TEN questions with Sam Pink

I read you live in Chicago somewhere?  Do you like it?  Why do you live there?  
yes i live in chicago.  i like it sometimes and don't like it other times.  i'm not sure if i like it and/or dislike it, or that's just how my mood is presenting it to me.  actually, i think i like it.  i live here because it's where i work and have an apartment and i dont know where else to go. like if someone living in texas or florida or somewhere, said, "hey i have a job for you here" i'd probably go there.  
 
Aside from writing, do you have any other jobs?  If so, what are they?
i work in the warehouse of a department store in uptown chicago.  i also sell art sometimes, and i did census work and i think i might be a janitor soon at a hospital. 

What is a typical Sam Pink day?
my typical day is waking up, feeling uncomfortably upset about something that is really just a cover-up for something bigger that is upsetting me.  then i go to work.  then i go home.  i usually consider suicide a couple times a day, but lately it's more like some kind of insurance plan.  like i'll think, "it's cool, i can still kill myself at some point, but, not yet."  then i'll smile and go to bed or go running outside really late at night.  
What are your feelings on the Mayan 2012 prophecy?
my feelings on the mayan prophecy are that i hope it's true and that i hope i am awake for it.

If someone who read one of your books wanted to take you out to dinner, where would you want to go and how would you feel about that? 
i would feel good about it and i would go wherever the person wanted. 

I don't know you and I have only read some of your writing, what book of yours would you recommend for someone to read first?  Why?
i'm not really sure which book i would suggest.  i feel like they're all different but they all also seem to cover the same range of things maybe.  it seems like "person" is the most popular and widely accepted, so maybe that means something.  
 
How do you relieve stress?
i relieve stress by having sex, running, and hitting a heavybag and also by imagining people dying.  

Do you play the lottery?
i split a scratch and win with someone at work years ago and i won six dollars and i bought a sandwich with it.  my only other gambling experience was playing dice with a group of people in rogers park, but i didn't even use my own money but i won everyone else's and i bought everyone food with the money when i won it.  

When I read your name, "Sam Pink," I visualize a salmon.  Is that weird?
no that seems fucking cool.  after i read your question, i saw a salmon, and then the salmon opened its mouth and another salmon came out, and so on for a while until i remembered to keep doing the interview.  

What are you working on right now?
right now i'm working on editing some books to be printed by lazy fascist press in the upcoming year.  i'm also working on getting food stamps, and becoming a janitor, as i mentioned in the first or second question.  
 
 
SAM PINK lives in Chicago
and he has books published on Lazy Facist Press