I blogged a few weeks ago about my obsession with Gold Rush: Alaska, the Discovery Channel reality show about down-on-their-luck Oregonians who head up north in search of riches. Within minutes of posting that piece, I had slated an interview with one of the show’s stars, Jimmy Dorsey.
In that interview, Dorsey told me about his time in Alaska, and also why we’ll see him leave the mine in an upcoming episode…maybe even on Friday night.
Here’s a link to my full story about Dorsey.
This article appears in Jan 13-19, 2011.
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Well I speak what I think and I don’t have alot of experiance in gold mining but I have been doing some kind of prospecting sence I was 12.You people are complaning about not having any money B.S.The moneys there you people are thinking totaly big time and not what you have at hand.You need to start Down size and then build big.You are there 6 mo out of the year you need to get on track.
O! M! G!
I’ve never laughed so hard in my life!
Where to begin?
A bunch of wannabe’s who don’t have a clue on how to mine go into the Alaska wilderness with unused equipment!
Then the wave table fiasco! Oh my! (I guess they don’t know that first they have to classify the material.)
What else could possibly go wrong? I can hardly wait!
I’ve only been mining since 1976, but if they needed a non-payed partner to give them some good advice in exchange for visiting their mine, I’m their guy.
Dorsey…what a baby. Evidence that kids need to have chores and be taught what hard work, responsibility and self sufficiency are. OMG if this guy had a pet when he was a kid it would of died when he didn’t ‘feel like’ feeding it. Grow a pair..you’re a big boy now…
I can see why this show is such a hit! Everyone loves to see a much of dumbies acting like they know what they are doing. The Hoffman’s are both such annoying people! Then the drug addicted machanic? Seriously! The money hungry pastor…where is your chruch Mike Halsted? Why in the world do you need to be gold mining when you are a slum lord apartment owner, have your own million dollar house in Oxbow Park, and is “supposedly” building a church. I think you need to focus on your church then getting caught up with money in Alaska, or is that what motivates you….money!
The Hoffmans…what can I say! Jack, you own millions of dollars in real estate and even was caught doing unethical deals. You ran out of money? Yeah right, you probably took the gold and are hiding it! The young fat Hoffman, you are a joke. You don’t know how to lead! I felt bad for Dorsey! I would loose my mind as well with all these jokers. Dorsey was picked on from the beginning and he was right, no one knows what they are doing up there. This show is funny to watch! Seeing all these jokers on television is GREAT entertainment!
I have two of the same wave tables in operation, they catch even the microscopic gold, David is absolutely right when he said they need to classify the feed, a mag separator would help also, Geeze!, a magnet in a baggie would even work.
I don’t know anything about prospecting but you have to hand it to these people… except it looks like they are way in over their heads.
The episode where Dorsey has a physical confrontation (we dont see on camera) with another member just happened. I’m not sure why there was always so much tension with this guy – but it seemed to me from the very start of the show there were tensions and problems and a lot of disrespect directed at this guy. At least what we see makes it look like Dorsey just started to get an attitude and then it went downhill from there.
We don’t know what the history with any of these people are – were they friends or associates, what?
I would be willing to bet that most of the stuff directed at Dorsey was prompted by the producer. They probably got along fine unitl shooting started and the producers made it clear they needed some drama to get ratings. It is obvious they all thought they would strike it rich from TV if they didn’t get rich from gold. Other wise why wouldn’t you build one bunk house for six guys and leave the families at home. It is all developed by producers to make the show more interesting.
I think the just need to have a meeting. I swear these people would have made exceptional civil servants with all their meetings. I think the should have a daily meeting to plan daily meetings. Maybe sitting around talking gold will fall from the sky, in Jesus name. It was clear Dorsey was over his head but only slightly less than the Hoffmans. Having chronic pain does not make one an addict. They may be dependent on medication, you know dependent on it to alleviate pain. I have chronic pain and almost died from Motrin. Now I wear a patch and take Norco for break through pain and yes I am dependent on it. I suffer greatly without something. I’d prefer Motrin as it worked better but can’t take it anymore in dosages that work. I wish the best for the Dorsey’s and all the families.
Jasod, I agree with you, many things are staged for the publicity. If we think logically about what is going on, this is just a show and Dorsey is just a black sheep that any good show need. Think about this way. Looking at the guys; Todd with no management or people experience what so ever, if you check all his decisions you will see nothing positive, he also admitted that he does not have college neither skills to find a job. As long as Dorsey is trying to do something that he does not know how, another member is building house (and losing his face). Old man Jack spending more diesel on glory holes, and that one security guy doing nothing, the padre guy built a community building, and then what? Mechanic guy is absolute total mess complaining 10 times more that Dorsey. And once they did not find amount of gold as planed everyone is guilty because of Jack's and Todd's bad planning. At that point they needed scapegoat so that can feel better about them self's, poor Jimmy got whipped. Jimmy Dorsey from day one admitted that he does not know what he was doing, and he was accepted as that by all members of the team, other people did not admit anything but it is very obvious what they did. My point is again that this is just show, in reality things will be different, and the main positive star of this show is actually Jimmy Dorsey.
I was excited to watch this show when I saw that the people involved came from Oregon. After 15 seconds of listening to Jack Hoffman “talk” i became concerned. after hearing the constant banter about the financial instability of the operation, I was shocked and totally dumbstruck when they brought their families to the mining site. WHY? What about school for the kids? What the hell are the wives doing all day? Adding an extra 15 hungry useless people was incredibly stupid. By this point I was really starting hope people outside of Oregon weren’t Judging the whole state’s level of intelligence by these incompetent red necks. the last straw for me was all the “Jimmy Dorsi” incidents. As the crew starts to FAIL more and more, they start preying on, and blaming Mr. Dorsi for all their misfortunes. Dorsi isn’t weak I liked Dorsi from the begining, he was a nice, fair, level headed guy. Hard working, but back in Oregon, he was in Real Estate. Of course he’s going to make mistakes, he sells houses. Im truly emberassed to call myself an oregonian with these morons tromping around in the mud failing every step of the way. I cant stop laughing about Jack’s little pep talk claiming that, “by the end of the week we should have about 60 grand. A quarter million by the end of the season.” If only they had shut up, begged the locals for some advice, and and worked at reasonable consistent speed they would have experienced some success. And Jack’s Greedy, impulsive search for the glory hole is about as smart as looking for a real glory hole….
Whats the deal with building a small town and bringing your whole family up to live for 3 months. How much time did they waste on building freaking HOUSES!?
Dorsey has been picked on from the start… Yes.. But look at the things he’s done throughout the series. He would fuck with the equipment without asking, take control of things that he ALSO knows nothing about, and he simply can’t take criticism. The main issue on this show is communication and patience. Mining gold is NOT instant gratification, as they have now learned. In any teamwork situation you need to be mature and act as one unit. You cannot take things personal!! You don’t walk off and cut some tubing because YOU think it’s the right thing to do. Dorsey lacks common sense and he’s a complete immature, selfish dumbass full of self-pity and pessimism. I mega loathe him.
Dorsey was the only one who wanted to work his ass off. You got old man Hoffman digging random holes and carrying on about finding the glory Hole. You got Todd Hoffman being a moody SOB. And you got Greg Remsburg assauting people and wasting time building a house. You got an addict, pill popper and another guy physically assaulting people in James Harness (he shoved 67 yr old Greg Hurt) . So I would say Dosey was the most honest and homrable of all of them.
Dorsey is a whiney little bitch. He was too toxic for that group so its better he left. What will he go home to? he has no home. The rest of the crew just approached this whole thing to big and too fast, very poor logistics. I predict a grim and depressing end to their gold mining efforts.
Jack Hoffman – my God, what a voice. He would have been better served doing movies in the roaring ’20s. My entire laughs (or groans) when I mimic the voice. Keep it coming!! Flippin awesome
I have neber heard the work “frikkin” used so much in my whole life!
I must admit I love the show but why soooo many commercials?? The guys on the show are funny because they look like a bunch of misfits from a trailer park. And what’s with that old dudes voice, he sounds like a frikin cartoon. I hope these guys don’t find gold because if they do your going to have all the stump jumpers from all over the world moving to Alaska tearing up the only beautiful state we have left. “no guts no glory”
sure they are green when it comes to mining,but desperate men sometimes take huge gambles,so all you tycoons and mining experts pray you never have to face the choices these guys are.
In the end Dorsey wins out, probably gets his own show. Looks like he serious about learning how to mine for Gold. Old man Hoffman would have found the glory hole if only shut his pie hole and listened to others and had a better plan. It took them how long to finnally releaase they a road closer to the wash plant.
Well said, Luke: i’m watching this show with my kids (maybe not the best idea?) – an I keep tellin them “girls: Dorsey’s dumb”….its comedy. You gotta wonder about the devilish minds of the producers…you know good and well that they’re cackling away in the production trailer, finding ways to stir up this pot of misfits as good as possible. The white-trash-trailer-park-down-on-their-luck Oregon angle is rough, but true. yea, there’s some smart people in Oregon, but there is a ton o dumfucks too…its a representative cross section of good ole ‘Merica, that is fo sho!
Money,money,money. Apparently Todd and Jack sold their aviation business and belongings for $250,000, so how did they afford 2 excavators,payloaders,atvs, rhinos,gold sorting machines, huge camp generators, the barge and truck transport had to be $20,000 alone, 45 guns including a ar-15,camper/s, wood, materials, tools, trailers,dump trucks, to smaller things like satelite phones, money to spend transporting families there,welders,food,etc etc etc.
AND , OH YEA, THE 160 ACRE GOLD CLAIM LEASE. and one more, harness’s habit. lol??????
JIMMY I WISH YOU THE BEST MAY THE OTHERS FALL ON THEIR ASS
For Sizzle and Luke ….. What you guys don’t seem to understand and realize, is that these realitity shows are hugely scripted…. as well you only see what the producers want you to see for the purpose of good TV drama… although it is “real” … the actual perception of “reality” behind the show that it puts forward if very little. Vertually eveything Dorsey has done, has been taken out of context, and/or scripted for the sake of TV drama/ratings.
Hey Jimmy. Are you mining now in Alaska? Let me come down there and help you out.I am a certified surface foreman and I can certify all the men as general mineral miners.I know all the MSHA rules.I am also one of the best excavator operator you have ever seen.I can dig and move thousands of yards of material in one day. Please call Mitch at 757-869-2212.
great show,i want to see more
SEASON 10 JUST AIRED IN SOUTH AFRICA .JIMMY I WISH U THE BEST IN LIFE . U WERE OUR HERO FROM EPISODE 1 .THE HOFFMANS AND THERE HANGER ON MISFITS WILL HOPEFULLY FAIL IN SEASON 2 AS WELL .U WERE A VICTIM OF THE GREED FOR RATINGS . THE HOFFMAN CLAN WERE FOOLS FOR PLAYING TO THE FIDDLE OF THE NETWORK. AND WE ALL KNOW THAT FOOLS SUFFER GLADLY . WE WISH U AND YOUR FAMILY ALL THE BEST . TO TODD HOFFMAN , A FRONTAL LOBOTOMY AND A FACE TRANSPLANT MIGHT IMPROVE YOUR RATINGS.
Personally, I feel for these guys. The show is not only about gold it is about the “Can Do” Americian way. Good for them hope they find the pay load.
Jimmy Dorsey was picked on from the beginning and made to look like an ass on national TV. His wife Joy Doresy was the star of the whole show.
When she arrive with her kids in Alaska there was a short scene (season 1, episode3) where Joy asks her husband Jimmy, “you been up here over a month and you haven’t done any gold mining?” …..she smiles and Jimmy repeatly says in anger “why and you smiling?why are you smiling?”
Joy Doresy damn well knew her husbands full of it and she needed to get her family hell out of there.
I’m not a gold miner by any means, but these guys did what you fools that judge these guys or say they’re morons or don’t know what they’re doing, instead of sitting on the couch drawing up unemployment mooching off the govt (if your offended by this statement, then this did exactly what I intended it to do and points the finger at you)
If you do anything that’s new, then of course you will not be familiar with what’s going on, but instead of you arm chair cowboys they doing something meaningful, and should they strike it rich, you morons will be the first to jump on the bandwagon, hell there will be a couple of you who actually get the idea to mine yourselves. jealously is a bad bad thing, and you have a real dose of it (if this offends you)
again, before you can’t do anything for yourself baffoons attack me, remember this, these guys should be followed, not in terms of gold mining, but doing something to help themselves since they were unemployed. But guess what, they are smiling to the bank after every episode, because most of them receive 60 K for every episode in season 2.
on James Dorsey, he is the PRIME example of a spoiled, never worked for anything cry baby. he is a villain because he is the village idiot. throwing his friends under the bus, saying he was assaulted. come on guy, its the real world, you don’t get anything handed to you like the banking world you were in, and goes to show that people that wear a white collar for a living couldn’t hack it 30 min if worse came to worse. think of when this guys kids grow up and see they’re father on tv, they will be embarrassed to the fullest. And his wife probably feels more ashamed then anybody for being married to this pansy, but I’m sure Jody is feeling her up quite well. Dorsey would be the perfect poster boy for occupy wall street movement, ” cry around when you don’t get your way and hope you get spoon fed when you cry long enough, because hey, that is how you grew up” anyways, stay golden pony boys and make sure to exercise you thumbs after 5 hours of remote play, and p.s. GET A JOB loosers!
Jim-Jim-Jim….., where are ya? Casting Call was great yesterday, im lookin all around for you. Would like to chat wit ya.
Hahahaha i have no opinion! Dorsey is my cuzin! The show is dumbbbb:P
I like the show compaired to the other crap on tv but like all the rest of reality shows drama is what sells i would take the hoffmans and bairy the in the glory hole i think they ruined dorcys chaces of some reality show $money$.
Jack likes to ram it in todds glory hole.