thinking about it, I have had people tell me a similar thing when I referred to how much I love "Cobain." "Dude, do you know him or something? Why the last name thing?"
Okay, writer geek moment here: According the the MLA handbook, which is the standard format for academic writting 'round these parts, after referring to an author, artist, researcher, whoever, buy their full name once in a piece of writing, it is proper format to refer to them by their last name only. So, really, it's not informal to refer to a person by their last name - it is in fact proper form.
Back out of that into the porn store stories... I was going to tell
this story again, but then I remembered I already did, almost exactly two years ago. Anyway, take a look at my second post down about the standard pattern of porno rental, the three video stack: movie, movie, porno. I like to think that Onstad read this and is now riffing on it, but really that's just my ego talking. I think it's part of man-nature. You can't just walk up with one porno. Even if the business is predominantly porno, it's just too brazen for most.