Tins

Tins, Shanghai, China

Alley

Alley, Shanghai, China

Business

Business, Shanghai, China

Action

"Action is transformative." -- Cindy Gallop

I need a stripper

I am looking for a stripper in Chicago.

Do you know one?

Are you one?

Do you know someone who knows one?

If you post this somewhere you hang out, might a stripper in Chicago see it and reach out to me?

Do you think kismet is possible when the subject is gentleman's clubs?

Email me.

Medium

I wrote a piece on Medium about when my brain got squishy.

You realize there is a problem when you cannot sort the laundry.

Picture it:

There you are, in the laundry room.

The laundry basket is full of dirty laundry.

You look out the window.

It’s:

1. overcast
2. the sky is a pale blue with cloud streaking across it
3. it’s raining and you’re wondering if the roof is going to start leaking again

[READ]

Kitchen mannequin

Kitchen Mannequin, Chicago, Illinois

Swim

Really liked this video and images of Marines in the water.

The Marine Corps Instructor of Water Survival Course is among the most physically demanding courses in the Corps. The attrition rate can range from 20 to 50 percent, but students who endure earn the title of MCIWS.

[IMAGES]

Jesus Saves

Jesus Saves, Chicago, Illinois

Plimpton!

"After that, he's, well, a collector of experiences."

Experiments

Chemo Port (No Longer There), Chicago, Illinois
I did some experiments lately.

I took a camera class. That led me to realize I don't really care to figure out how my camera works. I should work with it as is or buy a camera from another decade.

I took an improv class. I pretended to flirt with someone at a pretend post office. Afterwards, it occurred to me that I already knew I was willing to do anything in front of a group, no matter how stupid it made me look.

I went to pilates. I'm sick of yoga. Pilates made me feel like my muscles were glued to my skeleton again, rather than engaged in an ongoing internal civil war.

Conclusion: Experimentation is good.

Repent, Sinners

Porn Awards, Las Vegas, Nevada
I renamed my Forbes blog.

Now it's SIN INC.

There I will be working the vice beat.

Booze, broads, bozos.

It's the most interesting thing I've done in at least decade.

[READ]

Changes

There are some changes going on here. Tune back in on Monday to find out what. This photo (via Jim Romenesko) is awesome.

The pig belted out a horrific, loud squeal until Afari released it in the cage of the truck.

[PHOTO]

Zinc

Had a really lovely lunch at Bistrot Zinc. Dining companion: the awesome Lydia Netzer. I recommend the tuna.

Birthday

Birthday, Chicago, Illinois

Improv

Mannequin, Chicago, Illinois
Recently, I took an intensive improv class at Second City. I pretended to be in a rocket ship going to the moon. I should probably write about that.

Baller

My all-time most popular Forbes post just topped 500,000 views.

[READ]

Irish

Irish, Las Vegas, Nevada

How much can you make?

Stripper, Las Vegas, Nevada

"3) How much can a contributor make? As I’ve written, a writer who attracts 1 million unique visitors a month for 12 consecutive months, with a solid base of repeat visitors, can earn a six-figure annual income. That’s not easy to accomplish. In 2012, only the second year of our model, two contributors topped $100,000. We had a few at $75,000 and $50,000, and 25 hit the $35,000 mark. There is a long tail at $10,000. Using their individual data dashboard, a contributor can track how they’re doing in real time. For comparison, the Bureau of Labor Statistics puts the average full-time reporter or correspondent’s salary at $45,270. Remember, being a contributor (many have worked for major national and regional news brands) is a freelance job, with considerable freedom to publish content for others." -- "Inside Forbes: Amid the Finger Pointing, Journalists Need to Explore New Payment Models"

The plight of the unreal writer

Pavilion, Chicago, Illinois

"Yet I don’t feel like a real writer. Both a screenplay based on a true story and a novel based on my own early life came grinding to a halt. Without being egotistical, I’ve been around long enough to know they are both excellent topics, great stories. But I just freeze up after three chapters or a couple of acts. I can’t seem to keep going. The bio-novel made me incredibly anxious, bringing up memories I don’t want to deal with but must to get them on the page. So I tried it as nonfiction, a pop-culture documentary, switching the focus somewhat and looking at events from a more journalistic angle. Nup." -- "Is Journalism Killing My Creativity?"

Clayton Cubitt is always on

My pal photographer Clayton Cubitt has launched a new art magazine/blog. It is very cool. He's famous for, among other things, creating the Hysterical Literature series, seen above.

What began for me in the placental alchemical gloom of darkrooms, the whir of enlarger fans, the cascade of water washing over silver halide prints, has, with the revelatory chime of a computer booting up, evolved into the blue under-lit glow of distributed LCDs, the whir of RAID cooling fans, and the cascade of message notifications from social media. 

[READ]

Opium

"For all its drawbacks, opium had one beneficial effect for De Quincey, that of acting as the ice-axe to free the frozen sea within him." -- "The Addicted Life of Thomas De Quincy" via Arts & Letters Daily