Hi, I'm Dave I say founder of StoryCore.
This message comes from NPR sponsor Subaru, featuring the 2024 Subaru Forester Wilderness,
equipped with standard symmetrical all-wheel drive 9.2 inches of ground clearance and
all-terrain tires.
Discover more at Subaru.com slash wilderness.
My name is Howie Gordon, and I'm about to have a conversation with my son.
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.
So I love you very much and I'm just so grateful that we're doing what we're doing.
This is familiar territory for a father and son talking to each other inside a story
core booth.
But where this conversation ends up is not quite like anything we've heard before on this
podcast.
I'm Jasmine Morris.
And I'm Michael Garafalo.
This season on the StoryCore podcast from NPR we're featuring people who did things their
own way.
And this next family definitely did things their own way.
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.
Okay so I want to paint you a picture.
It's 2011 and Bobby is on stage in San Francisco.
And he's talking to the crowd about of all things a famous porn movie from the 1970s.
The film was highly successful.
All of this I know from Wikipedia since I've never seen.
I made a hard and fast rule that if a porn was made during or before the Reagan administration
I wasn't going anywhere in here.
Bobby had to be careful because there was a chance that if he ended up watching old porn
movies he'd see his dad.
How did you find out that I was actually a porn star?
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.
But everyone knew it already.
Bobby's dad started dozens of x-rated movies in the 70s and 80s under a screen name.
Richard Pacheco.
The Gordon's have never shied away from talking about sex.
So why not talk about it at StoryCore?
So how did you find yourself as an adult film actor?
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 seven in the morning.
So I'm getting up at five.
Are we getting close to the part where you talk about this?
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.
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 being 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 ****?
God damn right I do.
And so Richard Pacheco was born and he starred in over a hundred films.
Films like sensual escape.
Once upon a temptress.
Please Mr. Postman.
The classic Debbie does dishes part three.
I was very bad in the beginning at having sex on camera.
I was stuck in fear.
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.
A smart and I don't want to be expelled.
There wasn't anything funny about that paper you handed in.
Acting became the place where I relaxed.
Please listen to me.
What I did was bad.
I know that.
It's just that I never felt teachers cared whether we'd learn anything or not.
Smart and can I buy you a cup of coffee?
Man that I shine.
Oh I was born in Bolivia.
How did mom feel about you becoming an adult film actor?
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 10 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 now they're just trying to scare people, they're trying to sell newspapers.
A month later I reached for your mom and dad 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.
And so Richard Patego went back to just being how he got him, a married dad in Northern
California.
It was a different kind of role for how he, but one that he was determined to make his
own.
Stay with us.
Support for this podcast and the following message come from Dignity Memorial.
When we think about the people we love, it's not the big things we miss the most, it's
the details.
What memories will your loved ones cherish when you're gone?
With Dignity Memorial, you can pre-plan your celebration of life now to protect your loved
ones because nobody should have to plan for a loss while they're experiencing one.
Planning truly is one of the best gifts you can give your family.
For additional information, visit DignityMemorial.com.
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?
I don't remember discovering that you were a porn star.
I do remember discovering your playboys.
I remember there was 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 stock 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.
That was a great moment.
What did your mom and dad say to you about sexuality?
Nothing.
With the first conversation I had with my dad, I was already 17, I used 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.
He was like, and my mother never said anything.
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.
That's a fabulous picture.
It is a fabulous picture, but I 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.
My father was a very gentle man.
He was the one that got softness from.
My mother was, because I said so, pow, across the face.
And that was hard.
And so all that shame and fear that I grew up with, I didn't want you to have to deal
with that.
There'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.
In you turned out great in that department.
You know, you're middle-aged man.
Sorry.
But there you are.
I'm about 10 years away from coming to emotional terms with that.
Well, I was once the play girl man of the year and I was a centerfold and I was beautiful
and wonderful.
And time marches on campers.
So what's the most important thing that you learned from me?
So dose of my own medicine, getting a huge question.
Yeah, that's right.
You can handle it.
Seeing you cry, I'm perhaps most grateful for that.
And I've seen it a few times.
Well, in my family, you'd run and hide if you had tears coming out.
You'll learn 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.
Because at that moment, I couldn't do it.
I couldn't do it.
I'm so glad you couldn't.
What do you wish for me as a father?
A healthy child, number one.
And number two, a smooth transition, which is a lifelong process after they come.
Your job is to help and replace you with the rest of your time.
That has to be in every decision you make.
I see you carrying so much of how you're raised.
And that's a huge break to have made.
Because 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.
I made that blossom and take you where you need to go.
Because that's how it goes from generation to generation.
Things change.
Howie Gordon, also known as Richard Biceco, with his son Bobby.
Bobby's kept his dad's legacy going in many ways, including putting on sex ed plays at
high schools.
And he put together the stage show you heard at the beginning of this episode.
He called it Debbie Does My Dad.
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 T-A-L-K.
That's 702 706 talk.
Or you can email us.
The address is podcast at storycord.org.
This episode was produced by Max Young Rice.
Judd SD Kendall is our senior producer.
Our technical director is Jared Floyd.
And Erica Anderson is our fact checker.
Next week.
My father would come home and his suit from the city after working all day.
Strip into old clothes.
And go out in the backyard and wrestle with the wolf.
I'm Jasmine Morris.
And I'm Michael Garoflo.
Thanks for listening.
Jasmine Morris here with a special request for our family of podcast listeners.
Storycord creates a space for intimate conversations that explore the experiences and emotions that
shine light on our humanity and ultimately connect us.
As a nonprofit, StoryCore relies on the generosity of supporters like you to record and share
these stories.
Please consider making a gift to support StoryCore's work today.
Visit donate.storycord.org slash podcast.
Thank you.
