Even in the deep dark depths of the Great Magazine Die-Off a half-decade ago, struggling print magazines did not get so desperate as to breezily stick ads on the cover of their struggling print editions. Hey, times have changed.

Now we are in 2015, the Age of #Content—an age in which publishers hope to convince you, the consumer, that there is not a meaningful line between "advertising" and "editorial," because at the end of the day, it is all #Content. Right? Sure, sure.

Ad Age reports that Forbes—once a respected business magazine and now essentially an online blogging platform with low standards that also produces a print magazine on the side—has a Fidelity ad on the cover of its print edition this week. And not just an ad ad, but a native ad, meaning "an ad that would like you, the casual reader, not to notice that it is an ad at all." The ad is a teaser for a Fidelity-sponsored "infographic about retirement." So you see, it is #Content, my friend.

"We view this as strong content that's part of the retirement package," said Mark Howard, Forbes Media's chief revenue officer... "[Forbes editor] Lewis [D'vorkin] deemed it was appropriate for Fidelity to be called out on the cover just like any other great piece of content would be," said Mr. Howard

Putting ads on your magazine cover is a bad precedent. Putting native ads on your magazine cover is worse. And being the editor of a magazine whose "chief revenue officer" puts native ads on the cover and then says that you're fine with it because it's "just like any other great piece of content" is really a great example of being forced to eat shit. (This is the most generous possible interpretation of the situation.)

[Pic via]

New Orleans is transforming. The city's poorly constructed levees meant that when Hurricane Katrina hit in 2005, it devastated the city, bringing in floodwaters that forced out residents and flattened neighborhoods. It also created an opportunity for developers and politicians to remake it anew. After the storm, New Orleans was often described as a "blank slate," which was problematic given hundreds of thousands of residents still lived within city limits. But for those who could afford to buy, demolish, and build, the term held some truth to it.

One of those people is Pres Kabacoff. He's one of the city's largest developers. His development company, HRI Properties, is focused on "inner-city revitalization" and he's done everything from convert loft buildings to develop entire neighborhoods from scratch in cities across the country—including St. Louis and Dallas. Kabacoff has a vision for New Orleans that has made him the center of a lot of controversy; he wants to see it "revitalized," which for many longtime residents and critics is just another term for gentrification.

But Kabacoff's kind of gotten his wish: New Orleans rental prices are increasing rapidly. In 2000, the average family spent only 13 percent of their income on rent in the city. Before Katrina that number had risen to 19 percent. And it now stands at 35 percent, according to the Greater New Orleans Fair Housing Action Center. The city also lost 7 percent of its black population between 2000 and 2010. The most gentrified neighborhood, Bywater, which Kabacoff had a huge hand in redeveloping, is much, much whiter—it lost 64 percent of its black population between the same 10-year period, and its white population increased by 23 percent.

A large part of the problem with affordable housing in the city is that New Orleans used Katrina as an opportunity to knock down nearly every single housing project. Instead of building new complexes, the city relied on Hope VI, a federal program that gives tax breaks to private developers to include affordable housing in their developments. But Kabacoff lobbied to change the definition of "affordable" so wealthier residents could also receive tax breaks. And he's now one of the main developers benefitting from the Hope VI program in New Orleans.

I sat down with Kabacoff in his ornate office in downtown New Orleans (he has rugs that are probably worth more than your car) to try to get a glimpse of what his vision is for the city.

How did you come to realize the potential for New Orleans to be "revitalized"?

I ended up puppy dogging for my father's development company in early 70s. He always had a vision of bringing the city to the river. The shipping industry from downtown no longer worked, so that presented an opportunity to clean the riverfront up, and we developed a public-private partnership for the riverfront in the 80s. We held the World's Fair there. It was meant to improve a section of the city that was emptying out. Then there was the oil shock; 50,000 jobs were lost. But we discovered when we went to convert warehouses to residential buildings, despite high vacancy rates in the city, when we opened our first conversion we were able to fill that building at higher rates than anywhere, and my partner and I looked at each other and said, "We're onto something." Now we're a developmental company doing inner-city revitalization throughout the country.

You started as a suburban developer, and now you exclusively develop in cities, why?

I'd been to Soho and Noho in New York and the North End of Boston and saw they were taking warehouse buildings and carving them into homes. I also thought it'd be good for the environment. Sprawl isn't. And there's a desire almost across the board to return to the city. We are now a mission-driven neighborhood revitalizer. We use housing, hotels, mixed-income developments as "widgets" to make revitalization happen. That grew into taking advantage of Hope VI, which was the federal program to really decapitate public housing by privatizing it and mixing incomes [Hope VI was started under the Clinton Administration. It gives cities money to give tax breaks to developers for affordable housing in mixed-use communities, as opposed to building blocks of traditional public housing]. We like it because it was a neighborhood revitalizer—it fit our mission perfectly.

How big is your footprint in New Orleans?

We've done 9,000 or 10,000 units in the center city—the warehouse district, the central business district. Those neighborhoods are the stars of inner-city revitalization, and now that's happening all over the country, but there's a long way to go.

How did Katrina remake New Orleans' housing model?

There's always a question of dollars—you get less rent, your building costs aren't different, so you need subsidy. The city got a lot from Katrina and BP. About $100 billion came through here after Katrina. That's juice that no other city really got. What we did is went to the state and federal government in concern; we knew the federal government would dump money here and without it we wouldn't be sitting here today. But we were concerned that they would just create housing projects again and concentrate the poor and we would be right back to where we were, which was a declining city. So I tried to influence the federal government to increase the tax incentive for affordable housing so it so it wasn't just for people making 60 percent of median income but 120 percent. That worked. Now, instead of making $20,000 you could make $40,000 to $50,000 in affordable housing, just to have a broader group, so when you did use subsidies you'd not only be dealing with the very poor but the working and middle classes.

How do you make money and make affordable housing at the same time?

The trick is to get market rate to come. The affordable will come. But if the market rate doesn't come, you end up with all the affordable and the issues they tried to unwind with these programs like Hope VI. On the affordable side, probably a third of those people you would love to have as your neighbor, another third—the kind of people who if their refrigerator stops working their life falls apart—if you can get them stable, you want them, and a third you just don't have the social staff to deal with the issues they're bringing to the table.

When we do developments, it's usually its one-third market, one-third workforce, and one-third former public housing—mothers with children on food stamps and all that stuff. There's a mixture of people. How do we afford to do the affordable piece? You need a lot of subsidy.

But what about that last third? The poorest. How do you house them?

If there's crime that follows, the market rate gets nervous, votes with their feet and leaves, then it doesn't work. So what do you do with the third that's too difficult? You just don't take them, or you evict them. Just get them out of there. I don't have the staff to deal with them. One of the deficiencies of the Hope VI model is how do you provide social services for those people?

What about gentrification? Are you concerned with all these new developments, even the mixed-income units, that New Orleans is becoming unaffordable?

If you're not growing, you're dying. It's certainly not a good solution to stop development to protect neighborhoods. And it's true when a neighborhood comes back many people who found it to be an affordable place are priced out. There are ways to ameliorate that like inclusionary zoning[that's what New York does—mandates new developments contain some affordable housing]. I tried to do that in this state. They weren't ready for the concept.

But the cold truth is, if you're going to revitalize a neighborhood that's in bad shape or where market rate won't go—because the amount of crime, the amount of poverty or the amount of minorities, or whatever keeps market rate uncomfortable moving there—one of the realities is that when the market rate come in, those people move to another neighborhood. It's a pain in the ass, but they move.

That's a concern for artists, too. One of the things were were able to do with Bywater [New Orleans' most gentrified neighborhood] after the storm was create an affordable housing development and preferred artists. The federal government said you can't do that because they're not a protected class like race. So we went to Congress and changed the law.

So you're saying basically that the poorest are just kind of screwed?

With all these cutbacks—we spend money on war and not on housing; the federal government doesn't spend as much—we really need to double the affordable housing incentive.

In terms of race, black people in this town have less money. When neighborhoods revitalize, I think it chases all the poor out, and in our city the poor are almost all black, so it's more a coincidence. And there is probably some racism involved in that. That's the downside of neighborhood improvement. But if the solution is don't allow people to sell or improve their houses, then you haven't done that neighborhood any good.

Do you ever worry that New Orleans will gentrify enough to create a situation like San Francisco—angered residents protesting, picketing in front of Twitter? The city is almost irreparably divided.

That may be almost a good thing. The French Revolution, they didn't have enough bread so they took down the house. You want the poor to get too poor or angry because they'll take you on, and they'll take us all to the cleaners.

But we had 650,000 people after Katrina, and then we had 390,000 and now we have 450,000. That's a dramatic difference from San Francisco or New York. All cities are not the same. We lost our middle income dramatically and it becomes a vicious cycle. The middle class don't require a lot of services, but they pay for services that are provided. When your middle class leaves and your poor get more concentrated, your service needs go up—the tax base is gone and you go into a vicious downward spiral. And you get what happened here, and in Detroit, and Newark, and Gary, Indiana.

But in San Francisco and New York it's gotten to the point where the poor can't afford to live there. I don't think that's the case in New Orleans. You might argue New Orleans could use a little gentrification. In San Francisco and New York, you reach that saturation point and once you reach that, people start to march. Am I worried about people marching in New Orleans? Not yet. We've got a ways to go. And when they're marching that means we really have an improved city—and we also have a problem.

Peter Moskowitz is a writer based in Brooklyn. He's currently writing a book about gentrification. For more of his work, visit selfcity.kinja.com.

[Image via Getty]

What do you think the most successful industry in America has been in the past 100 years? A hint: it's home to the most successful company of the past 50 years.

If you guessed "automobiles" or "energy" or "food" or even "telecom," then man, I feel sorry for you, because you are some kind of moron. Okay? I'm sorry. Smarten up. According to a new Credit Suisse report that examines cumulative returns in 15 separate industries that have survived from 1900 up to the present day, one industry stands out as a clear winner, having posted close to 15% annual returns over the past 100+ years. (To give you some idea of how much things have changed—in 1900, railroads were more valuable than every other industry in America combined.)

America's top industry of the past century: tobacco. Morgan Housel notes that "One dollar invested in tobacco stocks in 1900 was worth $6.3 million by 2010. That's 165 times greater than the average industry." Furthermore, according to research from Jeremy Siegel, the single most profitable US company since 1968 is Altria, the tobacco conglomerate.

I hear you saying, "Because tobacco is addictive!" But you're wrong—idiot. (I also know you didn't guess tobacco as the answer to the question in the first paragraph so you have no leg to stand on, here.) Housel says that the tobacco industry's success lies not in the fact that its product is addictive, but in the fact that tobacco companies have no real pressure to innovate (they're basically selling the same thing they were in 1900), and in the fact that lots of people refuse to invest in them, which makes them a sweeter investment for the people who are willing to invest in them.

Morality is little more than an arbitrage opportunity in the USA.

[Image via Credit Suisse]

We recently asked our readers to share their tales of hooking up with their college professors—a project inspired by Harvard’s recent ban on student-professor relationships. And, well, our readers delivered. Without further comment, here are their 10 best submissions. You can read the rest in the comments here. Missed the original post? Share your own story below.

1. The Sex Room (By Orangista)

I’ve hooked up with two, both married, but the first one told me he and his wife had an open marriage. He was a visiting prof from California and was the kind of guy who played guitar in class, while his wife had remained in Cali. (This was a school on the east coast.)

He called me into his office to discuss a poor grade I’d gotten on the midterm. His office was entirely furnished with bean bag chairs. Instead of discussing my grade, he told me about his “difficult childhood” and then changed my grade to an A because he could just tell that clearly I “get” poetry. (It was a poetry class.)

I could tell he was a creep, but was sort of into the taboo-ness of it. We flirted openly for the rest of the semester, he gave me an A I didn’t deserve (though I would have slept with him regardless), then he invited me out to bubble tea so he could officially state his desire to sex me.

He invited me over to dinner at his house, which was macrobiotic, he claimed to be a master of karmic sex magic, and revealed that he had a special room in his house just for sex, which was covered in purple velvet. When I laughed at him, he said, “You’ll learn to like the sex room.” The sex was just ok.

The next morning, he had a major guilt attack, revealed the open marriage thing to be a lie, and repeatedly questioned whether I had HIV. (The sex was unprotected, though I was on the pill.) He was leaving back to California the next day, and I didn’t hear from him again until he drunkenly called me a year later wanting phone sex. I declined.

The second one was less creepy, but also weird. We were deeply attracted to each other, but he didn’t want to cheat on his wife, so we would do things like spend the night in hotel rooms cuddling naked, but not even kissing. It was extremely frustrating.

2. The Law Professor (By Grovercle)

Part I

I hooked up with my law school professor. I was 29; he was 45, bald, and out of shape, but there was just something about him. I worked in the field he taught prior to law school, so I was more knowledgeable on the subject matter than the average student in the class and we always exchanged witty banter back and forth.

After the class ended, we ran into each other at a networking event. It was an open bar and we both drank too much. We exchanged phone numbers under the guise of networking. The next day, he texted that he was embarrassed he may have said some things he shouldn’t have. I replied that I didn't think he did, and I certainly don't recall being offended by anything. “Are you sure? I vaguely remember saying that I would sleep with you.” I replied, “No, that must have been in your head.”

Him: “Is it in your head too?” I was basically dying at this point, but thought, what the hell. I replied, “Yes.” Thus began a several months long affair that consisted of lots of sexting, sex in my place (including a threesome with another man) and quickies in his car, and never being in public together or going on dates.

I broke it off because I eventually figured out he was happily married and still living with his wife. At the start of things, he indicated that he was separated from his wife and in the process of a divorce. Lies.

Part II

So threesome details. Hope this satisfies you perverts.

We were exchanging fantasies, and I mentioned that MFM porn was my favorite and I would love to experience it. Professor Sleazeball was very turned on by this and encouraged me to find someone as a third. I set up an account on Adult Friend Finder and found the perfect guy. He was totally my physical type: tall, defined muscles, light hair, blue eyes, and a chiseled jaw. We met at a bar first to see if we all got along, and we did, so we left for my place.

You would think the situation would have been slightly awkward, but it wasn't at all and completely lived up to my fantasies. Professor encouraged me to kiss Third while he watched, and then I would kiss Professor. Things escalated from there, at first each taking turns, and then eventually it turned into more of a group activity. We even DP’ed, which was INTENSE. I was always the center of attention and there was never any deliberate physical contact between the guys.

Afterwards, Professor Sleazeball and I would exchange our favorite details of the encounter. Then he started to say things like, “Would you have liked it if I sucked his cock?” Um, no, I would not have. I think the threesome was basically his way of having a sexual experience with another man and still feel “straight,” if that makes sense. Basically just dipping his toes in. I definitely don't think that's always or even usually the case for guys in MFMs, but I’m pretty sure it was for him.

After I figured out about the wife, Third texted me hoping for round two. We met and hooked up sans Prof, and then ended up dating for 6 months or so. We told our friends we met online.

3. The Lit Professor (By Travelgrrl)

Early 80’s, Midwestern state school, I had a flaming affair with one of my literature professors. His wife was in a long term coma, so 19 year old me had zero compunction about a never present wife in a faraway nursing home. All kinds of nonsense, including on the desk of his office, while students played frisbee on the quad below.

At the end of a particularly torrid summer, he sat me down for The Talk (which I had been expecting, as I assumed we couldn't carry on with the same aplomb as we had been, even in those freewheeling days). But no, it was to tell me we had to knock it off BECAUSE HE WAS IN LOVE WITH ANOTHER STUDENT, who was coming back that fall.

I pretty much stopped going to class, as all of my courses were held in his building, with him as professor, or with the student who supplanted me. Dropped out of school, moved away, got married, moved to another state, established residency, and finally graduated college.

The worst part was that I LOVED him. Loved loved loved him. He drove an unusual car and when I saw one of them I would flinch and my heart would race, ten years and thousands of miles away. I dreamed about him for twenty years, no lie.

Tl;dr: He lent me books, he broke my schoolgirl heart.

4. First Time with Another Guy (By SouthpawCam)

I’m a guy, and my first time with another guy was with a professor of mine.

I was a Senior at college, and not quite out yet at the time. Because I had to work, I usually didn’t go home during school breaks, and would hang out with a bunch of friends who also stuck around when the college was otherwise closed. One night during spring break I was supposed to catch up with these friends to go bar-hopping, but I got out of work late and missed them at the first stop on our rounds, a bar not far from campus.

While my friends weren’t there, I did spot one of my professors; while I didn’t have him for a class that particular semester, he was in my major’s field and we saw other often (it was a somewhat small college). He was also gay, and while he thought he was closeted, it was a pretty open secret on campus.

I also thought he was very attractive.

So with a plan in mind, I went up to him to say hello. Which turned into a lengthy conservation. Which turned into me becoming increasingly flirty/aggressive with him. He deflected it at first, but gradually he became clearly interested...and nervous. After all, messing around with a student could seriously backfire on him. But eventually I won him over with promises of discretion, and we went back to his place for the night.

I had a great time, and hope he did too. We only hooked up that one time, and kept things casual when we crossed paths for the remainder of the semester. I didn’t told this story to any one until more than a decade later, and have never divulged his name to anyone.

5. A Professor’s Story (By Knifey_Spooney)

On the flip side, I taught at a large southern hemisphere university (as somewhere between a TA and a professor, basically an industry professional who taught some classes.) Yeah, I hooked up with some students. Always* outside of marking periods, though.

About five years after I graduated college, I got an invitation to return to my alma mater to do some teaching. I would lead a weekly tutorial group of anywhere between 15 and 25 students in their second and third years, so they’re 19-21 or so. I was 25, newly single and had a good job in the industry I was teaching.

I taught on the side of my regular job for three years. Fucking sensational hourly rate, and I really enjoyed teaching. I got hit on for extensions/grade reviews a lot my first semester, and couldn't fathom that that's what was happening until later.

The first time I hooked up with a student, it was via (of all things) the IM feature on the Words With Friends app. I was teaching an English-related course, so I challenged a lot of students to play. This one sent me a drunk IM on the app one Saturday night right after semester finished, I replied (equally drunk), and we ended up trading numbers. We texted back and forth for a couple days before she made it very clear that she wanted a no-strings sexual relationship. I was equally clear that I wasn’t interested in dating. It culminated in me driving to her (parents’) place late one Friday night and getting a blowjob while parked across the street. Despite the clear “no relationship” boundaries we’d set, she quickly “fell in love” and I had to cut it off before it got any worse. She showed up at my doorstep crying, banging on the door, asking the neighbors to let her into the apartment building. Bullet dodged. She was engaged less than a year later. Great blowjob though, and I’ve always wondered whether I shouldn’t have just slept with her once.

* The second and most rewarding time was the following semester, when a ton of email banter with a student closer to my age (she was 22, I was 26) turned real flirtatious and real frequent. We’re talking 75 emails a day back and forth. I decided a few weeks out from the end of semester that once I was done marking her work, I was going to throw caution to the wind and ask her on a date. My plan was forced into action early when she told me she was going overseas for the entirety of summer break, so I thought “fuck it” and asked her. She responded, “of course! All this flirting had to go somewhere, right?” She came over on the spur of the moment for dinner and a movie the following night, and we were barely apart after that until she went overseas for a month. We dated for around six months. She was also one of my best students classwork-wise, so marking her assignments never felt like I was giving her a grade she didn’t deserve.

Once I picked up the pieces of my shattered heart after we broke up, there were a couple more student hookups in my final year of teaching. Both of them started off as email banter and ended up getting more personal. One of them had heard through the grapevine that I’d been through a bad break-up and (platonically, while still being my student) taught me a few things about moving on and loving myself. We ended up having Thai food, cheap wine and a bunch of sex one night after semester was over, and we’re still friends now.

It’s probably lucky I stopped teaching when I did though. There’s a big difference between “being four years older than the girls you're teaching, and sleeping with them after semester” and “being 10 years older than them.”

6. Summer School (By Sydneycat)

I first met him in a summer school class, an elective for my major, and during the next 6 weeks, I grew completely infatuated, although respectfully studently. I had a boyfriend and was NOT the type to think I would EVER hook up with a professor, much less one who was divorced and 15 years older than me. But there was SOMETHING THERE. Since he wasn’t in my particular discipline, I had no other classes with him. But over the next year I saw him around the building where he and I had classes, and I went out of my way to be places and events where he would be, just because it was so wonderful just talking to him and being with him. There was SOMETHING THERE. The boyfriend just could not compare, so he was gone. Long story short, there WAS SOMETHING THERE. One day I was going to give a snack to a friend who didn’t show, and I ran into him and shared it with him instead. He sweetly asked if I wanted to share lunch with him on campus the next day. I did. It was September, a year after our class together, and by the end of December we were married. 37 years and 2 wonderful children later, we both look upon the whole thing as a dream come true.

7. The PoliSci Professor (By Ashley)

I ran into a former PoliSci professor of mine on campus one day and sat down to chat because A) he was that hot professor that everyone drooled over and B) he had recently written me a recommendation letter. He was about to leave my university for a different teaching position, so I suggested we get coffee to catch up. He goes “How ‘bout happy hour instead? We’ll go somewhere that's easy on fakes.” I was 19 at the time.

The happy hour night started at a normal bar, and progressed to a karaoke bar where we started making out due to the combination of alcohol and moving renditions of 80s anthems. A nice lady next to us said we were cute couple. Be reminded—this is a 40 year old and a 19 year old at a dive bar. Anyways, when he asked me to come home with him, I demanded he rap Shaggy’s “It Wasn’t Me” in order to prove he was still hip with the times. He failed miserably, but it was kind of cute.

We went back to his place which, surprise, was a dorm on campus because he was an in resident faculty member. We proceeded to have wild sex all night, after which he asked me to go to a wedding with him later that weekend. I kindly declined and responded to any subsequent texts with a polite “thanks, but no thanks.”

Fun fact— he wrote another letter of rec for me a few months later.

8. Dr. Dude (By WhaleDonut)

The setting: a small liberal arts college in the Hudson Valley. Throughout my sophomore and junior years, rumors fluttered that I was romancing my advisor, a very well-liked English professor. You know the one. We’ll call him Dr. Dude.

Also during this time, I started gaining a lot of notoriety for winning writing contests, garnering low-level grants, and the like. People harrumphed, often believing my faculty paramour was behind this success. It heightened my already-wild reputation, especially among the male members in my Creative Writing major. I relished the attention; I neither confirmed or denied the whispers. Bad move.

Towards the spring of my junior year, I took up with a senior who had the same advisor, Dr. Dude. There I was, at the top of my academic game, about to have my pick of MFA programs, with a brooding, bearded boyfriend to boot. Until one day I found myself in bed with that boyfriend for the first time and he grunted, “Call me Dr. Dude.” Ignore. “Pretend I'm Dr. Dude.” Do not subscribe. “Scream Dr. Dude!” Defriend.

The worst part? I went along with it, more than once—for a few months even—until the mess ended shortly before the summer. As for Dr. Dude, we never hooked up after all. I felt bad about entertaining the rumors until I met a girl who had in fact done the deed. She said Dr. Dude had a horrible case of psoriasis...everywhere. :(

9. The Psychology Professor (By Hootyhootatu)

Long time lurker, first time poster here. Couldn’t pass this one up, so here goes..

In college I was very fit and highly sexual, simply because I could back then. I worked out often at the college gym/rec center and often would see a very built, very attractive man in his mid-to-late thirties with lightly graying hair, working out. Man, did I enjoy watching him lift weights. (Mind you, this guy was not a meat head, just a bookish, quiet but fit guy). So fast forward about 6 months and at this point I’d seen him around campus and the gym and had figured out he was faculty, just not in my major. This one day, he finally walks over and initiates conversation. Inside, I am STOKED! (I am 22, wth). We continue talking and go for a run on the inside track, and afterwards, he invites me to come over to his place and have dinner. So of course I say yes because at this point I had been SERIOUSLY fantasizing about him nearly every day and getting off to the thought of him for a while.

That night, I head over, dressed in jeans and casual clothing, and get to his house. Looks nice from the outside, I think, then I knock on the door. Door opens, he looks nicely dressed, music is playing but something stinks faintly like dog pee. I go in, we converse (I’m thinking sexy pounce-on-you thoughts this whole time), have wine, have dinner and the question eventually comes up as to why he's single. I should have NEVER asked. Mood goes from happy and mellow to he’s a sad sack and starts sniffling. At this point I am no longer distracted by sexy times thoughts and I start looking around. The carpet hasn’t been vacuumed in what looks like months, clothes are all over the chair backs and there were dog pee spots on the living room floor. “OK,” I think, “move past this and bone him because this is your only chance.”

And that’s what I did folks; about 6x that night and it was the most intensely sexual and primal sex I have had up until I met my now-husband. We ended up hooking up a few more times but as I got to know him more I realized he was really still hung up on his ex-wife and 22 year old me had no concept of grief, so it weirded me out and eventually I stopped returning his calls.

I still feel bad about that, all these 14 years later, but I definitely do not feel bad about the toe curling sex with the hot, buff, sad-sack psychology professor. :)

10. The Girlfriend (By Upstatestudent)

This is more about my girlfriend, although I was a willing accessory.

This happened at a state school that will remain nameless, 6 years ago. I was dating a great girl, not too serious, but we were monogamous and things were good. We were taking an English class together with a not bad looking 30-something guy teaching the class.

After a few weeks, my girlfriend and I both noticed that the professor was flirting with her. It was merely amusing at first. She was flattered I guess. After a few weeks she got an e-mail from him. A little chatty. That night in bed I brought it up, teased her about it, told her how much he clearly wanted to have sex with her. To both our surprises, it suddenly got heated, we found not just her, but myself as well, got turned on by the subject. Resulted in some good sex to say the least.

His e-mails continued, we enjoyed our little game. To say it started dominating our sex life is an understatement. Role playing, the works.

Fast forward towards the end of the semester, my girlfriend had to miss a class for some reason the next day. A paper was due that class. She e-mailed him about it. He replied saying no problem, maybe she could just drop it off at his place later. It was his move. We were on the couch as she read it. I still remember that conversation like it was yesterday. “He’s going to try to fuck you.” Within seconds we were going at it. “You’re going to let him aren’t you?” Then I said, “I want you to.”

Next day she is heading over to his place. We are both horny as hell. She texted me, “You still want me to?” I replied, “yes.” Seconds later all she replied was, “Good.”

Three hours go by. I’m going crazy with anticipation. Finally she gets back to my place. One look at her face and I knew it had happened. We spent the next 4 hours in bed as she told me every detail while we had the hottest sex I’ll ever have.

Needless to say, she got an A for the class and I discovered that I’m a dirty pervert. That was a great class.

I grew up in a Saturday Night Live household. My parents watched, or taped (!), the show pretty much every week. Certain characters infiltrated our daily lives: Toonces the driving cat, Pat the ambiguously gendered shop clerk, anything Steve Martin did. (The Jerk, though not an SNL persona, is to this day is my dad's favorite movie. He likes to go up to any chair and say: "All I need is this chair," doing his best Navin R. Johnson impression.)

So it was to my dismay (but not to my surprise) that the three-and-a-half hour long 40th-anniversary special NBC put on last night played out much like a Texas science textbook: there was heavy focus on a certain godlike species (the male) and not so much on another (the female).

Granted, the show's intended audience was likely those who could remember the day it launched, in 1975: boomers. Those who thought, and think, that whatever comedy John Belushi participated in creating was funny (it hasn't aged well). Those who remember that it was a radical act to hire Eddie Murphy (and Leslie Jones and Lakendra Tookes, just last year). SNL hasn't always been great at pushing any agenda forward; but it has served, to moderate success, as a reactionary platform.

The original cast of the show, however, was weird group, almost prohibitively so to the point where the comedy is either inscrutable or sophomoric. The show remained this way until Eddie Murphy was cast in the early '80s. In the early '90s, the cast began to coalesce; despite almost being canceled several times in the middle of the decade, the show obtained some of its most memorable hires: Will Ferrell, Molly Shannon, David Spade, Mike Myers. Despite the show's perpetual near-death existence, its ability to attract rare talent only increased.

But last night's bloated special sleepwalked on the edge of banality. Jimmy Fallon and Justin Timberlake opened the show with a truly embarrassing rap-summation of SNL's history that I ended up watching under a blanket. From there, it was man in tux after man in tux, introducing mashups of archival clips or bringing back vintage sketches. "Congratulations to @nbcsnl on 40 great years. You've officially made your mark on our city," Bill de Blasio tweeted. Oy.

SNL has always been at its best when it's at its weirdest and most provocative. Its greatest treasures are those actors who can make the weird mainstream without being total divas—Tina Fey, Dana Carvey, Rachel Dratch, Bill Hader, Steve Martin, Kristen Wiig, Julia Sweeney, Jan Hooks, Tracy Morgan. Most of these players went underrepresented last night, in favor of "magical moments" between Paul McCartney and Paul Simon and an overemphasis on the "amazing" cast of season 10 (can anyone remember if SNL 1985-86 was good?).

Stars will be stars; people love them. How many people were watching last night for DeNiro, Nicholson, Jeter, Manning, Seinfeld, Baldwin, Rock, the list goes on? The guest stars are usually the worst part of SNL because they are bad. The great parts are when you can tell the actors like each other and are having a good time doing the sketches. They think what they are doing is fun and funny. Maybe they can't stop laughing. Before Jimmy Fallon became too famous for his own good, he and Rachel Dratch had phenomenal chemistry whenever they were onstage together. You could tell they were having a blast.

None of this was really evident last night. It was mainly an event for starfucking, and the fucking was going on between straight men, so it was pretty gross.

Miley and Kanye were good, though.

[Image by Jim Cooke]

NBC has an exit strategy for Brian Williams' contract, according to Page Six, in the form of a "morals clause." The clause is apparently standard for employees of NBC News. It reads:

‘“If artist commits any act or becomes involved in any situation, or occurrence, which brings artist into public disrepute, contempt, scandal or ridicule, or which justifiably shocks, insults or offends a significant portion of the community, or if publicity is given to any such conduct . . . company shall have the right to terminate.”’

The use of "artist" in this context is actually precisely why NBC shouldn't fire Brian Williams. He is a victim of category error. People think, a journalist should always tell the truth. But Brian Williams is a man playing a journalist on television. He's on-air talent, the same as Al Roker or Seth Meyers. His job is to read copy in the correct tone, performing, if necessary, the correct emotions. Regardless of what you think of him — and I think he's a very annoying person — there's no denying that he reached the highest levels of his profession because he's clearly very good at his job. (Which, again, is reading.)

This may sound excessively cynical, but I think you had to be fairly susceptible to bullshit to ever think Brian Williams was anything other than a preening showman, play-acting sincerity and gravitas. But even if you think news anchors should be held to ethical standards similar to those we (supposedly) hold "real" journalists to, it's hard to see how any of Williams' crimes were disgraceful enough to warrant his firing, especially considering what other people get away with.

Part of the knock on Williams is that his obvious eagerness to joke around with professional comedians demeans his role as a newsman. But Tom Brokaw, the sanctimonious guardian of the integrity of NBC News himself, was (and is) a frequent late night comedy show guest; not even David Letterman's move from NBC to CBS stopped Brokaw from stopping by regularly to yuk it up with his old friend Dave.

And, sure, Brokaw hasn't been caught inserting himself into stories. But Williams has been shown to habitually embellish or fabricate personal anecdotes, not news. He's not trying to mislead anyone about anything besides how interesting a life Brian Williams has led. His only agenda is to make himself seem like a raconteur. His journalistic crimes are far, far less severe than those of, say CBS's Lara Logan, who, driven by her political agenda, reported and aired, on the most prestigious and respected investigative news program on American network television, a wholly fictional account of the Benghazi attack. She, too, was given a timeout, but she returned to "60 Minutes," with barely any protest from media watchdogs, last year. Williams will, I'd bet, never work for NBC again.

Brian Ross habitually passes on incorrect reports as true and even staged footage for one of his blockbuster investigations. He's never even been reprimanded, let alone suspended or fired.

Even Dan Rather, who was ousted from CBS for his part in the George W. Bush Air National Guard documents debacle, was allowed to continue anchoring the news for another six months before "voluntarily" retiring from the job. Those were fuck-ups that actually had something to do with news.

These people are all guilty of bad journalism. Brian Williams just wants everyone, from Jimmy Fallon to Nick Denton to Our Brave Troops, to think he's cool. If we want real journalists to deliver the news in addition to gathering it, get ready for unwatchable TV news programs. If we want entertainers to read the news — and we clearly do — we have to deal with the fact that entertainers are desperate, attention-seeking flakes.

Photo: Getty Images

Let's, for one minute, forget that Kanye West is a platinum-selling, chart-topping music artist who has released six highly regarded solo albums in the last decade (to say nothing of his recording broship with Jay Z, production work on various rap and R&B albums, and outsized influence on popular culture). I want to talk about Kanye West, Fashion Designer of Dope Shit™. I've previously considered Kanye's multitudes and his import as a public figure on Gawker—he's "helped to unsettle this idea of how a black man should act or talk or love when others are watching"—but the New York Fashion Week debut of Yeezy Season 1, his first Adidas Originals collection, warrants examination once again, of both the designs and the designer.

As with all things Kanye West, his mere presence alone ignites a surplus of chatter and criticism. The social web can be a particularly torturous terrain to wade through when he drops a new song or album, or when DONDA (his artist-driven "think tank") subtly suggests that a new project is on the way. Taking this into account, it's been difficult to properly assess the Yeezy Boost, the artist's flagship shoe for Adidas that has Kanye loyalists salivating at the mouth. The whole release has played out like a 2015 version of The Emperor's New Clothes for Hypebeasts: few are brave enough to cry out, "But Kanye, why does your shoe look like a less-convincing Ugg boot for men?"

In an interview with James Harris for Complex, Kanye explained his grand vision:

You know those photos that you see with me getting on my knees in front of the paparazzi to fix Kim's pant leg? That's what I want to do for the world. I want to get on my knees and fix everyone's pant leg, if they'll have me. If they'll have me make that adjustment. I want to look at a festival and see what all the kids are wearing, and then say, "Hey I want them to feel like they're wearing the exact same thing, but somehow just a more informed version."

But is Yeezy Season 1 a "more informed version" of what the fashion world needs—or even wants? The collection's muted, Apocalyptic aesthetic was, according to the artist, born from "the shadows of the London riots" and mirrors, albeit less spectacularly, the inventiveness of previous collections from Hood By Air and Fear of God. The minimalist grit stands in stark contrast to Kanye's bombastic public persona; the clothes don't beg for attention. It's a subtle, confident shout by the artist, a new approach for fashion's (possible) new emperor.

But the shoe is another monster altogether. Simply: it's not good, and too closely resembles Nike's Air Yeezy (prior to his partnership with Adidas, Kanye released several shoes with Nike). Despite being the centerpiece of last week's show, the Boost has proven to be less of a risk for Kanye—and all the more a surprise, and disappointment, since he so often succeeds at taking the creative leap.

Cathy Horyn, in a review titled "Kanye West Hasn't Graduated Fashion School Yet," described the collection's debut as such:

I'm not sure why so many writers are so unquestioning of West's design qualifications. A friend, over a drink last night in Chelsea, suggested that people are more and more obsessed with power, not least their own relative to the perceived center of the fashion world (which may be Baby North, I'm beginning to think). West has been a fixture at shows for five or six years, and he's gone from being mocked for his first attempt at a women's line to being hailed as a multidisciplinary cultural phenomenon. He is an amazing performer, but his merits as a designer are still in doubt. And it seems to me that the fashion world should be holding West's feet to the fire — expecting more integrity and discipline from him. After all, he still seems to need our approval: There's something touching about his desire to belong to the fashion establishment. In fact, his attitude seems very American — at once earnest and blameless. He may want "to create something better" for us, as if we hadn't a clue already, but it will take a lot more than words.

But if we consider Yeezy Season 1 a beginning, rather than an end, the collection shows promise. Speaking with Complex, he noted:

I'm just happy that I was able to apply the mentality and passion that brought the College Dropout into existence. Now, I may finally have enough of a point of view and understanding to apply and create. Enough of a vision to make. There's so many far more talented designers but I just have a perspective and a heart. And I'm gonna give all the heart and perspective that I can.

So what's next?

More dope shit.

It's a start.

[Photos via High Snobiety]

A troubling bit of phone footage showing a man interrupting a couple while they fucked against a subway escalator has gone viral after someone uploaded it to LiveLeak. It would be one thing to disturb two adults in the midst of mad, passionate rutting, but the shocking reveal comes when the woman stands up, pants around her ankles, and we see ... a baby.

Yes, some passerby not only ruined a coital experience styled after that most beloved pet, the humble, loyal dog, but also risked awakening a baby that had been sleeping peacefully in its sling. What sort of uncouth individual would take it upon himself to intervene in affairs of the family?

It's not really clear where this incident took place (it's mainly circulating via U.K. tabloids) but giving others unsolicited advice about the raising of their children—vis. fucking or not fucking with those children strapped to one's body—is a rude and nosey overreach in any culture.

Someone (everyone?) in this video should be ashamed.

[h/t Mirror]

Internet Caught on Tape: The Moment John McAfee Realized Vice Screwed Him | Newsfeed St. Louis Cop Warns Officers to Turn Off Dashcam While Arresting Suspect | Defamer Amber Rose and Khloe Kardashian Debate Whose Family Is More Whorishhttp://gawker.com/how-to-read-ga...

According to CBS News, a 93-year-old German man has been charged with 170,000 counts of accessory to murder for his role as a guard at Auschwitz concentration camp.

Prosecutors say the man—who has not been named to due German privacy laws—served as an SS guard from January 1942 to June 1944 with responsibilities that included selecting victims to be sent to the gas chambers.

The 93-year-old reportedly acknowledges being deployed to the Nazi death camp at that time, but denies having taken part in the killings.

[Image via Getty Images]

Two days after illustrating a story about an unsolved rape with a picture of Barack Obama, San Diego Fox affiliate KSWB-TV read an on-air apology to clarify that no, the President is not the sole suspect in a sexual assault at San Diego University.

"And we have an apology now," said anchor Misha DiBono on Sunday. "Friday night at 10 o'clock, we inadvertently used a photo of President Obama while reporting on a story about charges being dropped in a local case."

KSWB Assignment Editor Mike Wille confirmed "there was an accident," telling Times of San Diego, "It wasn't on purpose."

Fox 5 San Diego regrets the error.

[ Image via YouTube//h/t Uproxx]

Sure, the planned civilian mission to Mars is wildly unrealistic, and if it even if we got there everyone would probably starve, but it's still fun to think about. That's especially true when it comes to deciding what 100 people should be banished to space, never to return, as Mars One did today.

"From the initial 202,586 applicants, only 100 hopefuls have been selected to proceed," read a statement released by the organization Monday. "These candidates are one step closer to becoming the first humans on Mars."

Unfortunately, all of the potential deportees are volunteers, and of the 100 only four would be sent on the one-way trip, but who knows! Maybe Mars is super easy to colonize but a bummer to be on and we can start using it as Earth's Australia.

We may even have some say in the matter, as Mars One's website promises, "The whole world will have a vote which group of four will be the first humans on Mars."

What do you think? What four shitpeople are the most qualified for off-planet exile?

[Image via TriStar Pictures//h/t Daily Dot]

Good news! Last week, Charles Manson was rumored to have canceled his upcoming marriage to 26-year-old Afton Burton after learning she just wanted him for his body, but the number one cult follower insists their nuptials are still go.

In a new interview with Inside Edition, Burton tells the TV newsmagazine, "Yes, I'm going to marry Charlie Manson! I think he's the most handsome man in the world," seemingly doing her best not add, "Duh!"

What else does Burton have to say about her bearded beau?

On the first time they met: "I just thought he was the cutest thing. He probably asked me ten times if I wanted to get married."

On the possibility of parole: "I'm going to stick with him whether or not he's in prison."

On Manson's paintball-style "Seed Gun": "The seed gun is just one idea that Charlie came up with to help re-seed the planet."

Unfortunately, Burton's family reportedly won't be making it to the wedding, but it looks like these two crazy kids just might make it after all.

[Image via AP Images/Inside Edition]

Just when you thought everyone in Boston was a dick, here's a good samaritan tale that will make you rethink your most deeply held beliefs regarding Massholes. When one Bostonian found someone with New York plates parked in his carefully shoveled spot, he took all the snow he had removed earlier and dumped it on top of the offending car ... but he was nice enough to leave the passenger door uncovered in case of emergency.

His Craigslist post about the incident has been deleted, but not before it was immortalized on Boston.com.

The nicest, most polite guy in Boston would have been well within his rights to just, I don't know, set fire to the car or something—after all, he had a marker—but he not only avoided causing any lasting property damage, he even left the owner a viable means of ingress.

You going soft over there, Boston, or is this person's kindness just a freak genetic mutation that will never propagate due to its ill-suitedness for survival in your harsh climes?

Go fuck myself? Aww! You too!

[h/t Uproxx]

Three years ago, Vice traveled to Central America to meet up with John McAfee, the antivirus software icon turned paranoid, strung-out narcotics icon. McAfee claimed his life was in danger, and kept his location secret—until Vice fucked up and revealed it, as is finally documented in this video.

The video, uploaded by freelance photographer Robert King, does little to clear up how exactly McAfee's exact GPS coordinates were published on the internet, contrary to McAfee's wishes. BuzzFeed reports King uploaded the video in part to help defend himself, years later:

"We were never allowed to tell our side of the story," King told BuzzFeed News, in a phone interview from Berlin. "It always followed me around — the geodata, that I leaked the fucking geodata." King, who has been a conflict photographer for more than 20 years, said the fact that Vice never clarified why the metadata was attached to the photograph has put him in danger on subsequent assignments.

But we don't see much of Vice's side of the story in this heavily edited video. Instead, we're greeted by John McAfee doing his best John McAfee impression: haggard, face looking like fruit leather, and vaguely describing some sort of Guatemalan death squad that was on its way to apprehend them all. "I have ten fingers now, I may have fewer by the end of the day," McAfee tells the camera. He goes on to warn former Vice editor Rocco Castoro that he might suffer "ill treatment" if they're all captured.

Castoro is seen throughout the recording, mostly nervous and frantic in the background as he pleads with his New York office to fix the privacy fuck-up. At one point, when McAfee tells him how to "spin" the disaster, Castoro appears to storm off and tell McAfee "fuck out of here." The video ends with McAfee listening to some classic Rolling Stones tunes in a car while doing a really gross tongue-flicking thing into the camera. It's not exactly illuminating.

In the brutally uncomfortable comment section of the YouTube video, McAfee offered this elaboration:

Let me explain what's happening in this video. The first part is about two minutes after I found out that Vice Magazine had just revealed our location in Guatemala. Not much happening. The nighttime segment is as we are racing to Guatemala City just a few minutes ahead if two platoons of Guatemalan Special Forces attempting to catch up with us to do their "thing". The phone call I am making is to the technical dude at Vice who forgot to remove the Exif data from the photo that Robert King took and sent to Vice. It is a joke. I am merely ragging his ass. The last segment (Rolling Stones), is Samantha and I grooving to "Gimme Shelter" as the soldiers are closing in on us. Please take note of the last few seconds of the video showing Rocco Roccoro, the world famous, balls of steel, fearless Senior Editor of Vice Magazine. He doesn't appear to be enjoying himself considering the awesome energy of Mick Jagger's divine vocals.

From this we can conclude that John McAfee to this day hates Rocco Castoro, and that everyone had a really bad time in Guatemala.

There is surprisingly little to be learned about Sir Jonathan Ive in this 17,000-word piece in The New Yorker, except this: The fucker gets driven to work in a Bentley Mulsanne, "a car for a head of state," as Ian Parker puts it.

That one detail says it all. If you want to know who wields the real power at Apple, look no further. The Mulsanne starting price is a tick over $300,000, and can go higher (like if you get the special Grey Poupon refrigerator, I guess) but the price is not the point. The point is the chauffeur. His name is Jean. There's no word in the article about whether Ive makes Jean wear a uniform, and if so, whether Ive designed the uniform himself, and if so, if he selected his driver by making a few dozen candidates line up and pose to see which one would look best in the uniform that Ive designed, and/or which ones would agree to have plastic surgery to make themselves look just so in that uniform and hat.

But you get the idea. Jon Ive is off the fucking rails and the only person who could rein him in is no longer among the living. You know how people like to say that "no way would this have happened if Steve were alive and running Apple"? Usually those people are full of shit, but this is one case where it's true. No way would Steve have allowed this article to happen. No way would he have allowed one of his employees to be deified like this. For that matter, no way would Jon Ive have dared to ride around with a chauffeur when Steve was alive, and no way would Steve have ever been so vulgar as to be driven around by a chauffeur in a Bentley, like a modern-day pharaoh. Steve drove his own Mercedes and parked in a handicapped space, like a normal sociopath.

Ostensibly the story is meant to tee up sales of the Apple watch, which goes on sale in April, but that's just an excuse. The point of this story is to crown Jon Ive king of Apple. The very fact that the story exists shows you that even Tim Cook doesn't dare to stand in his way.

The funny thing is that even after reading all of the thousands of words in this New Yorker article, you're left with the impression that there is a much bigger and much better story that was left untold — a Shakespearean tale about egos and kingdoms and battles for power after the death of a great king, and the kind of brawlers and bullies who get their way in the absence of a controlling power.

Jon Ive is 47 years old, secretly running Apple, and dangerously out of control.

Don't forget: Gawker is publishing less often to the front page. Happening elsewhere: Newsfeed Michelle Obama Survives Billy on the Street, Wins Ariana Grande Poster | Defamer Tyga Denies Banging Underage Kardashian Sister Kylie Jenner | Internet Hear the Terrifying Ghost Whispers Left Behind by MP3 Compression http://gawker.com/how-to-read-ga...

Last night's CBS special Stevie Wonder: Songs in the Key of Life — An All-Star Grammy Salute featured a montage of Stevie Wonder at the Grammy Awards throughout the years. The guy can dress! Or I guess that's: the guy can pick stylists. Doesn't matter. For a blind man, he has great looks. Here are all of them that were featured in the montage, ranked:

16. 2012

15. 1996

14. 2001

13. 2006

12. 2005

11. 1998

10. 2007

9. 2008

8. 2002

7. 1974

6. 1976

5. Early-to-mid '80s

4. 1975

3. 1986

2. Mid-to-late '80s

1. 1984

Two tiny cups of coffee, filled with water boiled on a tiny stove and poured over a tiny pinch of coffee grounds. A shrimpy shrimp, dipped in a shrimpy bowl of batter and deep-fried in a shrimpy pot of cooking oil. Baby chunks of chicken, grilled on baby skewers (they're actually toothpicks). These are but a few of the extra-small wonders found on Miniature Space, your new favorite YouTube channel.

Whoever's behind Miniature Space has been steadily publishing bonsai cooking videos for about two months, racking up five- and six-figure view counts on each of 26 total clips. He or she creates a dish that appear to be fully edible—the yakitori is made from real chicken; the sushi from real fish—with ingredients and utensils that are super small and cute as hell. "Welcome to miniature space channel," reads the channel's description, Google-translated from Japanese. "You have made a small miniature of cuisine you can eat."

Miniature Space makes miniature shrimp tempura.

And an adorable stack of quarter-sized pancakes.

Miniature Space makes sushi.

And pipsqueak french fries.

Tiny-ass Mentos in tiny-ass coke.

And the tiny-ass utensils used to cook it all.

Where are Miniature Space's thousands of fans coming from? Trawling the YouTube comments shows that many of them are simply connoisseurs of tininess—"Oh my god I absolutely LOOOVVE miniature stuff. Subscribed!!!!" reads one—or fans of the Japanese kawaii aesthetic.

A popular Reddit thread reveals an alternate possibility: people are watching Miniature Space videos because of ASMR, the name given to a tingling sensation some people experience while hearing quiet, tactile sounds like whispering or crinkling paper. "Goddamnit ASMR, I don't have time to be searching youtube for other adorable mini kitchen videos, I have work to do," one commenter wrote on Reddit's ASMR board today. Another responded reassuringly: "No search necessary! This channel has all the mini cooking you could ever need."

It wouldn't be the first time junkies were driven to seemingly strange places to get their kicks: tutorial videos for a Japanese just-add-water candy called Popin Cookin—which, incidentally, also looks like miniature food—have millions of views each, and are filled with comments espousing their pacifying auditory powers.

Even if you're not an ASMR person, it's hard to deny there's something calming going on here. See if you can avoid drifting into a peaceful reverie as you watch Miniature Space whip up some kawaii fried eggs.

A poet once wrote that only the good die young. Never has that statement rung truer across the Eastern seaboard than five days ago when the strip mall tanning salon owned and operated by Mike "The Situation" Sorrentino was shutdown by its landlord. Let us now remember the greatest business ever owned by a reality show celebrity in the history of Middletown Plaza.

The tanning salon opened with grand fanfare last March. NJ.com sent reporter Rob Spahr to cover the ribbon cutting, and his report describes exactly the scene you imagine either the third or fourth most famous member of Jersey Shore would demand for the grand reveal of his small business franchise.

A red carpet stretched between the UPS Store and the Let's YO! yogurt shop in the Middletown Plaza on Route 35 on Saturday afternoon.

As a camera crew began filming the tanning salon in between those two businesses, a small crowd – and the cars that had to detour around it – wondered aloud what was causing the stir.

But when a white Lamborghini with a Florida license plate that read "GTL" rolled up and Mike "The Situation" Sorrentino popped out of the door, that speculation shifted to excitement.

Sailing was smooth for a whole three months before it became clear that perhaps The Situation was not the right person to shepherd Boca Tanning Club's expansion into the fertile New Jersey market. In early June, employees of the tanning salon filed a police report after their paychecks bounced. Eight days later, The Situation and his brother were arrested for fighting each other inside their Boca Tanning Salon.

A week after that, I took a visit to The Situation's strip mall tanning salon on a drizzly Thursday afternoon. Squeezed in between a UPS store and a yogurt shop, the store was empty except for an employee named Melissa and a male friend of her's wearing a black tank top. The walls of the salon were painted with murals depicting scenes from the rainforests of South America and the plains of Africa. The equipment was gleaming and well cared for, and I spent an enjoyable dozen minutes burning my skin and listening to EDM inside a hard, plastic clamshell.

Earlier in the day, I had submitted four versions of my right index fingerprint—hopefully that information is being handled with care.

I left the salon feeling like The Situation had found himself a quality little business that would sustain itself even after the last residue of his celebrity finally wore off. Here is what I wrote at the time:

I walked out of the empty store feeling happy for The Situation. He owns a pretty solid business, at least for those of us not on the receiving end of his bad checks. As I stepped into the rain, I realized I would never again judge a strip mall tanning salon by its violent owners and public legal troubles.

A month later, his lawyer emailed me stating that he was suing Sorrentino for $29,175.20.

That case, as far as I can tell, remains unresolved, but it is, at the very least, the second most important legal proceeding in The Situation's life: in September he was indicted by the federal government on charges of tax evasion.

The round of legal Jägerbombs kept coming. By the end of the year, the landlord who owns the space in the strip mall that houses The Situation's tanning salon had taken him to court over past due rent. Sorrentino agreed to fork over $32,000 in installments of $5,500, but skipped the first payment, which was due January 15. A week ago, the superior court of Monmouth County authorized the landlord to takeover the space.

I hope the oil painting of a zebra that hung in my tanning room is still being prominently displayed somehow, somewhere, in New Jersey.

If The Situation's strip mall tanning salon hasn't already been permanently erased from this earth, it will be soon. I have no doubt that The Situation will fail miraculously and joyously at what ever business endeavor he chooses next.

Please join me in squeezing out a tube of bronzer.

[image via Getty]