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The Saddest Thing I Witnessed In Porn
By Mike South

May 4th, 2014

I was asked this weekend what was the saddest thing I have seen in adult. Oddly enough I hadn’t given that much thought. I have been around for suicides and arrests and crash and burns, Anorexia/Bulimia, murders and just flat out disgusting shit. From Savannah (the porn chick not the city), to the problems of Chasey Lain and Jenna Jameson.

I even considered a girl I shot that I wished I hadn’t, she was a cute blonde from Colorado who had a striking resemblance to Veronica Lake, She later found happiness in religion and denounced her association with porn, I had shot her first scene. I found her on twitter and apologized if I had somehow played a part in what she considered a bad time in her life. To my surprise she responded and told me that I had always been nice to her and had treated her fairly and that she had no problem with me and that I was not a bad memory for her. I thought that was actually kind of her and I appreciated her willingness to accept responsibility as well as her mature philosophy that all in all it was a learning experience. In my years in the biz many girls have told me that they wished they had shot the first time for me, my friend Trixie Kelly being one of them that meant the most. She reckoned that had she shot for me first (We actually met before she entered the biz) then she would have known how she should have been treated and that she would have done things differently.

For me it’s easier to draw from personal experience than it is to draw from observations but there is one that, to me stands out.

When I was a kid my Grandfather had told me something that, to this day, I remember well. He was a tower guard at The Atlanta Federal Penitentiary obviously he was a good shot with a rifle as well as a handgun, but I digress. We had been target shooting and talking about friends and how they reflect on you and he told me that the true judge of a man is NOT who his friends are but rather who his enemies are.

Back when I first got into this biz, I was amazed how friendly and accepting most of the people in the biz were. Ron Jeremy was one of the first people I met and we became and remain friends but what struck me was that a year after we had first met, Ronnie remembered me, my name and where I was from and what I shot (Mike South’s Southern Belles” ) even though we had not had any contact for a year. other people I met that are/were just plain good people Joey Silvera, John Leslie, Ed DeRoo (Loretta Sterling), Bob Verna, Ron Sullivan (Henri Pachard), John Stagliano, Rick Savage and Paul Thomas… there’s lots more but to me it was extremely nice for these guys to be as kind and friendly as they were over the years, way before I had made any kind of name for myself in the biz.

One person who always stuck in my mind though was Tom Byron, he wasn’t overly friendly but he wasn’t unfriendly either. But Tommy, as people called him, was on top of his game. Eventually we worked for the same company, Elegant Angel and Tommy had the best selling series of all of the directors there, it was called “Cumback Pussy”, Van Damage and I were tied for second and Rob Black wasn’t selling very well, mostly because of the more violent nature of his content. This was told to me by then manager Greg Alves who had recruited me into Elegant Angel. Patrick Collins was the owner but he pretty much left the day to day stuff to Greg. When Greg left and Patrick took over the day to day stuff Patrick told us all that we were being cut to one half of what we were being paid when Greg was in charge….We all left, nobody was fired.

Rob Blacks Daddy, Dominic Zicari, had been in porn on the distribution/retail end for years, that’s how Rob fell into the biz. Rob wanted to strike out on his own and daddy put up the money to back him. Truth is I was approached to join the new venture as well but I had no interest in Blacks vision of “Extreme Associates” I’ve never been a fan of the misogynistic road that many porners were headed down at that time, and it seemed odd to me that Tom Byron was going down that road, but he had struck up a friendship with Rob and without Tommy Extreme Associates probably would never have even happened, Tom Byron was the one guy in the bunch that had a very strong line, a good solid name and was well liked within the industry.

Rob Blacks problem has always been that he lets his alligator mouth overload his hummingbird ass, something he still does. Rob was probably an only child because everything always had to be all about him. He wasn’t (and still isn’t ) very intelligent but he did have some sort of charismatic appeal that hooked the likes of Tom Byron and Gene Ross (Another career he helped ruin, but thats another story)

Extreme never really had a chance, Rob was an inept businessman, he constantly bounced checks to talent, directors and AVN … basically everyone he owed money to. He never made good on them, he did porn that was so abysmally bad that even AVN wouldn’t give him good reviews. Some companies would not shoot talent that had shot for Extreme Associates. but off all the people he screwed over Tommy Byron got the worst of it, mostly because Tommy actually stuck by his friend. Eventually Rob’s mouth landed him in the legal system, something some people are saying is about to happen again. Rob spent a year in Federal Prison, did he mature as a result of that experience? I think we all know the answer to that.

Today, had Tommy never met Rob Black, he would likely be shooting for Evil Angel and making piles of money instead of living with Rob Black and being evicted by their landlord for….not paying their rent….Who’da guessed.

One of Tommy’s few friends likened it to an abusive husband, that Tommy was like a battered wife. Tommy had tried to get out from under Rob on several occasions but nobody in porn will touch Tommy because of his relationship with Rob. That’s sad because Tom Byron is honestly a legend of porn and he should be doing better than translating Rob’s stupidity into something that resembles writing. By all accounts Tommy should be where Jules Jordan is.

In the end it makes me rather glad that Rob wants me dead, ditto Michael Whiteacre, another misogynistic shit stain on this biz. No matter how dead they may want me to be, I will never be as dead as Tom Byron’s porn career.

Tommy…What happened to you man?
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