Last year, several Pets were enlisted as the Saints Row: The Third Quality Assurance Team: 2011 Pet of the Year Nikki Benz and Runner-Up Ryan Keely, 2007 Pet of the Year Heather Vandeven, 2008 Pet of the Year Runner-Up Jus tine Joli, February 2010 Pet Heidi Baron, and June 2006 Pet Shay Laren. The ladies appeared at trade shows and promotional events, entertaining (and distracting) the guys who were lined up for prerelease test-drives of Saints Row: The Third as they signed character renders of themselves (seen here).

Now Pet characters have been updated for inclusion in the game itself. The $3 Penthouse Pack moves Nikki, Ryan, Heather, and Justine into your crib as Homies. You can call the Pussy Posse—as we’ve dubbed them around the Penthouse office; shhh, don’t tell our friends at THQ—to help fight the Syndicate with you, or send them out to do your dirty work. We predict you’ll be pleased with their performance, as these girls have some serious moves and weaponry, not to mention seriously sexy outfits.

The Penthouse Pack is available for download for Xbox 360, PS3, and PC (via Steam) on May 22.

For more info head over to SaintsRow!

Toby Keith’s current album, Clancy’s Tavern, inspired by his frequent childhood visits to his grandmother’s club, debuted at No. 1 last October. He was named Artist of the Decade at the 2011 American Country Awards. His hit single “Red Solo Cup,” the second off Clancy’s Tavern, was also the No. 1 country download on iTunes. Plus, Beverage Media magazine called his Wild Shot Mezcal “the number-one premium mezcal in the U.S. market.” He’s even been named the nation’s top-earning country performer by Forbes.

Yet Oklahoma’s favorite son likes nothing so much as to talk about his trips overseas to entertain U.S. troops, and about his work with returning veterans. Keith, 50, stepped into that work after his ubiquitous anthem, “Courtesy of the Red, White, and Blue (The Angry American)”—a virulent response to the September 11 terrorist attacks—proved a rallying cry for belligerent compatriots. Never mind that critics denounced it as “knee-jerk jingoism.”

Keith put his money where his mouth was, and after a 2003 trip to Baghdad, he began trying to improve conditions for Americans fighting abroad. On a trip to Afghanistan in 2007, he saw how troops in remote outposts lived between literal walls of sand, without creature comforts. That moved him to sponsor the USO2GO program, which distributes care packages to overseas U.S. bases. Keith is also a cofounder—with NFL players Tommie Harris, Roy Williams, and Mark Clayton—of Pros 4 Vets, which offers legal assistance and advice to Oklahomans who return from active duty.

As in his songs, in interviews Keith is forceful, outspoken, and passionate.

How did you get so involved with the USO?
Well, the first time I went over there was about ten years ago. I was just going to go for two weeks the year after my dad died, to honor him, and then I said, “Man, we’ve got to do this again.” I went the next year, and the USO said, “You could be a big force in the USO.” And so my agent, Curt Motley, became a board member, and he works tirelessly trying to get other entertainers to go over.

You made the news recently with your USO2GO program. How did that come about?
We were over there, and we saw that some of those FOBs [forward operating bases, or secured forward positions used to support tactical operations] had shitty conditions for R&R. Those boys take wire baskets and put cardboard in them, fill them with sand, stack ’em, and that’s their wall. And they put cardboard huts up to eat in, and put some tents up, and then they have a little room, maybe 20 by 30 feet, with some air piped into it, and they sit there trying to run a DVD. So we put these care packages together that include things like DVD players and flat-screens and games and PS3s. The USO is a morale-lifter, and it brings a piece of home over.

Why do you keep going back? What does it satisfy in you personally?
There’s a big void there that needs to be filled. I’ve done 180 shows, and it takes that many to get the word out. And there’s such a big need for it. I go two weeks every year, and the USO board can use that as a tool to get other people to go. But you’ve got two strikes against you when you go. One’s political. A lot of people don’t want to associate themselves with it because of the political brush they’ll be painted with. And there’s a distinct fear factor for a lot of people. That’s a big issue. We’ll land at a big base in Afghanistan, and then we’ll go to the small bases, little FOBs up on the front, and play as many forward bases as we can. I figure if I made it through 180 shows, you can at least go to Walter Reed hospital in D.C. and shake hands. But if you can get anybody to go once, they find out how great it is. It’s a wonderful geography lesson, a wonderful history lesson that you can’t get anywhere else. To talk with those guys who put their lives on the line every day, and to eat lunch, shake hands, and spend time with ’em, is just a wonderful experience.

You’ve had some scary experiences. Four mortars hit close to you and you had to hunker down in a bunker, for example.
Yeah, but that happens all the time. The people you’re surrounded by live under that duress every minute, so they’re prepared for it, and fortunately the enemy is terrible strategists, terrible warriors. So it would be like getting hit by a stray bullet in a major city in the U.S. The second that a launch is detected, they sound a siren, you get in a bunker, and the missiles hit, and then when it’s over, you go on with your day.

Was it easy for you to figure out what the soldiers wanted to hear?
The biggest reality check came the first year I was there. We’d been on a C-17 to Kuwait from Germany, and then we were on a C-130 from Kuwait into Baghdad. When we landed, it was dark and it was still 122 degrees. They took us to Camp Cook, which had just lost four guys a couple of hours before we arrived. And we played a very somber show. I didn’t know what to expect, so I had a bunch of comical stuff. I wanted to make ’em laugh. My dad used to sing a song called “Army Life” that was real popular back 50 years ago. So I wanted to write a bunch of stuff like that, play ’em four or five hits, play “Weed With Willie” and make ’em smile, especially since they’d just lost four guys. But it was still so somber that you just had to suck it up and get it done.

What’s your objective when you go over there? Just to entertain the men and women, or something else?
Just campaigning for the USO. Plus, it’s an extreme honor. I’ve made more relationships in the past ten years playing for the military over there than I ever made in my own industry. I’ve got thousands of people I call close friends who I can email and text message who are dependable people of solid character. But I don’t have five people who do what I do in my business that I can just pick the phone up and call and say, “How’s it going?”

Do you have a story of one of those relationships?
That first trip they took us to Fallujah, and six days later, after we’d played 12 or 13 shows, we were back in Baghdad, ready to leave, and they said, “Would you guys please step off the plane?” We all got in for mation with ’em, and they brought a flag-draped casket onto our cargo plane. It was First Lieutenant Erik McCrae. When you sit in those cargo planes, the seats fold down from the side and you face sideways, and you look across to your buddies on the other side. The cargo’s buckled in the middle. And there the casket sat, right between us. That was just the most somber flight back to Kuwait. Everybody’s hands were folded in their laps, and they had their heads down. I have become very close to First Lieutenant McCrae’s family, because they came to one of my shows in Oregon. His dad was an ex-soldier, officer, and he was strong as ever, but his mom was crying, and the whole family—the sister and the grandmas—were like, “You rode out of the battlefield with my son. He was just on his way home.” And I was like, “I didn’t do anything. I was just lucky enough to ride with him.” Here we are, eight years later, and his family still comes to the shows. We’ve got a special bond.

Forbes magazine recently named you the top-earning country artist.
Got a lot of shit goin’ on [laughs].

Does it mean something to you to make that list?
Well, my entire operation is set up by about 20 people, who dedicate their lives to this brand. That’s their livelihood, and they work really hard. We get a thousand offers a year to endorse something. Like my Wild Shot Mezcal. You go to Mexico, and the nationals all drink mescal and don’t care for the tequila. I grew up drinking with the locals down there, and I said, “This makes sense for me to bring this authentic Mexican stuff up here,” so I do. We’d only been up and running four months and we were already No. 1 in the States. It’s really smooth, and it’s got a smoky taste because they smoke the cactus. I’ll pass on 999 business deals like that, and then I’ll see one that seems right. My Ford deal has been running for eight or nine years, and they’re just great to me. They sponsor my tours and let me be a spokesperson. So that marriage has just been awesome. And then I have my bar and grills [I Love This Bar & Grill restaurants].

Have you figured out what percentage of your fan base is military?
It’s hard to say. After “Courtesy of the Red, White, and Blue” came out, the political extremists and activists and the media talking heads—right wing or left wing—were never going to accept that I just supported the troops. They made millions of headlines and billions of dollars off it, probably, selling what they sell. But I never felt a sag, and I never felt the burst. My career kept ascending and never did quit. I’m an Independent. Have been for three years. Was a Democrat before. But you can never convince people that it’s okay to be a conservative Democrat and more of a moderate and support the troops. They’re like, “If you support the troops, you’re a right-wing idiot, and I ain’t listening to anything else you’ve got to say.” I quit trying to fight that back in ’03. I said, “I am what I am. I don’t care if my career goes down the tank. I don’t need the money.” I mean, I can always write songs for somebody else to sing. I’ve done that for 17 years. I know my songs would find a home. And I’d be satisfied with that.

Were you immediately accepted overseas?
They know when you meet ’em if you’re there for the right reasons. They sat back and watched me for about three years, as if to say, “Yeah, you’ve come, but a lot of people come over and do shows.” And then the stories got out. They told their buddies, “Yeah, I smoked a cigar with him one night. He’s just a regular ol’ dude.” Those stories take time to build, and after a while, everybody starts hearing consistencies. I tell ’em over there, “We can’t have a beer here, but we can have one at the show.” And we get back there and have a beer, and they’re like, “Holy shit, I never thought this could really happen!” Pretty soon they say, “He really is dedicating his time to be with us. That’s awesome.”

It’s been an exciting year to be a sports fan in New York City. The Giants are the reigning Super Bowl champions, the Rangers are bona fide Stanley Cup contenders, and the Knicks’ season has pivoted around one of the more compelling sports stories in recent memory: the spectacular emergence of point guard Jeremy Lin.

Yet there’s an interesting irony folded in with all the excitement in the Big Apple—one not lost on the city’s knowledgeable soccer community: The most accomplished sports star in town, by a comfortable margin, is also the least well-known, locally. He toils in comparative anonymity at Red Bull Arena, just a few miles north of the Giants’ and Jets’ stadium. His name is Thierry Henry, and he’s one of the greatest goal scorers in the history of the world’s game.

Henry turned pro at age 17, and after stints with French side Monaco and Juventus of the Italian Serie A, he transferred to English powerhouse Arsenal in 1999. That’s where Henry blossomed into a world-class player, racing to the top of the club’s all-time scoring list with a Gretzky-esque strike rate of 174 goals in 254 appearances. He led Arsenal to two league championships, three FA Cup titles, and one UEFA Champions League Final, getting nominated for FIFA World Player of the Year twice along the way.

He was also a mainstay on the French national team during this stretch, and won the 1998 World Cup, the 2000 European Championship, and the 2003 Confederations Cup with Les Blues. He became France’s all-time leading scorer in 2007, surpassing the legendary Michel Platini.

In 2007, Henry was transferred to Barcelona (for $31 million), and after three years—and six more trophies—there, the then-32-year-old forward signed with the New York Red Bulls of Major League Soccer. He has continued to find the back of the net in the United States, with 16 goals in 37 appearances for New York, and this past winter he defied any critics who claimed
he’d come to MLS to retire by returning on loan to Arsenal (where there is a statue in his likeness outside the stadium), and scoring three goals in seven appearances for the Gunners.

As he begins his third season in the United States, we spoke to Henry about the Red Bulls’ prospects, the image of MLS abroad, and the Jeremy Lin Experience.

What is something that the European fan should know about Major League Soccer that they might not already know?
Well, the thing is, they don’t show a lot of the MLS games, so it’s difficult for them to have an idea of the league. They simply don’t see it. It did help that Becks [David Beckham] came along, and [Mexico legend and former Barcelona star] Rafael Márquez. But I think the only thing that can help [get MLS noticed in Europe] is if they show more games in Europe. Then people can make up their own minds. I always talk about the league in a positive way. Becks does also, and Rafa, and Landon Donovan. Whenever a guy that plays in MLS talks about the league, it will always be portrayed in a positive way. But at the end of the day, the way you can get fans on board, especially in Europe, is if they see the games.

How much does it help the reputation of MLS to have someone like Donovan go over there on loan and perform very well, as he did this past winter?
I don’t know, to be honest. It does mean that Landon is a good player. But when Landon goes back to Los Angeles, I don’t know if all those Everton fans see the games of the L.A. Galaxy. Not because they don’t want to, but because they’re not on TV in England.

How do you think Tim Ream, your former teammate on the Red Bulls, will do at Bolton in the Premier League?
I think he will do well. I think it was time for him to try to improve his game and go and compete in a different league. And the type of league that he went to, he is going to definitely compete. The strikers are pretty much in your face. Not an easy thing to deal with. But I think it was time for him to go, and I’m happy that he got the chance.

Who are some other young players in the league who have impressed you?
[He’s] not young, but Dwayne De Rosario is a great player. To go back to your first question, that’s the type of player that maybe people in Europe don’t know about. I played with him, and I saw him play with Toronto before, and Houston, and with D.C. He’s a great player, he has a great touch, and he knows where the net is. He understands the game well. But I can talk about De Ro as much as I want right now, about how good he is, but again, because they don’t see the games, fans in Europe don’t see De Ro. It’s just talk for them.

A picture’s worth a thousand words, as they say.
It’s true! You see the guy scoring goals week in and week out, then I don’t have to talk. You understand what I mean? It’s … a done deal. I use De Rosario as an example among a lot of examples that I can take. If I go through the whole league, I can name a lot of good players. You have some great players playing for Seattle, for Salt Lake, for Dallas, for D.C.

What’s the best venue in MLS?
It’s been great everywhere. But when you go and play against Seattle, I mean, I know it’s tough and everything, but the atmosphere there is amazing. I didn’t play there last year because I got suspended [for a red card], but I gotta say, the atmosphere is brilliant. I played there with Barcelona [in a 2009 exhibition], and they were all wear ing the Seattle jersey and being loud. So that was just amazing. But you have a lot of good stadiums now in MLS. That’s the way the league is going forward. That’s an improvement.

Jurgen Klinsmann, the coach of the U.S. national team, said that the off-season for American players is too long. He thinks they need to play 11 months a year. Do you agree? How much recovery time does the body need after a season?
Listen, everything is doable. I used to recover only two weeks. I did ten-years-plus, having only two weeks’ holiday.

My legs are sore just thinking about that.
That was the rhythm of playing. Because if you play at a big club in Europe, [you also play in the] Champions League every time. And every time you have some days off with your club, it’s international duty. End of the season: international duty. So two weeks off, that’s all you have.

How do you take care of your body, to make sure that you bounce back?
Well, when you don’t stop you just don’t stop—your body gets used to it in a way. But as you said, you have to take care of your body, and also be lucky enough to not get injured. I’ve been lucky. That will always stop a player—the progression of a player, trying to be consistent. I was fortunate enough to not get injured, but also I wasn’t the type of guy to go out and party a lot. So maybe that saved me, I don’t know. But that wasn’t me. I was always going back home after a game, thinking about what I didn’t do well, and trying to make sure I was going to perform better in the next game.

Did you have a moment, growing up, when you realized that you could be a professional player?
No, it’s kind of weird—I always say it, and people don’t believe me, but it’s the truth: I didn’t have an agenda when I was young. Obviously you dream as a kid, like any kid, right? When you’re going down playing with your friends, having some fun, you always think that you’re going to be a hell of a player. But everybody does that, you know? Everybody goes like, “Oh, last minute, there I go, scoring the most important goal of my life.” It’s always a dream, but you don’t think it’s going to happen, right?

And for most, it doesn’t happen.
My dad wanted me to be a professional player, and I just wanted him to be happy, and to make him happy. That was it. I didn’t think about it too much. There wasn’t one moment when I said, “Oh, wow, I think I can make it.” I think it was just long, hard work, and commitment and dedication to the game. It wasn’t one day. It was an every-day thing, and that’s why I think I arrived where I am right now.

Are you looking forward to partnering with Kenny Cooper up top this year? Do you know much about Kenny as a player?
Oh, yes, of course I do. He was a pain in the neck when we played against him last year. I remember playing against Portland and I was like, Oh, he’s annoying, you know? He can help us, and that’s the thing you want. You want some depth in your team. And having him around is going to be a massive plus.

With you, Luke Rodgers, Cooper, Juan Agudelo, and Corey Hertzog, you will have more depth at the forward position this year than last.
Yeah, but you want depth everywhere—not only up-front. You want to have a deep, competitive
squad. Because last year we had to deal with the guys going away at the Gold Cup, and we had some injuries and we didn’t deal with it. So I think that’s hopefully going to be different this year.

You’re a fan of the NBA. Now that you’ve been in New York a while, are you a Knicks guy?
Ah, I won’t change. I’m a Spurs guy. My friend plays there—Tony Parker. So I cannot change. But if the Spurs don’t do too well, and they’re out of the competition, then I will support New York, because that’s where I live. But I’m a Spurs fan in the first place. You know, you gotta stay true to your friend, and who you started with.

You can’t jump ship.
No, you can’t jump. Even though what’s happening with the Knicks, it’s amazing right now.

The Jeremy Lin story broke when you were in England. Did you follow it from there?
Oh, well, how could you not? How can you not follow that? Although, if you’re in Europe you don’t see it [as much]. But since I do follow the game, I knew. As a basketball fan, you can’t not know who Jeremy Lin is and what he did this year.

So what do you do in your downtime to relax?
Well, as we’ve been saying, I will watch a basketball game, go to the cinema, go to a restaurant with my friends. Chill out. Just normal stuff, basically. When I’m in town, I take my bicycle and ride around town. Just normal stuff. Nothing too fancy [chuckles].

How often are you recognized in New York City?
Well, a bit, a bit. New York is kind of different, because it’s a very cosmopolitan town. You have a lot of Europeans and Latinos, and people do love their soccer in New York. Even though you have the Yankees and the Knicks and the Giants and the Jets and the Rangers—you have a lot of teams in New York—but people do love their soccer. So yeah, I do get recognized, but not like if I was in Europe.

That must be a relief for you, to some degree.
Oh, yes. It is. Trust me. It is.

The water in the dumpster in front of you looks frigid-numbingly cold, even. You’re already shivering. You’re probably already wet. You’re definitely muddy. In spite of whatever training regimen you’ve diligently followed over the past few weeks and months, you still aren’t really ready for this obstacle. Or the next one, for that matter. Because in reality, it’s impossible to be fully prepared for an obstacle-course race like a Tough Mudder until you’ve actually finished one. And with names like that, you can’t exactly expect them to be easy.

They’ve been called the “safest most dangerous sport” in the world (Tough Guy), the “evolution of running” (Dirty Dash), and the “strongest race of all time” (Strong Man). But most obstacle events involve a certain amount of crawling, climbing, and swimming, along with the running. In truth, no matter how they’re described, these mental and physical challenges basically come down to two things: grime and punishment. You’ve got to be willing to get dirty. A high threshold for pain is also going to be an advantage. Over the past several years, however, in spite of their fearsome reputations, tens of thousands of people have entered and completed obstacle-course races. Relatively few have gone home with broken bones.

“It’s seriously going to physically hurt,” says Dan Yotive, an outdoor guide and former adventure-travel consultant who completed a Tough Mudder in New Jersey late last year. “I was so cold, I was shivering uncontrollably—borderline hypothermic.”

Yet Yotive insists that he’s glad he tried a Tough Mudder, one of the most popular such events in the United States. “It was a fun time. I picked it because I wanted something where I could get my friends together and train together.”

And while 10 of his 12 friends dropped out before the day of the event, Yotive sounds happy to have stuck it out. “All the people there definitely added to the adrenaline rush.”

Since 2010, when Guy Livingstone and Will Dean launched their intimidatingly named enterprise, Tough Mudder has grown from three events (in California, New Jersey, and Pennsylvania) to 35, which will be held across the globe in 2012. The founders refer to their brainchild as “probably the toughest event on the planet,” a distinction earned in part by the stamina needed to cover as much as 12 miles over terrain made more challenging by the addition of tire tunnels and greased monkey bars. And while the organizers stress that every Mudder is about teamwork and camaraderie, competitiveness is certainly one attribute its participants share.

On the other hand, John Malfatto, race operations manager for the Dirty Dash, a regional mud-run obstacle-course series based out West, says, “We’d like to be the gateway drug to running and running events. This segment of the running market has blown up in the past three years.” He continues, “But we’re more mediumcore. We want to be more inclusive. Just come out and be an idiot. I mean, we give prizes for dirtiest mustache.”

Malfatto has a compelling sales pitch. For the nonprofessional, pleasure can be a dependable source of motivation. Fortunately, pleasure and the urge to hurl yourself headfirst down the world’s longest mud slide go hand in hand at the Dirty Dash. But in case you’re still not satisfied (or filthy enough), the minds behind the madness are now working on a mud waterfall.

Other times, the fear of death can be an equally compelling motive, which is the idea behind Run for Your Lives—a 5K obstacle course populated by a zombie horde intent on catching each contestant. Runners are issued health points, represented by flags worn on a belt. Every health point you lose brings you closer to death. Setting out to capitalize on the craze surrounding The Walking Dead, a postapocalyptic television drama on AMC, cocreators Ryan Hogan and Derrick Smith initially planned to stage a single zombie race in 2011. As the day of the event drew near, however, they realized that they’d stumbled onto something much bigger. Roughly 10,000 people registered to participate in the first Run for Your Lives. This year they’ll host 11 events around the country. “We committed to a theme,” says Smith. “It’s fun, but it’s not a haunted house. The goal is—just for a split second—for people to feel like they’re in a zombie apocalypse.”

In other words, the exercise is a bonus. The volunteers who turn up early on race day to be transformed into shambling, brain hungry undead add a level of difficulty to a race genre that usually depends on inanimate obstructions—but that doesn’t imply that any of the Run for Your Lives locations relies on mundane obstacles. Instead of mud, think blood—as in a blood pit. That and something called the “gut hanger,” which apparently involves a frightening amount of fake, albeit realistic, human entrails. How does anyone train for such obstacles? The event’s website helpfully offers seven words of advice: “Run. Watch zombie movies. Run some more.”

When it comes to true guts though, those who have unwavering confidence in their mental and physical fortitude can pit them selves against seriously daunting challenges—like Tough Guy in England, Vermont’s infamous Death Race, or the World’s Toughest Mudder, a more extreme version of the original contest. Tough Guy, located northwest of Birmingham on a large estate, subjects the willing—or foolhardy—to more than 100 “assaults” or obstacles: a 98-foot crawl under razor wire, a rope crossing two stories off the ground, a 30-foot-high climbing net, bogs and deep pools of liquid muck, claustrophobic tunnels, along with plenty of hill running. Death Race takes place in the woods of Vermont, and has lasted as long as 48 hours for some participants. In this race, which keeps its course map a secret, sheer hardship is the single obstruction—encountered again, and again, and again. Perhaps more than anything else, these challenges are designed to test the body and break the spirit. Death Race organizers, for example, boast about a 15 percent completion rate for would-be endurance athletes. In 2011, that meant 35 people. Tough Guy, on the other hand, advertises with a rhetorical question: “Where in this wide wonderful world can you find such grace laced with fear, panic, and claustrophobia?”

When viewed alongside friendlier 5K obstacle courses like the Dirty Dash, Rugged Maniac, and Warrior Dash, these grueling events appear to belong in a completely different league. Anything that involves chopping wood for two hours straight (like the Death Race does) is not for the occasional gym-goer. Nor is a course that promises thickets of stinging nettles and murky ponds teeming with leeches. It’s one thing to earn a cold beer, a cheesy medal, and a new T-shirt after working every muscle in your body in one of the traditional 5K races. It’s another thing altogether to spend $900
on a day that guarantees severe discomfort and the sacrifice of a certain amount of your own blood. Even so, demand for obstacle course races seems only to grow.

“We’re basing our success on a culture that may be getting bored with endurance-running events,” says Alex Patterson, Tough Mudder’s chief marketing officer. “People are soft,” he continues matter-of-factly. “And everything out there makes life easier. We want you to know the visceral satisfaction of climbing over a ten-foot wall.”

Ignoring the wide range of hardship involved, the main thing most obstacle races have in common is a commitment to devote a percentage of their proceeds to charities, often ones that benefit needy children or military veterans. Rugged Maniac encourages runners to donate to the Fisher House Foundation, a program that provides lodging to military families who can’t afford to visit relatives in recovery. Spartan Race, which stages four classes of obstacle events including the Death Race, raises money for Homes for Our Troops, a charity that builds houses for severely injured veterans. Warrior Dash entrants have the option to fund-raise for St. Jude Children’s Research Hospital, an institution that is working to combat pediatric cancer. Tough Mudder participants, meanwhile, have collected close to $3 million for the Wounded Warrior Project, an apolitical organization that seeks to honor and em power injured service members.

So, once you’ve determined your pain tolerance and the charitable institution you’d like to support, how does a guy who finds most of his stimulation in the bedroom go about training for an intense obstacle-course experience?

“A lot of people do things like CrossFit,” claims Tough Mudder veteran Yotive, referring to the branded fitness program that favors a broad regimen of workouts over specialization. “I just ran a bunch of times. And I did reps of push-ups, squats, box jumps, and sit-ups as long as I could. Then I stepped it up until I could do two hours without really stopping.” He paused, as if to reconsider the amount of preparation truly necessary for a Tough Mudder. “But my friend Alex made it, and he’s a big smoker and drinker.”

In some cases, willpower can make up for a certain lack of physical ability. When speaking about the event he helped turn into a phenomenon, Patterson prefers to describe Tough Mudder in terms of a new type of fitness goal. “We wanted to marry endurance with military-style obstacles,” he says. “A lot of people want a taste of military training, but not everyone wants to join the Marines.”

It’s worth noting that in order to begin training with the Marines, male recruits must do two pull-ups, 35 crunches in two minutes, and run one and a half miles in 13:30. Lifting 10 to 30 pounds of rocks for up to five hours, as past Death Race participants have done, raises the bar even higher than the Combat Fitness Test, a requirement all Marines must pass annually. This performance assessment involves an 880-yard sprint, a timed 30-pound ammunition lift, and a combat-related event called Maneuver Under Fire. In practice, a serviceman on a tour of duty may face tougher challenges. For Marines on base, however, their entire test will be over in 11 minutes or less. Death Racers, on the other hand, can be on the course for as long as 48 hours. And those Tough Guys in the United Kingdom? Well, let’s just say that they affectionately refer to some of the tougher sections of their course as the Killing Fields, two laps around nongenetically modified stinging nettles; the Torture Chamber, a gauntlet of slippery tires; and the Battle of the Somme, a run through fire pits.

“We’re not Tough Mudder,” admits Smith as he provides more details about Run for Your Lives. “You have the option to skip obstacles. We make the course challenging, not impossible.”

Similarly, Malfatto and his Dirty Dash business partners don’t see themselves in competition with the more extreme obstacle course events. “We’re more about having a good time,” he says. “Anyone can do it. In Billings [Montana], people were drinking beer at the starting line.”

Beer on race day? Now that doesn’t sound too hard.

Think of Anthony Jeselnik as stand-up’s version of a spelunker: With jokes about such taboo subjects as rape, suicide, and the disabled, he stakes out caverns of darkness. But his smart punch lines always shine a light on unexpected twists and turns in the gloom. And he delivers them with a bright smile, his self-described “arrogant-jerk” persona radiating self-satisfaction from the stage.

The result is an effect so over-the-top that (most) audiences let him get away with—well, not murder, but joking about murder. Or religion, or race—or serious illness, as he did with the following, delivered at the Comedy Central roast of Charlie Sheen: “The only reason you got on TV in the first place is because God hates Michael J. Fox.”

Indeed, Jeselnik’s merciless approach, along with his concise delivery, makes his act “built for roasts,” as he told us. He got his first shot at the medium on the March 2011 Comedy Central roast of Donald Trump, and followed that up with a standout turn on the Sheen event. The two appearances vaulted his career to a higher level, and now he has a development deal with Comedy Central, a nascent movie career, and a fan base stretching from coast to coast.

Jeselnik recently spoke to Penthouse about all three, as well as his favorite audience reactions, his onstage persona, and Christopher Walken.

I watched you perform recently, and someone in our group said you were like “Andrew Dice Clay with 15 more IQ points.”
Only 15?

Only 15—sorry. But you know, if he’s in the 100 range, then you’re above average, so …
I’d like to think I’d be around 180—as a comedian. But yeah, I’ll take that as a compliment. That’s a good one.

One writer described you as “mean in a very likable fashion.” How do you maintain that balance?
I don’t really try to maintain that balance. I just want to be mean, but I guess there’s something about the way I look, or the way that I enjoy being mean. Maybe my smile comes off as likable to people?

How often do you get bad reactions from audience members?
As often as I can.

[Laughs] That’s the goal?
Yeah, I enjoy having that mixture. If you’re a fan of mine and you’re enjoying me and you see a table of people who are just miserable, I think that would make you enjoy it that much more. I also think that comedy is kind of like going to see a movie. You’d better do some research on what you’re going to see before you walk into the theater. When people don’t, I have no sympathy for them. I’m not like, Oh, I better get these people happy. I just barrel right through.

Is there a line you won’t cross, or do you feel like anything’s fair game as long as the joke is well crafted?
There’s no line, I don’t think. And if there was something that people were like, Oh, you can’t make a joke about this, I would immediately try to make a joke about that. But I have personal choices—like, I would never use an ethnic slur. Even though I talk about race in a mostly derogatory way, for the joke. But it would hurt my argument to use language like that. I’m already walking a fine line between “ironic racist” and “racist” as it is.

Give me your darkest—and cleverest—joke: One that hits hard on both counts.
One joke I like right now is “I’m a nice guy. Like I would never hit a woman. Even if she had a knife … or a stutter.”

What’s your take on Twitter’s usefulness for a comic? Do you find that it helps you come up with material, or do you feel like it’s a burden?
I’ve kind of figured out my niche on Twitter. I used to just do jokes, like, Let’s try this joke out. But that would either ruin a joke for the stage, or it wouldn’t be that good a joke, and people would give me shit about it. So now I only tweet things that I would never do onstage. Like current events stuff. If something big happens in the news, I’ll tweet about that. Usually a celebrity death. Those are my favorites.

How did you evolve your onstage persona?
I realized what I looked like onstage. I looked hate-able. I felt like if I saw me walking up, I’d be like, Who is this douche bag? Then I thought, Let’s go with that, and just be an arrogant jerk. The audience let me know that was cool. The more I would go over-the top and talk about how great I was, they really ate it up.

Your jokes often get rounds of applause. Which is more rewarding—big laughs, or applause?
They’re both good. But my favorite reaction is that half-crowd laugh, half-crowd “oooh.” You know what I mean? They don’t know what the hell to do, and you can sit there and kind of bask in that. I really enjoy the halfand- half, as I call it.

It lets you know you hit the sweet spot.
Exactly. That’s the ping on the bat, right there.

Have you ever been told you sound like Christopher Walken?
Yeah—my whole family gets that. It’s funny. We’re from Pittsburgh. I don’t know if it’s a Pittsburgh thing or what. But I embrace it. I’m a huge Christopher Walken fan, and I think it really helps onstage with the timing of jokes. Because every joke, you know there’s going to be a twist, and if I can talk like that, break up my speech, then I can hide the punch line. And then really hit them with it.

How much of a difference have the Comedy Central roasts made in your career?
Oh, night and day. Those things are like the Super Bowl of comedy. Millions of people watch them. When I do shows on the road now, people are coming out to see me, not to see comedy. That makes a huge difference for my show. It’s been great.

While I push the pedal to the metal and head over the speed limit, the salesman steers the conversation toward credit checks and low monthly financing. He’s already playing hardball about the car—but that’s not really the issue. I’m not sold on him.

“What if I pay for the car in cash?” I ask. “Like a suitcase full of cash? Would you come down on the numbers?”

He quickly and curtly says no. Unbeknownst to him, though, I’m part of a new Spike TV show called Car Lot Cowboy. If this salesman wants to dance the tango, well then, we’ll dance the tango.

Car Lot Cowboy is like Kitchen Nightmares, but instead of restaurants, it’s used-car dealerships that get an ass-kicking. The tough love is dished out by auto-sales consultant Tom Stuker—clad in his trademark black cowboy hat—arguably the greatest car salesman of our time. This blunt-talking sales renegade is a highly sought-after consultant with an arm-long track record for jump-starting stalled businesses—including working with 1,500 struggling auto dealerships. He’s a legend in the industry, and has an incomparable way of connecting with people while implementing a strategic way of selling cars.

For the new show, Stuker and his car-sales-savvy team travel to dealerships that are in financial straits due to these tough economic times. Stuker’s tough talk might rub dealers the wrong way, but in the end, his keen business sense delivers the signature on the dotted line.

For me, of course, it’s even better: I was cast on an episode of Car Lot Cowboy. I’m going undercover into a dealership to help measure its ability to deal with customers so Stuker can turn it into a profitable business—in five days. I’m in a crappy motel room in Southern California. The producers have me holed up like someone in witness protection so the employees at the dealership won’t know my face until I walk onto their lot.

“See if they’re literally asking for the business,” Stuker briefs me, while sitting on a colored bedspread you wouldn’t want to see under a black light. “See if they deserve your business, and notice how they’re treating you.”

“What sort of red flags should I look for?” I ask.

“What’s the first impression you get from a salesperson? How does he introduce himself?” Stuker responds, explaining that a good salesman can close the deal within the first 90 seconds by making a good impression, as the customer will be more forgiving if he makes mistakes. “If the guy comes up to you on the lot and is wearing dark sunglasses or is on a cellphone, that just shows disrespect.”

This particular dealership can’t afford to be disrespectful. A tarnished drive down its road of one-star Yelp reviews tells the sorry tale:

“The customer service here is HORRIBLE and FULL of LIES.”

“While my boyfriend and I were discussing the prices, the salesperson was texting and watching sports news online.”

“As I walked in the entrance, I made eye contact with one of the gentlemen and he looked down immediately, like not wanting to help.”

Stuker tells me the golden rule of used-car sales: “The customer is most important!” He continues, “Here’s another thing: If he offers you a testdrive, I want to see if he asks you for your driver’s license. That’s one of my pet peeves with these guys.” Before I head out, Stuker adds, “Good luck, and don’t sign any papers.”

Time to dance the tango!

Wired with a microphone, I head toward some cars that look right off the set of The Fast and the Furious. A camera crew encircles the lot, capturing my every move. I kick tires (that’s what you do to a used car, right?) and impatiently wait for a salesman to get off his ass. If they’re supposed to be asking for my business, they’re doing it in a very strange way. My first impression: Where the hell are they? I’m left wandering around like an extra on AMC’s The Walking Dead. Playing to the cameras, I exaggerate craning my neck, giving my best “I would like some damn help!” look. The guy sitting at a desk inside the office must see me parading among his cars. (I think he’s eating yogurt.) Fed up, I storm into the ivory tower and encounter a room full of “green peas” (sales newbies) lounging in chairs. My first 90 seconds is spent begging for help from a lethargic salesman who’s dressed in a suit that looks like it came from the mission, served with a free bowl of soup.

Finally, I cut to the chase: “I’m looking for the 2007 Chevrolet Cobalt SS Supercharged that I saw on your website.”

At this point, I’m supposed to pay attention to how the salesman introduces himself. Instead, the Man Whose Name I Don’t Know slinks off to get the keys.

We walk toward the Cobalt in stony silence until I blurt, “What’s with all the cameras?” Trying to throw off my undercover scent, I add, “Are you guys filming a TV commercial?”

“It’s for a reality show,” says the salesman.

When the salesman puts the key into the door of the Cobalt, the car alarm goes off. (Is it professional to make your customer scream like a scared little girl?) Flustered, he pirouettes around the car, trying to make the noise stop.

“Can you push down the lock on your side?” the salesman frantically asks.

“Will this happen every time I get into my car?” I question with faux concern. My journey has already turned into a Chris Farley movie in which the bumbling salesman accidentally gets his tie caught in the car door as I drive away.

After the alarm debacle, I opt for a muscle machine that looks as if it was last driven in The Fast and the Furious: Tokyo Drift. The salesman fires up the engine. More trouble in used-car paradise: “We’ll need to get some gas first.”

I give the cameras a double take. Are these guys making this up as they go along? I’m pretty damn sure that having gas in a vehicle on the lot is covered in Used Car Sales 101.

Impatiently, I bark, “I’m in a hurry. I don’t have time to get gas. Can we just look at some other cars that might already have gasoline?” I back away to make the salesman tap dance harder.

“If you’re going to test-drive the car, I need to make a copy of your license,” the salesman tells me after smoothing things out, dodging
Stuker’s pet peeve by stepping up his professionalism. Minutes later, I’m behind the wheel of the muscle car, wildly revving the engine like Marty McFly, ready to go back to the future. Purposely, I start the beast in third gear. It comes to a jumping halt in the lot. “Whoopsie!”

Somehow, the issue of making a copy of my driver’s license has been forgotten. Stuker’s peeve is beyond a liability issue; as he explains, “A handful of salespeople each year get hijacked because a stupid salesperson doesn’t bother to make a copy of the driver’s license.” The theory is, a no-goodnik would think twice about hijacking the car if his photo ID is sitting on the dealer’s desk.

But more pressing concerns are on this salesman’s plate: “So, after we take the car for a test-drive, we’ll come back and run a credit check and see if you qualify.”

“Huh?”

Before we’ve even pulled out of the lot, the salesman is moving in for the close. How does that make me feel? Like a girl on a first date who’s been asked by the guy if we’ll fuck later, mere moments after meeting my parents. Credit-check talk should be done after the customer is won over by both the salesman and the car, not on the way out of the lot.

I open up the Tokyo Drift machine on the streets, gears grinding as I shift. In Stuker’s world, the salesman would be driving for the first part, to point out features that will push my buttons. Halfway, he should switch seats with me to give me mental ownership of the car. Then he should move in to close the deal, a signal we’re on the right path to a decision.

Instead, this salesman’s main concern is determining whether I’m a player who’s ready to lay down cash or a roach with bad credit. His rush makes him come across as too hungry.

Then he puts the hammer down and gives me a vibe that says, If you’re not going to buy a car—right this very moment—fuck off!

A great salesman can trigger the customer’s brain to say, I like this guy; I want to buy a car from him. You can buy a car anywhere, but the right salesman can’t be found at any other locale. It looks like Tom Stuker and his Car Lot Cowboys have their work cut out for them at this dealership. Let’s hope they at least teach the salespeople the importance of having gas in their cars.

New York City is home to an ever-increasing array of nightlife diversions, from the mundane to the profane. For the better part of a decade, one regularly occurring option—live or via podcast—has been a wildly entertaining yet curiously educational evening with Jim Graham, better known by his stage moniker, Porno Jim. The Porno Jim Show’s subject matter is right there in the name, and Jim is pulling no punches in his mission to help couples and individuals achieve better sex with sexual media. Often he’ll include a guest speaker, special go-go dancers, or burlesque acts, but the core of the show is, simply enough, Porno Jim himself pontificating with razor-sharp wit at breakneck speed upon the state of pornography—what purpose it serves (hint: it’s all about better orgasms, for both men and women) and how it achieves these ends—accompanied, of course, by the appropriate visual aids.

Your motto is: America needs better porn! There’s something wrong with American porn? It seems to do the trick …
Even bad porn has naked women in it, so it is capable of providing that vital bit of excitement needed to improve a man’s masturbation, but if Americans watched better-quality porn, their orgasms would be much more powerful. Most adult videos are made with the expectation that viewers will fast-forward in search of the parts that their penises respond to. I want to see more porn where the sexuality is intense enough to keep you and your penis interested through the whole scene.

American sexuality is constantly evolving, and porn both reflects and expands our collective sexual experience. In a real sense, porn is just the stylized depiction of sex acts being performed by sexual athletes. Some of these acts are very advanced and push the limits of these performers (which can be the hottest thing about the scene), but most are not much different from the sex most adults enjoy regularly.

If we’re just fast-forwarding to the scenes our junk responds to, why does anyone bother making anything other than the good stuff?
Partly because making good porn is not easy, but mostly because people respond sexually to a wide range of situations and imagery. Adult-film directors generally fill each sex scene with a few minutes of as many popular sex acts and positions as time and money allow. Many porn producers would tell you that it is all good stuff to somebody, so who are they to judge?

Well, I believe that these theoretical porn consumers have been blamed for bad porn for too long. I’d like the adult industry to replace their 40-year-old ideas of what sex is supposed to look like with more accurate representations of good sex. Specifically, I want to see more women having orgasms in porn scenes. Showing viewers that a woman’s climax can and should happen as often as a man’s would be at least as important educationally as making on-screen condom use mandatory.

It’s hard to imagine anyone arguing against more female orgasms in porn, or in life. While we’re on the subject, want to elaborate a little about condom use in porn?
I believe that condom use should be determined by the plot of the scene. If the performers are claiming to be husband and wife, then condoms wouldn’t be necessary, but if they are supposedly hooking up for the first time, they should always use condoms. This is the limit of the sex education and safer-behavior priming that the adult industry can hope to accomplish. Gonzo porn would be different: There, we’re dealing with porn stars having sex with porn stars, so we know that those people have been recently tested and know the risks.

This way, porn can set the correct example for consumers, teaching them that if you want to have unprotected sex, either form a committed relationship with your partner or become a porn star.

Duly noted. Back to orgasms … The Porno Jim Show features some nice clips of such moments, but you also deal with plenty of other subjects, like porn parodies of classic films and TV shows, begging the question, what place does comedy have in porn? Don’t the laughs get in the way of the sex, or vice versa?
Fast-forwarding is a basic part of porn watching, so making the connective parts of the video funny in no way limits people’s erotic options, and when done well, any good feelings that the actors generate while they are wearing clothes can carry over to the naked parts. But more than a few recent scripts have called for the performers to keep establishing their characters well past the point where anyone cared, and that resulted in some of the best porn of the year.

There will always be a lot of porn fans who want to see truly outrageous sexual behavior, to get a glimpse of the outer limits of human sexual behavior and nervously laugh at it. So each Porno Jim Show includes a segment featuring the weirdest and funniest porn clips I can find. I call it the Porntage.

The Porntage is definitely a highlight of the show, and the crowd’s reaction to some of the more extreme clips alone is worth the price of admission.
When people search the internet for porn, they’re usually looking to get turned on, but humans are forever curious about the sexual fringe, and they want to see some freaky shit, too. The Porntage is my way of giving my audience a quick glimpse into the world of the weirdly erotic. Experiencing porn with an audience is so much different from viewing it alone on your laptop, especially since some of these clips are hilarious, while others are quite shocking. I regularly post new Porntages on my website, PornoJim.com. Though they aren’t very jackable, they’re a lot of fun to watch (and to create).

Your show also provides insight into your own sexual psychology, by way of the things that shaped your interests from an early age; it’s a personal revelation that gives an audience something universal to relate to.
Traditionally, I start The Porno Jim Show with a clip from an old silent stag film, to give the audience a little history lesson, along with introducing them to the best and worst of the newest releases. But in my latest performance, I start off by showing a clip from an early Meat Loaf video that I often masturbated to when I was 14, and some segments from the best porn videos I saw when I was growing up.

I like to end the show with the sexiest, most intensely orgasmic clips I can find, to give the audience something to think about on their way home. My show is designed to get my audience laid. If you come to my show on a date, you are twice as likely to get some action than if you just took her out to some movie.

In fact, every couple of months I perform an extra-kinky version of The Porno Jim Show at a private sex party. The sexiest clips are in the second half of the show, so the orgy can start as soon as I say good night to the audience. I also create special shows for bachelorette and birthday parties.

What can we, this nation of consumers, do to help the cause of better porn?
Please buy, rent, or make the best porn videos that you can, because if we all start watching only the good porn, then the industry will take notice and start making even better porn, while the bad pornographers will go out of business. This is simple porn Darwinism.

There are some who say the internet was invented for one reason and one reason only: to propagate pornography. We’re not sure if that’s really why it exists, but it’s certainly our favorite thing about it.

At 26 years old, Canadian model Ariel Rebel has already built an online empire, running not only her own web sites—her paid site, her free blog, and a web comic—but a network of sites starring other models, as well as her own affiliate program. That might sound like a lot, but to a technophile like Ariel, it’s barely enough to keep her from getting bored. “Some people would call me a workaholic,” she says, “but I don’t think of it as work. I’ve always been very creative, and I’m super active online, so it never seems like a chore to work on my sites.”

Ariel started her own website in 2005, but it wasn’t until 2008 that she took the reins. Wanting to better reflect her personality, she started
shooting more and more of her own content and adding features—including a collection of her favorite recipes—that she felt her fans would enjoy. She wanted there to be something for everyone.

“What I’m doing online,” she tells us, “no one else is doing right now. I like glamour and beauty, so even if I’m fucking myself with a dildo, it’s going to be very cinematic.”

The unique aesthetic of Ariel’s sites—which combines ideas from classic glamour shoots, Japanese anime, and rock ’n’ roll—has lured in women and couples, in addition to the scores of men who follow her online exploits. “There are fans who really interact with me online, and those people are awesome,” she says. “But some just want to get in, jerk off, and get out, and that’s okay, too.”

Pleasing horny men and running a porn empire wasn’t always the plan. Her first love, Ariel admits, is the theater. When she realized acting wasn’t going to be the most profitable career, she headed to college, majoring in fashion design. When she needed cash, she started working in a local sex shop, and one thing led to another. “An amateur photographer approached me at work one day and asked if I’d do a shoot with him,” she tells us. “After that I did some webcamming, but that didn’t last long. It did, however, allow me to meet a ton of girls and photographers, and I started modeling a lot more. I realized I liked doing it. It’s fun to see my inner femme fatale come out during a shoot, and I like showing off for the camera. Most of all, I love seeing the results, especially when I get to see my photos online or in magazines. It’s a rush.”

Ariel often finds herself doing quick 30-minute shoots of an idea that’s popped into her head. She admits that the photos that appear here came about in much the same way. “A fan had sent me these adorable panties from Penthouse, and I decided I needed to shoot in
them,” she explains. “I had so much fun shooting that set. Afterward, I decided to send the photos to Penthouse. It’s always been a dream of mine to shoot for the magazine, and I figured, What the hell? Then I got the call that my photos were going to run. I couldn’t believe it.”

When Ariel isn’t starring in her fans’ fantasies, she’s working with other gorgeous girls. “Honestly, one of the best parts of my job is looking at all the hot naked girls,” she says. “It’s definitely a pleasure.”

She’s not kidding, folks. Ariel doesn’t simply like looking at girls for work; she’s attracted to them in her everyday life as well. “Sometimes I like butchy girls, sometimes more girlie girls,” she says. “I like a girl with a nice butt. That’s definitely a turn-on. Too hairy a pussy is a breaking point, though.” Even her favorite fantasy involves other women: having a ladies-only orgy. “I’ve never done it, but I want to,” she admits. “It’s on my list.”

Also on Ariel’s list is internet domination. In addition to updating her comic with new stories and redesigning her website, Ariel wants to start a video series where she teaches men how to woo women, with life tips and cooking lessons. “I want to show men how to be sexy,” she tells us. “And men who can cook—that’s sexy.”

The panties Ariel is modeling are no longer available, but check out other sexy options at PenthouseStore.com.

As Kristen Johnston writes in the introduction to her sardonic, literally gut-wrenching memoir, “An actress addicted to booze and pills who then writes a book about it is relatively unheard of—and when I say ‘unheard of,’ I mean, ‘disturbingly commonplace.’ ” But Johnston’s book stands out for its unvarnished presentation and high, frequently bitter irony. While recounting the hazardous central episode of the story—her stomach lining ripped open, admitting “intestinal content” into her abdominal cavity and nearly causing her to bleed to death—Johnston takes time out to publish an Onion-style British-tabloid obituary for herself. In the “fauxbituary,” as she calls it, she details the emergency in sensationalistic—and sensationally insensitive—broad strokes. (“Hollywood Tragedy Right Here in U.K.! Kirstine Johnson [sic], 37, found dead on her ’loo.”) It’s outrageous and blackly comic, like much of the memoir, which ranges from her childhood in Wisconsin to sudden fame in her twenties to her dissolution while forging a successful stage career in New York and London—and, finally, to her current state of recovery. But for all its humor, the book works best when Johnston sets aside the irony armor and risks an honest, straightforward account of her ordeal.

Johnston, who recently wrapped up the first season of the TV Land sitcom The Exes with Wayne Knight (Seinfeld) and Donald Faison (Scrubs), spoke to us about her memoir, the multilayered meaning of its title, and the irritating prevalence of dream catchers in Arizona.

Hey Kristen, thanks for your time.
You’re welcome. I’ve never talked to Penthouse before. I’m excited. I gotta get my wax, and I’ll be ready for the shoot.

Congrats on the book. It’s very—
Thank you. Are you an addict?

I’m not, no.
But yes you are. C’mon, what are you addicted to?

[Laughs]
Work. Something.

Maybe work. Possibly soccer.
There you go. No. That’s not addiction. That’s fun.

It’s a healthy addiction—mostly. But I’ve had friends who were addicts and in recovery, so I know a little about it.
Oh, yeah. You don’t have to be in it to know it. As I said to the publisher, if everyone who has been touched by addiction buys this book, it’ll be the biggest best-seller of all time. I mean, look at A Million Little Pieces. Even after it was debunked as a fraud, it was still selling. I think it’s a really good book, and I think his explanation—which was that it sort of became this monster—I think that’s probably true.

Also, when it comes to memoirs, the line between fact and fiction is not as clear as you might think.
I agree, and I think a lot of the book was true. That’s why it still sells. I think people can smell it. If my book had been written by a ghostwriter, you would be able to tell on the first page. I mean, I read some of these books, and they’re like, “Fame was hard….”

[Laughs] You kept the extent of your drug and alcohol use fairly well hidden, but you weren’t fooling every one, were you? Some people knew.
People started to know. Some people knew there was something going on, for sure. But for so many years, I set up this persona of: I’m fine—that people just were scared of me. And I’m scary. I guess. I can be … intimidating.

You were mixing alcohol and prescription narcotics like Vicodin. Seems like every other day you hear about somebody dying from combinations like that—
Yeah, but they’re not me! That would never happen to me! No, yeah—I can’t believe I’m alive. I can’t believe it. It’s ridiculous. I should be dead, for sure.

Was it the kind of thing you researched? Were you like, Oh, I can take X amount of this and—
No, no. I felt it. I was my own doctor. As I say in the book, I was the Nancy Drew of painkillers. But by the time you become the nonfunctioning addict, you’re too fucked-up to realize you’re not functioning anymore. So you lose your ability to assess situations, friendships. You could lose a job or a friend—I mean, real consequences—and you just don’t bat an eye.

Your judgment goes out the window.
That’s why I tried to make the addiction a character, almost. Like, this man [“M” or “Him” or “Mr. M” in the book]. Because that’s the only way I could describe the seduction. People who feel sort of pleasant and a little nauseous on painkillers—they don’t un der stand that, for an addict, it’s like taking a pill that makes them feel terrific and makes all their troubles go away and makes them able to do every thing at warp speed and perfectly … that’s what it is! You don’t take it to party.

How hard is it for you, now, to not use?
I’m not a white-knuckler (thank you… Mary, Jesus). Honestly. I see whiteknucklers, but I’m not one. Sometimes I just wish I could be other. But I don’t miss drinking. I don’t miss the taste of it. I thought for sure I would, because I was a wino. The only time I ever miss it is when I walk into a sushi restaurant. I think, Oh, I wish I could have sake. But you could drink in front of me. I have friends who come to dinner parties and bring booze. I do ask them to take it with them, out of respect, when they leave [chuckles].

Do you still go to a daily meeting?
No, not anymore. And what I really want for this book is that it’s not [pigeonholed as] an addiction book. Because while addiction is certainly the story, in a major way, what I was going for was a story about, How do you change your life? Not like, Oh, let’s get self-help tapes and work out. I mean, How do you change your DNA? How do you forgive yourself for your flaws? Do you have to listen to tapes? Do you go to conferences? The fact is, you don’t have to do any of that crap. You just have to fucking look at yourself in the mirror and get real. I know that sounds, in itself, horrifying, but [the book is] about a woman who ripped off her mask. Just stopped bull shitting. I think people can relate to that, and I hope it’s not just an addiction book.

Has your mom read Guts?
My mom has read parts of it. It’s very difficult for her because she feels responsible. I think all parents do. She also doesn’t quite understand the need to share it with everybody. I’m from a very private family. But she understands it’s my journey, and I gotta do what I gotta do. And certainly there was a lot of stuff—like the flaws of a family—that I didn’t share because it’s not my right.

I enjoyed this line about rehab in Arizona: “Even if your counselor has a dream catcher above her desk, I don’t care, listen anyway.”
[Laughs, hard] I’m so glad you liked that. Well, there are dream catchers all over Arizona. I kept saying, “What are those fucking nets with beads and the feathers?” Horrifying. Did you like that I got all that turquoise jewelry, and the bracelet that said IT WORKS IF YOU WORK IT, SO WORK IT, YOU’RE WORTH IT?

I did. I also thought it was uniquely awful that Tiffany’s “I Think We’re Alone Now” got stuck in your head as you lay near death in the hospital.
I’m glad you appreciated that, too. Because, you know, I’m not a writer. I don’t write journals. I’m just a reader. And I think you can tell as you read the book that I learn how to really write during the book. By the third or fourth chapter you start going, She can actually string a couple of sentences together, this girl. I mean, I hope.

It definitely picks up substance and momentum as it moves along.
Exactly. And I kept it that way on purpose, because it’s about the journey. I didn’t go back and slick it up, because I kind of like the rawness of it [in the beginning]. I like that it’s just me. It’s how I talk. That’s also why I designed the cover. I was just fucking around one day, and I got this picture that my old boyfriend took of me smoking. I came up with a fun title, I tossed it on there—and then [the publisher] saw it and freaked out. Now it’s the cover.

Well, speaking of the title and the cover, they work on several levels, obviously: It takes “guts” to expose yourself and be vulnerable, you’re “spilling your guts” in this memoir, and of course your guts blew up.
It’s kind of the only title it could have.

I think there’s another element, though: You kind of look like a badass on the cover.
Yeah?

I’ve talked to some friends who’ve gone to meetings, and they say that there are a lot of veteran addicts who will talk about their war stories. Glorify them, like, I was a badass. I did this, and that—and I could take it. Do you think there’s an element of that in the process?
Not at all. I’m sure I do that at some point in the book, but I don’t think there’s bravado [generally]. I’m actually really proud of myself for telling this story, but I don’t glorify it. Hopefully you can see that in the book.

In the book, you certainly do not glorify it, but I’m wondering if in the culture of recovery, there is that element. Do you see that in meetings?
Of course. Everybody’s sick! It’s a bunch of fucked-up people in a room. You’re going to get all kinds of stuff. [But] it’s a really important part of my personal recovery, and it made a huge impact on me. Even if I only go to meetings now when I need to go.

Your show The Exes had a good first season.
Yes! And you can go to TVLand.com and watch full episodes. Don’t watch the first one, because it’s terrible, but the rest are really funny. For real.

You’re also working locally in addiction. Can you tell our readers about that?
I’m trying to build a sober high school here in New York City. Because even though it’s so not written about in the press, the problem is epidemic. One in three teenagers in the U.S. meets the medical cri teria for addiction. And if a kid is lucky enough to go to rehab, but then goes back to his high school, the relapse rate is 80 percent. For kids who go to a sober high school—which is basically the same as a regular high school but there are AA meetings offered, and a range of support—70 percent of them graduate drug- and alcohol-free. I formed a board called SLAM, which stands for Sobriety through Learning And Motivation. You can find us on Facebook (SLAM NYC) and at SlamNYC.com.

What should we take away from Guts?
You know when I said that addicts take the drug to be the person they always wanted to be? To be totally honest with you, it kind of works—for a minute. But then it backfires. It’s taking a shortcut to something, you know? Look, if you go on a starvation diet? Great, you lose weight! But then you eat an apple? You’re gonna be obese. There’s no quick route to happiness, to serenity, to —yeah, to joy! You can’t take a pill and be okay. It’s not gonna work. It’s a process. There are no shortcuts.

The guys you’re about to meet had what they consider good reasons for not seizing the opportunity when invited to have sex with a ready-and-willing babe. And we’re not talking about saying no to so-so sex here. This isn’t about Doug, 33, who fled naked from a woman’s bed after sobering up and realizing the hottie he’d met in the bar was more like “Meat Loaf, with bigger tits.” And it’s not about Noah, 40, who, after getting a whiff of his bed partner’s unsanitary lady parts, made up an excuse and made a quick escape.

No, these guys failed to seize the night because they were “doing the right thing.” Are they bastions of moral decency, or just plain crazy?

The Pledge
From jocks to brainiacs, no man can resist the idea of banging a sorority girl. That is, no man except Jon, now 32, who decided to “just say no” to a pretty young pledge.

“I was in a fraternity in college, and there was this unspoken rule that we could hook up with the women from this one particular sorority. The girls weren’t forced to sleep with us or anything, but I didn’t like the idea of it. It was kind of like picking low-hanging fruit. There was no challenge involved. There was this one party my senior year, during pledge week. This cute little pledge from the sorority—she was short, with red hair and big tits, a really shy girl—comes up and starts giving me a lap dance. It was not subtle; she was literally rubbing her cooch on my leg. I knew that the sisters were ‘giving her’ to me, and that felt kind of creepy. I didn’t want to be that guy, so instead I just gave her a little kiss and went back to drinking with my friends. Of course, everyone gave me shit about it. I later heard that the girl was upset and crying. But I still stand by my decision.”

The Best Friend
We’ve heard the cliché that men and women can’t be friends. Chuck, now 37, decided he was the exception to that rule when he resisted his hot best pal’s advances in favor of—wait for it—her steadfast friendship.

“Lee and I have been best friends for years. Our friends used to always joke around and ask us when we were going to do it. But I honestly valued our friendship too much to risk it over a hookup, and I think she felt that way, too. That is, until one night after a mutual friend’s wedding, when we found our selves making out outside the reception. It was getting hot and heavy, but the thought kept running through my mind: This is your best friend—don’t fuck this up! And so I ended up driving her home and not going upstairs with her. The next day we laughed about it, and she said it was probably the right decision. Fast-forward five years, and we ended up sleeping together just once. And we’re still friends.”

The Single Teen Mom
Who hasn’t fantasized about getting it on with a sexy coworker? Abe, 38, ignored his secretary’s siren song for fear of being cast in the role of baby daddy.

“I was doing computer consulting work in Nassau, in the Bahamas, and one of the ladies in the office continually rubbed her breasts against me. Even though she had nice tits and a great figure, whenever she’d ‘accidentally’ rub her tits against me I’d either pretend not to notice, or say ‘excuse me’ and smile and move away. I would have gone for it if not for the fact that she was so young—she was barely 18—and had a very young child, which I wanted nothing to do with. As the job went on, she got more aggressive. She would ask about going out together, and say that she wanted to come over to my hotel room. I just ignored her advances until the day I left the island.”

The Best Friend’s Crush
A sexy waitress wanted to satisfy Mick, 25, but since he knew his best buddy was into her, all he picked up was the check.

“Joe and I have been best friends since college. He was totally in love with one of the waitresses that worked at a restaurant we frequented. I would tell him to just ask her out, but he’s a really shy guy and wouldn’t do it. Then one night I was really drunk and decided I needed something to eat. I went into the restaurant by myself, and our hot waitress was there. She flirted with me heavily when she brought me my order. I had the urgent need to piss, so I went into the men’s room. A second later, I notice someone else is in there. It’s the waitress, and she’s pressing her body up against mine and grabbing my cock. Under other circumstances, I would have been ready to go. She had an amazing body, really lean and toned. I never told Joe about it, but I did insist that we start eating at a different restaurant.”

It’s just after lunch on a typical busy workday in an outer borough of New York City. The traffic is still a few hours from hysteria. Supermarkets are receiving their weekly shipments, postal workers are delivering the mail, and a robbery is in progress at one of the largest electronics retailers in the country.

The key element—and the genius—of this robbery is that it won’t stand out from the hustle and bustle of lunch hour. The thieves will make off with two of the most expensive laptops on the market, hardly anyone will know they were there, and no one will realize a crime has been committed. Not for a good while, anyway.

Now, before you dismiss two laptops as small potatoes, consider this: These thieves strike frequently, several times a week, and they have a network of fences to turn their illicit merchandise into instant cash. They make a living—a good living—from their escapades.

They’ve been doing it for years, and they’ve got it down so well that they have no qualms about sailing into the store’s parking lot with weed exhaust pouring out the windows of their luxury SUV. This will be quick and easy. A two-man diversion job.

Steven Steals [all names in this story have been changed] visited the store the day before and disabled the alarms on a pair of $2,000 MacBook Airs. He simply released the USB alarm from the side of each computer and plugged them into an adjacent laptop on display. The alarms did sound for a few seconds while disconnected, but the staff disregarded them when they quickly subsided. Steals slipped the laptops into the drawer of a table and left.

Today, he and one of his partners, Nando, are back to finish the job. They enter the store and immediately find a service rep to distract by asking for help finding a computer charger they don’t need. While the service rep is away, Steals and Nando pretend to browse laptops. Standing next to the table, with plenty of other customers milling about, the thieves casually face each other. Nando lifts his shirt and Steals deftly fits the laptop between belt and waist. It’s done with the precision and speed of a NASCAR pit crew. It happens so fast I can understand how everyone else misses it. After a slight pause, they repeat the
action with the second laptop.

Now, Nando and Steals simply resume their window-shopping routine.

When the kid helping them returns with the charger, they scoff at the price but thank him and walk to the counter, seemingly ready to check out. They approach the line, only to “change their minds” and return the charger to the cashier, telling him they’ve decided not to purchase it. They exit past the employees posted at the door, checking receipts. They’re out of the store within 15 minutes of entering it, and simply walk through the corridor of the busy mall, stolen laptops stuffed in their shorts.

They pay $3 to the parking attendant, and will sell the MacBook Airs for about $1,200 apiece a few weeks later, giving them a tidy profit of $2,397 for 20 minutes of work over two days.

With the laptops casually strewn across the backseat, Nando and Steals motor to an ice-cream parlor about a mile from the store, and, after finishing the oversize blunt they were smoking before “work,” they eat large waffle cones with mounds of multicolored ice cream.

Just another day in the field for a hardworking team of full-time shoplifters.

Steals and Nando are part of a group of seasoned crooks who travel the country, preying on large chain stores, in search of the most expensive gadgets on the market. They won’t tell me the precise number of members in their group, but there are at least five. They’re all in their late twenties and have never had real jobs. Since they each make upward of $5,000 on a good day, they’ve never needed real jobs. They steal and sell the most expensive laptops, tablets, cameras, musical instruments, and any other premium item there’s a market for. They’ve stolen 400 pairs of Gucci shades on one job, a $35,000 guitar on another, and, on several occasions, six $3,000 cameras at a time, and up to eight $2,500 laptops in a single trip.

Steals, Nando, Bo, and Kev all met during junior high school and grew up in the “Triangle”—the Elmhurst, Corona, and Jackson Heights neighborhoods of Queens, in the shadow of Queens Center Mall on Queens Boulevard. Steals aspires to one day transition from roving shoplifter to fashion mogul—and it’s a plan the others are in on, though the particulars of its execution remain vague. Steals, Bo, and Kev have children, and they rely on a steady stream of theft to pay the bills. But their biggest motivation is freedom. The idea of a constrictive nine-to-five disgusts them; stealing has afforded them a lifestyle most working stiffs can only dream about.

Around the turn of the millennium, they saw the boom in the electronics industry as an opportunity to bring high-end gadgets to those in need at a cut rate. They switched from boosting Polo sweaters and DVDs to laptops, tablets, iPods, and digital cameras. Not only do they steal the latest technological gadgets, but they also use technology to make the job easier. Using a GPS, they map out logical routes to follow. Each thief uses Bluetooth so they can communicate in stores more discreetly—though they rarely need to. “We all know the same system, we all become one,” Steals says. “We work as one unit—we don’t even have to speak; we just look at each other.”

Steals is the leader of the group, and the most experienced. He completed his GED, and says he finished college for fashion design. He’s continually smoking weed or a cigarette, and has a deep, carefully pronounced way of speaking. But he’s also the cowboy of the crew, known for his quick thinking and risk-taking. While most of the guys say they’re comfortable taking two laptops at once, Steals says he’ll typically take three or four. He compares the members of his crew to “pirates” and criminals of the past, especially John Dillinger, who constantly changed locations to keep the authorities off his trail.

A few years ago, in Illinois, Steals jumped off a bridge to distract the police and help his buddies escape. The episode began in a chain store, where they got tripped up. They had to bolt, making it to the highway before being pulled over. “[The cop] was like, ‘Get out of the car!’ I got out of the car and he tried to grab me and throw me in handcuffs, so I fought him off and ran,” Steals says. “I was on the side of a highway and I felt like the bridge was getting low enough for me to jump. I didn’t even look; I just jumped over.”

Steals estimates that he fell four stories. He got up once and fell right back down, with a broken leg and a broken arm. Talk about taking one for the team: His buddies grabbed the wheel of the car and drove away with a day’s worth of stolen goods that they later turned into cash. As for Steals, “They charged me with…jumping off a bridge,” he says.

A few months after I witnessed the double laptop theft, I meet Steals and several members of his crew—Kev, Bo, and another, quieter guy, Twins. They’re parked next to the train tracks in a quiet section of Queens. Their ride is an ancient 34-foot RV they bought off the street. It’s the kind of vehicle that your grandparents might have bought in 1990. It’s a horrible shade of beige and looks about as safe as an aging wooden roller coaster. There’s enough seating for a dozen people, a small kitchenette, a dining table, and a bedroom with a king-size bed. They plan to revive the vehicle in time for the holidays, when the crew goes on a national shoplifting spree.

They kick off on Thanksgiving night and roll until a few days before Christmas, executing a synchronized plan that crisscrosses the nation. The timing and duration of the trips depend on financial need and market climate. They’ll ride out in a Winnebago (this is their second), or sometimes fly, and then rent a car. They pick a group of five states, map out the entire trip on a GPS, then hit every store they can from opening until closing. At the end of each day, they’ll ship the stolen goods home or directly to a customer so they’ve got a clean car to continue driving. It’s a game of numbers, and the more stores they hit, the more money they earn, and the more they get from one store, the better.

They eventually turn all the goods into cash via a network of buyers—people using Craigslist and eBay as a filter to sell stolen property, and retailers looking to stock their shelves at a higher profit. They might visit 8 to 10 stores to fill an order of 50 or 100 of a specific item. Usually, they’ll sell the products at a 40 to 60 percent discount. “I’ll make five grand in a day, working for six hours. It’s as much as I want to put into it. It’s not like there’s a bunch of feds looking for us,” Steals says. “It’s just a family-oriented thing. I wouldn’t say we’re gypsies, but I would say we’re like pirates.”

Here are some tricks of the trade they’ve developed over time: Never spend more than 15 minutes in one store. Change cars as often as possible by complaining to the rental service about squeaky brakes or weak airconditioning, etc. Pay for everything in cash. If you get pulled over, crack the screen of your GPS to erase the device’s history. Blend into your surroundings: If this means donning hunting gear in Colorado or posing as surfers in Santa Cruz, so be it.

As for inside the store, the crew has mastered many of the alarm systems retailers use to secure their goods. According to Steals, they also use “homemade tools” to disable loss-prevention devices. They look like they’re designed to pick locks, and that’s exactly what they do. Even without tools, the crew knows that alarms can be quickly silenced.

“It’s an alarm system—if you unplug it from a laptop it rings. It has buttons, a power cord, and a big speaker. I’ll grab that shit and take it with me like a time bomb, but if I hug it, I’ll muffle it enough for me to go to the other side of the store and stuff it into a drawer,” says Steals. “I’ll take it into the bathroom and pour water over it until it fucks up. I’ve grabbed a garbage can, gone to the bathroom, filled it with water, and then just dumped the whole shit in the garbage can and it goes deeew [makes the sound of a computer abruptly crashing]. Everything turns off. Then you just rape the whole section.”

Another trick involves stuffing a box from inside the store with smaller, more expensive items they’ve disabled in another section, and then paying for the less expensive item originally contained in the box. Let Steals explain: “One time, I went to an -other aisle and grabbed this big-ass printer box and I took the printer out of it, right there in the TV section. I filled it up with 13 items that cost $1,000 each. I re-taped it right in the back aisle.” The items had no alarms, he explains, because Steals had
picked the lock on a display case and snatched them from inside. He then proceeded to checkout.

“I took the big box to the register and paid $70 for $13,000 worth of shit.”

But having the knowledge of alarm systems and a strict, choreographed plan doesn’t always protect the crew from attracting attention. Quick thinking is a required skill in this line of work.

“I think it was the day the iPhone 3 came out,” says Kev. “We’re at the place, and we see people surrounding us, looking at us.” Somehow, they’d aroused suspicion, but they hadn’t boosted anything yet. They decided to cut bait and get out of there, but security blocked their exit. “They tried to bring us to a room,” says Kev, “but we didn’t have nothing anyway. What we did have was the working tools. But while they were searching us, they put us against the wall right where the [employee] coatracks were. We took our tools and stuffed them in the coats while they weren’t looking.”

Steals and his team have warned mall security guards that they can be sued if they injure the crew, even if the thieves are convicted of robbing the store. Typically, though, confrontations don’t rise to that level. But the boys have gotten to know the lay of the land in a number of different regions. “If you’re in Baltimore, you know the workers are going to be a little tougher than they are in fucking Milwaukee,” Steals says. “If you’re in the Bronx, well, the employees are thieves themselves, and they’re going to see you from afar.” Referring to the relatively sleepy environs of the Blue Hen State, he adds, “If you’re in Delaware, it’s a little bit better.”

We speak for nearly two hours, interrupted sporadically by the roar of the passing trains. It’s September, and by their standards there’s a lull in the stealing season. They’ll make some short runs before winter, but their sights are set on the annual Black
Friday trip, the one they claim earned them $340,000 last year. They’ve worked it out so they hit 200 stores, making about $2,000 at each stop.

There is risk involved, but so far the ride’s been well worth it. “If you just made six grand, do you really want Taco Bell? We’re all going to Ruth’s Chris Steak House,” says Steals. “It’s a rock-star life, and it’s hard to get out of it when you’re used to that kind of income.”

Especially if the law has given you no reason to quit—so far.