Australian Penthouse

How did you get into the adult industry?
I wanted to do porn for as long as I could remember. When I turned 16, I realised that I had no idea how I was going to get involved, I just knew it was what I wanted to do. For some reason, I figured if I went to parties in Hollywood, I would meet someone who could help me out. I started doing just that and, sure enough, when I was 17, I met a girl who knew someone who knew someone who gave me a shot in a movie.

How important is cock size in becoming a porn star?
Not very. A giant cock is impressive and all and will get you more attention, but every producer I know will take a hard, average-sized dick over a floppy, huge penis.

What’s the most difficult or annoying part about being a dude in the industry?
Nothing. My job is pretty amazing in every way.

Who are your favourite adult actresses to work with?
I couldn’t choose favourites. There are so many great performers who I adore.

What have you learned about women during your career?
I don’t really feel like adult films necessarily teach guys anything more about women than any other profession.

What’s the funniest thing that’s ever happened to you on set?
I never know how to answer this. Funny is subjective and there are a lot of goofy things that happen on set. Usually the most hilarious stuff is just people telling jokes.

Is it tough to keep it up and blow your load on command?
Not really. Kind of just what I do.

You’re cast alongside Lindsay Lohan in upcoming feature film The Canyons. How did you land the part and would you like to do more mainstream acting?
Bret Easton Ellis was writing this movie and started to post on Twitter that I was his ideal casting for it. We emailed back and forth, then I went through the process of meeting the producer and director and eventually it was decided that I would be best for the role. I had a great time on the mainstream set. I used to say I never wanted to do any acting and I still don’t see huge mainstream things in my future, but I’m not as opposed to it as I was before.

What’s your advice to guys who want to get into the business?
Do it! Porno is awesome.

What’s the biggest misconception about being a male porn star?
Fluffers. They do not exist.

How would you like to be remembered as a performer?
I would like to be remembered as a nice dude who was fun to be around. That applies to performing and just life in general.

Did you always want to be a porn star?
I never set out to become a porn star. In fact, I never really watched that much porn prior to my first scene. When the opportunity was presented to me, it felt pretty natural since I’ve always been an exhibitionist and very sexual. I enjoy se and knowing people get off while watching me have sex.

Why do you think alt porn is so popular right now?
Because tattooed girls are fucking hot! It just took the world some time to realise it.

Do you have a favourite tattoo?
My favourite tattoo is the roses that are on my waist and go up my right side. It was the most painful tattoo I’ve had so far, but it’s beautiful, so it was worth the pain.

Who do you most enjoy working with on camera?
My favourite guy to work with is Danny Wylde. Every time we’ve been paired up for a scene, I’ve had so much fun. My first scene with him for Burning Angel was just amazing. He didn’t know I was into anal, so when I told him to put his cock in my ass, he was very surprised! Veruca James is my favourite girl to work with; I have a huge girl crush on her and she has been the only girl, so far, who’s made me squirt.

What’s so special about Burning Angel?
The company is more like a family. I feel like an individual and not just a body. I’ve got to have sex with some really amazing guys and girls, as well as play roles in movies where I learned new and exciting things. For example, when we filmed Kung Fu Pussy, I learned fighting techniques and how to do stunts.

What’s the craziest thing you’ve done in your career so far?
I recently shot for a new movie called Evil Head, a parody of The Evil Dead. Besides getting re-animated as a demon, I was in the famous tree rape scene. If you’ve seen The Evil Dead, you know what I’m talking about; if not, I basically get gang-banged by possessed trees. The tree branches had dildos ‘growing’ off them and I ended up with one in my mouth, one in my pussy and the last one in my ass, all at once!

Woah! What do you like to do when you’re not working?
I enjoy exercising and running. I also love to cook for people—it makes me happy when I see people enjoying something I have made.

Which mainstream celebrity would you most like to bonk?
I have a list of a few I would love to bang! Definitely Johnny Depp (but who doesn’t want to bang him?), Christian Bale and Adrien Brody.

Finally, do you genuinely enjoy the taste of man-mayo?
Haha! The more loads I can swallow, the better.

Ross Clarke-Jones, 46, is 100 percent nuts; the leader of Australian big-wave surfing for 20 years, his craziness is so dyed-in-the-wool that unshorn sheep go insane when he puts on a jumper. Together, the pair make big-wave surfing documentaries that drop more jaws than an earthquake in a graveyard. Their moniker: The Storm Surfers.

Their hit movie, Storm Surfers 3D, was selected for the 2012 Toronto International Film Festival—the largest film festival in North America and second only to Cannes; an unprecedented, deserved achievement for a surf doco. It sees Carroll and RCJ pitting themselves against multi-storey waves across the world. While taunting each other. And facing their—and especially Tom’s—mortality.

Tom, you almost killed Ross with a jet ski during filming in Western Australia. Tell us about it.
Ross Clarke-Jones: Ha! That was just an accident, really. That was a big wave, the first good one we had seen. That place was wild. It’s out off the continental shelf. Real deep water.
Tom Carroll: I towed Ross onto a wave with the jet ski, and I was commentating: “This looks like a good one, it’s real smooth…” And I’m talking, but then as I go over the back of the wave, I’m still looking down at him—and then this big lump of whitewater hits me…
RCJ: And pushes him back over the ledge…
TC: …on a 600kg jet ski! And I’m 75kg, so I’ve got no say. And it just goes, BOOM! I can see it now, clearly, how slow it was going—in slow-mo, I’m going over. It felt like ages that I was at the top of the wave going, “Oh, no!” because I couldn’t punch the throttle—because that would have squirted me across the face and down in front of it, into the trough. So I just watched Ross. And instead of him going past me, he actually turned back underneath me! I saw him and I was yelling, “Argh! Ross!”
RCJ: I can’t believe it. I went straight underneath him. I was just ahead of the wave, where the lip landed.
TC: It was real close. There was a camera set up on the front of his board, angled back, and you can see me going over the falls on the back of it.

Wow. Over the falls on a 20-foot wave… on a jet ski. What was that like?
TC: I got rearranged. Every bone, all my spine, everything. Even when you try to pull your limbs in close to your body, you still get torn and ripped apart.
RCJ: He came up all angry! Haha! I’ve never seen him so angry.
TC: I was totally out of breath. I was down there for a while, too.

Do you still get scared?
RCJ: I really don’t like being scared. I don’t get scared.

Tom, didn’t your surfboard once ram you up the arse?
TC: Yeah… just north of there. I got a double date. It was in Japan in really small surf, when I was practicing like crazy before a World Tour event in 1987, on an island an eight-hour ferry ride from Tokyo. My board’s nose hit the sand and I landed on the tail with my arse. The bottom sheet of fibreglass broke away and went straight through my wetsuit and into the flesh. Oh, mate, I was crying so hard my eyes hurt. And, ah, I had some… complications after it. I was almost colostomy bag material. Another time I ruptured my stomach against my spine.

You should wear body armour.
TC: I’ve been known to wear a helmet. I split my helmet at Teahupoo, in Tahiti. My board went through it and tore into my ear, busted my eardrum, and I almost got knocked out. When you do that, you lose your balance. It sucks.
RCJ: It sucks. I did that at Reunion [Island]. I was dead-set paddling around in circles.
TC: It’s like you’ve had a whole bottle of scotch. I also had a really bad one when I was 16. I’m still suffering from that. It pulled my knee out of place up at big Umina Point. I tried to pull out at the last minute because it wasn’t tubing and this thing just landed on me, tore my whole right knee out of joint.

You’re 45 and 50, respectively. Does anyone tell either of you to maybe slow down a bit?
RCJ: I’m still frothing. I’m like a grommet.
TC: If you’re going to do something, give it all you’ve got. Fuck it. Do it with everything you’ve got.

Lunch or dinner cost $110 per person, which includes a sumptuous, two-course a la carte meal and three full-nude cabaret strip shows, performed by Sydney’s best and hottest showgirls. Alcohol and specialist dessert menu options are separate to the set-menu fee.

The performers include some of Sydney’s most renowned silk and stage artists—plus quite a few Australian Penthouse Pets! In fact, the restaurant is famous for its classic fireman’s pole entrance, where the girls descend from the ceiling to the tables and then perform their sensual acts in between each course—with every diner receiving VIP access to the ladies. The action doesn’t get any closer or more exciting than this!

To add to the excitement, and to celebrate the restaurant’s 13th birthday this August, owners Sharon Bentley and Anthony Zaiter had hoop rings attached to the ceiling above the venue’s long tables to allow specialist hoop performers to put on sensational aerial shows.

While December is the restaurant’s busiest month, Twin Peeks always launches a luncheon menu to cope with the busier Summer months. And Sharon and Anthony keep up with demand with their sexy (and new!) summer Harbour cruises. In typical Twin Peeks fashion, this is no regular day on the water—with 20-40 girls employed for each event, this is more than double offered by competitor cruises. Now that’s knowing your market!

Hidden in the Spanish countryside lies an undulating section of heaven on Earth designed for petrolheads….

I’ve been to my fair share of racetracks—from Germany’s fearsome Nürburgring to China’s enormous Shanghai Formula One circuit—but none compare with this. The Ascari Race Resort is like no place I’ve ever been. A private country club for lovers of fast cars, it certainly doesn’t look like any racetrack I’ve seen before.

In fact, it looks more like a Bond villain’s lair. Poking my head through the doorway at the bottom of the three-storey garage built into the side of a hill, I half-expect to see James Bond strapped to a table being tortured by Blofeld.
But, instead, it’s just cars—lots of them.

Looking around the state-of-the-art buildings, well-manicured lawns and beautiful paved courtyard it’s easy to forget that there’s one of the most amazing racetracks in the world as the main attraction. But that’s where this story begins, with one man’s dream to create the ultimate automotive playground.

“Basically, I would like to own a circuit I could play on every day, that’s how it started,” says Klaas Zwart, Ascari owner and millionaire oil tycoon who spends his free time racing Formula One cars. “Every day I get here, I still think it’s a fantastic place and I love it. It’s like walking into heaven when you get to the gates.”

What began as a simple race track quickly became something more. Zwart found suitable land in southern Spain, near the city of Rhonda, and began carving out his dream circuit. Borrowing corners from the world’s best tracks he tied them together to create a circuit equal to the best in the world. Zwart took inspiration from the world’s best, including Australia’s own Mount Panorama, Spa-Francorchamps in Belgium and the mother of all tracks, the Nürburgring Nordschleife.

The circuit measures 5.42 kilometres and features an even split of left- and right-hand corners to give car and driver a balanced workout. There is every type of corner imaginable, from not-quite-flat-out sweeping bends to tight, slow chicanes, plus banked corners, numerous elevation changes as well as three straights.
The track was designed to be split into three different configurations to allow three separate events to run simultaneously.

There is an even split of left- and right-hand corners to give car and driver a balanced workout, borrowing from the best circuits in the world

There are no grandstands or billboards because care was taken to ensure that the track blends into the landscape in a design that is as kind to the environment as a racetrack can be. Trees that blocked the path of the track layout were relocated and new trees planted around the facility.

The circuit even achieves the second-highest safety rating available from the FIA, international motor racing’s governing body, meaning anything up to GP2, F1’s feeder category, can officially race at Ascari. Despite building such a great track Zwart says he will never open the track to public races, but he doesn’t want to keep Ascari purely for himself, either.

So the savvy businessman created a sideline business to cater to equally rich petrolheads. Just like a private golf course, if you can afford the membership fees you can access the track and facilities to play at your leisure.

It doesn’t come cheap, though. An annual membership costs $26,000 and includes 15 days on the track and use of the facilities. Those chasing an extended experience can invest in an alternate option.

A premium-card holder is entitled to a 25-year membership, 50 track days, personalised race suit and helmet, access to private functions and discounts off racing cars. But (and it’s a big but) it costs $200,000 to join and $13,500 per year.

This ticket, as you can image, reserves access to primarily only the rich and famous, with MotoGP superstar Valentino Rossi, Jamiroquai frontman Jay Kay and Top Gear host Jeremy Clarkson among the lucky few. Naturally facilities around the track are designed to the highest standards to match the steep membership price.

Members include MotoGP superstar Valentino Rossi, Jamiroquai fontman Jay Kay and Top Gear host Jeremy Clarkson

Tucked in alongside the track are state-of-the-art pit boxes for teams to work on the cars and behind the circuit is a picture courtyard with a 200-year-old oak tree at its centre. On the other side of the courtyard is a three-storey car park built to accommodate more than 400 standard-sized cars. The car park also features a world-class workshop where race cars can be maintained to the highest standard.

Thrillingly, one level of the car park is devoted to Zwart’s personal collection of exotic machinery, which includes a 2004 Jaguar R5 F1 car, three examples of Ferrari’s 1995 F1 racer, one 1997 Benetton F1 racer and two 2001 Arrows three-seater F1 cars. And these cars aren’t stored here simply for show either, as Zwart and Ascari members often host their own private races at the track. Sounds just like the type of hobby James Bond would have…

His opponent, Josh Shooter, is still in his street clothes—somewhat snug footy shorts and a singlet. He tugs on the singlet so frequently that it’s hard not to feel anxious when near him. Like a rubber band drawn to its limits, it seems plausible that Josh might snap at any moment.

“The only reason we don’t kick each other’s teeth in is because we want to do this five days a week,” says Shooter, the current Heavyweight Champion of local Victorian promotion New Age Wrestling (NAW). “It’s just all about business.”

NAW is just one of dozens of small wrestling promotions currently operating throughout Australia. It regularly stages shows at Melbourne community halls, RSL clubs and pubs. The average grappler can make around $100 per bout.

“A lot of guys understand that wrestling here is either a part-time or casual job, and they treat it as such,” says Mark Mercedes, co-promoter of NSW-based promotion IWA Pro-Wrestling. “But the guys who are more serious about it try to make money elsewhere.”

Mercedes is one of the few Australians in recent times to get anywhere near the big stages—and big money—of American wrestling. In the 1990s, he performed in front of tens of thousands of people on the same bills as US legends such as Hulk Hogan, Paul ‘Mr. Wonderful’ Orndorff and the Junkyard Dog. Mercedes tells us that timing is as vital as talent when it comes to finding fame in the USA, citing the career of Aussie wrestler Peter Stilsbury, aka Outback Jack, as an example.

“Back in the days of WCW [World Championship Wrestling] and Outback Jack, they were looking for very gimmicky wrestlers, and Outback Jack’s gimmick came with [the success of] Crocodile Dundee. It was the right place and the right time. When you’re trying to break overseas, unless you’re over there [in America], constantly in their face, it’s very easy to be forgotten.”

“WWE is not going to worry about going overseas and looking for talent when [it's] got so much happening in America,” says wrestling historian Barry York. “America’s population is more than 10 times ours, so it’s reasonable to think there is 10 times as many up-and-coming pro wrestlers there.

“And the Australian market isn’t that significant. If they had a guy who entered the ring with a slouch hat or a boomerang, it might make it a bit more interesting for an Australian audience, but they’re not going to stop watching if there’s no Australian in the WWE. So there’s no great economic incentive to recruit from the Australian talent pool, which must be very frustrating for locals.”

While the US is pro wrestling’s financial promised land, it’s not the only option for Aussie grapplers with international aspirations. New Japan Pro Wrestling, which is screened during primetime on Japan’s Asahi TV, is actually more popular with purists than the American product, mainly because it values athleticism over soap-opera acting skills.

Melbourne wrestler, Krackerjack, whose body looks like it’s been through a mincer thanks to the ultra-violent barbed-wire matches he’s been involved in, spent some time in Japan in 2005.

“Wrestling is a national pastime in Japan,” Krackerjack tells Penthouse. “It’s not as counter-cultural as it is in Australia. It’s been popular ever since the end of World War II, so [Japan] has its own legends of the business over there.

“They do shows that regularly draw 20,000 people and even the small independent shows I was working were getting 500 to 1000, and they were running those shows three or four times a week.”

Consequently, World Championship Wrestling Australia was established and shown on TV from 1964, taking wrestling to the mainstream. Ron Miller, who co-owned WCWA from 1976, says Channel Nine chose to drop wrestling from its schedule at the end of 1978, thanks in part to its interest in World Series Cricket.

This decision triggered local promotions to fold, and while some continued to stage events at small clubs in the 1980s, things were never the same again.

Back at the Maltese Cultural Centre, better known tonight as the ‘NAW Arena’, a colourful cast of oddballs make flamboyant entrances to the ring, accompanied by cheesy hard-rock theme music.

The two standouts tonight are Iron Horse Morrison, an Andre the Giant-type brute with the fluency of movement of a slasher-flick goon, and Mickey ‘Fantabulous’ Jackson, a showboating pretty boy who grabs a female audience member’s drink and erotically pours it all over himself as he climbs into the squared circle.

The hundred or so hardcore fans snap photos with everything from high-end SLRs to smartphones, and clearly enjoy themselves as they cheer on the heroes and heckle the villains. BIG Huss and Josh Shooter demonstrate athleticism and genuine technical skill befitting the main event, and the ebullient atmosphere of the crowd conveys that this evening has been a fun night out, and 15 bucks well spent.

While wrestling for the NAW won’t make these guys household names or wealthy superstars, they will keep competing for as long as they can, because while Australian wrestling may be down on the canvas, it’s not ready to tap out just yet…