In a moribund economy, many people are considering jobs they’d never thought of. But becoming a traumascene medical-waste practitioner may not be for everyone. Taking a hands-on approach is one way to find out.
By Harmon Leon

When a person is shot in the head and his or her cerebellum splatters against a bedroom wall, the brains are very hard to clean off the surface. Popcorn ceilings are the worst—matter gets stuck inside the crevices. Brains are composed of 12 percent fat (essentially, they’re cholesterol), which hardens when it dries. The brains I’m cleaning have been here just a few hours, so I can only imagine the difficulty of the task if the substance had been lingering for weeks.

“You have to rehydrate it,” David O’Brien explains to me and his other attentive pupils, who are dressed in matching white blood-borne pathogen jumpsuits. “Applying a high-grade industrial disinfectant kills numerous viruses and pathogens, as well as rehydrates it for easy removal.”

For the past eight years, O’Brien has been a crime- and trauma-scene cleaner, decontaminating toxic locations of grisly murders, suicides, and meth labs, as well as gross-filth hoarder homes. O’Brien got the idea to venture into this industry after overhearing a friend who had worked as a body transporter at a crematorium speaking about the horrific mess that the family is left to deal with after the police, paramedics, coroner, and medical examiner leave. These days O’Brien not only does the job, but also conducts a hands-on training academy, Crime and Trauma Scene Decontamination Training Academy (CTS-Decon-Training- Academy.com), for those who want to become certified and learn the finer points of being a traumascene biohazardous-medical-waste practitioner.

“Someone’s got to do it,” O’Brien says offhandedly, but he takes his work seriously. He’s not a fan of the film Sunshine Cleaners, for instance. “That’s a joke,” he scoffs. “They pull a mattress out of a crime scene and trip over it.” In real life a bloody mattress is a biohazard—a pro will don protective gear and cut up the contaminated material into 12- to 14-inch squares, then layer it into a medical-waste container lined with a red biohazard bag. O’Brien stresses, “I treat everything as if it’s potentially infectious. This is not a joke; this is deadly.”

He tells me of a $40,000 gig he accepted when an unnamed Hollywood starlet passed away. The flies from the deceased’s premises ended up transmitting biohazardous contamination throughout the condo below hers—requiring decontamination of the downstairs as well. Then there was the $28,000 job in a house inhabited by an elderly lady who’d kept dozens of cats; when she was found, her felines were eating her and there was a severe case of animal defecation and urination everywhere. “It took two weeks to clean up,” O’Brien recalls. “For six years, those cats were using the whole house as a conlitter box. You know, I love jobs where there’s shit up to my knees; they pay the best.”

Eight of us are gathered for O’Brien’s crime-scene-cleaning class in the backyard of a house that literally smells of death, in a gated community in a Las Vegas suburb. O’Brien rents the house for the hands-on train ing from a woman who found his advertisement online; she wanted the extra money to pay her mother’s medical bills. O’Brien’s crew has splattered the bedrooms and bathroom with animal blood, and littered the house with live, crawling maggots.

“Wait until you get to that famous pillow!” Tim (a former student) grins. He’s a decontamination specialist from New England. “Amber’s in there playing with the maggots.” Amber (also a former student) already has a crime-scene-cleaning business in Virginia—she’s here with some of her employees to get advanced training from O’Brien. But at the moment, all I can think about is exactly what might be in the “famous pillow.” What horrors have been concocted for us?

We suit up outside by the garage, ready to take on the faux crime scene. I zip up my white jumpsuit: size XXXXL, which adds mobility and prevents the crotch from ripping when squatting down to wipe up splat tered brain matter. Sleeves are duct-taped to the wrists. Respirators are tested on each and every student to ensure that there are no air gaps, and that the student cannot smell any thing at all. A triple layer of gloves is put on. (If your cellphone rings, the top glove can easily be taken off so the phone can be answered without contaminating it.) Our eight-person crew looks like a merry band of profusely sweating Stay Puft marshmallow men. We spend 20 min utes strenuously working, with a 10-minute break to avoid overheating—just as we would on a real job.

“How do you mentally prepare for a real-life crime-scene job?” I ask.

Amber answers as she emerges from behind a closed door. “Maggots do a number on me—I pretend they’re caterpillars,” she says with a charming smile. “Nothing can really mentally prepare you for the real thing. When we enter a crime/trauma scene, a majority of the time we can see visible traces of where the body was.”

Whether you’re mentally prepared or not, there’s no disguising what the work entails. “When a body expands from gases and blows up, you get all the gas, skin, hair, the matter, everywhere,” O’Brien explains. “You pull up to the house and flies are already all over your car.”

Amber talks about one job she did that “had urine bottles everywhere. The tub and toilet were filled with human waste. It was hard as a rock from sitting there for so many months. [Pause] That stuff is disgusting.”

But there are rewards: “You’re going to feel like you know these people because you’re cleaning their stuff,” Amber says, regarding cleaning up a family’s house after a murder or suicide. “They’ll thank you with tears in their eyes.”

“You find crazy stuff on suicide cleanups,” Tim adds. Which reminds O’Brien to advise the class not to wear perfume or cologne on the job so families will not associate that scent “with their 14-year-old son who blew his head off with a shotgun.”

Finally we enter the contaminated house, moving from the cold zone to the hot zone: the biohazardous bedrooms and bathroom. The strong blood stench wafts through the suburban home. With gallows humor, O’Brien proclaims, “I smell money!”

Like a pack of white Smurfs, we tromp through the place. O’Brien explains that the smell should last only for about two days or less … depend ing on how fast we remove the source. The homeowner takes a whiff of the horrendous odor now permeating her home. With forced optimism and a weak smile, she says, “It’s not so bad this time; there have been other classes conducted here that were a lot worse than this.”

O’Brien swings open the bedroom door. Inside it looks like a Manson Family reunion. Fake brains—composed of animal tissue—are thickly splattered all over the walls and ceiling. An elaborate Jackson Pollock– style spattering of animal blood is everywhere. The beds are soaked in dry red residue. Maggots squirm on the bed and floor. The stench— murky and thick—goes straight to my watering eyes. I quickly start breathing through my mouth.

“Always be aware of your surroundings,” O’Brien commands. “This is what it smells like after a few hours. Imagine what it smells like after a few weeks. The smell will get up into your mucous membranes and stay there for two weeks; every time you belch you will taste it,” he says. “I want you to really smell it,” he stresses. “If anyone feels the least bit woozy— stop. I want you to take a break. No matter how gruesome this is, nothing will prepare you for the real thing.” Then, gesturing to a box in the corner: “Unhook that bag. Hold that container up.”

We uncomfortably shift our feet as the Christmas surprise is unwrapped. Inside are brown remnants of a crusty pillow—the famous pillow. This head cushion was taken from an actual crime/trauma scene, from under the cranium of a deceased prostitute who had numerous viruses.

“I want you to get familiar with the smell,” O’Brien says, as we line up to take a whiff. “It’s the smell of death and [you need to] know how to identify it.”

“Yeah, we’re good,” says one guy, quickly backing away. The group teams up to clean the two blood- and brain-stained bedrooms and the blood-sprayed bathroom. “Cut up the mattress with a utility knife,” O’Brien says. “Wherever you see blood, cut it out.”

The high-grade disinfectant spray—which kills every germ known to humanity—makes me sneeze inside my respirator mask. Apparently I do not have it on properly.

One of Amber’s employees looks physically distraught as he sprays the bloody walls, then makes light circular motions with a paper towel—the best technique to remove body fluids. Meanwhile, his cheery wife makes her way to the biohazard bags. “Whoops, I dropped some brains,” she says.

On day two, everyone shows up promptly at 8:45 A.M. While suiting up, O’Brien starts asking questions about the OSHA standards on touching blood-borne pathogens. He continues to question students as the carpets and padding are cut up and the walls and ceilings are decontaminated and cleaned. (Students will be required to complete a final exam that consists of 165 questions and five essay questions.)

Then, after lunch, they clean up all the equipment and the biohazard containers, and, before a lesson in odor remediation, a ladder is set in place just below the ventilation duct, and the filters are removed and disposed of before an ozone generator is set up to clean the air.

“I have every single photo of every single incident—180 photos per scene,” O’Brien says as I wade through maggots, the blood stench permeating my every pore and hair. “This is a good job—for the right people.

“There’s nothing glamorous about this; we’re not looking for fame. We’re here to help the distraught. At their worst moment in life, we are literally their knights in shining armor.”

If it weren’t for the tanking economy, it’s doubtful many of these wannabe knights would be at the training. But, as one guy from a mainstream cleaning operation in Kansas City tells me, his company chose to expand its services after being asked to clean up after a man who was gunned down at a bus stop.“We didn’t know how to do that,” he says. “That’s why we came out here. It’s a really good time to get into this business.”

Jon Roberts’s life story is so remarkable that when you hear it, you’re bound to think, Why haven’t I heard of this person before?

Unless you saw the 2006 documentary Cocaine Cowboys, you haven’t heard of him—and even if you have seen that doc, you know only half of Roberts’s epic story. For starters, he came into this world not as Jon Pernell Roberts, but as Jon Riccobono—son of Nat Riccobono and nephew of Sam and Joe, notorious Mafia capos with roots stretching to the 1930s, Murder Inc., and Lucky Luciano. As Evan Wright, who cowrote Roberts’s recent memoir, American Desperado, puts it, Roberts “was born a Mafia blue blood.” Schooled in sociopathic ruthlessness by his father, who once murdered a stranger over a traffic dispute in front of a seven-year-old Jon, Roberts took those lessons and expanded them in the course of a bloody criminal career that included a stint as an assassin in Vietnam, an extralegal New York City nightclub entrepreneur, one of the chief American cocaine importers for the Medellín cartel, and an arms smuggler for the CIA (really).

American Desperado details these bullet points on the Roberts résumé, along with hundreds of astounding anecdotes from his life of crime involving a rogues’ gallery of prominent politicians, celebrities, outsize thugs, famous athletes, and iconic entertainers. Roberts owned multiple homes, raised racehorses, dated models and wannabe actresses (including Toni Moon, whose claim to fame is the poster for the forgotten Ryan O’Neal movie So Fine), and, in the late 1980s, escaped “the life” with a slap-on-the-wrist jail sentence and no credible enemies.

Today Roberts is 64 and a free man living in South Florida with his wife, Neomi, and his 11-year old son, Julian. He’s free, but he does have a death sentence hanging over his head: Roberts has stage IV cancer and is in the midst of chemotherapy. That was one impetus for the book and subsequent movie deal (through Paramount, with Friday Night Lights’ Peter Berg slated to direct)—Roberts wants to provide for his son and wife before he dies.

We spoke to him after a chemo session this past fall. He told us about the credo he learned from his father, the movies that get crime right, and waterskiing with Jimi Hendrix.

Early in your memoir, you mention how your father taught you that evil is stronger than good. Was that something he said to you, or did you just formulate it from watching him in action?
Well, you know, you’re a young kid—five, six years old—and you’re not real sure as to where things are going. But then he shows you things. For example, my mother would tell him to take me to school. We’d get in the car and then we wouldn’t go to school. I started to see that his whole belief system and feelings in life were totally different than other people’s. I saw so many different things go down.

Then, after I saw my father kill the guy, and just push the car away, I didn’t believe that he was wrong. You know? Pretty hard.

The guy from that incident was just a random motorist, not a gangster, right?
Right. [On a one-lane bridge] in Jersey. I would see the way my father handled people and what he would do to people. And I never really saw any repercussions come back to him.

There’s another scene early in the book when you’re introduced at a Miami Heat game as one of the “Cocaine Cowboys,” and you get a big round of applause. Why do you think people cheered you like that?
Well, listen: I don’t know what everyone’s told you, but I’m not out here doing this because I want to be the most famous guy in the world. I’m doing this because I want my wife and my son to benefit. But when I go out to the Heat games, Miami being what it is, with all the [hip-hop stars]—they judge who is a real gangster and where they came from. I go in the ’hood, they get down in the street and bow to me. You know, like, Here’s the real gangster.

There’s an unbelievable cast of real-life characters and stories in AmericanDesperado, but if I had to pick one favorite line, it might be this: “I had some good times with Jimi [Hendrix], but he was a disaster on water skis.” Can you tell our readers about that?
Yeah. [Laughs] We used to rent a house on Fire Island every year. Me and my partner Andy would bring our Dobermans out there in the seaplane. Jimi used to come out—he’d come out for one weekend, two weekends, sometimes he’d stay for the whole month, and never leave, because he was so fucked up. He would see us water-ski, and eventually I told him, “Come on, come on, you’re gonna learn how to water-ski.” So after this and after that, he didn’t even hardly know where he was, so he had no problem: “Let’s go do it.” We took him out, aaand, he was, wow—he was something else. He was something else. But, the best music I ever heard.

Albert San Pedro, a Cuban gangster in Miami, was an obviously unhinged individual, yet he had several politicians and influential people in his pocket in the 1980s. How did that happen?
When the Cubans, the refugees, and everybody started coming over here, they went into a particular piece of Miami, which is called Calle Ocho. They made this their Little Havana. And the most powerful Cubans—because the Cubans believed in force—that’s who they got to run that city for them. Albert was one of them, and he had clout. He was a very paranoid, brutal man who had deals all over. He bought his own aunt’s house next door, and burned it to the ground because he wanted to expand his own house. So that gives you an idea of what he was like. He was not a very stable man. Unpredictable.

Speaking of unpredictable, is it true that the cougar you kept in your house once attacked the legendary jockey Angel Cordero Jr.?
From the back, yeah. We bought a cougar when it was a little baby. I built a cage that adjoined the house, and we used to let her go in and out of the bedroom by herself. She grew to be 150 pounds. My house backed up to the farm where we trained the horses, so I used to have the jockeys come up before a big race and stuff. They all wanted to see the cougar, but I warned them, “She’s gonna think that she’s bigger than you, so don’t turn your back, because she will try to take you down.” And that’s exactly what happened with Angel. [The cat was declawed at the time, and Cordero was not seriously injured.]

You had your hand in so many different enterprises, but until your 1986 arrest, you avoided significant jail time. How did you manage that?
Well, in New York, I had a connected lawyer. A Jewish kid who was the clerk of the main judge in Bergen County. In Miami, I was partners with Danny Mones, and he was an attorney—a very, very corrupt attorney. He was raised by Meyer Lansky’s stepson. They put him through college. Every year, Danny would buy a table at the University of Miami; they would have [an “honorary dinner”] for the judges of Dade County and Broward County. Danny would buy a table, and I would have to chip in. But that pretty much ensured you that, you know, Okay, what do you have? [As in, legal issues.] This is what I have. Okay, don’t worry about it. And it would be taken care of.

What movies or TV shows about crime get it right, in your opinion?
I like Goodfellas and Casino. As far as TV shows, I watched The Sopranos for a while because it was very entertaining. The terminology that they used was pretty much the terminology you used in the street. I watched this new show Boardwalk Empire, and I really didn’t know much about that crew at all. The other show I watched which I used to really like was called The Gangster Chronicles.

If your ex Toni Moon reads this book, how much of it will be new to her? How much will she know?
Oh, she knows everything.

She does?
Yeah, but she’s another one that [in my opinion] turned out to be a real piece of garbage. Soon as the money stopped coming her way, you know—it’s my fault. Everything is my fault. Even though I built her a second house, I left her a bunch of horses, and, you know, you just find out in life, man, you’re by yourself.

What do you want people to take away from this book?
I want my son to realize that [he] is not me. My son is not prepared to spend ten years in a jail cell. He will have every chance in life to get ahead with what I’m preparing and doing for him. And I can’t twist his arm, put his head in, and make him drink it, but I certainly can try to make him understand what it’s about. I hope to benefit, monetarily wise, to where he’s comfortable, and my wife is comfortable. I want to give them some kind of peace in their minds, which obviously I will never be able to give to myself.

What’s the status of your current illness?
I have stage IV cancer, terminal cancer. I’ve been fighting it for two and a half years. I went in the hospital and they told me I was never gonna get out, to make all the preparations. I [used to] constantly work out—I was 180 pounds, and I went to 120, I could hardly get out of bed. Finally I said, “Either I’m gonna get the fuck out of the bed and beat this, or they’re gonna take me.” And I just started taking little walks. It’s not by any means in remission. But … I’m here. But [the cancer] is everywhere. I don’t have a rectum anymore. My glands are gone. My lungs, my kidneys…. Most people there don’t even understand how I’m walking around. That’s the big joke in the hospital—how I could still be alive.

Willpower goes a long way, huh?
It’s all in your head, and—listen, I think I stated it in the book, but I believe in the devil more than I do God. Staying in that hospital and seeing five and six-year-old little kids going through what I’m going through has given me more belief. What did they do wrong? Maybe I deserve it, but they sure don’t.

I have been a cruise director for the past 11 years, and it’s my job to make sure that everyone has a great time on the ship. It can be challenging trying to remember the names and faces of all the passengers and crew, but there have been a few special women whom I know I’ll never forget.

“Tara” was one of the ensemble performers on the ship. She was a petite redhead with fair skin, and very attractive with a sweet, innocent, heart-shaped face. Since I’m in charge of all the ship’s entertainment, I get to know the performers really well, and Tara had been flirting with me for some time. Then, on the last night of an Alaskan itinerary, she pulled me aside just outside the midnight celebration that the passengers were enjoying. She was still in costume, and her large breasts spilled out of the top of her Vegas showgirl getup.

Taking me by the hand, she led me out onto one of the decks. Since it was cold outside, we were the only ones around. Without saying anything, she unzipped my white dress trousers, pulled out my cock, and began stroking it. Of course this got me hard instantly. I took the opportunity to do what I’d been thinking about doing for a long time—I put my face between her huge tits and pulled down her bra top, pinching and kissing her pretty pink nipples until she started to squirm. “Let me fuck you,” I whispered. “Not yet,” she said, wetting her hand with saliva and increasing the speed of her stroke. Tara looked me right in the eye as she worked my cock, which made me even more excited. When she reached down and caressed my balls with her other hand, I couldn’t hold off any longer. I came right in her hand, sighing with the release. Without missing a beat, Tara put her palm to her mouth and lapped up every last drop of my come. We made plans to meet later that night in her cabin so I could return the favor.

On every cruise, passengers are required to attend a safety drill. One morning, I noticed a beautiful young woman at my muster station. She was giggling at a couple of the other passengers, and I warned her to take the drill more seriously. She told me that her name was “Elana” and apologized for making light of the drill. That evening I spotted her in one of the lounges. She had changed into a very revealing black cocktail dress. Feeling bold, I asked her if she was in need of a repeat of the safety drill. Reaching up and squeezing my shoulders, she said yes, she would like me to show her the proper way to put on the life vest.

An hour later, I knocked on the door to her stateroom with a vest in hand. “Since you weren’t paying attention the first time, I’d better show you step-by-step,” I said. Elana stood at attention as I undid the knot that was holding the top of her dress up. I let the straps fall, exposing her perky breasts. “Take it all the way off,” I directed. Elana stepped out of the dress, and aside from a pair of skyhigh heels, she was completely naked. Putting the vest over her head, I snapped it shut and pulled on the straps until they were as tight as they could go. Reaching down, I slipped two fingers into Elana’s slit, which was already very wet. She moaned as I bent down to bury my face in her pussy, and did her best to stand still as I darted my tongue around her clit. Pushing my fingers in and out of her little hole, I flicked my tongue directly at her clit until she shivered in orgasm. Pulling my fingers out of her, I put them in her mouth so she could taste herself. “Get on the bed, face down,” I commanded. Elana assumed my favorite position for fucking, and I removed the puffy orange vest so I could have full access to her tits. When I knew I was about to explode, I directed her to turn around and open her mouth. She swallowed everything, even licking my cock clean to get the last few drops.

One night, toward the end of a recent Alaskan voyage, I noticed there was a light on in the fitness center after-hours. I went inside and found “Emma,” a busty British natural ist who gave lectures on the ship, on one of the ellipticals. The front of her tank top was soaked with sweat, and she looked incredibly sexy. “I was thinking about taking a dip, want to join me?” she asked. I hesitantly followed her into the women’s locker room and watched as she stripped off her clothes. Pulling the chain lever on the shower next to the spa, she rinsed off her perfect body and then stepped into the hot tub. I wanted to join her, but I had a huge erection, which was slightly embarrassing. I got undressed any way, and Emma looked approvingly at my cock. I pulled her onto my lap and we kissed, but soon after, she got out of the water and toweled off. “We’ll have more fun next time,” she said with a wink. I’m not sure what will happen next, but you can bet I’m looking forward to embarkation day!

It’s hard to say whether or not Henry Ford had pigs in mind when he developed the Model T in 1908. But not too long after his first mass-produced vehicle rolled off the line at Ford’s Detroit, Michigan, Piquette Plant on September 27, 1908, a swine escaped from an Oregon farm, and two men began chasing the animal with cars that Ford built.

After a pursuit that probably should have been scored with a banjo, the men captured the renegade porker, and they enjoyed the experience so much they decided to make it an annual tradition. Their vehicular hog hunt blossomed, and will roll out its 87th installment in August 2012: Gentlemen, start your engines for the Tillamook County Fair Pig-N-Ford Races.

There may not be an event on the planet that so unexpectedly combines the sublime and the ridiculous. The latter part, of course, is a shoo-in, but there’s an evanescence to the races, and a dedication among the drivers that—along with their setting beneath a slate-gray sky on the Oregon coast—makes the event more than just the sum of its porcine, automotive, and human components.

For starters, there’s the dedication and skill required to maintain a car that has been out of production for longer than the average American life span. It’s more art than science, according to E. W. “Punk” Dunsworth, president of the Tillamook County Model T Pig-N-Ford Association (yes, that’s a real thing). “Those cars are tuned to perfection, I’ll tell you,” Dunsworth says. “Mostly by ear and feel.”

The Model Ts that run the Pig-NFord are stripped down, essentially a running gear with a seat on them. Twelve-volt batteries have replaced the magneto flywheel that powered the cars when they rolled off the assembly line. Despite the simplicity of the driving machine, they can and do break down, and, well, try finding parts for a Model T. “We had one guy break the crankshaft last year and it took him all year to come up with enough parts to rebuild it,” Dunsworth says. “You can’t call the parts store and say, ‘I need a crankshaft’ or ‘I need a piston.’ You have to locate them [yourself].” An out-of-commission owner must scour eBay for parts, or call one of the few old-timers around the country who has a supply.

What this means, of course, is that eventually wear, tear, and a lack of parts will bring the Pig-N-Ford races squealing to a halt. At some point, the Tillamook County Fair will have to go on without its signature event.

When that sad yet inevitable day will arrive is anyone’s guess, but one thing is certain: The fans won’t be happy about it. In 2010, more than 74,000 people (almost three times the population of Tillamook) attended the county fair. Many came specifically to see Pig-N-Ford. “One year, it rained during the horse-racing event that precedes the Pig-N-Ford. The fair officials didn’t want us on the track, so they forced us out of racing for a day,” Dunsworth says. “They got more than 1,200 calls asking why there was no Model T racing.”

Here’s what the people were clamoring for: At the start of the race, five drivers stand along the fence on the grandstand side of the Averill Arena horse-racing track, their Model Ts parked at the starting line. When the starter’s gun fires, the racers sprint across the width of the dirt track to a series of bins housing locally raised pigs weighing between 20 and 60 pounds. Each man plucks a porker from the bin assigned to his car, races back to his vehicle, crank-starts it while holding the animal, and then mounts up and tears off around the 1.25-mile loop, clutching his pig—not a euphemism—all the while. (We use the term “tears off” loosely, by the way; the Fords’ top speed is 45 miles per hour.)

After completing the oval, racers kill their engines, trade one pig for another, and repeat the process. If a racer drops his pig, he must go get it; drivers may not cross the line pigless. The first person to complete three laps wins. Races can last up to 15 minutes.

Think of it as a more concise, pigcentric alternative to NASCAR.

The Pig-N-Ford is a three-day event, with two races on Thursday and two on Friday; the semifinals and final take place on Saturday. Matt Walker, who inherited his car from his septuagenarian father, won the 2010 edition, earning a trophy and considerable bragging rights.

Dunsworth is as close to an official spokesman as the event has. As president of the Pig-N-Ford Association, the 72-year-old retired logger is responsible for calling the meetings, organizing the race, and ensuring that participants adhere to the bylaws designed to keep drivers safe. (Model T brakes are not exactly the stop-on-a-dime variety.) Dunsworth, who has been a member of the organization since 1958, competed in the race for 18 years, and he’s sort of the Buffalo Bills of the event, having come in second place five times. He no longer handles wheel (and pig) work, but Dunsworth still tunes his car with a buddy while another friend’s kid drives it. (Dunsworth’s own son lives too far away to inherit the family franchise.)

The Tillamook County Model T Pig-N-Ford Association knows how important its contribution is to the festival. The group is a close-knit one, consisting of 10 franchises, around 20 cars, and roughly 30 members. The fair organizers pay the club a fee for its efforts, and the money is split evenly among the men.

As we said, it’s a tradition that will inevitably go extinct, but as long as Dunsworth and the rest of the crew keep their mechanical wiles sharp and their crankshafts turning, the pigs will be grabbed, the dirt will be flying, and the races will continue—and we can keep wondering what Henry Ford would have thought of his most famous vehicle having a second life, hauling pigs around a dirt track along the Oregon coastline.

In Sexpot: The Marijuana Lover’s Guide to Gettin’ It On, from Quick American Archives, Skunk magazine cannabis columnist “Mamakind,” who is part of the growing “Stiletto Stoner” movement of young professional women who openly partake of the green, explains why adding pot to your sex life can take it to a much higher level.

Unlike alcohol, which can have disastrous effects on sexual performance, the negative effects of pot mixed with sex are few. “I did get a drooler,” she reports on her partners, “and I had someone fall asleep while receiving oral,” she says.

Among her sex tips is a recommendation that women try “pussy toking,” which she says is not only lots of fun but loosens everyone up. Who can’t help but point and laugh at someone taking a vaginal bong hit? “Whenever I do it,” she says, “people always seem to be eager to assist.”

Mamakind recommends that you smoke before, during, and after the sex act. Before is for total relaxation, during is to heighten the sensation, and after is to make each other laugh during the afterglow. “It’s better than smoking a cigarette,” she says.

One sexpot game she recommends is “Do me while I smoke this doobie,” where one person smokes while the other does all the work. “Pass the joint back and forth,” she suggests, “taking turns doing each other,” presumably until you’ve done every naughty sex act you can think of. “Pot is one of the few substances that both relaxes and excites you,” she says. “It increases your oxytocin levels,” the “feel good” hormones.

She also suggests a hybrid strain of the bud, such as Blueberry, which contains both indica, which relaxes your body, and sativa, which gives you a lift and takes you to an even happier place while you’re gettin’ it on. And the best varieties for a three some or an orgy? The two strains called “4 Way” and “Fucking Incredible,” of course.

The star of HLN’s Morning Express With Robin Meade thinks of herself as her viewers’ emotional guardian. “My job is to get you up and get you going on the right side of the bed,” says the ebullient TV journalist. One way she does that is by carefully choos ing the music that leads in and out of commercials, which sets a tone in the studio as well. Readers of her 2009 auto bio graphy, Morning Sunshine! How to Radiate Confidence and Feel It Too, know that Meade has triumphed over debilitating panic attacks that once threatened to sideline her career, and that she hummed songs just before her newscasts to tame her racing heart. But who knew the 42-year-old—voted sexiest newscaster by the online readers of a major men’s magazine in 2004—could also sing?

The proof arrives in Brand New Day, her first album, available exclusively on iTunes and in Target stores. The CD, which was produced by Victoria Shaw (Lady Antebellum), finds the Ohio native in a country frame of mind, with such big-name guests as Kix Brooks (formerly of Brooks & Dunn) and John Rich (of Big & Rich, and last season’s winner on Celebrity Apprentice) on duets and background vocals.

Meade isn’t about to bolt her anchor seat for a tour bus and a regular gig on the Grand Ole Opry, even though she was well-received during her recent debut. But the former beauty queen is as serious about her music as she is about her HLN duties, for which she has a rabid following. (Author Stephen King is a big fan.) And if she knows that a large percentage of male viewers tunes in as much for her décolletage as her delivery of world events, it doesn’t seem to bother her. “If you watch for a reason other than for information, I don’t care,” she says. “You can watch with the sound down. You might be watching from prison. It doesn’t matter, as long as you are watching.”

There aren’t a lot of singing news anchors. Why did you want to do this?
My passion kept leading me back to music. One of the first memories I have is of singing and learning music at church. And I kept having assignments in recent years that involved country music. It became known to us at HLN that Kenny Chesney watched the morning show when he wasn’t on tour, for example. So when he came to Atlanta, his record label said, “Why don’t you go out and interview him?” I interviewed him onstage as they were setting up and doing the sound check, and we just had a good time together. I picked up one of the guitars and was kind of plunkin’ on it, and he said something like, “What do I have to do to get you to come out onstage tonight with one of those guitars on?” I said, “Well, I don’t play the guitar, but I sing, so don’t ask me to come and sing, because I will.” And he said, “Come out then, and do the Uncle Kracker part on ‘When the Sun Goes Down.’ So I went home that afternoon and told Tim [Yeager], my husband, “Kenny’s probably just being nice, and he’ll forget about it tonight, but just in case, let’s make sure I learn the words.” And lo and behold, when it came time for that song, someone came and got me, and out I went and sang harmony with Kenny on a couple of rounds of the chorus. When I came offstage, my husband was astounded. He went, “You’re not right. That was 20,000 people, and it didn’t even faze you.” But my favorite part of the story is that Kenny ran offstage in between songs and said to me, “You can sang! You can really sang!” [Laughs] Which must be better than sing.

You were at the Country Music Association Music Festival this past summer. Did you sit in a booth and sign autographs and sell your CD?
I did. And it’s funny. I did it for four hours every day, which is a long time! Each day I’d be into that fourth hour going [voice dragging], “Why did I decide to do four hours?” But it was great, because some people said, “I didn’t know you were into music.”

A lot of country people have no social filter, for lack of a better term. Did you get any weird comments?
Yes. This one young man waited in line, and he had his camera, and he was kind of lingering when he should have been done. So I finally said, “Do you want a CD?” And he said, “Oh, no, I never buy music. I’ll find it on some website somewhere, and I’ll record it off a stream illegally.” He was going to steal it! And he told me that to my face. He didn’t even blink.

You recast Don Henley’s “Dirty Laundry” in bluegrass mode, which took guts, especially since you’re in the TV news business. Did you have any apprehension about doing that?
Only the night before the album dropped! I thought, Did I make sure that my bosses knew I was singing this song? Don Henley wrote it [with Danny Kortchmar] in the early eighties, and he must have been ticked at the news, buddy, because it totally rips a new one for the people who do the news and the kind of stories that get on the air. You know, “I make my living off the evening news/ Just give me something/ Something I can use/ People love it when you lose/ We love dirty laundry.” I guess some people think I’m making fun of the hand that feeds me. But in reality, it’s a tongue-in-cheek wink at what I do for a living. And when you look at the stories that caught our attention this year—the Casey Anthony trial, and Congressman Anthony Weiner, who liked to tweet his junk and then lie about it—the song still applies. That’s dirty laundry. We watch these stories because we’re all attracted to the human condition, even if it’s just to compare our own situation.

You cowrote half the album with some of the biggest songwriters in Nashville. What’s your favorite of those songs?
I like “Because You Think I Can,” because I wrote it about my husband. Keep in mind that I only see him on Friday night, Saturday for an entire day, and then half of Sunday. So when I took a weekend to go to Nashville, it was time away from him. When I first told him I was going to do this, instead of grousing about it, he just said, “Okay, let’s do it!” And it struck me that you can do more than you ever thought you could if someone believes in you. So I love the words to that song. However, vocally, I love “Put My High Heels On.” That’s a kick-butt song.

You and your husband keep incredibly different hours.
My husband and I joke that the reason our marriage has lasted a long time is because we rarely see each other. And it’s true. I go to bed at 6 or 7 P.M. He rarely gets home before eight o’clock, and then I’m up at 2:40 in the morning and I scoot off to work. But the good thing is, when I see him on the weekends, it’s almost like absence makes the heart grow fonder. So, for the single men who are reading this, give her space, but be there when she needs you. Just don’t be in her face all the time.

Do you have certain rituals before you go to sleep?
I do. First, I take a melatonin a half-hour before. Melatonin is a natural sleep supplement. There are no side effects except for a hand that grows out of your arse. Kidding! And I have a white-noise maker that drowns out sound. And usually, I’ll have water by the bed in case I get thirsty, and Carmex, because what if my lips get dried out? I don’t want to have to get up and totally wake up and ruin my sleep.

You seem unfailingly cheerful on the air. Do you have your down moments like the rest of us?
Yeah, Fridays. My husband calls them “Meany Meade Fridays,” because on that fifth day I’m cranky as all get-out from lack of sleep. I can usually take care of that with a glass of red wine. But I’m naturally an “up” person, but not to an annoying level, I hope. There are those people who are fake “up,” and you’re like, “Get real. You talk like a Sunday-school teacher about everything.” But I do float on a pretty good energy level.

You’re a former Miss Ohio, and you were a Top 10 finalist in the Miss America pageant. What was your talent for that?
Well—could you guess?—singing. And back in the day, people would always sing show tunes. So I sang a Liza Minnelli version of “Alexander’s Ragtime Band.” It was a lot of razzmatazz and be-boppin’ around onstage, but I liked it because I could really blast it at the end and show my personality. I know people reading this wish I would say I was a contortionist, but I wasn’t.

Pageants get a lot of flak, but I imagine you would defend them.
When I did pageants, there wasn’t American Idol; there wasn’t The Voice or America’s Got Talent. If you had some sort of stage talent and you were working for scholarships, pageants were a very viable option. And as a preacher’s kid, for some reason, it just never fazed me that I would have to be up there onstage in a swimsuit. I would always tell myself, “Oh, it’s to show your physical fitness, because if you win, then you’re going to have to travel a lot and be physically fit the entire year.”

Yes, I’m sure that’s the major reason they put nubile young contestants in swimsuits.
Exactly! But pageants were great practice, because you had to go out and speak at a moment’s notice before a group, and you had to think about your appearance. Let’s face it, TV’s a visual medium, and you really have to know how to communicate with people. So it was very much a portal for me. During my year as Miss Ohio, I called a general manager at a Cleveland television station. I knew I could get him to talk to me by saying, “Miss Ohio calling,” instead of, “Robin Meade is on the phone.” And this man gave me an audition and started me off there as a reporter. Now, I had already been a reporter in a smaller town. But I thought if I had the title of Miss Ohio, it would probably help me jump markets. And it did.

There’s a hilarious story in your book about your early coanchoring days and Mother Teresa.
[Huge laugh] Yes! It was probably the biggest blooper that I’ve ever been involved in. It was in 1996. I was a local anchor in Chicago, and I did the morning news. My coanchor was very experienced in the business, but when you do the morning news, sometimes you’re half-awake, or half–paying attention. And suddenly I heard him say something about Mother Teresa. We were on a two-shot, and he started saying, “Sad news from Calcutta. Mother Teresa died today on her 86th birthday. They had just held celebrations for her, but we’ve just gotten the news.”

And you could see my face flash to anger. I was like, Hey, I want to help out on breaking news. Why aren’t the producers telling me this? And then I thought, Where’d he get that information? So you could see me looking at my computer. Nothing. I looked over at his computer. Nothing. And then I remembered we’d had a story that day about Mother Teresa, but we were tight on time, and the producers said, “Let’s kill some stories. Mother Teresa’s dead, this story’s dead,” and they went on with their list. But for some reason, my coanchor only heard, “Mother Teresa is dead.” And then he went about saying she was dead on the air.

But what’s crazy is that nobody was in my ear going, “Correct him! Correct him!” I think they were just too incapacitated, rolling around on the floor. Well, you never want to make your partner look bad, so I let him finish, and I said, “Actually, we are getting corrected information.” And Tim was watching at home, and he said it sounded like I was talking to God, because I said, “Let me check upstairs,” because that’s where our control room was. I said, “She is okay, correct?” And finally someone beamed into my ear with just one word: “Correct.” So I went about cleaning it up. Now, today, I would just tell the audience what happened. Back then, though, I was so [deep tone] “the voice of information” that it was just klutzy all around.

Today, you have an unconventional approach to delivering the news. How do you define your style of broadcasting?
Well, when I anchor the news, I’m just being myself, so I guess my style is Authentic Robin. If there’s a story and I think, I can’t believe we put that in there, I’ll say that. Or if there’s a stupid-criminal story, I’ll go, “Oh, he’s a beaut!” I think I’m probably saying what you are thinking, with the exception of politics. I don’t go there, because I respect that we have viewers from every corner of the political spectrum. And when someone is on trial, I respect that they are innocent until proven guilty. But other stories, well, we had a story about a man who pried the jaws of an alligator off his head. He had 50 stitches on his face. And yet the wildlife and game preserve in Florida said, “We’re investigating.” And [I said on the air], “What’s there to investigate? The guy’s got 50 stitches on his head. I think that’s a pretty good indication there’s a gator in that water, you know?”

So Walter Cronkite …
He would not like me. [Laughs] Maybe he would like me, but he would not like
my style of anchoring.

That’s one of the reasons you’re so popular. You also show a lot of leg.
Yep. We’ve got this couch on the set that came all the way from Italy, legend has it, and I’m out there a couple of times during each half hour. I have this certain sit that I hear drives some men crazy.

You want to describe that?
I call it the skinny sit, because I’m just trying to take off the 15 pounds that the camera gives you. And cameras can be so precarious in their position, because they look right up your skirt. So I’ve got to make sure that that’s not happening. Then I sit at a slanted angle that somehow makes my legs look way longer than they really are. It’s an optical illusion.

You do a segment called “Salute to Troops,” a daily message of photos and videos from the families and loved ones of servicemen and women. What has been your most memorable military experience?
Somebody who served in the Vietnam War was so moved that the current troops are getting such appreciation that he sent me his medal, which was the Bronze Star. The case was all banged up, and it was dusty. You could tell that this had sat around for some time. I just held it and looked at it. I wasn’t even sure if I could accept it. But he said that he had another one, that he’d kept one, and sent one to me. Maybe he sent it because he wasn’t shown appreciation when he came home. I don’t know. I can’t imagine what he went through, fighting.

You have had some amazing experiences, not the least of which was skydiving with George Bush Sr. How did that come about?
The Army’s Golden Knights, the parachuting team that you see at air shows, asked me if I wanted to jump out of a plane with them. I wasn’t really keen on it. I mean, I didn’t see the reason to jump out of a perfectly good plane. So we basically said to them, “Give us a reason why we can’t turn you down.” And the next time they called, they were going to be jumping with President Bush 41 as he turned 85. How can you turn that down, jumping out of a plane with the president, the Secret Service, and the Golden Knights? I thought, “At least I’m gonna be safe.” Now, he was cool as a cucumber, despite the fact that it was not a great-weather day in Kennebunkport, Maine. What tickled me was when he said, “Hey, guys, can you tilt the plane? I want to show Robin my boat.” He started talking about how many engines he had on the thing, and it was some ungodly horsepower, considering this was not a huge boat. I’m going to make up a number, but I was like, “Mr. President, why do you need 900 horsepower?” He went, “To beat the guy with 800 horsepower.” I just thought that was so sharp. When we jumped and I was falling, you’d think I would have had heart palpitations. But I was thinking, When you land, what are you gonna say? Don’t forget people’s names. And don’t be talking too fast. It kept me from thinking, I’m gonna die. I’m gonna die.

Have your panic attacks come back at all?
No, and I’m so grateful for that. I think it’s because I gave them permission to go away. It’s strange. You have to say, “I love those panic attacks! Man, they’re such a benefit to me!” And then you give them permission to stop coming, because you stop fearing them. If you can face whatever you fear the most and look at it as a plus, and say, “What are the benefits of that horrible thing?,” it’s almost like you’re doing a mind-flip. It doesn’t have control over you.

What are your ultimate goals?
I want to do another CD. I want to do duets with some of the sexiest men, and duets with women, too. I want to continue in my news job, where it’s different every day, and where I feel the freedom to be myself. And I want to become thin enough that when I look at myself naked I’m happy.

J. Lo’s ass may have owned the nineties, but so far, this millennium is crazy about Kim Kardashian. A plastic surgeon in Beverly Hills says a new demand has been created by the Keeping Up With the Kardashians star, and reports that women are coming into his office asking for bootilicious butts à la the “KardASSians.” “The hottest cosmetic surgical procedure for women is Brazilian butt augmentation,” says Dr. David Matlock. Having traveled to Brazil annually for almost 20 years, Matlock identified the “Brazilian” look on that country’s famous beaches. He noticed the high butt cheeks and S-shaped curve at the tailbone that looks oh-so-sexy on so many Brazilian beauties. “It’s just simply irresistible,” he says.

Although known as “the Picasso of vaginas,” Matlock has also turned his artistic hands to ladies’ behinds. His Brazilian procedure is accomplished by “fat transfer”—extracting fat from a woman’s stomach or hips and injecting it into the upper buttocks to give them a high, round shape. Matlock does not perform silicone butt implants because they can cause too many side effects, like shifting or hardening into concretelike blocks.

Like most plastic-surgery procedures, it can be expensive, depending on how much junk is taken out, moved around, and put into the trunk. Plastic surgeons couldn’t have asked for better product placement than when Kardashian had her booty X-rayed, after having been accused of sporting ass implants. Plastic surgeons weighed in and speculated that she had had a butt lift instead, and demand for the surgery soared even more. (As did sales of “Booty Pop” padded panties.)

Ample asses have appeared in these pages a lot recently—see generously endowed adult stars Alexis Texas, who graced the cover of our June 2010 issue; and October 2010 Pet Isis Taylor and November 2010 Pet Phoenix Marie. It’s a trend we’re quite happy to celebrate.

One tougluck dude just can’t win in the hedonistic capital. But did that stop his buddies from having the time of their lives? Not even close.
By Jonah Keri
Illustrations by Daniel Masso

IT ’S OUR THIRD NIGHT IN AMSTERDAM.
Four buddies, awarded a brief pass from our dull, everyday existences. We’d sampled the best this famous city had to offer. The idyllic canals. The richest food. And, yes, the finest herb.

But as we stroll the dark alleys of the red-light district, we’ve yet to partake of Amsterdam’s most notorious vice.

“Do it!”

“I don’t know, guys.”

Darts, the most sex-crazed member of our foursome, is staring at a buxom brunette. She beckons him from her canal-side window, a trademark of the Amsterdam sex trade.

“Do it!”

“I’m not sure I can go through with this.”

“Do it!”

Darts is our last hope. He’s our only hope.

“All right,” he says, a sly grin cracking his face.

“I’ll do it.”

Game on.

We all had our reasons for wanting to visit Amsterdam. Well, everyone has a good reason to go to Amsterdam, but let’s say we had additional reasons.

Stretch was in a serious relationship, and he wanted some fun with the guys before taking it to the next level. Not a bachelor party, exactly, but a few days of look-but-don’t-touch-the-leggy-Danes wouldn’t hurt. I’d just finished writing a book—two years of my life poured into 253 pages. I needed a break, bad. Lesh wanted it all, hedonism-to-go. And Darts? That guy could turn a trip to Walmart into a party. He was made for Amsterdam.

There was another reason, too. We’d heard the Dutch government might soon ban foreigners from the country’s famous coffee shops, where the varieties and flavors of weed are marketed and sold like ice cream at Baskin-Robbins. The Dutch cabinet later said that “substance use of minors has to be countered more strongly,” and “coffee shops have grown into large points of sale of cannabis that are hard to manage,” with sales near the borders of Belgium and Germany causing particularly big head aches. Starting in 2012, Amsterdam coffee shops will be converted into private clubs for Dutch citizens 18 or older. Those wanting to partake will need to prove their residency, then buy a “weed pass,” which grants access to a restricted number of members per shop. Sure to put a Grand Canyon–size dent in the tourism trade. Bad times.

We land on a Thursday, just past noon, then shuffle to our bed-and-breakfast: Darts, Stretch, and I—half-delirious after red-eye flights and very little food. Lesh steps onto the curb to greet us, nearly as groggy as we were, having hopped a 6 A.M. flight from Berlin. Still, it takes about three seconds for the fatigue to melt away, and the giddy anticipation to begin.

“We’re in fucking Amsterdam!”

“Yes!”

First move: Find an Argentine steak house for lunch. We plow through some outrageous rib eyes (Lesh, who’s obsessed, will have three in our three days in town), then make our first trip to a coffee shop. We peruse the menu, and can’t help but laugh at the ridiculous names. Purple Nurple. Kolossal Kush. Toasty Spaceship. Lesh, Stretch, and I buy a couple of joints to split three ways. Darts, the only one of us who’s never smoked before, has another idea. “I want a bong!” he tells the lady behind the counter. She looks simultaneously befuddled and disinterested. She hands him one without a word of instruction, which Darts clearly needs. We’re not going to help either. It’s too damn funny watching Darts try to figure out if he should inhale, drink the bong water, or maybe try a ritual chant to get the damn thing to work.

After ten minutes of feigning ignorance, we finally show him the way. Darts inhales, coughs—and then won’t stop coughing. “Ugh, this is horrible!” he whines. Now we feel bad. I buy him a space cake, just to ensure that he gets off today. He takes a bite, then another, then another. Unlike a simple puff on a joint, a few bites of a space cake won’t kick in for a little while. Eating a whole piece is also a terrible idea, especially for a novice. By the time we get back to the B and B for a quick nap, Darts is tripping balls.

“I love you guys!” We love you, too, Darts.

Then …

“Breeegggggghhh!”

There go the contents of Darts’ stomach.

It’s probably for the best, though. Now we won’t have to babysit him while we explore Amsterdam.

That night, all more or less of sound minds and bodies, we set out for Tempo Doeloe. Amsterdam is known for its Indonesian food, and Tempo Doeloe ranks among the finest Indonesian restaurants anywhere outside Jakarta. Lesh and I split an 18-course rijsttafel, the “crown jewel of Indonesian cuisine.” It’s easily one of the top-ten meals I’ve ever eaten, a delectable series of small dishes—pork belly, duck, stir fried beef, spring rolls, and more—all accompanied by rice prepared in various ways. The waitress brings out the dishes in groups of six—“Medium, spicy, and very spicy,” she says. To one plate, she points menacingly. “Ikan pepesan,” she tells us. “Very, very, very spicy!” We save that dish—steamed mackerel in chili-pepper sauce—for last. It takes less than a second for the spice to kick in.

“Vlaaa!” It’s a fancy restaurant, and we’re doing our best to stay cool. But Lesh and I are dying. We throw down a pitcher of water. Nothing. We gobble down some bread. Nothing. Finally, the waitress brings a plate of mango-based dishes, including a sorbet that finally puts out the fire … or half of it, anyway.

We hit the bustling Leidseplein for some nightlife. Parked outside with beers in hand, we ignore the chilly conditions to take in the sights. A minute later, four smoking-hot women assemble on the sidewalk and start chatting amongst themselves. Back home, the usual course of action would be to sit and stare. And the other three guys seem content to do just that—or just too chicken shit to make a move.

This will not stand. Not in Amsterdam. I throw down the rest of my beer and saunter over to this group of healthy females. I’m the only married guy in the group, but screw it, if the posse’s just going to sit and stare, someone needs to hook them up. I go with a bare-bones opener: “My friends and I are sitting right over there. Care to join us?” Creative, right? A pause. A sideways glance. “Yeah, okay, sure!” the perky blonde says.

Sometimes, less is more.

Stretch and I sit back and watch. Darts and Lesh, after overcoming their initial shyness, are working it. The girls speak excellent English, though they ask for some translation. Stretch’s favorite word quickly becomes proost—“cheers” in English. Lesh and I eventually take off to let the other guys try their luck. We meet back up with Stretch at the home base around 3 A.M. Despite their best efforts, it seems both guys struck out.

Stretch is not happy, and, as a way of softening the blow of their rejection, he begins to disparage the young ladies, using some choice adjectives. Never mind that an hour ago he would have slept with any one of them and been grateful.

But wait, where’s Darts?

“We got split up in the red-light district.” Ah, hell. We head back out and start combing the streets.

In a matter of minutes, we find Darts. Drunk, frustrated, and horny, he’d started chatting with a blonde British girl. “Want to come to a titty bar?” she’d asked him. If that extremely promising opening sounds too good to be true, well, it was: The girl led Darts down an alley, where two burly guys jumped him, beat him up, snatched his wallet and iPhone, and ran off. Which is just about the opposite of a titty bar. When we find him, he’s disoriented and sporting the beginnings of a shiner—yet utterly unbowed. For him, the incident just raised the bar for the rest of our stay in Amsterdam.

Now, on our final night, Darts is sizing up the women in the windows. Pot might be on the verge of getting much harder to obtain in Amsterdam, but sex-for-pay is, and will remain, a staple in the city. The system works like this: Women stand behind floor-to-ceiling windows in the red-light district, attempting to lure guys in. The main thoroughfare offers the best talent—attractive, higher-priced women (though not as expensive as we expected, as it turns out), scantily clad and offering their best come-hither looks. As you weave into the smaller side streets, things get considerably sketchier.

Darts is now staring more than a little hungrily at a tall blonde. She may have tried to get him in earlier, but now she’s throwing off get-lost signals, so we drag him away. A few steps down the road, another woman catches his eye.

“How much?” Darts asks the comely brunette.

“Fifty euro,” she coos. For anything? For anything.

None of us had ever done this before, but this seemed like a raging bargain. This girl was … wow.

“It’s a deal.”

We leave to let Darts do his thing—which somehow seems equal parts ballsy and pitiful. Either way, we will pump him for every detail of the encounter.

Thirty minutes later, he’s back.

“And?!”

Well…. Turns out the girl you see in the window may not be the one to render services. Not even close. Darts’ companion was barely five feet tall, pushing 45, the years of wear and chain-smoking taking their toll on her face. Darts had been dying to get laid, but he found her performance stiff and mechanical, even beyond what he’d been expecting. Sure, this was her job. But she’d made sex as unappealing as humanly possible.

And there’s more.

“She had a glass eye.”

“Come on! You’re shitting me!”

“A glass eye. For real.”

Of course she did.

Poor Darts had botched getting high, thrown up, struck out with hot civilian blondes, been robbed, and capped it all off by fucking a haggard crone with a glass eye in some dank room.

Still, he remains undaunted. “I’m coming back next year,” he says with a smile. “Nowhere to go but up, right?”

Talking virtual pigskin with Steve Rannazzisi, who plays Kevin—Chicago district attorney and obsessive fantasy-football-league commissioner—in FX’s hit comedy The League.
By John Bolster

The critically acclaimed FX comedy The League revolves around five friends and their fantasy-football obsession, detailing how the game takes over their lives, intrudes on their jobs, and disrupts their relationships.

In other words, it may as well be a documentary. Well, a documentary with a much-higher-than-average laughs-per-minute ratio, that is.

As The League’s third season launches this month (and season two comes out on DVD), we spoke to Steve Rannazzisi, stand-up comic and former cast member of MTV’s Punk’d, who plays Kevin, the most grown-up—or, more accurately, least immature—character on the show. He told us about the unique way episodes are constructed, the NFL-player cameos lined up for season three—as well as two by some big-name comedy stars—and the time he got up-close-and personal with … Taye Diggs.

If the lockout had disrupted or canceled the NFL season, would you guys have incorporated that into season three, or just progressed as if there were still football?
If the whole season had been canceled, we would have dealt with that. I think we would have explored what happens in America when there’s no football—how do these guys deal with it?

Did you play fantasy sports before joining the show?
I played in a league with my high school buddies for about three years. But everyone else on the show was kind of a fantasy-football virgin—except for our creator Jeff Schaffer, who was pretty well-versed in it.

So the cast members who didn’t know fantasy before must have had to bone up to sound authentic.
What we did was, right away we started a league amongst us. We had the six people on the show—myself, Nick Kroll, Paul Scheer, Jon Lajoie, Mark Duplass, Katie Aselton—and then our creators, Jeff and Jackie [Schaffer]. It was an eight-team league, and we got into the terminology and everything, and these guys got into it. Katie was reading books like Fantasy Football for Dummies, and she actually ended up winning the [cast-member] league the first year we did the show. Then last year, Jackie Schaffer won it. So we’ve had two years and two female winners. It’s very frustrating how easy they made it look.

Speaking of the women on the show, they gave you guys some unaccountably hot wives and girlfriends.
They did! Nadine Velazquez plays Ruxin’s wife—she’s beautiful. And the lovely Leslie Bibb was on last year, as Pete’s ex-wife. The beautiful Katie Aselton plays my wife. That’s tricky sometimes because in real life she’s married to Mark Duplass, who plays Pete. It’s a little weird to kiss some dude’s wife when he’s standing four feet away from you.

The show has yielded a lot of memorable phrases. Can you tell our readers about “vinegar strokes”?
Vinegar strokes came up when we were talking about what awful faces people make when they’re about to come. I think Jeff Schaffer said, “Have you ever caught yourself in the mirror? It looks like someone’s holding a teaspoon of vinegar underneath my nose.” So the vinegar strokes are when you’re at that point of no return, where, no matter what, you’re not stopping, and you get that face.

There were cameos from NFL players in the first two seasons. Who can we expect to see in season three?
In the first episode, there will be two NFL cameos—from Maurice Jones-Drew and Sidney Rice. And we’re having two big comedy stars on this season, Mr. Seth Rogen and SNL vet Will Forte.

The League is described as being “semi-improvised.” How does that work?

Jeff Schaffer and Jackie Schaffer come up with some ideas, and then they write a very detailed outline. The crux of the show is in these outlines, but in each scene, there are no specific lines.

That’s a lot of improvising, then.
Yeah, it’s very organic, the way we shoot the show. I think that comes across, because people really gravitate to the fact that we sound like real people—real dudes, and the way real people talk.

So you have multiple takes and you shape the show from those?

Right. We keep the camera rolling. We’ll film the rehearsal and we’ll find some nuggets here and there, and
then before too long—two or three takes in—we’ll go, All right, that’s funny there, and then you say that.

Then the digital technology allows you to patch things together.
It does. The magic of these kind of shows—our show, and Curb Your Enthusiasm—is in the editing. It really is. We spend a lot of time on set—and everyone on the show is a really great improviser—but those guys have to sift through a lot of crap to get to the really good nuggets, and they do a phenomenal job.

Speaking of improvising, what was your favorite prank from your time on Punk’d?
I have two. The first one I ever did, with Tracy Morgan—who flipped out after we pretended to tow and smash the windows of his new Jaguar—and then one with Taye Diggs. With Diggs, I played a doctor and he was coming in for a medical exam because he was going to Africa to shoot a movie. The thing we had on him was, we knew that he was petrified of needles. I put him through one of the most horrible physicals you could imagine. I was touching him inappropriately, I took his shirt off for him, I made fun of him, I told him to clip his toenails, I ridiculed him, I was sarcastic toward him—and he took it all because all he could think about was that needle at the end. His reaction was just pure joy when Ashton came out; it was really funny.

Robert Emmerich may be the only current A-list director who’s never made a sequel to one of his international blockbusters, but then, special effects-laden disaster flicks like Independence Day, The Day After Tomorrow, and 2012 don’t really lend themselves to the customary Hollywood sequel. But now the German filmmaker has directed the kind of small, personal movie that a caustic character in one of his epics might mock. So what should we expect from Emmerich’s period drama Anonymous, set in Elizabethan England, which delves into the debate about who really wrote the plays that history credits to William Shakespeare? We can’t even imagine, but we’d put good money on it being free of aliens.

Is Anonymous a film you’ve wanted to make for a while, or material you were recently attracted to?
The script actually came to me as a writing sample when I was looking for someone to write The Day After Tomorrow with me. I’ve been trying to get it made since then. The original script was entitled A Soul of the Age, and it centered only on the relationship between [Ben] Jonson and Shakespeare. It didn’t have the intrigue or intricate relationships that the film now contains. I didn’t want it to be Amadeus. I wanted it to be something else, rather than just an examination of whether the Bard wrote his own plays.

Why do you think the topic will excite today’s primarily young film audience?
Shakespeare is still the most played author, especially in English-speaking countries around the world. I suspect more movies have been made of his plays than any other author’s. I believe Shakespeare deserves this kind of work. I think today, in modern literature, the more you know about the author is a good thing. What is known about Shakespeare is, he was an ordinary man who never left a play for posterity in his own handwriting, whereas the Earl of Oxford, whom I suspect was the actual author, was an educated man of the arts. I was amazed at the amount of material that exists on this. In the film, however, I let the audience come to its own conclusions.

Why is Hollywood hesitant to make intimate dramas like Anonymous?
It’s a matter of economics. The blockbuster film can globally make the studios a lot of money. Lowbudget films, or what the industry calls “small pictures,” can also make them money, but studios claim the mid-range-budgeted movies can no longer be profitable because the audience for drama is limited. The answer is to make movies like Anonymous or The King’s Speech for as little money as possible.

What initially attracted you to the mega-budget films that you’re famous for?
When I was in film school in Munich, Germany, I was always drawn to these kind of films and horror films. While my classmates wanted to be [director] Wim Wenders, I wanted to be like my cinema heroes Steven Spielberg or John Carpenter. As I got older, I became interested in other stuff, like The Patriot. Yet I still wanted to make movies that took international audiences on a thrill ride, which is a cool thing for a director to create. On the other hand, the older I get the more interested I am in serious topics.

What films influenced you?
As a teenager, my two absolute favorite films were The Poseidon Adventure and The Towering Inferno. When I was writing Independence Day, we looked at The Towering Inferno and took a lot of pointers from it. For example, in our film Will Smith comes on halfway through the film like Steve McQueen, who played a fire chief, does in that picture. Will comes on when our story needs pilots to stop the menace, and Steve appears when the fire becomes difficult to control. Both films had a lot of equal plot points, such as a high body count, ordinary people responding heroically, and a crisis slowly, then rapidly, getting out of control. Independence Day is actually more of a disaster movie than a science-fiction film.

Were you ever under any pressure to do an Independence Day sequel?
Dean Devlin, my coproducer, and I are constantly talking about it. We’ve come up with a good idea, but it’s hard because the first one stands alone by itself. It might be fun to revisit the characters 20 years later and rebuild Earth. Everybody always misunderstood the film. It was about a king going into the fight and leading the people—his knights—into battle against a seemingly invincible foe. I see Will Smith as possibly the president if we do it again, an active chief executive who takes charge in the attack. I guess I can say it now, but the film’s financiers never wanted Will to star in the movie. I can’t tell you the reasons, other than they thought he was just a television actor. You’d be surprised how many stars the studios haven’t wanted for my films that I had to forcefully fight the executives to approve.

How hard is it today to get audiences to accept a film like 2012, when this year alone the world has experienced almost every natural disaster?
When disaster films are done right they are incredibly successful, because everyone on the planet has experienced some kind of natural disaster. With the whole climate change going on, the disasters will only be getting bigger and the disaster films will then have to get bigger so they are believable.

What was your worst-reviewed film and, in retrospect, were the criticisms justified?
Godzilla. The critics were only half correct. I now meet a lot of people who were six at the time and told me it was their favorite film. We made a mistake hiding the monster in the pre-publicity and then unveiling it with the film. Audiences were taken aback by the thing that just didn’t look like the legendary monster. The movie couldn’t live up to its hype and it wasn’t scary enough.

Did Mel Gibson display any bad behavior when you directed him in The Patriot?
Not at all. He was the most professional, nicest man I ever met. Yeah, he was a little crazy once in a while, but
more in a joking way. Mel was never in his trailer, and instead played Scrabble with his makeup person until it came time to do a shot. I was nervous because I think he’s a great director.

I was always worried he’d try to direct himself, but instead all he wanted to know was where I wanted him to stand and where I wanted him to walk to. He amazed me in that he was always joking with the crew and then the next moment, on cue, he could cry for the camera.

Mel did a lot of funny stuff. One day I was waiting for the troops to come charging over the hill after I yelled, “Action!” and local high school cheerleaders, whom Mel had hired, came in waving their pom-poms and yelling, “Happy birthday, Roland!”

I think sometimes when somebody has done something really bad—and I think Mel has said some bad things— other people jump on top of them to try to put them down further. I would go to parties and hear that Mel’s a drunk, an anti-Semite, but I personally never experienced that with him.

Do you think Gibson is now unofficially blacklisted in Hollywood?
I really don’t know. Mel is such a talented man. Ten years from now, you watch, he’ll make a movie that will blow people away, and people will ask themselves why they didn’t hire him.

Do you think Hollywood is making too many sequels, reboots, and comic-book-based movies?
Definitely. They are destroying film as an art form. I don’t watch those movies unless three or four of my friends say I should see a particular film. I like smaller independent films where you can learn something from the story and direction. Most of the type of films you asked about are done by committee, and the general result is, you can’t tell them apart.

How can Hollywood make better pictures?
The Hollywood system has to crash. It has to experience a change like it did in the late sixties when Easy Rider and The Graduate came out. People back then wanted to see movies about America and the rapidly changing world around them, made by risk-taking filmmakers. That revolution lasted a little over a decade, and now it’s time to revisit that style of filmmaking.

Why isn’t there sex or nudity in your films?
I’m basically a private person, and I don’t like seeing those things on the screen. That’s my conservative German upbringing. It’s a fight my parents won.

Could a film like Basic Instinct get made today?
Probably, but at a fraction of what the original cost. It would be a lowbudget film with no stars. But you can say that about most sexually themed Hollywood-made movies of the past three decades. Today, they only have a chance to get made if they can be done cheaply, and they would sell the sizzle, not the steak.

When you’re directing a film that costs more than a quarter of a billion dollars to make and market, do you ever ask yourself, What if this film fails?
I ask myself that all the time. That’s the downside to making blockbuster films—the fate of the studio always seems to be riding on your picture. It’s like the whole studio could fail that summer, which is a lot of responsibility for any filmmaker. You should listen to the studio, but then trust your own instincts to make the movie you want to make. I haven’t made a film that’s lost money yet. Knock on wood [gently hits the side of his head and smiles]. Hopefully this won’t jinx Anonymous.

What’s your favorite on-set story?
I cast Jaye Davidson [of The Crying Game] as the powerful Egyptian god in Stargate. He had just been nominated for an Academy Award and was kind of difficult. At the end of the film, we shot a flashback scene where he was dressed only in a loincloth, which is what he was wearing when his character got abducted. He had a weird necklace around his neck because he had nipple rings that he refused to take out. He probably was the craziest actor I’ve worked with. Jaye was so nervous about meeting Kurt Russell, who was very nervous to meet Jaye because he had heard so much about him. There was a scene where Kurt and James Spader had to kneel before Jaye, who had very long black hair. Kurt and Jaye had never met, so I told Jaye to just go up to Kurt and introduce himself. Jaye walks over to Kurt, who quickly rises off his knees and kisses Jaye on the mouth! Jaye’s stunned and quickly walks away. Kurt, who is blind as a bat, comes over to me and asks, “What is Cher doing here?”

If Anonymous gets nominated for an Oscar, how will that change your life?
It will probably shut up some of my critics [laughs]. Even if it doesn’t, Anonymous will always be special to me because it shows I’ve gotten better—some critics might say “Finally!”—at my craft.

Here is a quick guide with info from leading experts on how to …
By Steve Shawn ❖ Illustrations by Tom Richmond

3. MAKE A WEDDING TOAST
A wedding toast should seem effortless. Making it breezy, inspiring, and off-the-cuff-sounding, however, takes a bit of work. But look, you’ve been asked to be best man for a reason. You care about the guy, right? In the days or weeks leading up to the wedding, think about his positive attributes and, if you know her, the bride’s, too. Write stuff down. Here’s your outline: Say who you are. If you’re not known to at least half the group, you need to start by identifying yourself. Say your name and describe how you know the groom, according to Susan Breslow Sardone, writing on About.com.

Make eye contact. Talk about what a great guy he is and how awesome it is that they got together. Do this while looking directly at the bride and groom. “Act like they’re the only ones in the room,” says hypnotherapist Frayda Kafka.

Be specific. Rather than just blather on about his kindness and generosity, describe a few specific incidents which reveal said traits, writes Breslow Sardone.

Be careful with the jokes. If you’re a good joke-teller (see item No. 6), it’s okay to lighten up your talk with a warm-hearted quip. Avoid telling that hilarious anecdote about the naked bimbo in the hot tub. Also avoid irony and sarcastic humor.

Keep it short. Your whole talk should be no longer than five minutes. “This isn’t about your oration skills; it’s about the happy couple,” says Kafka. Practice it a few times in the days leading up to the event.

Drink lightly. Consume no more than a single glass of champagne before giving your talk, cautions Breslow Sardone. But do have a glass in hand or at the ready because you’ll want to …

End with a toast. Conclude by raising your glass and wishing the happy couple many wonderful years together.

5. VISIT SOMEONE WHO’S VERY SICK OR DYING
A dear friend with whom you’ve shared good times and bad is near the end of the line. Truly, a part of you is dying, too. (This is the same guy who was in the hot tub with the naked bimbo, maybe.) So, before you visit, spend some alone time sorting through your own thoughts. Consider these suggestions from Dr. Alan Wolfelt, Director of the Center for Loss and Life Transition in Fort Collins, Colorado:

Relax. You’re already giving him a gift just by being there.

Listen. Take your lead from what he says. Does he want to talk about his fears, or does he just want to joke and remember the old days? It’s his call. Don’t force things to be either too serious or too light.

Study up. Before you go, bone up on his illness. This is not in order to give him advice, Dr. Wolfelt points out, but rather to enable you to be a better listener if he wants to talk about his disease.

Be careful with empathy. Probably the worst thing you can say to a dying person is, “I know how you feel.” Yes, we’re all gonna die, but you really have no idea what it’s like to face imminent death. What you do know: You love him; you’re going to miss him. Say that.

8. TAKE THE CAR KEYS AWAY FROM SOMEONE WHO’S DRUNK
It’s okay to treat a drunk like a baby. You don’t need to honor his dignity. Dispense with the niceties, says David Hanson, Ph.D., professor emeritus at the State University of New York at Potsdam, who specialized in alcohol abuse.

Make a joke. “Hey, you knucklehead. You’re not going anywhere near a car in your condition.”
Create a distraction. Can you find their keys in their purse, wallet, or coat pocket? Try the old “Hey, look over there” trick. Then steal the keys.

Play a game. Download the app R-U-Buzzed?—free from the iTunes store. Input body weight and a precise list of drinks consumed, and the device will tell you if his (or your) blood-alcohol level is over the legal limit. The app has a handy button that will automatic ally dial a local cab company in your area.

9. TELL AN INTIMATE PARTNER SHE HAS BAD BREATH
There’s the indirect approach: “Hey, did someone munch a lot of garlic for breakfast?” And there’s the direct approach: “Honey, there’s something we need to talk about … ”

Neither works. Sorry. You’re going to piss her off. Much better to go the anonymous route: Send a Stink-o-Gram from AllTooFlat .com. The recipient will get a perfectly jokey but pointed email from a "concerned acquaintance" that it’s time to brush up on her oral hygiene.

It takes guts to train for a race. It just takes gut to gorge on burritos, doughnuts, burgers, and beer. And if you have both, you might be cut out for a new breed of race that combines epic eating with distance running. Don’t forget to bring a barf bag!
By Kara Wahlgren

Fifteen-pound burgers, ten-pound cheese steaks, seven-pound burritos, five-pound pancake stacks, four-foot pizzas—name a food, and there’s bound to be a restaurant somewhere that will serve you a comically outsize version of it. Choke it down, and you’ll likely earn your mega-meal for free and your photo on their wall for posterity. Love sushi? Conquer the Godzilla Roll at Sushi Delight in Lomita, California, which contains six pounds of seafood; you have one hour to finish. Still have room for dessert? Suck down a six-pound milk shake at Chick & Ruth’s Delly in Annapolis, Maryland, one of the eatery’s four eating challenges. If you’re in the mood to overindulge, such double-dog dares are a dime a dozen; chances are there’s a place near you that will reward you for scarfing down something until you’re ready to explode.

But these challenges all have one thing in common—they typically end with the competitor sprawled in his chair, pants unbuttoned, groaning in bloated agony. (For reference, see every single episode ever made of Man v. Food; we feel a little nauseated just watching that guy get the meat sweats.) Call us jaded, but that doesn’t seem like such an accomplishment—it sounds like the same “feat” we’ve pulled off countless times at Thanksgiving dinners, hotel breakfast buffets, and all-you-can-eat taco nights at the local Mexican dive. Anyone can eat till they puke—we say you haven’t really demonstrated your overeating prowess until you’ve wiped off your chin, laced up your sneakers, and sprinted a few miles with a belly full of grease. Here are five places to put your gag reflex to the test—because running on empty is for suckers!

THE IDIOTAROD
What: As its name suggests, the Idiotarod was loosely inspired by the Alaskan Iditarod—except it’s three or four miles instead of 1,150; in lieu of a dogsled, the competitors pilot “borrowed” shopping carts; and the
dogs have been replaced by teams of four or five intoxicated humans. To ensure that intoxication, race checkpoints are set up at bars along the route. After chugging a few beers at each stop, runners can expect to be pretty sloshed and sore by the end of the race. That’s okay, because peak athletic performance isn’t really a priority here. Winning is generally frowned upon, sabotage is usually acceptable, and prizes are awarded for creativity.
When: Varies.
Where: Varies. Previous locations include San Francisco; New York; Asheville, North Carolina; Phoenix; Ann Arbor, Michigan; and Seattle. There’s no official sponsor, so you’ll need to do some Googling to find upcoming events.

BIG MAN RUN
What: This annual charity race is open to men with a few extra pounds and the fundamental belief that hot dogs and beer can improve any sporting event. Competitors are required to meet a 190-pound minimum (yes, there’s a weigh-in). The six-mile course includes stops at three local saloons; runners must consume a hot dog and an eight-ounce beer at each stop. The best part? Buying an economy-size bag of franks basically gives you the green light to brag that you’re in “race training.”
When: June.
Where: Worcester, Massachusetts.

KRISPY KREME CHALLENGE
What: It’s rare that you can eat an entire box of doughnuts without feeling guilty—and that alone is reason enough to enter this contest at North Carolina State University in Raleigh. The competition started as a college dare in 2004 and has been an annual campus tradition since 2006, but it’s not just for students—the event is open to all, and the 7,500 available spots fill up quickly. On race day, participants line up at the campus bell tower, run two miles to the Krispy Kreme store, eat a dozen doughnuts, and run back. (Krispy Kreme isn’t an official sponsor, although the store presumably gets a heads-up that 90,000 donuts will be needed.) Contestants can register as “challengers,” who attempt to complete the race within an hour, or as “casual runners,” who resign themselves to the fact that they can’t possibly eat that much or run that far. If you’re not convinced two miles is enough to atone for 2,400 calories worth of doughnut glaze, then do it in the name of charity—the 2011 event raised more than $100,000 for the North Carolina Children’s Hospital.
When: February.
Where: North Carolina State
University in Raleigh.

THE DOUGHMAN
What: This race is a lot like an Ironman triathlon—if you make the course a lot shorter, split the work between four people, and have everyone binge (but not purge) before starting their leg of the race. Teams complete an aquatic leg, a biking leg, and two running legs, with each preceded by a heavy meal at a local restaurant—fattening fare has included juicy burgers, overstuffed BLTs, a plate of chilaquiles, and goat-meat-sausage sandwiches. (Inner tubes are usually involved in the aquatic leg, because race organizers obviously remember their moms’ warnings about swimming immediately after eating.) According to the official rules, vomiting is “strictly discouraged,”but we’re assuming that rule gets broken pretty often.
When: May.
Where: Downtown Durham, North Carolina.

BURRITO MILE
What: Some high school kids sell candy bars to raise money for charity. Others invent a freakin’ awesome new sporting event. Students at Walter Johnson High School in Bethesda, Maryland, came up with the Burrito Mile, which is exactly what it sounds like—participants eat a Qdoba burrito and run a mile as fast as they can. If that sounds too easy, consider that the cur rent record is just over 6:15 minutes, and that includes eating and running. There’s also a “4×8urrito” relay in which each member of a four man team eats a burrito and sprints a half-mile. (If you’re not the teamspirit type, you could always attempt to break the record held by Greg Wegner, who ran the relay by himself, eating four burritos and running two miles in just over 51 minutes.) The race has become a local tradition, with this year’s event raising more than $1,800 for the Leukemia and Lymphoma Society, and similar races have been started in other locales. Mmm, karmic burritos.
When: February.
Where: Bethesda, Maryland.