Hack Job!: Jackass Journalism on Steve Driver and the "bottom" feeding performers of porn.
by Jeremy Steele
Jeremy Steele surrounded by his "mopes", Adam Wood and Mac Turner.
Thanks to journalist Michael Albo and his recent LA Weekly front cover-piece, the late, not so great, Steve Driver was in the news again (Btw, according to wikipedia Mike Albo was an editor of Hustler AND once physically assaulted Luke Ford- so in my mind he can’t be all that bad).
Several weeks ago, "Porn Machete Murder- Mopes and Mayhem in the Valley" reminisced readers with a cutting bio of Driver’s troubled life, including highlights of the lowlife’s most infamous and disturbing moments in and out of porn.
Surely, it was known that this write-up would be a guaranteed issue mover, what with words such as "Porn" AND "murder" adorning the cover to capture our collective attention. An expose on both the carnal and the carnage is surely something Charlie Sheen would call "Winning", as far as interest-grabbing journalism is concerned.
But what I wasn’t expecting was the lack of respect for both the dead (Steve Driver excluded), and the living (those low-level porn workers), expressed in this mis-guided missive.
The article’s sub-title: "mopes and mayhem" was a bit of an obvious give-away of what was to come, but still I was not expecting Albo to sink to Steve Driver levels of disrespect for human life, at least not without good cause.
Certainly the title suggested a connection between mopes and mayhem. Albo’s article spends considerable time analyzing the "mope" factor in porn of the industry’s lowest-level bottom-feeders, while using the word "mope" no less than 10 times (9 of them in noun form), to describe them, as if Driver being a mope was the obvious cause of the carnage which took place on June 2nd, 2010.
Surely this new and fun epithet was mentioned enough times to solidify it as the new catch-phrase in low-level porn work, as well as a way of putting an entire group people down who may not necesserily merit such collective disrespect.
But first of all, who and what are all the "mopes" in porn? As was expained to him, Albo explains to us; the word "mope" has become a one word term to identify the listless bottom feeders; hangers-on who mope around offices in search of work and get paid
ridiculously low fees ($50-$75), compared to regular porn workers.
But are all bottom-feeders mopes? Do they really mope around porn offices in hope of getting more work? Are cheap $50-$75 jobs the only work they ever get? Are they really hangers on? In other words, is porn work to them a job they pay there bills with, or is it in more cases just a hobby they are marginally paid to participate in?
Albo explores the mythic Legend of Mopes, pinpointing their origin being from the vintage VHS days and John T Bone’s "World’s biggest gangbang" (although, "mope" itself, a relatively recent coinage, never having existed any time near those days).
Since then, Albo argues, "The mope has gained a foothold as a new kind of employee- one who inhabits the dark benthic zone at the bottom of the bottom, a movie-extra subspecies often tinged with maladjustment", ("benthic" means bottom of the sea, btw).
So, mopes are a subspecies, like movie extras, right Albo? Where did he get these sentiments from? I mean its bad enough movie extras get that "sub-species" treatment from SOME (not all) multi-million dollar production companies.
Appropriately guiding Michael through his strange voyage to the bottom of the bottom,
is the always humor-filled veteran director Jim Powers, who, legend has it, has shot more scenes than any director in porn history, and seen more orifices close-up than the world’s most renowned gynocologist.
Powers is also the guy who shoots Bukkakes which "mopes" are recruited for $75.
So, surely If Mopism is a significant issue in porn today, then Powers should be considered the industry’s premiere and perennial Mope Magnet; providing open borders for foreign invaders to easily access the benthic boundaries of all that is adult.
Interestingly, the main source Powers productions have used to recruit new bukkake performers has been ads posted in the LA Weekly (the very one Albo’s article is written in), reeling in potential Steve Drivers into the porn industry. This is also the same publication which regularly offers scores of willing escorts and adult massage therapists from the paper’s back pages (The LA Weekly used to have a much larger bulk of such ads a few years ago, when more mopes were more busy).
All the while, when it comes to identifying the roots of mopes’ "rootless, shambling life",
Albo claims that recruitment of John T. Bone’s gang-bangers was done "through various sex weeklies and adult magazines".
Interesting… I mean, talk about the pot calling the kettle "black", here! I guess the L.A. Weekly doesn’t count as one of those "sex weekly" even though it sells sex amongst it back pages and offers "mopes" the chance to "work" with a porn star.
So, what does Jim Powers think about all those mopes he has employed through Albo’s LA Weekly for years on a semi-regular basis?
"They’re worthless, D-list load-droppers", Powers explains.
Also, Powers adds that, unlike mainstream Hollywood extras, "Mopes don’t know they’re mopes", thinking they’re going to be stars and millionaires!
Worthless, huh?
Well, that would include, of course, Steve Driver’s murder victim, "the ridiculously named", as Albo claims) Tom Dong. (Btw, since Tom was asian and Dong is an actual asian name, I think the name fits and is not really that ridiculous. But of course, I know from experience that if someone has no respect for you, virtually everything they see in you gets defined as "ridiculous"- sort of like a human ink blot test).
That’s right. Tom, who was, as Albo himself described, brutally butchered to high-pitched squeals, cut at the waist and to the bone; who was turning purple while bleeding to death, got, in this write-up, disrespected in death and then thrown into the same category as his
killer; someone who was just a mope… AND Worthless.
I hope no one stopped by during Tom’s eulogy and expressed such weeping passions.
But how could anyone be, who is repeatedly employed worthless? Exploited, perhaps, but worthless?
Talk about beating a dead "mope"! Your carcass has been trampled upon, Mr. Dong!
Such sentiment makes me think of complaints by the rich about lax borders between U.S. and Mexico who also, at the same time, opportunistically hire illegals as cheap labor.
On the one hand we have a director bad-mouthing the talent he’s employed through a writer who’s paper put out the very same ads which recruited "mopes" like Steve Driver.
But the problem with Albo’s logic is that you should never say or insinuate in a sentence, "Mopes like Steve Driver" because there are no mopes like Steve Driver!…at least I sure hope there aren’t! After all, Albo suggests that being a mope is what lead to Steve Driver’s murdering rampage.
As for the comparison of bottom-feeders with t.v. and movie extras, this is appropriate. I should know, because I’ve at times participated in and experienced both groups first hand.
Unlike as Powers claims, both porn bottom feeders and movie extras do have a few things in common. Both have an occassional, although still a considerable minority of idiots and dipshits who loudly blab out their delusions of grandeur; wannabe movie stars bragging how they’re only only one or two SAG union vouchers away from stardom. In fact, I’ve seen many people list their movie extra work on their resumes, and others even brag about the big movie stars they’ve "worked with". In reality they were only doing nearby crosses, interactions or just lingering or wandering in the deep background.
Likewise, and no less ridiculously, I’ve also seen a bukkake guy proudly show off to fellow mopes a list of girls he’s "worked with" in porn (in other words, jerked off on). These fools have all but done rap videos about how great they supposedly are.
However, in spite of these buffoons, both mainstream movie sets and porn sets actually employ all types. To claim that they’re ALL a sub-species and worthless is as disrespectful and deranged as Steve Driver was.
Even bukkake guys include a good deal, if not majority of depraved, yet more-or-less
relatively normal guys, who regardless, deserve respect, as well as even gratitude
for working so God-damn cheap!
In both porn and mainstream, some people view and needlessly treat the lower level people like shit, while other, more decent people view and treat as fellow human beings. Perception of how worthy someone is has a lot to do with how you treat them. And of course, treating them better in turn can have provide a world of difference in terms of attitude and performance.
Some extras, although its far from common, go as far as becoming big mainstream names. Likewise, some bottom-feeders can rise to the top. For example, I introduced
an old friend, Joe Blow, to this industry several years back, to Brandon Iron and to then to Jim Powers and his bukkakes, which is where Joe first got started. He then went on to be "A"-list talent in the minds of many directors and videographers.
Most movie extras, as human beings, deserve respect, and likewise most "mopes", as they’re supposed to, just do their job and leave. Some movie extras are really hot babes,
hotter looking then even the stars themselves, who I’ve even witnessed stars flirting with. And some bukkake guys are regular performers doing it as a favor to the producer, to witness and participate in an amusing circus and make a few extra bucks if they’re not working that night. They may come to a bukkake after having been in a blow-bang, gang-bang or a boy/girl scene. They’re not "hangers on", necessarily. Most of them probably
have a regular civilian job and are thus should be more aptly described as just "hanging out".
Along the logic of this article, if I were to be allowed to generalize about a group just because of one, two or a few persons, then I would rightfully say bukkakes are all closet homosexuals who would much rather to stare at me jerking off while they’re whacking, instead of to the cum-coated naked girl. However, it would be inaccurate to say that. Usually there’s just one guy, maybe two who are like that.
Regarding mopism, and to whatever degree it may exist, which came first, the chicken or the egg?; the mope or the mope magnet; the wannabe or the director who recruited him through the LA Weekly’s "adult" employment ads? Who’s the one that put out ads saying "Men wanted for Porn. NO experience necessary", excitingly advertising that
their "big chance" to work with "real porn stars", etc? Who put the idea into these "mopes" heads in the first place that they might actually get somewhere in this industry through these back doors, in order to justify recruiting them for super-duper low wages? Many of them may think, of course, that if Ron Jeremy can do it, so can they.
And was the victim Tom Wong/Dong really a mope? did Tom really hang out, moping around porn offices in hope of getting work? As Albo points out, according to an employee, Tom did a good job, didn’t bother anyone, didn’t talk much or bother people, and left when he was done with his job, the way a good employee should. And Tom was known to be good with computers and supposedly had a job related to it, so how would that make him "hanging on" in porn?
Besides "mope", Albo’s article contained a lot of M words; as many "m"s as a bag of the famous chocolate, colored candies; "murder", "mayhem", "machete", "monster hands" and "mal-adjusted subspecies movie-extra". All these "m"s spell out a seductive "mmmmmmm" But still, the author should’ve included a few others, such as "meat puppet", "massacre". And, most importantly, instead of "mope" the one word Albo should’ve mentioned the most, which he never mentioned at all in this article, even though it should’ve been the focus of this article in the first place, is "MENTAL", as in mental-case and mental-illess!
Steve Driver was a Jared Loughner-type nut. Yet, Albo’s article was about "mopes" in porn, not a particular mental case in porn, as it should’ve been. Being an alleged mope (which not all bottom-feeders are) does not make a mental case.
Even as Albo points out many examples of Steve Driver’s sociopathic and potentially murderous tendencies (some examples include telling his University math teacher, "What’s more important you, giving me an A or your life?"; various sharpened swords
he kept in his vehicle, his running credit cards over $20,000 for internet porn; his father calling LAPD weeks before his murder/"suicide" warning that Driver was "making crazy statements about killing people" including himself, etc.), he fails to see mental
illness and sociopathy as the key reason for Driver’s behavior.
Instead, Albo’s focus is on mopism; a term which sadly and disrespectfully, equates the sick killer with his sorry victim.
The closest point which supported the case that Driver was mentally ill was when Albo pointed out a doctor’s "narcissistic personality disorder" diagnosis of Steve Driver. But such a judgment was about as brilliant as saying Charlie Sheen is "bi-polar" following the aftermath of all his perpetual, death-defying cocaine free-basing self-abuse; which is also as ridiculous as suggesting that Steve Driver just "fell" off the rocky cliff’s of Uptown Chatsworth, Pornoland, after SWATS shot him.
Even to authentic mopes who actually do hang around offices in hope of procuring
cheap porn work, while dreaming and stupidly bragging that they’re gonna be the Ed Powers of the 21st century, it is still a fucked-up insult to compare any of these guys to Steve Driver. Even if some of these mopes live out of their vans you should still not compare even a homeless man to Charles Manson.
And as Steve Driver, himself typically reeking of b.o., like a homeless man, due to horrible hygeine; this presented further evidence, that he was just not all there, as opposed to just being a struggling, down-and-out mope.
If Steve Driver is to be called a "mope" to characterize the "sub-species" group of porn workers, then there should be, considering there are so many other low-level mopes, a special differetiating title of "Mental-Case Mope" or just "Mental Mope" just for him.
Strangely, the oddball things Steve Driver did, through Albo’s lost-in- translation
logic, was indicative of things mopes allegedly did, in general. For example, Albo explains to his readers that "Ambitious mopes who hope to break out of their niche sometimes come up with gimmicks and catch-phrases in a misguided bid to establish an identity and
stand out from the pack". Then, he exemplifies this point by mentioning Steve Driver’s retarded "monster hands" (a pair of enormously large furry gloves he wore while performing in bukkakes)!
Actually, mopes more often will wear masks to conceal their identity then trying to bring attention to themselves at bukkakes. Analagous to aspiring movie stars who, as their friends and agents warn, don’t want to be known as having ever done mere extra work, performers prefer not to get noticed in lower level jobs. Likewise, most sensible "mopes" don’t seek to bring attention to themselves during the most humbling of pornographic venues.
But the bottom line is Steve Driver was a mope-mental case. Tom Dong does not deserve to be called a "mope", in memory. Shame on you, Albo and Powers!
And now let me introduce an
…!!!***EXCLUSIVE***!!!…:
I spoke with "mope" performer Mike Hash and asked him his thoughts about his line of work from his perspective. Technically, he might not be a mope. First of all, he
doesn’t hang out at porn offices begging for work. Secondly, he’s had his share of boy/girl and even occasional boy/girl/girl scenes, although the bulk of his work has been mainly blowbangs and gangbangs. Personally, the term mope doesn’t bother him and thus he has conceded for entertainment purposes for me to address him as as a "Mope Specialist".
Hash, who currently attending college, says he actually personally prefers blowbangs and gangbangs (and he doesn’t mind bukkakes) because the pressure is off him to perform at all moments, it satisfies his voyeuristic tendencies and a desire, believe it not, to keep out of the limelight, versus basking in it. He also points out that jobs like blowbangs and bukkakes are safe compared to other porn jobs.
While porn is ever becoming more mainstream, there are still many which view porn as more of raincoat wearing fringe element, people who have lives and jobs which they would
prefer to not be compromised by the limelight of their porn work. Likewise, they’re preference, since entering the business, is to do so at the fringes and in the basements of porn.
Hash says bukkakes and blowbangs beat going to porn parties, where you often have wait on long lines to get in, hang out with mostly civilians in loud places where you can’t hear each other talk, buy over-priced watered down drinks, and even sometimes have
to pay to get in sometimes, instead of getting paid to bust a nut on a chick. Still these venues are visited by porn regulars and most don’t call them losers for doing so.
And as for hanging on, Hash explains he’s had innumerable days where he worked a couple of blowbang and or gangbangs in one day. The money may have been a bit less than the average boy/girl scene, but a couple of those jobs a day sure beat the average worker’s daily salary.
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Originally, I was supposed to be one of the subjects in Albo’s article. When I got a call from Mike Albo, himself and told that he was told to call me because Jim Powers recommended it, I figured it was either because Jim admires my writing skills or more likely that he thinks that I’m a mope myself; the next Steve Driver, in his mind, perhaps. Knowing Jim as I do, and vice versa, I figured it was mostly likely the latter reason, and after reading Albo’s piece, I was confirmed of that.
Two "mopes" were left to all but completely humiliate themselves in Albo’s article; Tucker Slain and Jordan Lane. Apparently, it seems, I was supposed to be "mope" number three, except after explaining a few things in detail to Mr. Albo, he decided not to mention me at all. To my suprise he didn’t even quote anything I said, although we had spoke for quite a while and he expressed thanks for providing him a lot of insights. But in the end, I was not able to provide myself as the example of mope/loser that he was looking for, despite my willingness, for various reasons to occassionally play the role. I told him he can find an adequate enough resume of my work, including many Barely Legal boy/girl scenes I’ve done in recent history, which would refute his notion that I’m just a mope,as obviously, Jim Powers claimed.
My history of experiences with Jim Powers is a very long, bizarre and highly entertaining story.
But perhaps that will be the subject for another article…