Howie Gordon (HG): My name is Howie Gordon, and I’m about to have a conversation with my son.

Bobby Gordon (BG): My name is Bobby Gordon.

Before we get started, I just want to say this is incredible. I wish my dad and I had done this. Um, so I love you very much, and I’m just so grateful that we’re doing what we’re doing.

JM: This is familiar territory for a father and a son talking to each other inside a StoryCorps booth.

MG: But where this conversation ends up… is not quite like anything we’ve heard before on this podcast.

JM: I’m Jasmyn Morris.

MG: And I’m Michael Garofalo.   

JM: And this season on the StoryCorps podcast from NPR… we’re featuring people who did things their own way… And this next family definitely did things their own way. 

MG: Just a heads up… this episode deals with adult themes…. So if you’re listening with kids, you might want to check this one out on your own first.

JM: Ok, so I want to paint you a picture… It’s 2011, and Bobby is on stage in San Francisco… 

[CROWD SOUND FADES IN]  

MG: And he’s talking to the crowd about – of all things – a famous porn movie from the 1970s…

BG from show: The film was highly successful. All of this I know from Wikipedia, since I’ve never seen it. I made a hard and fast rule, that if a porn was made during or before the Reagan administration, I wasn’t going anywhere near it.

JM: Bobby had to be careful… . because there was a chance, that if he ended up watching old porn movies… he’d see his dad.

HG: How did you find out that I was actually a porn star?

BG: If there was one question that I got more often than any other growing up, it’s that one. I don’t have any recollection of like a scandalous finding out moment. Everyone knew it already.

MG: Bobby’s dad starred in dozens of x-rated movies in the 70s and 80s… under a screen name: Richard Pacheco. [puh-CHAY-koh]

JM: The Gordons have never shied away from talking about sex… so why not talk about it at StoryCorps?

BG: So… how did you find yourself as an adult film actor?

HG: It was the early 70s. All of the hippies were looking for ways to drop back in after we all dropped out. Your mother got a job, training to be a sex therapist and I was working in construction. And I’m talking like I had to be there at 7 in the morning, so I’m getting up at 5. 

BG: Are we getting close to the part where you talk about the decision?

HG: The point is I had to get out of the manual labor game. I had to figure out what I wanted to become. So at that point, I applied to the Hebrew Union Seminary in Cincinnati. They make rabbis. They accepted me. 

But one day…  the phone rings in our house, and your mother picks up the phone. We had been taking some acting classes. They said to her, “How would you like to be in a magical romp through a hospital?” And your mother said, “Is this a porn film? I don’t think I’m interested, but maybe my husband would be,” and she hands me the phone. 

BG: (Laughs)

HG: And I went and did the audition. They had me reading some lines and I won’t do it here because they were really gross and stupid. And what happens is, they want to offer me a part in the movie. $200 a day for two days work. I had a lot of, do I want to do that, be in a porn movie? 

But what I’ve been doing was manual labor with a sledgehammer in August for five bucks an hour. Do I want to get $200 for getting a [bleep]? Goddamn right I do.

MG: And so ”Richard Pacheco’’ was born. And he starred in over a hundred films…

JM: Films like Sensual Escape.

MG: Once Upon a Temptress.

JM: Please Mr. Postman.

MG: And the classic Debbie Duz Dishes: Part III.

HG: I was very bad in the beginning at, having sex on camera. I was stuck in fear and I just freaked out. The only reason I had a career was I came along at a time, when they were actually trying to make better movies.

HG from Teacher Film: Miss Martin, I don’t want to be expelled.

Teacher: There wasn’t anything funny about that paper you handed in.

HG: Acting became the place where I relaxed.

HG from Teacher Film: Please, listen to me. What I did was bad. I know that. It’s just that I never felt teachers cared whether we learned anything or not. 

Miss Martin, can I buy you a cup of coffee?

 

HG: Man, did I shine! Oh I was Laurence Olivier!

BG: How did mom feel about you becoming an adult film actor?

HG: Originally she loved it, and then you kids came along. We proceeded with it as long as we could. We were doing free love and all that kind of stuff. But I had gone ten years to get from nobody to the top of the industry. I didn’t want to quit… until AIDS happened. 

November the 10th 1984: That was the first headline of the heterosexual transmission of AIDS in the San Francisco Chronicle. And I said, “No, they’re just trying to scare people, they’re just trying to sell newspapers.”  

A month later, I reached for your mom in bed and she goes, “Do you think we should?” And I said, “What?” And she said, “Don’t you think it would be prudent if one of us remained alive to raise the kids?” 

And when I woke up in the morning, not only was I retired, I was monogamous.

JM: And so Richard Pacheco went back to just being Howie Gordon… a married dad in Northern California.

MG: It was a different kind of role for Howie… but one that he was determined to make his own.

JM: Stay with us…

 

<BREAK>

 

MG: Bobby’s childhood WAS different… how could it not be growing up with a retired porn star for a dad and a sex therapist for a mom?

BG: I don’t remember discovering that you were a pornstar. I do remember discovering your Playboys.

HG: (Laughs)

BG: And I remember there was like a week-long period where I was trying to come up with as many excuses to be alone in you and mom’s room as I possibly could, as though there was anything sneaky to what I was doing. I don’t even think it took a week for you guys to catch me. But the result was you gave me the stack of Playboys and put a lock on my door.

I was so prepared for shame but the worst day of my life just became like, the doors opening to getting to discover myself. And I think that was a gift from you and mom. And I’m so deeply grateful for that.

HG: That was a great moment.

BG: What did your mom and dad say to you about sexuality?

HG: Nothing. The first conversation I had with my dad, I was already 17. “Use a condom.” That was the theme of the talk. And I could see how incredibly uncomfortable he was. And I knew everything that he was going to tell me by then. So I said, “Okay, I got it dad. You don’t need to do this.” And he was like, “Phew.” And my mother never said anything.

BG: To me that just brings me back to how insanely different our childhoods were, because I remember some of the earliest art on the wall is, like, pregnant naked mom.

HG: That’s a fabulous picture.

BG: –it is a fabulous picture, but I’m just baffled at how much you had to challenge in order to raise me in the childhood that I got to have. I mean, I was such a sensitive kid– I’m still a sensitive kid, I’m just older– and I see a lot of my sensitivity in you.

HG: My father was a very gentle man. He was the one I got softness from. My mother was, ‘Because I said so.’ Pow! Right across the face. And that was, uh, hard. And so, all that shame and fear that I grew up with, I didn’t want you to have to deal with that–that’s completely unnecessary. 

Sex is one of the goodies in life. And it’s got all kinds of responsibility attached to it. Enjoy it and learn what you need to learn to be a good man. And you turned out great in that department. You know, you’re a middle-aged man. Sorry! But there you are.

BG: I’m about 10 years away from coming to emotional terms with that.

HG: Well, uh, I was once the Playgirl Man of the Year, and I was a centerfold, and I was beautiful and wonderful, but time marches on campers.

BG: [Laughs]

HG: So what’s the most important thing that you learned from me?

BG: That’s a dose of my own medicine, getting a huge question.

HG: Yeah, that’s right. You can handle it.

BG: Seeing you cry. I’m perhaps most grateful for that. And I’ve seen it a few times.

HG: Well, in my family you’d run and hide if you had tears coming out. You learned not to do it. But I remember the moment we were putting my dad in the ground. And I just reached for you. And I hugged you and buried my face in your neck and cried. And I was so grateful to hold you and to have you to hold me. ‘Cause at that moment, I couldn’t do it. I couldn’t do it. 

BG: I’m so glad you couldn’t. 

BG: What do you wish for me as a father?

HG: (Sighs) A healthy child, number one. And number two: a smooth transition, which is a lifelong process after they come. 

BG: Yeah.

HG: Your job is to help them replace you. With the rest of your time, that has to be in every decision you make.

BG: I see you carrying so much of how you were raised. And that’s a huge break to have made. ‘Cause I think I would have suffocated in your childhood and I’m so grateful I didn’t have to. I got to be myself at home.

HG: And may that blossom and take you where you need to go. Because that’s how it goes from generation to generation, you know? Things change.

JM: Howie Gordon…also known as Richard Pacheco… with his son, Bobby.

Bobby has kept his dad’s legacy going in many ways… including putting on sex ed plays at high schools…

MG: And he put together the stage show you heard at the beginning of this episode. He called it… Debbie Does My Dad.

JM: This season we’re asking listeners to leave us voicemails answering a specific question. And this week, we want to hear: How did your birds and the bees talk go? Let us know at 702-706-TALK.

MG: That’s 702-706-TALK. Or you can email us… podcast AT storycorps DOT org.

MG: Next week…

JEK: My father would come home in his suit from the city, after working all day; strip into old clothes and go out in the backyard and wrestle with the wolf. 

JM: This episode was produced by Max Jungreis. Jud Esty-Kendall is our Senior Producer. Our Technical Director is Jarrett Floyd. And Erica Anderson is our fact checker.

JM: I’m Jasmyn Morris.

 

MG: And I’m Michael Garofalo. Thanks for listening.