Hey, tough guy

Make sure to watch "Gangster Types and Tough Guys," a terrific audio slide show featuring the thoughts and shots of the amazing Bruce Gilden.

Then, visit "Shaped by War," an equally riveting audio slide show focusing on war photographer Don McCullin.

Finally, Lens wonders: "Too Many Angles on Suffering?"

James Nachtwey's latest tour: "Haiti: Out of the Ruins."

For more Yakuza, there's Anton Kusters.

Maybe not happy

So, I think I have to change the title of my novel. I came across this book the other day, a memoir called Happy by Alex Lemon. It's about how he has brain bleeds, and how it changed him, and it's getting some attention. "Happy" was his nickname.

That's what my novel was going to be called, Happy, because it's the first name of the main female character in the novel. Because it's ironic, as a title, given the subject matter. Weirdly, I had recently even envisioned a cover a great deal like the one Lemon has, with the letters dripping. But there you go.

Anyway, I thought I better think of a new one. The Bad Man. The short story upon which the novel is based is "You're a Bad Man, Aren't You?" The central question of the story is whether or not the main character is a bad man or not. It's hard to know sometimes. Especially when you're the man.

There's an old Western with that title. And Lynyrd Skynyrd shed tears for the bad man. But that's OK.

I changed the epigraph, too. It's from Bad Men Do What Good Men Dream: A Forensic Psychiatrist Illuminates the Darker Side of Human Behavior by Robert I. Simon, MD.

"One cannot listen for so many years to patients and to criminal defendants revealing their inner lives without coming to the conclusion that bad men and women do what good men and women only dream about doing."

The top 10 wackiest stripper shoes

Over at my day job, I compiled a slide show of "The Top 10 Wackiest Stripper Shoes." Yes, that's my day job. There was research involved! My dedication to my "craft" knows no bounds, truly.

I think my favorite ones are the "Bondgirl"-themed heels you see here, equipped with, well, part of a gun for a heel and extra, er, "bullets." Of course, there's something to be said for a pair of stripper shoes with their own stripper pole. And I appreciate the direct marketing campaign of these: "PAY ME." People tend to get a kick out of the tip jar ones if you haven't seen them already. And nothing says "I love you" on Valentine's Day like platforms with hearts for heels.

I used to own a fair number of pairs of shoes like this. They were covered in silver glitter, or had a pair of red lips, or thigh-high fire engine red boots with eight-inch heels. Now? Not so much. They crippled me. Something to remember them by.

The fat of the land

"The exhibition takes its title from the central sculpture in the exhibition, a severed bull’s head with golden horns and crowned with a solid gold disc. Suspended in formaldehyde and encased in a golden vitrine, this totemic sculpture acts as a powerful coda to The Golden Calf (2008). End of an Era proffers a sacrificial head, here dismembered from the majestic body of the earlier sculpture. While The Golden Calf symbolized the worshipping of a false idol, with End of an Era (2009) Hirst demystifies the biblical tale and, by extension, debunks his own myth-making."

-- Trend.Land

About that novel ...

Yeah, so, between the here and the there and the everywhere, I think I had churned out around 15,000 words of this latest version of the novel. Only, I didn't really like most of it but the beginning. The first 1,500 words. I kept plowing away at it anyway, because I am nothing if not an excellent self-flagellator, and then I got, well, subjugated would be one way to put it, by The Kidney Stones Fiasco. Then I, you know, had a little chat with myself, and I took the extra 13,500 or so words out. I looked at the 1,500 I still had, and I thought those were about right. Then I wrote another, oh, I don't know, 800 or so, maybe. Now, I like it.

It's such a weird thing, this novel. It is finally what it was always supposed to be, this novel or novella-sized version of this short story I wrote in, oh, I don't know, 2001? No, 2000, maybe. The title story of You're a Bad Man, Aren't You?. But for years, and I do mean years, I kept not really doing that, without even totally realizing that I wasn't really doing that, sort of writing it in other characters, or "going there," and then backing out, and the hemming and the hawing. Maybe, I guess, after I went back to LA in the spring of last year, something clicked. Or maybe it was after that, after I wrote "They Shoot Porn Stars, Don't They?" I was able to have a frank, silent conversation with myself, that there was only one thing about all of that that interested me, and so maybe, yeah, just maybe, if I wrote about that one true thing, then it would be right, which, long story long, sounds like how it feels. About right.

Still, after I churned out the first dollop of it -- I don't remember when, like, December? -- sure enough, I went squawking off in another direction; hence, all that crap I had to throw out. But lying here, contemplating my kidney, ruminating, but not brooding, because I figured any negative thoughts of any kind would forestall physical healing, I kind of got somewhere where doing what I needed to do was OK. Not, you know, "bad," or, like, something to be avoided, or so reprehensible I couldn't tolerate it. Then, you know, how it happens, when you're not really thinking, those teeny, tiny slivers of time when your brain gets distracted by something else, and some other secret slimy smart part of your brain decides to step up to the plate, and then you look back again, and you're like, Oh, and, I get it, and everything is clear.

It was like that, but way more boring. Or way better. Depending on how you look at it. Regardless, I am going back to what I originally said when I started doing this version of it, which is that I think this book is a novella, not a novel. That's how it feels. I don't know if it's that I can't stand it to be more than that, or I don't think anyone else could stand more than that, or if that's the way it simply is, but there you have it. It's like a pygmy pig. Or a Tic Tac. Or an IED.

I wish I could work on it more, but when I sit up for too long, my kidney aches. Why? I don't know. Longing, maybe. It's probably for the best, though, really. This is fast food. Not a steak. It's a hit and run.