Stoyaville

My friend Clayton Cubitt, the artist Molly Crabapple, and superpornstar Stoya are conspiring on an upcoming project: Stoyaville.

Please check it out.

[HERE]

Fixer

Are you a fixer? Everyone's bitch? The company janitor?

Here’s whose fault it is that you are your company’s Michael Clayton: yours. You were hired to do this, or you allowed yourself to be pigeonholed into it, and now you feel like you have to keep mopping the floor or you’ll be let go.

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Leo

Leo, Chicago, Illinois

I get email

 

I got a chuckle from your “Blog Machine” photo. You see, what is actually pictured in it is the Maneuvering Room from a nuclear submarine. I know this from having spent far too many years on subs as a nuclear-trained electrician.

This was part of a display at the Smithsonian, and was removed from a decommissioned sub. They also had the Control Room, Crew’s Mess and some other parts on display.

Now, about how to start blogging… (Just kidding!)

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Surgery

I had surgery. Here's what happened.

Several hours later, they roll me downstairs again. In a small room, they mash my breast into a mammography machine and stick needles in my breast that will help show the surgeon the location of the tumor. I see myself reflected in the partition behind which everyone else hides while they take images of my breast. My head is turned at a hard angle, pressed against the side of the machine. Something is running out of my punctured breast. Blood? Blue dye? I am unsure. They roll me upstairs again.

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Email

Here's a whole Forbes post dedicated to reasons why you shouldn't email me, or anyone else for that matter. It resulted in some of the more amusing comments I've gotten in my tenure at Forbes. Also, I had bad dreams last night about the ganglion cyst, so I guess I feel guilty about that.

Keep it short. No one wants to hear your life story other than your therapist and your dim, unemployed cousin. Keep your query to three sentences, and, for the love of God, get to the point.

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Test

Test, Chicago, Illinois

I get comments

The person that wrote this article is out of touch with Family and God.

Your excuses are childish and stupid.

The family is at stake in this country. We are suppose to founded upon God.

In God We Trust. Wake up Forbes and Self-centered perverts.

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Santorum

Rick Santorum is a moron. Here's why.

In a statement on his website, Santorum asserts, “America is suffering a pandemic of harm from pornography,” adding, “A wealth of research is now available demonstrating that pornography causes profound brain changes in both children and adults, resulting in widespread negative consequences.”

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Beach

Dog Beach, Chicago, Illinois

More letters

I posted some more letters from men who go to strip clubs. Interested in submitting one? Email me HERE.

Furthermore, while I watch pornography to satisfy these urges more often than I go to a club -- I'm a bit of a homebug and it's cheaper and less hassle to load up a site rather than go out for the evening -- I much prefer the strip club experience over pornography. Porn is unrealistic and exaggerated, it puts you at a distance, whereas in a strip club it's all happening there, right in front of you. There's a tangibility and reality to the experience that is lacking in porn. Besides which, I often feel uncomfortable, depressed and unfulfilled after watching porn, while an evening at a strip club will, conversely, often cheer me up and boost my confidence and spirits for a while afterwards. 

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Room

Room, Chicago, Illinois

I get email

Hello Susannah

I read a blog posted on Sunday 11 03 2012 on your website about " why men visit strip clubs " and as a male myself albeit at least 20 years older than your blogger I was impressed by what he said and my heart went out to him as I know what he is going through .To be honest at my age I have more or less given up on finding a partner in this life and now just put my trust in The Virgin Mary to find eternal happiness in the next one hopefully although in my case more than a bit of time might be required in purgatory that is assuming that I avoid " the flames of hell " ! I also meant to say about your blogger that in spite of everything there are some decent males out there hopefully myself included or at least I try my very best with the help of divine intervention. Finally for now as I suspect that you have some Irish ancestry I would like to take this opportunity to wish you a happy St Patricks day for Saturday .

With love respect all best wishes and kindest regards.

From

[redacted]

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See me read

If you live in the Chicagoland area, come see me read tomorrow night -- that's Wednesday, March 14 -- at 7 PM at The Book Cellar in Lincoln Square.

I'll be reading with my friend Anne Elizabeth Moore, author of Cambodian Grrrl: Self-Publishing in Phnom Penh, and Terri Kapsalis, author of Public Privates: Performing Gynecology from Both Ends of the Speculum.

I'm not sure what I'll be reading, but you can only found out if you go.

Come join us as local author Anne Elizabeth Moore discusses Cambodian Grrrl: Self-Publishing in Phnom Penh, a book the Portland Mercury calls "moving, hilarious, and unbelievable in a way that only true stories are." Combining memoir and journalism,  Moore chronicles her work in Southeast Asia and its impact on young women in a globalizing culture.   

Also reading with Moore is freelance journalist and award-winning columnist from the Pink Slipped blog Susannah Breslin and writer, performer and cultural critic Terri Kapsalis. 

[INFO]

Millennials

Doing, er, research for this latest post on my Forbes blog -- "How to Make Twentysomethings Happy" -- I realized that my work ethic and the work ethic of millennials is exactly the same. That means either I'm very forward-thinking or very lazy.

I want to sit in my undies on the couch, drinking a smoothie, tapping out brilliant words on my Mac AND getingt paid for it. — @JustynaSurowiec

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Frank

Frank the Fish, Chicago, Illinois

Past

I have given the world the greatest career advice ever created.

I read your article and I swear fate is telling me to quit my job to go out and be a freelance artist! I had the thought the other day, and all of the sudden, without any knowledge of my new idea, people are making comments and your writing articles that are pushing me in that direction.

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I get email

Many years ago... perhaps you don't remember... I wrote an email to [redacted] about a video piece you did while seated behind a desk on their program "[redacted]."

It appeared to be one of your first performances in front of the camera and I was highly critical.

Much to my surprise, you responded.  You were pissed and defensive, but you answered nonetheless.  I was impressed by this since it is seldom anyone actually gets a response to an email from any performer.  Especially one which was not particularly congratulatory.

I hadn't kept up with you or your work for years although your response left me with warmer memories of you than you of me.  Mainly because you felt the need to give an explanation and to own up to what you had done.  That is a sorely lacking trait in this society.

However, I'm reading one of your pieces recently and I pick up on a new side of you.  You write about the trial of John Stagliano with the typical detachment which I expect from you, but then... toward the end... you begin editorializing on "liberals" and their failure to do anything about the increasingly provocative material from the porn industry in California.  I extrapolated that to mean that you see staged rapes being filmed for profit.

It is good to have a nuanced view of pornography.  It is probably as addictive as cocaine and apparently causes performance problems for men who regularly watch it.  That being said, I know you're smarter than what you wrote in that piece.  Are you really so naive to believe that many women have no desire for staged rape scenes?  REALLY?  

One of the hardest things for me to accept as I went from my early adulthood into what might be delicately called middle age is that women do like hard, exploitative and violent sex.  I had girlfriends who wanted their hair pulled, their tits bitten and their pussies spanked like bad little whores.  One woman asked me to spank her tits with a wooden paddle until they eventually bled something which she still has fond memories of and I actually feel bad about.  This was long before the era of mainstream violent porn.

Certainly, the abuse of women is foremost in your mind and it troubles me as well.  But unless you want to rip out the brains of submissives and dominants, you are going to have a hard time eliminating the directors who make this stuff.  This is a market driven industry.  Men and women are into BDSM.  I notice you didn't have the same condemnation for the abuse of men in similar videos which by the way are also very popular.  Do men not have to pay bills and feed families or is that only women?

This, to me, is not a problem with pornography as much as an obsession with violence and domination.  It is the story of our country and it is how we got to the place we are today.  Look at the systematic violence and destruction of the American Indians.  What about our multitude of wars with Latin America, one of which led to the forced cessation to the United States of the very state where most porn is made.  Violence in porn is simply a reflection of violence in society and our lust for it.  Our lust for pain and degradation.  Our lust for complete domination or complete submission.  Perhaps it is a feminist backlash as your sisters once said or perhaps it is just our synapses are lacking the delicious taste of it and will soon be satiated once enough has saturated our brains.

Before you spend your life in journalistic condemnation of pornography -- a business which has served to make you money as well -- remember that in this country women can say no.  Both as actresses and as consumers.  I think this is as much about what women want as what men want.  But frankly, Susannah, I think the fad will go away by itself.  Humans get bored of one thing and want to try another.  In 20 years, elegant porn may be all the rage and violence relegated to the cum stained walls of the dirty peep show probably in 3D holograph, computer generated and hopefully sparing the "poor" actor or actress the need to serve as a human surrogate for our sadomasochistic fantasies.

As you are wont to do, please give me your thoughts.  

Sincerely,

[redacted]

Susannah Breslin's Fan Club

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Mannequin with Clouds

Mannequin with Clouds, Chicago, Illinois

I get comments

I went to a lot of trouble to make an account here to tell you that this article was horrible. It made no point, it was self aggrandizing and arrogant, and not even correct.

The reasons no one reads "your" blog are as follows:

1. There are a lot of blogs. There are just too many for everyone to get a lot of traffic. Odds are, you won't get readers because most people don't get readers.

2. Bloggers are a clique. If you're not in one, you won't get linked by other bloggers and your status in search engine results will be low.

3. Being interesting has nothing to do with it. Most people aren't interesting. I have found horribly boring, poor, and asinine writing that come up as top Google search results. Like this completely unhelpful article.

4. Why does this person write for Forbes? Because she writes in the snarky blogger style and had the right connections that got her this opportunity. Why does she get hits? Because Forbes is a recognizable name and the titles chosen for the blogs are chosen specifically to attract attention.

5. Linking linking linking. Why is it that when you search on Google for something, you end up with 50% of your results or more as fake pages full of ads? Because they link to themselves EVERYWHERE. That's why spam comments exist, because bloggers are trying to get links to their pages posted on other people's blogs. What better way to do that than leave comments? =P

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