The top 10

Here are the all-time top 10 posts on my Forbes blog, if you're interested in that sort of thing.

1. The Business About My Breasts (156,202 views)
2. Adult director Max Hardcore released from prison (102,011 views)
3. This Is Why Your Employees Hate You (90,220 views)
4. How to Get Married (72,198 views)
5. 9/11 Stories: 'No One Talks About That' (70,187 views)
6. The Worst and Best Advice I've Ever Gotten (66,306 views)
7. The Hardest Thing About Being A Male Porn Star (62,467 views)
8. How to Get a Job If You're a Twentysomething Woman (61,585 views)
9. Why I'm Unemployable (60,654 views)
10. A Porn Star Book Is Selling with a Bespoke Twist (54,293 views)

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My 2010 highlights

Ah, 2010. We hardly knew ye. Shortly, you'll be gone. Before I bid you adieu, here are some of the things I enjoyed about you ...




1. Isaiah Mustafa sent me a video message. Yeah, the Old Spice guy taped a spot just for me. I'd written something about the man, the ad folks must have seen it, and there you go. Nearly 300,000 people watched it. When someone with no shirt on and abs like that says your name, it's a wonderful thing.




2. I launched The War Project. This was the most important thing I did this year. I'd been wanting to do this project for five years, and I finally got it going. Finding the money and time to do it have proved harder than I expected, but this is what I want to focus on in 2011. It's been a game changer.




3. I got back to work on my novel. In a fit of pique, I gave up on my novel. Late this year, I returned to it. It's about a federal agent looking for a missing porn star. It's called PORN HAPPY. I hope to finish it in the not too distant future of 2011.




4. I'm a journalist. Sometimes I have to remind myself of that fact. I'm not sure what the stand-out moment is here. Probably this story for Salon about a male porn star who killed another male porn star with a samurai sword and then died in a police standoff. Frankly, in this area, I'm still in transition. I am shifting from one beat to another beat. This is a good thing. I don't know all the answers. But I am willing to seek out their possibilities.




5. I lost 20 pounds. I spent six weeks at the beginning of the year prone on a sofa because I got kidney stones. It wasn't fun. It also made me fat. Although, those doughnuts didn't help either. So, over a period of about five months, I lost around 20 pounds. I ate better and exercised more. Who'd've thunk it?




6. I moved halfway across the country. I was in a rut, so I gave away or threw away or recycled 80-percent of all my stuff and moved. I do that every once in a while. Now, I have a dishwasher. And radical sunsets. And the past is where it belongs. In another state.




7. I stirred up controversy. I have a tendency to not feel alive if I'm not doing something that is borderline trouble. This year, I became a blogger for True/Slant. It was really a great thing. I wrote about all kinds of issues. I was given free-reign. The most controversial post was about trigger warnings. If you're not making waves, you're not swimming.




8. I took photographs. And I need to take more. And I need to learn how to use my camera. And I want to get a point and shoot. And I keep either cutting off people's heads or focusing only on the heads, but I have a hard time taking a picture of a whole person. Every photo is a self-portrait.




9. I got an iPhone. I love this thing. If it was legal to marry this thing, I would. It's so pretty and takes nice pictures and makes videos. I can't stop checking my email on it, though, when I leave the house. I should work on that.




10. I got better. I think the biggest thing that helped me get better was bearing witness to the suffering of others. I guess that sounds like something Mother Theresa would say, but whatever. It's true. It's the fire that burns the fat from your steak.

My influential books

Around the internets, some folks, economists? or something? for some reason?, have been making lists of the books that have "influenced [their] view of the world." I thought I would weigh in, because I am of great influence, have read books, and have a view of the world. This may be more a list of books that have influenced my brain/writing/worldview. Whatever.

1. Ulysses by James Joyce. Probably the greatest book ever written. You can tell because it doesn't make any sense. Until you realize it makes so much sense that if you ever truly understood how much sense it makes, your head would explode. I've spent my life trying to recapture Molly's monologue. Good luck to me on that.

2. City of Glass by Paul Auster. I may have read this book more times than any book on the planet. It's exquisitely spare. "It was a wrong number that started it, the telephone ringing three times in the dead of night, and the voice on the other end asking for someone he was not." Sigh.

3. Porn: Myths for the Twentieth Century by Robert J. Stoller, MD. This book is the italics that emphasize porn is a legitimate subject. Stoller got hit by a bus. Infinite sadness.

4. The Death of Virgil by Hermann Broch. He started writing this book when he was in a concentration camp, so stop fucking whining and write your novel already, you bunch of sniveling bitches.

5. Orlando by Virginia Woolf. A novel about a human that changes sex and lives forever. What you got? Nothing. That's what. Movie is pretty great, too. I heart Tilda Swinton. Slicing at the heads of Moors is awesome.

6. The Bible by God. This one is pretty spectacular. I like the Psalms, the Apocrypha, and Revelations the best. John is also very terrific. Don't overlook it, even if you aren't a True Believer. It's great literature. "And on her forehead was a name written: 'I am a symbol of great Babylon, the mother of the harlots and of the abominations of the earth.'" I prefer the King James version.

7. The Things They Carried by Tim O'Brien. So wonderful. Took him 20 years after the war to be ready to write it. My favorites are "Sweetheart of the Song Tra Bong" and "How to Tell a True War Story." The book is 20 years old this year. Happy birthday, The Things They Carried.

8. American Psycho by Bret Easton Ellis. I like to think of my novel as a 21st century American Psycho. Or "Boogie Nights" meets "The Bourne Identity." Or "The Sisterhood of the Traveling Pants 2" meets "Terminator." It's not easy to write a book that speaks of its time in its time. I should know. As did Melville.

9. As I Lay Dying by William Faulkner. The Addie part where there's a space on the page? That's some écriture féminine right there. Leave it to the man from Mississippi to put Hélène Cixous to shame. If you liked Yoknapatawpha County, if you loved Caddy Compson, if you can't get enough of the great, sprawling, brawling Mississippi River, read this book.

10. The Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe by C. S. Lewis. This was the book of my childhood. Writing is looking for portals to other worlds in the backs of wardrobes for the rest of your life. Don't end up hanging in one if you can't find Narnia. Being a writer isn't an easy job, but, dammit, somebody's got to do it.

Your video remix

Maybe you follow me on Twitter? Maybe you do not. Either way, here are some fine videos that I've tweeted lately. Some are happy. Some are sad. Some are scary. Some will make you want to dance. Some will make you want to take a photograph. Hopefully, one of them will make you want to do something.

Above: U900 does "Diamond Head." I'm dating the lead ukulele player, but "carrying on" with the other guy. I like him because he's the "bad" one.

My buddy Alex Jablonsky and his partner Michael Totten have created another installment of their Sparrow Songs project. This time, it's "The Puppet Maker." It freaked me owwwt.

Xeni does not use the "n" word.

Man-about-the-street Bill Cunningham says men are the new sex objects, and Bill knows shit.

This is a terrible video, but I can't stop listening to the song. Brian Jonestown Massacre does "Anenome Amenome Anemomnuonme?." Or whatever it's called. Courtesy Kevin Depew.

"Nuit Blanche" broke my heart.

Back to Congo with Dr. Mukwege, who appears in my novel.

A photog goes raw dog.

You Write Like a Man

My best-friend, writer Lydia Netzer, weighs in on the latest literary feud: "The 'Best Books Of 2009' Controversy: Maybe Female Writers Just Aren't as Relevant as Men." So provocative that one.

Her post was inspired by this WaPo babble in which some chick-lit author named Julianna Baggott whines, and bellyaches, and tears down the drapes because there weren't enough women on some literary year-end list or the other. Basically, Baggott's point was that we only give credit to books written about manly themes. Like war. And something else that I can't remember. Probably violence. And if you're a lady writer who wants to get ahead, you have to not write about, like, vaginas, and pacifism, and how to bake bread. You have to write like a man. For a while, Baggott did that. Then she gave up and wrote chick lit or something. I am unclear. Whatever Baggott's life choices, they led her to bellyaching about book lists in the WaPo. Good one that.

Anyway, Netzer responds by pointing out with her characteristic endearing bluntness something along the lines of: "Tough titties, honey." Netzer tackles Chick Lit Author's attack of the lady-less list by wondering why the list features not-a-lot-of-women.

"The third possibility is more alarming than the others, because it is the simplest explanation, and therefore the most viable:

3. The list is right. The things that women write about are neither culturally nor historically significant, and the books that women write are not the best books."

Ha-ha! That is why I love her. She is never afraid to be an asshole.

"Maybe it's not about writing about 'man themes' but about human themes. Maybe it's not about pandering to the list, but evolving, as a gender, into people who address the important stuff, the big stuff: death, war, sex, adventure, as it pertains to women and men."

I, myself, am writing what Baggott would probably deem a "phallocratic" novel. It is nothing if not phallocentric. It is omniphallic, really. It's about a pornographer, it takes place inside of his head, and it is so inherently, relentless, obscenely misogynist that when Netzer read the first page of it, she opened her mouth and said one thing, and it was: "They are going to flay you alive." And by "they" she meant "feminists." Or, you know, "women." Or "people who like women."

Personally, I'd rather write like a man. After all, who would want to write like a woman? Then you'd never end up on a list.

Listicle

Over at The Frisky, we were asked to compile our best blog posts of 2009. So, in no particular order ...

How to Date a Tall Chick. This is basically a rewrite of a story I did for Details about a million years ago. Read it and weep.

10 Ways The Adult Movie Industry Can Save Itself From Premature Extinction. Funny title, no? I didn't think of it. This is sort of a tongue-in-cheek piece. The answer: ROBOTS.

Has Feminism Gone Too Far? Someone on some other blog wrote that I write a post like this a couple times a year. True! This is my favorite comment: "Ugh Susana Breslin drives me up the wall. Every time I read one her posts I want to throw something. I want to take her to the School of Logical Thinking Where Not Everything Is Totally About Susana Breslin." Do I get a scholarship if I agree to go?

The Top 20 Worst Pick-Up Lines Ever. This post is actually pretty funny and only exists because it was ripped off the comments for a post that Wendy did. My favorite: "Can I push your stool in?" Heh.

Think Porn Is Empowering? Think Again. It’s Not That Simple. More pr0n, but pr0n and women. Way to diversify, Susannah.

10 Things Guys Should Do on a First Date. Is there anyone less qualified to write this post? Hm? Wot? No? I didn't think so.

Meet The Frisky Crew At Work! I wandered around and took pics of the broads I work with. Enjoy.

Frisky Q&A: An Interview With Tattooed Lady, Lawyer, Author And Blogger Marisa Kakoulas. I interviewed the divine Miss Marisa, queen of Needles and Sins. The other day, we had dinner. She is tiny, but, man, she will bend you to her will. I was but a sapling to her hurricane-force winds.

Frisky Q&A: Tucker Max Talks “I Hope They Serve Beer in Hell,” Feminism, Sex, And Why He Loves Women. Don't be jealous.

When Celebrities and Porn Stars Do It. I got one word for you kids: linkbait.

Indefensible

Yesterday, I came across "Lehrer's Rules" via Chris Bishop's Twitter:

"I promise you, one thing is never going to change. And that's our mission. People often ask me if there are guidelines in our practice of what I like to call MacNeil/Lehrer journalism. Well, yes, there are. And here they are:"

Reading over Lehrer's rules, I realized I had failed at all of them.

Do nothing I cannot defend. I think pretty much everything I've done, professionally and personally, is indefensible. From writing about pr0n to nodding vacantly at the woman who asked if I minded if she went and smoked crack in the bathroom to the fact that journalism is inherently traitorous, it's hard to think of anything I've ever done that I could defend. Which probably makes for less work. Defending things, that is.

Cover, write and present every story with the care I would want if the story were about me. Ha-ha. Eh, no. God forbid anyone ever writes a story about me. One of my favorites, and by favorites I mean "favorites," was a story someone wrote about me entitled: "Who the Fuck Is Susannah Breslin?" While I try and write the "truth," I would hope stories written about me would be a heady cocktail of flattering lies.

Assume there is at least one other side or version to every story. As Candice Bergen once said to me: "Well, duh." Of course, this is the problem of every story. The convenience is believing your story is the truerest one.

Assume the viewer is as smart and as caring and as good a person as I am. Wow. Not sure how to touch this one with a 20-foot pole. Am I "caring" and "good"? The negation of that sort of destroys the premise upon which this, um, theory is based. Next?

Assume the same about all people on whom I report. But what about all the idiots?

Assume personal lives are a private matter, until a legitimate turn in the story absolutely mandates otherwise. How very Rockwellian. How 1952. Welcome to 2009, buddy. "Assume personal lives are a public matter, until someone sues you." One exception to the rule: kids. I met a lot of pr0n star's kids, and don't think I ever wrote about them. They are collateral damage. Why add to the disaster?

Carefully separate opinion and analysis from straight news stories, and clearly label everything. Maybe if I had one of those old school labeling guns, I could work on this. Also, "straight news stories" are super boring. Opinion is like gun powder. Watch it go bang.

Do not use anonymous sources or blind quotes, except on rare and monumental occasions. Well, that's no fun.

No one should ever be allowed to attack another anonymously. Then why do I keep getting all these hate-emails?

And, finally, I am not in the entertainment business. Ah, yes. Well, I am. Or, perhaps we both are, Jim, and I'm the only one who will admit it.

In any case, I fail. I'll try harder in 2010. Or maybe not.