Here's one of the ironies at the heart of the Mike Albo thing: His success makes other writer-types feel sorta... undermined! Reassuringly, though, the "Underminer" writer is still broke. But wait, is that actually reassuring? It might actually be incredibly depressing! After all, if Mike Albo can't get paid, what hope is there for everyone else? And it's completely true that Mike Albo can't get paid; he recently told genius blog Bazima that the hardest thing about being a writer is "getting fucking paid from magazines that owe me money like Blackbook (1400 dollars) and Mens Vogue (1715 dollars)." So what's Mike's plan? "[One of my current obsessions is] whether I should move to LA because I don't have any money and even though I have finally, after 15 years, made it to the point where I am writing for the Times and NY Mag and whatever. I can't live off writing for magazines. So I would rather write crap for TV and get fucked over for 30,000 dollars than 2,000." Gah. Are those really the choices an adult should have to make? —Emily