Bernie Sanders during this year's Democratic National Convention. (Photo by Jeff J Mitchell/Getty Images)

In his June non-concession concession speech, before grimacing in support of Hillary Clinton at the Democratic convention, Bernie Sanders called on his followers to take their "political revolution" to state and local races. "I hope very much that many of you listening tonight are prepared to engage at that level," he said. It wasn't clear what form the continuing revolution would take—amid allegations of dysfunction around Our Revolution, his new organization—but last week Sanders indicated at least one measure he was backing: a little-noticed ballot initiative to bring universal health care to Colorado.

In November, Colorado's voters will be asked whether the state should increase taxes by $25 billion a year—nearly doubling the entire state budget—for a program that would provide every resident with health insurance. The proposal, which would become Amendment 69 in the Colorado constitution, would direct the state to begin creating an entity called ColoradoCare. This organization, with its own elected board, independent of the legislature, would then implement the first statewide universal health-care regime in the country. Colorado would opt out of Obamacare—using a provision for state innovation in Obamacare itself—and those receiving care through Medicare or the Veterans Administration would keep the coverage they had. In exchange, Coloradans would be hit with a steep income tax hike—10 percent divided between employees and employers. But in the end, in theory, most people would end up paying less for better coverage than they get now, and every state resident would be covered.

It's not surprising that Sanders would support this measure—he mentioned it during his primary campaign, which made universal medical coverage a signature issue, and he won Colorado. But ColoradoCare also brings him into conflict, once again, with the Democratic powers that be.

Amendment 69 earned its place on the ballot thanks to a grassroots campaign that, among other tactics, collected petition signatures at Sanders rallies. It's no surprise that Republicans oppose this new government program funded with a new tax, but many of Colorado's top Democratic politicians are also against it. The opposition group, Coloradans for Coloradans, is co-chaired by a former Democratic governor, Bill Ritter, and has raised more than $3.5 million, much of it from the medical industry, compared to a few hundred thousand for the yes campaign. (This is despite the ColoradoCare endorsement in this year's state Democratic Party platform.) Those opponents who aren't worried about the business models of the health care establishment, or allergic to tax hikes, shudder at the consequences of searing the whole 11-page proposed amendment into the state constitution.

With the forces against them mounting, ColoradoCare advocates are looking to Sanders as a chance to turn their fortunes. They began calling on Sanders, once the primary was over, to turn his attention to their cause. "As his presidential campaign comes to an end, his campaign for a decent health care system can continue," T.R. Reid, chairman of the Colorado Foundation for Universal Health Care, told VICE at the time. Reid and his team appear to have succeeded.

"It is absurd, it is beyond belief, that here in America we remain the only major country on earth not to guarantee health care to all people," Sanders said during his rally in Vermont last Wednesday announcing Our Revolution. "If that proposal can win in Colorado, I believe that idea will spread around the country." The Our Revolution website includes ColoradoCare among "our ballot initiatives," alongside state measures limiting the rights of corporations and abolishing the death penalty.

ColoradoCare is not the single-payer solution that many healthcare reformers long for, since it keeps existing public insurance programs in place and allows those who so choose to buy their own insurance if they want, instead or in addition—though they still pay the hefty income tax. (That's the stated reason that kept Green Party presidential candidate Jill Stein from endorsing Amendment 69 until she changed her mind over the weekend.) It's like public schools for medicine; part of the deal is that some people will have to pay for services they don't use so all their neighbors get covered. Its appeal for progressives is far than certain, however, because the program may be unable to provide coverage for most abortions, thanks to an amendment to the Colorado constitution that voters approved in 1984 banning state-funds for such procedures. Whether the ban would apply to ColoradoCare's para-governmental entity remains unclear; it would need to be decided in court.

"Because Amendment 69 can't provide guarantees to affordable abortion access, it isn't truly universal health care," NARAL Pro-Choice Colorado's director, Karen Middleton, told the Colorado Independent in June.

The very ballot-proposal process that makes Amendment 69 possible may be its undoing. ColoradoCare's inventive structure itself is an attempt to work around conservative-backed constitutional amendment that voters passed in 1992 restricting the state legislature's ability to increase taxes. Such past amendments are cautionary tales. If voters approve Amendment 69, that's language nobody—not the legislature, not the program's elected board, not even voters—will have an easy time changing. These kinds of voter-suggested-and-approved amendments can do brave things that legislators facing re-election might be too careful to try, like the one in 2012 that legalized marijuana. But they can also have unexpected consequences.

Then again, Americans are unusually prone to trepidation when it comes to giving up a broken medical system. As Sanders has often pointed out, universal healthcare is something just about every wealthy country in the world got it long ago, and few of those countries' citizens are complaining. But now what hangs in the balance with Amendment 69 has to do with more than taxes and healthcare. It's a test of Sanders and his allies' ability to fight—and win—the local battles that they deem so important.

Nathan Schneider is the author of God in Proof and Thank You, Anarchy. His website is TheRowBoat.com, and he tweets here.

Everything you need to know about the world this morning, curated by VICE.

Homeland security secretary Jeh Johnson and FBI director James Comey. Photo by Chip Somodevilla / Getty

US News

FBI Says Foreign Hackers Broke into Voter Databases
The FBI has warned state officials to protect their data after foreign hackers broke into two state election databases. Hackers overseas reportedly downloaded personal data on up to 200,000 state voters in Illinois, while in Arizona they didn't take any information. —VICE News

Clinton's Lead over Trump Cut to Seven Points
Hillary Clinton's lead over Donald Trump in the presidential race has been cut to seven points, according to a new national Monmouth University poll. Clinton leads 46 percent to 39 percent among likely voters, but the Democratic nominee held a much wider lead, 50 percent to 37 percent, in a Monmouth poll in early August. —ABC News

Trump Advises Kaepernick to Find Another Country
Donald Trump said San Francisco 49ers quarterback Colin Kaepernick's sit-down protest during the national anthem was "terrible" and advised the NFL player to consider where his loyalties lie. "I think it's a terrible thing, and you know, maybe he should find a country that works better for him," said Trump. "Let him try, it won't happen."—The Guardian

Children Report Clowns Seen in South Carolina Woods
Parents at an apartment complex in Greenville, South Carolina, have been warned not to let their children out at night after several reports of clowns trying to lure kids into nearby woods. Witnesses told police they believed the clowns lived at a nearby home, but Greenville County Police said no evidence was found there.—CBS News

International News

Thousands of Migrants Rescued in Massive Operation
About 6,500 migrants have been rescued from the sea near Libya in a series of 40 coordinated rescue missions. The operation to rescue migrants from unseaworthy boats on Monday was a joint venture involving the Italian coastguard, the EU, and NGOs. —BBC News

Suicide Bomber Attacks Chinese Embassy in Kyrgyzstan
A car has exploded after ramming the gates of the Chinese embassy in Bishkek, the capital of Kyrgyzstan. The vehicle exploded in the center of the compound, near the ambassador's residence. The driver of the vehicle was killed, and at least three other people were injured.—Al Jazeera

North Korea Executed Two Top Officials
A South Korean newspaper reported on Tuesday that North Korea had executed two officials in August who went against the wishes of the country's dictator Kim Jong Un. The officials were Hwang Min, the agriculture minister, and an education ministry employee named Ri Yong Jin. North Korea rarely announces executions. —Reuters

Mexican Police Chief Fired over Ranch Killings
Mexico's federal police chief Enrique Galindo has been fired following allegations "executed arbitrarily" at least 22 suspected members of a drugs cartel on a ranch in Michoacan last year. President Enrique Peña Nieto said he had dismissed Galindo to allow for a "transparent investigation."—Deutsche Welle

Everything Else

Gene Wilder Dies at Age 83
Tributes have flooded in after Gene Wilder's family announced the actor died from complications with Alzheimer's disease. Mel Brooks said Wilder was "one of the truly great talents of our time," while Marc Maron called him "one of the funniest humans ever." —Slate

Frank Ocean Scores No.1 Debut
Frank Ocean's Blonde has made it to the top of the Billboard 200 in its first week. So far, the self-released album has generated an estimated $2.12 million in sales and streams.—Billboard

Clinton Aide Leaves Weiner After Sexting Scandal
One of Hillary Clinton's top aides, Huma Abedin, has announced she will be separating from her husband, Anthony Weiner. The split follows reports that the former congressman, who was brought down by a series of sexting scandals, had been sexting yet again. —VICE

Russians Detect Radio Signal from Space
Russian astronomers using the RATAN-600 radio telescope have detected an unusual radio signal coming from a star 94 light years from Earth. The finding will be discussed at an international committee of ET hunters next month, though not everyone is impressed: Daren Lynch of SETI@home called the finding "relatively uninteresting from a SETI standpoint."—Gizmodo

Human Ancestor Died Falling from a Tree
New evidence suggests that the famous fossilized human ancestor dubbed "Lucy" by scientists probably died by falling out of a tree. It supports the idea her species—Australopithecus afarensis—spent some of its life in trees. —Motherboard

Kim Kardashian Makes Playlist of Kanye Tracks
Kim Kardashian West has put together a two-hour, 28-song playlist of her favorite Kanye songs to celebrate his tour launch. Surprisingly, "Awesome," his extremely schmaltzy ode to Kim, is not on the playlist. —Noisey

Photos of Jesse Martinez by Dan Levy

Dogtown and Zephyr may have sparked the skate scene in Venice Beach, but it was the unruly Venice locals, headed by Jesse Martinez, who doused it in gasoline to see how high the flames would go.

Born in 1965 and raised in a Venice Crip family, Martinez found salvation on his skateboard. While most pros of his day were rocking Day-Glo spandex and surf trunks, Martinez sported Crip blues and full cholo gear in his ads. He didn't need any marketing gimmicks—his well-deserved reputation as one of skateboarding's most notorious enforcers set him apart. His brawls are the stuff of legend. While riding for the wholesome Bones Brigade, he knocked a guy out at a demo for slapping Lance Mountain. Another time he threw a guy down a set of stairs at Disneyland. At a time when skateboarding was making the shift from backyard ramps to street skating and searching for an identity, Jesse became the poster boy for the code of the streets. His documented defense of both himself and his local scene empowered an entire generation of skaters.

Jonathan Penson's new documentary Made in Venice focuses on the 20-year battle to get the Venice skatepark—the most expensive skatepark in the world, according to the film—built, but it could just as easily have been about Martinez. For more than three decades, Martinez has been the lifeblood of the humble Venice community, and he was the driving force behind getting the park built.

I caught up with Martinez in a back alley in Venice on the two-year anniversary of the passing of original Z-Boy and our dear friend Jay Adams to discuss his city and the many opportunities he's passed up to get off the streets of Venice over the years.

VICE: What is your earliest memory of Venice Beach?
Jesse Martinez: I was living with my mom, and my grandmother lived across the alley over on Sunset. I was like five and I remember my Uncle Wes waking me up like, "Get up! Get up!" He runs to the window with me and goes, "Run to your Grandma's!" Then drops me out the window. Right when he did, a bunch of narcs passed me with shotguns, and then a bunch of those stun grenades went off. I remember running across the alley, and my grandma came running and grabbed me. I think it's a memory stuck in my mind because of the flash of the concussion grenades.

What happened with your uncle?
They went on a vacation for a little while. They got out, eventually. Everything was cool.

At what point does Venice change from just where you live and become home?
It's still there in a weird way, but in our day to be from Venice, you stood up for the neighborhood. You stood up for all your buddies. Sometimes whether right or wrong, it doesn't matter—you stand up for them. We weren't a gang. There were more than one hundred of us. It was more a tight brotherhood. Even with the local gangs, whether they were Mexican or black, we had mutual respect. The skaters and surfers actually intertwined with the local gangs; we were family, friends, and brothers with them. My actual family were all gang members, yet here I am skating and surfing, and a lot of us were like that in Venice. There were just offshoots— cousins, brothers of gang members, Crips—so it was like this camaraderie. I miss it.

It's understandable. Venice has been gentrified with the influx of techies washing up on Silicone Beach.
They're cool people. You can't help if they happened to choose the right thing to be into. We were into skateboarding while this guy was into some computer things. That was his gig. That's what he likes. What he liked happened to make $450,000 a year. I just happened to like skateboarding, which made $37,000 a year.

That's something I wanted to talk about: the money. You were in a few different situations where you were a cunt hair away from striking it rich. You helped make World Industries what it was. You helped broker a deal for Big Brother to be sold to Flynt. Duffs. Ghetto Wear...
Yeah. I've had chances. I take them in stride. I blew it at Powell. Now that I'm older I've realized I didn't need to hit that guy at the demo. I could've ran up and just grabbed him and let a few other guys call the cops, but instead I walked up and hit him. It wasn't Powell's fault. I had a few little issues on the road. It wasn't really my fault, both issues, but the way I handled them was not right. Now that I'm older, I could have handled both situations that led to me being fired differently. I don't really blame Powell.

You don't blame Powell, but in Made in Venice , Block, the owner of Venice Originals Skateshop, claims that Stacey Peralta signed you to Powell just to keep you on the road so you wouldn't take out any of the other Bones Brigade guys at street contests. How do you feel about that?
I'm honored by that compliment from Block, but the reason they kept me on the road for so long was Powell had a system back then. They had the number one freestyler, number one vert guys, and the top street skaters in the world with Tommy Guerrero and Mike V. They weren't really holding me back; they were just building my name, which I really believe they were doing. Without Powell Peralta's Bones Brigade tour forcing me out on the road everywhere, I wouldn't be as known. That's just straight out fact. I thank Powell for tha,t even though they gave me the boot. The reality in that is, the first fight I got into in Boston, that dude had just smacked Lance Mountain, and when I was walking up, he was getting ready to hit me. I just happened to be a little quicker. The Disneyland incident... that wasn't my fault.

What was the Disneyland incident?
The reason I got fired. I was with Julien Stranger, another Venice Dogtown homie. We were doing some demo in Disneyland, and Stranger somehow wound up with us. We were walking to the arcade together to go play some games. We had just entered the hotel hallway, and he goes, "I don't have any money, man." I was riding for Powell, so I just used a credit card and pulled out like $500. I had a bunch of 20s, and he's all, "Killer!" We were ghetto rich. This guy who was standing against a stairwell saw me pulling the money out and hand Stranger a $20 bill, goes, "How'd you make so much money?" I go, "What's it your business?" He goes, "What do you do? Sell rock or cocaine?" I go, "What? F you." One thing led to another, and somehow he fell down the stairs and hit his head. That was the end of the fight. I left my skateboard there. Security chased me away. It doesn't take a rocket scientist to go, "What does this say on the board? Jesse Martinez?" Then I went to court and was found not guilty of all charges, and everything was dropped. I tried explaining to them, "I don't know why you're firing me. It wasn't my fault. I was protecting myself." But I love Powell. They helped me get on a team even after they let me go. Stacey got me on Santa Cruz. Anything I've needed since then they have been by my side, and now that I'm older, I know that they did the right thing. I was a liability. I had a short temper for idiots.

After Powell, you helped start Word Industries, owning a third of it. It sold for $29 million. How did you end up getting only 30 grand?
I can almost never tell anybody how it really ended in the parking lot, what made me walk away that day. I can tell you pieces of it. World Industries was having tax issues, supposedly. I owned like 33 percent back then; we're all equal partners. I got kind of worried, but I was just about to have a kid. I'm like, "Ah fuck, I suck at skateboarding now. This is about to eat shit." I had just gotten done doing a demo with Jeremy Klein, Mike V, and Jason Lee, and they just dismantled me. It was the last time I ever did a demo. I was in a bad spot, thinking what am I going to do with my life. I was inches from getting in my car and just leaving and not coming back. Whatever shares I had in the company, well if it eats shit, it eats shit, and if it makes it, it makes it, and then I'll get rich. I was just about to leave, but I had talked to somebody else in that parking lot, which completely changed my mind to walk back in and sign out. Which unfortunately turned out to be, with no exaggeration, a couple million-dollar mistake, one that would alter my life for sure. But what do to the French say, se la vie? Who cares?

No regrets?
Hell no. There's only forward. I can dwell on the past, but I still have to move forward. Rocco's one of my best friends. We play golf all over the place together. I hung out at his house, and we still talk all the time. Rodney Mullen is still one of my great friends; they both are. If you can't separate business and friendship, then maybe you shouldn't do business, especially with a friend. Whether it was done on purpose or not doesn't matter anymore. Those guys are two of my best friends, and they got rich off it. I walked away with $32,000. When shit hits the fan and my back's up against a wall, I can call either one of those dudes, Rodney or Rocco. Whether they like it or not, they will loan me money for whatever I need at that moment and not ask for a penny back. Without question.

I know it's difficult for you to take money in general, even when you're doing work that deserves payment. You're promoting this documentary about the Venice skatepark, but somehow you've become the guy out there every morning cleaning the park, free of charge. How does that happen? Why isn't the City of Los Angeles paying you for your service?
We had finally gotten a park, and we started cleaning it, and the city at first was like, "Whoa, what the hell?" Nathan Pratt was giving me money each month to clean the park. It was the best year and a half that park had ever seen, sparkling clean everyday. Here was the real problem: We had handed the City of Los Angeles a contract stating we wanted a five-year agreement to clean the skatepark. They said no. We came back with a one-year agreement, and they said, "No deal, you're out," out of the blue. I guess they don't know me very well. I guess they thought I was just going to go away. Nathan sat me down that day and told me by law, we're a legal nonprofit that pays you for what you do up there, but now you're not doing it, and we don't have a contract anymore to justify paying. He's right. It's all legal. That's how shit goes in the real world. So he told me for now he can't pay me, but if I want to keep cleaning that park, it's on me. I have no insurance, no right of entry, no driver permit... they took all my shit, my keys, my power, everything. So I let it go for about three days, four days, and the park was destroyed. The city wasn't cleaning the park, so I went home and got all my equipment, my blower and everything, and I cleaned the whole park. For 18 months now, that's exactly what I've been doing. I get out there between 5 and 5:30 AM, six days a week. It takes about two and a half hours, three hours.

Recently it was to proposed to Councilman Mike Bonin to get me right of entry along with a certain amount of money for pay every month. Bonin's reaction, I'd give it a 50/50. Bonin said he's going to reach out to Parks and Rec and the higher ups with the deal and try to work something out. That was a week ago. That's where I stand right now with the city.

What keeps you going back every single day to clean that place?
It's my Dogtown-Venice-Santa Monica Airlines-Zephyr pride in me that says this is our neighborhood, and I don't need your job. I don't need your fucking money. I'm going to take care of the neighborhood, whether you guys pay me or give me your blessing or not. It doesn't matter. That is one of the last holdouts for the old way of Venice. I want that park to say, "Welcome to Venice."

Click here for more on Made in Venice

Follow @Nieratko for more skateboard stuff.

Photo courtesy of Madeline Whitehead

Two weeks ago, Colson Whitehead's The Underground Railroad was released with the blessing of Oprah Winfrey's semi-dormant Book Club—and those familiar with the author's work couldn't help but chuckle at the occurrence. A well-regarded ironist with a bleak comic outlook who writes obliquely about race, Whitehead has a sensibility that feels, if not at odds with Winfrey's, then certainly at a remove; with The Underground Railroad, Whitehead takes on the specter of American human bondage with hints of Marquez's magic realism, DeLillo's insidious intelligence, and the playful postmodern systems analysis of Pynchon. His droll humor comes in smaller doses than usual—after all, it's hard to make slavery funny.

The book tells the story of Cora, a 17-year-old Georgia woman born into slavery who attempts the flight north with a man named Caesar. During their escape from the plantation, the couple are briefly apprehended, and Cora kills a pre-teen slave patrolman with a rock. Now sought out as murderers, Cora and Caesar flee via the Underground Railroad, which Whitehead reimagines as a literal subterranean rail line manned by conductors and station agents.

When Whitehead arrived for our chat at Manhattan's Corner Bistro, he was decked out in a black Misfits T-shirt, tight jeans, dark sunglasses, and his trademarked dreads—not the mode of dress we normally associate with middle-aged black men, let alone one who just published a novel of startling aesthetic and emotional power on slavery. But Whitehead isn't your run of the mill novelist, black or otherwise; The Underground Railroad is the type of slavery novel in which the Misfits get thanked in the acknowledgements, and the book has a driving, propulsive energy that keeps you jumping up and down even if you aren't at CBGBs.

VICE: What was your notion of slavery as a child?
Colson Whitehead: As a young African American male growing up in the 70s, Roots was obviously a major touchstone. When it first broadcast, it was a national obsession. Like a lot of other African American families, we'd gather around the TV and watch the 70s version of the story play out. In school, you hear about slavery and then jump to Abraham Lincoln immediately—there are not a lot of units describing the degradation.

You conceived of The Underground Railroad when you were younger and only picked the idea back up a few years ago. How would the book have differed if you had written it around when you first came up with the idea?
I was a 20-something New York hipster, and I wouldn't have been able to do it justice at that moment. I was still in Gen-X slacker mode, so the protagonist would have been a guy trying to escape for his own freedom. The notion of escaping to find your child, or a spouse—or a daughter looking for her mother—didn't occur to me then. All of the fantastic gestures would have been broader or bigger, instead of being woven into Cora's timeline and technology.

What is your creative routine like?
For the last couple of books, I had a page count of about eight pages a week. Seven is meh, nine is better, but eight is a good steady pace, and it adds up. Eight pages a week is 400 pages a year, and that's a novel. I have kids, and some days I don't feel like working. Sometimes I have to go to the dentist, and I can't work if I have to go to the dentist. If I don't feel like working, I'll improvise. I'm always going forward and backward, forward and backward.

With this book, I wrote the first third, and then I showed it to my agents, my editor, and my wife, who were like, "You're doing good!" Sag Harbor was a really personal book, so every time I'd finish a chapter, I would show it to my agent just so she could say, "It's good, keep going!" With Zone One, I didn't show anybody until it was done—I think I was sort of depressed and wanted to hole up like Mark Spitz.

Are there aspects of the book's characters that are autobiographical?
The Colossus of New York is probably my most autobiographical book—it's just me, without any narrative filter, having ideas about the city. I'm in most of my characters, and that includes the villains. In my better moments, I see myself in some of the more enlightened characters. You're always putting the good and bad parts of yourself in the characters to make them real.

Did you ever think your sensibility would be admired by Oprah Winfrey?
Well, you hope if you do a good book, people like it. She's picked great books. I loved Beloved and I loved The Road, and both of those influences are in this book. It was shocking because was such a force for so many years, then it slowed down. When I first started publishing, you'd be in a hotel bar after doing a reading and someone would say, "Has Oprah picked it?" Then it died down because she stopped doing the book club, so when I got the call in April, I wasn't even thinking about it —I'd just finished copy edits. It came out of the blue and made this summer a lot better.

What do you consume in the media?
I've been distracted, and I haven't read as much this year. My big find was the movies Point Blank and Payback, which are based on these novels by Richard Stark following a guy named Parker. There are 30 of them, so I've read six of them back to back. The Orphan Master's Son by Adam Johnson was really great. It overlaps in some ways with The Underground Railroad, in terms of a person being hemmed in by a multitude of societal forces and finding how to make their way. But I find it hard to read when I'm working, and I've also been consumed with the primaries and the post-primaries and the daily outrage.

Does the current political climate surprise you?
Having written a book about lynching and slavery, not really . But as a rational human being who doesn't want the world to blow up, I think everything is surprised by the constant stream from the Trump campaign—the rhetoric and the daily outrage.

When I was writing some of The Underground Railroad's graphic passages—like the lynching scene—I went in between about if I was going too much over-the-top. Then I'd research and be reassured that violence and brutality happened to many people. The lynching scene as a communal entertainment for the town isn't so far-fetched, so the rhetoric that comes out at a Trump rally is reflective of a primal human impulse toward hate that's not specifically American. In the same way, if you're going to make a satire of a demagogue, you couldn't come up with Trump, who strains the credibility of satire every day.

Why do you think slavery is on so many people's minds right now in culture?
The number of black writers, filmmakers, and TV producers aren't huge, but there are more than there were ten years ago. I don't feel like there can ever be enough as long as there's more ground to cover. There are many corners of African American history that have not been explored, and we have more choice over what we want to tell now.

You've been doing an increasing amount of nonfiction. Does that work a different muscle in your writing repertoire?
My introduction to nonfiction was reading my sister's copies of Tom Wolfe and Norman Mailer, and music journalism—I'd come home from school on a Wednesday afternoon reading the Village Voice in the 80s, see who's playing at Irving Plaza, and read the music criticism. At the time, there weren't a lot of outlets for first person nonfiction, but the Voice had some of that. My introduction to book criticism was also through the Voice, and that was one of my inspirations for writing.

When you imagined the career you would embark upon when writing your first book, does it career at all resemble what your life and work is at 46?
In terms of work, it's the same. These last two weeks really aren't going to happen again—the next book will probably have a normal launch—so I'm just trying to enjoy the success of this book. I'll put another book out, no one will know what I'm doing, I'll take the hit, and move on. I'm just going to keep writing either way.

Thumbnail via Flickr user DavideGorla

A new study has found that dog brains process speech in a way similar to humans, understanding both words' meanings as well as their tone, New York Times reports.

Researchers in Hungary trained 13 dogs to climb inside of MRI machines and sit still while the researchers spoke to them. The researchers spoke to the dogs using a variety of words and intonations—some positive words with positive intonation, some gibberish words with positive intonation, some positive words with no inflection at all.

They found that the canines' left hemisphere picked up on the meaning of the words, regardless of the intonation, associating words with positive or negative experiences. That's the same basic way humans respond to speech, too.

"It shows that for dogs, a nice praise can very well work as a reward, but it works best if both words and intonation match," the study's head, Attila Andics, wrote in a statement. "So dogs not only tell apart what we say and how we say it, but they can also combine the two, for a correct interpretation of what those words really meant."

The new findings show that maybe your dog isn't just a furry hostage that secretly hates you—it's just pissed because it heard you talking about the vet.

Read: Traumatic Tales of Losing Childhood Pets

Gene Wilder, the acting legend most famous for his 1971 role as the title character in Willy Wonka and the Chocolate Factory, has died due to complications from Alzheimer's disease at 83, his family confirmed on Monday. Wilder wasn't a prolific actor, appearing in only about "15 or 18 films" by his own reckoning—and dropping out of the movie business almost entirely for the past two decades.

But when he was at the height of his powers from the late 60s through the early 80s, he collaborated with equally brilliant directors and co-stars to create one weirdo masterpiece after another. The performance at the center of one of Wilder's films feels like lightning in a bottle that could never possibly be captured again. You could lift, say, Cary Grant out of a role and simply replace him with his modern equivalent, George Clooney, but I doubt anyone could possibly be a "modern Gene Wilder."

Wilder's acting range may seem limited: He could be a nervous college professor-type, or crank up the volume all the way to mad scientist, and that's pretty much it. But instead of working within the honorable tradition of the one-note character actor, Wilder painted with varying shades of optimism and warmth—always hidden under a veneer of derangement—and the combination somehow made him into an unlikely movie star.

His big break in movies was just four years before he played Willy Wonka, when he was plucked from a stint on Broadway to play a kidnapped mortician in 1967's Bonnie and Clyde. Director Arthur Penn told him at the time his performance in the tiny role was surprising. "I asked him what he meant, and he said he never imagined its being funny," Wilder wrote in his 2006 memoir, Kiss Me Like a Stranger.

Wilder was sort of an overnight success at 34 years old, managing to get a role the following year in the first of Mel Brooks's many comedy films, The Producers. Wilder's work with Brooks included two other undisputed classics: Blazing Saddles and Young Frankenstein, both of which further solidified his reputation as a comedian, a label Wilder himself found puzzling. He told interviewer Robert Osborne in 2013, "I don't think I'm that funny," and said, "I'll make my wife laugh once or twice in the house, but nothing special."

Despite not finding himself funny, Wilder continued to appear in comedies with varying degrees of success. He and Richard Pryor teamed up for a successful run of three films in the 70s and 80s. He also appeared in a light comedy in 1982 called Hanky Panky, which wasn't very popular, but did introduce him to his third wife, the late comedy god and original SNL cast member, Gilda Radner.

Outside of the comedy world, Wilder seemed most at home in family movies—specifically, those that were strange and unsettling. He somehow combined warmth with mania and darkness to bring us characters like Willy Wonka. Early on in Chocolate Factory, Wilder's Wonka seems like some kind of emotionally distant sadist with maybe a hint of a soul. Later, when he reveals that torturing children was a ploy, and that his real agenda was to hand over the keys to his candy empire to Charlie, the audience feels a sudden swell of elation that wouldn't be nearly as sweet if Wilder hadn't taken the character to such terrifying depths.

Maybe that's why no one has ever attempted to play the role of Willy Wonka ever again, and you can't convince me otherwise.

Wilder was the most emotionally satisfying part of a very you-have-to-be-stoned-to-get-it 1974 musical adaptation of The Little Prince. He played the character of the Fox as just a guy in a brown suit, if that helps give you a sense of what kind of movie this was. But Wilder's heartbreaking departure from the Prince's life makes the film worth watching.

As time went on, Wilder became disillusioned by movies in general. He complained to Osborne that there was too much "swearing" and "bombing" in Hollywood. "If something comes along that's really good, and I think I'd be good for it, I'd be happy to do it," he said. "But not too many came along."

Wilder's movie career slowed to a stop in the 1990s, but he popped up in a handful of made-for-TV movies before seemingly calling it quits. In 1999, when NBC decided to make a two-and-a-half hour Alice in Wonderland adaptation for some weird reason, Wilder was kind enough to accept the role of the Mock Turtle. In one scene, Wilder stands there in a turtle shell with his pal the Gryphon green-screened in behind him and sings a drawn-out version of the Lewis Carroll poem "Beautiful Soup."

It's absolutely bananas. In the hands of any other actor who has ever lived, the scene would be pure so-bad-it's-good endurance comedy. Wilder's performance, on the other hand, is funny, but it also manages to make you feel something. As always, Wilder must have looked on the page at an insane character with an equally insane preoccupation and somehow resisted the temptation to wink, or break the fourth wall, or phone it in.

Instead, Wilder managed to love the character and song, and—even trickier—he made us love them too. At this moment, I don't see how any actor could ever pull off a trick like that again.

Follow Mike Pearl on Twitter.

This article originally appeared on VICE France

Have you ever wondered who the fuck came up with the idea that aliens in movies should look a bit like humans – only with a big head, crazy eyes and slimy body? I have, and it really bothers me; if you are going to entertain the idea of extraterrestrial life, why would you be so lazy when it comes to imagining what it looks like? It just does my head in.

I tried to google my question but my search did not produce a satisfactory answer. So, I decided to contact a few people who claim to have actually had a close encounter of the third kind, and ask them to draw that experience. My hope was that at least one of them would come up with an alien that did not resemble a frog. None of them did. Whether that makes their stories more believable or the concept of humanoid aliens less stupid, I will leave to you to decide.

Here are some of those drawings, coupled with brief interviews I conducted with the "alien abductees".

Louise's drawing of her experience

LOUISE, 56

VICE: Can you tell me about the time you were abducted?
Louise: It was in 1997 – I was 37 at the time. I woke up in the middle of the night, paralysed. To my right, there were two small aliens. I can't really explain why, but I wasn't scared. I was raised horizontally above the bed and levitated towards the closed window. The next moment, I found myself on a very cold table surrounded by the two small aliens and a third, much bigger creature who was standing by my feet. His body was a blur to me, but I suddenly realised I had seen him 20 years earlier, in what I had then thought was a nightmare. With regression therapy I came to realise they had visited me before but I just always thought they were ghosts in a recurring dream.

What did they do?
They inseminated me artificially, and when I found myself back in bed, I knew I was pregnant. I couldn't be, because I had a coil and I was going through a divorce. But in an emergency appointment with the gynaecologist, he confirmed I was. The night before I was supposed to have an abortion, I prayed to God and Mary to help me. The next day, I was happy again. I called off the abortion.

What do you think happened to make you pregnant?

I think they took semen from my ex-husband and then modified the DNA. I have three sons – two of them came from something like this. They're both very precocious. I never suffered during the abductions. If these creatures wanted to do us any harm, they would have attacked us by now.

>

Stéphane's drawing of his experience

STÉPHANE, 41

VICE: Hi Stéphane. What can you tell me about your alien encounter?
Stéphane: It was on March the 24th, 2010, after my night shift at the hospital where I work. At about 4AM I drove up to the security gate to go home, when a flash of light blinded me. In a split second, I found myself in another place – I was on a mountain, and there was a lake at its foot. Suddenly a huge space ship appeared in the sky, while an even brighter light began to emanate from the ground. That's all I remember. The next thing I know, I am back behind the wheel of my car, passing the security gate. When I got out, I was approached by police who said they had been looking for me. It turned out I had been gone for three days. I have no idea what happened.

Did you see aliens?
I don't think I did, but on that mountain I did see people who looked human though I couldn't really see or I can't remember their faces. Generally, I think these beings can divert our minds and make us think of something else.

Did you bear any physical marks?
For about a month, I had three dots on my right hand, spaced two centimetres apart in the form of a triangle. It hurt a lot for the first week – like a burn that wouldn't heal. Ever since that experience, I always have the feeling that I'm being watched.

Émilie's drawing of her experience

ÉMILIE*, 57

VICE: What do you remember happening to you?
Émilie: I was 17 and my boyfriend spent the night at my house. My mother allowed us to sleep in the living room that night – which my father would never have, but he was away working a night shift. The three of us spent the evening chatting in the living room. At some point, I began to hear a repeated thump, which my mother and boyfriend couldn't hear.

We all went to bed around midnight. The noises first got more intense, and then muffled. My boyfriend heard nothing and fell asleep instantly. I was terrified, it felt like time had stopped around us. I closed my eyes and when I opened them again, I saw several small, hooded creatures circling the bed. I couldn't see their faces.

What about your boyfriend?
I tried to wake him up by shaking him, but he wouldn't wake up. So I ran out of the living room and fled to my own room. A few minutes later, I heard the key in the front door unlock – it was suddenly 7AM and my father was returning from his night shift. I had lost nearly six hours – I have no idea what happened between shaking my boyfriend and running to my room. That was the most traumatic thing about it.

What did you do the next day? Did you tell anyone?
I was so angry at my boyfriend for not having woken up that I broke up with him and have not seen him since. But no one woke up from the noise – my grandmother, sister, mother and boyfriend were all in the house. It took me a long time before I told someone. I've felt like a guinea pig ever since that experience – like I've been used and violated.

Myriame's drawing of her experience

MYRIAME, 60

VICE: Could you describe your experience for me?
Myriame: It happened in 1987, while I was holidaying in a chalet in Chamonix, in the French Alps. Right before I fell asleep, I heard a clicking sound. When I woke up, I saw that the skylight in the roof above me had opened up and a cord had come down from the sky through it – it was connected to my genitals. Two small beings floated around the cord. The only part I could move was my eyes, and didn't understand anything about what was going on.

I wasn't used to that feeling – I'm a computer scientist and very passionate about astronomy. I'm a member of the Astronautical Commission of the Aéro-Club of France – the French aviation society. I'm used to understanding space phenomena – or at least parts of it. I didn't understand anything about this.

Do you have an idea of what they did to you?
Yes, after some regression therapy with a hypnotherapist. I saw that I was lying on a table in a huge transparent dome, while they had me completely covered in a gelatinous substance. The little beings were there as well as larger ones, and the cord was still in me – it went up my right kidney, which hurt. I levitated above the table for a while, which was an incredible sensation.

You also mentioned that you remember a second experience.
Yes, that was another time in the same chalet, when through the skylight, I could make out a black spaceship in the sky. Then I found myself back in a dome with the little aliens, but also with one larger being that looked a bit like a praying mantis. It was standing at the end of the table and it tried to console me a little, which worked. I couldn't move and I don't know what they did, until I passed through a tunnel of light and was back in my bed. So, yeah. There you go.

*Emilie's name has been changed.

More on VICE:

The Emerging Fetish of Laying Alien Eggs Inside Yourself

Watching for Aliens in the UFO Capital of Scotland

Britain's Alien Abductees Have Their Own Support Group

'Fuck off dude I'm on my lunch break' (Photo: Audio-Technica, via)

If you're a woman who's been on the Tube or gone to the shop or left the house at any point during your adult life, you will be familiar with being approached by men. Men who tell you to smile or attempt to talk to you when you're sweating on a treadmill or make a comment about the book you're reading even though you very clearly do not want to speak to them and are, y'know, JUST TRYING TO READ YOUR BOOK.

And in recent years, thanks to the advent of social media and projects like Everyday Sexism, women have been talking about it. In news that has apparently shocked the world, women have gone online and asked men if they could, like, maybe not hassle us when we're on our way to work? Maybe?

So if you are a man who wants to approach a woman, you may now be wondering what to do. What, in this new age of political correctness and having to respect women's basic autonomy and human rights, do you say? What are your moves? What, most importantly, if she is wearing headphones? Well, never fear guys: Dan Bacon has got your back.

Dan Bacon – which I hope is his real name, because honestly what kind of tool would rename himself 'Bacon' – writes a blog called 'The Modern Man', in which he covers such lofty topics as "3 Reasons Why a Woman's Thigh Gap is So Attractive to Men", "3 Reasons Why Men Are Attracted To Breasts" and, weirdly, "My Ex Is Telling Everyone I'm Crazy".

'How To Talk To A Woman Who Is Wearing Headphones', one of his more cerebral offerings, has somehow gone viral and been plucked from the world of men who want to pick up women on the street but are unwilling to shower and visit Reddit maybe 45 times a day, and into the actual world, where people know what sponges are and what basic social decorum is and don't want to take their headphones off.

Sadly, because Dan Bacon is a pick-up artist, unfortunately the blog does not just say "don't", so here, point by point, is how and why Dan Bacon is wrong and bad.

Okay, starting with an easy one here Dan: it does. It does mean you can't talk to them. That is what it means. It means that.

I mean, this could, technically, mean one of two things. We could, as Dan does, go with "her taking off her headphones means she is open to what you have to say" – that's one option. The other: "her taking her headphones off means that she is used to being harassed by men she doesn't want to speak to, and has learned through years of perpetually creepy and disrespectful treatment by strangers that pacifying them and going along with what they're saying for a while is a better way to avoid potentially extremely dangerous confrontation than ignoring them". Could also be that one. It's hard to tell. Who knows.

Now we're getting to the good stuff: the step-by-step guide. I'd like to point out that this kind of list contributes to an incredibly sexist and dehumanising idea of women as passive objects into which you input attention so that they output sex, but honestly I can't get past the fact that this is a list written by a man whose only actual interaction with women has been the time he chatted with a level 17 High Elf on World of Warcraft one time who, in the end, turned out to be some 50-year-old dude from Barnsley.

I mean, I know dating is hard, but I feel like specifying that you have to stand 1 to 1.5 meters away from another human being is... kind of... weird? Like, I don't know how to talk to people I fancy but, being a normal functioning adult, I am aware of how close it is appropriate to stand to them. If somebody is having to teach you to not stand four inches away from a woman before smiling in a relaxed and easygoing manner at them, then you are beyond help. Close the laptop now, dude. You are not going to get laid today or any other day.

Here, Dan explains exactly how much effort you may have to go to in order to hassle a woman who is simply attempting to go about her day to day life, which, as it turns out, is 'quite a lot! Really quite a lot! Like if she ignores you twice, you're still good bro! Keep mutely waving until she fucks you!'

"Nervousness and excitement" = "irritation at having to take headphones off mixed with intangible terror because unknown man is desperately attempting to get attention and could potentially get pushy, coercive or violent at any point". Plus I pretty much know in advance that any dude who's just spent 15 to 20 minutes trying to get me to take my headphones off is almost certainly going to try and talk to me about, like, the fact that he doesn't hate women or anything, but Ghostbusters is kind of a classic and there was no need to mess with the gender of the characters for the sake of political correctness really, was there, they could have just left it as it was, couldn't they?

Two things: one, acknowledging how awkward a situation is has never made a situation less awkward in human history. Never. Not even once. Two: once again, if you are referring to yourself as a "cool guy" then you are never going to have sex with a human woman.

ACTUAL IRL TRANSCRIPT

PUA: Hey! Hey - could you... could y-...headphones. Headphones...? ....COULD YOU TAKE OFF YOUR HEADPHONES.

Woman: What?

PUA: I was...I don't normally...I don't normally talk to women with headphones on.

Woman: Right. Okay.

PUA: Anyway, I am on my way to a store up the street. Would you like to go for a juice or coffee?

Woman: No.

~FIN~

That is the only logical outcome of any of this. The last line is always going to be "no". Every time.

Actual translation: women are attracted to the strength in men (eg knowing when it is an appropriate time to approach them) and turned off by the weakness (eg unnerving men asking them to take their headphones off, sweating audibly, wearing a T-shirt that has a Game of Thrones joke on it).

This bit: this bit is not that funny. The whole post is a ridiculous, farcical mess, but this bit kind of boils down the mindset of a pick-up artist.

Women do not ignore men because they're trying to "challenge" them. Women ignore men because they're nervous, or they're scared of them, or because they just don't want to talk to them. Women are approached all the time in public – literally every single day from when they're about 13 years old – and sometimes the men who approach them are not that nice. Sometimes they aren't just trying their luck or being cheeky: sometimes they are persistent in a horrible, frightening way. Sometimes they will not leave you alone. Sometimes, if you're really lucky, they will literally follow you down the street until you're faced with a choice of "man continues to pester me as I walk aimlessly down the road in the hope he'll go away" and "escaping from situation but potentially dangerous man knows where I live".

What pick-up artists fail to realise is that women – and bear with me on this one – are human. Human beings with hopes and dreams and, weirdly enough, autonomy. A woman's every move is not some kind of calculated sexual power play.

So, for those at the back, a recap: don't gesticulate wildly at a woman to make her take her headphones off, even if you are standing an appropriate number of metres away from her. Don't assume that a very visible lack of interest is actually some kind of complex psychosexual move designed to challenge and excite you. Don't refer to yourself, under any circumstances, as a 'cool guy'. And, final tip, just to reiterate: maybe, just, like, don't.

@rey_z

More stuff from VICE:

Confessions of An Ex-Pickup Artist

I Spoke to the Reddit Pick-Up Artist Who Was Accused of Writing a 'Rape Guide'

This Is What One of London's 'Female Pick-Up Artist' Seminars Is Actually Like

Feminist activist and writer Gloria Steinem has spent her career traveling the world, drawing attention to the issues affecting women today. On her Emmy-nominated VICELAND show WOMAN, Steinem and a team of female journalists go all over the globe—from the Democratic Republic of Congo, to El Salvador, to Canada—to explore how violence against women drives global instability.

Tonight, VICELAND will screen "USA: Assault in the Military," the show's in-depth look into institutionalized sexual assault within the US military, at New York City's Lincoln Center. Following the episode, Steinem will sit down with Loree Sutton, a retired brigadier general and New York City's Department of Veterans' Services commissioner, for a moderated livestream discussion about sexual assault in the military, what's being done to combat the problem, and how survivors are getting help.

Check out the full episode online now, and catch the livestream discussion shortly after the episode is screened at 7:30 PM ET/PT.

Get the VICE App on iOS and Android

Photo via Flickr user Rebecca Wilson

Residents of an apartment complex in Rochester, New York, were forced to evacuate on Monday after one tenant's unfortunate cooking misadventure involving a microwave and some insanely spicy peppers.

According to local station 13 WHAM, firefighters first responded to the scene at around 10 AM when they received reports that residents were having trouble breathing. After clearing out the building, a HAZMAT crew was then called to brave the apartment's eye-watering interior, making its way through the plumes of accidental homemade pepper spray.

"It seems whatever kind of pepper they were using, once its aerosolized, if you've ever gotten pepper in your eyes, you know how hard it can be on your system," the fire department lieutenant, Dana Cieslinski, told 13 WHAM.

When the HAZMAT crews got into the apartment producing the pepper fumes, they found some spicy peppers roasting inside of a microwave, like some kind of stoned attempt at a new signature hot sauce.

"I do not know what kind of pepper it was, but clearly spicy enough to effect the people in the hallway," Cieslinski said.

Thankfully no one suffered any injuries typically brought on by actual pepper spray, and residents were let back into the high-rise shortly after the peppers were removed and the place aired out a bit.

Read: My Love of Hot Sauce Is Borderline Masochistic

On this episode of VICE's Autobiographies, we meet London-based rapper Tinie Tempah before the release of his new mixtape, Junk Food. The artist discusses the different paths his career has taken over his 12 years in the music industry and talks about what it's like to navigate the underground and mainstream music scenes.

The author (far left) having a drink

Get the VICE App on iOS and Android.

It's funny that we all "have a relationship" with alcohol. It's maybe the only thing we consume that we feel the need to directly relate to the rest of our lives. I've never heard people open up about their toxic relationship with gorgonzola, or how they're working on their relationship with Coke Zero. But alcohol? From heavy drinkers to teetotalers, we all have a personal bond.

Like pretty much everyone else, I have a relationship with alcohol. In fact, like pretty much everyone else, nearly every significant moment in my life revolves around drink. As an eight-day-old Jewish baby, I was given the snip, put to sleep with a little drop of wine. My first proper kiss, at Reading of 2009, was fueled by a blend of vodka and Tesco Value cola. My 18th birthday was just an excuse to get trashed. First week of college: gin, Jägerbombs, and Kronenberg. Celebrations, commiserations, falling in love, and gut-wrenching heartbreaks have always seen me—and my contemporaries, elders, and ancestors—reaching for a glass.

So when statistics surfaced earlier this month that suggested young people in Britain are drinking less than ever before, I started thinking about my own behavior. As I wandered home from the pub one night, a few glasses of wine down, I asked myself: Is my relationship with alcohol really OK? I'd always thought that everyone my age was drinking a little bit too much, but that, y'know, it was kind of OK because we're the first generation to be worse off than our parents; we're stuck with a lifetime of debt; we'll never be able to buy a home, etc., ad infinitum. But turns out that's just not the case.

My roommates reassured me that of course I was healthy. I work nine to five, Monday to Friday. I don't drink alone, rarely in the daytime, no blacking out after nights at the pub. But, at the same time, it dawned on me pretty quickly that my lifestyle involves drinking most nights of the week. I rarely drink to the point where things get too wobbly, which, until now, I'd told myself, meant things were nowhere near out of hand.

But I wanted to be certain, so I decided to keep track of my drinking habits for a week. Monday night I was heading down to an event in central London. After the job? Well, everyone headed to the pub. Tuesday was a Turkish dinner with a glass or three of wine, Wednesday work drinks, Thursday my roommate passed me a beer on the sofa. I was never drinking huge amounts, but there was a bottle there every night of the working week. On Friday evening, I was off to Wilderness Festival, and I had a few gins when we got there. By Saturday lunchtime, I was heading down to Brighton Pride. I tried to keep a tally of units, but to be honest, I couldn't easily keep count. I imagine that's probably not a great thing.

The author (center) doing a bit more drinking

I decided to get in touch with James Nicholls, director of Research and Policy Development at Alcohol Research UK. Before I started panicking about whether or not there were any issues with my relationship with booze, I wanted to work out if the amount I consume is a problem for my health. If not, then why worry?

"The revised government guidelines are 14 units of alcohol a week for both men and women," said Nicholls over the phone. "The guidelines set out how much you should drink to keep your risk of dying of an alcohol-related condition below 1 percent."

It didn't take me long to realize, after checking what 14 units represents, that I—and most of my friends—could get through that in an afternoon. Six standard glasses of wine? Six pints of beer? Over the course of an entire week, that seems like nothing. But maybe it's not; only 25 percent of the UK population drinks more than the recommended weekly limit.

Yet, this didn't worry me too much. Sure, at 23 I'm drinking way over the recommended limit week-on-week, but that's a risk for my body that, for now, I'm willing to take. We make decisions every day that see us risk our bodies to some degree, for pleasure, for comfort, or for a thrill. As far as I could see, what was vital was that drinking remained a choice and not a necessity, and when it came to my own drinking, I still wasn't 100 percent sure where I fell.

Dr. Sally Marlow is a Fellow at King's College London, with an expertise in addiction and the stigma that surrounds it. "There's no single trait or gene, no single answer that says whether you're addicted," she explained from her home. According to Marlow, the kind of thing you see in the Daily Mail when it comes to alcohol addiction is a "crock of shite." Instead, she assured me that alcoholism spawns from a "complex interplay between your genetic makeup and the things that happen to you in your life."

In short: There was no easy answer to the question, "Do I have a problem with drinking?"

What Marlow also made clear is that you can't judge a drink problem solely on the amount of alcohol you consume. "A heavy drinker can build up a tolerance where you need more and more to get the same effect," she said, pointing to smoking or heroin addiction as similar examples; you might start off slowly but soon increase your intake to feel the same effect.

"It's the same with alcohol, but it's slower: Over a couple of years, you might need more and more to be relaxed, to be a party animal, to be self-confident," she said. "People who can knock back a couple of bottles of wine might only get the effect of a few glasses."

So it's not in the quantity alone that points to a problem. Instead, Marlow pointed me toward the types of behaviors that might signal alcoholism: can't get to work due to hangovers; arguing with your friends, family, or partner because of the drink; getting busted for drunk driving; drunken accidents or getting into fights; feelings of shame and guilt; or blackouts where you continue to function but you don't recall what was going on. Marlow says these are all red flags—behavioral signs that you might have a problem.

Speaking to Marlow, it was clear that what she described is not the way I—or many of my peers—drink. However, it's also clear that casual drinking can easily mutate into problem drinking.

I got in contact with an Alcoholics Anonymous member named Jack. Now age 30, Jack has been sober since the age of 21, when he realized something just wasn't right. "From the outside everything was perfect: I had a good job, a long-term relationship, a nice flat," he said, "but I looked in the mirror every day, and I hated what I saw."

For Jack, drinking was a way of escaping. "I feel happy? Have a drink. Feel like shit? Have a drink. When I was without alcohol, I was irritable, snappy, an arsehole—I was worse sober than when I was drunk."

I asked Jack what it was that made him realize he had a problem. Turned out it was a work lunch with his office when things, as he put it, got seriously fucking bad. "I nearly lost my job, I lost clients, I lost the company a lot of business. I embarrassed myself," he said. "Let's just say: When you're trying to get a contract with a client, it's best not to offer to sleep with them when their wife is also there."

When Jack was drinking, he didn't know whether or not he was going to carry on long into the night. "I might go out for a drink or two, and sometimes I would , but other times, I'd wake up the next day and not know where I was."

British drinking culture can make it difficult to spot an alcohol problem. On the surface, my consumption—and that of most people I spoke to while writing this article—should probably be setting off some alarm bells. But really, it's just become normal for many of us to drink like this day-to-day.

I can't help but think about a close friend of mine, a journalist, who did Dry January earlier this year. Yes, he managed nearly 31 days sober, but he moaned about it every night of the week. Does this mean he has a problem? If it does, it also means basically everyone who did Dry January also does.

The line between healthy and dangerous is alarmingly murky, but trying a period of sobriety and seeing how you're left feeling seems to be a pretty solid way to test the water. Either way, I'll now be keeping much closer tabs not just on how much I'm drinking, but why.

Follow Michael Segalov on Twitter.

Thumbnail via Flickr user Bruce Szalwinski

Children in Greenville, South Carolina, are allegedly being harassed by horrifying clowns with knives trying to coax them into the woods, WSPS 7 reports.

Several sightings have been reported by Greenville residents over the past few weeks, describing people dressed as clowns "trying to lure children in the woods." It seems like Greenville's Fleetwood Manor Apartment complex has been the main target for the low-rent Pennywise freaks—after numerous complaints from residents, the property manager posted a warning about it on Facebook.

James Arnold, a parent who lives in the apartments, told Buzzfeed News what his children claim happened.

" mentioned, 'Mama, there's clowns out there in the woods and they're trying to get us to come out there,'" Arnold said. "Some had chains, some had knives, and some were holding out money, saying, 'Come here, we've got candy for you,' but they wouldn't go."

After an incident report was filed describing "several clowns in the woods flashing green laser lights," the Greenville County Sheriff's Office began an investigation. So far, there's not much actual evidence of the creepy-ass bozos emerging from the woods.

But after a statement from Greenville County deputy Drew Pinciaro was published yesterday, it's clear he and the rest of the department are keen on getting to the bottom of what is hopefully just a viral marketing stunt for the upcoming It movie starring the Stranger Things kid.

Read: Teens in Clown Masks Terrorized a Canadian Town

This story appeared in the August issue of VICE magazine. Click HERE to subscribe.

Acclaimed photographer and video artist Gillian Wearing shot to fame in the 1990s for a series of portraits of strangers, each holding a sign with their innermost thoughts written on it. Since then, she has continued to work in photo and video portraiture with a particular focus on teasing out repressed experiences or personalities, often making use of masks.

Look at Anna Haifisch's art and comics on her website and Twitter.

Get the VICE App on iOS and Android

Hillary Clinton during the Benghazi hearings. Photo by Olivier Douliery/Sipa USA

Get the VICE App on iOS and Android

"Now's a good time for a question, right?" wisecracked a journalist from the press scrum, as two chocolatiers flanked the candidate.

The scene was yet another Hillary Clinton campaign photo opportunity, this time at Hub Coffee Roasters in Reno, Nevada, just after she denounced Donald Trump for his association with the online racists of the "alt right." It was, in the words of CNN's Dan Merica, "a great chance to answer questions."

Instead, Clinton, chewing on a sea-salt caramel truffle, gestured grandly to the assembled reporters. "I want you to offer it to all the press, they are so wonderful, so cooperative, so hardworking, they all deserve a piece of chocolate."

"Why not outright call Donald Trump a racist today?" tried one journalist.

"You'll love this, Tim," Clinton barreled on, pointing to a tray of chocolates. "So good. So good. Everybody try one!"

And then she was gone.

Political candidates routinely ignore questions from reporters, but Clinton is a master of the art of refusing to engage with the media except on the most controlled terms. Though she's given some one-on-one interviews, she hasn't submitted to a press conference since a seven-question event in Iowa almost ten months ago. Trump has sucked up all the oxygen in the race thanks to his barn-burning rallies, insane public pronouncements, and thuggish exhortations against the media. Meanwhile, the Democratic nominee has almost receded from view—and with her solid lead in the polls both nationally and in swing states, who's to say Clinton's strategy is wrong?

In truth, her caginess is deeper than mere electoral strategy. Even as Clinton winds her way back toward 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue, her abiding mistrust of the press, refusal to be held accountable, and habit of stonewalling whenever possible adds up to one thing: The woman who will likely be our next president has a transparency problem.

The infamous private email server, which enabled Clinton to skirt record-keeping rules and send emails that wouldn't turn up in Freedom of Information Act records requests, is just the most notable example of Clinton's habit of secrecy. She was the first secretary of state to discard a state.gov address in favor of a secret account, her staff deleted thousands of emails, probably irrevocably, and hackers may have breached her unsecured account. But though all of that may be outrage-inducing, it is Clinton's anomic political handling of the scandal that has been most puzzling.

Given the opportunity to disclose her private email account to Congress in December 2012, Clinton instead ignored congressional questioning about the account's existence, which was then discovered anyway. What followed was a torturous process of extraction in which the emails were released in dribs and drabs for months, culminating in the recovery by the FBI of even more missing emails. "As a result," the New York Times reported this month, "thousands of emails that Mrs. Clinton did not voluntarily turn over to the State Department last year could be released just weeks before the election in November."

A sidestepping of federal record-keeping requirements that culminates in the release of the same records as an "October surprise"—poetic justice, maybe. But it is Clinton's profound good fortune that, first during the primary campaign, and now during the general election, her opponents have been unwilling or unable to exploit her inability to play straight. Bernie Sanders at first refused to make an issue of Clinton's email troubles, and only belatedly decried the murky confluence of the State Department and the Clinton Foundation under her leadership. Donald Trump is a malfunctioning cotton candy machine, too haywire to spin one durable, lasting strand. Given the insanity of the right-wing conspiracy theories about Clinton—she of the cattle futures, the secret Parkinson's, and the Vince Foster murder—it's not hard to see why one might dismiss less wild accusations against her. Released from the specter of an FBI investigation, the message from Clinton on July 31 was breezy and assured: FBI director James Comey "said my answers were truthful."

Unfortunately, that wasn't true. In the hands of a skilled political opponent, Clinton might have been successfully painted as the kind of person with, at best, a shaky relationship to the truth. Instead, Trump spent a good portion of the following week in a public fight with the parents of a dead Muslim American veteran.

Barring a truly unexpected turn, Clinton will be elected having never been seriously and effectively scrutinized by her opponents, nor really engaging with the press.

An Associated Press report last week found that of the 154 private citizens indicated by State Department records to have met with or phoned Secretary Clinton during her first years in Foggy Bottom, over half had donated to the Clinton Foundation: "Combined, the 85 donors contributed as much as $156 million... At least 40 donated more than $100,000 each, and 20 gave more than $1 million."

This was a troubling revelation—if not proof that money buys access to the highest offices of the land, at the very least an indication of how the Clinton Foundation and its donors might taint a Clinton administration. Clinton herself dismissed it as "a lot of smoke and no fire." Yet the State Department has battled the AP in court to to keep Clinton's detailed schedules private until after the election, releasing some, once again, in dribs and drabs. It is not always entirely clear who has even donated to the Clinton Foundation's associated charities—and when a high-profile nonprofit with ties to the highest levels of government takes money from dictatorships like Saudi Arabia and Qatar, and private companies including Blackwater and Swiss banks like UBS, it's entirely reasonable to ask about the motives of people involved. The possibility of money influencing politics is real enough for Bill Clinton to vow to (maybe) stop accepting foreign donations should Hillary be elected. Why then were such donations accepted at all in the years leading up to Hillary Clinton's 2008 presidential bid?

Clinton's defenders often say that the media subjects her and her husband to an unfair level of scrutiny. It is true that, amid the compelling truths of how the Clintons wield power, there exist a host of "Arkansas Project" conspiracy theories, falsehoods, and inventions deployed by the right purely to destroy a hated political adversary. But let's not kid ourselves. Clinton is a former secretary of state who has fomented foreign wars. She is a former senator for Wall Street's home state, dutifully representing its interests. She is married to a former president who has well-documented connections to nearly every other powerful person in the world, connections which have been invaluable to some of the wheeler-dealers listed as major Clinton Foundation donors. With that sort of influence should come a lot of prying eyes.

Maybe if this campaign had played out differently, Clinton's secrecy would have doomed her. But as it stands, barring a truly unexpected turn, Clinton will be elected having never been seriously and effectively scrutinized by her opponents, nor really engaging with the press. In the wake of Barack Obama's devolution into one of the most secretive presidents in history, the ramifications of an emboldened, unaccountable, and opaque Clinton administration will reverberate far beyond a measly basement server in Chappaqua.

Follow Dan O'Sullivan on Twitter.

Brett Ryan. Photo via Toronto Police Services.

Toronto's so-called crossbow killer Brett Ryan is accused of murdering his family, including his mother and two brothers.

The victims, Susan, Christopher, and Alexander Ryan, according to the Toronto Star, were found dead outside a Scarborough home Thursday. They were named in court Tuesday morning following the removal of a publication ban.

Brett Ryan, 35, has been charged with three counts of first-degree murder and will remain in police custody at least until a Sept. 2 court appearance.

On Monday, Toronto police said Susan Ryan was strangled to death, while both Christopher and Alexander Ryan were stabbed in the neck, one with a crossbow bolt and the other with a head of an arrow. A fourth male victim was treated for injuries and released. Speaking to the Star, a neighbour said Susan Ryan had four sons, two of whom lived in the Lawndale Road home where the attacks took place. Police have not said whether the crossbow was actually loaded with arrows and shot, or if they were simply used as stabbing tools. All three were found outside the house—Susan Ryan and one of her sons inside the garage and the other son on the driveway. It is not clear whether the crossbow belonged to Brett Ryan, who lived in a downtown condo, or someone at the house.

Brett Ryan, engaged to be married in mid September, has a lengthy criminal record. Known as the "Fake Beard Bandit," he pleaded guilty in 2009 to several counts of robbery, and disguise with intent to commit an indictable offence, tied to a bank robbery spree in the Greater Toronto Area; he reportedly wore a fake beard and bandages on his face while carrying out the heists.

Following the convictions, Brett Ryan was prohibited from owning weapons for a decade, the CBC reports.

Police have said the attack was connected to a suspicious package found in Brett Ryan's apartment downtown Thursday. After finding the package, authorities evacuated the area.

Police have said they have strong evidence that the killings were premeditated.

Follow Manisha Krishnan on Twitter.

Photo by Jake Kivanc

It's probably safe to say that most people who take UberPool aren't doing it for the conversation with strangers. While it's cheaper and more environmentally responsible than taking a private Uber ride, you can't always guarantee the best pool partners. At the end of the day, no one really wants to participate in small talk with two or three strangers crammed inside a Honda Civic for what's usually a minimum of ten minutes. It's the equivalent of sitting in the back seat of a car between two uncles that you last saw when you were a kid, on your way to a relative's wedding. It's an uncomfortable experience for most, if not all, involved.

Photo via Facebook

The two Quebec women facing life in prison in Australia after police found more than $30 million worth of cocaine in their suitcases looked like they were having the time of their lives on the way there.

Photo via Flickr user Gage Skidmore

Donald Trump may be hellbent on keeping immigrants out of America, but his old modeling agency, Trump Model Management, appears to have profited from skirting national immigration law.

According to a new report from Mother Jones, three foreign models who came to the United States to work for the company claim that they not only worked illegally for the agency on tourist visas but also faced sweatshop-like conditions and, in some instances, were encouraged to lie to immigration services.

A model the magazine gave the pseudonym Anna said the agency told her, "If ask you any questions, you're just here for meetings."

A financial statement given to the magazine by Canadian-born model Rachel Blais shows she was employed at the agency for some six months before the company got her a work visa. She further claimed she was billed $1,600 just to have a bunk in a cramped three-bedroom apartment in the East Village, which was used to house many of the agency's models.

"It is like modern-day slavery," Blais said. "Honestly, they are the most crooked agency I've ever worked for, and I've worked for quite a few."

The arrangement bears a resemblance to the one Trump's wife, Melania, has been accused of using back in the 90s when she first came to work in the US. Lady Trump has refuted reports she worked in the country illegally, after a nude photo shoot suggested she was working in the country a year before she said she arrived. "I have at all times been in full compliance with the immigration laws of this country. Period," she tweeted.

Meanwhile, Trump Modeling Management did not respond to emails and phone calls from Mother Jones requesting comment on its story.

Read: Did Melania Trump Immigrate to the US Illegally for a Nude Photo Shoot?