Given my public "Party" persona, many are surprised or even disappointed to learn I'm not naturally upbeat—that I wasn't born a golden ray of sunshine. Like most of us, I have moods. And for as long as I can remember, I've been almost supernaturally prone to negative emotions. Maintaining a positive outlook has been something I've desperately struggled with. I've never seen myself as a naturally optimistic person, and have instead lived with an almost unshakable sense that all aspects of existence were inherently wrong and trending toward ever-increasing levels of failure, suffering, and darkness. Any effort to see things in a hopeful light, I thought, was naïve or delusional.
But carrying those kinds of feelings—a soul heavy with dread—can take its toll. So over the years, I've made more and more of a rigorous effort to try and sublimate this inner despair that has colored so many of my experiences and perspectives. I do this by finding tiny moments of unquestionable joy and holding on to them tight. Things like music and laughter and inspiring encounters with culture were undeniably uplifting, so I surrounded myself with these things to find small bits of relief and motivation, some pin pricks of light in a vast sea of darkness. These experiences were often fleeting and short-lived, but the impressions they left on me were long-lasting. If I could feel this radiant joy even for a moment, maybe there was a way to hold onto it for longer. Maybe even forever?
Is the glass half full or half empty? This familiar proverbial phrase has always stuck with me, because it says so much in its perfect simplicity. In ways both real and imagined, how you see the world colors what you see in the world. If you see the world positively, that positivity is reflected all around you. You notice the beautiful and appreciate it, and in turn, notice more of it—seek and ye shall find, what you look will show itself to you. In my darkest moments, I'd obsess over this idea of this metaphorical glass and put a tremendous effort to see it (the world) as half full. I was willing a positive outlook from within myself, even when nearly every part of my inner view saw otherwise.
Then inevitably something crushing would dampen my most determined efforts, and make it all too easy to slide back into the shadows, thwarting my rigorous commitment to a positive outlook, and making all my efforts seem absurd and foolish. I'd quickly fall back into familiar, negative thoughts and tell myself I was an idiot for even trying to see life as a beautiful experience. I'd bounce back into believing my efforts to be cheerful were pointless and embarrassing, and that underlying all reality was an unspeakably brutal spirit of malevolent nothingness.
I'd swing from one side of this emotional pendulum to the other, wrestling back-and-forth between despair and hope, clarity and confusion. This, of course, was an exhausting dance, so I began to think about ways to transcend it and jump off this chess-board of duality. There had to be a way to step back, or rise up, and observe this process from an enlightened distance. I needed to find a way to balance these two worlds or risk spending my entire life oscillating between manic highs and devastating lows.
In ways both real and imagined, how you see the world colors what you see in the world.
Then, one day, it struck me. I didn't need to see the glass as half full or half empty. Perhaps I could be outrageously happy and grateful that I was able to see the glass at all, and consider its condition in the first place. My outlook from day-to-day didn't need to be the lens through which I judged the world, and even on days where I woke up feeling that all of existence was a struggle, I began to understand that the simple act of getting to exist at all was genuine net positive.
In life, we're given a couple gifts. 1) A physical body that can carry out action in the world 2) Our mind and the thoughts radiating from within it. Those things are outstanding, and just by existing as a human in the universe, it's almost like winning a kind of cosmic lottery, regardless if we had a conscious choice in entering this contest. That thought alone has helped me, and even on days where I see the glass as half empty, I'm eternally grateful that I can pick up that glass and drink from it.
Life is a test to see if you can find a way to embrace and learn from those parts of you inside that would otherwise crush your spirit. We're here to grow, to not be beaten down.
In the end, it's the experience of life itself that is a transcendentally positive thing. The motivation to live beyond just mere survival, to strive to do more than subsist at the minimal possible level, that takes a type of conviction. It takes a real effort. This is more and more what I'm attempting to do, not be beaten down or overwhelmed by the immensity of life, but instead enthralled with it. Rejoice in it, laugh with it, have a dance about it.
We can figure out that we don't have to have it all figured out to still appreciate the experience. We can let the baffling puzzle of life delight us, surprise us, and challenge us. And most of all, we can continuously celebrate the fact that against almost insurmountable odds, we have come into being.
This is what allows me to persevere. Life is never going to be easy, but that doesn't mean it's inherently bad. It's just very intense. And it's our obligation to grow stronger, and more resilient, so we blossom ever more openly into life and face it with a smile.
On this episode of 'VICE Talks Film,' we sit down with director Mike Mills to talk about his latest autobiographical film, '20th Century Women.' The coming of age tale stars Annette Bening, who channels Mills's real-life mother as Dorthea and enlists two younger women (Greta Gerwig and Elle Fanning) to help her raise her adolescent punk rock son.
Mills talks about his own experience being raised by strong, outspoken women, the role music plays in the movie, and how he built the perfect cast based on his real family.
Syria's government and opposition groups have agreed to a nationwide cease-fire and are ready to hold peace talks, Russian President Vladimir Putin announced Thursday, raising faint hopes of movement toward a political settlement in the complex, years long conflict that has left hundreds of thousands dead and 11 million displaced.
Syria's military and the Turkish foreign ministry also confirmed the agreement, brokered by Russia, Turkey, and Iran, with the military saying that the deal was being made to pursue a political solution.
The deal—which excludes the jihadi groups ISIS and Jabhat Fateh al-Sham, and all groups linked to them, according to Syria's military—will go into effect at midnight.
"Reports have just arrived that several hours ago there was a development that we all have looked and worked for for so long," Putin said at a meeting with Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov and Defense Minister Sergei Shoigu, according to Russia's state-run Tass news agency.
Three documents had been signed under the agreement, said Putin: a cease-fire between the Syrian regime and the armed opposition; a package of measures to monitor the cease-fire; and a "declaration of readiness" to commence peace talks.
He said Russia, Turkey, and Iran would act as guarantors of the agreement. The three powers announced their intention earlier this month to broker a solution to Syria's nearly six-year conflict, sidelining intermittent UN-backed efforts, jointly led by Russia and the US, which have failed to bear fruit over the years.
Joe Wickenhauser wrote his thesis to the soundtrack of postsecondary discontent.
His thesis is a Prairie endeavour about metronormativity, the idea—as he wrote it—that "LGBTQ people will inevitably abandon their closeted lives in smaller centres and rural areas for the promise of an open LGBTQ life in the metropolis."
"Surprisingly Unexpected" took shape on his computer in Montreal while thousands of students took to the streets for seven long months to protest tuition hikes in Quebec.
It's a contrast he remembers partly for the reaction the protest invoked on his Facebook feed. Friends back home were condemning it, not the cause, per se, but the methods. It was a moment of clarity: what works in downtown Montreal won't necessarily have the same effect in Saskatchewan.
In the land of living skies, many on the frontlines of the fight for equality agree the push to bring Pride to smaller, more disconnected communities is working. And for a rural Saskatchewan guy from Strasbourg (population 752) who picked Toronto (population 2.6 million) for grad school (although he did his writing out of Montreal, population 1.6 million) for the "possibility of living the real gay life," what once seemed unimaginable is finally unfolding.
This year has been a series of firsts: in Moose Jaw, the Pride Parade took over the city's Main Street; in Weyburn, Estevan and Humboldt the rainbow flag unfurled, proud, over smiling crowds; and to the north, Saskatoon won the bid to host InterPride 2018 and Beardy's & Okemasis First Nation hosted a Two-Spirit Festival heralded as "truly historic" by the prime minister.
The events typically associated with burgeoning metropolitan centres like Toronto and Vancouver, have accompanied some noteworthy milestones: In 2014 Saskatchewan added a specific protection for gender identity under the Human Rights Code. That paved the way this year for trans activist and public educator Laura Budd to win the right for herself and trans people province-wide to change their gender designation without requiring surgery.
Laura Budd giving diversity training in Melville in December. Photo via Laura Budd
Organizations across the province are also reporting high requests for gender diversity training, often from groups they would consider atypical: casinos and police forces as opposed to non-profits and schools.
It's no longer a matter of if you meet a gender diverse person, Budd says, but when.
"It's gone from the abstract," she says, "to bringing it home."
Home for Budd is with her wife and kids on a farm outside of Kelliher in rural Saskatchewan. And that last point is important.
"It's not want," Budd says of the work being done to ensure a safe and welcoming space for LGBTQ+ people in their own homes in less urban environments. "We expect them to have it here."
People often think small towns means small minds, but that wasn't the case for Budd. People knew her. They knew her when she was him, when she was a kid, a teenager, an adult, and a parent.
Budd remembers one resident telling her, "I don't understand why the change, why this is so important to you, but you're loved here and we'll figure it out. It's on us to figure this out, it's not up to you to educate us."
And yet, a fundamental part of what Budd and Wickenhauser do as employees of Moose Jaw Pride is educate.
Just recently when the Melville Millionaires made headlines when a woman said she was removed from the Saskatchewan Junior Hockey League's billets because her granddaughter was transgender, it was Budd who stepped in to host training sessions.
It was an engaged, diverse group, she says. It was a misstep, yes, but a disrespectful and harmful action that turned into an opportunity to atone, to grow.
And that's what the rural Pride movement is doing in Saskatchewan: calling on people who make mistakes to recognize them and change, and—in the process–creating a home environment safe enough for people to come out, and feel safe staying.
Kevin Seesaquasis during the Two-Spirit Festival. Photo via Bryan Eneas
"I'm a perfect example of that," says Kevin Seesaquasis, a councilor with Beardy's & Okemasis First Nation, who first pitched the idea of a Two-Spirit Festival to his community. Seesaquasis, who is gay, moved to Saskatoon when he was young in part because he wasn't sure he could be himself around his neighbours. After the First Nation's inaugural pride events this past June, he feels he can.
"When we first announced it, people shared it on Facebook like crazy," he says. "There were a lot of individuals who identified as Two-Spirit or gay or LGBT in our community who came up and said, 'this is amazing, we've never had anything like this.'"
The conversations may not be happening as fast as people would like them to, says Autumn Bourque, the executive director and founder of Saskatchewan's newly created Trans Umbrella Foundation, but they are happening.
And Bourque, a New Brunswick native who settled in Saskatchewan by choice, doesn't buy the mentality that big cities are more welcoming just because they have more LGBTQ people.
"A lot of the smaller towns are more open-minded because it's their friends, it's their family, it's their people that are coming out," she says, as opposed to "when you live in the city and you don't know your next-door neighbour or the person down the hall from you."
Bourque is ever the optimist, while still struggling with the negativity gender-diverse people continue to face. Her months-old non-profit has huge Saskatchewan ambitions: a website that includes links to jobs already accepting of trans employees, a centre available to help unemployed people print resumes, staple job applications, and social support, and more.
A photo from the Humboldt Pride Week. Photo via Moose Jaw Pride.
Already, the Trans Umbrella Foundation has given training—and will again—to RCMP cadets in Regina. Bourque's wife was the first lecturer. She remembers asking if people knew someone who was gay or lesbian: many hands went up. She remembers asking if people knew someone who was trans: just the one. An RCMP spokesman says the cadets have had more questions lately about trans issues so the RCMP has been bringing in additional outside experts.
There remains much more work to be done.
Amanda Guthrie, education coordinator with OUTSaskatoon, is enthusiastic about all the positive change this year. But despite the progress, she says miscommunications—particularly with government—continue.
"I think a lot of us thought that we would start to see a bit more momentum around a working relationship with the government," Guthrie says of the days after the Human Rights Code amendment. "[We] have not seen any of that actually roll out in reality."
In September, Moose Jaw Pride heralded the government for funding sex-reassignment surgery "up to 100 per cent." The understanding of the trans people the organization works with was that roughly 30 per cent was funded. The government responded with: it's always been up to 100 per cent.
A spokesman for the ministry said the policy hadn't changed and what was new was the information making its way onto the government website. Decisions continue to be "reviewed on a case-by-case basis," he said, "and coverage is based on medical necessity." For some people, that can mean 30 percent and for others 100.
Such confusion about such delicate, important topics is why, "we need to have an open communication channel," Wickenhauser says.
Joe Wickenhauser in the Moose Jaw Pride offices. Photo via Jane Gerster
Trans activist and educatorBudd's win, while historic, doesn't allow transgender youth (even with parental permission) to change their gender marker. Similarly, Wickenhauser says the province still misgenders out-of-province people who have an "X" for gender. A spokesman for the ministry said it "does not have a formal policy" specific to communicating with gender-neutral people, but a government operations bulletin dated Oct. 1 says that "the sex indicator is a required field" and even claims from out-of-province persons with an "X" marker "can only be male or female."
Saskatoon artist Miki Mappin was fired years ago when she began her transition. As such, she became heavily involved in the human rights amendment and health care discussions. At the time, there was a dearth of information about where to access materials about surgeries, costs and coverage, where you could find a good doctor. Budd says this is now changing.
In an era of cost cutting, Mappin doesn't see the government feeling much pressure to enshrine any other rights or protections.
"I think we've hit a bit of a plateau" politically, she says, but not out in the community.
"Some really bad attitudes linger," permeating LGBTQ+ people's ability to access housing and health care, particularly for those who are trans and non-gender conforming.
Incremental rural change, the kind fuelled by Pride teas in churches and rainbow flags boosted high, "is helping to change attitudes and that's pretty important."
The Obama administration made good on its promise on Thursday to sanction Russia for cyberattacks that the CIA and FBI both claim were intended to sway the US election in favor of Donald Trump. As part of the action, Russian operatives will be expelled from the US, and two Russian compounds in New York and Maryland used for "intelligence-related purposes" will be closed.
On Thursday, the Department of Homeland Security and FBI also released a report on the Russian hacks that refers to them with the agency codename "Grizzly Steppe," and provides procedural details, associated usernames, and pieces of code the government claims are associated with Russian spy agencies. According to the New York Times, a more detailed report on the findings will be released within the next three weeks, which would help answer criticisms that the US has not yet presented the public with any hard evidence of Russian involvement.
The State Department has announced that 35 Russian diplomats working at the Russian embassy in Washington, DC, and the consulate in San Francisco will have 72 hours to leave the country for "acting in a manner inconsistent with their diplomatic status." Additionally, two men who appeared on the FBI's list of the five most wanted hackers in 2015—Evgeniy Bogachev and Alexsey Belan—were named in the Treasury's sanction report as cybercriminals facing expulsion.
Belan (left) and Bogachev (right) FBI wanted posters
"These actions follow repeated private and public warnings that we have issued to the Russian government and are a necessary and appropriate response to efforts to harm US interests in violation of established international norms of behavior," Obama said in a statement on Thursday.
President-elect Trump has not yet directly addressed Thursdays's announcement, but did say something about computers complicating our lives on Wednesday when reporters asked him about the impending sanctions. "I think we ought to get on with our lives," Trump said, adding that "the whole age of computer has made it where nobody knows exactly what is going on."
Speaker of the House Paul Ryan issued a statement in support of the sanctions Thursday, but nonetheless castigated Obama. Ryan called the sanctions "overdue" and said they constitute "an appropriate way to end eight years of failed policy with Russia."
Chelsea Manning is currently incarcerated in a maximum-security facility in Fort Leavenworth, Kansas. She's been in United States custody for six years, and spent months in solitary confinement. For that entire time, she has been forced to dress like a man, with her hair cropped close to her head. Her connection with the outside world is limited: There are extremely strict rules about who can visit her, and media isn't allowed to speak with her directly, though she can correspond with journalists by mail. At times, her situation seems hopeless, but she has tried to persevere.
"Courage is not fearlessness," she wrote in a letter to Broadly this December. "Courage is the ability to keep going, even when you are unsure of yourself, even when you are nervous, and even when you are terrified. If you can still fight when the odds appear to be against you, and when it looks like you might be fighting it alone, then you are genuinely brave."
In May of 2013, Chelsea Manning was convicted of six counts of espionage and sentenced to 35 years in prison. The former military specialist is responsible for what is considered the largest leak of classified government documents in American history—they include the Iraq War Logs and the Afghan War Diary, two data troves that she believed would shed light on the "true cost of war" in the Middle East, such as the United States' failure to investigate thousands of claims of torture in Iraq, the detainment of innocent or low-threat-level individuals at Guantanamo Bay, and thousands of civilian deaths.
Manning's sentence is extreme by any metric. Other convicted whistleblowers have had to serve far less time, often in the range of one to three-and-a-half years—though Manning is just a sixth of the way through her sentence, she has already been incarcerated twice as long as most other convicted whistleblowers. Earlier this year, she made a plea to President Obama to alter her sentence from 35 years to time served, which would free her immediately while recognizing her guilt. Last month, over 100,000 people signed a White House petition making the same demand. The President's second term will end in January, meaning he has less than a month to take action.
Though some people celebrate Manning as a whistleblower—she was the 2013 recipient of the Sean MacBride Peace Prize—others see her actions as treasonous and damaging to the state. "Let's charge [her] and try [her] for treason," a FOX news national security expert, KT MacFarland, wrote of Manning in 2010. "If [she's] found guilty, [she] should be executed." President-elect Donald Trump has selected MacFarland to be his deputy national security adviser, according to CNN.
And even among people who prize government transparency, Manning is often overlooked. The world seems to have rallied behind other, more visible whistleblowers, such as Edward Snowden, who has become something of a celebrity from his recluse in Russia. One of the main reasons for this, according to Evan Greer, one of Manning's biggest advocates and the campaign director of Fight for the Future, is that Manning is hidden from sight in prison, denied the right to speak for herself.
This article is part of our VICE Weekends summer series, presented by Weis
James Whineray is a contemporary photographer living and working in Perth. He recently travelled to Karijini National Park in the Hamersley Ranges of the Pilbara region of Western Australia where he walked trails, swam in freezing rock pools and stared down into gorges. He took a bunch of photos too.
VICE: What made you set off to Karajini? James Whineray: I've been a couple of times, but on this particular trip I was up there photographing a series of portraits for a job I'd been handed by the good people at The Adventure Handbook. I was in Karijini to meet the boss ranger who turned out to be one of the biggest legends I've come across on my travels. We spent a good hour talking about spirituality and more specifically, the local indigenous culture and traditions.
What's one thing you learned while adventuring in the Pilbara? It is possible to walk 80kms in a day! The ranger, or Ranger Dan as he likes to be called, was telling me about his weekends off in the park, which consist of walking as far as he can in a new direction over 48 hours. He said he can walk up to 8kms per hour, which is absolutely mental, practically running. He'll get up to 120kms away before returning back to his hut. He said he's seen country on his walks no man has set foot on for hundreds of years.
Who did you travel with? My partner Lucy who is also my editor, producer, copywriter and rock. Whenever I'm working, Lucy sits in the front seat telling me where to go and what we're doing. Almost all of my travel for work or pleasure, Lucy is with me.
Did you meet any new characters along the way? Besides Ranger Dan, there's a caretakers tent in the national park where a very lucky and patient retired couple will set up camp for two weeks at a time. They are in a very long list of campers waiting for the honour of being the camp caretaker. Needless to say they have some great banter ready to go for anyone willing to listen.
What three words would you use to describe those sweet looking creek-side trails and rock pools? Very cold water.
What's the best memory from your trip? When you get to the end, there is one particular gorge called Handrail Pool that looks like a sinkhole to the middle of the Earth. You can only get down to the very bottom of it with proper climbing gear and ropes. Lucy and I were at the end of the gorge looking down into its depths and noticed a guy stuck at the bottom. He started yelling up asking for us to tell him the best way to climb out. I didn't want to be responsible for any accidents so I pretended not to hear him and we scurried away to find help. Five minutes later he came running past us with his GoPro strapped to his head without a word. I guess he knew what he was doing.
After spending time with senior citizens, Trump supporters, and college freshmen, BALLS DEEP host Thomas Morton heads off to our nation's capital to see what life is like for some government staffers on the season two finale of his VICELAND show. While there, Morton brushes shoulders with First Lady Michelle Obama, who reveals that she's a huge fan of the show.
On this episode, Morton embeds with Joining Forces, a special task force aimed to help solve the issue of veterans' homelessness nationwide. He meets veterans in the program and helps one—Wendell Banks—prepare to introduce the first lady at a White House Summit talk.
Check out the clip above and be sure to catch the full episode airing Thursday on VICELAND.
It's me, the Enforced Fun Gremlin! [Sound of a party hooter approaching from a distance; that curious dark feeling of a handful of confetti fluttering down around you; the sensation of a Corky's shot being roughly pushed into your hand; me, emerging in shiny "2017" sunglasses, Hawaiian shirt and coke eyes combo, saying "OI OI!" so hard you can feel the heat of my breath] Ha ha, only joking! It's New Year, isn't it, and you have to go out, because it's the fucking law! Sadly, there are only eight nights out you are allowed to have:
SPIN AROUND THE NEW YEAR'S EVE ONLY-OPTION-AVAIL-O-TRON™ AND CHOOSE WISELY WHICH OF THESE YOU WANT TO DO WHEN WE FINALLY SEND 2016 TO THE DUST
– Go to a nightclub you have already bought tickets to
– Go to a nightclub you have not already bought tickets to but you go to all the time and will "head to after"
– Go to a pub you have bought tickets to
– Go to a pub you have not bought tickets to but you go to all the time and you will "head there around 8ish"
– A public fireworks display on the sour banks of the River Thames
– A popping house party
– A disparate house party happening at the same time as six other house parties all hosted by mutual friends
– Fucking nothing
Those are your options, all eight of them. Those are the only possible nights out you can have. And let's dismiss two of those options out-of-hand: the "fucking nothing" option – which I did one year, and let me tell you: it was brilliant – which, necessarily, isn't a night out, and so is being struck from the list; and the "public fireworks display on the sour banks of the River Thames", because you're not going to do that, are you, actually? All those people in cosy hats and scarves, cooing at a sky alight with money? Then all trying to cram onto the one same tube carriage to get home, at once? Is that what you want? Do you want to pay £8 for a small cone of sugared peanuts? Do you want a Community Support Officer to come and tell you off for drinking a can of shop-bought Red Stripe? Do you not want to know where or how to piss? No. A nightmare. A hellish way to start the year.
And so to your real options, which we will consider in turn:
(All photos by Bruno Bayley)
GO TO A NIGHTCLUB YOU HAVE ALREADY BOUGHT TICKETS TO
This happened one of two ways, didn't it, because you are not ordinarily an organised person; normally you would never get this shit done. So the ways are this: either some lad in blue jeans, blue blazer, open collar white shirt and one blocked nostril approached you and your mates in a Wetherspoons recently and, in a quick Essex accent, sold you on the idea of his club night – "Great night, great girls, free shot when you arrive, lads, and we've got loads of DJs, floor fillers, free cloakroom if you're in before 7 – FLOOR FILLAHS – can I interest you boys in some tickets? £12 each or four for £60?" – and yes, somehow, you were stunned by how he managed to say all those words in less than one second, so, bedazzled by the idea of it, you all bought what very much appear to be raffle tickets off him, and now you're going to some place you've never heard of on the edge of town called "Chasers:, which may or may not be a strip club.
Or, more annoyingly, someone Actually Organised in your friendship group has started a big long Facebook group chat about NYE – it's their birthday on NYE, or something, they take it more seriously than most – and they've made it so if you all PayPal the money to them they'll organise tickets and a big taxi there but not back. So already you are locked onto the rigid train tracks of fun.
I mean, inside it's fun, I suppose: you all got there in good time – probably a little too good, if you're honest, because it's 9PM and nobody else is there, so you get to watch as all the people you might try to fuck file in, sober-looking and holding their coats – and actually you all managed to get a table, so as the lights flash purple and blue and beats get thicker you all have a little base to prop your drinks up on when you try and fail to talk to each other over the noise; and then you get a little buzz on and you're dancing and midnight comes and goes with some DJ-voiced bloke counting "TEN… NOINE… EIGHT, WAGWAN!" in a way that seems to take a minute-and-a-half, and you get the drinks in and a few more beers and you're screaming along to some floor fillers – "EVERYBODY'S FREEEEEEEEEEEEEE!" you're screaming, until your voice goes hoarse, "TO FEEL GOOD!" – and then you leave at a decent time, maybe a snog or maybe a kebab, and, ears still ringing, you somehow flump without waiting into a cab.
That was… a fine night, I guess? That was… OK?
GO TO A CLUB YOU HAVE NOT ALREADY BOUGHT TICKETS TO BUT YOU GO TO ALL THE TIME AND WILL 'HEAD TO AFTER'
Ah, yeah, this is not so good. Because you started with pre-drinks round someone's house, obviously – "I'm not paying a tenner a pint just to get pissed!" you're saying, deep-throating a bottle of supermarket vodka – and then that all got a bit hectic, and plans to leave at nine soon slipped to ten, and you all started playing Mario Kart for a bit while the girls put their coats on and that took another half hour to finish the tournament, and then that cab you called had left because nobody noticed it was idling outside, and now it's 11.10PM and you're in the queue and you're anxious, because looking at it – and this is a conservative estimate, you are making, a conservative estimate made by a very pissed person – there are about 80 people in front of you already, and the queue hasn't moved once since you got there. You eventually get in before midnight, just, but then the bar is heaving so you can't get a drink before midnight, and everyone has scattered to go and do lines or have a piss or have a fag after gasping for all three in the queue, so you're alone at midnight, utterly alone, and your buzz has gone so you have to chase it back, but it never really works like that, so you're at the bar asking for £5 bottles of Stella and just sinking them, maybe a shot, maybe you bump into your mates occasionally while you're dancing but it's heaving, everyone you see seems to be having a better time than you, and before you notice it's 3AM and it's lights up – like what the fuck man, what the fuck – and the queue outside for the taxis is absolutely mental, so one of your mates is like, "My place is just around the corner: we can walk it from there," but then a big group of you is waiting around for one crying girl to stop talking to the police after having her phone nicked, and a few have gone on ahead, and it's splitting now – nights like these pivot on such moments – and you realise that nah, fuck it, this isn't happening, so you walk home, but misjudge the distance, so it's just you, these painful new shoes and a mile-and-a-half of late-night residential walking, and when you get in – carefully, quietly – and flop into your bed, adrenaline still pumping, you have a little cry. Happy 2017!
GO TO A PUB YOU HAVE BOUGHT TICKETS TO
This is a really shit way to spend £12, but you've got a platter of sausage rolls, somewhere to sit and the karaoke is pretty popping. Someone bought a dog! A dog to the pub! I mean, someone seems to have done something you'd very much describe as "died shitting" in the men's toilets, but other than that: this is a jolly old time! Enjoy it!
GO TO A PUB YOU HAVE NOT BOUGHT TICKETS TO BUT YOU GO TO ALL THE TIME AND YOU WILL 'HEAD THERE AROUND 8ISH'
Not happening, lads, not happening. "But—" you try it, but pub bouncers have seen it all. Pub bouncers are smarter and better than you at one game and one game only, and that is "bouncing pubs". There are six of you, and one of your mates swore it'd be fine – "I haven't got a ticket but they said there'd be plenty on the door" – and it's rapidly approaching midnight now, and they are operating a strict one-in, one-out policy, and you're desperate for a piss and have been for 40 minutes, but he's not letting you in, you're not getting in, and your mate's pleading with him – "Please, mate, come on, there's only six of us" – and then the bouncer pulls a shiteating bouncer move, one of those next level bouncer moves, where he goes, "Fine: I'll let five of you in," and you take it – Rob's meant to be meeting his girlfriend after anyway, he'll just go to where she is – and you sprint in, to the toilet, absolutely unload your body into that porcelain sanctuary, and you hear them outside, chanting, and Auld Lang Syne's coming up, and ah, shit mate: you spent the moment 2016 became 2017 pissing so hard it splashed back and got a bit on your trousers. 20-minute wait at the bar. All the crisps have been bought. Fucked it.
A POPPING HOUSE PARTY
It is my humble opinion that a popping house party is the best place on NYE if you want to have i. drugs ii. a good time iii. full penetrative sex or iv. any combination of the above. Popping house parties have a half-curated guest list and guaranteed attendees. They have a very fixed spend. You can waltz in with a big two-litre bottle of IRN-BRU and walk out with a bag of warm beers. There are different rooms, different vibes. You can play DJ. You don't need to queue at a bar. The bathroom is a shitshow but let's move on from that. There's a little sub-party of people in the garden, smoking and laughing. You can't stay out there too long because it's cold and you don't smoke, and anyway everyone's in those little conversations and you don't want to interrupt anyone. Go back upstairs. Your mate's in a corner talking to someone attractive: don't fuck it. Scoop out a quiet-seeming bedroom. Nothing. Some lad in a leather jacket and one of those little ribbed beanie hats is asking if you know anyone here. "Yes, mate," you say, "my ma—" but you turn to them in the corner and they have gone. Don't worry, the wise leather guru is saying. This is my house, my party. You accidentally do a bit of ketamine while lots of people really loudly chew their own jaw and ask you about your job. Are you having fun? You're having fun. All the ingredients are there for having fun – booze, beautiful interesting people, drugs, dark corners and light dancefloors – but are you, personally: are you having fun? That quiet room you saw upstairs with the cosy bed in it seems alluring right about now, doesn't it? Your eyes hurt. Your head hurts. Your body hurts. This year hurts. You've had fun, but enough now. You've had fun, and it's just about late enough for you to get the first bus home. Go get it, child, and sleep the sleep of a thousand dreamless babies.
A DISPARATE HOUSE PARTY HAPPENING AT THE SAME TIME AS SIX OTHER HOUSE PARTIES ALL HOSTED BY MUTUAL FRIENDS
The thing with New Year's Eve house parties is they are so hard to call the guest list for, because even if you invite all 800 of your Facebook friends maybe only 16 will turn up – most people are back home, or have plans, or have to be at their boyfriend's family thing, or they are in New York, or they're just not feeling it, or they'll play it by ear, or actually I'm going to Ricky's, round the corner, I don't think you know him, but maybe I'll pop by if his is rubbish – so it turns into New Year being just thousands of these simultaneous dead little house parties, of fewer than 20 people who don't quite know each other leaning on the kitchen counter of a person who they also don't quite know, and it's gone 11PM before someone even thinks to do something as simple as put the music on, and you are here because you hadn't anywhere else to go and you didn't have anyone else to go with, and at midnight someone lets off a party popper that echoes so loud around the party you think you're going to have an anxiety attack with it, and you realise you've been mindlessly plodding through a bowl of cheese-and-onion maize snacks now so your entire orange hand and body now smell of it, and this is, in a way, the most apt way to say goodbye: a year where everything happened, all of it awful, burned away in the fire. And here you are, at one of the worst parties of your life, a 40-minute nightbus away from home, not having fun: is this not, in many ways, the perfect analogy for the year gone by? Gaze at the girl whose house it is who is already doing the washing up in pyjamas even though it has not yet gone 1AM, and endeavour to be like her: this is the year, isn't it, the clean break you needed, 2017. This is the year you drop six pounds, run that 5km, get that new job, become a new you. 2016 has been a horrible chrysalis, scorched at every seam, and now you can emerge from it anew: if you can survive 2016, you can survive anything. If you can survive this fucking dead-ass party, you can survive anything. 2017 is the year everything gets better; we have to believe that. Start now. Start by fucking off from this and getting an Uber and paying the surge fare and going home. Sleep good, sleep long, sleep so well you can sip from that sleep again, sip like it is restorative nectar. Let's start again tomorrow.
Seeing as I am not a muggle, New Year's Eve isn't really a holiday I care about celebrating. My entire life is PTO (Paid Time Off), so no holiday is going to dictate how hard I'm going to go off. Last year I spent my New Year's Eve with two Australian men I met on Tinder and their Vietnamese escorts in Ho Chi Minh City. The year before that I was doing something extremely boring with my ex-boyfriend, we probably kissed at midnight in my sequined dress with a champagne glass in my hand, as I pretended I was Caucasian. Now only simps celebrate New Year's Eve like it's something special, but don't get me fucked up, not all simps turn up the same way. Here's a guide to all the basics you'll meet on the last night of 2016.
AP Photo/Jae C. Hong
Type A: We see her at 2:45 AM on King Street (if you live in Toronto). She has her stilettos in her hand and black feet on the pavement full of crushed cigarettes. We see her with mascara running down her cheek, crying as she looks for her best friend who already went to the hotel with the opening act. This is the girl who gets ready with all her BFFs on New Year's Eve, pre-gaming with vodka-crans, applying her fake-lashes, contouring and highlighting her face, squeezing into her bandage dress, and dropping $720 to see Diplo play the same set he's played for the last 72 years. This is the girl who waited three hours in a lineup full of Pauly D look-a-likes to get into the club. The same girl who uses daddy's credit card to get bottle service for her and all her best friends at the club, but still flirts with an older Armenian man for a free drink. She's the girl who spends more time taking group selfies in the bathroom than on the dancefloor.
We all know this girl.
Type B: Her and her boyfriend prepare their signature couple cocktail for the special occasion. It's an intimate white-themed party with ten of their closest friends. They live in an "urban" studio in Williamsburg, Brooklyn. They serve toasted brioche with creme fraiche and caviar, a recipe she found on Pinterest, on plates that they bought from Williams Sonoma. They get too drunk on champagne and cocktails and pass out before midnight. They wake up in the morning to have missionary sex that they pretend to enjoy and then hit their favorite brunch spot for mimosas and huevos rancheros for a little ethnic touch.
AP Photo/Las Vegas Review-Journal, John Locher, File
Type C: Her Twitter handle is @deadmau5ever_69. It's 2 PM, and she is in the parking lot outside Buffalo Bills in Whistler. It's -1 outside, she is wearing a neon pink bra and neon green thong, but luckily she has the boots with da furrr *T-Pain voice* to keep her warm. Her and her "rave family" chase their molly with Four Lokos in her mom's Toyota Corolla that she stole for the weekend. She can't wait to bring in the New Year with her favourite electronic music duo, Odesza. When midnight hits and the fireworks go off, her and her rave family get lost in the lights as they clench their jaws and sit in a massage circle to comfort each other. As Odesza drops "Say My Name" and she holds her rave boyfriend's hand close to her heart, she is peaking.
Although I love being a cynic and hating on New Year's Eve, because I'm lucky enough to celebrate living everyday of my life, some people aren't as lucky. So fuck it, if New Year's Eve is that one day you spend $720 on seeing Diplo in Vegas, or making fancy cocktails with your best friends or popping molly at a rave, then go the fuck off and enjoy your New Year's Eve. In 2014 I was in a dumb dependent relationship, 2015 I got deported, and 2016 I was recovering from my deportation. Every year I tweet "20__ is my year."
As I enter 2017, I am getting prepared to work on my debut album, and my first book and TV show. In the New Year I'm going to work toward growing Intersessions (an inclusive DJ project that provides a safe space for women + LGBTQ), DJing, and starting more projects that not only excite me, but help create community, and a cleaner, happier, safer world I can be proud to be a part of. Although 2016 has been a hard year for a lot of us, especially if you are a woman, POC, or on the LGBTQ+ spectrum, in 2017 we will come together, be there for each other and create safe spaces and opportunities for each other even if your government doesn't seem to be your ally. We can be there for each other. 2017 is not only going to be my year, it's going to be our year.
Crocodile Dundee. Erase it from history and what cultural touchstone does the rest of the world have left to describe Australia with? Even "shrimp on the barbie" doesn't make sense without Paul Hogan, and Paul Hogan doesn't make sense without Crocodile Dundee.
Given it's the 30th anniversary of what remains Australia's biggest ever box office hit ever, it might be time to take a look at it with fresh eyes. And the most unfair way to look at it, of course, would be to judge it through a modern filter. So let's get started with that.
Twenty seconds in and it becomes clear that the film is not made for Australians. It's made for Americans. It's deliberately engineered to be a breakout hit. All the Australiana is broad and garish, and the lingo carefully explained. All American references however are routine and audience familiarity is assumed. (Which, sadly, is just as applicable in Australia as it is in America. Thanks to cultural saturation, coastal audiences are probably more familiar with New York than with the outback.)
Crocodile Dundee'sstructure is disjointed and sketch-like, which is appropriate given Paul Hogan, director Peter Fairman, and writers Ken Shadie and John Cornell were all alumni of the sketch-heavy Paul Hogan Show. The famous "That's no knife!" scene that's been pop-cultured to death comes out of nowhere and has no real consequence to anything before or after it. "Hey, let's go to New York!" is the clever plot twist that gets them to New York. It really is just a bunch of disparate scenes laid end-to-end.
The film plays heavily on the fish-out-of-water premise, but over-eggs it somewhat by turning Mick (Paul Hogan) into a fucking vegetable the moment he steps off the plane. Check it out, he can't even use an escalator! Geez, what do you do, do you stand on it? Oh no, we're about to get the floor, I'd better start walking back up it for some reason!
All forms of vertical transport prove too much for Mick, and he struggles with the hotel elevator. He marvels at a television, because he's only seen one once before. He tries walking through the streets of New York, but he keeps bumping into people because there's so many of them. Apparently this master bushman can't seem to navigate his way around tangible objects now because, I don't know, city.
We reach the apotheosis of his idiocy when Sue (Hogan's love interest) discovers Mick has been sleeping on the floor next to his bed. I'm going to take this as a sign the bed was too soft, as opposed to Mick being such a moron he doesn't know what a fucking bed is. (As an aside, Rod Ansell, the crocodile-fighting bushman Hogan and company insist the character is NOT based upon, was put up in a fancy hotel by the BBC and slept on the floor. So it gets a pass for accuracy, but loses several points for nicking someone else's life story.)
Sue (Linda Kozlowski) is subjected to a fair amount of sexism, both intentional and unintentional. Her character is a professional journalist, so we get to assume she has a degree of agency and skill until the revelation that her editor is also her boyfriend, and her publisher is her father. It's not clear why these details were included, other than to dissuade us of the notion that she might have reached her position on merit.
Mick discovers sexual assault. Screenshot via YouTube
But the sexism extends beyond the storytellers and into the characters themselves. At a bar, Mick nearly goes home with a woman who, he soon finds out, is actually a man. We're already skirting the bounds of propriety before we get to the moment where Mick tests this thesis by grabbing her crotch. A few months ago I would have been outraged, but the election of Donald Trump has basically legitimised this behavior, so I think we're all good. Mick does it again to a woman at an art gallery because she has slightly masculine features, and everyone laughs off his assault as an Australian eccentricity. Maybe we can list Crocodile Dundee alongside 1984 and The Man In the High Tower as texts that predicted 2016.
Mick's stupidity, the film's underlying sexism, and fantasy all collide when Mick encounters a prostitute who is apparently so charmed by him, she offers to "give [him] one for free". "One what?" asks the gormless Mick. At this point in the film, his chronic stupidity has lost whatever draw it once had. Apparently New York invented sex and the most transparent euphemisms that go along with it.
We can generally accept that any film made more than five years ago will have an attitude to race that we find uncomfortable now, and Dundee is no exception. There is a weird sort of meta-racism going on in one moment in particular.
Mick himself embodies the old trope of a white man raised by an Aboriginal tribe. This is a favourite device of Western storytellers because it allows the writer to imbue its lead with all the traits of a noble savage without the bother of actually making him black. Mick may display the mannerisms of a boorish white man, but still gets to benefit from Aborigine wisdom. It's a win-win unless you're not an awful person.
The real problem comes when we discover that Mick has magical powers. When he extends his thumb and pinky finger out in a shaka sign (presumably taught to him by that little-known Aboriginal tribe, the Hawaiians), and makes a sort-of cat-strangling sound, he can make animals go to sleep. This is skirting awfully close to the odious Magic Negro trope, and I'm not sure Mick being white subverts it in any meaningful way. It more sort-of magnifies it. And it really serves no story function other than to create a mystique around Mick.
What's bothering me about the film is not so much that we're being caricatured, but that we're being fetishised. Worse, that we're the ones doing it. We're making fun of ourselves to please the popular kids, and it's kind of unpleasant to watch.
But that's what made it a hit. The film was successfully calculated to appeal to American audiences, and given how rare that was in the 1980s let alone now, this achievement is worth noting. The elements that rubbed me the wrong way—farcical cultural stereotypes, the moveable type structure, really every single line of dialogue—are what made it work.
It's quotable, not too demanding, and it's got a happy ending, unless you have questions about whether a New York corporate type accustomed to workplace nepotism and a cartoonish bushman who can't operate a bed can make it work together, in which case the ending could be considered a Graduate-type downer.
I went into this film expecting to contrast the Australia of the 1980s with the Australia of now, but I saw very little of Australia in this film. Just a distorted stereotype of how we think others see us. Which is fine if you want to make All The Money In The World, but as a cultural artifact it's just baffling.
Despite all his contentious campaign rhetoric, China has embraced Donald Trump in a big way.
Take the giant Trump-rooster statue just erected at a shopping mall in Taiyuan, the capital city of China's Shanxi province, for example. The enormous effigy—to celebrate 2017, the Chinese Year of the Rooster, 2017—stands 32 feet tall, complete with the president-elect's unmistakable quiff and hand gestures. In fact, Chinese retailers incorporate Trump's "look" or name into their products frequently, including caricatured figurines, skincare items, condoms, and more.
"This is the first time we've had a president who is a brand, and it's not unusual to see various markets try to co-opt brands for their own success," said Greg Portell, lead partner for consumer industries and retail practice at global consulting firm A.T. Kearney. "But China, in particular, is trying to capitalize on the Trump brand."
2016 was a powerful year for science and technology innovation. CRISPR gene editing technology became nearly a household name with its potential to affect humanity. SpaceX rockets landed themselves. And a baby was born with three parents.
But what's in store for 2017?
While some decry the developed world is falling apart due to changing political environments, science and technology innovation is likely to continue thriving. In fact, innovation is occurring so fast, I believe 2017 will be the year governments begin to consider forming new science, technology, and futurist agencies and organizations to better contend with the rapid change. The old ones are mired in bureaucracy, conservative religious ideology, and the past—unable to contend with issues like nanotechnology, artificial intelligence, and virtual reality. Borrowing from The Wizard of Oz, "We're not in Kansas anymore.
A Toronto dump truck driver has been charged with careless driving following an incident Thursday during which the box on his truck smashed into an overpass on Highway 401.
A Youtube video shows the truck travelling along Highway 401 and nearing the Highway 400 overpass with its box raised in the air. The box then smashes into the overpass, rips off the truck, and stays put as the truck continues driving.
The 22-year-old driver was not injured, according to Ontario Provincial Police.
Ontario Provincial Police Staff Sgt. Dean Korn told CP24 there were no drugs or alcohol involved. No other cars were impacted by the crash, however westbound traffic on the busy highway was stalled.
Yes, 2016 was garbage. It's almost cliché to say it at this point, but here we are staring down the barrel of all this past year has wrought and seizing one last opportunity to say, fuck you 2016. But this time, we're saying it with GIFs.
In all the chaos of the year, a swell of anger has risen. Born from fear and misunderstanding and realized in Brexit and the election of Donald Trump, the rise of fascism or white supremacy or the alt-right or whatever you want call it, has marked a year that's seemingly gone from bad to worse.
Fake News
We use journalism to find and share the truth. But when you can't cut through the noise and distinguish the real from the insane, misinformation becomes the guiding principle. This year saw otherwise fringe conspiracies crossover into the mainstream, with #pizzagate resulting in violence and everything surrounding Donald Trump resulting in, well, President Donald Trump.
Celebrity Deaths
Usually when life is this fucked up, we turn to artists to save us. But the icing on 2016's shit cake has been losing our cultural legends, one after the other, in a long year that has yet to end. Bowie, Prince, Leonard Cohen, Sharon Jones, Carrie Fisher, and Debbie Reynolds—and there's still two more days left!
Republican House Speaker Paul Ryan has backed the Obama administration's program of retaliatory sanctions against Russia for election meddling. "Russia does not share America's interests," said Ryan. In a joint statement, Republican senators John McCain and Lindsey Graham called the measures "long overdue," and said they would try to impose even stronger sanctions in the new Congress. – The Hill / CNBC
School Board Demands Paladino Resign for Racism
The Buffalo Board of Education has voted to demand Carl Paladino, the New York co-chair for Donald Trump's campaign, resign from the board for racist remarks about Michelle Obama. The board will petition the state commissioner for his removal if he refuses. Paladino had said he hoped the First Lady would "return to being a male and let loose in the outback of Zimbabwe." – The Washington Post
US Coast Guard Searches for Missing Plane
The US Coast Guard is searching for a small commuter plane that disappeared from radar over Lake Eerie shortly after leaving Cleveland, Ohio. The Cessna Citation 525, believed to be carrying six passengers, left shortly before 11 PM Thursday. A Coast Guard official said controllers fear the plane may have crashed into the lake. – CBS News
Adults in Correctional System Falls to 13-Year Low
The number of US adults under correctional supervision has fallen to its lowest level since 2002, according to the Bureau of Justice Statistics. An estimated 6.7 million people were in prison, on parole or probation in 2015, down 1.7 percent on the previous year. The bulk of the decrease was due to a drop in the number of people on probation. – VICE News
International News
Putin Refuses Diplomatic Retaliation Against US
Russian President Vladimir Putin has declined an opportunity to expel 35 US diplomats. The country's foreign minister Sergei Lavrov had asked Putin for permission to expel the Americans as a response to the sanctions and expulsion of 35 Russian diplomats announced by President Obama on Thursday. But Putin said Russia would not "stoop" to the Obama administration's "irresponsible" actions. – BBC News
Ceasefire Holding in Syria Despite Skirmishes
A ceasefire between government forces and rebel groups has held across Syria on Friday morning, despite some clashes in the Hama province shortly after the deal came into effect at midnight. A spokesman said the Free Syrian Army (FSA), a coalition of several rebel groups, said they would continue to uphold the ceasefire deal. - Reuters
Finnish Anti-Drugs Chief Found Guilty of Drug-Smuggling
The former head of the anti-drugs police force in Finland's capital Helsinki has been sentenced to ten years in prison for smuggling drugs. Jari Aarnio, 59, was found guilty of helping import and sell almost 1800 pounds of hashish. – BBC News
Everything Else
Run DMC Sues Wal-Mart, Amazon for $50 Million
Run DMC has filed a $50 million lawsuit against Wal-Mart, Amazon, and other major retailers, accusing them of trademark infringement by profiting from "Run DMC styled products." The lawsuit states the group has made $100 million from its registered trademark. - Billboard
Chance the Rapper Wants to Move to New Zealand
Chance the Rapper says he wants to move to New Zealand "in the next 15 years," after playing the country's Rhythm and Vines festival. He insisted on Twitter he was "very serious" about it. "Black people, we are moving to New Zealand." – Waikato Times
Ryan Gosling to Play Neil Armstrong
A new biopic about Neil Armstrong called First Man will see Ryan Gosling star as the pioneering US astronaut. It will be directed by La La Land director Damien Chazelle, and is based on James Hansen's biography. – The Hollywood Reporter
First Lady Wants More Help for Homeless Veterans
Michelle Obama has said the US needs to do more to help veterans struggling with homelessness, mental illness, and substance abuse. The First Lady told VICE the Joining Forces program she launched in 2011 was "a strong start," but said it was "utterly unconscionable" that any veteran "would ever have to sleep on the streets." - VICE
Future Drops Two New Videos
Future, the hardest working man in hip-hop, has released videos for Drippin (How U Luv That), from the Purple Reign mixtape, and That's a Check featuring Rick Ross. Thursday night's release follows a video for Buy Love he dropped on Wednesday. - Noisey
Chelsea Manning Urges Transgender Community to Fight
In a letter to Broadly, imprisoned whistleblower Chelsea Manning has urged the transgender community to "continue to fight" for greater rights. She wrote of a tendency "to wait and see what happens, and hope for the best. We absolutely cannot afford to do that." – Broadly
Maybe we're all just getting older, but with every tragic, often shocking passing of an icon this year, it feels like the past is fading into the distance, faster and faster, while the world around us in the present feels increasingly uncertain. In recent months it's been hard to focus on anything but the emotional pig's sty that was 2016, but there is a substantial silver lining: This was phenomenal year for new music. Existential anxieties aside, it was a banner year for hip-hop and R&B, from the slam dunk return of A Tribe Called Quest to Beyoncé and Solange exploring the themes of race, family and love on two of the most important pop records of the decade. This year gave us both the unsettling arias of ANOHNI and the rise and fall of G.L.O.S.S., demonstrating the grace and power trans and gender non-conforming artists achieve when unencumbered from (or in spite of) staggering prejudice. Even riding the more frivolous side of the airwaves, new-ish groups like The 1975 and Fifth Harmony injected a sorely needed dose of sex and drama into the global pop scene. Music may be the original safe space for outsiders, but while we're fed the constant, unfiltered message that everything is crumbling around us, we all need the solace and peace of music more than ever, and in that regard, 2016 absolutely delivered.
While going through the annual panic of ranking my favorite recent albums, I noticed a pattern emerge. A lot of the music I had turned to in my most vulnerable moments—post-election, after moving to a new city, during a mild case of heartbreak—were built on the soft rock stylings of the 1970s, featuring abundant slide guitars, layered vocals, and plush piano stabs. Not to assume or diminish the intent of these artists (after all, no one likes to be pigeonholed), but the similarities between their current records are striking. Weyes Blood's Front Row Seat to Earth uses the soothing tones of Carol King and The Carpenters to craft a singer-songwriter record unlike anything that's come out in recent memory. The 28 year old singer also appears on Drugdealer's full-length The End of Comedy; it's the new, and most solid record from Michael Collins, who's recorded during the past decade as Salvia Plath, Run DMT, and various other psychedelic pseudonyms. Brooklyn five-piece Pavo Pavo's under-the-radar debut album, Young Narrator in the Breakers, pulls from pulp sci-fi imagery and AM radio rock to create a fresh take on recent indie pop, while Long Island brother duo The Lemon Twigs—who somehow managed to end 2016 as both hyped and slept-on—go full tilt on their debut Do Hollywood, having nurtured their glitter and glamor and uninhibited rock 'n' roll pomp until fully matured, pouring it all into an an astonishingly sophisticated collection. And the D'Addario brothers are still not out of their teens.
My initial impulse was to call bullshit on the whole thing.
At first read, I thought the APTN piece was mean and cruel. I thought social media needed to chill the fuck out. It was confusing. Angering.
I started reading reactions to the pieces that surfaced and I wanted to send them to Joseph Boyden. He's a friend, not a close friend, but I could have called, texted or emailed. I didn't. At the time, I felt like I should, but I wasn't comfortable doing that and I was unsure why. As I watched all of this unfold in real-time, I realized how big this story had got and I knew he was going to see it, it was everywhere.
Let's start with this, Joseph Boyden has answered the questions that have been asked of him. He's been asked, "Who are you, where you from, who claims you?" His answer is, "A small part of me is Indigenous but it's a big part of who I am."
That's his answer.
For better or worse, here we are. He's said what he's said, it seems this is his final answer. He doubled down. Take it or leave it. A small part of him IS Indigenous, a big part of him FEELS Indigenous. This has sufficed for some, for others it has caused outrage. The APTN research published in the original article finds no proof of Indigenous roots, none. Let me repeat, there were no verifiable Indigenous connections found in the extensive research done by one of Canada's finest journalists, Jorge Barrera.
From the casual social media smart ass, calls for DNA tests have been loud. The brilliant work of Canada Research Chair, Dr. Kim TallBear (University of Alberta) rejects the call for DNA measuring of Indigeneity and argues being Indigenous is not just about you claiming identity but more importantly about community claiming you. I agree.
I'm not going to break this conversation down into whether anyone is 1/8ths or 1/64ths or 1/128ths "Indigenous blood." I'm not going to talk percentages. I'm not going to talk about status cards or the Rez because it's not about that. In fact, for those that have asked these questions of Boyden to hold him accountable in the Indigenous community, it's never been about that.
What is it about then? It's about his role in the Indigenous community. It's about how he got that role. It's about his responsibility in assuming the role he's playing in contemporary Indigenous issues. It's about his unwillingness to be responsible back to the community he claims as his own. Somehow, Boyden has gotten by without answering to the Indigenous community he so often speaks for/over. Claiming a community and then refusing to answer back to community concerns (of which there are many) is the real conflict here.
This was glaringly apparent in the past weeks when Boyden wrote the UBC Accountable letter in support of his long time pal, Steven Galloway, seeking clarity and fairness in the author's sexual harassment case. Dozens of Indigenous women called for Boyden to rescind the letter, citing the conflict of the alleged charges against Galloway and their parallels to the real sexual, physical and emotional violence that will no doubt be front and centre in the inquiry on MMIWG2SP. Boyden wants solidarity on the issues but so far, from where I sit, I don't see that solidarity grounded in relationships to the people leading these issues on the ground, in community.
There are more concerns. Most recently he's worked on high profile projects on reconciliation and has been vocal about the inquest into MMIWG2SP. Boyden's platform is massive, though it is one that's not been earned through his work on the ground, but rather by aligning himself with the right people at the right times. The public advocacy work that Boyden has been known for has been called his "good work in Indigenous communities." Not all of Boyden's good work has been his, much of his work is the work done by the people in the community he has positioned himself next to.
Ironically, or even cruelly, relationships and community are at the centre of this controversy. In preparing to write this article, while consulting with my circle of family, comrades, peers, friends, mentors and Elders, based on our conversations, it's clear relationships and community are carrying the heavy burden of this conversation. Friends of mine are fighting with each other, angry and confused. Many of my artist friends have projects scheduled with his name attached in one way or another—what happens to those? There are very real divides that have been created because of this controversy.
I think there are three camps that have developed here.
Camp one is full of people that have experienced a similar struggle to Boyden in terms of being uneasy in our identity. This issue hit so close to home, we initially remained silent and couldn't process the feelings and the conflict this conversation involves. When APTN ran Barrera's investigation, I'd bet a paycheck on the fact that most Indigenous people were in this camp first. I was. Some are still here, I am not.
Camp two is calling for people to leave him alone. Terms like lateral violence, jealousy and crabs in a bucket are being thrown around all over the place. Camp two is full of Indigenous and non-Indigenous Peoples, some fans and some not, calling for this to pass. Most of the mainstream media coverage of the issue has been sympathetic to Boyden and many in the mainstream see this as an extension of the "dysfunctional Indian stereotype." This, of course, is the camp towing the status quo firmly behind them. Calling for this to pass of course only further entrenches colonial structures of power, privilege, and disfunction.
When wrestling with cultural identity, answers are always hard to come by, but make no mistake, there are always answers. Everyone comes from somewhere. Everyone has place.
The third camp is keeping the conversation alive by sticking to the original question, "Who the fuck are you Joseph Boyden?" I can see why they are continuing to press—his official response to APTN was ambiguous (ambiguity is a common thread running through this conversation), he has ghosted people online and not engaged with the community he claims to be a part of, and although I know for a fact people close to him have encouraged him to continue engaging in the conversation—he has not.
There's no doubt that personal connection to "who you are" can be tricky. I mean, how meta do you want to get? Let's go deep for a second.
Am I Anishinaabe if I don't speak my language—how can I be Anishinaabe without experiencing my relationship to this world through the fundamental experience of language and its teachings?
If I live/work in Vancouver or Toronto and I'm disconnected from my home territory—can I live an Anishinaabe existence (my teachings, songs and worldview are intricately tied to Treaty 3 Territory in Northwestern Ontario)?
I could keep going with these questions. It's complicated, heady stuff. Hard questions to answer, right?
When wrestling with cultural identity, answers are always hard to come by, but make no mistake, there are always answers. Everyone comes from somewhere. Everyone has place.
In 2004, Paris Hilton was photographed in Beverly Hills wearing a pair of Mukluks. I remember seeing the picture in a garbage tabloid that consistently graced my Kookum's (Grandma's) coffee table. I'm sure she stole these magazines from the hospital while doing dialysis for her failing kidneys.
As I thumbed through the trash mag, I saw the picture and I pointed it out to my grandma. She started in on a "fuck-laden tirade" about wearing mukluks in the summer in downtown LA, appropriation and the effects of "White women taking everything for themselves, including our men, and now, our fucking shoes."
At the time, she was helping me with my powwow outfit. My grandma taught me that at one time, our beadwork, quillwork and moose hide tufting placed us in certain geographies.
Our beadwork told our story.
Our beadwork named us.
Our beadwork put us in relation to each other.
I remember I had drawn up (what I had thought were) some pretty bad ass designs for applique and ribbon work for my powwow outfit. I showed them to my Kookum. She looked at my designs and laughed. "Who the hell are you?," she asked. "You have geometric Lakota designs on your shirt, Anishinaabe floral designs on your side drops and a teepee on your front breach cloth. You better learn more about who you are before you step into the powwow circle, you're going to look like a powwow clown out there," she closed. A powwow clown was not the look I was going for.
You see, Joseph, sticking with the beadwork metaphor, I couldn't just put any old designs on my powwow outfit because I thought it'd look dope or because my favourite dancers wear certain items. I wanted to dance with a full eagle bustle, I wanted to blow an eagle whistle during Grand Entry, I wanted a bear claw necklace worn over my bone-beaded breastplate.
I wanted it all. In the end, I couldn't have it all. Why? Because I hadn't earned those things. I couldn't have it all because the community hadn't gifted me these things. I couldn't have it all because I wasn't yet in relationship to the circle of people that would allow me to wear these items. I learned I can't just make an outfit that suits the ideal me, or the me that I think I am. I had to do the work and find out who I was before I could even step into the circle. I learned that when the old ones at the powwow look at me, they'll know who I am by my beadwork. I learned that in order to do things the right way, I had to earn it. You see, Joseph, when you earn something, no one can take it from you.
When you earn your place inside the circle people are patient with you. When you earn your place inside the circle people are willing to put up with your mistakes because it is the people that put you there, they will teach you when you err. When you earn your place inside the circle you are surrounded by community and committed to relationships that help you on your journey. I think the difference here is you assumed your place inside the circle. This may be no fault of your own, You started speaking loudly during Idle No More. This is the problem. It was not the indigenous community that put you there. The question of who you are and where you come from is an important one to ask given your place inside the circle.
While everyone was calling you out, Joseph, I wanted to call you in. That was my impulse, to call you in, to help. I realized though, I didn't know who I was calling in or who I was helping. Before you step back in the circle, show us your beadwork, Joseph, so the people inside the circle can know who you are because you haven't told us yet.
You haven't earned your place here yet, Joseph, this is why the community is taking that place back from you.
Celebrities being on social media means the flimsy barrier between them and us has shrunk exponentially, which is great if you want Lady Gaga to see your "Mom" tweet, but it also means we're constantly exposed to all the ways in which they fail to meet our standards. Because just like the rest of us, celebs are prone to saying dumb things on Twitter, and often. But to balance out being hyper-exposed and vulnerable to plebian blunders, their social presence also allows them to easily reach out to the public when they mess up. And in most cases, the act of apologizing is straightforward. You mess up, you acknowledge you were wrong, and you say "sorry" without any conditions and it's over. But despite having literal teams of people to navigate this exact thing, celebrities are shockingly bad at this.
This summer, the LA Times argued that maybe celebs should go back to the days of apology tours noting, "Social media may have many uses, but providing a platform for sincere expressions of deep regret isn't one of them." The standard celeb apology already sounds pretty canned and involves very little accountability, Tweeting it out makes it that much worse. Celebs made 2016 a banner year for shitty, self-centred apologies all of us —not just the laughably overpaid—can learn from. So let's learn to do better in 2017 and kill the standard non-apology of "I'm sorry to those I offended," forever.
Zac Efron began the year with an ill-fated attempt at efficiency. After posting a selfie of himself on Instagram with the caption, "I'm grateful for a couple things today: Martin Luther King Jr & 10 million followers on IG" (complete with two black emojis? WHAT?!) the internet rightfully called him out. After swiftly deleting the image, he posted this screenshot of a note stating he was "insensitive" and is apologizing to "anyone" he "may have offended" — pretty standard for a celeb apology.
Only, like any of the other stars this year — he wasn't really apologizing. Saying you're "sorry" to anyone you offended doesn't count because you're not taking accountability for being an ass. But if we're talking about accountability and bizarre selfies this year, Mischa Barton deserves some kind of award for a complete lack of self-awareness.
Following the death of Alton Sterling, Marissa from The O.C. posted a photo of herself looking pensive in a bikini with a drink in hand while making a statement on police violence and gun control. Nobody fully understood it, and according to her apology on Twitter if you were upset it was because the post was taken out of context. The best thing about Barton's apology was that she employed this classic phrase out of the non-apology book, "I'm only human." Truly, if anything illustrates the difference between "them" and "us," it's that celebrities are constantly reminding us they are merely humans, prone to human faults. It's almost as though they believe taking accountability is some kind of thing reserved for non-humans. Who knows.
If you're noticing a theme with what most celebrities apologize for, it's usually being kind of racist. Unfortunately, Hillary Duff is now in "problematic fave" territory after she posted multiple photos of her genocidal Halloween couples costume alongside her nobody of a boyfriend. Duff dressed up as a sexy pilgrim while her beau dressed up as a Native American. Proving that yes, maybe sincere apologies need more than 140 characters, Duff apologized to "those" she may have offended because her costume was "not properly thought through." No Lizzie, it's not that it wasn't thought through, it's that you didn't give a shit.
Some celebs do get it right though, proving that giving a proper apology is actually very easy and simple. As demonstrated by Chris Hemsworth, who is now mildly woke—there are very few elements needed to be sincerely sorry on social media.
Alongside the director of the upcoming Thor movie, Taika Waititi, Hemsworth posted a photo in support of indigenous people fighting against the North Dakota Access Pipeline and used it as an opportunity to address a past party where he dressed up as a Native American. The photo, which appeared on both Instagram and Facebook, said, "Last New Year's Eve I was at a 'Lone Ranger' themed party where some of us, myself included, wore the traditional dress of First Nations people. I was stupidly unaware of the offence this may have caused and the sensitivity around this issue. I sincerely and unreservedly apologise to all First Nations people for this thoughtless action. I now appreciate that there is a great need for a deeper understanding of the complex and extensive issues facing indigenous communities. I hope that in highlighting my own ignorance I can help in some small way."
This is why it was the best celebrity apology in recent history — he took accountability, highlighted his own ignorance and said sorry. The wildest part of all this is that Hemsworth doesn't actually deserve praise, apologizing after being racist is literally the least you can do! Really, it's the FIRST thing you should do if you're being racist. We're just so accustomed to half-assed non-apologies, this feels almost unprecedented and praise-worthy.
To be fair, Hemsworth is pretty A-list especially in comparison to the likes of Mischa Barton (God knows what she even does now). Someone with his level of fame has been trained well enough to know how to apologize and make it come off as sincere. But can that explain why Jennifer Lawrence, literally the most sought after actress in all of Hollywood can't apologize for shit?
Jennifer Lawrence went from being the internet's best friend to being loathed alarmingly quickly — which makes sense because she's annoying as hell. While promoting Passengers alongside Chris Pratt, she told a story about how she hilariously scratched her butt on sacred rocks in Hawaii and almost killed someone — cute. The clip was shared extensively on social media, and you can almost see Chris Pratt recoil once her story heads to "culturally insensitive" territory. As many pointed out, could you imagine her telling a story about rubbing her ass all over a World War II memorial? Probably not. While J-Law doesn't personally use social media, her official Facebook page shared a short message about how she "really thought" her story was self-deprecating but understands if you're pissed and is also sorry IF she offended you. But if she didn't offend you then it's still funny right?
One other thing all celebrity apologies have in common — they're only presented in the face of public pressure. It's almost as though it's really simple to tell whether or not someone is being sincere! They're not actually sorry, they just want people to stop talking. Bottom line — apologies never have conditions as to whether or not it offends someone. Anyone should be sorry when they do something shitty, not only because it hurts someone.
2016 was notoriously shitty, everyone died! But, maybe for 2017 instead of dying, celebrities can do good and either not be shitty and racist OR sincerely apologize and own up to their shit and move on.
I have the great pleasure of being able to produce a lot of original imagery for both our monthly magazine and vice.com as the resident photo dweeb here. When I'm not commissioning, I'm trying to actively promote existing work that may not get play elsewhere. In an age where the photo industry is ever changing and everyone thinks they're a part time photographer, I don't take it lightly that I can give artists nearly complete autonomy on their projects.
This loose approach has left me with a variety of worlds ranging from Mauricio Cattelan and Pierpalo's second meat-filled cover for VICE to Tamara Abdul Hadi's exploration of African Migrants bringing 90's Hip Hop Culture to Tel Aviv. It's been a year chock full of these types humbling collaborations that I hope prove editorial photography is still thriving and weird, so I decided to curate a small chunk of my favorites with you.
