment in a physically intimate profession? We don't get the answers here, but Carson's book remains an important warning that the demons of a soul in torment will almost always unleash their lethal poison from which few emerge. It is a disturbing but important read, and it might be warning us to pay heed to the caution in the wind.

Rating:
Summary: The most depressing book ive ever read
Review: This movie really shows the downside of drugs.....its such a shame that a man as good looking as he was fell so far and could not keep himself clean....this book is so depressing and there is nothing at all uplifting about it......its a great book for someone to read that needs a jolt back to reality and off of drugs......this shows just what its like to be an addict