The Skammerz Ishu
The King of the Pickpockets
The Snail is the best pickpocket in Ciudad Juárez. He's stealthily snatched wallets and cash from politicians in Sonora, federal police officers in Durango, and undercover cops in Mexicali tasked with his arrest. He's retired now, running a soup...
“The Story of Oh Donna”
Listen to the long-lost classic “The Story of Oh Donna,” by the completely anonymous white 80s hip-hop artist Rat Tail, whose current whereabouts are unknown. We discovered this track a year ago on a cassette tape that was wrapped in a ball of human...
A True Rip-Off Artist
In 2009, I moved from St. Louis, Missouri, to New York City to “make it” as a photographer. I was broke, lonely, and desperate for work, when out of the blue I was contacted on Twitter by someone who went by the name C. S. Leigh.
Canadian Medical Schools Love Pharmaceutical Companies
Over the past decade, prescription pills have become the latest drug-epidemic bogeyman. A study published earlier this year claimed that one in four American teenagers have misused medications at least once—a 33 percent increase from 2008—and OxyContin...
This Water Is Full of Bullshit
How much are you willing to pay for 33 ounces of bottled water? Your answer probably ranges from “About a buck” to “Nothing, asshole, water should be free.”
How to Fake Your Own Death
Most people have probably fantasized about staging their own grisly demise as a way to escape their problems (and/or cash in on life insurance) à la Krusty the Clown or (spoiler) Batman in that third Christopher Nolan movie. But it’s hard to disappear...
Energy
If there is a single idea that can be borrowed from its original physics, or whatever context, and reapplied as an explanation for the ways in which people are shitty to each other, it’s that energy can’t be created or destroyed, only changed.
Some Nights We Tase Each Other
Adam Wilson is the author of the novel Flatscreen and the forthcoming collection of short stories What’s Important Is Feeling. His work has appeared in the Paris Review, Tin House, and The Best American Short Stories 201...
The Sport of Kings Is Full of Scum
Cheating is deeply woven into the fabric of horse racing. The sport is such a magnet for shady characters and below-the-table dealings that the Horseracing Integrity and Safety Act was introduced in Congress this past May, with the intention of curbing...
Showgirls
Natalia Leite and Alexandra Roxo ran away from Brooklyn to make a film project out of their “dream job,” which was stripping at a club in Moriarty, New Mexico that is described on The Ultimate Strip Club List as the place “where strippers go to die...
This Guy Thinks All Pro Sports Are Rigged
What do Super Bowl III, the 2012 Olympic badminton tournament, the 2011 Cricket World Cup semifinals, and the 2012 Manny Pacquiao–Timothy Bradley fight have in common? According to Brian Tuohy, they were all fixed.