The Mop

Background

The book began on an internet messageboard. Soulstrut is a forum for record collectors, DJs, music geeks and the like. Responding to a thread about porn soundtracks, Alan Simpson replied with small anecdotes about his time spent behind the counter of a porn store in Kings Cross. Spurred on by the positive responses, Alan posted more anecdotal stories until starting the (now defunct) blog 'Porn Store Guy'.

The blog saw the original anecdotes retold in short story fashion. A narrative thread was missing.

Thes One of People Under The Stairs sent Alan a PM (Private Message) offering to publish a book about the porn store stories if Alan would write one.

Plot

Alan, a twenty something New Zealander meets the girl of his dreams, Malin - a svelte Swede on an Israeli kibbutz while backpacking. Following yearly stints in each other’s countries, the couple decides to move to Sydney, Australia to bring some warmth back to their relationship and relive their days in the sun. After flying ahead and sharing a flat with his old friend Greg the surfer, Malin dumps Alan over the phone and his world comes crashing down as he enters a drug and alcohol fuelled self-indulgent pity-fest. Following Greg’s advice to “Get his shit together,” Alan answers an ad in the newspaper for ‘Specialty Retail’ and meets Barry, the imposing underworld figure that controls Sydney’s porn store trade. Blanketed in a haze of marijuana smoke and alcohol fumes, Alan begins his career in Disco Heaven, Sydney’s ultimate gay porn store, where he comes face to face with The Screamer - a perverted masturbating regular and is taken under the wing by Mike, Disco Heaven’s charming manager. Alan also meets his nemesis - the jizz mop. It is hate at first sight.

Despite Greg’s warnings, what begins as a simple amyl nitrite delivery gig quickly mutates into pulling graveyard shifts in Kings Cross, Sydney’s notorious red light district as Alan slowly descends into the midnight world of the sexually perverse. Still pining for Malin, and following an amyl nitrite accident, Alan begins working in all five of Barry’s stores: Disco Heaven, Cybershit - the toxic neon cave, G. Street - the city’s oldest porn store, The Pit - Sydney’s filthiest darkroom and R. Street - the most generic of them all. Each have their own personality and Alan endeavors to keep his head above the current as he is swept further down by the Kings Cross undertow.

Alan meets Rosie, the young goth who shows him the dark side of being a porn store clerk, Store regular Ram the Bollywood Penis Pumper and Bee, the jaded old Queen who rules over the sex workers with an iron wit. All the while Alan is haunted by the constant presence of the mop. With Greg leaving, Alan finds friendship with water pistol wielding rent-boy Jeff, a fellow music lover who is poised on the edge of a career as a porn clerk lifer and Rita, the gorgeous stripper who glides above it all. Following a sickening assault by Kings Cross’s most infamous pervert, Alan says goodbye to Malin. Barry gives Alan the graveyard gig at R. Street and tasks him with training Stinky Dave, an ex-con pervert with personal hygiene issues, bad taste in music and friends in high places.

Bridget the giant junkie prostitute makes a grand entrance, Rosie begins to suspect all is not well on planet Dave, the poor Thai business ladies are mentally scarred by Rosie’s handiwork and Alan’s groove becomes a rut. The mop circles ominously, the boys go hunting one last time, a forgetful customer learns a hard lesson, and we all learn that you should never try to return used sex toys. Bridget tends to Alan’s wounds, Jeff teeters on the brink, Dave commits the ultimate transgression, and in a cathartic exercise Alan cleans the store from top to bottom, unearthing some home truths in the process.

During an assault with a toxic weapon a most unlikely hero emerges in the heat of the battle, Alan’s world comes crashing down once again and, standing in the rubble he finally sees the light.

Characters

The clerks and main characters are a combination of carefully drawn stylizations of human types and habits and the actual people the author worked with.

Alan

Alan Simpson, the author. A young man from New Zealand stuck in a seemingly endless loop of mind-numbingly boring retail jobs.

Malin

A "hot Swedish chick" who Alan meets on an Israeli kibbutz. Their relationship begins in Israel, continues in New Zealand then Sweden and is ended by Malin, over the phone, an action that begins Alan's porn store clerk career.

Greg

Alan's best friend, A surfer, artist and all around good guy who attempts to lift Alan out of his depression.

Barry

The shadowy figure controlling the Kings Cross porn store trade.

Mike

The manager of Disco Heaven, the best porn store in the city. He of acerbic wit and the body of a Greek God.

Rosie

Goth porn store clerk. Listens to The Smiths in porn stores. Really.

Jeff

Record collecting, part-time modelling, rent-boy/porn store clerk. Invented the Jizz Hunt.

Bridget

Skeletal prostitute. A Jerry Hall on smack who is the eyes and ears of Kings Cross.

Dave

Ex-con pervert porn store clerk. Questionable personal hygiene. Massive Dire Straits fan.

Disco Heaven

The best of Barry's five porn stores: Disco Heaven, managed by Mike is a subterranean cave of rainbow delights. Disco heaven is where Alan is trained and is also the store where he comes face to face with perverted regular The Screamer.

Cybershit

The worst porn store in 90s Sydney. Simpson describes it as a bleak wasteland of booths each with its own splattered PC screen, broken keyboard and dejected mouse. Cybershit is where Alan meets Rosie and also Steve, the disgusting manager. A Cybershit scene opens the book with the following words: "One of the wank booths had been turned into a cleaning cupboard".

G Street

The oldest porn store in 90s Sydney. A hive of bitchy politics and smarmy gossiping between the strippers, peepshow workers, prostitutes and porn clerks that worked there.

The Pit

Otherwise known as P street, the Pit is a darkroom above one of the two inner city porn stores Simpson worked in. Also the store in which he meets Jeff.

R Street

The store in which Simpson ends up working the graveyard shift. The only one on street level. Where he meets Dave and Bridget. The scene of the final 'battle'.

Non-fictional content

Sydney in the 90's

Critical reception

“Debut novelist Alan Simpson’s semi-autobiographical tale of life as a porn-store clerk The Mop (PL70.net HARDBACK, OUT NOW), is great, sleazy fun and may even be the birth of hip-hop dirty realism.” Q magazine, issue 317, Recommender column

"It's a funny disgusting trip back into a different era, capturing the last days of adult retail before the internet stole most of its customers. Simpson plays an innocent in a barbaric, hyper-sexual world, absorbing endless indignities with a stoned grace, while trying to figure out if there's more to life than it's held to date." Duncan Grieve, 1972 magazine

"It’s really a phenomenal book. im 60pgs in and tripping. its soooo funny. its not even just about his experiences at the shop. its him. his life. who he was… showing who he is. music comments, drug references, and the like i can relate to… to a point. its also a great visual on what the area out there was like at that time. i have never been overseas but through the words i feel like im living it too." Justin Torres.

A promotional video was created featuring HipHop luminaries Blewfoot, Murs, Young Einstein (Ugly Duckling), Double K (PUTS)and DJ J-Rocc beat juggling copies of The Mop promotional 45 single written, recorded and produced by Thes One.