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Roger T. Pipe All right, it’s time to interview Mike South.
Mike South It’s about fucking time.
Roger T. Pipe Yeah, yeah. CES, 2001, Mike South is sitting here with me, watching the girls go by. What’s up with your AVN Badge Mike?
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Mike South I don’t know. AVN has been really nice to me lately. They comp'd me passes to this show and to the AVN Awards.
Roger T. Pipe Currently you’re still shooting movies on occasion.
Mike South More than occasionally, I shoot a lot of movies.
Roger T. Pipe Who is distributing them?
Mike South Right now, nobody. Everything I do is exclusively on my site, www.mikesouth.com I’m shopping to several people right now and who knows, there may be an announcement soon.
Roger T. Pipe What lines are you shooting now?
Mike South I’ve still got Mike South’s Southern Belles. I can’t get away from that, it’s my baby. I’ve also got Blow Girls.
Roger T. Pipe How is that doing?
Mike South Really well. Oddly enough, I get more questions about when the next Blow Girls will be out than I do about the next Southern Belles.
Roger T. Pipe How did you get started in this business?
Mike South It was a total accident. I was coming to CES shows for years. I was in the computer business and would walk through the adult section. I was looking around and was fascinated by it. One of the guys I met was Rick Savage. He was really nice and we started talking. He asked me where I lived and I told him Atlanta. He said, “you guys have the best strip clubs in Atlanta. You really should shoot porn there. You would have the area all to yourself. Nobody else is shooting there.” It went in one ear and out the other. Later in the show, I met Ferrell Timlake from Xplor. He said the same thing about shooting. He said they would buy stuff if I shot it. A few years later, I saw a nice camcorder in a pawn shop, picked it up and gave it a shot. I got kind of fooled when I started. I picked up the camera, got the lights and went into a strip club. The first girl I asked said she wanted to do it. I though this was going to be easy.
Roger T. Pipe Who was she?
Mike South I don’t even remember her name, but I sold the scene. Farrell came back to me and said that I really should shoot my own series. They gave me some pointers to improve the picture quality, but they were happy.
Roger T. Pipe Hey look Mike, it’s Kid Vegas...
Mike South Yeah, Hey Kid Vegas! Don’t forget me tonight man.
Roger T. Pipe The Southern Belles series started with Xplor and you shot some women who would eventually go on to become stars in the adult biz.
Mike South Yes I did. I shot Anna Malle, the only time she was shot with her real tits. I shot Melissa Hill’s first scene, Midori’s first scene, Sana Fey’s first scene, Anastasia Blue’s first scene, Katie June’s first scene, there have been a few others.
Roger T. Pipe Anyone recently who is going to be hot?
Mike South Yeah, Felicia Fox. Watch out for her.
Roger T. Pipe Where is she?
Mike South She was with me a minute ago. I tried to get her to sit on your lap Rog, but she felt it was more important to go talk to some lame ass director from Sin City.
Roger T. Pipe Damn, I get no respect these days. How many Southern Belles did you shoot for Xplor?
Mike South I shot nine volumes of Southern Belles for Xplor and they also did a Best of tape. There were also two volumes of Mike South’s Travels for them, so twelve tapes over a two year period.
Roger T. Pipe You won some awards during that time.
Mike South Yeah, I picked up a few AVN Awards. I have been nominated every year I’ve been in the business except for this year. I only had one release this year. I won twice for Best Pro-Am Video. This year I won a People’s Choice Award from Adult Stars Magazine and was one of their top ten male performers.
Roger T. Pipe You eventually parted ways with Xplor, was that a mutual parting?
Mike South It was mostly amicable. I just wasn’t able to make a living shooting porn for them. I wanted to get out of the computer business and do porn full time.
Roger T. Pipe So you ended up at Elegant Angel?
Mike South Greg Alves worked on me for six months, getting me to move over there. I signed with Elegant and two months later, Greg left. When he left, Patrick Collins got a God complex and things went downhill. On a Monday, I said “Fuck you Patrick, the deal’s off.” The next day Rob, Tommy, Van and Tiffany left.
Roger T. Pipe You weren’t part of the Extreme/Elegant split?
Mike South No, I left first. There were never any invitations for me to join Extreme. I wouldn’t have done it anyway. Those just aren’t the kind of movies I make.
Roger T. Pipe You made two Georgia Peaches movies for Elegant and then went where?
Mike South I went to Fallen Angel. I love Gigi and Luke Wylder. We put out one movie there called Peaches & Cream. It did well, but it was one of those deals where I owned the rights and we had a lot of companies, I won’t say who, Metro Home Video, who went way overdue on the payments. They went over two hundred days past due. No matter how good a price they give, for me to float them for half a year is ridiculous. I would have done better putting my money in a savings account. I was approached by Brian from Center Stage Productions and there were some things I liked about his company. For one, Metro was COD. For another, he was four hours away from me in Charlotte, North Carolina. The next four tapes went through Center Stage. Unfortunately, he folded. Since then, I have been doing it on my own. When I do go back to a distribution deal, it will be something that really works for me.
Roger T. Pipe You really haven’t varied your theme or style much through the years.
Mike South This is what I like to shoot. Most of the girls I shoot are really southern girls from my area, but the real plus is that you won’t see most of them again. Nine out of ten girls who shoot for me aren’t going to pop up in other videos. They want to try it and don’t want to have do something really degrading. It works for me and it works for them. They aren’t sleeping their way through their thirtieth sex scene of the month. I’m not trying to stage a bigger train wreck than the last time. All of my shoots are fun and everyone has a great time. As a result, she will tell her friends and I get more girls lined up.
Roger T. Pipe It sounds to me like you are happy with what you’re doing and aren’t going to move into art movies?
Mike South No. It’s possible some day that I would want to do feature stuff. I’m friends with Greg Steel and we have some good ideas, but it’s way on the back burner.
Roger T. Pipe What else do you want to talk about Mike?
Mike South I don’t know, shit ask me something. Get to know me.
Roger T. Pipe What’s in your CD Player right now?
Mike South A3
Roger T. Pipe What kind of camera are you shooting with today?
Mike South This is my trusty Nikon N90. I have over one hundred thousand pictures on this thing. It’s been a workhorse. I swear by Nikon photographic equipment. Me and Max agree on that.
Roger T. Pipe Is that the only thing that you and Max agree on?
Mike South No, we both agree on Sony video cameras as well. Even you would probably agree Rog, that from a technical standpoint, Max is about the best there is.
Roger T. Pipe No question.
Mike South He lights a scene better than anyone.
Roger T. Pipe What about IRC chatting, you seem to be on twenty-four seven.
Mike South I’m not in there nearly as much as I used to be. When I’m doing a lot of scanning and editing, I will be in PST (PornStarTrading) a lot. It goes in cycles.
Roger T. Pipe Tell us what people are going to find when they go to your site?
Mike South They are going to find video streams of scenes. There are about thirty five thousand pictures, categorized by girl. There are pictures from every show I go to, commentary, and some live streams from shoots. I am streaming from the AVN Awards as a bonus.
Roger T. Pipe All right, Mike South is known to be a bit outspoken, pick a topic and dazzle us.
Mike South Ask me about Tom Byron.
Roger T. Pipe All right, what about Tom Byron?
Mike South I’m glad you asked me about him. Since he took a personal shot at me, I was going to respond on Gene’s site. Instead, one of the girls I shot responded for me. She said that he looked like the love child of a raccoon and a Billy goat and that the last time she saw him, he had a dick in his mouth. That about sums it up.
Roger T. Pipe What about the Free Speech Coalition?
Mike South I catch a lot of flack for my stand on the FSC. I think if you are a performer in this business, you are better off taking your fifty dollars, going down to the local hooker stroll and buying yourself a blowjob. At least you’re going to get something for your money. FSC does nothing for the talent, they do nothing for the stores. They do nothing for anyone but themselves. If they put me in charge, the first thing I would do is disband that thing.
Roger T. Pipe You don’t see them as useful at all?
Mike South Not at all. I think the idea is there. Bill Margold’s heart is in it and we agree on a lot of things. Mark Kernes doesn’t agree with me on anything. What the FSC needs to do is change its name and be replaced by an organization that actually helps the talent and store owners. The first they could do to help everyone is to get control over piracy. They could totally fund themselves with just that. I would be willing to donate one hundred percent of any money recovered by any organization that can prosecute someone for pirating my tapes or stealing my content from my site. They could offer legal advice to video store owners. Mom and pop stores don’t have money to finance a court battle against the Government, then the Free Speech Coalition should move in there and fight. If they could do those things, they wouldn’t have to be begging for money all the time. Right now, all they are doing is putting money into their own pockets.
Roger T. Pipe Since we’re talking politics, you have a slightly different take than the line towing lemmings in the booths here at this show.
Mike South I think the people in this business really believe that the enemy of their enemy must be their friend. They are so terribly wrong about that. I’m very active in local politics and have even eaten at the Governor’s Mansion in Georgia. I have spoken with my representatives in Washington and I can tell you that Republicans or Democrats would roll over on us in a second if there was scrap of political gain from it. Both of them are equally bad for our industry. The only party that would really support us is the party we totally ignore, the Libertarian Party. They are the ones who most closely reflect our views and our interests.
Roger T. Pipe Why do you think the industry press have so completely backed someone like Al Gore?
Mike South You said on your site Rog, it’s blind faith. They are comfortable with the party. Clinton was relatively benign toward the business, not really with the CDA and all that bullshit, but he wasn’t bad. The new Administration may take aim at porn, but I don’t think the people in this business doing mainstream stuff have much to worry about. If you have a web site that is practicing fraudulent billing, I think you’re right in the cross hairs. You better straighten your act up. I think the people mixing violence with sex had better watch out because those are the kinds of things that will be easy to prosecute. Those guys are going to come under the gun. The average porn tape is not going to be found obscene by the average jury. Let me tell you right now, as the only person in this business to say this, you made the right choice with your endorsement. Bush will make a much better President for this country than Gore would have. He has already surrounded himself with better people. Cheney and Powell were fantastic choices. What good does it do me for porn to be legal if the fucking Democrats are taking all of my company’s profits and redistributing that money in an effort to buy votes.
Roger T. Pipe Anything you want to say in closing?
Mike South I want to say thank you to everyone who has ever rented or purchased a Mike South video tape. It’s because of you guys that I’m here. Never let me forget that.
Roger T. Pipe Thanks much Mike.
Mike South Thank you Rog.
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