Pro alt-right posters that were put up in Toronto. Photo via Kevin Kerr

Kevin Metcalf, an activist who independently tracks extremism in Toronto, walked into an far-right event last month with a camera in his hand.

He was there to find out who was part of a relatively new right-wing group called Alternative for Canada (Alt4Can). The group's founder, Mark Stewart, claims he's not a white supremacist or even part of the alt-right, but believes Canada should reflect its supposed European heritage. Metcalf says the group is the new face of fascism in Canada.

Alt4Can's main goal is to see a Trump-style politician elected in Canada and they support Kellie Leitch's candidacy for the leader of the Conservative Party.

An argument between Metcalf and one of the attendees broke out almost immediately after he walked in, and the meeting was shut down by the owners of the restaurant where the event was being held.

Metcalf says he was only planning to take a few photos and a short video for his own research. But after he saw the group's response he decided to post the video on Facebook. As of today it has almost 5,000 views.

This is just one example of the kinds of actions that people in Toronto have been taking to try to squash whatever foothold groups like Alt4Can have established in their neighbourhoods.

Last month, an unknown group of people tampered with the locks at Your Ward News, a controversial ultra-right newspaper in Toronto's east end. The local paper was supposed to host a talk by "Evalion," a 19-year-old neo-Nazi YouTuber from the Greater Toronto Area who is banned from posting videos. When the organizers arrived, including well-known white supremacist Paul Fromm, they found that the locks had been superglued shut, and the event had to be cancelled.

Much of this anti-right wing activity is being supported by Facebook groups where Toronto residents share information on a daily basis about extremists, by posting videos and photos of their activities and flagging their events. Members are encouraged to organize offline and respond in whatever ways they feel comfortable.

Many people are alarmed by right-wing extremism, be it white nationalist, neo-fascist or anti-Islam, and want to do whatever they can to stop it before it becomes a bigger problem. There is research to show that community action is the best way to challenge this kind of extremism. But vigilante-style confrontations with right-wing extremists probably aren't going to be effective, says Ryan Scrivens, a PhD candidate in the School of Criminology at Simon Fraser University who authored the study.

His research shows that communities that addressed the problem strategically, often in collaboration with police, policy-makers, and educators, were the most successful at pushing out right-wing extremists.

Whatever they do, "community members...should never by any means assume or hope that right-wing extremism will be swept away," he said in an interview with VICE. "That's when it flourishes."

Paul Fromm, locked out of the Your Ward News, an ultra-right newspaper in Toronto. Photo supplied

Creating Facebook groups where people can share information is useful because right-wing extremists aren't one cohesive group so it can be difficult to keep track of who's who, says Scrivens. These types of online spaces can help to put the pieces together, he says.

In one Facebook group, about 1,200 members share information daily about the far right in the Greater Toronto Area. They post photos of alleged fascists, discuss recent acts of racism and flag events organized by white supremacists and neo-Nazis. The group's description asks members to post the "where, when and what" of a racist incident and tells them "to self-organize in ways they deem appropriate."

They also share advice and warn each other about potential threats. A recent post reminds members not to directly approach the Soldiers of Odin, an extremist group that patrols the streets looking for citizens who supposedly need protection from refugees. The day before, someone posted a photo of the group talking to a resident at Yonge and Dundas Square in Toronto. Someone commented "get face pics and make them public."

But one of the problems with this type of activity is mislabelling, says Gazelle, a long-time anti-racist activist who started the Facebook group where citizens share information. A number of people have already been labeled online as fascist organizers when they absolutely are not, he says.

That's what happened to Daniel* a Palestinian-Jewish literature student at the University of Toronto who was at the Alt4Can event that Metcalf videotaped. As someone who is "alive right now because of immigration," he says he's against pretty much everything Alt4Can stands for. He was only there to engage in a debate about Nietzsche, the German philosopher.

The exposure has him worried about his safety. "Without exaggeration, it has made me a bit nervous walking on the streets around here. I'm thinking, 'is someone going to see this video and come and harass me?'"

Another problem is that online activism comes with real-life security risks, especially if people plan to take action offline, according to Gazelle.

"People are being fairly careless, giving exact details of their plans, with their real name on Facebook and very low privacy settings. They're not taking into account that people will use this online space against them," he says.

If people are going to confront these groups, they need to realize that picking a fight isn't something to be taken lightly, he says. Activists need to be aware that they could face non-stop harassment or even find themselves in a physical fight, he says, remembering Toronto in the 1990s when punks and skinheads fought openly in the streets.

During that time, a group called Anti-Racist Action went head-to-head with the now defunct white supremacist group, Heritage Front. There were attacks and counter attacks, people were injured and property was damaged. At one point, a Canadian Security Intelligence Service (CSIS) spy was posing as the leader of the white supremacists.

Gazelle says a lot of people are remembering those days now, but don't understand the stakes that are involved. "A lot of us don't know how to fight, we don't know how to do de-escalation and we're potentially more exposed than we've ever been," he says.

Gazelle announced on Monday that he is helping to organize a community training that will teach people how to de-escalate potentially dangerous situations. The event, which is scheduled for next week, already has 90 people who are interested in attending.

Instead of direct confrontation, Scrivens recommends communities be creative about how they address racism and racist groups.

When alt-right posters were found in Toronto's east end last month, more than 100 residents got together to re-poster the neighbourhood with anti-racist flyers. The event was made possible by a Facebook group created by local community members that has attracted over 900 members in the last two weeks.

When you band together as a community and show up in numbers, right-wing extremist groups don't last long. But you have to do something productive, says Scrivens.

"Showing up at a rally and telling them they're 'fucking lunatics' isn't going to do anything."

*Some names in this story have been changed due to security and employment concerns.

Follow Ashley on Twitter.

Photo by author

If you've been in a car, you've probably either driven high or been driven by someone who was. Unlike driving drunk, however, driving high doesn't seem to carry the same social stigma as its infamously-deadly predecessor.

According to new research published by the Centre for Addiction and Mental Health (CAMH) Wednesday, the amount of people smoking marijuana doubled from eight percent to nearly 15 percent between 1996 and 2015. More worryingly, rates of impaired drivers who had THC in their system rose from 1.5 percent in 2010, to 3 percent in 2015.

If you're like any of my friends, you're probably thinking that the dangers of driving high are a myth (in fact, I know a few people who say it actually makes them better at driving). To clear the air, I asked Dr. Robert Mann, a senior researcher at CAMH and one of the leading Canadian experts studying the effects of driving while high, if smoking before driving is really that bad.

British Columbia is one of the provinces that's been most affected by the opioid crisis in Canada, and today, new numbers shed light on just how dire the situation is in its most populated city, Vancouver. Between January 1 and November 26 of this year, Vancouver Coastal Health emergency departments have reported 6,016 illicit or unknown drug ODs. Of those, 1,679 were recorded as opioid overdoses.

On the season finale of Hamilton's Pharmacopeia, we meet up with famed LSD chemist Casey Hardison in the Nevada desert and embark on a road trip to visit Darrell Lemaire, the unsung hero of psychedelic history.

Hamilton's Pharmacopeia airs Wednesdays at 10 PM on VICELAND

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

Photos by Corey Olsen

This story appeared in the December Fiction Issue of VICE magazine. Click HERE to subscribe.

Nothing sucked more than moving your stuff out of storage. Luckily Jack had a hand. Guy he'd never met before named Mike. Ryan, his yard guy, had hooked them up. Mike worked for Ryan, or knew Ryan somehow. Jack didn't ask. He was just glad to have the help. He did hope this Mike was more efficient than Ryan. Ryan—what a talker.

Mike pulled up to the gate at the top of the hill and honked. Jack went over to the gooseneck post and keyed the code in and the gate began to retract. Mike was 20 bucks an hour. A fair price. Worth every penny, too. But one more reason to hope he was efficient.

Jack allowed his gaze to wander as Mike came toward him down the blacktop path. Boring place, the U-Stor-It. Ugly. The whole thing a chore.

Totally reasonable, as Mike approached, to expect him to slow up, roll the window down, and introduce himself, shake hands, etc. before parking. But no, he blew right past him. Well, alright. Fair enough. Jack undraped his arm from the post and followed after.

When he reached the rental unit, Jack expected Mike to hop out so the two of them could get down to business. But Mike idled behind tinted windows for the next ten minutes. Texting a buddy in there, or updating a profile. Who knows what. Well, you couldn't expect a younger man to have the same manners and priorities as a man of 42. Jack leaned against the van and waited.

***

When he finally stepped foot from his pickup, Mike wasn't a young man after all. Had to be 50, at least. Paint-spattered work boots and a puffed-up face. Prickly sort of man. That was the impression, anyway. The neighbors would know to steer clear. The croissant and latte Jack had bought him that morning as a gesture of kindness seemed wrong now, real wrong, and would unfortunately go to waste.

"Hey, you Mike?"

Mike replied with a single nod. He fixed a can of chewing tobacco between his tiny teeth as he screwed on a Yankees cap and flicked the door shut. Didn't say Jack's name in return. Not there for names. There for a simple exchange: labor for cash.

And that was OK. They could get straight to work that way.

"Thanks for coming on such short notice, Mike. Did Ryan tell you what we're up to today?"

"Said you needed a hand moving," Mike said.

"I need to clear everything out of here and take it all down to Red Hook," Jack said. "Moving in with my fiancée. We're getting married in June. You married? No, you'd be wearing a ring. Then again, not everybody wears a ring these days. Lisa and I have been talking nothing but rings lately. Anyway, this friend of ours owns a vineyard in Livingston, looks out over the Hudson. Beautiful place. And he offered it to us, so... why not? Hayrides for the kids afterward. And there'll be dancing, of course. Getting a nice big tent for that."

Mike turned at the mention of Livingston, nodded once and turned away again.

"Anyway," Jack continued. "This unit is a relic of the old life. I need it emptied out, need all my stuff in one place, need to be done paying the monthly fee. It's 69 bucks a month—adds up, you know? Every little bit counts these days. Nice people, though. In the front office, I mean. If you ever need a storage unit in the area, I'd recommend it. Anyway," he said.

Mike might have taken a dislike for whatever reason, but Jack appreciated a man who didn't feel the need to talk all the time.

When Mike made no reply to any of this, Jack knew the man hated him. It was only an intuition, but it went bone-deep. Mike had driven right past him when he should have stopped and introduced himself, and then made him wait ten minutes in the cold while he texted or whatever. A man like Mike would be terrible to Jack if given half the chance. He wouldn't let Jack stop to relieve himself on a long car ride. He'd stop only to fill up on gas, saying to Jack, "If you're not out here by the time I'm done, I will leave you." And he wasn't joking. Jack ran to and from the men's room in terror.

Mike turned and looked at Jack for the first time. He had startlingly wet, beautiful blue eyes. "Did Ryan tell you how much I charge?"

"He said 20 an hour."

Mike nodded. "Twenty's my hourly rate."

"I couldn't do it without you, Mike, obviously, so to me 20's a steal. And I'm sure you have better things to do with your time on a Sunday morning."

"Twenty's my hourly rate," Mike repeated.

"Twenty it is, then," said Jack. "Shall we get started?"

***

Jack raised the gate on the rental unit and he and Mike sized up its contents. He was reminded of just how many boxes there were, how much crap he owned. He had a fantasy of leaving it all behind.

"Well, what do you think, Mike?" he said. "How should we do this?"

"I think we just start moving it," Mike said.

He took two steps forward, picked a pair of boxes off the nearest stack and strode up the ramp with them as if storming a castle. Before Jack could take hold of a box of his own, Mike was on his way back down again.

You couldn't win. If you said, "Let's plan this out so we do it right," a man like Mike looked at you like you were an idiot. "It ain't brain science, boy," he'd say, and then he'd just go at it. But if you said nothing of the kind, if you just went at it yourself, a man like Mike would stop you right away. "Whoa whoa whoa! Don't be a fucking retard. You can't just willy-nilly start throwing shit in when you're moving a big load. Are you no brighter than a fucking lamppost?"

Jack picked up two boxes of his own and headed after Mike in a hurry, but midway up the ramp he lost his balance. To steady himself he had to let the top box go as it began to slide off. A few things went through his mind before it even hit the ground. Clumsy. Not up to the task. Never send a boy to do a man's job. But when he looked back, Mike wasn't even paying attention. He carried on into the van.

Mike came up behind him in no time with two more boxes.

"Sorry," Jack said, hurrying to get out of the bigger man's way.

He retrieved the box that fell, and Mike headed to the storage unit for two more boxes. They met up again seconds later, Mike now at six boxes to Jack's two.

Why was he keeping score? It wasn't a competition. And if Mike thought it was? Well, he'd hired Mike. If he wanted to, he could sit back and make Mike do all the work.

***

They worked in silence to start with, but soon Jack made an attempt at some friendly conversation. The weather, and what a pain in the ass it was to move.

"You live around here, Mike?" he asked.

"What?"

"Oh, I was just asking... do you live around here?"

They were coming out of the van, Jack first, looking back, both men stomping down the dull metal ramp. Jack thought he saw Mike nod. But he offered no further detail and Jack didn't pursue the matter. Some guys had a scruple about their privacy. And who could blame them? Mike might have taken a dislike for whatever reason, but Jack appreciated a man who didn't feel the need to talk all the time.

***

But could you imagine offering a man like that a latte and a croissant? There was no way! He shook his head at himself.

He caught up with Mike a few seconds later. "So you're a Yankees fan, huh?"

"Huh?"

"Yankees fan?"

Jack gestured at the hat on Mike's head. Mike removed it, looked at it cockeyed, and put it back on. Then he picked up two more boxes and took them into the van.

***

The two men soon hit on a rhythm. Jack picked up two boxes, walked them into the van, and returned down the ramp, just as Mike was heading up the ramp with two boxes of his own. Then Mike came down the ramp as Jack was going up it, and on they went like that, back-and-forth, up and down, real companionable for 20 minutes.

"Oh, hey, Mike, I almost forgot," he said, when Mike was still in the van. "I picked up a pastry for you. If you're hungry. It's in the cab of the truck. It's from La Perche."

Why not? Stupid just to let it go to waste. And stupid not to follow through on a gesture of kindness just because Mike had a mean-looking face.

Mike came forward, pulling chewing tobacco from the can. Jack didn't see how such a fat wad was going to fit inside Mike's small, angry mouth, but Mike deposited it with a weird elegance and it completely disappeared, tightly packed away behind a lip. He wiped a glistening brown fingertip on his jeans and screwed the lid back on. "From where?" he asked. He spat to the ground.

"Oh," Jack said. "From La Perche? You know it? The French place on Warren? With the good pastries?"

Mike looked at him. "French place," he said.

He wiped his mouth with the back of his hand, jumped down to the pavement, and that was that. He carried on to the unit and went ahead by two more boxes.

***

What was only intuition a moment ago now seemed obvious. Mike hated him. It was strange. With an unreasonable hatred like Mike's, you almost feared for your life. Not that he'd bash Jack's head in with a table lamp for being annoying or for making the same mistake over and over again. But he'd certainly sooner watch him die than show him any kindness or respect.

Well, if that was how he wanted it, and if he couldn't say thanks or keep up his end of a little conversation, Jack would just stay silent, too. Why make any more effort trying to befriend him, or reassure him? You couldn't reassure a man like Mike, not of your competence or your kindness or your membership in the fraternity of men. You just had to go about your business, keeping your guard up, and part ways as soon as possible, to protect yourself. What better way to do that than by keeping silent? Jack vowed not to say another word unless and until Mike said something first.

"I'm sorry about all these boxes," Jack said the next pass up the ramp.

Mike just shrugged. What did he care? It was 20 bucks an hour for him either way.

***

Mike had the misfortune of resembling Donnie. The thing was, just very recently Donnie had turned sentimental. Didn't understand why Jack wasn't inviting him to the wedding. "Then your mother's not going, either, forget it," Donnie told him over the phone. It was just like Donnie to be on the line when Jack was trying to talk to his mom. Well, OK, fine, stay home, both of you. It wasn't like his mom was some great hero. What had she ever done to keep Donnie in check when he was a kid?

But Lisa's complaint was: If you don't invite anybody from your family, who's going to be sitting on your side of the aisle? We can't have a wedding where all the guests are on one side.

Like the wedding was some kind of boat and it would capsize if Jack didn't invite every single person he'd ever known.

"I'm not saying you have to invite every single person you've ever known," Lisa said whenever the topic came up. "I'm just saying why not let bygones be bygones?"

Well, a wedding wasn't a boat, was it? He wasn't going to invite Donnie just to put butts in seats.

But this guy Mike wasn't Donnie. Mike was a friend or an associate of Ryan's, out here in the cold on a Sunday morning for a measly 20 bucks an hour. Jack didn't hate him. To be honest, he felt sorry for the guy. Must have fucking sucked to be so old and still making a living on your back.

"Give me a hand with this, Mike, will you?"

Mike looked at the leather sofa Jack had taken hold of. "You want that in the van now?"

"Let's just get it over with," Jack said.

"OK," he said, squatting low. "Your call."

***

A man like Mike usually had some kind of a nickname. Jack couldn't say just what it would be. He thought it might come out at the wedding. "Call me Griff," Mike would say. Both men would have knocked back more than a few by then. "We sure had fun moving all that stuff of yours down to Red Hook, didn't we, Jack?" There was nothing like a day of manual labor to forge a bond between two guys. "Hey, and by the way. Thanks for inviting me. I'm real honored." Lisa would have to pull him away. "I do love how easily you make new friends," she'd say. He'd circle back before the night was through and part from Griff with a hug. Griff turning to his date afterward, saying, "Love that guy."

So it didn't work out that way. So what? It had always been a long shot.

Once Mike warmed up, he started to spurn the ramp. With a load in hand, he leapt from the blacktop to the metal bumper and into the van. He wrangled extension cords like a ranch hand. And even when you thought a load was too heavy and his hands all full, on his way out he reached for a standing lamp and took that, too. He was impressive. But it was laughable, how little he said.

When Jack brought in his next load, he found Mike in there talking on the phone. Turned away, muttering low, filling the back of the van completely, so that Jack was forced to go around him.

So he did talk, just not to Jack.

Jack wouldn't have minded talking on the phone. One more conversation with Lisa about the goddamned invite list would have been preferable to moving boxes out of storage and into a moving van.

He took out his cellphone. How was Mike getting service? Discount carrier, probably. They had weird coverage. Oh, well. Jack put his phone away and returned to the unit.

He dropped off another load and went back for more. He made a second trip and then another. Mike was still on the phone.

Well, you know what? People call, they need your help, nobody can time an emergency. All Jack needed was a little gesture. "Sorry about this," Mike might have whispered while cupping the mouthpiece. "Off in a minute."

But another five minutes went by and still no such gesture. He had even taken a seat on one of the boxes in there!

Once you disdain someone, once you decide they're not worth your respect, you do whatever you damn well please, even when he's paying you 20 bucks an hour.

"It's 27–24, just so you know," Jack said to him.

Mike looked up from his call. "What's that?"

"Oh, I was just saying that I've brought in 27 boxes to your 24."

Mike's dark monobrow furrowed. "You're keeping score?"

Jack left the van. Yeah, like Mike hadn't been keeping score, too, until he found it more important to talk on the damn phone.

He expected an apology when Mike got off at last, but Mike didn't offer one. He simply came down the ramp and carried a new load into the van.

What are we here for? Jack wondered. The question had started running through his mind before Mike was even off the phone. What are we here for? It obviously wasn't mutual respect. It wasn't to make new friends. So what was it? Was it just lifting and moving things in exchange for cash? Was that it? Squatting and lifting and climbing and digging and kneeling and hammering things in for a payday and nothing more?

"What are we here for, Mike?" he found himself asking out loud.

Not gonna go over well. But you know what? Fuck it. What did he have to lose?

Bent over, Mike looked up at him with one squinting blue eye. You could practically smell the fumes pouring off him from last night's bender.

"Is it just to move things? Or do we have some greater purpose in life? I like to think we're here for something greater. As men, I mean. But that's my two cents. What do you think? Think it's possible that you and I—"

Mike let out a grunt as he lifted the oversize AC unit flush off the cement floor and began to crab-walk it toward the van.

***

It wasn't until Jack happened upon an open box of old photographs that he began to rethink everything. Here was a shot of his Uncle Vern wearing several strands of Mardi Gras beads, puckering up before a silver trumpet. Uncle Vern would have been invited to the wedding were he still alive. And here was a rare one of his dad, also dead. His buddy Horvath—lost track of that guy after leaving Denver. Here was one of Steve and what's-her-name. She never cared for Jack, and when Steve married her, that was the end of his friendship with Steve. And here was a little photo album in among the loose pictures documenting his tortured years with Sandra. Obviously couldn't invite her. Here was one of Donnie: wide grin, cigar in his mouth, holding a fish in each hand on some dock, that stupid gap between his two front teeth. He couldn't invite him, he just couldn't. Or any of them. Take your pick. Except for Aunt Julia. But she had sent her regrets.

He tossed the box aside. Add it to the rest of the heap and let it burn.

"Be right back, Mike," he said as he left the van.

He walked up the blacktop path, past the office (deserted on Sundays) to County Route 9. Service was less spotty up there. He paced near the busy road as cars washed by until Lisa picked up. "What?" she said.

"Invite 'em," he said. "Whoever you want, invite 'em."

"Do you mean it?"

"Yeah, I mean it," he said. "What do I care? I just want you to be happy."

"Oh, Jack," she said. She hadn't sounded so warm in weeks. "What a relief." She let out a big sigh. "Donnie, too?"

"Whoever," he said. "What do I care? You can finally meet the bastard. Might be nice, actually. He'll ask your niece for a blowjob and your mother will finally understand why I never bring

family around."

"Jenny's 11, Jack."

"I'm trying to prepare you."

"Let's not talk about my niece, OK?"

"OK."

"Jack," she said, "thank you. This means so much to me. You have no idea."

"What else are we here for, right, Leese?"

"I love you, Jackie. You're such a good man."

"Love you too, Leese."

He hung up and went happily down the hill.

***

"You got a problem," Mike said when he returned.

"What is it?"

"Come see."

"Comme ça."

"What?"

"Never mind."

They had run out of room in the back of the van. But that wasn't Jack's fault! That was Mike's fault! He was the one who had failed to make a plan!

Had the tables been turned, Mike would have told Jack to get up, get the fuck up you little pussy, but Jack didn't want Mike up.

"Told you it was too early to put that sofa in," Mike said.

"Oh, so this is my fault?"

Mike shrugged.

A minute passed. Mike took a seat on a box as if he were inside the van talking on the phone again.

They could either push on, or they could take the sofa out and start over, as Donnie would have insisted he do. "And do it right this time," he'd have said, giving Jack a slap upside the head.

"Well, what are we doing? It's getting cold."

"Let's take the fucking thing out," Jack said.

***

Donnie had been right a lot of the time, that was the trouble. Jack had to admit it. Donnie did things properly. He knew a thing or two. Jack had known very little. Of course, Jack had been ten years old, or whatever. He couldn't do things as Donnie wanted them done, as a grown man did them. But now Jack was 42 years old, and he was still making a hash of things. There were boxes on the ground; there were boxes in the van; there were boxes in the unit.

Maybe his age had had nothing to do with it. Maybe Donnie was right about that, too. Making a hash of things was just what Jack did.

They were relaying the last of the book boxes from the van to the ground before taking the sofa out.

"How about I pay you in books, Mike?" he said. "God knows I got enough of them."

Mike handed off a box and went back for another.

"Not 20 bucks an hour, but 20 books an hour," he said. It was something Donnie would have said, but he wasn't serious like Donnie. He was just playing around. "What do you say? Will you take your day's pay in books?"

He came back for another box, but Mike met him at the edge of the van empty-handed. He stared down at Jack and the look on his face said it all.

"It was just a joke," Jack said.

"Twenty's my hourly rate," Mike said.

"I know," he said. "I was just joking."

But now in his mind the question had been raised, and Jack realized that Mike's view of things was the only correct one from the start. This was a simple exchange, labor for cash. It had nothing to do with gestures of kindness, or if you knew the other guy's name or not, or what man's ultimate purpose on earth might be. What the market would bear—that was the only relevant question.

So, was 20 really a fair price?

The answer was no. And not because Mike disdained Jack from the start, or wasted all that time talking on the phone, or took a seat whenever he felt like it. These days, there was bound to be someone willing to work for less—for 15 an hour, even ten—and to toss in a bit of humanity for free.

The matter was settled long ago. But whoever said negotiations couldn't be reopened? "Look, Mike," he might have said, "you and I both know that in today's job market, I don't have to pay 20 bucks an hour to find unskilled manual labor. So here's what we're going to do." He'd hand over what was owed to Mike, saying fair's fair. "But if you want the full job, I'm afraid it's 15 an hour from here on out." What would the big man say to that? Would that get him talking?

"Hey, Mike," he said.

Was he really going to do it? They had removed the sofa from the van and were loading things back in.

"What did we say, 20 an hour?"

Mike stopped what he was doing and straightened up. "Yeah?"

"Because I've been thinking more about it."

"What about?"

"Well, like how you were in there for a while talking on the phone."

More displeasure from Mike's monobrow. "Yeah?"

"Is 20 really fair?"

Suddenly Jack felt like an asshole, like Donnie. Donnie did shit like that, not Jack. Mike, poor Mike, out here on a Sunday in the cold, getting yanked around! And for what? For nothing more than reminding Jack of Donnie. And in the meantime, look what it was doing to Jack. It was turning him into Donnie!

Boom, boom, boom. Mike was down the ramp in no time. What the hell was he going to do, beat the shit out of him? "I told you already," he said. "I don't do anything for less than 20."

"But it's just moving shit."

Mike, agitated, cocked his head. The look on his face was pure murder.

"How's 25?" Jack said suddenly.

"What?"

"I said how's 25?"

"But we agreed to 20."

"And now I'm offering you more."

"How come?"

"Oh, just take it, Mike. You're out here in the cold on a Sunday morning. Take it."

Mike shook his head in confusion and returned up the ramp.

Not worth 20, and now suddenly he was paying him 25. Over and over again he'd been told to keep his fucking mouth shut, but did he ever listen? No, and now look at what you've gone and done.

***

Even after reorganizing the van, there wasn't enough room for all of Jack's things. They were going to have to make two trips, after all. Jack shuttered the gate and joined Mike in the cab.

Mike had his boot up on the dash and was eating the croissant from La Perche. Jack stared at him in open disbelief. "What are you doing?"

"What?"

"You didn't want that."

"Yeah, I did."

"You sure didn't acknowledge it."

"Acknowledge it?"

"Yeah, you didn't acknowledge it. You didn't say thanks. You didn't say anything. Would it have killed you to say thanks when I offered it to you?"

"Thanks," Mike said.

"What are you, a fucking retard?"

It just came out. Mike stared at Jack as he pointedly dropped what remained of the croissant, crumpled the bag up while chewing, and tossed it to the floor of the van.

Jack put the van in gear. They went like a cloud over the fresh blacktop, through the gate and up the incline to County Route 9.

A lovely porch, a tree swing, a cherrywood canoe beside the artificial pond. He had everything in the world he ever wanted.

They passed the rock quarry on the left, the gray pyramids of limestone and granite, and the iced-over pond in the distance, cowlicked with reeds. The road was stained white with salt from a long winter. Jack glanced over at Mike, who was now staring out the passenger-side window as if dreaming on his way back to the penitentiary. He wasn't going to say a word. All the way down to Red Hook and all the way back, not a fucking word. A man could do that, a man could choose not to speak. Be a man like Mike and shut up. Will you just shut the fuck up? Shut up now or God help me I will shut you up.

"You never asked my name," Jack said.

He waited for a reply. When none came, he said:

"This morning, when we met. You didn't ask and I didn't offer. You remember?"

"You know, you talk too much," Mike said.

"Is that right?"

"Yeah, that is right. We'd have been done a lot sooner if you talked a little less."

"That's interesting," Jack said.

More silence. Then:

"You curious?"

"Huh?"

"I said, 'Are you curious?'"

"About what?"

"What my name is."

"Oh. Well, Ryan told it to me."

"Did he?"

"Yeah."

"So you know it, then."

"Yeah."

Dull brown fields extended for acres. Then the road narrowed and shade trees crowded the shoulders. In clearings swiftly opened and swiftly shut again, modest ranch houses flitted by. Then the long brown fields returned.

"What is it?" Jack asked.

"Huh?"

"What's my name?"

Mike stared straight ahead.

"You don't know it, do you?"

"Ryan did tell it to me," he said finally. "I must of forgot it."

Jack was silent.

"I believe it might be Jack," Mike said. "Is that it?"

Jack didn't answer. They turned down a private drive lined with tall trees. They climbed a slow meandering hill to a restored farmhouse with a view of the mountains where they unloaded without a word. A lovely porch, a tree swing, a cherrywood canoe beside the artificial pond. He had everything in the world he ever wanted. Stupid to let Mike get under his skin like that.

"What do you think, Mike?"

"About what?"

"About this view."

"Asshole," Mike muttered.

The two men got back in the van. The miles rolled by, and the silence intensified.

"I talk too much?" Jack said.

"I think so," Mike said.

"Well, you talk too little."

"Is that right?"

"Would it kill you to carry on a little conversation?"

Mike made no reply.

Halfway to the storage facility, Jack pulled off to the shoulder. "You drive," he said.

"What for?"

He opened the door and the sounds of the world rushed in. He went around the van and opened the door on Mike's side.

"What am I driving for?"

"Because I'm paying you."

Mike moved over and Jack got in. Mike pulled out among the traffic heading north.

"But not $25 an hour, Mike," Jack announced on the straightaway. "I'm not paying you that."

Mike looked over. "You told me you would," he said.

"I told you 20. Then I got to joking around and this other thing came out, I don't know why. I made a mistake and I apologize for it. But 25's too much."

"You're paying me 25," Mike said.

"I don't think I am."

"I think you are."

Mike went through the light at the junction and turned into the storage facility. Jack got out at the gate and punched in the code, then slipped through the fence while Mike had to wait for it to retract. A minute later Mike blew past him. When Jack arrived at the rental unit, the bigger man was not in the cab texting as he had been earlier in the day, but pacing back-and-forth on the blacktop, his breath visible in the cold. He came to a sudden stop and said, "I ain't helping you with the rest."

"Oh, yes you are."

"Something's wrong with you," Mike said.

"Something's wrong with me?"

"I want what you owe me. And I want 25 an hour for it, just like you promised."

"You know what I used to be told, Mike? Stop acting all high and mighty, that's what I used to be told, and get the fuck back to work."

Every time Donnie came forward, as Mike did now, Jack called social services, but nothing ever changed. Well, this time Jack swung first, aiming for Mike's throat.

Mike looked silly going down. "You look like a little girl!" Mike would have said to him had the tables been turned. But no, Mike looked more like a big fat 11-year-old boy, a bully easily stunned and not likely to fight back when you stood up to him once and for all. Jack was surprised. Mike gripped his throat on the way down and began to gasp for air.

Had the tables been turned, Mike would have told Jack to get up, get the fuck up you little pussy, but Jack didn't want Mike up. He had put on a pair of steel-toed boots that morning to protect his feet during the move, and now he walked around Mike, timing every kick with a question.

"You drive past me? You don't introduce yourself? You make me wait in the cold while you text? You talk on the phone for ten minutes, but to me you can't say a word? You eat my croissant and you don't say thanks? You don't know my fucking name?"

He grew short of breath and had to stop kicking. He bent over, resting his elbows on his knees.

Mike was still clutching his windpipe. He made a sucking sound as he tried to take in air. There was blood on the blacktop.

"Alright, get up," he said to Mike. "Come on now, get up."

Jack nudged him. Then he sat next to him on the pavement. The traffic was washing faintly past high up on County Route 9.

"Alright, I'll pay you," Jack said. "I'll pay you the 25. OK?"

Jack bent down close to listen for an answer, but all he heard was the struggle for air. That was hard to believe. Mike was such a strong man, much stronger than he was.

He should have started without him. If only he'd taken a few boxes into the van while Mike was in there texting, he might not have fallen behind in the count and then none of this would have happened.

"I was even considering inviting you to my wedding," he said.

Didn't matter now. Pretty much all that mattered was what Jack would do next. He had options he'd never dreamed of having as a boy when he was under Donnie's thumb. He could say to Mike, as had so often been said to him, "You have only yourself to blame," and leave him there, struggling to breathe in that desolate storage facility, so as to teach him a lesson. Or he could man up, as he had fantasized the men of the world would do when he was still at their mercy. Mike was turning blue. He needed to see a doctor. Jack was a good man, but now he had to ask himself a serious question. What does a man do—and I mean a real man, now, what does a real man do—when he knows he's done something wrong?

This story appeared in the December Fiction Issue of VICE magazine. Click HERE to subscribe.

All photos by the author

It's a winter afternoon and Jo and Pam walk into a terraced house in Liverpool. There's a note on the doormat letterbox.

"Andrew*, can you give the office a call to say you are OK? Matt."

In the living room there's an armchair, a table with a Sky remote, an inhaler and a phone bill laid out. In the kitchen there's a dirty plate. You can see the dried remains of ketchup and baked beans.

A few weeks ago, Andrew sat down in the chair and died. He'd died alone, like the thousands of people in Britain who do so every year – a number that is increasing rapidly. He was discovered by his landlord after the accountancy firm he worked for called the police to check up on him. A full autopsy hasn't been performed yet, but it is believed that the cause of his death derived from chest problems.

Jo and Pam have a grim job. They run the local council's "death administration" team, looking after all the arrangements for people who've died alone that friends or relatives would normally take care of. They organise their funeral, sort out their will and clear the belongings out of their home.

Once we get into the living room, Pam and Jo get out their "search bag" and a litter grabber. On some jobs they'll pull on protective suits, gloves and shoe protectors. They might spray some air freshener before they start. Andrew's body, however, was removed a few weeks ago. "Normally it's much worse," says Jo, "with stuff up to your waist and flies everywhere."

On every job the pair are looking for traces of any possible family members – long-lost cousins or estranged partners or children. "This will often be in the form of photographs, letters or a birthday card saying, 'To Uncle so-and-so....' or whatever," says Pam. "We're dealing with private people who keep themselves to themselves, but who often die when they feel they've got no one."

Jo and Pam go to the bedroom first. There's a cupboard, with little else in it other than the shirts Andrew wore for work, recently dry-cleaned. It's a bare house with few possessions, although he obviously loved sport – there are boxes of Everton football and England cricket programmes, and ticket stubs going back decades. Andrew had no known partner, children or siblings. The only signs of companionship are photo albums from holidays to watch cricket and Everton overseas, sometimes with people who look like they could have been friends, sometimes without.

According to a report from the Longevity Centre, the number of men living alone will rise from 911,000 in 2014 to 1.5 million by 2013. The research found that over 1.2 million men aged over 50 reported a moderate to high degree of social isolation, while 710,000 men aged over 50 reported a high degree of loneliness.

The vast majority of the death team's cases are male. "Men are the ones who most often isolate themselves from friends and family," Pam explains.

Jo and Pam are also on the lookout for a will, financial documents and any valuable possessions. "We know where to look first," says Pam. "People put cash and things in mugs and socks and mattresses normally." They find Andrew's will in an Iceland carrier bag in his bedroom. Later they find out that both of the two people to whom he assigns his estate – his stepfather and his re-married partner – are dead. Not that it would have made a difference if they were alive – the company that authorised it doesn't exist any more.

You've got to keep your distance from cases to do them efficiently, but you do take a few cases home with you, that are really harrowing.

Around 90 percent of people with no next of kin will not leave a will, Jo and Pam say. So anything valuable they find will be added to the safe at the council offices. Depending on how much money a person has left behind, the cost of the funeral alone can wipe out most of it. The average cost of a basic funeral is currently at around £3,900 nationwide, the fastest rising fixed cost in the UK of the last decade, outstripping the inflation of rent, food and utilities.

Typically, if a subject doesn't have the means to pay for their own funeral, Jo will arrange a "contract" or "public health" funeral – historically known as "pauper's funerals". The service will likely have no attendees. There will be no headstone, and in some counties where land is especially scarce – such as London and South Wales – the body will be buried in a communal, or "mass", grave plot. With an 11 percent increase in public health funerals in the last four years, Jo's team is arranging an increasing number of these types of services.

Through their search of Andrew's bedroom, Pam comes across a bank statement that shows Andrew has £40,000 sitting in a bank account. For other valuables, they learn from Andrew's landlord that David*, a colleague of Andrew's, has already been into the property since he died and taken Andrew's watch, a ring, his passport and his wallet, under the auspices of "keeping them safe", despite having no right to do so. David somehow also knows that he has £40,000 in his account, and on the phone tries to argue that it should be Andrew's boss who sorts out the estate.

Pam tells him otherwise.

"We get this thing all the time," she says. "People coming out of the woodwork to take advantage."

Winter is Jo and Pam's busiest time of year. An older person dies every seven minutes in the UK in winter – a figure largely put down to shockingly high levels of fuel poverty. They'll be out again at more properties tomorrow, searching for items that might be able to help them trace friends or relatives. It's a bleak but necessary job.

Pam and Jo both came into their jobs through helping vulnerable people – Pam was a social worker, Jo a nurse. "You've got to keep your distance from cases to do them efficiently, but you do take a few cases home with you that are really harrowing," says Pam. "On very, very rare occasions we'll go to the funeral, and we might be the only people there," says Jo.

Buried deep in a drawer they find a photo of a little boy who turns out to be Andrew's godson, Paul*, who may have some rights to his estate. In cases like this, the council's solicitor will try to locate these long-lost friends and family, a process that can take several months, using family trees and an extensive database. If no one can be found by the solicitor, all the photos, certificates and football programmes will be thrown away. Any other assets will be handed over to the Crown Estate and invested into charitable foundations.

After that, the person's file will be closed and the team move on to the next job.

*Names have been changed

Tabloids, famously, don't have the best reputation. This year alone, some of the most influential British red tops have actively played a hand in fostering xenophobia; published some strange stuff about gun-toting adult refugees supposedly moonlighting as children; and very loudly and hysterically lost their shit en masse at some judges for upholding the law.

So there's that. But what of the people staffing these places? In my experience, the majority of tabloid journalists are just looking for quick bylines and a steady paycheque. When it comes to the exaggerated stories and headlines, it's certain editors you need to blame. Many of those I've encountered don't actually believe the bullshit they put out, but that's all the more insidious: sensationalism sells, so editors ramp it up without a care for the effect it will have on the public. And, as we've seen this year, the effects aren't generally all that positive.

From the outside, it may seem like red tops couldn't possibly sink any lower, but as someone with years of experience in the industry, I can assure you what's published often falls far short of what some editors wish they could print. To give you a sense of what goes on in some tabloid newsrooms, I scribbled down a handful of snippets from a number of editors' conversations as they were happening.

Some of their remarks were too awful to reproduce, so here's what we're left with: what some tabloid editors really think about the state of the world and the "everyday British people" they champion in print.

On readers:
"Our target audience is fascists, racists and idiots. No point pretending otherwise."

On casually breaking the law:
"I put a bet on the winner of Bake Off every year. Sure, it's illegal , but how could you not when the answer's right there in front of you?"

On the Confederate flag:
"It's just a flag – people are so fucking fragile. Who gives a shit about what it symbolises? There are bigger problems in the world."

On the decline of journalism as we know it:
"Online journalism is essentially control C and control V. Oh, I shouldn't have said that, should I? "

On a photo taken of Black Friday shoppers:
"Horrible fucking chavs fighting over a TV. What scum. Look at that fat fucking slag in the middle there. Vile! Horrible!"

On Brexit, while clinking champagne glasses in celebration of the result:
Cheers to Brexit – may it be hard and fast!

On the BBC requesting a legitimate correction to a mistake:
"That prick at the BBC can fuck off – I don't care what his problem is. Does he think I give a shit? Because if he does, he's dim."

On entrapment, which journalists shouldn't worry about apparently?
"Entrapment is mostly a myth – we're fine. If it's not the police, it's just not an issue."

On overweight people's clothing preferences:
Editor one: "Look at that fat fucking cow! And she's wearing shorts – is she trying to blind me?"
Editor two: "I hate to break it to you, but fat people are people, too."
Editor one: "People don't look like that, mate."

On the unceasing tabloid obsession with celebrity:
"It's literally Holly Willoughby every fucking day. This time she's eaten a bowl of fucking cereal. We did one on her almost accidentally showing her vagina on telly yesterday, but then she didn't. What's the fucking point? Holly Willoughby, I swear to God."

On The X Factor and Honey G:
"Anyone who watches The X Factor is a fucking idiot, but the people going nuts about her shit rapping are the thickest of the thick. Don't they know the whole point of Honey G is to get them angry enough to keep watching?"

On foreign people "taking over" the public school system:
"I plan to have my children privately educated, where they won't be surrounded by foreigners. I know there are loads of Chinese and Indian kids in private schools, but they're OK because their parents push them to get the best grades."

READ: Yes, But Which of Today's Newspaper Front Pages Is Most Hysterical of Them All?

Take into account the power that tabloid newspapers wield over the masses, and these quotes become a little more worrying; the people behind them are some of those who set the agenda for millions of Brits every day.

But is it the same story everywhere? Do all the arseholes gravitate towards the right-leaning, immigrant-bashing, hate-spreading tabloids, or is being callous just in some people's nature, regardless of where they work?

At the end of a recent shift I asked a new employee what her time at a marginally more left-wing publication was like. Was she witness to the same amount of problematic statements on a daily basis there? "I've worked on local papers, right and left-leaning dailies, and they're all the same," she said. "So it doesn't really matter where you go; this is it."

That said, I've also met and worked for a number of editors who don't see it as their duty to stoke fear and division. So never fear: there are still plenty of decent ones out there.

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Silviu Timofte, a candidate for Romanian Parliament

This Sunday, legislative elections will be held in Romania. Like the outcome of the American election and the Brexit referendum showed, voters are also looking for a change – but it's a stale, nostalgic kind of change. Voters want things to be like they imagine they were in the past. That's no different in Romania.

Being a photographer, I've spent the past few months attending the rallies of different political parties in Romania, looking for a common aesthetic among people who hope to take power and the people who support them. I took the pictures below in November, at a rally of the People's Movement Party in Arad, in West Romania. The party is relatively new – this is the first time they run in a legislative election – but its founder and leader is very familiar with Romanian politics. Traian Băsescu served as President of Romania from 2004 to 2014, and he now hopes to become Prime Minister. He was considered a controversial leader, yet that didn't stop hundreds of people from showing up to the rally to show their support.

See more of Ciprian Hord's work on his website and his Instagram account.

Traian Băsescu, former president of Romania and leader of the People's Movement Party

Two ladies who came to see the former president

The man on the right is a parliamentary candidate in these elections

Women in traditional Romanian garb came to greet the former president

The former Romanian president socialising with a young boy. He was accused of hitting a child during his mayoral campaign

A local party leader and his bodyguard

A supporter

Florin Remețan, leader of the local chapter of the People's Movement Party

Eugen Tomac, executive president of the party

A parliamentary candidate

Petru Gherman, another parliamentary candidate

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This article originally appeared on VICE Australia.

Four thousand three hundred.

That's how many people the Global Slavery Index estimates are enslaved in Australia today. It's a number that seems manageable—something a country as wealthy as Australia could overcome. At the same time, it's unbelievable. How could this be happening in 2016?

However Fiona David, executive director of global research at the Walk Free Foundation, is quick to warn about reducing this problem to a statistic. "Numbers like 4,300 people in modern slavery are pretty alarming," she says. "But I think it's really important to look at people who are behind those numbers."

Fiona dives into the story of young man named Sam, who came to Australia on the promise of a job in construction through friends of friends. "By the time Sam got out of that situation he was blind in one eye and had a brain injury," Fiona explains, pausing for a moment. "His employer, who was making him work was so violent..." Sam was never paid, other than what his employer called "cigarette money." He was only 17 years old.

"It's important to realise that when we're talking about modern slavery, we're not just talking about people having bad jobs," Fiona says. "We use that terminology about situations where someone is forced to work and they can't leave—they can't say no. It really is a very extreme situation."

Walk Free's research has found people who are enslaved, both in Australia and around the world, come from all ages and backgrounds. In the past, there has been a focus on women trafficked into the sex industry; however, there's growing risk in industries like agriculture and cleaning. Increasingly, men and underage children are affected in significant numbers too.

As Fiona points out though, the risks for women who are enslaved are distinct. "It's really hard to draw the line between what's sex trafficking and what's labour trafficking, when very often these crimes seem to involve different abuses and sexual violence," she says. "Sex trafficking can happen in the Australian sex industry, and it has, but I think it's important to recognise that even in cases of domestic workers or agricultural workers unfortunately when women are involved sexual assault tends to be involved as well."

Another misconception is that modern slavery is pulled off through highly organised crime. "Sometimes it is, absolutely that's the case. But sometimes, alarmingly, it's just kind of your average family next door that just happen to have a domestic worker who doesn't see the light of day for three years," Fiona says. "People see somebody is vulnerable—they see an opportunity—and they are willing to take it."

Fiona points to Sandra, who worked with a Australian family in the Pacific Islands, and came to Australia to work for them when they moved back home. "They told her they'd sort all of her immigration paperwork out and she just needed to come," Fiona says. "Unfortunately they were deceiving her the whole time. Sandra was here for three years working without pay, kept in a private house. She wasn't allowed to leave, wasn't allowed to make phone calls...

"That's one example, one of the people that's behind that number."

Eventually, Sandra was able to get out, after some concerned neighbours befriended her and called immigration, fearing for her welfare. Hers is one of the hopeful stories where things turned out okay. And, as Fiona points out, there are protections in Australia for enslaved workers who come forward and cooperate with police. "But it's not an easy pathway. I don't think anybody would suggest it's some free ride to permanent residency," she says. "It involves a lot of engagement with the police over a long time—some of these court cases can last for six years."

It's something of a catch-22 that the very department that can help these people is the one they've been coached to fear most. Many enslaved workers come from countries plagued by corrupt law enforcement, and most are threatened by the people exploiting them that they'll be deported by immigration if they step out of line. "Even if that's not true, the threat of that is enough to really hold people back from talking to the authorities," Fiona says. "The number of people who are going to put their hands up and say, 'I need help' in this situation are really quite small. We can't just rely on a law and order response."

Walk Free wants the Australian Government to take more action to end modern slavery. There's need for a more community-based way for people to report abuse, one that doesn't necessarily require them to go to the police. Fiona also points to programs that have worked overseas, like those in the UK and California, which encourage businesses to be transparent about their entire global supply chain.

"It is absolutely what's happening in Australia," she says. "But it's also what's happening in, say, Thai fishing." She's referring to cases that have been unearthed recently, of fishermen that were literally being enslaved on islands, whipped with stingray tails, and kept in cages. Reporting by the New York Times painted a stark picture: Those who fled recounted horrific violence: the sick cast overboard, the defiant beheaded, the insubordinate sealed for days below deck in a dark, fetid fishing hold.

"The sort of things that you couldn't make it up if you tried," Fiona says. "Fish from these markets are coming to Australia." And this is the issue at the heart of modern slavery—it's a global problem. More often than not, it sees people from poor countries being exploited for the gain of those who live in wealthy countries.

The 4,300 people in slavery in Australia make up just a tiny percentage of the 45.8 million people who are still enslaved around the world. Fifty-eight percent of whom are held in just five countries—India, China, Pakistan, Bangladesh, and Uzbekistan. It's no coincidence these are the countries that produce the goods we've come to expect at incredibly low prices. "We all buy clothes, we all buy electronics, we all buy food," Fiona says. Or, to put it simply—we are all complicit.

"Something that someone said to me once that I thought was really wise was, " is about vulnerability,'" Fiona says. "If you add to that you're an irregular migrant, that's another layer of vulnerability. The more of those factors you have, the more vulnerable you can be. So it's not about men or women, or adults or children—it's what situation somebody is in and how exploitable are they."

Follow Maddison on Twitter

Photos by Kas van Vliet

This article originally appeared on VICE Netherlands

Having a face tattoo is quite the statement. There's no hiding it – not when you're just popping into the newsagent's for a carton of milk and a KitKat, not during your first meeting with the parents of the love of your life. It's always there, making as much contact with the person you're communicating with as your eyes and your mouth.

Bram Zaliger has had a tattoo on his face for decades. It's a flame, right in the middle of his forehead. Although it's relatively small, it's still rather inescapable. I've always wanted to know what that's like to have a face tattoo, so I asked Bram all about it.

VICE: Why did you decide to get a tattoo on your forehead?
Bram Zaliger: I got it in 1982 in Amsterdam, when I was almost 30. I was a little rebellious at the time – I was part of the squatting movement in Amsterdam and I wanted a tattoo in a place, where most people didn't have one. That's how it ended up on my forehead.

What did your mum say when she saw it?
I had no contact with my parents at that time, so I never saw their reaction. My friends really had to get used to it. And you constantly have to explain what's on your face — what it means and why you have it. You're always the centre of attention. I got used to that over the years. The attention doesn't bother me any more. It's just a bit annoying when people keep asking questions about it.

Sorry. What are the dumbest questions you get about it?
It's mostly just the way people approach me that's really stupid. I can see people staring at me from miles away. Then they circle around me for a couple of minutes, finally come up to me and say: "Can I ask you something?" Fuck off. It may sound a bit dramatic, but it feels like they're violating my privacy. And sometimes people ask me if I'm a fireman.

Right. Why the flame?
I don't remember, really. I believe it had something to do with fire of the spirit. It used to be tiny, but I had it made bigger when the colours started to fade. That happens every couple of years, especially if the tattoo is constantly exposed to sunlight. After a while, there was only a small doodle left. Everyone thought it was supposed to be a droplet, but it wasn't – it's a flame. To make sure people knew, I had it done again – and bigger that time.

Do people ever think your tattoo represents some kind of extreme political conviction?
They mostly wonder whether I got it for religious reasons. I think they sometimes confuse it with those dots Hindus have on their foreheads – the ones that represent a third eye. Anyway, I'm not really a religious person. My tattoo is purely decorative.

Is it more painful to get a tattoo on your face?
I did really feel the drilling on my skull. There's no fat between the skin and the bone and the skin is very thin. So that wasn't very comfortable. Luckily, I had been drinking a little to ease the pain so it wasn't that bad.

Have you ever had issues at work because of your tattoo?
No. Before I got it, I had already decided to never get a job again in a place, where that would be a problem. I worked at a tree farm and I'd had a couple of desk jobs before but when I got my tattoo, I knew that I never wanted to do anything like that again. I've tried a lot of different jobs, and right now I work at a bar in a rehearsal studio for bands. The music world is pretty used to tattoos, of course.

Have you ever glanced at the mirror and thought: "Oh, Christ"?
Yes, that happens, but those moments go as quickly as they come. Especially in the beginning, when I constantly had to explain to my family, friends and acquaintances why I had done it — I sometimes cursed myself for having it. But that feeling only lasted for about a year.

Does your tattoo get you laid more?
I wouldn't know. I used to have a girlfriend, who was crazy about it. I also dated a woman for while, who had a tattoo of a snake on the back of her head. It was covered by her hair, but every once in a while she would shave her head so that the snake would pop up.

Do you ever consider getting more tattoos on your face?
I've definitely thought about it, but I like it the way it is. I don't want my face to be covered in tattoos. I have them on other places – a rose on my arm, a bull's head and a tramp stamp on my lower back. That last one was because a girlfriend really wanted me to have one as a symbol for our relationship. I'm not sure why, but I just did it.

Thank you!

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As we all know, the future president of the United States is a yuge fan of Twitter. He's also a big proponent of complaining on Twitter, specifically about Hamilton and SNL. So when Matt Lauer interviewed Donald Trump on the Today show, the host asked the president-elect about his Twitter habits. Trump tried to pivot and just talked about how many followers he had.

Last night, on Desus & Mero, the Kid Mero and Desus Nice talked about the Today show interview and Trump's social media meltdowns. There's nothing quite like overcompensating for tiny hands by having big Twitter fingers. Sad!

Be sure to catch new episodes weeknights at 11:30 PM ET/PT on VICELAND.

As a queer media critic, I've watched a lot of web series. As just your regular fan of lesbian storylines, I've watched many more. Some of my favorites never get more than a few hundred views while others fill convention rooms with excited adolescent girls. In any case, one thing is obvious: They're not going away anytime soon.

To put it simply: Queer women are hungry for more queer content. That's always been the case, but around 2008—with the release of web series like B.J. Fletcher: Private Eye, Anyone But Me, and 3Way—it seemed to finally click that we could expect to find this content online, and that we could expect it to be good.

We could also expect, and we continue to expect, a certain level of accountability within these web series that Hollywood has largely been able to dodge. In 2016, the year of Bury Your Gays, it's refreshing to see series creators—most often queer women themselves—eschew this trope by refusing to kill off their queer female leads.

Being independent and on the web, rather than on television, gives these artists more control. I've spoken to creators who have told me they could've worked with bigger budgets if they asked for or accepted more outside funds, but didn't so they could retain complete control of their projects. Some of these same creators have also told me the reason they took to the web to begin with is because their series wouldn't fly on network television, where diversity—at almost all levels—is still lacking.

But these series are absolutely flying with fans online and in the post-Carmilla (the vampire web series that became an internet phenomenon) era. With a growing number of web series available to viewers, it can be hard to pick which ones to watch next. To make things easier on you, here are seven queer web series, a mix of comedies and dramas from the US, Canada, Spain, and Italy that are worth your time.

Chapstick

This Chicago-based comedy follows best friends Marlo and Addy as they navigate their early 20s and high femme girlfriends. Early on in the series, they're both left single when the two women they had been dating, Trina and Maxine (played by the same actresses who play Marlo and Addy), leave them for each other. It's OK, though, because viewers will know Marlo and Addy belong together by the end of the first episode—but will they (especially the particularly oblivious Marlo...)?

This is definitely a quirky show, with episodes dedicated to each girl watching/reacting to Blue Is the Warmest Color and another dedicated to Marlo's UTI. The series gets extra points for including other interesting queer characters, including a small cameo from a sassy devil.

Full Out

We're back in Chicago with Full Out, but this time, it's all about the drama. Black Swan left us hungry for queer ballerinas, and this web series delivers the goods. Full Out follows the story of Claire, a prodigy who's getting a second chance at fame after coming back from a bad injury. She's had to settle for making her comeback through a smaller dance company belonging to Xan, a former mentor who seems to thrive on playing mind games with her dancers. This includes pitting Claire up against fellow queer dancer Taylor for the same part.

Taylor has a reputation for sleeping with her colleagues and certainly has her sights set on Claire. But Claire's not out, and, more important, she already has a partner, Max (Carmilla's Kaitlyn Alexander!). Still, she's not completely unaffected by Taylor. She has to decide, however, what matters most: the dancing or the girl?

It's Complicated

It's Complicated is set entirely in Skye and Lance's home because they never actually go out (except for that one time Skye was checking out guys and girls in her neighborhood park, as every good bisexual awakening dictates), but it works because the queer comes to them.

Skye and Lance are platonic exes that have decided to continue living together until their lease is up in six months. That leaves a lot of time to deal with Skye's recent identity crisis—she discovered she also likes women after sleeping with a workmate but isn't quite sure how she feels about labels. Surprised at first, Lance ends up being the best source of support Skye could've hoped for. He's so game that he's willing to pretend he's gay until Skye finally manages to fess up to her work crush Alex that she does indeed live with her straight male ex. What could possibly go wrong, right?

LSB: The Series

This series has widely been referred to as "Italy's The L Word," and it manages to be even more dramatic. Just like The L Word, there are always new faces, goodbyes, and breakups, so be wary if you have attachment issues.

LSB: The Series has its own power couple (Tibetters, I give you Martlia), an Italian Shane, a Jenny/Dana hybrid and, weirdly, an endearing Alice/Tonya mashup who goes by Filomena. In non-L Word terms: The power couple is going through some troubles because one of them wants to be with a man, Nick sets about teaching baby dyke Benny the ways of lesbians and the two end up falling for each other, while Filomena—a bisexual, high-maintenance actress—brings comic relief to the show.

Notas Aparte

This Spanish comedy hits all the right notes even if the central storyline of a student falling for her tutor threw me at first. Look, if you were cool with Loving Annabelle (and let's face it, most of us were), the authority figure and age difference bars are much lower here, so just roll with it.

In Notas Aparte, Sara is the not-quite-18-yet stubborn teenager who needs help with her art history lessons. Her mom pays for Elena, an art major, to come over and give her daughter private lessons. But being able to spot a lesbian when she sees one, Elena decides to give Sara some queer lady advice instead. But first, Sara has to come around to accepting who she is, and she has to get a handle on her hot-for-teacher crush. Elena, however, has her own issues with boundaries, which further complicates the narrative.

Retail Rejects

This Canadian web series about retail workers features two lesbian relationships. Having not worked in a clothing store before, I'm going to assume everything that happens at Brinkerhoff & Coemans is par the course, and that this uttered line in particular is true: "Everyone's a lesbian. If they're not a lesbian, they're gay."

Well, no, not everyone's gay, but their super eager/nitpicking boss, Damien (a dead ringer for Darren Criss), is. But watching this series is all about shipping new girl Ella with the jaded Charlie, as well as waiting for two of the Britneys (there are three in total) to get their act together. All the while they have to be on the lookout for the corporate espionage efforts of enemy store Eternally 22.

The Leslie

If you're living in LA where just about everybody has a lesbian web series and you only find out you're gay in your late 20s, you just might be clueless. Well, Leslie is, but at least she has her equally misguided straight friends to help her navigate lesbian life in Lez Angeles.

The Leslie tackles the big gay issues of 2016: snapbacks that make you look like Harry Styles, straight girl crushes, going to a lesbian club alone, overwhelming sexts, and more. Don't feel too bad for Leslie, though—not all of us have a super cute neighbor who's clearly crushing on us. I'm pretty sure you'll all want to be the queer friends Leslie doesn't have after watching this show.

Follow Daniela Costa on Twitter.

There's no exact science behind which old TV segments will be forgotten and which will become high-grade meme fodder. So we may never know what prompted the digging up of this segment from Emu's All Live Pink Windmill Show's "Can't Stop the Music" segment in late November. Regardless, within days, the clip of ten kids being very enthusiastic about their own names has managed to find its way all over the internet, from viral tweets through companies capitalizing on the meme.

I wanted to find out how it feels to discover your face has gone global 32 years after filming a little opening sequence video for TV show, so I tracked down some of the cast to ask them.

VICE: What do you remember about filming the segment? How did you feel about it at the time?
Catrina: I loved it. It was so much fun, but very nerve-racking as it was live TV. We were told just before we went to air there would be millions of people in England watching this; who knew there would be even more worldwide in 2016.

Hugh: Up until a few years ago, when some co-workers stumbled across the clip on YouTube, I didn't really remember much about it. Now, the memories have come flooding back. I recall being nervously excited about doing a live TV show, because up until then, all our Emu's World shows were pre-recorded, so it was a huge deal and no one wanted to be the one to get it wrong on the day.

Emma: I remember it like it was yesterday. I was excited and nervous at the same time because we were going out live on TV for the first time.

Debbie now

Debbie: I remember this episode being the first of the live shows, hence why we did the named introductions. I always got nervous before any performance, but we were stage school kids, so we were trained and poised and just got on with it. It was a good, exciting, and happy time.

Spencer: For this new live format, they only had ten children, whereas there had been 20 to 30 before, and we were more involved in the show, so they had us perform this little song to introduce ourselves. I was very nervous as I hadn't done any live TV before, but once it all begun and we went live, it was an amazing experience—such a buzz.

Joe: I remember thinking that it didn't rhyme! I wasn't quite sure about the line, "And I'm Joe to you!"—like I'm Brenda to everyone else?

Abbie: At the time, I was the youngest and had been for a while. I have no particular memories of this routine as I had so much fun filming them all. I was nervous and very excited, as it was a live show.

Catrina now

What did you do in the years after, and what are you up to now?
Catrina: I was lucky! Once I left the show and Corona Academy stage school, I went straight into a touring musical, had a record contract with CBS Epic, and released a single called "Born Too Late." I then went on to present The DJ Kat Show for a couple of years in the early days of Sky1. Now I'm creating and performing in theater in education shows in Australia, and I currently have five shows available for pre-school age kids. I live with my two fabulous kids, who scarily enough both have a passion for the arts.

Hugh: After I left school, I tried to pursue a career in dancing and acting, but the parts available I wasn't keen on doing at all, or if I did like the part, I wasn't successful in getting it. My love for the martial arts had set in at this point, and I'd started studying various martial arts styles, which I still do to this day. Now I'm a 6th Dan master in the art of Choi Kwang Do. I'm also a combat fitness instructor, and I teach a drum 'n' bass-inspired workout called "Fight Klub"; I have classes in Islington and Watford. This year, I was voted "People's Choice Instructor of the Year."

Emma: I went on to teach dance and drama at a stage school called Kidz in the Biz. I had four sons, and, for the past ten years, I have worked for Disney's The Lion King in the Lyceum Theatre West End as wardrobe assistant, so now I put actors on the stage.

Abbie now

Joe: I continued to act and present on kids' TV throughout the 90s—Motormouth, Spatz, Megamania, The DJ Kat Show. I was also in an episode of Poirot. I'm a director, cameraman, and video editor now, which is a lot less embarrassing.

Spencer: After this series, I was lucky enough to do another 13-week live run. I was always a bit of a joker, and during this run, one of my pranks went wrong, and I broke an elevator in the hotel we stayed in—not good. Anyway, I wasn't chosen to work on the show after that series had ended; I think I was too much of a liability. So I was 14 by this time and a bit lost to be honest as I had been involved with the show for such a long time. I did a few bits of dancing here and there, but it was never the same as working with the old gang, and I quickly realized that I really didn't want to be a performer. So I eventually started working for a research company, and I still work in the research industry now—mostly in data management, which is quite a different path from jumping about in Pink Windmill.

Debbie: I stayed at Corona Academy until I was 17 years old, and then sadly, in 1988/89, they closed the school down. In my mind, I was an actress, and that was that. So when the school closed down, I was at a loss for a second. Then my mother told me to go to college and do a computer degree. So I did. I still worked in acting for a few years during college, and appeared in The Bill, Desmonds, and other bits and pieces. However, when I finished my degree, I went into advertising—it was as close to the "arts" as I could get—and here I have stayed. I have a wonderful son, who's a musical prodigy—according to me, anyway—and a great partner. In my spare time, I write poetry, which I've performed a couple of times. Oh, and I'm a HUGE Beyoncé fan. Love her. I'm not sure how that's relevant, but then again, I'm in a 30-year-old viral video, so...

Abbie: I'm a very happy wife, mother of a daughter, and I have just completed an ambulance technician course. I've also been involved in politics over a number of years.

Hugh now

How do you feel about the resurfacing of the video and its new life as a meme?
Catrina: Initially, I was surprised, then very reminiscent; this was a great, fun, exciting, and happy time of my life. Do I find it fun or weird, or am I enjoying it? Yes, all of the above. People on the whole seem to love the color and joy, even if it is a little cheesy.

Hugh: I was contacted back in October, and a friend of mine asked me if the "Hugh" in the clip was me. When I saw the heading, I laughed, but at the same time, I was mortified and a little annoyed, to be honest. I urged my friend not to share it with anyone, thinking it wouldn't go any further. Then, toward the end of November, I started getting messages from random people asking if I was the guy in the clip, and a few friends also started to comment. I saw the clip had nearly 2 million views and thought, Damn! It's gone viral! so I just had to embrace it.

Now I'm enjoying my second round of "15 minutes of fame." I thought people were going to be cruel, and on some comments I've read, they have been. However, the majority of people have been really nice and have enjoyed watching the clip several times because it makes them laugh. I'm OK with it now. I think the thing that worried me the most was being seen in pink jogging bottoms—NOT LEGGINGS—that I had rolled up way too high. I'm cringing at the thought of it now.

Emma now

Emma: I think it's funny. It's been so nice to reminisce over it; we had so much fun doing the show, and I have such wonderful memories.

Joe: When I first saw it I couldn't stop laughing—it's like we're all off our heads on happy pills. Imagine turning up to work on your first day and being welcomed like that! Debbie and Abbie can't wait to get out of their seats, and what about Anthony mouthing their lines? Then we go into some weird arm wiggle move? "Camp" is an understatement.

Spencer: I think it's rather amusing. And off the back of it, we've all decided to meet up in the new year. Although some of us see one another from time to time, we haven't all been together at the same time for 30 years, so I'm really looking forward to us all getting together.

Debbie: I think it's hilarious. I love that, after 30-odd years, a show that gave a few kids something to look forward to on a Wednesday afternoon at 4 PM is now giving a good few million people something to laugh about all over the world. Especially since there hasn't been much to laugh about in 2016. So a bit of light relief, with my mush all over it, is bloody awesome! Advertisers pay hundreds of thousands of pounds for one-third of the views, so to me it's viral video gold.

Abbie: It's been fabulous and has brought back so many happy memories. If it puts a smile on someone's face, it makes it even better!

Follow Marianne Eloise on Twitter.

Kristine Wathne is a young, talented artist living in Norway who is currently studying photography for her undergrad. Her first book, Mania, came out earlier this year and documents seven people and their strange collections of ultra-tight jeans, wedding dresses, Thai souvenirs, 50s paraphernalia, and pens, among other oddities. She says the project "was driven by a fascination for the atypical—of collectors, fetishism, and subculture." Here's a taste of what's inside the book.

Kristine Wathne is a photographer based in Trondheim, Norway. You can follow her work here.

Photo of Patricia Lockwood by Grep Hoax/courtesy of Riverhead/Penguin Random House

Dubbed "Twitter's poet laureate" by the Daily Dot, Patricia Lockwood is one of the internet's funniest, wittiest, and most beloved writers. Her devastating 2013 prose poem "Rape Joke" was the rare instance of a contemporary poem heard round the world—or at the very least social media—a piece that New York's Kat Stoeffel called "the final word in the rape-joke debate, if we can call it that."

Her poems have appeared in such hallowed halls as the New Yorker and Poetry, but the 34-year-old Indiana native is also the only writer I'm aware of who has gotten both the Paris Review and TJ Maxx to respond to tweets, persuading the former to actually review Paris (the verdict: "It's pretty good!").

VICE is proud to present an exclusive excerpt from her hilarious upcoming memoir, Priestdaddy, out from Riverhead in May 2017.

—James Yeh, culture editor

MILFs and the Seminarian

Somehow or other, the seminarian has heard about MILFs and he is haunted by the concept. He fears hordes of MILFs are roaming the plains of dating, simultaneously breastfeeding and trying to trick young men into having sex with them. "Are MILFs something that's popular in secular culture for guys in their 20s to go after?" he asks.

"Yes," I say gravely, signaling Jason across the room to write that quote down word for word. "Very, very popular. The most popular thing now."

His eyes widen and he crosses his legs, as if to protect his holy jewels from the very notion of a MILF. I consider other possible lies to tell him.

In Britain they call them nummy mummies, and due to the gender imbalance left over from the Great War, there are two of them for every male.

There's no way of telling whether your own mother is a MILF, but if she likes to play bingo, it's almost certain.

The wine of Italy is stomped out by MILFs, so when you taste the wine, you are tasting their desire.

During the full moon, a MILF lactates a powerful sex milk that is instantly addictive to any man who tries it.

He interrupts my reverie to explore the subject further. "What's the difference between a MILF and a cougar?"

"Cougars are... hornier," I say, thinking fast. "A MILF doesn't have to be horny at all, it just has to be a Mom You'd Like to F, but a cougar is horny, and it prowls."

"So disordered," the seminarian breathes. Calling people "disordered" is practically his favorite thing to do, and a tawny animal woman who chases after tender cubs is about as disordered as it gets. "I hope I never meet one."

I get very close to his face and fix him with my most feline expression. "Too late, buddy. You already have."

Gay Inkblots and the Seminarian

I want to take the Gay Inkblot Test so bad I can taste it. According to my father, they administer an inkblot test to all the men who are studying to become priests in order to determine whether they're possessed by the handsome little demon of Same Sex Attraction. (He refers to it as SSA, both for jauntiness and to save time.) I'm not sure whether the inkblots themselves have been somehow designed to be gay—balls everywhere, kaleidoscopic bursts of abs, the words "I'M GAY" doing backflips in the ink, a dong on the classic Rorschach butterfly—or whether they just expect people to see gay things in them. Either way, the test cannot be categorized as either scientific or sane, but my father places great faith in it.

"It's foolproof," he tells me, with the self-satisfaction of a man who knows he would pass. If he took the test, he would see only Batmobiles, but these guys would see the naked body of Robin. His beliefs about homosexuality are in general keeping with those of the church, with a few small but distinctive flourishes of his own. Earlier this week, for instance, he informed me Elton John became gay because he was "raised by too many aunts."

When the seminarian took the inkblot test, he saw bunnies. "You saw... bunnies?" I ask. "Bunnies are fine," he says with authority.

"Bunnies are very wholesome. What you DON'T want to see is half-animal half-humans. That would show you were messed up." Apparently, regular bunnies are just evidence you love Easter, but woe to the one who looks into the ink and sees a rabbit with the luscious lower half of a man.

Important: Do you understand how badly I would fail this test? I would get something worse than an F. But my father refuses to even let me look at the Gay Inkblots. He's afraid of what he might find. He knows he was saved from ever seeing me bring home a girl named Boots with screws in her ears for one reason and one reason only: Because I got married when I was 21 to a man I met in cyberspace.

"We don't know if it works on women," they say cautiously, when I raise the subject amid the happy family clamor of the dinner table.

"That's not... we haven't studied that yet."

"In fact"—the seminarian sighs—"no one knows how lesbians work."

"It's easy," I say. "You put one leg over her leg, and then she puts her other leg over your other leg, and then you brush each other's hair forever while not going to church."

He rolls his eyes. "You're not a lesbian, Tricia," he tells me patiently. "You wear dresses."

"If you're so determined to figure out who's gay and who's not," I say to my father, "then why don't you ask someone who has actually met some gay people, gay people who haven't had to pretend their whole lives not to be gay?"

Gaydar is not real, and I hope never to be in the business of perpetuating crude stereotypes, but the priest who owns his own harp and gets ten different brown-bagged magazines about the royal family delivered to him each month? Is possibly not a straight man. But Dad assures me the Gay Inkblot Test is quite sufficient for their needs. So a word to my queer brothers who are longing for a life in the Church: You are safer than houses, for the time being. Go with God.

Pompom Hats and the Seminarian

A priest's uniform includes the following: a white collar, either cloth or celluloid. A black short-sleeve shirt, black slacks and black belt, black shoes. Black Gold Toe socks. No other kind of sock is even considered. Underwear, I think. They buy these items from a special Sacred Clothing catalog, which for some reason is illustrated with pictures of priests laughing insanely, raising crunk cups to Christ, and posing in close embraces. No one knows what they're doing, but they appear to be having just as good a time as the Victoria's Secret models. Pillow fights do not seem far away. When my father started saying the Latin Mass, he gave up the short-sleeve shirts and slacks and took to wearing a cassock, which is just a long black dress for a man that everyone refuses to call a dress. ("It is a dress," I have reiterated many times, trying to open people's eyes to the truth. "And the pope wears what a baby would wear to the prom.") The seminarian wears a cassock too, because he's traditional, and he asked for 33 buttons on his: one for each year of Jesus's life. On formal occasions, both of them affect a pompom hat, which has no utility as far as I can tell and which no one has ever been able to explain to my satisfaction.

"Really, a pompom hat?" I ask one day, when the seminarian and my dad are both sitting across the table from me decked out in their full regalia, looking like two dark Muppets from the realms of hell.

"It's not a pompom, it's a tuft," the seminarian tells me. "A pompom would be silly."

"We don't call it a hat, we call it a biretta," my father adds, his tuft going absolutely wild.

Ah. Why wear a regular hat, when you can wear a hat that sounds like a firearm. I begin flipping through the latest Sacred Clothing catalog and pause at a picture of a hundred-year-old priest and a 25-year-old priest spooning each other in front of a stained-glass window.

"Look at these incredible fantasy scenarios," I say, turning the picture sideways. "I'm taking this upstairs with me. This is my Playboy now." A few pages on, a photo of a female minister wearing vestments in all colors of the rainbow catches my attention. "Wait a minute, there are women in this?"

My father screws his eyes up very tinily, as if to cause the female minister and all others like her to disappear. "Those goofy Anglicans," he says, and then makes the distressing moo-cow noise he always makes when imitating the communications of feminists, who lurk in his imagination in rabid, milk-spurting, man-stampeding herds. "MooOOooo, we all gotta be equal, don't we?" he mocks, with such perfect assurance of my agreement that I wonder if he has ever really looked at me, or heard a single word I've ever said. Perhaps, when all is said and done, I am more like a son to him than a daughter.

From PRIESTDADDY by Patricia Lockwood. Published by arrangement with Riverhead Books, an imprint of Penguin Publishing Group, a division of Penguin Random House LLC. Copyright © 2017 by Patricia Lockwood.

Follow Patricia Lockwood on Twitter.

A baby being delivered via C-section. Screenshot via YouTube

Thanks to the wonders of modern medicine, Charles Darwin isn't getting the chance to do his job. A recent study led by Austrian researches found that an increasing number of babies must now be delivered by caesarean because their mother's birth canals just aren't wide enough for a natural birth.

The findings, published in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, suggest instances where babies can't fit down the birth canal have gone from 30 in 1,000 births during the 1950s and 60s, to 36 in 1,000 births today.

While that kind of seems like a small increase, given the time frame we're talking about here—only 50 years or so—in the context of our evolution as homo sapiens (100,000 years) it's a huge-ass deal. And the researchers have chalked it up to evolution.

See, a couple hundred years ago, those narrow birth canal genes would never have been passed down. The mother would've died in attempted childbirth, or the baby wouldn't survived the tough birth. Either way these genes would've stayed out of the gene pool.

In 2016, mothers dying during childbirth is exceedingly rare. Australia reported just 49 maternal deaths directly related to the pregnancy between 2008 and 2012, which is around 7.1 deaths per 100,000 healthy births. America's rate of maternal death is slightly higher, around 18.5 deaths per 100,000 births.

Both those numbers are actually pretty good, when you look back to the 1930s, when 500 women died for every 100,000 births. Of course, they weren't all dying because their birth canals were too narrow; many women died from very simple infections in the pre-antibiotics world.

Today women carrying those narrow-birth-canalled genes would likely just get a C-section. So they survive, and so do their babies who inherit these genes and pass them on too. That's what the researchers think we're seeing happen here.

So the gene pool is changing. Does it matter?

That depends where you live. Having a C-section in an Australian public hospital is free, so it's not a huge a deal financially. Our doctors are good at giving them, and it won't send you broke. Owners of narrow birth canals here, don't stress.

In America; however, things aren't as simple. With Trump's threatened repeal of the Affordable Care Act, more C-sections is worrying. In 2011, three years before the Act came into effect, it usually cost women more than US$20,000 for prenatal care and delivery—and that's just for an uncomplicated birth, not a caesarean. A 2013 estimate put a C-section at about US$27,866.

Now, every ACA-approved health plan must cover pregnancy, maternity, and newborn care—that's before, during and after the birth. But if the Act goes out the window, that coverage might too. And that could leave women shouldering a heavy price tag.

Follow Isabelle on Twitter

Check out Dame Darcy's website, Instagram, and Twitter.

Neema. Image courtesy of Paul Freedman

It's been over two decades since the Rwandan genocide began. While the country has vastly improved in the years following, the aftershocks have ravished its neighbor, the Democratic Republic of the Congo. But as the documentary Merci Congo reveals, although Congo is still fighting what's been called the "deadliest war since WWII," it's not without hope.

Premiering December 9 on VICELAND, Merci Congo profiles a wide array of activists who've dedicate their lives to helping Congo rise from the ashes of its current conflict, in which rape, murder, and corruption are at an all-time high. Although Congo is one of the richest countries in the world resource-wise—its river is expansive, and there's an abundance of minerals used to make electronics—the country remains impoverished thanks to years of abuse that began when Belgians first took power and started a pervasive trend of forced labor.

History is only repeating itself now as escaped Rwandan war loads pillage the land, leaving the Congolese despondent. However, modern Congo is taking steps to rehabilitate itself with the help of international and domestic activists who offer assistance to women who have suffered sexual abuse, those who lack education, citizens without access to clean drinking water, conflict mineral miners, and others in peril. Merci Congo hopes not only to raise awareness, but to incite its viewers to make a positive impact on the world.

We called the filmmaker Paul Freedman, who is currently working at the United Nations World Food Programme headquarters in Haiti, to talk about the documentary, the country, and how he hopes Merci Congo will ignite a fire in all of us during this post-election haze.

VICE: How did you first get interested in the current conflict in Congo?
Paul Freedman: I spent a month and a half in Rwanda making a film about how such a thing could happen in the 20th century, and what was being done now as far as justice. Then I made a film in Darfur, which was also about the Rwandan genocide. It was really interesting, because in that part of the continent, the Congo is everywhere. Somebody always mentions it somewhere, somehow. It really is the beating heart of the continent. It has that big river that runs right up the gut like an artery. It's a huge, huge country. It's scary and mysterious and dangerous and beautiful. I just became infatuated with the idea of telling the story there. I realized I wanted to do something completely different. I wanted to go to Congo and seek out people who were on the other end of that, on the edge of change, on the edge of justice , This country is not a lost cause.

Was there one activist's story that resonated most with you?
I think all of them are in equal parts really important to me and dear to my heart. The process of making a documentary like this, you end up in people's lives for better or for worse. This has all been for better. , the polio survivor, is a freak of nature. She is so powerful. These people have become my brothers and sisters. Katy Johnson is like my daughter. If you sit with people long enough and ask them questions that no one else asks they have to go down to a place they don't normally want to go, you get really close to people.

You touch on it toward the end of the documentary, but can you go into more detail about why you named the film Merci Congo?
During the first trip to Congo in 2013, we met up with our guide from . It's built in this new neighborhood that has sprung up in the past ten years. With all the wealth that's been smuggled into Rwanda from eastern Congo, hundreds and hundreds and hundreds of millions of dollars, some people are getting rich. So this beautiful neighborhood has been built up. You could be driving through Beverly Hills or Bel Air with these big houses with gates and big hedges. I heard these US government guys calling it "Merci Congo," which is totally disdainful and cruel—no Rwandan would ever say that. I just thought that was so poignant in a terrible way, because I love Rwanda. I was so impressed with the way they got their shit together after the genocide. But it's come at such a serious cost. This cost of securing their borders with Congo, where a lot of the Hutu escaped to, has led to the exposure of greed in the highest levels of the Rwandan government. It just resonated with me.

How have you seen things change in the Congo since you first began the documentary?
Things are happening really fast in Congo right now. The elections in the Congo are happening on December 19, at least they are supposed to happen. This is a bad, bad thing, because the president is already planning on postponing them and coming up with some lame excuse. . All Joseph Kabila, the president, wants to do is stay in power. Presidents there, they never walk away from office. They're usually carried out in a body bag. He will do anything to remain in power, and continue to enrich himself and the 10,000 to 15,000 people closest to him who live under the protection of his regime. It is a dirty, filthy system that is about to get exposed again, and it's going to get violent. He can't be allowed to stay in power. I know the alternatives to him are not much better, but he just has to go.

In light of America's unease after the recent election, what do you hope people will take away from this film?
I don't know if I truly believe it, but I want to believe that , "I can't not do anything about this," that's what I want people to think about. I would love for that to happen. But I have to be realistic. People are going to watch the film, and a few people are going to check the website and become activists, but most are going to go on with their lives. But if they remember one thing from the film, it's that we all get this moment of moral indignation, and we can act on it. Once you act on it, it provides a tremendous fuel. It's scary to go up against the system. I think, if more of us took that chance, many more wrongs, from tiny ones to catastrophic ones, could be righted in this world.

Catch the premiere of Merci Congo December 9 at 10:30 PM ET/PT on VICELAND.

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Donald Trump meeting with John Kelly before at New Jersey's Trump International Golf Club on November 20. Photo by Drew Angerer/Getty Images

After a campaign built on vows of mass deportations and a 2,000-foot border wall, Donald Trump made a surprising pick for his Department of Homeland Security secretary: John Kelly, a retired Marine general who has kept quiet about most elements of US immigration policy.

Kelly, 66, a Boston native who first joined the military in 1970, will be nominated by Trump next week, people close to the transition team told the Associated Press. The president-elect's press office did not immediately return VICE's requests for comment.

"Kelly is a wildcard. I don't think anybody knows what his immigration stance is," Edward Alden, a senior fellow with the Council on Foreign Relations, told me, noting that Kansas Secretary of State Kris Kobach, notorious for his anti-immigration platform, would have been a more obvious selection. "I find it an interesting appointment, and I find it really interesting that Trump didn't go for a real immigration hardliner like Kris Kobach if his priority had been deportations and cracking down on day one."

Kelly is a four-star general who served three tours in Iraq and spent the last four years of his military career as the commander of the US Southern Command, a joint operation in charge of security throughout Latin America and the Caribbean. He has emphasized working with the region—and providing human rights education and aid—rather than simply building a border wall, as Trump has proposed. The Department of Homeland Security, the third-largest federal agency, has responsibilities ranging from immigrant integration to the Coast Guard.

Military officials very rarely comment on matters of policy, so unsurprisingly Kelly hasn't spoken out about the nation's undocumented population or about immigration reform, but he does have significant experience with southern border enforcement and security—which immigration experts on both sides of the aisle say could help his DHS work.

"We have a right to protect our borders, whether they're seaward, coastlines, or land borders," Kelly told the Military Times in November, nine months after retiring. "We have a right to do that. Every country has a right to do that. Obviously, some form of control whether it's a wall or a fence. But if the countries where these migrants come from have reasonable levels of violence and reasonable levels of economic opportunity, then the people won't leave to come here."

Kelly is the third retired general Trump reportedly plans to appoint to a cabinet-level position, and like prospective defense secretary Jams Mattis, appears to disagree with his potential boss on some issues.

"Most nations in this part of the world want our partnership, our friendship, and our support... Some of my counterparts perceive that the United States is disengaging from the region and from the world in general," Kelly told the Senate Armed Services Committee in 2014. "Reduced engagement could itself become a national security problem, with long-term, detrimental effects on US leadership, access, and interests in a part of the world where our engagement has made a real and lasting difference."

Kelly has supported aid packages to help combat violence in Central America as part of a vision that "involves much closer alliances than Trump" has signaled he wants in the area, Alden told me. Kelly has spoken in-depth about the security issues driving individuals to cross the US border from Honduras, El Salvador, and Guatemala.

"He talks in particular about Central America and the lack of citizen security and violence and narco-trafficking and cartels, and he's connected it to why people are coming to the United States," Doris Meissner, director of the Migration Policy Institute's US Immigration Policy Program, told me. She thinks that Kelly seems "well qualified for the position" from his work in the Southern Command.

"Kelly has talked about Mexico's migration being at net zero because its economy has improved, so he seems to recognize the real challenges are from countries other than Mexico, which puts him somewhat at variance with what the president-elect was talking about," Meissner continued. "I hope he's a good source of advice on what our nation's real vulnerabilities are."

While Kelly supports work with nations in Latin America and the Caribbean, he is a hardliner on national security. He has advocated for further manpower, technology, and detention to protect the US, and in his latest position, he focused his fight on smuggling—of drugs, migrants, and potential terrorists—which he claimed was a serious national security threat.

"Clearly, criminal networks can move just about anything on these smuggling pipelines," Kelly told the Senate Armed Services Committee in 2014, as he requested further funds to shut down the routes. "My concern, Mr. Chairman, is that many of these pipelines lead directly into the United States, representing a potential vulnerability that could be exploited by terrorist groups seeking to do us harm."

"I have never been prouder of any troops under my command than I am of the young military professionals who stand duty day and night at Guantánamo."
—John Kelly

Kelly has also championed the Guantánamo Bay Detention Center, seen by many as a symbol of human rights abuses and a black eye on America's reputation. The soldiers at the facility were under his authority when he ran the Southern Command

"I have never been prouder of any troops under my command than I am of the young military professionals who stand duty day and night at Guantánamo, serving under a microscope of public scrutiny in one of the toughest and most unforgiving military missions on the planet," he told Congress. "These young men and women are charged with caring for detainees that can often be defiant and violent."

Kelly remains committed to the America's decades-long war on drugs and advocates for a complete crackdown on illicit substance use, which he says would help end much of the region's crime.

"The solution there is for Americans to stop using drugs," Kelly told the Military Times last month, rejecting the idea that marijuana should be legal. "Now, you're never going to go to zero, but we've got great programs to convince Americans not to do things."

Neither drug policy nor Guantánamo were really campaign issues for Trump, however, and the immediate focus of the DHS will likely be immigration and immigrants. Hardliners have already issued calls to Kelly to take a tough stance on the undocumented population as a main priority.

"General Kelly's background provides assurance that he would be fully committed and experienced to protect the physical security of the American people. We will be looking for immediate signs that he will show the same commitment to enforcing the immigration laws passed by Congress to protect the economic security of American workers and their families," Roy Beck of the conservative immigration organization NumbersUSA said in a statement.

Kelly will likely follow their wishes: Jeff Sessions, Trump's pick for attorney general, has built his platform around immigration crackdowns, and may lead Kelly's policies, Alden told me. And with Kelly in office, "It's a given" that there will be further militarization of the border, Alden said.

Such a militarization is exactly what immigration from advocates are entreating Kelly to avoid. As soon as he was nominated, Democratic representatives John Conyers of Michigan and Zoe Lofgren of California issued a joint statement asking Kelly to enforce laws in a "practical, humane way."

"Concerns have been raised that General Kelly's appointment could contribute to a militarization of our nation's immigration system," they said in an emailed statement. "Immigrants are not the enemy. Rather, for generations, immigrants have flocked to our shores to build their dreams, and in turn they have grown our economy and enriched our country in numerous ways. I hope General Kelly understands this."

And Ken Gude, a senior fellow with the liberal think tank the Center for American Progress, told me he was bracing for the "over-militarization of our foreign and domestic policy," since this is the first time in modern history for the US to have three former generals in the top levels of civilian government.

But, for now, it is unclear exactly how Kelly—if he is confirmed by the Senate—will act on the wide range of DHS responsibilities.

"In this position in the DHS, he has to balance enforcement with immigration and integration responsibilities," Ali Noorani, executive director of the National Immigration Forum, told me. "There's a world difference between a drug smuggler and families fleeing bombs, and DHS deals with both. That's a very clear example of the balance the new secretary of DHS needs to be able to strike."

Follow Meredith Hoffman on Twitter.

All photos from No Sleep: NYC Nightlife Flyers 1988-1999 by DJ Stretch Armstrong and Evan Auerbach, published by powerHouse Books.

Dozens of events blow through New York City every night, each one meriting a miniature campaign to fill the room or, at least, break even. If you ran a club in the late 1980s or early 90s, you probably couldn't afford to buy radio spots or rent out public billboards—but you could spend a few hours with a copy machine, scissors, and a pound of Elmer's glue to make a bunch of cheap, effective, DIY flyers.

No Sleep: NYC Nightlife Flyers 1988-1999 is a new coffee table book curated by Gotham legend DJ Stretch Armstrong and rap historian Evan Auerbach; it presents the best art from the club flyer's golden age sourced directly from the private collections of club owners, artists, and DJs. The flyers themselves have a delectable aesthetic sense, and many of them were made without computers by people with no formal training in graphic design.

When Armstrong was making flyers to promote his Thursday night gig at MK, he juxtaposed the iconic SuperFly logo with "unexpected imagery, like Mao Tse Tung, nuns, James Cagney holding a gun, an atomic bomb explosion, Fidel Castro, and others. They were effective not just because they had an aesthetic appeal, but because they grabbed your attention and made you look twice."

When the internet conquered the world at the turn of the century, circulating thousands of flyers four nights a week seemed inefficient by comparison. Today, almost all of the advertising happens online. Nobody can argue that moving to cyberspace wasn't a natural evolution—flyers are disposable by nature—but Armstrong and Auerbach do believe something important was lost along the way. Flyers aren't extinct, but they aren't a palpable part of life anymore. Radical, oblique, homemade pop-art used to be a crucial part of urban scenery, but now they're permanently cemented on smaller-sized screens.

We caught up with Armstrong and Auerbach and talked about the book, the magic of NYC club culture, and the give and take of the digital revolution. No Sleep is available for online orders here, and is out this week in bookstores everywhere.

As people who lived in New York in the late '80s and '90s, what made the city's club culture magical back then?
Stretch Armstrong: Clubs were so much more important before their influence was eclipsed by the internet and the mainstreaming of underground culture. Musically, most of the music that DJs played was what would be considered "underground," which doesn't mean that hit records or music by popular artists was off-limits. Madonna, for example, always borrowed from whatever was happening in the clubs and gave it a pop twist. Deee-lite's music came out of NYC's house music clubs, but crossed over. Run-DMC made huge records. But the sensibility remained underground, and very New York. With the exception of crossover hits that broke from the club and mix shows to mainstream radio and eventually MTV, the music was made for DJs who had so much more room to experiment and express their point of view, which patrons appreciated.

Since most of the music wasn't being played in the mainstream, if you wanted to get your fix of the latest hip-hop, house, dancehall, or whatever you were into, you had to go to clubs. That's where records were being tested and broken. Now, because dance music has been mainstreamed and hip-hop is pop, DJs have to consider the demands of the crowd more, which has turned many of them into playlist regurgitators. Club goers go out expecting to hear what they want, rather than being open-minded and going out to be exposed to something new. Clubs were also less segregated. In the '80s and even early '90s, so many were true culture clashes, and it was beautiful. Clubs were where people went to experience a sense of freedom—to let go of their daytime personas and be whomever they wanted.

Evan Auerbach: These flyers had a very different feel for me. I grew up upstate New York and I'm a bit younger than Stretch, so there wasn't any chance of getting to these parties. However, I began collecting flyers I would find because they were memories to me. When I would visit NYC as a teenager, I made sure to always find places that had flyers—places like Fat Beats or Eightball Records, or stores like Transit in Astor Place and Liquid Sky. I'd take as many as I could find, bring them home with me, and study them.

What inspired you to make the book?
Armstrong: The more digital our world becomes, the more important certain tactile things are. I wanted to spark a conversation that wasn't purely nostalgia. Let's talk about what we have gained in the digital revolution but not without considering what we have given up in our quest for convenience: Sharing is so much easier now because of technology, but perhaps our rituals and interactions have less meaning than they did before. The way we used to have to go record shopping for music was less convenient, but the process imbued the experience of collecting music with more meaning. The same can be said about club flyers and how they were used to pass on information in a personal way. Also, these invites were physical reminders of amazing times—artifacts before cameras were ubiquitous and instantaneous sharing was possible.

Auerbach: I've been inspired by my childhood collection of all things rap and hip-hop. I remember reaching out to Stretch and others seeing if I could scan flyers to post on upnorthtrips.com—when Stretch and I linked, he loved the idea of making these more than just a digital collection. I initially saw No Sleep as a collection of rap flyers, but Stretch schooled me to how much more culture there was beyond the rap scene during that era.

The interesting thing about a book like this is that these flyers obviously weren't supposed to be preserved forever. Is it important to document them on a historical level too?
Armstrong: Back then, if you were on a flyer as a DJ or promoter, you'd achieved some kind of real success. Little did anyone know that that was just the beginning, and many people whose names graced the flyers in this book would go on to be hugely influential and celebrated cultural pillars.

Auerbach: Man, I knew the historical impact from a music fan standpoint, but as the book progressed I began to see a deeper connection. These flyers really stood at the touchstone of so many points; dance, art, design, fashion—all within the New York City lens.

In the mid-'90s, did it ever occur to you that the flyers you'd see on the streets would someday need to be treated like art?
Armstrong: By then, because of developments in printing technology, it was easier to produce more elaborate, computer-generated flyer designs at a greater volume and speed. The flyers became flashier and, in my opinion, less artistic and less idiosyncratic. I stopped saving flyers around then. I never considered whether they should be documented in a book before, but now I think it's important to tell our stories and celebrate people that were critically influential but unsung.

Auerbach: One of the interesting things that happened early on in making the book is that as I was seeking out people to contribute, it was a shock to hear how many people held these flyers in such high regard. Sure, some people had them stashed away in a Nike box in Mom's crib, or under the bed in their childhood bedroom, but some people really held onto them and were almost unsure about letting them into someone else's hands. It took some coaxing and reassuring for some to even let us digitize them to include in the book. This was phenomenal to me and emphasized even stronger how precious these were to some people.

Are these flyers collector's items?
Armstrong: Some of the Club Kids/Michael Alig ephemera are collectible, as well as the 70s and early 80s hip-hop flyers. I predict collectors will soon set their sights on mid-and-late-80s as well.

When did you guys start to feel nostalgic for these flyers?
Armstrong: It's been a slow process—going through my "stuff" in storage and at home, trying to sort out what's junk and what's worth preserving. Ironically, social media—Instagram in particular—has played a role in sparking a sharing of images of artifacts, which encouraged some of us to dig into our pasts and do some excavating. Working on also focused my attention on the 80s and 90s. I went through my archives for the film and rediscovered how many incredible flyers I had from such a special time in my life.

Auerbach: I've always been a nostalgist. Whether it's baseball cards and comics or rap cassettes and magazines. I was fortunate enough to hold on and appreciate all things.

What are some of your favorite flyers included in this book?
Armstrong: I don't want to come off as anti-technology, but some of my favorites are the ones that are really basic—black ink on card stock, primitive and simple, made quickly to get the word out, often by people with no design experience

Auerbach: In the beginning I was instantly attracted to the rap history flyers—the gritty, grainy sometimes shitty quality of the flyers was amazing to me. However the more I worked on the book, the more I began to appreciate the artistry that went into some flyers. The Mars/Trip flyers are so dope—the colors, the designs were way ahead of their time.

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