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Poker mags put
their foot down on David Williams "foot fetish"
controversy
 He
may love feet, old swinging married broads and
waving his wand where some of us wouldn't dare
tread. But magician and professional poker
player David Williams 15 minutes of fame in the
world of "foot fetish" porn hasn't gone unnoticed by
those web sites that specialize in reporting on that
particular field.
The folks from
Fleshbot were all
over this story with their freshly redesigned new
Gawker Network web site.
Not being especially
tuned in to the professional poker circuit here at
Fleshbot (we prefer to limit our vices to booze and
broads, thank you), we had no idea who World Series
of Poker champ (and former "Magic: The Gathering"
geek) David Williams was before our inbox started
overflowing this morning with tips about his
possible appearance as "Tony" in a foot and ass
worship fetish video. Expect a flurry of subsequent
posts in porn and gaming blogs all over the net
making use of the readymade "poker"/"poke her" pun
in the days and weeks to come. (You didn't think we
would stoop so low, did you?) In the meantime, feel
free to speculate yourself if you're interested in
what professional card players do when they're not
at the table—or simply enjoy the sight of Janet
rubbing her tootsies all over her partner's face and
genital region if you're not.
Surprisingly (or
not surprisingly if you know the poker
publishing industry the way that we do), few of the
poker mags have picked up on this story. That
is because most of these magazines model themselves
strictly as showcases for the industry and not much
more. They are not necessarily in the business
of getting involved in someone else's "behind closed
doors" business (even if there is a camera shooting
the whole thing).
Brian Micon of
NeverWinPoker cried
foul when
Bluff Magazine
- one of the few to cover the story - promptly
removed it from their web site.
Publisher Eric Morris
explained:
Hopefully, after
speaking with Brian he has a better understanding on
why we pulled the story and can in fact appreciate
our position. Brian I hope you can back me up here!
First, our news editor works out of Canada and is
responsible for which stories we put up every day. I
personally sent Ian an email asking him not to run
the story, but he did not read my request before
putting it up. Once we saw it we took it down!
I can assure you that advertisers had no influence
on this decision. In fact, I believe that Bodog (DW
sponsor) is loving every minute of the attention.
Our decision was based on future dealing with poker
pros who contribute to our publication. If they see
Bluff running stories of this magnitude, we could be
denied future interviews and editorial submissions.
Basically, the risk is not worth the reward and we
have decided to stay away from both the DW and Gavin
stories.
I honestly did not think that taking the story off
the site would be as contraversial as it has become.
Saying that, we have not taken the story off of our
forum and people can access the information there.
I apologize if our decision put anyone off as this
was never our intent!
Both Micon and Morris
raise good arguments. Bluff has
established itself as the Oprah Winfrey of
the poker circuit. Feel good stories of poker
players, winning strategies and tournament coverage
is their forte. Reporting on a poker
celebrity's sexual quirks is ours and we are
guessing Micon's and a whole host of other poker
related web sites that have reported on this story
almost as relentlessly as us.
There is a need for
sites that report on - yes we said it - poker
celebrities, and their misgivings. Whether David likes it or
not, he is a celebrity. When David and
his colleagues meet with folks from the media, they
need to be a little more respectful....sorta the way
Paris Hilton and even someone closer to our hearts,
Calvin Ayre of Bodog.com, work the media to their
advantage.
Last we checked, men
having sex with women was considered "normal"
behavior, Men having sex with other men is
relatively "normal" in today's society. Women
having sex with other women is "extremely normal".
Men having sex with women in front of an operating
video camera so that a million can view it is
normal provided the stars are getting paid to
engage in such activities. Getting all bent
out of shape that another million people are
watching and reading that maybe you weren't paid
to appear in this video is very "abnormal".
We suspect that Mr.
Ayre is educating his new pupil on the fine art of
"media spin". Evidently Williams rubbed
someone the wrong way (and we're not talking about
porn partner Janet Mason and her feet either).
Why else would this reported "year old" story have
taken on a whole new life of its own?
The more famous and
the more money Williams makes, the more he will have
to become a pro at working over the media. The
bigger this poker circuit gets, the more celebrity
hounds will appear on the poker circuit. In
fact we have noticed dozens of poker blogs now
specializing in this unique sector, all of which
seem to have no shortage of traffic.
David also can't be
pissed off at these web sites for reporting on this
story. Americans and those the world over eat
this stuff up the same way David eats .... well, we
won't even go there, but some of you know what we
were getting at. If David is pissed, just
think about how Moses might be feeling right about
now. The Southwestern Methodist Economics
major broke at least one of the most important Ten
Commandments, "Thou shall not commit adultery."
And after watching a portion of this video we
suspect he may also be guilty of "Thou shall not
covet your neighbor's house..." There
sure was a lot of coveting going on with that
married woman! The David Williams
thread at
NeverWinPoker
alone had just over 64000 views by early
Thursday morning. People are interested and
the poker pros who think they are immune to this
sort of scrutiny from the poker crazed public - most
of whom are players themselves aspiring to be the
next David Williams - need to think again.
Other Recent News
from Gambling911.com and Sports911.com:
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Pickler gets picked off but payoffs are sweet
BlueMoon amends
complaint in Bodog.com/Calvin Ayre law suit
----
Christopher Costigan,
www.gambling911.com
Originally published
April 27, 2006 1:12 am EST
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