"I’ve never had any luck with publishing companies. Nobody has, really—discounting the handful of Famous Bestselling Authors you read about in the NYT. It occurred to me, a few weeks ago, that I personally know about forty people who have sold books to big or medium-sized publishers, and their experiences are all the same: Long after you’ve written it and long after you’ve spent the advance on food and rent, a forgotten little bundle of words with an inscrutable cover is released in the night, you might do a few readings in empty Barnes & Noble stores on a weekday, and then four or five years later you still can’t get a simple accounting record. Very few writers will mourn the end of the New York Publishing Industry." READ MORE

Dignity, a new book by Ken Layne, is a novel composed of found letters, set in the post-housing crisis California wasteland, when people must learn again how to make food. READ MORE

Y2K was the thing that was going to Destroy Earth when this dumb, nameless decade began. It's hard to remember the pre-Muslim threats, but this was a big one: All the planes were going to fall out of the sky, at midnight on January 1, 2000... based on the time zone they were flying over, I guess? It was never very clear, which is why it was such an effective End of the World scenario. Also, your teevees and ATMs would stop working. Because of those rotten computer programmers! Me? I was drunk in Madrid, which had not yet been blown up by Muslims, and also airfare was incredibly cheap because nobody wanted to fly around New Year's (because of Y2K), and flying was still "fun," as in, you just showed up at the airport maybe 20 minutes before your flight, drink in hand, shoes on your feet, laptop closed and actually left at home because what was WiFi, anyway? READ MORE

This week, in our little Friday afternoon video chats, I wanted to ask Ken Layne of important politics site Wonkette a bit about the White House Correspondents Dinner, which is happening down in D.C. this weekend. That was exciting, if slightly terrifying, but! Then Ken showed me our new promo reel, that he made for advertisers for both our sites. Wow! This is going to bring in the big bucks, man! It's just like the one Gawker Media released this week. I think this will really knock your socks off. ARE YOU READY? READ MORE

In today's video with Ken Layne of Wonkette, I wanted to get him to explain the politics of swine flu. BUT I STUMBLED INTO A ZONE OF FLU TERROR. READ MORE

On behalf of all of us here at The Awl, I wanted to ask Ken Layne, proprietor of Wonkette, some questions about how to run a website, and also about the politics, which he supposedly knows about. And about how the world is flat, and how bad that last fake "Star Wars" movie was. Also the hobos in our neighborhood. So we did it on video! (PLEASE NOTE: It takes a second to buffer. PLEASE NOTE: Please don't be horrified by The Awl's offices. ALSO: I am an idiot.) Anyway, it's just like BLOGGING HEADS, but half as long and with slightly more cursing, and with more drinking and smoking. We like to call it: Talking Hats. (But we are open to suggestions.)