Cold Pizza.

It's what I had for breakfast. That’s probably a clear enough sign that things aren’t exactly flush at the moment. In the movies, cold pizza is usually a sign that a character is down and out for the count, over the hill, washed up, consumed by doubt and tumbling in a wave of self-loathing. If I sound like I'm about to rant and wail with crocodile tears, well, dear reader, it’s because I am. The fact is I'm miserable from being consistently broke and perpetually penniless. No matter how often I shoot, every month it feels like I barely scrape by. Between paying rent, gas fill ups twice a week, my phone bill, Internet, groceries, bi-weekly testing, booze, pills, gym memberships, and tanning memberships I just can't seem to keep up. Much like every other aspect of my charmed life, money, it seems, will forever remain a goddamn motherfucking mystery to me.

At the moment I have exactly three hundred and fifty dollars in my checking account. Three hundred and fifty that will be reduced to two hundred later today after I pay two credit card bills (the minimum payment, of course) and do a small grocery run for the essentials--cottage cheese, seltzer water, and coffee. Oh, and I have to pick up my bike from the shop because I had the rear tire replaced after I cracked the rim riding around the concrete trenches of Little Armenia. My phone bill is also past-due so there's another one hundred and forty bucks gone. In twenty-four hours, I'll have less than sixty dollars to my name. But at least I have work tomorrow.

Oh wait, I forgot. No sooner after calculating all this did I get a text from the producer telling me that the scene had to be cancelled because I, Max Michigan, was suddenly discovered to be on the female talent's no list, or, more specifically, the no-list for the female talent's agent--a real shitweasel of a person. Just saying his name makes me cringe, so let's avoid going further down that rabbit hole for the time being, but rest assured, there is indeed a story behind this.

For now, life on the blacklist continues to plague me, so work is once again cancelled, leaving me holding my dick. That reminds me, I did have something I wanted to talk about. Something I either discuss too much or not enough—I can never be sure. It is yet another fallacy of my profession, another unwanted side effect of being a working stiff. I want to talk about jerking off, and not in a romanticized or pornographic way, something a bit more troublesome and perhaps more than just a little pathetic. I love jerking off, I do, but I've come to realize I spend too much time living life with my dick in my hand.

Here, Let me explain.

In public, I sometimes space out and the next thing I know one of my hands is in my front pocket mindlessly fidgeting with the head of my cock. In traffic, I drive with my right hand and rub through my pants with my left. After a hike, I sit in my kitchen at my table and bullshit with my phone while tugging from the outside of my gym shorts.

Picture this, I went out and bought myself a second computer desk so I could have one in the living room for writing--you know, actual work, and a private one tucked away in my bedroom, reserved strictly for jerking off. I bought the desk under the delusion that it would make me a more consistent writer and somehow accelerate my productivity. I thought that if I had a designated workstation in front of the atrium window with gleaming sunlight and a view of the palm trees I would suddenly find the inspiration I've been so desperate for. I'll admit, it did get me out of the bedroom, but instead of writing the next great American novel, I now draw my living room curtains during the day, and the desk has endured nothing but frequent (and furious) procrasturbation.

In the morning--on those rare occasions when I don't have cold pizza waiting, I stumble into the bathroom, and before I even bother brushing my teeth, I sit on the lip of the tub, huddle over my phone perched on the lid of the toilet seat, and jerk off, jolting my day with a literal pop.

Even on the days I am booked for a scene I still find time to hunch over my desk and glue myself to the screen, my t-shirt bunched up under my chin as I jerk, not to completion this time, but to condition myself to always remain on the cusp, ready to pop within two minutes or less after receiving the official go sign--an off-camera thumbs up.

On set, I disappear into the bathroom and jerk off as a final token to the porn gods so I may be granted the strength to maintain the edge after I am exposed to the blinding lights and piercing cameras. Finally, the moment of truth. Showtime. Rock and Roll.

I fuck. To fuck is to earn. To fuck is to identify. To fuck is to exist.

Tell me, of what use is a porn star that doesn’t fuck?