The Reason I Liked Mission: Impossible -- Rogue Nation

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Does It Come in Pink?

Does it come in pink? #guns

"Does it come in pink? #guns"

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Ex Machina Rules

I really enjoyed "Ex Machina." Very weird! Very beautiful. A gorgeous house. A transparent robot. A man who becomes unsure if he's human or droid. The mad scientist fucks with their heads. My favorite scene was a nod to that scene in that "Alien" movie when the created meets its previous manifestations. Creeepyyyy. Also: It's a lovely homage to the ruthlessness of women, manufactured or not. See it if you like minimalism, machines, and mindfucking.

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How to Paint Your Spirit Animal

SPIRIT ANIMAL. #paintyourpet

"SPIRIT ANIMAL. #paintyourpet"

I went to a painting class called Paint Your Pet. I can't paint. I have a pet. The way it goes, you send in a photo of your pet beforehand, and then someone sketches the outline of your pet, and then you show up for the painting class. That way, your pet doesn't look like an alien blob. We were instructed to paint the background first. I did mine: blue and green. Then I looked around and saw that almost everyone else had a blue and green background. Initially, I'd wanted to paint the background jet black, but I hadn't. Now I was sorry. Then it was time to paint the body. So I painted part of the dog's body black. (The dog isn't black.) I didn't like that. Now I had a boring background and a black dog. So I took a bunch of black paint and a bunch of red paint, and I swirled them together, and I painted everything on the canvas other than the dog's eyes, and nose, and tongue this color. At some point, the instructor came by and indicated that what I had done was wrong. I got the sense that he thought what I had done was bad. He didn't like what I had done, I surmised. So I told him something like this is where I was going, so I was going to go there. He didn't really say anything, or maybe he said something; I don't remember. It seemed like I had to wait forever to do the eyes, and the nose, and the tongue, but when I did them, I made the dog have crazy red eyes, and a swirly orange noise, and a weirdly pink tongue. By now, the instructor was avoiding me. Everyone else had followed the directions. I guess they had taken the assignment of painting your pet literally. They had nice looking paintings, but I was unaware what it was they were trying to represent. Sometimes in my fiction, a crazed black dog with wild eyes and a lolling tongue will present itself, and I guess that's what I was trying to paint. I was trying to be creative. I think I succeeded.

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The Gambler

From my latest on Forbes:

Crack provides more instant relief and for me a more “fun” immediate high, but poker offers a broader satisfaction — and the high that comes with the potential of making money. Really, poker offers an entire framework for a constant flow of micro-highs and micro-lows in a well-lit, legal environment.

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A New Look

When I was in New York in June, I had the happy opportunity to be photographed by my photographer friend Clayton Cubitt. Maybe you read about him in Vanity Fair, or maybe you've seen his sexy popular Hysterical Literature videos, or maybe you dig his Instagram. He lives in a Brooklyn bento box with his cool girl KT. In any case, he shot a photo of me which is the new background for this website and the photo you see here. I picked this one because I think it represents how I feel most of the time: thinking too hard about something.

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I Went to a Guntry Club

My latest on my Forbes blog: "Welcome to the Guntry Club, Where There's a Boardroom and a Shooting Range."

The Alamo is one of three firearms stores and gun ranges (two in Florida, one in Kentucky) owned by Robert Marcum’s Lotus Gunworks. What he’s selling at The Alamo: Gun Culture 2.0. Once upon a time, Gun Culture 1.0 was about shooting ducks with your dad. Today, a new generation of firearm owners is more diverse than homogeneous, more interested in self-defense than hunting deer, more likely to be a tattooed urban-dweller than an “Elmer Fudd.” As Creighton sees it, we’re living in an era focused on “personal empowerment,” and guns are one way people are choosing to empower themselves. Think: the Apple store — with bullets. For Gun Owners 2.0, “It’s no longer about food,” he says. “It’s about protecting what matters to me.”

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Reign of Productivity Terror Advances Unabated

I don't know anything about this book other than that I like the cover.

Yesterday, I worked productively on the next work of fiction I'll be selling online.

Today, I was, unbelievably, productive again.

With two days of productivity in a row, one might long to believe anything is possible.

BUT IS IT??

Wednesday will reveal if this madness can be sustained.

I'm up to about 3,000 words, I think.

What I Did This Time

1. I was more rigid in my scheduling
2. I wrote in the morning
3. I pretended someone was channeling words through me
4. I tolerated the voices saying it was awful
5. Afterwards, I went to Pilates

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The End of Failure

Notes to self. #writing #fiction #failure

"Notes to self. #writing #fiction #failure"

After three reports of failure (one, two, three), I was finally able to stop failing and start working on the next short story that I'll be selling online.

How I Stopped Being an Idiot and Started Being Productive

1. I read the last short story I sold online, THE TUMOR
2. I checked my Gumroad sales on THE TUMOR (114 sales, $663.50 revenue)
3. I read "Joe Gould's Teeth" by Jill Lepore in the New Yorker ("We all spend our lives chasing into darkness.")
4. I looked at the drafts of other stories I'd started and not finished (one we'll call S, one we'll call H, one we'll call P)
5. I emailed Lydia Netzer ("It is ASTONISHING how talented I am.")
6. I walked the dog (it was raining)
7. I listed three qualities of THE TUMOR ("scary, smart, surreal")
8. I added seven more ("disconcerting, weird, uncomfortable-making, troubling, twistedly delightful, original, naughty")
9. I thought about how when cats are preparing to jump, they dance their paws in place really fast before taking off (see: Supercat)
10. I wrote a list of the stories that I had worked on and what was wrong with them ("too stiff," "one joke like 'SNL' skit," "no, gross")
11. I read "The Really Big One" by Kathryn Schulz in the New Yorker ("Then the wave will arrive, and the real destruction will begin.")
12. I watched "Ex Machina"
13. I went to bed
14. The following morning, I listed the options of the different stories that I could work on and decided on P ("interested me bc seemed something new")
15. At 8:41 AM, I opened the document that contained P and began working on it
16. I was listening to Black Rebel Motorcycle Club's "Some Kind of Ghost" ("Pain, they say every name got a page")
17. By the end of the day, I had a 2,010-word working draft (the finished draft will likely be between 7,500 and 10,000 words, which I ambitiously would like to have completed by this Friday, July 31)

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Loser, Baby

So far, two days, one and two, of public self-shaming have failed to prompt me to get back to writing the next short story I'm going to sell online.

Things I Did That Were Not Working On The Story

1. Went to the beach
2. Ate BBQ
3. Wrote a Forbes post about porn stars voting for Hillary Clinton and Marco Rubio
4. Slept
5. Drove around in the car
6. Did Pilates!
7. Watched the sun set
8. Thought about the story but didn't open the .doc
9. Considered opportunistic synergies
10. Bought a yak pop for the dog

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Don't Do It

Pots. #bonitasprings #florida

"Pots. #bonitasprings #florida"

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Days of Failure

Despite my public self-flagellation yesterday, I failed to work on the next short story I'll be selling online. As long as I continue to fail to do something as simple as opening up a .doc and moving around some words, I'll be publicly shaming myself for it.

Reasons I Didn't Work on My Short Story

1. I was busy
2. Other things happened
3. I had to exercise and exercise is more important
4. I feel overwhelmed
5. I don't get what it's about
6. The way it is is wrong and I should do it another way that I thought of but can't remember
7. Short stories are stupid
8. Writing is stupid
9. Writing, why do I do it?
10. It's about robots and I don't know anything about robots
11. I don't know what the end is
12. I shouldn't self-publish
13. I'll do it when I'm ready
14. I have to go do something else right now but I'll come back to it later
15. I bet it's worse than I thought
16. I'm so behind, why bother
17. My mind is blank
18. I'm better at non-fiction
19. I should turn it into a novel
20. The dog needs a walk
21. I'm hungry

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Kill Your Terribles

Oops sorry. #guns #2A #target

"Oops sorry. #guns #2A #target"

I have been terrible about finishing the next short story I'm going to sell online. It's really terrific, and it needs to be finished. I will finish writing it tomorrow.

How to Make Yourself Finish Things

1. Public humiliation
2. Shame
3. Embarrassment
4. Self-doubt
5. Listicles

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Am Blogging

I'm working on two new posts for my Forbes blog. One is about the adult industry. One is about guns. Please keep an eye out for them.

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Fun Day

Another day on the job. I smell like gunpowder and AR sweat. #journalism #guns #firearm #gun #ar #amnotwritingamshooting

"Another day on the job. I smell like gunpowder and AR sweat. #journalism #guns #firearm #gun #ar #amnotwritingamshooting"

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Vanity Fair Does Hysterical Literature

Amazing! A terrific profile of Clayton Cubitt and collaborator Katie James on "Hysterical Literature": "I'll Read What She's Reading." Writer Toni Bentley had the balls to do it herself.

Eight feet from the front edge of the table was Cubitt’s camera on a tripod. It would remain stationary for the entire session, no shaky hand-held camera work for this particular project: just a single, head-on P.O.V. It was left to Katie to do the hand-held work under the table with what Cubitt calls her “paintbrush,” a Hitachi Magic Wand vibrator—also known as “Big Buzzy.” “I think she’s the actual artist involved,” says Cubitt. “I just press Record and stand back.”

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Pilates

I've been getting more into Pilates lately and have been seeing and feeling a difference which is cool. At home, I sometimes do this Pilates DVD with Brooke Siler. You don't need any special equipment for it, and the fact that she's built like a stalk of asparagus is inspiring.

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The Wolfpack

"The Wolfpack" is such a strange movie that I had a hard time watching it. It's about a set of boy siblings, and the family that keeps them locked in a Manhattan apartment. Eventually, they venture outside. It's a documentary. I vacillated between enjoying the film's refusal to be a traditional by the book documentary and feeling annoyed with its refusal to spell everything out for me. It's more like an art film, in a way, an assemblage. Still, it's very peculiar -- you kind of wonder: Do I want to see this? Sometimes, I wasn't so sure. What's happened is distressing, yet you almost feel at times like director Crystal Moselle doesn't want to look at that dead on, but instead in passing glances. The parents are a mess. The reenactments of films the boys undertake to escape their confines is intriguing; the final film within a film is probably the most beautiful thing in it. I'm not sure what else is. The boys graduate from their prison childhoods, and it's very sweet to see them seeing their first movie in a movie theater, but the viewer remains a spectator, far removed from whatever happened on the LES.

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Yeah, I Got a T-Shirt

Master Bait & Tackle #florida #Naples #masturbate

"Master Bait & Tackle #florida #Naples #masturbate"

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The Art of Titles

Sure, it's only July, but I've decided "Oh Lord, Won't You Buy Me A Maserati" is my best title of 2015. It came to mind after reading "The Story Behind Janis Joplin's 'Mercedes Benz.'"

Janis and I were giggling and showing off a bit in front of Rip and Geraldine. The alcohol wasn’t meant to do anything except keep us laughing in that bar, but it assumed control, and the result was “Mercedes Benz.” I figured that what we were doing there was just an exercise to impress Rip and Geraldine and pass the time. Nothing more.

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