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Remembering the Golden Age of Football Blooper Videos

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Not long ago, DVDs and VHS tapes filled with the year's greatest football blunders were the go-to Christmas present for the man in your family you had absolutely nothing to say to. These DVDs – which cut together Richard Dunne own goals, Lee Trundle showboating and League Two goalmouth scrambles – were presented by a mouthy ex-pro or a banter-related celeb.

But sadly, in 2016, they are no more: for the first time in a long time, none are scheduled for release this year. Which makes sense, of course; as any vaguely amusing football incident now ends up on social media within a few minutes of it happening, you no longer need Olly Murs or Mark Wright introducing some awful misses in an end-of-year roundup you have to pay for.

So as a way to pour one out for this British football institution, here are some of the greatest football blooper DVDs and videos released over the years.

'Nick Hancock: Football Hell' (1997) and 'Nick Hancock: Football Doctor' (1999)

The OG of the genre was Danny Baker, with his seminal Own Goals and Gaffes, a series that ran from the early-90s. After Baker stepped down, the crown was swiftly taken by They Think It's All Over host Nick Hancock. His first entry, Football Nightmares, is pretty good. The sequels, however, are worrying attempts at keeping the banter fresh. Football Hell is quite literally a satanic-themed nightmare in which Hancock becomes the Aleister Crowley of own goals. He's joined by jobbing actors dressed as hooded cult members, who ham their way around a nightclub with exposed brickwork posing as a dungeon. In Football Doctor, he wears a white coat, wisecracking his way around a hospital, while a copyright-free take on the Casualty theme music plays in the background.

'Big Ron Bites Back' (1999) and 'Big Ron's Mad Mangers' (2004)

Former Man United and Villa boss Ron Atkinson made two tapes, both focusing on managers and both failing in different ways. In Big Ron Bites Back he interviews other manager mates like Dave Bassett, Terry Venables and Andy Gray (who had never actually managed a team), and spends a long, Moet-fuelled lunch with Barry Fry in what looks like a Premier Inn reception.

2004's Big Ron's Mad Mangers episode is a standard clip show, but was released just six months after Atkinson was caught on tape calling Marcel Desailly the N-word. Obviously they should have just canned the project and cut their losses. I had a Christmas job in a DVD store that year and we didn't sell a single copy of it.

'Soccer Studs With Zoe Ball' (1997)

This bizarre tape was a clichéd attempt to open up the bloopers videos market to women, with Zoe Ball compiling clips of her hottest footy hunks instead of Swindon own goals. A perfect time-capsule of "ladette" culture, the episode invites us to "Join Lee Sharpe at the pool, Ian Wright at a photoshoot and Ryan Giggs and Eric Cantona at a swank premiere party." Zoe selects her "Tight Bum XI" and does some awkward dribbling on a training pitch while footage of players strutting around topless rolls throughout.

'Soccer Saturday: Cheers, Jeers and Tears' (2013)

Soccer Saturday host Jeff Stelling having his own bloopers DVD wasn't particularly surprising. However, this is not a collection of football clips; instead, it compiles "20 years of the show's funniest football banter". So it's actually just an hour of Soccer Saturday's "best" moments – i.e. Stelling dancing, Chris Kamara getting things wrong and Paul Merson being an incoherent mess. What they don't have the rights to, though, is any of the matches they are talking about, which makes it a football DVD without any actual football in it.

'Paddy McGuinness'S All Star Balls Ups' (2007)

Most bloopers DVDs are low budget affairs. Paddy McGuinness's All Star Balls Ups is a blockbuster, with the producers hiring out a stately home, renting a few sports cars, paying for real licensed music and even roping in cameos from ex-pros and pundits including Ian Rush, Graham Taylor and Mark Lawrenson.

Paddy plays the role of a lord of a country manor, and all the old players are his servants. It includes one horrific scene where Paddy walks into the bathroom to find Chris Kamara, Alan McInally and Paul Merson appearing to pleasure themselves over the sinks. McInally and Kammy quickly reveal that they are actually just polishing trophies, but Merson stays quiet, basically confirming he's been masturbating in front of Kammy and McInally. Then we get a crash zoom in on Paul Merson's sex face, which is an image that will haunt you for weeks.

'Olly Murs: 7 Deadly Sins of Football' (2011) and 'Mark Wright: Football Saints & Sinners' (2012)

If you can't get a football player to host your DVD, then you want to get a celeb that your dad will like – one of the less leftie blokes off of Mock the Week, or someone who was in Lock, Stock. Maybe a snooker player. Not, however, someone off of TOWIE, or a cheeky chappie who was on X-Factor a few years back, which is evident in this truly awful film.

'Ray Winstone's Football Blinders and Blunders' (2008)

This is unarguably the greatest football blunder special. Ray's actually watched the clips beforehand, which is rare – even if he does go into full-on "yer da" mode at one point, moaning about the England team "poncing about" trying to be European. But what truly earns this DVD its title is its full 10-minute section dedicated to Joe Cole.

@achinglychic

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Ask a Lawyer: We Asked a Lawyer How to Kick Out a Shitty Roommate

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Screengrab from Bridesmaids. Thumbnail photo by turkeychik via Flickr Creative Commons

This post originally appeared on VICE US.

Anyone who's lived in New York City has a housing horror story. Mine starts about two years back, when I was living in Greenpoint, Brooklyn, with a couple of guys who wanted to move in with their girlfriends at the end of our lease. I went away on a weekend trip and came back to find that they had cleared out the place a whole month early––or so I thought. As such, I started doing what human beings often do when they live alone, which is to say I walked around naked, had conversations with myself, and never bothered to shut the bathroom door.

When I brought home boxes to pack up my own stuff, I decided to peek in the other bedrooms to see if anything had been left behind. What I found was a woman just getting out of the shower. After slamming the door and hyperventilating in the hall a little bit, I was eventually confronted in broken English about being a peeping Tom. Through hysterical tears, the strange woman eventually told me that my roommate had given her permission to squat in his room, but told her to keep a low profile––which helped explain why the room was full of stuff like orange juice containers and takeout boxes. Very long story short, she refused to leave, which meant I had to ride out a week and a half under the same roof as her despite thinking she was an unhinged psychopath.

I've always wondered why that woman ended up stealing a jar of quarters and a disposable camera from me before leaving, and also what my rights were as a non-lease holder trying to kick out a terrifying squatter. So I called up Andrew Scherer––an expert attorney at New York Law School and author of an actual treatise on tenant laws in the city. He quickly told me I had no standing in that situation, but was kind enough to answer a bunch of other questions about the nuts and bolts of renting and living in New York. Here's what he said.

VICE: I don't ever look at the leases I sign. If someone's at least scanning, what are the red flags they should look for?
Andrew Scherer: The market is so tight, and leases are generally so boilerplate. You should read the lease, of course, but there's generally not really much you can do about it. There are, however, legal rights you can't get rid of. You can't sign away your right to a habitable apartment. You should check to see if the apartment is rent stabilized, because units that are have many more legal protections than other apartments.

Can you explain what a rent stabilized apartment is?
The general rule––although there are many exceptions to it––is that buildings that were built before 1974 and have six units or more in them are rent stabilized, which means there are limits on the initial rent that can be charged and on how much it can go up every year. There's an entity called the Rent Guidelines Board that sets the limits on rent increases for stabilized units. Almost a million apartments are covered by that law , but the apartments that go on the market don't tend to be stabilized because people don't give up those units easily and because when people move out of those units, landlords often either find legal ways to get the unit out of the rent stabilization system or illegally claim that the units aren't covered by that law.

If a unit is covered by the law, that information should be in what's called the rent stabilization rider to the lease, which is supposed to be provided when you sign. If you're a tenant and are about to sign a lease and think that it's a good enough deal for you, then you can sign the lease. If the apartment turns out to be rent stabilized and the rent in the lease is illegal, just because you agreed to the illegal rent doesn't mean you will have to pay it. You can bring a complaint if you find out that it's rent stabilized, and the landlord could be nailed. So in other words, you're not waiving your rights in most cases by signing a lease. You can contact New York State Homes and Community Renewal about the rental history and see whether your apartment is covered by rent stabilization.

What if your apartment is sweltering or freezing or otherwise uninhabitable and the landlord refuses to do something about it?
If you have a complaint about the conditions of the unit, it's very likely also a violation of New York City's housing code, and for that you would start by calling 311 to complain to the city's housing agency, the Department of Housing Preservation & Development. If they think the problem is serious enough, they'll come and send an inspector who will place a violation on the house and notify the landlord, who then has an obligation to fix the violation. The other thing I would say about that is if you're in a building suffering with no heat or hot water or some other serious problem like that, you know the other tenants in the building are suffering as well. And it's always more useful to form a tenant association and to try and work together. You can certainly approach the landlord alone, but if the city's housing agency sees that 20 people are making calls to 311, they're much more likely to act quickly.

A person who's living in the apartment and is not on the lease is there only at your will, basically.

If you had an informal agreement with a friend who was living at your place, do you need to have them sign a lease?
No. You don't have to have a roommate sign a lease. A state law limits how many roommates you can have. You can have immediate family there, and you can certainly have one roommate. The law is written in a funny way––you're obliged to tell the landlord who's living in your apartment within 30 days of somebody moving in, but if you don't, he or she has to ask you for the names of everybody living in the apartment, and you have 30 days from that day to answer. As long as you have roommates who don't violate the roommate occupancy law, then you're fine. You basically get a right to have one roommate. A lot of landlords just don't care if you have roommates as long as you're paying the rent on time. But if the apartment is covered by the rent stabilization law, you can't charge the roommate more than the proportionate share of the rent. So if you have a $2,000 rent, you can't charge a roommate $1,700 and pay $300 yourself.

So what if they turn into a dick? Can you evict them without a lease?
You can. It's a real pain in the ass, but you can go to court. You'd probably have to get a lawyer and get an eviction notice. A person who's living in the apartment and is not on the lease is there only at your will, basically. If you don't want that person there and you ask them to leave and they don't, you can bring a court action. It's not easy or pleasant, but you absolutely can do it.

What if they're just crashing on the couch?
Same thing. If you have one roommate and you've decided to use the living room as a bedroom and you're not violating the occupancy laws––and there's no place including a studio where you're not allowed to have at least two people––then that person is just a roommate. But let me just say that if someone is crashing on your couch or staying in a bedroom short-term, you have to be home at the time. If you're not, the guest has to be there for more than 30 days. Otherwise, it falls into that short term occupancy, or "Airbnb law" and you could be subject to stiff fines if the city finds out.

Let's talk about that. If you were staying at one of these illegal hostels the city is targeting, and they caught wind of it, would you immediately become homeless?
Yes, but it might not be immediate. If you're a long-term tenant and the city wants to shut your place down, they would issue a vacate order. You might be given time to get out, but you wouldn't have any long-term right to stay in the place. Let's say it's a warehouse and it's zoned commercial or industrial and doesn't have any of the safety measures that apartments are supposed to have, so it's violating the housing code. The city could tell you to get out immediately depending on how dangerous they think it is.

OK, another thing I've always wondered: How long could you go without paying rent before being forcibly removed from the apartment?
You technically have to pay rent when it's due. If your landlord wanted to bring you to court right away and your rent is due on the first of the month, then the landlord could do a demand for the rent and start the court proceedings within several days. That doesn't mean you get evicted right away, because you have the right to go before a judge, and you might not be evicted at all if you have legitimate defenses to the eviction case or if you can pay the rent, even after the court decides you do owe it. But any court case could go on for a while. People seem to think they need to be two or three months behind in rent before a landlord could start a case, and in fact most landlords don't bring a proceeding just because a tenant is a few days late, but they could. Overall, if everything went as smoothly as it possibly could for the landlord, and you did nothing to defend yourself, a case in theory could take maybe about a month. But it never goes that fast.

Something to note: When you get sued for eviction, even if you win or settle the case, your name gets put onto a database that these private organizations maintain of eviction cases that have been brought all over the country. And you're basically put on a blacklist, which makes it very hard to rent again.

So what if you can't get on a lease? Are you liable to just be thrown out of a new apartment whenever?
You have what's in theory called a month-to-month lease, in which case the landlord must give you 30 days notice of a rent increase or 30 days notice to get out.

What's the best way to break a lease?
So under New York law, if you want to move out in the middle of the lease, you're still liable for rent for the remainder of the lease. And the landlord doesn't have an obligation to re-rent it. However, the way the real estate market is right now, it's very easy for landlords to re-rent. What you would want to do is make it very clear that would be easy to find someone to take your place. Because if the landlord was to turn around and try to sue you for the third year of the three-year lease when you were no longer living there, you would want to document the fact that you put it on Craigslist and you showed the landlord that you got five people who would be willing to pay at least as much rent as you would be paying. You'd build a record in case you needed to defend yourself. There are some states in which the landlord has an obligation to go and re-rent the unit, but in New York that's not the case. We have a bad law on this issue here.

Follow Allie Conti on Twitter.

How Hong Kong's Patchy Sex Work Laws Enable Predatory Cops

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Tools of the trade hang inside the work apartment of sex worker 'Miss F' in Sham Shui Po, on the edge of Mong Kok, in Hong Kong, on October 8, 2014. Photo by Chris Stowers/MCT via Getty Images

The lurid saga of Rurik Jutting came to an end in Hong Kong early this month when the former British banker was convicted of murdering two Indonesian women at his luxury apartment. One victim was stuffed into a suitcase on an apartment balcony, and Jutting's scheme of rape and torture apparently involved a phone camera, zip ties, a makeshift gag, a hammer, and a serrated knife.

While the case was remarkable for its wanton brutality and glitzy setting, safety for sex workers is elusive at best in Hong Kong—especially when they work in their own (far less glamorous) homes, as per local custom.

The laws surrounding sex work are complicated in the city, where the legal system consists of a tangled yarn of a colonial British past and ever-growing influence from China. While solicitation for "immoral" purposes in public is flatly illegal, prostitution itself generally flies—even if it's not on the books. As the Hong Kong police's public relations bureau put it in an email, "The act of prostitution itself is not illegal."

For sex workers—many of them migrants, who often come from the Chinese mainland—this means in practice that they can offer services, but only if they are alone, in their own apartments. The strange state of affairs has led to the proliferation of what are called "one-woman brothels," stemming from an old Cantonese term that literally translates to "one room, one phoenix." Often tiny, dingy spots, these makeshift businesses are found via word-of-mouth or illegal internet advertisements. And the conditions there suggest Hong Kong's laissez-faire, not-legal-but-not-illegal stance toward sex work is leaving many women at the mercy of predators, some of them cops.

There are roughly 2,700 one-woman brothels in Hong Kong, according to an estimate by Ziteng, the most prominent NGO in the city advocating for sex workers' rights. (The group concedes its tally is just a rough estimate obtained by combing through internet ads.) People working there face an avalanche of risks. Serial killer Nadeem Razaq targeted one-woman brothel sex workers back in 2008, ultimately killing at least three people. (He was found hanged in his cell this month.) And even when workers avoid sociopaths, there are effectively no protections against crimes like robbery or assault when a sex worker has to operate a brothel on their own.

"These women can't expose their business and that makes them vulnerable to danger," says Mabel Au, director of Amnesty International Hong Kong, which is spearheading a campaign to decriminalize sex work in the city and elsewhere. "The law drives them to operate underground, alone, and because of that they face robbery, sexual assault—and they're hesitant to report it the police."

In fact, Hong Kong police have been accused in the past of threatening or entrapping sex workers instead of protecting them from danger. While this is not exactly unprecedented in Western countries where prostitution remains illegal and vice cops are plentiful, critics suggest it is deeply engrained into local policing in Hong Kong.

"It's commonly known that the police go undercover ," explains Patricia Ho, one of the city's most prominent human rights lawyers. "It's part of their job that they go undercover, and certainly some take advantage of their role," she adds, referring to allegations of verbal, physical, and sexual assault at one-woman brothels.

In January, police sergeant Chu Chi-ho was sentenced to 20 months imprisonment for coercing sex from a one-woman brothel worker. "The police do seem to take very decisive action when they have any evidence of an officer doing this type of thing—but, he was off duty at the time," notes Ho, suggesting this was a rare conviction.

Monica*, who's been operating her one-woman-brothel for three months, tells VICE she'd never call the police to report a crime or any other dangerous situation. A sex worker in a brothel next door recently told her that a policeman forced her to shower naked for his own pleasure, she says.

Besides, Monica's already had a creepy brush with the police of her own: While working in a massage parlor, a normal raid escalated when the electricity to the parlor was cut by the cops and she was strip-searched along with the other women. Some employees were asked to jump up and down after they were stripped naked, she claims.

"I'm scared of the police—I don't know my rights, I don't know to what extent they have power, and I'm afraid of being taken to the police station and being coerced in to giving a statement," Monica says. Last month, a cop suddenly entered her apartment without permission, she adds, after she left it unlocked while inside. He was there for a common "license check"—when police check for identity cards.

Fortunately, Monica wasn't in the middle of a job.

Prices are posted in Hong Kong Dollars inside the work apartment of sex worker 'Miss F' in Sham Shui Po on the edge of Mong Kok in Hong Kong on October 8, 2014. Photo by Chris Stowers/MCT via Getty Images

Monica still remembers how excited she was at the prospect of working in the city after growing up on the Chinese mainland. "I thought Hong Kong was heaven before I moved here," she says. Many sex workers in Hong Kong who come from China hail from third-tier cities and rural villages in the provinces.

While Monica has it easier than many other sex workers from the mainland—a marriage to a Hong Kong man permitted her an identity card—sex workers from China often don't have the legal right to work in the city.

"If a woman reports a crime at a one-woman brothel, but she doesn't have an identity card, the police will immediately arrest her," says Pang*, an advocate at Ziteng. "Filing a complaint from jail is obviously difficult. We've heard of one successful case, and one only—it took nine months."

Amnesty's research also suggests the police are more likely to incriminate sex workers than protect them. "The Hong Kong police showed us an internal document that police are allowing undercover identities to entrap sex workers and successfully charge them with soliciting, and then arrest them," Au claims.

Check out our interview with one of Cuba's female skateboarding pioneers.

Mei*, who's been operating a one-woman brothel for 30 years, remembers when a friend of hers—operating a brothel in the same building—met an undercover cop. He availed himself of her services, put down his gun when they were finished, said he was a cop, and left without paying. Mei, who has a local identity card, goes on to say that she's heard stories from friends—who hail from the Chinese mainland and lack identity cards—about being physically and sexually assaulted at their brothels by the police. Ziteng's Pang likewise recounts having worked with multiple women who claim to have endured assaults by cops at their brothels.

"It's important for us to protect ourselves because the cops won't," Mei says. "Even if we call the cops and they come, they verbally insult us and tell us we should have expected something bad to happen because we're prostitutes, and we have no human rights."

When I asked the police's public relations bureau to respond to allegations at one-woman brothels of assault, exploitation, and neglect, a spokesperson did not refute the allegations so much as elide them.

"The primary objectives of police enforcement actions are to prevent exploitation of those engaged in prostitution, combat organized prostitution activities, and minimize the nuisance caused to members of the public," the spokesperson said via email. "Internal guidelines require officers at the rank of Senior Superintendent to closely supervise every operation that involves police agents, to ensure that the tactics employed in gathering evidence (including the extent of body contact with sex workers) are strictly necessary and proportional to the purpose of the operation."

For groups like Amnesty and advocates like Au, there's a difficult road ahead when it comes to decriminalizing sex work—and bringing it out into the open. After all, it took more than a decade for advocates to secure an amendment to the city's sexual discrimination ordinance that barred sexual harassment at the workplace—and that was just two years ago.

"Amending a law is a very long process in my experience," says Au. "But at least decriminalizing sex work will make sex workers visible."

*Last names have been withheld to protect sources' identities.

Follow Justin Heifetz on Twitter.

VICE UK Podcast: ​What's the Point of Trying to Be Original If Everything Has Been Done Before?

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Anyone who has ever tried to be creative – in music, the arts, in their filing system at their shit temp job – has at some point felt the sinking feeling that they will never come up with anything new; that everything has been done before. And this feeling only intensifies as the internet continues to give us free, easy access to every cultural product in recent human history.

So has originality really died for good?

In this week's podcast, performance artist Marina Abramovic, PC Music's Danny L Harle and TV commissioner Faraz Osman tell us how they deal with the question of originality. Then visual artist Matthew Stone discusses how 2016 may have messed up our feelings towards newness, and explains why, sometimes, it's not all about being first.

The VICE UK podcast comes out every Tuesday, covering drugs, politics, music, mental health and everything else we can think of. Listen and subscribe on iTunes.

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Finding Comfort in the Dystopia of 'East of West'

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On November 14, 2016, Jonathan Hickman tweeted, "I may not be the best writer in comics but I am the most prophetic." The author of East of West, a graphic novel about the apocalypse, likely intended only to promote the sale of merchandise, "Embrace Nihilism" shirts, included in the tweet. However, less than a week after the 2016 election resulting in Donald J. Trump elected as president—an event interpreted by a significant percentage of the US as a sign of the end of days—Hickman's words felt ominous.

East of West debuted March 2013 and has been released monthly with only a few breaks; the comic's set in the not-so-distant year of 2064, when what was formally the United States has been divided into independently governed nations. Its leaders, motivated by both ambition and cult-like allegiances, conspire to orchestrate the end of the world. East of West is speculative fiction, featuring robotic dogs that double as laser cannons, holograms of maps and messages, and other technology not yet achieved by humanity. It's a backdrop in which shapeshifters, talking eyeballs, and demons coexist.

The artwork by Nick Dragotta is both gorgeous and gruesome, each panel drawn with impeccable detail to forge East of West's fictitious world. The precision required for this minimalist storytelling, in which only essential frames and dialogue are used to convey complicated circumstances and emotions, is what converted me to comics as an adult reader.


East of Westby Jonathan Hickman. Art by Nick Dragotta, courtesy of Image Comics

While I've spent the majority of this election cycle pretending I wasn't disturbed or hopeless, East of West illustrated the world around me with the feelings I couldn't express—not unlike unwrapping a festering wound. This is because of our shared history with its characters: In its timeline, the civil war never ended, so the Union, the Confederacy, African slaves, Native Americans, Chinese exiles, and Texan separatists lived in constant dissidence. This situation is summarized in the tagline Hickman shared with Preview catalog: "The things that divide us," he explained, "are stronger than the things that unite us." It's a rework of the famous quote from President John F. Kennedy's address to Canadian Parliament in 1961, and Hickman isn't alone in his sentiments, as the discussion of a divided nation has resurfaced in major news outlets.

Familiarity is one of the reasons dystopian stories like East of West are popular: Because we recognize the corrupt politicians and the public's outrage in each narrative, they continue to be successful. In Issue 8, Madame President Antonia Levay, leader of the Union, faces widespread civil unrest after her questionable rise to office. Images of protests, policeman in riot gear, and the use of excessive force line the pages—near-exact replicas of the protest photos I became accustomed to seeing in the news. I took solace in the acknowledgement of not just their existence, but also their purpose within the story.

In East of West, there are eerie moments where it seems the characters are speaking of our reality rather than that of the story's. In Issue 12, Xiaolian, leader of the People's Republic of America, confronts the leaders of the other nations who are involved in planning the end of the world. As expected, each leader claims both innocence and ignorance. "So... the wisdom of this great council is what exactly?" Xiaolian asks her peers. "Detente? Hold steady in the storm? Maintain the illusion of peace at all costs? Forget the cancer eating us from the inside... as appearances must be maintained."

East of Westby Jonathan Hickman. Art by Nick Dragotta, courtesy of Image Comics

This speech could ostensibly be delivered to the leaders and public figures who rushed to normalize the election of President-elect Trump—reactions often afforded to fascist leaders after their rise to power. I felt my impatience mirrored on the page when my own heroes—Dave Chappelle and Oprah—instructed me to "give Trump a chance" or "have hope." A false sense of security causes affluent black people and POC to fail to realize that the consequences of these ideas are suffered at the expense of all citizens of the nation. The rich are not exempt; we are divided, but we are connected.

"The end times are imminent and we all hate each other too much to come together and solve our problems," explained Hickman to Preview. "Our final destination is imminent, and it is the Apocalypse. And then, in the face of all that despair and gloom, somehow there is still hope. We like to watch them overcome their unfavorable obstacles." The small hope these stories promise is what keeps us coming back. The impending doom is thwarted, and despite all odds, our protagonist (and, by extension, we ourselves) survives: The previous attempt to end the world ends up foiled because Death, one of the Four Horsemen, falls in love with Xiaolian—and Babylon, the son of Death and Xiaolian, will either serve as a threat to the apocalypse or its engine.

Similarly, our youngest citizens will decide the future of the US, as an overwhelming majority of voters 18–25 years old voted for Hillary Clinton. That's promising, and in times like these when my faith in the future waivers, these stories keep me afloat and remind me to never submit to despair.

Follow Franceska Rouzard on Twitter.

What the Fuck Is Self-Care?

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Photo via Flickr user Michael Mayer

It's nearly impossible these days to avoid the words "self-care" on the internet. Whether it's Goop-sanctioned vaginal steaming or some kind of crazy Moon Juice smoothie filled with unpronounceable ingredients, the notion that treating ourselves well is an essential part of preserving mental and physical health has come out of the hippy shadows and been fully embraced by all. But it's no longer enough to just do a face mask or go for a walk, the act of self-care has become yet another thing women are expected to be good at. Did you use the right filter for that 'gram of your impeccably prepared acai bowl? Are the candles you just lit in your Snap story made from organic hand-poured soy or are they that mass-produced factory shit? And how can we stem the inevitable capitalist tide from turning something as simple as self-care into yet another thing to be bought and sold? These are all things I wrestle with as I order Dominos in sweatpants under the guise of "being good to myself."

Author and publisher Erin Klassen also struggles with these ideas, and she's attempted to challenge our most surface notions of self-care in her new book, You Care Too Much. A collection of photographs, essays and illustrations, the publication asks creative women from a variety of disciplines to explore what lies beneath our desire to 'treat yo'self.' I met up with her in Toronto to talk about why women feel selfish when they take care of themselves and why everything is so shitty right now.

Image via 'You Care Too Much'

VICE: So, I read your essay that kinda leads off the book and it's very touching, very personal. Talk to me a bit about the essay and what self-care means to you now?
Erin Klassen:
Sure, yeah. I think, growing up, I saw my mother as like the example of what caring meant, right? So she was very caring to her children and to her husband and she was a really important part of her community at church and in volunteering and stuff like that. And so I have kind of this complicated relationship with what it is to be a woman, and I think—I often feel guilty when I spend too much time by myself and not enough time caring for others and making sure everybody else is happy. I think for me this book started out of thinking about—what did it mean to take care of yourself? And self-care has kind of been a buzzword that's like 'oh if you go and get a manicure and go and, you know, turn off your phone for an hour and go for a walk then that's great.' And it is great but I think it maybe runs a little bit deeper for a lot of people and so what does it mean to kind of thinking about self-care holistically, emotionally and not just physically.

I'm glad that you brought up the kind of idea that is has become a buzzword, because it is everywhere and it's almost lost some of that meaning of a deeper, kind of care for yourself. So you go and you buy something nice for yourself, or you go and you buy products to take care of yourself, you know? How do people get away from that notion that is it something that you just consume?
And also something that you have to be good at. It's like another thing on my list of like, if I'm not taking care of myself in this very like list-oriented way, I'm somehow behind and I can't Instagram it or I can't brag about it or something like that. I don't know if I have any of the answers. I think for me what helps is talking to other women that feel the same way and kind of, finding that community and being able to kind of talk it out. So that is something that is always worthwhile for me. Relationships have alway been really important to me. And as I get older, relationships with women are feeding that piece. It's like, is it hard or is it just me and they're like 'no, it's hard.' So let's talk about that.

Even just communicating with a friend is self-care?

I think so. And I think this book—there are 17 different contributors and 15 different pieces. And the thing that we're all doing, the thing that we're connected on is just the sharing.

Why do you think it's become so popular? Like why do you think suddenly Gwyneth Paltrow and every Instagram account is talking about self-care?
There's a hunger for feeling better. Everyone feels so shitty all the time. Like, the world is a really hard place. So there's a lot of external factors that are making us feel really badly. And then I think there's a lot of confusion about who we should be and how much we should give and how much we should care. So again, I don't know if I can speak on behalf of everybody, but for me I think, yeah, there's like a definite hunger to find that balance between some severe trauma, to be honest, and just finding ways to kind of cope, get through.

Why did you decide to do a book on self-care?
I was kind of thinking about these subjects and really, what it was to be a good woman, or a good person. And it lead me to a lot of articles and lists and you know, Gwyneth Paltrow vehicles that were talking about self-care. Before I actually used that term, I think I did some research and I was like OK, people are talking about this but it's in this very surface way. So the idea for the book came out of a conversation that I had with one of the photographers who actually did the cover photos and a photo series within the book about her nonna and her mother's relationship. We just had a friend coffee. I didn't know her but I knew her work and I kinda asked her on a friend date and we we just chatting about what self-care meant and was it selfish? Which is, I think, part of the conversation that you're hearing a lot right now, right? Is self-care selfish, no it isn't, and why.

I guess I've never thought about it in a selfish way. Like—but maybe I'm a selfish person I don't know. But can you just talk about that push and pull?
I think I was just raised by, you know, a family where you give to receive love. So that's kind of a heavy subject, but I find that I'm a really emotional person and very sensitive, so I'm constantly like—so if there were, you know, if we had more people here, we'd be talking but I'd be like 'OK, have I made sure that everybody has a drink?' You know? So I think it's maybe just my personality where I felt hyper conscious of that all the time, and it felt exhausting. So yeah, it's not that I don't do all the things on the list. I definitely take walks and have baths and get pedicures like everyone else, but I didn't feel like it was working. So for me that's where it came from. I was like these things don't work to make me feel good, so what will? And then when I sort of talked to other women who ended up being in the book, there were a lot of different perspectives on it. It wasn't just one perspective. So there are women in—who have contributed to the book who are like 'oh nope, I know what makes me feel better. It's cleaning my house and taking care of my plants.' Cool. Great, you know? But I think the idea is that, it's a different experience for everyone, but the feelings that we're all having are kind of the same.

Do you still think it's selfish to take care of your own self?
Not that kind of self-care that I think that I've started learning about through this process. The kind of self-care I'm talking about now is really like how do you be a human in the world? That can never be selfish. Because if you can't be happy, how are you gonna be useful to anybody else?

So what're some of those things moving beyond the surface of like, taking a bath, taking a walk, that you found work, through this experience?
My number one favourite thing is definitely hangout with friends on this couch or on their couch. And just, talking. I kind of day like jokingly, but it's not a joke at all, crying. I find that I always feel so much better. So, if there's nothing happening in your life and you wanna cry just like watch a really shitty romantic comedy.

Which one?
The Notebook, obviously.

I've actually never seen the film.
Do you like crying?

I love to cry.

Follow Amil Niazi on Twitter.

The Artist: 'It Takes a Zoo to Make a Zine,' Today's Comic by Anna Haifisch

Youngest Ever Ontario MPP Won’t Start Work Until Proper Banger Thrown

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That's the face of a MPP who throws a sweet ass party. Photo via Facebook

You only get sworn in as the youngest ever MPP in Ontario's history once.

So, it's the perfect time to par-tay and, according to Ontario PC party leader Patrick Brown, that's just what Sam Oosterhoff, the first year university student turned MPP, is going to do.

Oosterhoff is so committed that his swearing-in be a big deal that he had to push back the actual date he was supposed to be sworn in so his political party could throw him a worthy rager. (Politicians call this a 'swearing-in celebration.')

You know what they say about social conservatives knowing how to party.

Read More: Ontario's Newest MPP is a '100 Percent Pro-life' Teenager Who Lives With His Parents

Oosterhoff's swearing-in is going to be the most rootin'-tootin', gosh-darn, hunky-dory time that a swell home-schooled 19-year-old elected politician who lives with his parents ever did see.

Boy howdy!

When asked about the future banger by the Toronto Star Ontario PC party leader Patrick Brown spilled the juicy details.

"It's a special occasion to have a celebration of a 19-year-old, it's making history, and so Sam is planning a much larger swearing-in ceremony," he said. "I understand it will be very soon."

Hot-diggity-damn, that's going to be one heck of a shindig.

Hell, Oosterhoff was so busy (presumably) filling up the balloon effigies of Kathleen Wynne and abortionists with helium that he had to push back being sworn in. It was expected that he would be sworn in on Monday alongside the other newly elected MPP, Nathalie Des Rosiers, but it was pushed back.

Des Rosiers, for her part, showed up—like a social outcast without a future banger in her honour would—to her scheduled swearing-in on Monday.

But lo, a conspiracy!

Critics are saying that Oosterhoff, a staunch social conservative who has described himself as "100 percent pro-life," may have had his swearing-in date pushed back so he would miss the debate and vote for Bill 28which passed. Bill 28 makes it easier for LGBTQ couples to have and raise children.

During the campaign, Brown was accused of muzzling Oosterhoff and his socially conservative beliefs.

The third reading for the All Families Are Equal Act was on Tuesday, it updates Ontario's parentage and birth registration rules and changes the language to be as gender neutral as possible. On Twitter, Oosterhoff tweeted that he would be joining his co-workers Wednesday.

So, on the other side of the coin, the decision may very well be less Superbad and more House of Cards and while Oosterhoff didn't get to vote on Bill-28 at the very least he still gets to have his sweet-ass banger.

Follow Mack Lamoureux on Twitter


Porn Stars Worry That Trump Will Crack Down on the Adult Industry

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Since Donald Trump was elected the next president of the United States, many have feared what his tenure in the White House might mean for their future. They have expressed justified anxiety over being deported, put on some kind of governmental registry, stop-and-frisked, or even "grabbed by the pussy." However, there has been less conversation around what our First Amendment right to freedom of speech will look like when America is made "great again"—unless you're talking to people who have sex on film.

". I am very concerned."

Reign has good reason to be weary of Trump, considering Republican administrations are traditionally bad for business. For example, under President Barack Obama, the Justice Department was far less aggressive than George Bush's in trying obscenity cases—Obama shut down Bush's Obscenity Prosecution Task Force and did not initiate any significant obscenity cases of its own, despite an outcry from anti-porn activists.

"The obscenity laws have not been enforced at all under the Obama administration," said Donna Rice Hughes, the president and CEO of Enough Is Enough (EIE), which is the country's leading anti-porn nonprofit. "One of the key things an attorney general who will make the aggressive enforcement of all the laws that are currently on the books a priority."

After eight years of Obama, it looks as though anti-porn activists are finally going to get what they want from the federal government. Because although Trump is a bit of wildcard when it comes to his proposed policies and positions, he's been clear on where he stands with adult entertainment.

Back in July, Trump made a promise to start cracking down on porn. He was the only presidential candidate in the 2016 election to sign the Children's Internet Safety Presidential Pledge, which was developed by EIE. According to Hughes, by adding his signature, he has vowed to "give serious consideration to appointing a presidential commission to examine, first of all, the public health aspect of internet pornography, specifically internet obscenity. And also, to look at mechanisms to prevent the sexual exploitation of children in the digital age."

This pledge was one of the first acts by Trump that really put First Amendment advocates like Mike Stabile, director of communications at the Free Speech Coalition, on high alert. "We're facing a coming administration that has repeatedly said adult entertainment isn't protected speech under the First Amendment," said Stabile. "That's terrifying, and in direct opposition with over 40 years of Supreme Court decisions."


Photo courtesy of Tasha Reign

Of course, not everyone is freaking out. At the end of the day, Trump is a New Yorker who abhors "political correctness," has made a cameo in a softcore porno, and is married to a woman who's done her fair share of nude modeling. Joanna Angel, the porn star who co-founded the Burning Angel production company, told me that although she's scared of Trump as an American, when it comes to porn, she feels he's mostly posturing. "The things said about porn were just so farfetched, he was just saying them to get votes."

But even if Angel is right, and Trump has no intention of cracking down on adult media, stars like Tasha Reign are still worried about the people he's going to bring with him into the White House.

"When I bring up to people who voted for him in my industry, they just say that he is saying what he needs to say," said Reign. "But he is the one who is going to be nominating the next Supreme Court justice, he is the one who has Mike Pence as his vice president."


Photo of Joanna Angel. Film still from 'Love Is Dead'

Although Trump doesn't take office until January 20, his transition team picks and potential cabinet appointments are already overflowing with culture warriors. For example, Ken Blackwell, the leader of Trump's domestic transition team, is a senior fellow for the Family Research Council, a Christian organization that views pornography as "a plague in our nation." And Rudy Giuliani, who is reportedly one of Trump's top picks for secretary of state, is known for "cleaning up" New York City when he was mayor by shutting down X-rated stores and theaters and criminalizing sex work. Not to mention, his vice president, Mike Pence, is a born-again Catholic who tried to introduce numerous nutty laws regulating sexuality when he was in Congress, including one that would have required mainstream Hollywood films featuring simulated sex to follow the same strict regulations as hardcore pornography.

"There is concern in the porn industry that future laws may become aggressive, and possibly even draconian, even at the federal level," said writer and porn star Jesse Jackman, who works exclusively for the gay film studio Titan Media. "The proposed First Amendment Defense Act (FADA), which would allow American citizens to discriminate against gay couples based on their religious beliefs has already shown conservatives' willingness to shape the interpretation of the First Amendment on moralistic grounds."


Photo of Jesse Jackman via FlyFoto Images

Unlike a lot of things Trump does, his porn pledge was not some rogue stance that many mainstream members of his party opposed. This summer, the GOP agreed to add an anti-pornography amendment to its platform, claiming that adult entertainment presented a "public health crisis" that is "destroying the lives of millions." While previous GOP platform's may have targeted porn before, the fact that the party is framing adult media as a public health crisis marks a turning point in its tactics. And it's being pushed forth by groups like the Concerned Women for America, who recently penned an editorial for the Blaze that likens pornographers to antebellum slave owners.

"In the past decade, we've seen a lot of the conversation shift away from obscenity, which had become difficult to prosecute because of the internet, and toward this idea that porn was damaging, addictive, or inspired criminality," said Mike Stabile of the Free Speech Coalition.

The biggest champion of this strategy on the right is the EIE. It views internet pornography as "a fueling factor in the sexual exploitation and abuse of children." According to Donna Rice Hughes of the EIE, "There's a tremendous amount of incestuous crossover in the sex industry whether it's trafficking, child pornography, or child predation."

Of course, Stabile of the Free Speech Coalition couldn't disagree with that notion more. "None of that is based in science, of course—access to adult material correlates pretty strongly with decreases in sexual assault, and increases with sexual knowledge, health, and even feminist attitudes," he said.

Stabile's take jives with the Justice Department's annual national victimization survey, which found the overall rate of rape and sexual assault dropped 57 percent between 2000 and 2009, a time when accessibility to porn was exploding thanks to the internet. And studies conducted in countries like the Czech Republic and China have found that stricter regulations on porn have caused an increase in sex crimes, including those against children.

WATCH: The Enduring and Erotic Power of Quicksand Porn

The "public health crisis" arguments we're hearing right now on the right sounds similar to those made during the anti-porn crusade led under President Ronald Reagan during the so-called culture wars of the 1980s. Back then, sexually explicit material was framed as a threat to the traditional family and blamed for things like violence against women and gender discrimination.

"What we saw in the 80s was that crackdowns on pornography were an entree into broader censorship," said Stabile. "Once you set the precedent, it allows you to go after the artists and the educators—the obscenity bust of the Robert Mapplethorpe exhibit in Ohio, and the defunding of the NEA on pornography pretext, the banning of library books, and defunding of AIDS education... The pattern is pretty clear: Creating a moral panic about pornography allows you to suppress all sorts of other speech."

While the anti-porn efforts in the 70s and 80s were fended off in the name of the First Amendment, the argument that porn is a public health crisis is gaining traction. In Utah, Governor Gary Herbert signed off on an anti-porn resolution, citing public health as the justification. And anti-porn organizations like EIE feel confident they can replicate that across the nation.

WATCH: Making the World's First Male Sex Doll

Adult performer Jesse Jackman already sees the writing on the wall. "If pornography is reclassified as a public health menace, it's not hard to imagine a law similar to FADA that would classify pornographic material, which is currently afforded freedom of speech protections, as obscene and therefore no longer covered by the First Amendment."

If groups like the EIE and Concerned Women for America get their way and Trump's administration follows through on his pledge to crack down on porn, First Amendment advocates and porn stars like Reign and Angel are ready to push back.

"We are hopeful, but we don't know what the future will bring," said Mike Stabile of the Free Speech Coalition. "What we can do, and what we have always done, is fight against intolerance and shame and bigotry, and for freedom of speech, freedom of expression, and freedom of existence."

Follow Erica Euse on Twitter.

How a Cyber Attack Left Thousands of Ukrainians in the Dark

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On an all new episode of CYBERWAR, we investigate the cyber attack on Ukraine's power grid in 2013 that left thousands of people in the dark, exploring how a military conflict involving Russia could lead to a cyberwar.

CYBERWAR airs Tuesdays at 10:30 PM on VICELAND.

Want to know if you get VICELAND? Head here to find out how to tune in.


​How to Get Rich Without Doing Any Work

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Some cash. Not filthy-rich cash, but still: cash. (Photo via)

Our culture values hard work above all else. We're told over and over again that if we just grind away, get shit done and don't waste time that eventually we'll experience the joys of wealth and success.

But as we all know, that is bullshit. Basically everyone I know works until their fingers are raw, yet still don't have enough to scrape together to get some scampi fries at the pub on Friday afternoon – whereas there are loads of people who get thousands and thousands of pounds for doing fuck all.

I tracked down some people who have received a shit ton of money without doing any actual work, to find out how you can get rich without having a job.

DAN, DINNER MONEY SAVER TURNED APPLE INVESTOR

VICE: What's your story, Dan?
Dan: Basically, I started saving money when I was a little kid. I was non-consumerist, growing up with grunge – like, why would I buy anything? I was thinking about that when I was six years old, so it's always been a part of me. I would go to school and my mum would give me six dollars for lunch, and I would have a small lunch and save one dollar or something. Or birthday gifts: I would save away these pennies, quarters, dollars and never really spent much money. So by the time I got to be like 22 or so I had about $2,000 (£1,600) – 15 years of having no job doesn't get you much, but enough. I'm not interested in money or interest, which is fortunate for me. I'd tried to understand the stock market – look at it, hear about it, even tried to make a fake portfolio – but I never gave a shit. Then I thought, 'The only way I'm gonna figure this out is if I put some skin in the game.' I like to do things that are morally justifiable – I wasn't gonna be investing in Exxon or anything like that.

Sure. Fuck those guys.
At that time I was living in Japan. We got all these subscriptions to English-speaking magazines like The Economist, Time and things like that. And on the cover of this one Time was the first iPhone. It was before it had come out. It's probably the first product Apple have announced before they were going to sell it. It was six months or ten months before it came out, and I was reading it thinking, 'This is great.' I'd always used Apple products because my dad is in the art and advertising industry, and I spoke to my friend Amir and he said, "This is going to redefine what a phone is." So all these things culminated and I called up my dad – who is great with this sort of stuff – and had him set up a brokerage account. Then thought, 'I'm gonna put two-thirds of the $2,000 into Google and one-third into Apple.' My dad said, "I like your ideas, I like what you're thinking, you've done good analysis into them – but Apple produces stuff other than intellectual property. So why don't you flip that?"

Already I am seeing how I would not be able to do this. But your dad sounds smart.
Yeah, and this was 2006 or 2007, something like that. So I ended up doing that. So I got into stocks, started following them. A good rule of thumb for investing is 10 percent return per year is a really good, solid investment. My Apple investment, including dividends, has gone up over 1,000 percent. So it's averaged over 100 percent a year. So that $2,000 has turned into $30,000 or more, or something like that. That's astronomically more than anybody could expect.

What has it enabled you to do?
Travel. I don't want to have no money. If I didn't have the investment I'd be working more. I've invested more in Apple, too. Also, as a doctor, it has enabled me to work my hours and jobs that I want to work.

Who is your next scoop, then, for people wanting to make big money? Who gives you that Apple feeling?
That's tricky, because right now it's a world of start-ups. So these companies are massively over-valued. The best thing is personal experience. If you see something amazing that you really like, that your friends really like, which isn't everywhere yet, invest in that. Those are the advantages that you as an individual have. You need to try and see what other people don't see. Saying that, I still say Apple is a solid investment: it's under-valued for what it is, makes loads of money, pays a good dividends rate... but it's not going to have that exponential growth ever again.

MARY*, LOTTERY WINNER

Our lottery winner didn't want to be identified, but they did provide us with a picture of their house taken from very far away

VICE: Can you describe what happened to you, your initial reactions, and how you felt about the whole thing.
Mary: It was November, 1994, and the second ever National Lottery draw, so everyone was buying tickets but no one really knew how it worked. My husband bought a ticket with a line for each member of the family and he made up the numbers in a random way. We thought it was just a good way to contribute to the good causes and never thought for a second we would win much over a tenner.

For this reason, we never watched the big Saturday night show, but our kids were full of enthusiasm, and we were at a friend's home having dinner when they asked if they could check the numbers. After a while they burst in saying, "We've won some money!" But we were pretty much dampening their expectations. Then when we checked, we discovered that we had five numbers and the bonus ball. Still having no real idea of the value of the win, we phoned the lottery hotline and were staggered to discover that it was a considerable sum.

We called all our friends, told them to come over and bought every bottle of fizzy wine in the off licence and partied for a long while. Then followed a tense Sunday where we were terrified that we would mislay the ticket before Monday, when we went to the Camelot local office where they gave us a cheque. They offered financial advice and counselling, but we elected to be anonymous so no begging letters came.

In what ways has the sum impacted on your life?
It was enough money to be life-changing, without being enough to give up work and travel the world or buy fancy cars. We bought our house with the largest amount, paid off our credit cards and overdraft, bought a modest car for me, went on holiday to Africa and New Zealand and gave a bit away here and there.

So how much did you win?
Over £200,000

And how long did it last?
We made all the major purchases within a couple of years, but some of them were investments.

What was the biggest difference between your life before and after the win?
We were like most other people who have families, in that we were always close to overdraft at the end of every month. That changed. Moving house was a big change, but we always tried to keep our home life and the way we lived much as it had been. We were not really any cash richer after we won, so we still had to save to go on holiday, buy the kids cars and so on.

Finally, Mary, do you still play the lottery?
My husband Paul still plays as part of a syndicate of blokes, and they win enough to be able to go out for a piss up now and again.

JONATHAN, COMPENSATION

VICE: What happened to you, Jonathan?
Jonathan: I was 15 years old and a few weeks away from getting my braces off after two years of that shit. I was walking my girlfriend home and there was a large group of about 15 lads down the road, roughly the same age. As we got nearer they crossed the road and approached us, basically encircling us and accusing me of "chatting shit about them". I knew a few of them from school and they thought I was cool, so I managed to calm it down. But then we got about a minute further up the road when three of them came jogging up and start getting loud again. One of them was right up in my face and his mate sucker punched me out of nowhere, straight in the teeth. Pretty much as soon as he hit me they all just turned and ran away.

Next thing I know I'm in an ambulance, and I really clearly remember trying to answer the paramedics' questions, but not being able to because my teeth were all fucked up. They took a look in my mouth and I'll never forget the woman's reaction, just sheer, "oh holy fuck" horror. Then she said: "If you hadn't had braces when he hit you, your teeth would have been on the floor." Not so great an evening.

That sounds nasty.
It was all pretty horrible for a while and really fucked me up, but luckily they saved my teeth and the police arrived on the scene and quickly apprehended the dude who punched me. Because he was convicted of GBH I found out I was entitled to Criminal Injuries Compensation, which I didn't even know existed.

That's so horrible to hear. What did you get awarded?
I think I was awarded about £3,800 in the end.

What did that money enable you to do?
I was actually really bloody sensible with it. I took about £200 to treat myself with and frittered that away on long-forgotten nice things, and put the rest away in an ISA with a view that one day I'd need it for future dental procedures. It's been quite a life-changing amount of money, actually. Although the intention was to save it for dental stuff, I ended up using about £1,000 to get through university so I could afford to eat more than just toast. Then I spent another £1,000 on living costs while doing an internship with the National Trust, which led to me being able to get a career in nature conservation. Finally, I spent about £1,500 on buying and insuring my first car. Looking back, I spent pretty much all of it on furthering a career I love, which is nice.

How do you look back on what happened now?
Honestly, I was pretty damaged for a long time after. About five months into college I saw my attacker on the campus and found out he was studying there, too. I was really quite depressed and suffered social anxiety, which I must admit wasn't great.

This may sound bad, but was it worth it?
Asking me ten years after it happened, I'm like: yes. That money has helped in a lot of ways. But if you'd asked me a few years after it happened, I would have probably have told you to fuck off and die. I was a pretty angsty teen.

OLLY, BORN INTO IT



VICE: So Olly, you were born into wealth, as it were. What is your family's story?
Olly: My dad has always been into business – some of my earliest memories include those of him going away to Hong Kong for weeks at a time. He began trading on his dad's market stall at age 16, owned his first house by 18, has since had the role of commercial director for multiple large-scale companies before landing where he is currently, running his own businesses.

How has this had an impact on you?
It wasn't until now, by reflecting on my past, that I truly realise what had been at my disposal. We lived in a five-bedroom house with a swimming pool, an actual full-on home cinema, I had my own soundproof recording studio and rehearsal room, and we had too many cars for the four garages we owned. It felt like I was always witnessing unconscious spending of money left, right and centre on things that I always considered to be completely pointless – disgustingly expensive watches, designer clothes, the latest gadgets and technology. Since living away from my parents, it has become very clear to me that I have not missed one aspect of what some people might call "living the dream". While having access to these pleasures might seem like the perfect life, it was in fact far from it.

Did you feel a pressure to be successful?
I always put pressure on myself to be successful, not because I wanted to re-live my childhood as an adult or wipe my arse with 24-carat loo roll, but because I wanted to fulfil my dream of being a professional musician. My dad would always encourage me to do whichever option resulted in the most potential financial gain, but I'd always convince myself there were better ways of doing things. I finally had the guts to move out two years ago, and have not had a relationship with my dad in this time. Since moving out and now living in a quaint little cottage in a village with my girlfriend and kitty cat, I have learnt not to measure success by how much money you earn, but by how happy you are with your life. Money won't buy you a smile, but a smile sure can make you feel like a million quid.

Yeah, but, you know, it did provide you with a massive safety blanket and presumably made you feel freer in your ambitions?
While the main point I'm trying to make here is that you don't need money to be able to do what you love and be successful at it, it is of course undeniable that money is still extremely important. Yes, I could still play guitar and be with my girlfriend if I lived in a cardboard box at the side of the road, but where am I going to boil the water for the coffee I can't even afford? I've been working full-time for about 80 percent of this year, and even though I've been paid fairly for it I can't deny that I have needed to borrow money. The amount required simply to administer the application process to rent our cottage was well over what I could afford at the time, and so at moments like those where time was not of the virtue, I was extremely grateful to my mum for helping make it possible.

How would you be a different person if you weren't born into the situation you were?
It's incredibly difficult to know. So much of what makes someone them is to do with the people they meet at school and their interests. Would I still be passionate about music if it hadn't been played to me on a stupidly expensive hi-fi from a young age? Almost definitely. Would I be more driven to be financially successful if I'd not been exposed to money from a young age? Almost definitely not.

My life so far has been all about discovery, and while there are still things to be discovered, I feel pretty lucky to have experienced success in happiness at such a young age, and I may not have noticed how happy I could be if I'd not experienced the aggravation money can bring to your family.

I feel like I'm already living the life of someone who wasn't born into the same situation as me. I've put my old life of swimming in the garden and eating out at pricey restaurants four nights a week behind me, and now make music in my rented cottage, in my little home studio – which is really a spare bedroom – with my cat, and I could not be happier.

*Names are changed.

@oobahs

More on VICE:

What Happens if Young People Never Buy Homes?

People Tell Us About the Questionable Things They've Done For Cash

What It's Like to Date Someone Who's Terrible with Money

Is Getting Rid of Your Boss the Future of Work?

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The old Filkram-Johnson sign on the roof of the VIOME factory. (All photos: Liam Barrington-Bush)

What would you do if you lost your job? Probably get drunk, update your CV and sign on. But what if everyone you worked with lost their job at the same time and instead of just accepting this as an inevitability of capitalism you all found an alternative?

This is what's happening across Europe, where workers are using austerity as an opportunity to reclaim their workplaces without the bosses who screwed them over.

The recuperated factory movement is a radical challenge to the kind of exploitative industrial labour that dominated the last century. Instead of accepting their fate, former employees organise, taking over their workplaces after businesses have gone bust. They then run them as workers' co-operatives.

These recuperations are not the result of friendly negotiations with the owners; they are hard fought for: workers have cut bolts off locked factory gates; they may have overcome attacks from police or private security firms trying secure the assets of bankrupt bosses. In some cases they have squatted their old workplaces for years to get them up and running again.

The movement came into its own in debt-savaged Argentina at the turn of the millennium. Now it's spread to Europe as a radical alternative to the austerity agenda.


Theodoros Karyotis of the reclaimed VIOME factory, which has become the main symbol of worker self-management in Europe

"The same conditions that generated this movement in Argentina in 2001 – namely, massive deindustrialisation – were also present in Greece in 2010, with hundreds of companies going bankrupt," explains Theodoros Karyotis, one of the organisers of the second Euromediterranean Workers' Economy meeting.

The conference took place in October in the reclaimed VIOME soap factory in Thessaloniki, Greece, which has become the main symbol of worker self-management in Europe. "As Greek companies went under, the VIOME workers held onto their factory," says Theodoros. "After a year of squatting the place, they decided to start producing by themselves."

The former industrial adhesive factory now makes eco-friendly cleaning products to fit shrinking Greek household budgets. All decisions at VIOME are made through democratic assemblies; co-op members are paid equally; and roles and duties are rotated to share learning among the membership.

Over 400 members of these kinds of occupied co-ops from Greece, France, Italy, Serbia, Croatia, Bosnia and Spain met in the VIOME factory to share ideas.


Yves Baroni from the Fralib reclaimed tea factory in Marseille

Yves Baroni used to work for a subsidiary of UNILEVER at their Fralib tea factory in Marseille, France. In 2010, the company declared Fralib not profitable and tried to shut it down. Following 1,336 days of occupation, Fralib re-opened in 2014 as the SCOP-TI workers co-operative. "We decided to share the profits of the work by making sure that those before us in the supply chain were treated fairly – that we, as workers, could live from our income, and that we had an affordable and quality product to offer consumers," he says.

The move has had a significant impact on his life. "For once I have my own voice in the choices I make, professionally and personally. I have my destiny in my own hands," he says. "But I am not just doing it for myself. We are all doing it for each other."

This collective DIY approach to management is not without its challenges. Marie Moise is an activist and researcher who spent five months working with the RiMaflow co-op in Milan, Italy on gender issues at the factory, at the co-operative's request. In Thessaloniki, she described a "sex-blind self-management" that followed years of working under managers who were accused of coercing female employees into providing sexual favours in exchange for holiday time.

The absence of these managers raised new gender issues, though. Before the bosses left, many of the workers – and the majority of the unskilled labourers – were women. Today, they only account for five of RiMaflow's 20 co-operative members.

Murals on the VIOME factory

"The crisis of the enterprise triggered a larger crisis of the family frameworks of each of the women," explains Marie. "The loss of their job and the choice to join the workers' struggle led all of them to radically renegotiate their marriages and their domestic tasks. Four out of five of them divorced during that period, while the only one who didn't divorce convinced her husband to join the struggle at RiMaflow."

Responsibilities at the factory are still disproportionately allocated along gender lines, and sexist language is still used in worker assemblies, Moise explained at the Greek gathering. Slowly, though, she says, things are improving, as ideas like collective childcare practices and plans for participatory workshops on sexism and gender equality have been instituted to help relieve some of the extra barriers against women's involvement.

"Today, sexism is not as explicit, but still remains because sexism is part of society," says Luca Federici, a member of RiMaflow who asked Moise to help the collective address gender issues. While he is clear that there is much work to be done, like Moise, he is optimistic that her research will help to address the issues at RiMaflow. " they are wrong," Federici explains over the phone from Milan, "but will be about trying to develop a conversation all together to keep this issue in the spotlight."

The European movement is still in its infancy, but 15 years of experimentation in Argentina has proven its potential on several fronts. On the one hand, Argentine recuperations have shown that they can be hugely successful businesses. One co-op, Unión y Fuerza, went on to become the country's largest supplier of domestic piping. At the Ghelco chocolate factory, workers were able to double their pre-occupation wages.

Fair wages are obviously one aim of the movement, but they are not the only goal. Self-managed workplaces have gone well beyond any corporate social responsibility scheme in making sure they are positive players in their local communities. VIOME is at the forefront of this in Europe, hosting neighbourhood assemblies which have bolstered local democracy, and a "solidarity clinic", which provides free healthcare to its workers and the wider community. It's also developed and distributed hand-friendly laundry soap to refugees and migrants living in Thessaloniki's makeshift camps and squats, who found that typical laundry detergents caused skin irritations when used to hand-wash garments.

"Success for us is not if this factory makes profits," VIOME's Tasos Matzaris says firmly. "It is if this example goes abroad and new factory co-operatives are started. This is what we think success will look like."

@hackofalltrades

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I Think I Had an Emotional Breakdown to DJ Khaled’s New Book, ‘The Keys’

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DJ Khaled is a very pure man with a very pure heart who exudes positive energy like the sun. I am not. I am not like this. In many ways I am the anti-Khaled: ornery, negative, bleak. I revel in schadenfreude while Khaled celebrates the wins of his friends. Khaled is a pure laser beam of self-confidence stuffed into the body of a soft-faced teddybear; I am doughy and full of doubt. Khaled is open about his struggles with anxiety; I put my metaphorical head in the metaphorical sand and refuse to acknowledge mine. So you could say – and this is a bold statement, I know – you could say that I am not DJ Khaled. This is because I am not DJ Khaled.

But how could I – a man who is not DJ Khaled, remember – how could I become more like DJ Khaled? How? How, how, how? How? How, though?

Believe in this for it is real. We howled to the heavens and asked for guidance, and they delivered it to us. DJ Khaled has written a book.

I have read this book. I did this in a single afternoon because I want to be a better man. I put DJ Khaled's advice in my head like water and let it trickle through me like a mountain. Walk with me now on the journey, through the journey of more success.

The first thing we have to talk about is the opening line of this book, because this is the best opening line of any book ever written. How many times have you sat down and tried to write a book? I'll be honest with you, I'll say it: three. I've tried three times. And every time I open a blank Word document and I go to write the first line and:

You know, there is a lot of pressure on a first line. This goes for articles, too. I spend entire mornings in the office on opening lines. Editors walk slowly behind my desk. "Joel," they say. "We're worried you don't ever do anything." Shh, I say. Hush. I click through Twitter a few more times. Tap out a first draft. No. Back again. Try over. And then DJ Khaled comes and fucking blows the world apart by opening his book with "WALK WITH ME NOW ON THE PATHWAY TO MORE SUCCESS," the most perfect sentence ever written – opening or not – and now, truly, is there ever any point ever trying? Will I – a writer – ever write a better opening line than DJ Khaled – a DJ – just did? No I will not. So everything I write from now on will, necessarily, be trash. So the pressure is off.

Don't you see? The most I can ever shoot for now is second best.

Don't you see how DJ Khaled permeates everything, changes everything? Don't you see now that this man is a gift?

We are on page one and I can tell you it is going to get a hell of a lot more real from now on.

The Keys is, ostensibly, a self-help book, a life guide. Through it are woven elements of Khaled's biography, sure – little vignettes where "having self belief" is the moral of every story, times in Khaled's life when he has struggled then turned it around by really, really believing in himself, and also DJing – but it is primarily to help you, and me, and Young World (young people). DJ Khaled calls young people "Young World" because he is a visionary and the English language turns to putty in his hands, and also because he talks in a series of cod catchphrases, which, when stitched together in the latter stages of The Keys, is actually quite head spinning.

I mean let's look at my notes, here:

Young world = young people
Secure the bag = get money
Wire = still not 100 percent sure what the wire is but it is integral to bag security
Snapchat = an opportunity
Hustle = work
Rick Ross = icon
Special cloth = being a unique person
Bless up = both a salutation and an actual blessing to God
Overstand = understand, but more
Fan Luv = positivity from his fans
Angels = his flowers
Play yourself = the act of self-sabotage
Another one = another one

Like:

Earlier in the book, in an incredibly offhand way, he said he wants people to call him "Billi" now, because he is going to be a billionaire. I love him with my whole, whole heart.

And then there is "they". Khaled talks about "they" a lot, although the concept of "they" is harder to define. Surface level, "they" is haters. But it's deeper than that: "they" might not even know they are "they". Friends could turn into "they" in front of your very eyes. "They", essentially, is a feeling of negativity that permeates from one person to another and clouds their success. If someone is stopping you from being successful, or hating you for your success, then they are "they".

I honestly cannot explain why this image comes through as sideways. It is portrait on my computer. I can only assume this is a subversive plot by "they".

I am closely analysing my life here. Who is the "they" in my life? Apart from the comments section on our Facebook posts? Truly, I don't have any "they". My close circle is strong and good. My girlfriend is great and very supportive. My family don't get in my way. Who hates me enough to want to see me fail? Who, truly, is holding me back from being a success?

Hold up: I am.

I am my own "they".

I played myself.

You go through waves, reading The Keys. As it starts you are like: heh. Oh, DJ Khaled. What are you like, with your funny little words and sayings! And then you move through, chapter after chapter of telling you to ignore haters and be good with finance, and you go: Hmm. I mean there is a lot of good advice here. Very basic, straightforward advice. But good advice. Around the page 150 mark you start to convince yourself that DJ Khaled is Jesus. And then, by the end, the fourth phase, you start to think that DJ Khaled's relentless positivity and self-belief is actually Quite a Lot to Deal With, and it all gets a bit much, and you have to stay 20 minutes after work just to stare at a wall for a second and regain equilibrium.

I cannot quite decide if DJ Khaled is God or not, but I know he is important.

There are a lot of lessons in The Keys. Important ones, central to the Khaledian philosophy, the one that followers centuries from now will study and pore over (temples, banging out "All I Do Is Win" 20 hours a day, will welcome Khaled devotees, in shiny bomber jackets and with tite fades, where they will sit cross-legged in front of a placid garden of flowers and extend a single pinky finger to the sky, the finger clad always in jewels, the hand soft and manicured and the colour of tea, and they will whisper like an incantation, over and over again, until they find enlightenment there: another one. Another one, another one, another one).

These lessons are: "I REMEMBER" (remember things); STAY AWAY FROM "THEY" (self explanatory); BE YOURSELF (s/e); DON'T EVER PLAY YOURSELF (don't mess up your own success with short term-ism, greed and foolishness ); SECURE THE BAG (be wise with money, but also always be wanting money. Also: money isn't everything. It's a confusing chapter. Money is a real double-edger, here.); DON'T COMPLAIN (don't ever complain); RESPECT THE CODE; WEATHER THE STORM; STAY HUMBLE.

But then we start to run on the fumes of Khaled's lessons – the significance of his teachings weakens a little as the book wears on. We are told to KEEP TWO ROOMS COOKING AT THE SAME TIME (you think this means "work on two things at once", don't you? But it doesn't. It's something about... energy. I don't know. There's a story about him producing an album and he had people in two rooms. I didn't really get it.); TEMPTATION IS A TYPE OF "THEY" (the more Khaled raves about "they", the more "that man who wears six coats and yells outside of Greggs" he sounds); SNAPCHAT (Snapchat is a key); MAJOR KEY FOR REAL – DON'T DRIVE YOUR JETSKI IN THE DARK. There is a chapter about pillows and the importance of pillows.

There are sub-lessons scattered through like raisins in a cake, though: BE HUMBLE (but also be convinced that you are the best, and frequently say "You Are The Best" to will it into being true, Noel-Edmonds-and-the-universe style); GOOD ENERGY ATTRACTS GOOD ENERGY; KEEP YOUR FACE CLEAN (think this is partly literal – there is a lot about grooming in there, because we are talking about a man who gets two haircuts a week minimum – but also it's about staying sober, alert, clear-headed, pure hearted: keep your house in order, keep your face clean); STAY PERSISTENT; LOVE and GOOD ENERGY are important pillars of the Khaled tent, a concept that can otherwise be described as VIBES; PATIENCE IS A TALENT; HAVE A LONG MEMORY.

They are good, clean lessons couched in the language of self-help, and, honestly, as a one-hit motivational punch, it's kind of brilliant. It's just 208 pages of DJ Khaled saying "to be more successful, just be really, really DJ Khaled-y about it". Like, there's a section where he says owning a house is great but mortgages are bad – which I think is him advocating the buying of Miami oceanside mansions in cash only, which is the most DJ Khaled thing ever – interwoven with stories about how he slept in his car when he was hustling his way up, because he had to.

By now I am fully converted to the church of Khaled. Powerful people hop on the mic to speak glowingly about him: Jay-Z, who Khaled reveres like a saint, gives a guest key ("HONESTY"); Fat Joe drops by to say how he knew the first day he met him that Khaled was special (special cloth). Rick Ross, who DJ Khaled sometimes jet-skis to the house of to have lunch with, and good god I would pay every penny I have to my name to attend such an event, gets in to say Khaled has been his knucklehead since the day.

Everything I read about Khaled makes me like him more. I am convinced he is the best friend in the world. The Khaled we often see is a stitch-fit of memes, one gigantic blaring image of Khaled, Khaled in all white saying "congratulations, you played yourself" into a sneaker – but his positivity is more than a façade: it's a way of life that's got him here, that gets him collaborations, then leads to banger after banger. The major key that Khaled doesn't touch on is: goodness follows after goodness. Be good and good shit will come to you, bless up.

The 1980s were an insane time where it was impossible to make a bad song, and no more is that evident than in the 1984 Mr T bang-a-rang "Treat Your Mother Right". Here is the video: see T, stiff-legged and pulling a microphone from what I can only assume is his actual full ass, gruffly muttering: "M is for the moan and the miserable groan from the pain that she felt when I was born" over an absolutely ten-on-ten synth track. I mean, my dude: why in the fuck would you open a pro-Mother banger with a line about your mam tearing herself to shreds birthing you?

But we're getting off-topic. The point is, Mr. T – along with Hulk Hogan, who did an entire album about exercise – was part of a wave of weird 80s wholesomeness that I think we are circling back round to as the world gets meaner and meaner. Look at YouTube, where the young world's icons are curious, edgeless, nü-Blue Peter presenters, cheerful sexless creatures who document their every car journey and baking day. Look at Taylor Swift. Look at all the stats saying kids are drinking less and doing fewer drugs. The next generation coming up is shying away from this awful world by retreating into a sort of cultural hygge. And blaring out at the front of the pack, honking the horn of his GT and yelling "ANOTHER ONE" into the blazing Florida sun, their King, their Lord, their wholesome, positive, sunbeam of a God: DJ Khaled.

It's 6.50PM and I've completed The Key. I feel energised, born anew. I feel positive. There's an awards ceremony I am going to and I am convinced I am going to win. Why turn up to an awards ceremony unless you are going to win? This is the Tao of Khaled. I sing "All I do is win, win, win / no matter what" under my breath. I turn down free beer and wine. "I drink to celebrate, now," I say, gravely. Keep your face clean. Keep your heart clean. Clear eyes, full hearts can't lose. I am with my friends. I will let them share in my success. They will walk with me now on the pathway to more success. Success will lead to bag security. Maybe I— maybe, after I win this, I will actually write that book. Khaled can write a book. Why can't I write a book? I'm too preoccupied with first lines. There is a Khaled quote running through my head: "Those who have a hundred percent chance of losing are the people who never try." He's right. How can I win if I don't even play?

It starts now. It starts with this success. Success leads to more success. A win is followed by a win. I am DJ Khaled now, his spirit imbues me. I am strong and I am humble. I am powerful and positive. I am looking up, not down. Forward, not back. "They" don't want me to win, so I'm going to win. And then I'm going to win again. And again. And buy a house in Miami, next to DJ Khaled and Rick Ross. And have lunch with them every day. I can see it: me, in a tropical shirt, not even close to buttons, billowing in the wind as I lean Jesus-arms out the top of a Maybach. Will it into existence and so it shall be. I am ready for my new life as a suc—

We lose. Fuck DJ Khaled and fuck this rotten industry.

@joelgolby

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The VICE Morning Bulletin

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


Photo by Mark Wilson/Getty Images

US NEWS

CIA Chief Urges Trump to Keep Iran Nuclear Deal
CIA director John Brennan is warning President-elect Donald Trump not to cancel the US nuclear deal with Iran, as he suggested he would during his campaign. "I think it would be the height of folly if the next administration were to tear up that agreement," said Brennan, who also urged Trump to be "wary of Russian promises."—BBC News

Dozens Arrested During Minimum Wage Day of Action
Thousands of people in cities across the US took part in protests calling for a $15 per hour minimum wage Tuesday. In Detroit, police arrested dozens for blocking traffic, while in Oakland campaigners shut down an intersection.—AP

Trump Chooses Goldman Sachs Veteran as Treasury Secretary
President-elect Donald Trump has named Steven Mnuchin, his former campaign finance chairman and a Wall Street veteran, as treasury secretary. Investor Wilbur Ross, a critic of international free trade pacts, is to become commerce secretary. Both appointments require Senate confirmation.—NBC News

Three People Killed in Tennessee Wildfires
At least three people have been killed in the wildfires spreading across parts of eastern Tennessee. Gatlinburg fire chief Greg Miller said the death toll may be higher, with emergency workers unable to access all areas affected by the blaze. About 15,000 acres of land have now been ravaged by the flames.—CNN

INTERNATIONAL NEWS

Thousands of Syrians Flee Eastern Aleppo
As many as 20,000 people have fled eastern Aleppo in the past three days, according to the International Committee of the Red Cross. Syrian government forces continue to press their attack, sending some inhabitants into districts still held by rebels, and others to west Aleppo, controlled by the government.—Al Jazeera

Plane Crash Probe Begins in Colombia
An investigation into the cause of the plane crash that killed 71 people is underway as Brazilian investigators and Colombian authorities check two black boxes from the crash site. All six of the survivors, including three players from Brazil's Chapecoense soccer team, are being treated in the hospital.—Reuters

German Intelligence Employee Arrested
A German intelligence officer has been arrested for allegedly making Islamist statements and sharing "internal" material online. The Federal Office for the Protection of the Constitution said it had uncovered "a suspected Islamist," but said there was no evidence of safety risk to the agency or other employees.—CNN

Colombian Senate Approves Peace Deal with FARC
Colombia's Senate has approved a revised peace deal between the government and the FARC rebel group. The peace accord now moves to the lower house of Congress for endorsement. Voters rejected an initial deal in a referendum last month, but President Juan Manuel Santos says the new deal is stronger.—BBC News

EVERYTHING ELSE

Al Gore Wants to Scrap the Electoral College
Former VP Al Gore wants the popular vote to decide general elections, saying the Electoral College system "should be eliminated." Gore won the popular vote in the disputed 2000 election.—NBC News

'Hamilton' Takes Broadway Sales Record
Despite calls for a boycott from Donald Trump supporters, Hamilton has broken Broadway's weekly sales record, taking $3.3 million over seven days. The production surpassed Wicked, which earned $3.2 million in a single week.—USA Today

Canadian Cops to Punish Drunk Drivers with Nickelback
Police in Kensington, Canada, have announced that drunk driving offenses will be punishable by forced exposure to Nickelback. On top of fines and criminal charges, the police service promised to play Nickelback "in the cruiser on the way to jail."—Noisey

Activists Want Internet Archive Protected from Trump
The Internet Archive, a US-based nonprofit that stores web content, is planning to open an "Internet Archive of Canada" in case a Donald Trump presidency ushers in new restrictions. The group is seeking "millions" to pay for staff and server space.—Motherboard

Lawyers Sue Police on Behalf of Standing Rock Protestors
A lawsuit has been filed against law enforcement agencies on behalf of the North Dakota Pipeline protesters injured in clashes with police. The Water Protector Legal Collective said they suffered "head wounds, eye trauma, and internal bleeding."—Broadly

Black Radicalism in the Age of Castro

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Jesse Jackson, Baptist minister and candidate for the Democratic presidential nomination in 1984, attends a press conference with Cuban dictator Fidel Castro during Jackson's visit to Cuba. Photo by Jacques M. Chenet/CORBIS/Corbis via Getty Images

To many Americans agitating for racial progress, Fidel Castro, the deeply polarizing Cuban leader who died Friday, was a formidable compañero in battle.

The man emerged as a major thorn in America's side in the 1960s, as the United States was experiencing massive black defiance against segregation and other forms of oppression. This was the decade that saw the birth of the Black Panther Party and other groups of blacks possessing weapons and defying the white power structure.

In an astounding challenge to the United States, Castro opened his country to black revolutionary fugitives wanted by American authorities, some for violent crimes. Assata Shakur (a.k.a Joanne Chesimard), who escaped from prison in 1979 after being convicted in the 1973 killing of a New Jersey state trooper, was one of them. But there were others, including Nehanda Abiodun (a.k.a. Cheri Laverne Dalton), who was wanted in a 1981 armored truck robbery in upstate New York, in which two Nyack village police officers and a Brinks guard were killed.

But there's a new reality that is changing both prospects for US relations with Cuba and race relations in the United States. That reality is Donald Trump.

In our new reality, black radicals will not react as the Panthers did in the 1960s. While we've seen some incidents of black men attacking and even killing police officers in recent years, there's been nothing organized at the level of the Black Panthers or the Black Liberation Army of the early 1970s. And I doubt Castro would react now as he did back then. This is a time for new coalitions that cross old boundaries.

After all, if Castro were on the rise today, he would be looking at a very different United States. This is no longer the black and white country it (largely) was in the 1960s thanks in no small part to the so-called Hart-Celler Act, also known as the Immigration and Nationality Act of 1965. The law opened US doors to immigrants from all around the world, not just Europe, and it made for the browning of America that we see today.

Donald Trump at least temporarily defeated that new America on November 8, speaking disparagingly of many of its people and sometimes issuing explicit threats. He has also spoken out defiantly against Cuba, albeit mostly in 140-character bites. Trump's enemies, it seems, are not only blacks, but also Latinos, Muslims, and, depending on whom you ask, the LGBTQ community—the latter being one of the groups that fell into Castro's own crosshairs.

But even as he employed authoritarian tactics that included imprisoning and executing dissidents and sending gays to labor camps, Castro seemed to be motivated by a mindfulness of those farthest down the ladder. That's what drove him in making Cuba among the most literate countries in the world. That's what energized him as he refashioned Cuba's healthcare system so that it stands out for its achievements. And that's what inspired him to forge a personal bond with black Americans.

When I visited Cuba in January, I did not meet a single person who failed to express some kind of affection, if not outright love, for Barack Obama. Part of it, of course, was that Obama is brown, like most of them. But it also had to do with Obama's message of hope and change, and his willingness to challenge Americans who still oppose softening of relations with Cuba, which is now controlled by Fidel's brother, Raúl.

Old lines of division and old identifications remain, which is only natural. Castro is still a hero to former Panthers and black radicals, and a demon to conservatives, Cuban exiles, and anti-Communists. From 90 miles away, Fidel said and did the things that the most assertive American black leaders said and did—but unlike Martin Luther King Jr., Malcolm X, and others, he survived.

It's not a stretch to suspect Castro, in his final moments, took special delight in having withstood 11 US presidents—and so much anger from the most powerful country on Earth. "Despite all that the Yanquis tried to do to him... he died a natural death," notes Marta Rojas, an octogenarian Cuban writer who identifies as black and who, as a young reporter in 1953, covered Fidel's initial, unsuccessful attack on the Moncada military barracks. She also covered the trial of Fidel at which he declared, "History will absolve me."

But if Castro worshippers in America are delighting in the story of his life, they will also soon be dealing with the new reality of the United States of Trump. And the browning of America should give them hope.

Ronald Howell has spent three decades as a working journalist, including several years as a foreign correspondent covering Latin America and the Caribbean as well as a stint covering the Middle East in 1991. He now teaches journalism at Brooklyn College.


The Legal Industry for Kidnapping Teens

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Illustration by Alex Jenkins

It was midnight when David woke up to find two large men standing over his bed. Without any explanation, they told him to get up, get dressed, and come with them. Still in the confusion of sleep, but also petrified out of his 12-year-old mind, David complied. Plus, the restraint of a large arm meant he couldn't bolt.

When David saw the plain black van parked in front of the house, he figured he was about to be kidnapped for dealing drugs to the wrong people at his school.

"I was scared for my life," David, who is now 15, told me.

But David wasn't being kidnapped in the traditional sense. What happened to him was arranged by his parents, and was completely legal.

Youth transportation services, like the one that picked up David, ferry at-risk (or allegedly at-risk) young people to residential programs such as wilderness camps or therapeutic boarding schools. Often these surprise "escorts" are done in the early hours of the morning when young people are sleeping, and use varying levels of aggressive tactics and professionalism. David was lucky to avoid being handcuffed, hogtied with cable wires, slapped, or punched—several others I interviewed claimed these things happened to them.

"It is fear that you experience once you get into that van, and it is fear that you experience through the whole rehabilitation process," said David, who went back to dealing and taking drugs as soon as he returned to California. He asked VICE not to use his real name for fear he could be sent back to a program.

The troubled teen or "tough love" industry is made up mostly of for-profit companies that promise to fix drug addiction, mental illness, and attitude problems. At the center of this industry are the behavioral programs, some accused of abusive practices and even causing the death of teen clients. If the behavioral program is the entrée, then the transportation service is the appetizer, often setting the tone for the treatment the young person will endure for the months or years to come.

"They can be abducted against their will and this meets all the criteria of trauma," Dr. Nicole Bush, an associate professor of psychiatry and pediatrics at the University of California, San Francisco, told me. Bush helped found the Alliance for the Safe, Therapeutic, and Appropriate Use of Residential Treatment (A START) to help protect young people from negligent residential programs and youth transport services.

Several of her teen clients who attended residential programs attribute their post-traumatic stress disorder to the youth transport services that picked them up. One client said she was taken when an SUV pulled up next to the family car. Another described two large men escorting her from a restaurant where she was eating with friends.

"They talk about nightmares, not being able to sleep alone, or needing a night light," Bush told me. "These are people are in their 20s and 30s, more than a decade after the event."

Bush is quick to point out that not all youth transport services are equal. A 2015 article in the Child and Youth Care Forum found after surveying 350 young people who attended a wilderness program (where nature expeditions are used as a type of therapy) that whether young people were transported or dropped off by a parent had little impact on the treatment outcome.

But some transports can be traumatizing. Thomas, a man in his 30s who works for a West Coast youth transport service (who asked that VICE use a pseudonym), told me some workers "want to go in like a WWF wrestler and throw kids around like rag dolls." He said his strategy is to make the pickup as painless as possible for the young person, talking them through their grievances with the current situation or whatever is going on at home or school.

"I was a little shit head when I was a kid," he said. "I know what it is like to think no one cares."

A critical aspect of the whole operation is gaining parental permission through an affidavit or power of attorney agreement. These agreements temporarily transfer parental rights to the youth transport company, giving workers permissions that include authorizing medical attention or restraining the young person.

"In general, parents have enormously wide discretion with respect to decisions regarding their children. They can decide to leave their children with people and give them parental rights and no one can interfere," Philip Elberg, an attorney who has worked on cases involving the troubled teen industry, told me.

Elberg added that the large number of abuse complaints triggered by the troubled teen industry isn't matched by the small number of lawsuits because, among other reasons, unless there is a serious physical incident such as injury, sexual abuse, or death of a young person, there isn't much legal ground to stand on after authority has been handed over by the parent.

"Parents are often the victim," said Bush. "They are desperate to help their child and someone who is supposed to be a professional tells them that this is what they are supposed to do."

Monica Moyses says she was zip-tied by her escorts as soon as they woke her up. When she saw her uncle, who had custody of her at the time, talking with the strange men on the sidewalk while she sat locked in a car, she assumed the absolute worst.

"I thought my uncle had sold me into some kind of sex slavery," Moyses told me. Instead, after a long drive and two flights, she arrived at a boot camp in Costa Rica. She was 13 at the time and had been busted for smoking weed, drinking alcohol, and staying out late.

"I was hanging around with an unsavory crowd," said Moyses, who is now 29. She admitted that she needed help, but the drastic nature of what she received sent her spiraling deeper into drug use and alcoholism. It took her several years to turn her life around.

Often young people don't need a behavioral program, let alone a private company to transport them there, according to Clinton Hardy, who runs New Start Transport out of Utah. Hardy told me that many of these kids haven't committed crimes, so "the idea that you are going to pick them up with a procedure that a police officer would use seems strange to me." Hardy intentionally keeps his company small so he has greater personal oversight over the practices of his employees, but he's on the fence about whether or not to stay in the industry, due to what he calls "ethical dilemmas."

David, who was transported from his home in LA, says he overheard workers at his behavioral program speaking to the youth transport workers about a kickback agreement between the two companies.

"They were joking around about how they make a lot of money by recommending people transport their kids rather than bring them personally," he told me. A transport can cost $5,000 to $8,000 depending on distance and if a flight needs to be booked, according to Thomas, the youth transportation worker.

In his teens, Cory (who also asked that we not use his real name) was transported in the typical way—early morning by two "football linebacker-type guys."

"My mom always said don't talk to strangers, and then my mom went and hired a stranger," he told me.

Six years later, he's made amends with his parents, who he said regret the whole thing—the transport, the wildness program, and the therapeutic boarding school, which cost about $140,000 all in.

"They were desperate," he said, "so they didn't see what the situation really was."

Follow Serena Solomon on Twitter.

All the Shit You Have to Deal with Walking Alone as a Woman

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Image by Flickr user Transformer18via

As a woman walking around the city alone at night, it often feels like there's not much you can do if some creep decides to follow you around and harass you. But many women try to find a way to deal with feeling unsafe—to project an aura that will stop the harassment from happening. A brisk and confident step, eyes on the pavement, and a hand in the pocket of your coat, clutching your phone.

To see how women from different countries in Europe deal with street harassment, VICE offices across the continent asked women from 13 cities if and where they feel unsafe alone at night, and how they deal with that feeling.

PARIS, FRANCE

Marie, 26, student

VICE: Are there places in Paris where you don't feel safe alone at night?
Marie: Mostly in the wealthier Parisian neighborhoods, actually, because the streets are mostly empty at that time and no one will notice if you're attacked. But I have to say taking the tube at night is probably the worst.

Why is that?
Aside from all the general discomfort of being in a closed carriage underground with loads of other people, I've also had some particularly nasty experiences there. One time, while I was waiting on the platform, some guy tried to push me on the tracks. I've had a few pervs on the subway masturbating in front of me, and another time this maniac with a razor blade in his bloody hands followed me around.

So how do you deal with that?
I just leave the station when I don't feel safe. It's an ordeal to walk alone at night as a girl. There's always some asshole who makes a comment. Especially if you're wearing heels—the noise they make when you walk attracts creeps.

MILAN, ITALY

Lidia, 25, accountant

VICE: Are there any streets or areas in Milan you're afraid to go by yourself at night?
Lidia: I generally don't feel unsafe, but I'm more cautious when I'm in a rougher neighborhood or an isolated suburb where there aren't many people around. Ironically, I've experienced the most harassment in more central and busier areas of the city.

What kind of things happened?
Just a couple of months ago on the train home, a man sitting across from me unzipped his trousers and popped his dick out. That wasn't the first time that happened to me—it was the fourth time, actually. So it didn't exactly shock me, but I did change seats.

Do you think you've become a bit desensitized?
I don't think the fear of something bad happening will ever stop me from walking around at night. But it's very unsettling that so many women go through this on a daily basis—that getting harassed is basically the norm.

LONDON, UNITED KINGDOM

Pria, 29, nail technician

VICE: Do you feel safe walking around London on your own at night?
Pria: Usually I do, yeah. I live in East Ham, where it can be a little bit dodgy. So it's sometimes a bit scary—especially at night.

Is there anything you do to make yourself feel safer?
I purposely don't have my headphones on and don't make eye contact. If I'm alone and I see someone coming who makes me uncomfortable, I put my phone away and cross the road.

Has anything in particular ever happened to you that put you off walking around alone at night?
I've never had something really bad happen to me in that sense, which is why I'm kind of OK walking around alone. I'm from Derbyshire, and I generally feel safer in the little town I'm from, but there's still dodgy people. I sometimes feel safer in London because the streets are busier—if anything does happen, there are more people around.

BERLIN, GERMANY

Gisa, 28, shop owner

VICE: Do you feel unsafe in Berlin?
Gisa: I've never seriously feared for my safety. But Berlin does have plenty of areas where I can feel a bit unsafe. I'm often out at strange hours, which means I cross paths with strange people.

Where does that happen?
At Hermannplatz in Neukölln, for example. Some guy followed me around in broad daylight there, spewing sexist shit at me. I think he wasn't quite right in the head.

But that doesn't affect your general feeling of safety?
No, I generally feel safe, especially when I'm riding my bike. I think people should stop being so scared—Berlin isn't as bad as everyone thinks.

BUCHAREST, ROMANIA

Elena, 30, co-founder NGO

VICE: Is there any particular area in Bucharest where you feel unsafe at night?
Elena: I feel unsafe at Saint George's Square at night, which is in the heart of Bucharest. It's weird there, with a lot of abandoned houses and squatters. And something happened there last summer.

What happened?
I was walking to my car there around 5 PM when some guy jumped me from behind. He grabbed my breasts and my mouth, and he violently pulled me back. A guy who was supervising the parking lot came to help me and scared my assailant off. He didn't seem homeless or confused, and if he had just wanted to rob me, he would have grabbed my purse instead of my body.

Do you think Bucharest is particularly unsafe for women alone at night?
Well, you frequently have to deal with verbal harassment, but there's also the cultural notion that's like, "What was she doing alone outside at that hour, and why was she wearing a skirt?" And next to that, there's this Romanian idea of, "I just slapped her, it's not like I killed her." So street harassment isn't a big thing for people who think like that.

BARCELONA, SPAIN

Uda, 22, flyerer

VICE: Do you sometimes feel unsafe while walking home alone at night?
Uda: A lot of the time, not just at night. Men have catcalled me, asked for my number, harassed me.

Is there a particular place in Barcelona where you'd rather not go by yourself?
It's actually worse in places a bit outside of the city of Barcelona—in Badalona or Mataró , for example. There are so many guys living there who have no jobs, nothing to do all day, and just hang around pestering girls who happen to pass by.

Why do you think Spain can be an unsafe place for women alone at night?
It's probably related to machismo culture, which is still very present in Spain. But it depends on the guy, of course. I'm Muslim, and I find that there is still a lot of gender inequality among my community. I don't think that has anything to do with religion—it's a cultural issue, a question of upbringing. My father doesn't have a macho mindset at all, but my boyfriend does. He doesn't like seeing me go out on my own or with friends.

BELGRADE, SERBIA

Sofija, 19, student

VICE: Do you avoid walking around alone at night in certain areas in the city?
Sofija: Yes, I avoid any street that isn't in the center, ones that have no street lights or people in them. Basically any streets that aren't main roads. I suppose we all try to prevent anything bad happening to us.

So how do you get home at night?
I never walk home alone. Either I take a taxi, or I sleep over at a friend's or my sister's.

Why?
It can be scary alone if it's dark, and I don't want anything to happen to me. I've heard a lot of stories. I live in the suburbs, but I study in Belgrade, and I heard that this girl who always took the same way home as me was raped.

STOCKHOLM, SWEDEN

Ida, 24, travels around

VICE: Is there a particular street in Stockholm you won't go by yourself at night?
Ida: Not really. I don't feel very safe near the Central Station. There's more police there now, but generally a lot of stuff happens there.

Have you experienced anything particularly threatening when you've been out alone at night?
Not really. I've felt pretty vulnerable when I'm on the tube, and there aren't many people there. But I usually wear a hoodie, and my style is pretty gender neutral, so I'm sometimes mistaken for a dude. I've experienced a lot of aggression by men who assume I'm a guy and want to pick a fight with me.

How do you think you could feel safer?
Being a man would help. Anybody can get jumped or robbed, but there is another dimension of fear that I don't think cis men can ever understand or experience in the same way. And more education on the subject would be a good start, too.

VIENNA, AUSTRIA

Anna*, 20, student

VICE: Is there an area in Vienna you're uncomfortable being by yourself at night?
Anna*: I live in the suburbs, and on Mondays, I'm never home before 9 PM. My stop on the railway is usually quite deserted at that time of day—aside from older men, who have been total creeps to me there in the past.

What did they do?
They asked me what I was doing there all by myself, made some crude and inappropriate comments, or sometimes just asked me to come home with them.

What do you do when that happens?
I try to shake them off by walking fast and confidently. If that doesn't work, I tell them I don't have time for a chat and am going home alone. Luckily that has always done the trick so far.

ZURICH, SWITZERLAND

Carmela, 42, full-time mom

VICE: Is there an area in Zurich you try to avoid when you're by yourself at night?
Carmela: I don't like walking down Langstrasse in Zurich's party and red light district at night. I even feel unsafe there during the day. If anything would happen to you in Zurich, it would be there. And I've heard about a lot of things happening in suburbs like Schwamendingen. That just makes me instinctively avoid the area.

Have you experienced anything particularly bad that makes you feel unsafe now?
I've never been involved in a particular incident, no. I've lived in Zurich for 16 years, and luckily nothing traumatic ever happened. I guess that's also because I've always lived in areas that are generally pretty safe.

AMSTERDAM, THE NETHERLANDS

Natasja, 29, student

VICE: Are there places or neighborhoods you tend to avoid when you're alone at night?
No, I developed thick skin growing up in Amsterdam. Once, on the train at night, a man sat next to me and started touching me where his hands didn't belong. I yelled at him, and he ran to the next carriage. For a little while I sat next to women on the train if I had the choice, but I don't carry the experience around with me anymore.

What do you do to avoid being harassed?
Well, one very superficial thing is consider the way you dress. Today I'm dressed pretty boyish and not much happens on the street. That changes when I'm wearing something more feminine.

WARSAW, POLAND

Carolina, 22, student

VICE: Is there a place or a street in Warsaw you're not comfortable walking around alone at night?
When I first arrived in Poland, I lived in Żoliborz, in the newer part of . I had to pass a lot of unlit construction sites there, and I often felt like someone was watching or following me.

Why do you think women feel unsafe walking alone?
Women are perceived as being weaker than men. It might be easier to rob or harass a woman because you think she won't fight back. There's a greater chance a man will. After I played a concert in a club with my band once, I was packing up the instruments, and, as I lifted one of the cases, the club owner asked me: "Isn't that too heavy for a woman?"

ATHENS, GREECE

Sofia, 18, student

VICE: Is there any street in Athens you're afraid to walk down alone at night?Sofia: Nothing ever happened to me, but I'm afraid to walk by myself. Even when I'm at a friend's, I call my brother and ask him to pick me up. It's not a particular street I'm afraid of—just dark, narrow alleys. I never used to go out alone. If I needed to go, let's say, from Ilion to Peristeri, I had to be with someone. It's gotten better now, though.

Where does that come from?
I don't know. You hear things on TV, your parents warn you. My father always tells me not to walk home by myself but call my brother or him. It's how I was raised.

​19-Year-Old Conservative MPP Against Same-Sex Marriage Refuses to Answer Questions

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Screencap via CityNews

Sam Oosterhoff, the 19-year-old Conservative Party MPP from St. Catharines whose views against homosexuality have made him a news item in the last few weeks, refused to answer reporters questions about said viewpoints Wednesday morning.

In video of a scrum recorded by City News before his swearing in Wednesday, Oosterhoff was asked by reporters if he had purposely dodged a vote on Bill 28 (legislation that recognizes same same-sex parents with equal rights in Ontario) by making up excuses for why he couldn't show up Tuesday, or get sworn in at an earlier date.

"Why weren't you in there standing up for the courage of convictions?" one reporter asked.

Oosterhoff replied by going on a tangent about his niece's birthday on Tuesday, and how that prevented him from being at work. However, reports indicate that it was actually because he was having a party to celebrate his "historic" election.

"Seriously? It would have been more than just your age to make it a historic moment if you came in yesterday and stood up for the courage of your convictions," the reporter continued.

Like almost all of his interactions with the media so far, Oosterhoff evaded the question and reiterated that his focus is on getting sworn in and "serving his constituents."

Despite Oosterhoff's lack of appearance, the bill passed with a unanimous vote of all 79 MPs who were present. Half of the Progressive Conservative caucus either did not vote or were not present, Oosterhoff included.

Yesterday, Oosterhoff decried the bill on Twitter as being "disrespectful to mothers and fathers," but refused to elaborate when asked by reporters about it Wednesday.

"Are you ashamed of your beliefs? Is that why you won't answer any of these questions directly?" Globe and Mail reporter Adrian Morrow asked, to which Oosterhoff replied, "Absolutely not."

Still, Morrow—among a dozen other reporters who had prepared to scrum the MP Wednesday—continued.

"You said homosexuality was a sin on Facebook, but now you won't say anything one way or another, so you must be ashamed," Morrow said.

"I never said that on Facebook," Oosterhoff fired back at reporters, who corrected him on the fact that he actually did. In fact, Oosterhoff previously made numerous online posts about his stances on homosexuality and abortion (prior to making his Facebook private), which reporters have saved and reuploaded online.

All attempts by VICE to contact Oosterhoff have gone unanswered or been declined as of publication of this story.

Follow Jake Kivanc on Twitter.

How Montreal Went from Sin City to Porn Hub

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Photo via Flickr

If you've watched porn online lately––and I'll go out on a limb here and say you have––chances are you watched it on a site owned by a company founded in Montreal.

Free tube sites YouPorn, RedTube, Tube8, and Pornhub with its 60 million daily visitors are all owned by MindGeek––an IT company, which maintains the majority of its over 1,200 employees in Montreal even though it's technically headquartered in Luxembourg.

MindGeek, which was founded in 2004 (initially called Mansef and later Manwin), also owns paid sites Brazzers, Reality Kings, and Digital Playground, gay sites Men, Sean Cody, and Reality Dudes, as well as Playboy TV and Spice Network.

Suffice to say, MindGeek is the porn monopoly you probably never heard of and it picked Montreal, not Los Angeles, New York, or even San Fernando a.k.a. Porn Valley, to house the bulk of its operations.

So why Montreal?

MindGeek's vice-president of Mainstream, Games and Mobile Applications, Mark Antoon, says it's Montreal's tech scene and quality of life that encourage the company to stick around.

"Montreal provides an ideal setting for tech talent," Antoon said in an email interview. "It has a unique multicultural backdrop, a great joie de vivre, and an affordable standard of living that make it a very attractive option for tech resources."

For Robert Mann, a spokesman for Montreal-based porn gaming company Nutaku, it's the tech and gaming scene as well as the "liberal attitudes towards sexuality," which allow businesses working in adult entertainment to operate out in the open.

Photo via Flickr

Mann, whose company is owned by––who else?––MindGeek, says that porn today isn't what you might think of if you're picturing Boogie Nights.

"The adult industry isn't a bunch of people dreaming up strange porn films. Mostly, it's an engineering problem. It's a question of how you deliver this content to millions of people around the world, how do you monetize it properly, how do you get cost per click and your KPI (Key Performance Indicator), and all the rest of that," he told VICE. "It's not what it was in the 90s, it's a lot more a technically-minded project than it was back in the day and Montreal is the centre of that."

But besides the tech scene, Montreal might be attractive to the adult entertainment industry because it has a long history of being comfortable with sex. In the 30s, 40s, and 50s Montreal was the place to be in North America for a wild night on the town and was dubbed the city of sin.

"If you look at period footage of Saint Catherine street back in the 30s and 40s you see cabaret after cabaret," said Dr. Thomas Waugh, a Concordia professor who specializes in the study of sexuality, "and if you see similar footage of Toronto you see churches."

In the 1980s, Montreal had access to porn and was producing XXX videos long before English Canada, according to Waugh.

When I asked Antoon about MindGeek fitting in with Montreal's sinful past, he said the company is a tech company and "the type of content that drives incredible metrics is irrelevant."

I'm sure managing the heavy bandwidth that comes with some of the internet's most visited sites is a technical feat (Pornhub is 50th overall on the Alexa Global Index), but I'm not so sure it's fair to say the content it releases is irrelevant.

In any case, MindGeek isn't producing porn in Montreal, so who is?

Vandal Vyxen. Photo via Youtube

Vandal Vyxen has been in the business for 12 years and says Quebec is the best place in the country to work in the industry.

"If I compare any other province, Quebec is where people are most open-minded in general and more wild, that's for sure."

Vyxen, who stars in a reality show on Quebec TV, says she manages to make a living, but has seen a major drop-off in the amount of content being produced.

"I guess I didn't start producing at the right time," she said.

Similarly, Vid Vicious, a porn director and photographer who has been producing in Montreal for 15 years, says when he started he was shooting $65,000 worth of content per month and releasing eight to 10 scenes a week. These days, while he's been "doing fine" thanks to Can-con for TV, Vicious says there are just 30 to 40 people producing porn in Montreal and content has dropped 60 percent.

"For programming companies, yeah Montreal is the leader, no question there," he said. "When it comes to content we were a leader, but we're not anymore."

So while Montreal is booming from the tech side of porn, it's dying on the production side. How did that happen?

Essentially, what happened to the porn industry was the same thing that happened to the movie and music industry––the internet happened.

"From 1998 to 2000 here in Montreal it was booming, booming, booming on the production side––on the technical side it kept getting bigger. And it kept going like that until the tube sites came in and that's when we took a big slap across the board," said Vicious.

And according to him, the porn industry has only itself to blame.

"The decline of porn was created by its own industry, by a very, very, popular website by the name of Pornhub," he said.

The beef with tube sites like Pornhub, and MindGeek in general, isn't unique to Montreal. Porn industry blogger and former porn actor/director Mike South says the entire adult industry has plummeted 75 percent since the tube sites came along, and the reason, according to him, is because MindGeek pirates content.

"They've stolen content from me, they've stolen content from my friends––it's because of them that a lot of my friends no longer have jobs in the adult industry," said South. "It just really irritates me to see somebody's hard work stolen and given away for free with no compensation and if you try to get it taken down, essentially all you get is a big fuck you."

MindGeek wouldn't comment about the piracy allegations, but whether the content was poached or provided legally, it's not likely much is going to change. The boom days of porn production are long gone and if MindGeek isn't the one posting free porn, somebody else will.

As for the industry in Montreal, there's never been more porn in the city, but not the kind vets like Vicious fantasize about.

"I miss the old days, I'll just say that," he said.

Follow Joel on Twitter.


The VICE Guide to Right Now: You'll Be Able to Smoke from Hunter S. Thompson's Personal Weed Stash Soon

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Hunter S. Thomspon and his wife, Anita. Photo by AP/Kathy Willens

Though the forefather of gonzo journalism, Hunter S. Thompson, has been dead for over a decade, we're going to finally be able to fulfill our far-fetched fantasy of doing his drugs. The writer's widow, Anita Thompson, is plotting to sell six different strains of weed that were saved from the Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas author's personal stash, Aspen Times reports.

"Since it became legal, I get approached probably once a month by cannabis growers, dispensaries," Thompson, who now owns the writer's old compound in Colorado, told Aspen Times. "I've had probably ten meetings in the last three years, and I always ended up saying no because it's the same story every time: Somebody wants to slap Hunter's name on their strain."

She is now working with a cannabis company to grow the strains she saved from her husband's stash, which will eventually be sold at recreational dispensaries. Thompson jokingly said that she is "looking forward to being a drug lord." Of course, the brand of the weed line will be called "Gonzo."

Known for his association with booze and illicit substances—"two bags of grass, seventy-five pellets of mescaline, five sheets of high-powered blotter acid, a saltshaker half-full of cocaine, and a whole galaxy of multi-colored uppers, downers, screamers, laughers"—Hunter S. Thompson had unsurprisingly spoken before about his adoration of cannabis:

"I have always loved marijuana. It has been a source of joy and comfort to me for many years. And I still think of it as a basic staple of life, along with beer and ice and grapefruits—and millions of Americans agree with me."

Yes, dad, yes. Now where's your acid?

Follow Allison Tierney on Twitter.

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