Friday, January 6, 2012

The top 5


For a variety of reasons, including the fact that my Forbes contract is being renegotiated, I was looking at the 2011 traffic stats for Pink Slipped.

I started writing the blog because I got downsized. Along the way, I covered everything from porn to 9/11. The year ended with a post on breast cancer.

Here are the most popular blog posts and how many views they got. What patterns do you see?

Email me your thoughts, what you liked, what you'd like to see more of in 2012.


1. The Business About My Breasts, 142,211 views
I'm at Costco when the call comes the next day. The call was supposed to come between 4 p.m. and 6 p.m., but the call comes at 2 p.m., so as soon as I look at the phone, I know something’s wrong. The radiologist asks if this is a good time to talk. I look around. I’m in a Costco. What am I supposed to say? No, let’s talk when I’m at McDonald’s. Or, How about you call me back in a week? Or, If it’s possible to not have this call at all, that will be preferable. Instead, I tell her, Yes, now is a good time to talk.

Are you sitting down? the radiologist asks.
2. Adult Director Max Hardcore Released from Prison, 66,137 views
“Read and weep, hater,” the tweet read.

The link took me to a page on the Federal Bureau of Prisons website.

Name: Paul F. Little. Register #: 44902-112. Age-Race-Sex: 54-White-M. Release Date: 07-19-2011. Location: RELEASED.

If you don’t recognize the name, you may recognize his nom de porn: Max Hardcore.
3. 9/11 Stories: No One Talks About That, 60,741 views
It was a week before lower Manhattan was even close to being open for business.  Cahill was in a shabby ‘back office’ building–old enough that you could open your window if you wanted.  But of course then you did not.  The air was thick with the smoldering remains of the WTC and, as became apparent, it was a gigantic crematorium.  Yes they have that sort of thing on the Ganges but they are ready for it and do it right.  This was a slow painful gag inducing burn: metal, fibers of whatever sort and human bodies smoldering for weeks, months.  The incense of hell.  There is a line from the Gospel of John that seems as if it was written with this scene in mind.  I started describing the smell–and it really was not just a smell–it was an immersion in an atmosphere that you sensed permeating your skin and body–to a friend who happened to have been in Vietnam in the late 1960s-early 70s.  He stopped me mid-sentence holding up his hand: “I know that smell–those are bodies.”  Lower Manhattan was for months a giant open air crematorium. No one talks about that.
4. Why I'm Unemployable, 53,520 views
I became self-employed, and then it took me a while to realize what I had done. I thought I was piecing together a few jobs so I wouldn’t end up homeless. In reality, I had created an alternative to unemployment. Maybe unconsciously I knew that no one would ever hire me for a full-time “regular” job. They never had. Why would they now?
5. A Porn Star Book Is Selling with a Bespoke Twist, 53,432 views
A new limited-edition book by an adult film star aims to sell copies by offering buyers something they won’t find elsewhere.

Girlvert: A Porno Memoir is priced at a whopping $200 and limited to a mere 50.

So, what’s the twist?

Each book jacket contains one of the starlet’s pubic hairs.
[PINK SLIPPED]