Customer Reviews

Bottom Feeders: From Free Love To Hard Core: The Rise And Fall Of Counterculture Heroes Jim And Artie Mitchell

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John Hubner's book the second to cover the Mitchell fratricide(and probably the last, since there's very little left to cover). Hubner's book, unlike SF journalist David McCumber's awful "X-Rated," is objective and sociological. He has obviously read "X-Rated" and is careful to gloss over the parts McCumber covered in depth. Hubner comes across as an experienced journalist who has relatively little experience with the porn industry and sticks to the facts.

I worked as a doorman at the Mitchell Brothers' O'Farrell Theatre in the mid-1980s and got a sense of how their world worked. I can imagine how difficult it must have been for Hubner and McCumber, trying to find insiders who would speak to them. Reading through both books, I saw the familiar names: Jeff Armstrong (laziest worker on Earth), Charlie Benton (most temperamental worker), Phil Brady (meanest human), Luanne Buckelew (token woman), Jim Gish, Vaughan Melendy (horniest doorman alive), Richard Mezzavilla (conscience of Mitchell Brothers), Jack Palladino (ugliest man alive and now America's most expensive private eye), Vince Stanich (always stoned) and knew that these folks weren't going to talk, period. So what the reader learns comes from the small number of former Michell employees who were willing to tell about "the Boys" and their fun.

Hubner mentions Megan Leigh, the Oakland native who ran away from home at 14 and worked at a Guam massage parlor by 17. I remember her well; she danced at the O'Farrell as Eve. A tall, pimply, emaciated girl who couldn't dance to save her own soul, she had a heroin habit and quit the O'Farrell to undergo detoxification and a complete makeover. She reemerged as Megan Leigh and appeared in 117 hardcore adult movies from 1987-90. Along the way she became readdicted to drugs and, sick of being sick all the time, left an apologetic note to her mother and stuck a gun in her mouth, thereby virtually ensuring that she would never be completely forgotten.