The year of the Tiger & Steve Driver by Jeremy Steele

This is definitely an explosive year. It usually begins with a bang and ends with a whimper. Ayear earmarked for war, disagreement and disasters of all kinds. But it was also be a big, bold year. Nothing will be done on a small scale. Everything can be made and lost. If you take a
chance, gamble for high stakes, but understand that the odds are stacked against you.
 
People will do drastic and dramatic things on the spur of the moment. It is not surprising that Watergate and the drama of Nixon’s resignation culminated in the hotheaded year of the Tiger. Tempers will flare all around and it ill be a trying time for diplomacy. Like the Tiger, we will tend to charge without thinking and end up regretting our rashness.
 
Friendships, joint ventures and deals requiring mutual trust and cooperation made at this time are brittle and will easily be broken. However, the forceful and vigorous Tiger year can also be used to inject new life and vitality into the lost causes, sinking ventures and drab or failing industries. It will likewise be a time for massive change, for the introduction of new and bold, especially  highly controversial, ideas.
 
The fiery heat of the Tiger’s year will no doubt touch everyone’s life. In spite of it’s negative aspects, we must realize that it could have a cleansing effect. Just as intense heat is necessary to extract precious metals from their ores, so the Tiger year can bring out the best in us.
 
Just one brief word of advice for this unpredictable year. "Hang on to your sense of humor and let things sizzle out!"

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The other day I was called by Mike Albo, who is currently writing a piece for The LA Weekly  (He recently put out his front cover piece of "The Family Prostitute" about women in the sex trade), retouching the Steve Driver incident and the questions of what life is for perfomers these days, as  well as the the porn industry, itself.
 
Mike had called me due to award winning director Jim Power’s recommendation. I took this as a bow of acknowledgement from Jim either to my communication skills, my first hand knowledge of the industry, or perhaps, in his mind, my own possible Steve Driver-like nuttiness. Who knows? But either way, Mike and I spoke in length, although he listened more. And then afterwards, he thanked me for providing him with some valuable insights and information. 

Our conversation reminded me to ask myself, "What year this was again? Oh yeah…"
 
In Chinese Astrology, this is the year of The Tiger (Put on your Rocky III "Eye of the Tiger" music if you like.. then again, maybe not). And although the year is but 2/3rds over I say it’s time to review what the Year of The Tiger been like for the "adult" industry.
 
Well, first of all, let’s not miss the obvious. We had Tiger Woods messing around with porn stars and other women… talk about the Year of the Tiger!  Also, we all watched Steve Driver do his own version of "Whores Gone Wild", after he brutally murdered Tom Dong, and injured others before making the death plunge, off a cliff, live on t.v., with the help of some SWAT "non lethal" bullets.
 
We also witnessed this year LIB’s record number of comments from Justin Long’s "I will no longer be doing interracial" post. We had a group of talent agencies that didn’t last long trying to raise money to battle it’s lawsuits. We still have a group that continues to grow fighting piracy. We had the the condom conundrum; mandatory condom use in porn being pushed by Shelley "saving lost souls" Lubben’s Pink Cross and the rich and powerful AHF lobbyists, as the porn industry and our friends at the FSC continue to fight for our rights at OSHA committe and sub-committee meetings. We had the AIDS scare with the milf, mother we’d maybe rather not fuck, who tested positive,and who’s name has still not been released. We have the ongoing controversy of people shooting gay/tranny & straight porn, the comebacks of Raylene,Briana Banks, Daisy Marie, etc. We havelots of cross over between MMA & porn; the battles of Jenna & Tito, Dick Delaware, War Machine; basically an overload of testosterone, drugs and notoriety seeking amongst the
perpertual porno/mainstream hybrid hype.
 
We have the downfall of the contract girl as announced by Vivid, the murder by Sunny Dae and her gay porn boyfriend, the murders of the Craigslist killer, who then committed suicide. There’s the sad end of Craiglist as we know it, with the elimination of their infamous and often-times hilarious "Adult" section.  There’s the hot aging female porn star MILF trend, the Freak squad guy’s fake suicide, 3D porn, Sasha Grey on Entourage, as well as more examples of porn stars crossing over into mainstream; all the while as the majority of the Titanic porn industry sinks without government bailout or much means of assistance. I guess no one in government can lend a hand because they’re too lubbed up.
 
We have "failing industries", as the ancient asian prophetic wisdom warns, reflected in good guys,like porn writer Rodger Jacobs going homeless. We have the ongoing glut, but still current hit of the porn parodies, the proliferation of books written about sex and porn star autobiographies. We have keyboard warriors wielding their instruments of havoc with wreckless abandon. He have Max Hardcore, still locked up, but with his days creeping ever closer towards releasing him from his cage…
 
Quite a wild Year of the Tiger, but we also learned that tigers can be tamed. Take for instance churchs actually having civil conversations with Porn Stars such as was done between XXX Church and Ron Jeremy, as well as the forum between former and current performers, sponsored by The Long Beach City Church, that Lucky Starr, Domenic Kane and I participated in. We have porn and antiporn forces working together, even if it is doing debates, and of course, again,Shelley Lubben.
 
So, in review, yes, we are the "delightful paradox"; porn which is both both universally loved and despised, simultaneously. You can also say the word "porn star" itself is a "delightful paradox". And indeed, all the world is our stage, with or without residuals. We’ve seen new trails ablaze; 3D, the cotinuation of porn parodies to grab out attention, instead of just dps, double vaginals and double anals. We still seek the unattainable, which is the ultimate mainstreaming of adult, and "the big O", which would leave the entire big round world as our loving audience.
 
Although porn ever creeps closer to the horizon, the complete mainstreaming of porn will always remain allusive, and we all still have to continue to fight like tigers as we try the untried (triple anals?), dance to life’s music in gay abandon, come with each other on carousel rides, witness the myriad of colors, flickering lights while seeking to be hailed as the unparalleled performer.

Ah, yes, the "unparalleled performer". Let’s consider the nominees… To me  it’s a toss-up between  porn’s popular ambassador Sasha Grey and porn’s wayward and infamous, violent retard, nut-case, "furry hands" Steve Driver.
But I think I have to go with Steve.  After all, if 2010 had anyone hold our collective attention all at once, albeit a little bit of time, it was him.  His porn star story had quite a cliffhanger and climax. And like a tiger, he crawled into our collective landscape, made quite a roar, slashedand cut, and then leaped into history.
 
Good Times? Sometimes. That’s the Year of the Tiger for ya!