Bad sex is subjective. No two people are alike: something that works for one person might make another want to run off and do a sick. That's just life! Some people just aren't that into weird smells!
To get an idea of what constitutes "bad" sex on a broader level, we took to the streets of Shoreditch to ask people. The results, predictably, varied.
VICE: Simon, what, to you, constitutes "bad" sex? Simon, 48: One thing is being selfish. Just thinking of yourself, because if you're going to please the other person and she's going to please you then – yeah, selfishness. Selfishness and a lack of understanding make bad sex. Listen, feel and communicate.
Thanks!
What counts as bad sex? Ellie, 24: I think what counts as bad sex is when two people don't understand or appreciate the other person, so basically to get sexually aroused or turned on you need to understand what a person likes. That's about communication, so if there's a lack of communication and a lack of passion and just, basically, each party isn't communicating well, that's going to mean bad sex.
What could someone do to make you not want to have sex with them any more? I think hygiene. Even though I would say bad sex is related to two people, I would say hygiene is the biggest thing. If they just weren't communicating I would think 'whatever' and get the deed done and be like "Next!" But if there was bad hygiene I just wouldn't go there; I would have to say something.
What do you reckon counts as bad sex? Danny, 33: Well, we're talking three minutes or less, aren't we?
What would someone have to do to put you off forever? Not a big fan of girls farting.
That's harsh. It is what it is.
What do you think is bad sex? Kayleigh, 27: If they're drunk and can't perform. Or if you smell before you take your clothes off, just keep them on. Or if they're beggy. My friend had a guy who came back with her and she said, "Nothing is going to happen, sleep on the sofa," but he came into her bedroom and begged her to have sex with him. Like, give up and go have a wank in the toilet! I have a bad story if you want to hear it.
Go ahead. So this guy I was seeing about a year-and-a-half ago – I know some people might like it, but he thought it would be a really good turn on to put his finger up my bum. I don't like that! He did it while we were having sex. He always wanted to do it. I said, "No, I really don't like it," but he just kept trying to properly do me up the arse. I have never had it up the arse and I don't want it up my arse. I just had a flashback. I used to tell him I didn't like it and that it wasn't really my thing. Like, if you want to have arse sex that's fine. I don't, and I kept telling him. My bum is still a virgin except for his finger. He is the only person who has tried to do that to me.
So what do you think can make sex bad? Rod, 40: Too much work. When you spend too many hours working and then you feel tired, innit. You don't get anything out of it because you're just tired. Another answer is, some people they just don't know how to do it. They need to learn. I teach a lot of people how to do it. It's part of my career – I teach people how to do it.
What's your job? When people have a problem with sex they come to me and I advise them on what to do. I'm a marriage adviser. People come to me for issues and sometimes those issues are sex.
What advice would you give to someone who was having bad sex? It depends how bad it was.
What do you think counts as bad sex? Flick, 25: Just if they're awful. That can change, though. Or if they seem not interested. Or if they're desperate. Definitely hygiene, too. Smelly people are not OK.
What's your worst experience? Okay, I'll tell you the worst thing a guy ever tried to do to me. Oh god, I don't want my mum to see this. I hope she doesn't read VICE. So I was seeing someone and he once thought it would be a good idea to use his teeth when he went down on me. That was the worst experience of my sexual career. It was literally horrific.
Everything you need to know about the world this morning, curated by VICE.
US News
Trump Pledges Report on Hacking Within 90 Days President-elect Donald Trump has pledged that his "people" will issue a "full report" on Russian hacking within 90 days. In a series of tweets early Friday morning, Trump also insisted the claims made in a dossier alleging Russia held compromising personal information about him "were put together by my political opponents and a failed spy."—BBC News
Speaker Ryan Says GOP Not Focused on Mass Deportation House Speaker Paul Ryan says a new government force focused on mass deportation of illegal immigrants is "not happening." President-elect Donald Trump has teased reversing the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals (DACA) program that has granted temporary protection to more than 700,000 undocumented immigrants brought to the US in their childhood. But Ryan said deportation of all DACA immigrants "was not the focus," at least in Congress, and that Trump wanted to deport violent criminals.—CNN / AP
Obama Ends Special Status of Cuban Arrivals President Obama has ended the so-called wet-foot, dry-foot policy that allowed Cubans coming to the US without a visa permanent residency after a year. In exchange for a tightening of the rules, Cuba has agreed to accept its own citizens who return from abroad after a longer period of time. Obama said the US would now treat Cubans "the same way we treat migrants from other countries."—The Washington Post
C-SPAN Broadcast Interrupted by Russia Today Network C-SPAN is investigating how a live, online broadcast of a hearing in the House of Representatives was interrupted by RT (Russia Today) for around ten minutes. C-SPAN said the problem was more likely an "internal routing error" rather than the result of hacking. Representative Maxine Waters, who had been speaking about Russian hacking at the time of the interruption, said she found it "strange."—VICE
International News
Syria Accuses Israel of Rocket Attack Near Damascus Syria has accused Israel of firing rockets at a military airbase in Mezzeh, west of Damascus. The activity was reported on Syrian state television and Bashar al Assad's military warned Israel of "the repercussions of the flagrant attack." Israeli forces declined to not comment.—Reuters
Australian Health Minister Resigns Over Expenses Scandal Australia's health minister, Sussan Ley, has quit following the discovery she used trips to Queensland's Gold Coast funded by taxpayers to buy an apartment. Prime Minister Malcolm Turnbull said a new independent body will be set up to scrutinize expenses claimed by ministers and MPs.—The Australian
China State Media Issues Warnings Over South Sea Islands Any attempt to block China from accessing artificial islands constructed in the South China Sea would likely lead to confrontation, according to editorials in Chinese state media outlets. The warnings came after secretary of state nominee Rex Tillerson said the US should stop China's access to the islands. The China Daily stated that "it would set a course for devastating confrontation."—BBC News
Palestinians Protest Over Power Cuts in Gaza About 10,000 Palestinians protested in the streets of the Gaza Strip over ongoing electricity cuts Thursday, an unusual public show of frustration with the Hamas leadership who control the territory. Security officers fired into the air to disperse a huge crowd outside the electricity company, where some threw stones and set tires on fire.—The New York Times
Everything Else
Assange Agrees to Extradition if Manning Granted Clemency Julian Assange says he would agree to extradition to the US if President Obama grants Chelsea Manning—who provided the documents that got Assange's WikiLeaks international attention—clemency before he leaves office. Even so, Assange continues to insist on the "clear unconstitutionality" of American criminal allegations.—TIME
Bo Jackson Would Not Have Played Football if He Had Known Risks Former football and baseball star Bo Jackson says he "would never have played football" if he knew about "all of those head injuries." Jackson notes concerns about CTE (chronic traumatic encephalopathy) mean he would never let his kids play football today, either.—USA Today
Dead Whale Washes Ashore in NYC A dead minke whale has been discovered washed ashore in Flushing Bay near one of LaGuardia Airport's runways in New York City. The Riverhead Foundation for Marine Research and Preservation wants to remove and examine the 15-foot whale.—ABC News
CMT Host Cody Alan Comes Out as Gay Country Music Television host Cody Alan came out in a Facebook post, becoming the channel's first openly gay presenter. "I hope this news won't change how you see me," he wrote. "I'm still the same Cody I always was."—Noisey
Nintendo Reveals Zelda and Mario Games for Switch Nintendo has revealed release details for the Switch console at an event in Tokyo. Costing $299.99, it will be released worldwide March 3 along with The Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild. A new Mario game, Super Mario Odyssey, is also on the way.—Motherboard
Baltimore Unveils New Rules for City Cops Baltimore and the federal government unveiled the terms of a new consent decree for the city's police force Thursday. The 227-page document includes details of a new a community-oversight task force. The reforms still require the approval of a judge.—VICE
I was going to focus almost entirely on that mess of a trailer for Sky Arts' new series Urban Myths that featured Joseph Fiennes as Michael Jackson. Wisely, but unfortunately for me, after the Jackson family's backlash on the white actor's portrayal of the pop star, Sky cancelled the episode and pulled the trailer. Instead, we'll focus on the slate of awesome horror movies helmed by female directors in this week's roundup.
Raw Julia Ducournau's French cannibal horror film got a lot of buzz at TIFF when it was reported that moviegoers were passing out in the theatre because of the film's gory scenes. That turned out to be just some clever marketing, but watching the trailer you can see why Raw would set the squeamish off. The quick-moving thriller follows a young vegetarian who develops a taste for flesh after a cannibalistic initiation ritual. 33-year-old Ducournau is steadily building a repertoire of pulse-quickening, gorgeously shot thrillers that will no doubt see her on this side of the Atlantic very soon.
XX Horror is without question one of my favourite genres. Yes, it's so often done poorly, which can leave you with hokey, mind-numbing schlock. But when it's done well, the terror is a slow build, pulling you out of your seat and burrowing itself deep in your mind, making sure you don't sleep long after the credits roll. XX is a four-part anthology with a lot of promise, bookending four female directors serving up their own takes on the genre. And all four directors are awesome in their own right: Annie Clark aka St. Vincent tackles The Birthday Party, and Karyn Kusama's short Her Only Living Son has major We Need to Talk About Kevin vibes. Kusama is definitely a director to keep your eyes on. The Invitation was one of last year's most inventive and creepy indies, casting a stylish eye on a modern LA doomsday cult with an unnerving undercurrent of surreality. Roxanne Benjamin and Jovanka Vuckovic round out the anthology which is out Feb. 17.
The Handmaid's Tale It's sad that this feels more like an early look at life in 2020 than a searing dystopia in the far, far away future. Hulu brings to life Margaret Atwood's feminist classic, The Handmaid's Tale, a look at life in a totalitarian state (formerly the US) where women become little more than state-controlled baby machines in an attempt to repopulate the world. Elisabeth Moss plays Offred, a handmaid determined to get the fuck out. In completely unrelated news, the Women's March on Washington is planned for January 21, 2017.
CHIPs Can you imagine what it must be like for our parents to keep seeing mediocre but well-loved TV shows being turned into glossy, big budget movies starring The Rock? Like please tell me there's not going to be a Family Matters movie in 10 years where poor Steve Urkel has to make a cameo with a walker (uhh I don't know how old the actor who played Urkel is but let's assume he's already 60?) Dax Shepard is both star and director on this and I begrudgingly admit it doesn't look awful. But the plethora of gay jokes in the trailer are pushing this towards a no.
iBoy I feel like Black Mirror has ruined the world of dystopic sci-fi for me. Even the tease on this, "What if your reality, got an upgrade" sounds like an Onion parody of the British series. "Imagine, for one second, our phones are BAD!" OK, OK, OK, we get it. Technology. Despite that, and an unfortunate title ( iBoy? Why?) this Netflix original starring Maisie Williams actually looks good. Bill Milner plays a teenager who, after getting shot in the head, essentially develops the capabilities of a smartphone in his brain. He takes this newfound ability and uses it to enact vigilante justice on the gritty streets of London. If you can get past the name, iBoy looks like solid Sunday night hangover viewing.
Sex workers across America were left scrambling on Monday after Backpage.com, an online advertising clearinghouse, closed its controversial "adult" section following years of intense US government and law enforcement pressure.
In my city of New Orleans, professional dominatrix and masseuse Mistress Genevieve needed a ride to an emergency meeting of local sex workers spooked about the news, so I picked her up at her tasteful Seventh Ward dungeon, appointed with a working stockade. "Before Backpage, there was no site for anyone who wasn't a full-service provider," she explained as we drove to the meeting Wednesday. "Backpage was the only place I was finding work as someone who doesn't provide [traditional sex]. It gets so much traffic that you'd get guys who were just looking for domination, or specific other stuff. The other sites don't generate enough traffic for that."
But according to a report released Monday by the US Senate Permanent Subcommittee on Investigations after a 20-month investigation, Backpage is also involved in 73-percent of all child trafficking reports that the National Center for Missing and Exploited Children (NCMEC) receives. The report also cited Backpage's own estimates that it once edited up to 80 percent of its "Adult" ads to remove words that allude to sex trafficking. In the face of such intense scrutiny, the site acquiesced and shut down its Adult section.
It's important to note, however, that none of the sex workers I spoke to for this article say they've ever seen evidence of human trafficking on the site, and Backpage's official statement accompanying the "Adult" shutdown was one of defiance. "For years, the legal system protecting freedom of speech prevailed, but new government tactics…have left the company with no other choice but to remove the content," it read.
Either way, the mess leaves many consenting adults in the lurch, wondering how they'll do business without taking on excess risk in one of America's more dangerous black markets. Sex workers have endured in the face of many crackdowns over the years, of course, but rarely have they experienced a potential economic shockwave quite like this one.
Genevieve has worked as a dominatrix for 23 years, starting her BDSM career working from the backs of nightclubs. "This was already my only job before the internet even came along," she recalled. "And I was one of the first mistresses with a website. I also did really well with print ads in the back of local magazines like Gambit and OffBeat—and in turn escort ads are what paid the bills for a lot of those magazines. Today, I was wondering if I shouldn't try print ads again…"
The name Backpage itself is pretty much a direct reference to sex work, as advertised in the back page of the Village Voice, the company that launched Backpage.com in 2004. Alongside garage sale notices and used cars ads, sex workers helped keep the Voice and other American weeklies afloat during leaner times. Then founders Michael Lacey and Jim Larkin dumped the Voice entirely in 2012 for a monogamous relationship with their website.
Meanwhile, a seemingly endless stream of prosecutors and other critics have claimed that most of Backpage's revenue derives from sex workers—and that a not insignificant share stems from trafficking.
As sex workers have moved to the Internet, the government has maintained a steady pursuit. In 2010, 17 state attorneys general sent Craigslist a letter demanding it cease selling sex ads which, at $10 a pop, reportedly brought the site over $40 million a annually. The site relented. Following the 2012 uncoupling from Backpage, the print version of Village Voice decided to police its own famous adult ads almost out of existence. In 2014, the FBI shut down MyRedBook.com, and a year later, the feds busted the famous gay escort site Rentboy.com.
The void allowed Backpage to become a catch-all service offering everything from topless massages to hardcore bondage. I am loathe to dismiss real concerns about sex trafficking, but it would be tough to come up with a greater, more dynamic depiction of real, honest humanity in all its colorful complexity than the site's now-defunct Adult section.
"In New Orleans the most traffic we have online is from Backpage, hands down," said girlfriend experience provider Zorah as she stood outside the sex workers meeting in New Orleans's 60 degree January air. "But Backpage.com made the traffic amazing for everybody. The analytics say that at least 70-percent of the traffic to my website came directly from Backpage.com."
The traffic bonanza seems to have simply attracted more federal attention, though. In 2015, Visa, MasterCard, and American Express ended all business dealings with the site for fear of facilitating child sex trafficking. Last year, Backpage's CEO Carl Ferrer and former owners] Michael Lacey and James Larkin eluded official pimping charges regarding the site's Adult section, thanks in part to federal free speech laws. The month after they were cleared, three women appealed dismissal of a lawsuit claiming they'd been sold as prostitutes via Backpage while teenagers. The Supreme Court, however, continued to defer to the website's right to host—and not necessarily be blamed for—user-created content.
"When that all happened, everyone in the industry got worried about [using Backpage]," recalled Zorah. "But then nothing happened, and I had quit worrying about it. So, the shutdown really caught me by surprise."
Mistress Genevieve had just deposited $200 into her Backpage account, which she is still welcome to spend purchasing ads in other, less loaded categories. "Today I ran ads to test out Backpage's Massage section and even the Dating sections of Backpage. So far I've gotten only really bad, bad calls," she told me. "The good clients haven't found their way over there yet, just the trolls who do prank calls just to get off, and book no-show appointments."
Alternative escort sites (Eros.com, AdultSearch.com) and client message boards (EroticReview.com, ECCIE.net) exist, of course, but Genevieve and her colleagues suspect none of them will ever garner as much traffic as a site that sells sex but also sells boats, and bikes, and hope for a new job working from home.
Check out our documentary about the new era in Canadian sex work.
On the sidewalk outside the emergency meeting in New Orleans, sex workers grumbled about how the state of Louisiana recently voted to raise the legal dancing age at strip clubs to 21—a move some strippers and club owners believe will aim more young girls toward prostitution. With no recognizable place to advertise, sex workers could be driven farther underground, farther from safety.
After we leave the meeting, Genevieve leads me back to her dungeon, where she listens to a conference call organized by a group called SWOP (Sex Workers Outreach) to address short-term solutions and long-term strategies. She later told me the call included complaints from sex workers (male, female and non-binary) from Las Vegas ("This is censorship!"), Boulder, Colorado ("I haven't received one call from alternate sites."), South Florida ("We are in a panic here.") and elsewhere.
"It's at least good to see sex workers worrying about their own and pulling together," Genevieve said.
In a San Francisco Weekly opinion piece after the 2014 RedBook shutdown, escort Siouxsie Q called sex work "a means of survival in an economy that has betrayed [us]." For Mistress Genevieve and many others, this latest act of marginalization is just another front in a long-running Puritan war against an occupation they think should be legal—and regulated.
"If fat rich white men could put women on the stock exchange, they'd be all for it," she said. "But they can't handle that we have our own agency, and that they're the ones paying instead of capitalizing."
And Friday, of course, is January 13, which—besides being the anniversary of a very different and significantly more heroic airplane story—is Satan's birthday, since Beelzebub obviously exists in a different temporal plane and has birthdays a few times a year or whatever. According to the Daily Mail, the Finnair jet also happens to be 13 years old.
Finland, where the flight landed, doesn't have the kind of renowned black metal history like its neighbors over in Norway, but even Obama knows that the country's metal scene is huge.
Did Flight 666 play Beherit over the in-flight speakers for the entire hour-and-a-half flight? Was it escorted to the gates of HEL by a swarm of demonic flies? Who were the lucky passengers to be seated in row 13?
Put on the song "Hate" by Finnish metal band Impaled Nazarene and marvel at all the endless joke possibilities. Happy Friday the 13th, everybody.
House Speaker Paul Ryan was pressed on a number of different GOP agendas during CNN's televised town hall Thursday night, starting with the Republicans' aggressive push to repeal President Obama's Affordable Care Act.
"I was a Republican, and I worked for the Reagan and Bush campaigns. Just like you, I was opposed to the Affordable Care Act," one audience member said. "Then, at 49, I was given six weeks to live with a very curable type of cancer... Thanks to the Affordable Care Act, I'm standing here today alive." He added, "Why would you repeal the Affordable Care Act without a replacement?"
"We want to advance repealing this law with its replacement at the same time," Ryan said, explaining that Republicans plan to finance statewide high-risk pools to cover people who have preexisting conditions. "We want more choices, lower prices, more competition, no monopolies. That's what we want to replace it with, and that's what we're working on right now."
Ryan later addressed Trump's hardline stance on undocumented immigrants, including the possibility that the president-elect could repeal Obama's executive order that protects undocumented immigrants brought into the country as children.
"This is not the focus. And so what we have to do is find a way to ensure that you can get right with the law," Ryan told one woman, who asked if she should be deported as someone who's currently protected under DACA. "We have to figure out how to fix this, but to do that, people need to have confidence that our laws are being followed, people know who's coming and going, and we need to have a secure border," assuring her Trump's focus was kicking out violent criminals.
Ryan also finally broke his silence about perhaps the biggest news from Congress last week—that cringeworthy moment when the Wisconsin congressman asked the son of a fellow congressmen if he was sneezing when the kid was actually just throwing up a dab during the swearing-in ceremony.
"I actually do know what a dab is," he said, before throwing one up on live television. "He wasn't doing a dab, by the way, it looked like he was sneezing." We live inside a meme now. It's not even a good meme. Get used to it.
The next time your boss pisses you off at work, the solution may be to take your dog for a quick walk. Ya know, make the bald man puke. Polish the pearl. Yes, we are talking about masturbation here.
An ancient, but still relevant, 2008 study suggested that "brief diversions" could greatly increase productivity, or at least help you forget about your passive aggressive colleague sending out yet another mass email condemning the whole office for jamming the paper shredder.
Psychology lecturer Mark Sergeant of Nottingham Trent University told Metro UK that polishing the banister on company time is "very effective at work" and a "great way to relieve tension and stress," especially after you discover someone has stolen your tupperware for the second time in two weeks and you were really looking forward to that homemade lasagna for lunch.
And because at our most basic level we are just a bunch of salivating dogs, Sergeant added that it works as a "great form of self-motivational reward."
He noted that beat-off breaks should be for the express purpose of "stress relief and a genuine desire for a break," in case you were thinking this gives license to lust over that co worker who brushed your shoulder one time at the holiday party. That would be borderline sexual harassment and is not in the true spirit of Capitalism.
The real question, however, is how at-work masturbation breaks would work irl.
"My guess is employers would not want to touch this particular policy," said David Doorey, an associate professor at the School of Human Resource Management at York University told VICE. "Especially considering the heightened sensitivity to sexual harassment and the legal obligation in Canada to avoid poisoned workplaces."
"An employee who announced that he or she was stepping out for a few minutes to masturbate would almost certainly make coworkers uncomfortable and elicit complaints," he added. "My advice would be for employers to encourage brief periods of exercise at work by installing a small gym area rather than masturbation rooms. That would be effective for stress release and morale, with less mess."
For now it's probably best to give that stress ball a good squeeze before anything else.
It's a strange bit of luck when an actor lands an iconic role. It can haunt them like a malicious spirit, cursing future projects and warding off all subsequent fame. Stringer Bell, the drug kingpin from HBO's The Wire, was an iconic role for Idris Elba, who at the time was living in a van and working as a bouncer and DJ in New York City. But Elba's long been free of the specter of that character: he followed The Wire with his portrayal of the titular detective in the BBC's Luther, and he's since portrayed Nelson Mandela in Mandela: Long Walk to Freedom and gave an award-winning turn as the Commandant in Beasts of No Nation. The internet was responsible for putting forth Elba as a fan favorite for portraying the next James Bond—as well as the subsequent outrage when 007 author Anthony Horowitz claimed that Elba was "too street" for the part.
I ask him how he's navigated his career with such versatility, and he responds humbly: "There's no real formula to it. If that's what I've achieved, then that's how I do it." Along with his upcoming Discovery Channel documentary Fighter, which chronicles Elba's attempt to become a professional kickboxer in 12 months, he's currently promoting 100 Streets (a British film which sees an American release today), in which he plays former rugby star Max Moore, who's coming to terms with his decreasing celebrity status. Among other things, it's fun to watch one of the best-looking and most charismatic men alive try to convince us that, due to his character's fading fame, he'd have a hard time picking up women at a bar.
VICE: Some of the characters you've played have been torn between two worlds and conflicting desires. Are you drawn to those types of characters? Idris Elba: All characters are given a dilemma. That's pretty much the way of writing. I've played characters that have extreme dilemmas. All characters are torn between one decision or another— that's just life—but the ones I've played have been pretty extreme. It's life, and people are conflicted. I pay attention to whatever that conflict is. And I'm a human being, you know? I've been through conflicts myself. I'm always drawn to roles that stretch me emotionally. I'm not particularly drawn to roles where I just run around with a gun. I need something to play with as an actor—otherwise I'd just be a stuntman.
With Max Moore, how would you characterize the worlds he's torn between? He's someone who's facing his relevance—who was in the public eye, had his heyday, and isn't as popular anymore. He's caught in that downfall, which for people in the public eye can be hard, because it's a fall from grace. That's what he's battling.
"Luther's walk is my walk, to be honest."
I've always been curious about Luther's way of walking. It is specific to that character, in a way that reveals so much about his interiority. Do you spend a lot of time thinking through those type of details? I wouldn't say that, but physicality is an important part of the character. People pay attention to how a character walks, or their idiosyncratic behaviors. I try to not overdo it. Luther's walk is my walk, to be honest. But when he wears his costume, there's a different force of physicality that happens. I don't go out of my way to create physical traits in characters, but it's important for most actors.
Courtesy of Getty Images
You are so involved in so many different types of expression—music, film, fashion, directing, now kickboxing. You seem to be preternaturally capable of having a foot in multiple worlds and, perhaps, most comfortable when you are taking on many challenges. Is that true? Yeah, I'm obviously trying to challenge myself and I want to live a full life. I don't want to be one of these people who end up saying, "Shoulda-coulda-woulda." I just think, "Why not?" Actors and people in the public eye are afforded such license to do so many things—good, bad, and for themselves or others—and I take advantage of the idea that, because of what I do, I'm allowed to explore things. I can help and open doors for others, and I love doing that. I love exploring what I'm doing with music because it's just an art form. Directing is a natural progression for actors, eventually, because they hate being told what to do after a while.
"I used to work in a grocery store weighing peanuts and raisins into bags. That was a bad job."
Courtesy of Getty Images
Any really terrible early jobs? I used to work in a grocery store weighing peanuts and raisins into bags. That was a bad job.
When you first came to the US, you paid your bills working as a DJ and living out of your van. How did those early jobs shape the way you think of your career now and how did you stay focused on your art and your desires in those leaner moments? I'd grown up not having money. My parents weren't particularly successful—they were just hardworking people and I wanted to try to be something different. I focused in on that failure of not being able to be an actor the way that I wanted until I had no choice. Living in my van forever wasn't a choice.
Human beings are so resilient. Even if you can't do something, you can program yourself to do it. It doesn't matter what it is, you can really do it. It's the most incredible thing our brain can do. And that is what I used and honed in on since I was a kid. No matter how shit is and no matter how bad the chips are down, you can definitely climb out of that situation. And if you have an attitude like that, when you don't ace an audition, you don't sort of stop acting, you'll go in and do it again and do it better. I've had that attitude since very early in my life.
"I'm going to block you now." Those are the last words I heard from a person I was... seeing? Hanging out with? Dating? I don't even know. When we were together, we felt like a couple, complete with home-cooked meals, reality TV cuddling, and sometimes even sex. But our relationship operated in a strange, sub-"couple" space; we didn't go out together or meet each other's friends. We just enjoyed our time together every now and again, and that was that.
I wasn't ready to call him my boyfriend, but I knew what we were doing couldn't last forever. We'd either have to move forward in some way or end it. But when I asked him those three important words—"what are we?"—he ghosted me. For two months.
He's not the first person I've built a real bond with who's hesitated to call us anything more than "friends," and I'm sick of it. Too many people today still view their interpersonal sexual relationships as one of two things: "in a relationship" or "not in a relationship." They refuse to leave room for anything in-between—ways to categorize those relationships that are decidedly more than just "friends" but way less than full-blown dating.
It's time to tame the Wild West of Fucking. How do we do that? With a definitive, bulletproof list, of course. Below, you'll find a scientific breakdown of the lifecycle of a modern relationship, in an effort to help all daters get on the same page.
Just talking: You've matched on Tinder, or maybe you just met at a bar and exchanged numbers. Either way, you're in the pre-dating stage. You're feeling each other out with chit chat, engaging in the necessary pre-date small talk. You're both pretending that you haven't found each other's Facebook, Twitter, and Instagram profiles and are subtly asking questions about what you found. The "just talking" stage lasts for as little as a few hours to several weeks.
Friends: You went on a date or two, but both agree that the sexual chemistry is just not there. You're platonic as fuck, but that's alright! You're both OK with it, and everything is fine.
Just friends: One thing led to another, as it often does. You hooked up. If neither of you ghosted, it's safe to assume you've had the awkward but necessary talk that follows. And in this stage, you agree that it was a one-time thing. You are going to stay friends. Just friends. Until the fall of man, you are never allowed to get drunk at a party with this person ever again.
Friends with benefits: Sometimes, what you thought was a one time mistake just keeps happening. Maybe the sex was surprisingly good, and your last date talked a little too much about "false flags" on 9/11. You're going to keep boning, but that's all. These situations either end cleanly—usually when one of you finds someone else—or in tortured emotional turmoil, as one of the two develops deep, unrequited romantic feelings that ultimately destroy what was a simple and enjoyable situation for everyone. And if we're being real, that's almost always what happens. If you can really, truly go back to being "just friends" after passing that point, I encourage you to find a competent agent and sell the TV rights to your story ASAP.
Hooking up: Distinct from "friends with benefits," "hooking up" is often little more than sex without any meaningful friendship or bond to back it up. And, hell, you don't even need to know each other's last names. Also known as "fuck buddies," or, if you're still living in the '90s, a "booty call".
Hanging Out: You're hooking up, but beginning to form a bond that feels like it has potential beyond sex and half-watched episodes of the X-Files. You might start doing things together while sober, or even during daylight, if you can imagine. Hanging out can develop into something more, but you both need to be at a place in your lives where you're open to that. Talk about it. Seriously. Just have a conversation. It's OK. You can probably still have sex afterward.
Dating: You're together in some way, but still getting to know one another better. You're staying over at each other's places more frequently, holding hands in public after getting ice cream in the middle of the night, slowly starting to meet one another's friends. Welcome to relationship purgatory. If all goes smoothly, you might eventually transition to the next step.
In an open relationship: You want to be each other's main squeeze but also want to have a side piece here and there without destroying the relationship. Note: Cheating repeatedly is not being in an open relationship. Both parties should be aware of the extra-curricular activity happening in order for this to be a legitimate open relationship, as should the people you're sleeping with.
In a relationship: The best thing about reaching this stage is that you can finally start posting pictures of each other on Instagram with captions like "bae" and "wifey" for all your bitter, single friends to feign enthusiasm about.
It's complicated: One of you wants out, or wants to change the structure of the relationship, but that desire is met with resistance from the other side. Instead of breaking up, you're willing to admit that things are complicated between the two of you. Maybe you'll even change your status on Facebook to "It's Complicated," something I don't think has ever been done in the history of time unironically, but I could be wrong. Either way, things just got rocky.
Broken Up: It's over. For whatever reason (and there are so, so many of them), your relationship just didn't work out. Time to admit defeat and start over. Do not pass go. Do not collect $200. Do pick up the box of your belongings waiting for you at their doorstep.
So, there it is. You might be one of the many emotionally unavailable young adults in this world who still finds many of these labels terrifying, and that's fine. Take your time; do what you need to do. Work through your issues. At the same time, you should do your romantic partner(s) a favor by giving them some sort of answer instead of cutting them off, or trivializing the bond you two had. It's time to own up to the bullshit, and referring to this guide will help. It'll make us all happier in the long run, I promise. (I hope.)
There is probably no American short story writer more beloved than George Saunders. His best-selling work has won every award from the MacArthur "Genius Grant" and World Fantasy Award, to the Folio Prize and a Guggenheim Fellowship. But while he's been publishing for more than 20 years, he hasn't published a novel—until this year.
His first novel, Lincoln in the Bardo, will be published next month, and it's easily one of the most anticipated books of the year. If you need proof of how excited people are, look no further than the absurdly star-studded, 166-person cast of the audiobook version.
Basically every celebrity you love—from Julianne Moore and Ben Stiller, to Lena Dunham and Miranda July—will lend their voices to Saunders's debut novel. The lineup includes alt-rock stars like Jeff Tweedy and Marvel superheroes like Don Cheadle, along with Nick Offerman, David Sedaris, Carrie Brownstein, Susan Sarandon, Keegan-Michael Key, and countless others. Needless to say, it's one impressive lineup for anything, let alone an audiobook. (The publisher is actually applying for a Guinness world record for the most audiobook narrators in a single work.)
The audiobook will also feature the voices of Saunders's friends and family. "I love the idea that by casting actors and non-actors we were able to simulate that 'I hear America singing' notion," the author said in a press release.
Lincoln in the Bardo follows Abraham Lincoln after the death of his son Willie at the start of the Civil War. The bardo in Tibetan buddhism is the transitional state between life and death, and it's there that "Lincoln finds himself in a strange purgatory where ghosts mingle, gripe, commiserate, quarrel, and enact bizarre acts of penance." Look for the both the book and the audiobook next month.
Today is Friday the 13th. You probably don't need to be told that, because if you possess a single shred of sense you'll be reading this from a small but secure bed-based fort. And you'll be doing so tomorrow, on Saturday the 14th, because powering up your laptop on such a fundamentally unlucky day could well result in a fiery explosion, disastrous given your apparently secure but actually highly flammable citadel of pillows.
In reality, of course, Friday the 13th is simply a day like any other – but why is the number 13 considered to be so unlucky? There are various reasons, none of them especially convincing. It's often explained by the idea that there were 13 people at the Last Supper; legend has it that Judas Iscariot was the 13th man to take his seat that night, though there's no mention of this in the Bible and it's likely to be a modern invention. In Norse mythology, meanwhile, it is said that Loki was the 13th god; he was believed to have engineered the murder of fellow god Balder, and was the 13th guest to arrive at the ensuing funeral. More logically, there were 13 steps leading up to the gallows – not a lucky place to be – though finding yourself there was generally the result of severe misdeeds, not ill fortune.
Baseless as it may be, a fear of the number 13 is not uncommon. It has a catchy name – "triskaidekaphobia" – and plenty of adherents, many of them in the world of sport. Competitors, teams and even leagues have shied away from the number, fearing it to be a harbinger of bad luck and, potentially, harmful to revenue. On the other hand, there are some brave individuals who have actively embraced the number 13, carrying it into battle like a badge of honour, waving a red rag at the raging bull that is fate, and emerging victorious.
The world's been patiently waiting for details about Nintendo's new console for months, and after the company revealed the name and confirmed the dual console/handheld approach last October, it was only a matter of time before we had a release date and a price. That changed during a presentation in Japan this evening, where Nintendo revealed the Switch would arrive in the United States, Japan, and several other countries simultaneously on March 3 for $300.
The accessories aren't cheap, though. A Pro Controller will run you $70, an extra Joy-Con Con controller is $80. Wanna buy those Joy-Con controllers (left, right) separate? $50 each.
As we already knew, Nintendo intends for people to play their Switch both at and away from home. One massive concern, however, has been battery life. At the event, Nintendo said people can expect between "2.5 and 6 hours" of battery life, depending on the intensity of the game. Nintendo says you can get about three hours of The Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild.
Nintendo's slowly dipped their toes into online services with their past few machines, but they're apparently making a bigger investment with Switch; the company will be charging for it—starting in the fall. It'll be free when the Switch is released in March, but that'll change. It's unclear what Nintendo will be using to justify a subscription, nor what the price is. (I've always hoped Nintendo would charge for a Virtual Console subscription, but I know that's unlikely.) We do know that subscribers will get access to free NES/SNES games each month, and Nintendo will be adding online play to multiplayer ones.
In Nintendo fashion, they put an emphasis on the hardware's unique qualities, such as "HD rumble," an advanced take on the company's once-pioneering rumble technology. To illustrate, they unveiled 1,2 Switch, a game primarily played by "face-to-face interaction." In other words, you're not spending time looking at the screen—you're holding the detachable JoyCon controllers and judging the next move based on what your opponent is physically doing. 1,2 Switch will be available when Switch launches, though it (sadly) doesn't seem like a pack-in.
Thessaloniki on a Sunday night is usually pretty dead, but it was even more deserted than usual last week. Driving around the city, we didn't spot many other cars. After a while, photographer Alexandros turned off the car radio because it was only broadcasting messages about the schools being closed the next day. Temperatures in the area ranged from 12 to 17 degrees, while the apparent temperature was 5 degrees. Even some of the bigger avenues in the center of town were covered in ice. It was the coldest night in Thessaloniki in close to 40 years.
We got out of the car and slipped and stumbled to a city-run homeless shelter in the Fix area. Around 40 people spend the night here on a regular night, but last Sunday, there were at least 70 people there—most of them Greek men. Given the temperatures, people were allowed into the dormitory earlier in the afternoon, allowed to leave later the following morning, and to take a hot bath and wash their clothes. Still, there were people insisting on sleeping on the street—we saw two men covered in blankets and plastic sheets on the streets that night. One on a concrete bench in a courtyard, another on a street corner.
Despite being warned by meteorologists, Greece's second-biggest city wasn't prepared for the cold. Gas companies hadn't instructed the people of Thessaloniki on how to deal with these unfamiliar temperatures. Gas pipes froze, which left half of the households in Thessaloniki without gas and hot water. Water meters broke, and bottled water in supermarkets quickly sold out.
We drove on through the city center, where most Christmas decorations hadn't been taken down yet. Fountains in the park and the waterfalls on the new beachfront were covered in two inches of ice—some kids were testing their luck by walking and jumping on it. In a soup shop, a waiter looked out at the street through steamed-up windows. "It's very cold," he said, perceptively. "I don't remember it ever being this cold in Thessaloniki."
Justin Payne is a self-proclaimed vigilante who spends his nights pretending to be a 13-year-old boy online. He is intent on shaming every pedophile who falls for his trap. With help from his cameraman Gerry, the duo have publicly shamed hundreds of sexual predators and have been a thorn in the side of local law enforcement. Filmed in the suburbs of Toronto, this new VICE documentary intimately exposes the life of Justin Payne and his intense late night encounters.
Everyone kinda likes a vigilante. It's hard not to be attracted to the appeal of street justice. It's the reason we're so culturally saturated with stories that conjure a dark, anti-hero vibe in comics, video games, film, and television.
We want to cheer those characters on.
That's why, in many ways, it's so unsurprising that Canada's vigilante pedophile hunters have large followings for their YouTube and Facebook clips that expose men across Canada who allegedly spend their time online sexually luring children.
That rabid audience, mixed with the moral complexities of this type of vigilantism, is largely why we were compelled to produce our latest documentary: Age of Consent.
The subject of the film is Justin Payne, an Ontario construction worker, who is arguably the first Canadian pedophile hunter, and is certainly the most well-known.
VICE first profiled Payne in a print piece back in the fall of 2015 but it was obvious to us that we needed to spend even more time with this fascinatingly controversial man.
The result is a documentary that is both visceral and upsetting. It gets at the moral grey areas intrinsic to vigilantism, particularly when that breed of renegade justice is pointed towards arguably the most despised crime on the planet.
Here to talk about the documentary are Patrick McGuire, VICE Canada's Head of Content, and Shawney Cohen, the film's director and one of its producers.
Patrick McGuire: Let's start at the beginning. How did we come to the decision that it would be a good idea to follow Justin Payne around?
Shawney Cohen: Good question. For me, Justin's an amazing character. First and foremost, aside from this being about someone who is a vigilante, aside from the pedophilia, he's a great character and he's amazing to follow around, and he just jumps into the lens. As a filmmaker, I'm attracted to that. The issues kind of became more apparent as we got deeper into making the film but, I was really attracted to this idea of vigilantism and that you have a true vigilante with Justin, and I had never met one before and it was fascinating. This is someone who operates in a very, very grey area of the law and in some way believes he is doing some type of justice, but in a very kind of dark-seeded underground way.
Patrick: You're not the only one who likes vigilantism. We see in the film people basically cheering Justin on, and it happens more than once. Did you encounter that a lot? Do you think that the public opinion of this kind of work generally, even if people aren't vocal about it, is that they are in favour?
Shawney: I think so. I think there is a couple things going on. I'm noticing this trend, this idea that people believe police aren't doing enough, and it's not that they are or they aren't, I just think that there is a bit of a disconnect and I think partly it could be about how the police publicly announce what they do. I talked to an officer very recently about Justin. The first thing he said is, you know, "We do a ton of work," and they were defending their point that they do a million times more than Justin ever will. They absolutely track pedophiles every single day. They have a whole unit that is dedicated to child pornography, and I just think people don't know that, so you have this angry public that doesn't know much about what the police are doing. But then you see someone like Justin who, aside from catching pedophiles, is really interested in posting [on Facebook/YouTube] what he does, and he's public and he's so out there that people kind of gravitate to someone that is perceived as doing good.
Patrick: Yeah, and one of the shocking things to me—it's not surprising that the Toronto Police have a whole unit working on this because, Justin—it's not like he's trying to get one guy a week or something like that. There doesn't seem to be a shortage of potential targets for him.
Shawney: The second you start filming him you realize at any given time he's got 50 to 60 people on the hook. There is no shortage of perceived sexual predators out there, and that's what shocked me. I thought going into this we'd maybe find one or two suspected pedophiles—maybe—but every single time, without fail, there was a distinct possibility that we'd probably catch someone, and I just think that is kinda creepy. There are a lot of sexual predators out there and what's shocking the most is the sheer amount of people out there trying to lure children.
Patrick: We have Dr. Cantor in the film who provides medical analysis that helps place at least the syndrome of pedophelia into context but we didn't get any police that would give us an on-camera interview. What was the tension around going on the record about that?
Shawney: We actually had police interested in talking to us and then something happened a few months ago that changed everything. In BC, a police officer was caught by the Creep Catchers group. I just want to make this distinction: Justin doesn't affiliate himself with Creep Catchers. He actually believes what he's doing is quite different, and there's different tactics that he uses than the Creep Catchers use that he doesn't necessarily agree with. But, in saying that, the bigger group, Creep Catchers—this BC group—caught an RCMP officer who is currently being investigated. The second that happened, it became very very difficult to get any comment from a police officer about this, and I respect that. I think they just felt that they didn't want to deal with this in the open. One of their own got caught. I'm not sure where the situation legally is now but that was definitely a catalyst for them not talking to us.
Patrick: And another thing you and I talked a lot about is why Justin is so legally ineffective. He obviously exposes people and publically shames them and probably traumatizes them but carries essentially a zero percent conviction rate so, what is that failure rate attributed to?
Shawney: You quickly learn when you're filming Justin that, while he's interested in justice, his end goal is very different than the police. What he's interested in is social media, and his brand of justice has, really, nothing to do with a conviction or an investigation. Even though he's very good at what he does and he employs tactics that the police use, his end result is quite different. He is only interested in posting people online and shaming them, and that is quite different than the due process involved with what the police would do. And, once you make that distinction you realize that—I'm sure Justin would love for a lot of these people to get arrested, in fact, someone in the film does—but, make no mistake about it, first and foremost his interest is putting these people online and getting as many views as possible. He believes that by doing that, by shaming someone, that they will probably not reoffend. [But] nobody really knows the statistics about whether people reoffend or not. There's a couple people that have been shamed and have come back and he's caught them a second time, but those are few and far between, so, yeah, it's just a different end result. A different brand of justice.
Patrick: On the one hand, he's looking for publicity, which he says is a way to punish these people, but it's also a way for him to have some kind of connection to the outside world. He's obviously had some personal issues in his life, but he's kind of a media darling. I mean, we have this film and it's a sometimes excruciating look at what this guy does, but we see him on the front page of the Sun, we see him on Global News, we see him on CityTV. This guy is built for mass attention. Is that just going to drive these alleged predators more underground, do you think? Or is it actually going to reform people. It seems more likely that it will make his targets more savvy.
Shawney: If you ask Dr. Cantor, the expert in the film, he would probably say that what Justin is doing it completely ineffective. It's hard to say. I had a different opinion about this when I started filming him. I actually thought Justin, aside from how effective he is, what he was doing was kind of controversial and it kind of bugged me a bit, and then you see his phone, and then you see someone who's going to meet him, and then you see a dick pic, and then you see someone who is in their 40s clearly interested and trying to hook up with a child. And, when you see that, you begin to realize, OK, if Justin is doing this—it is a grey area—but, I'll tell you this: the crew, everyone involved began to really sympathize with Justin and believe what he was doing was something of importance. So yeah, I mean, it's a tough grey area—it's really tough. I think that's why the film is so good because it really balances this fine line of whether Justin is morally correct or not.
Patrick: I think we've done a good job at giving people the tools to make their own decision, but you see it in the film. I mentioned it earlier, about that woman in the parking lot that says, "I want my kid to meet you one day" or "I want my kid to shake your hand one day" or something like that, that's kinda crazy. People kind of love him, it seems.
Shawney: Yeah, I mean, part of that has to do with his looks and how he comes off in the media. You're right, he is a bit of a darling and he loves the media and he knows how to handle himself. There's all kinds of problems with him, like mentally and socially—I'm not saying that he's psychologically disturbed, I think he's actually a great guy and, like everyone else, he's got a few problems, but I really think… his intentions are great. I kind of grew to like him quite a bit. There's a bit of desperation there, and I think what he's doing is highly controversial, but it doesn't take away from who he is as a person. And that's what I like about this film: it's really a biography about him, and there's quite a distinction between what he does in comparison to a lot of other creep catchers. One of our writers, Manisha Krishnan, is writing a lot about these other groups that employ tactics that can be despicable.
Patrick: Like what?
Shawney: Well, swapping ages, for instance.
Patrick: When you say swapping ages, you mean...
Shawney: So, basically, when you're luring someone, you say that you're a specific age. Justin does this to but he's much more savvy. It's very important to him that he clearly understands that the person that he's in contact with knows that he is underage. More of a grey area from what I can see with some of the Creep Catchers, for instance. Swapping age basically means on their profile they say that they are 34-35 or 28-29—show a picture. On route, they swap the age and say "You know, I'm actually 14 or 13." So, without getting into too many details, there's actually a rule and an ethical kind of approach to doing this, and that's what's interesting about Justin. It's not cut and dry and there's actual tactics and a style involved and, I think, from what I see, Justin's style is a bit more ethically correct. I could be wrong, but that's what it appears to me.
Patrick: So, to me, this film is important to see because it's happening. This is a phenomenon that is spreading across the country in multiple provinces, and there are alleged predators out there in droves it seems that are being targeting by both the police and the Creep Catchers and, for that reason alone, I think it makes sense for this film to exist. I think it's going to shock a lot of people, probably upset some people and, maybe, like you said, create some Justin fans—I'm not sure what I think about that—but, why do you think it's important for people to see this?
Shawney: Good question. I would say, first and foremost, it's a good film, aside from what—and I think that doesn't get necessarily talked about as much as it should. If you like good filmmaking, if you like good biographies, I think just watching someone—a vigilante—go through his daily life is interesting, but, bigger social context—I think it's that people should understand that there's an angry public out there and vigilantism exists in ways that, for me, I certainly didn't understand. I didn't realize the scope of it but, yeah, there's a lot of vigilantes out there. Not even just pedophile vigilantes, and I don't know what that's about, and that's what seems to be this trend that is kind of finding its' way into our culture. Again, I think it has a lot to do with the relationship people have with police. Maybe they're angry with police. Certainly police haven't had a lot of great media attention in the last year or two and perhaps they're looking for other answers. On the pedophile end, I would say a lot of this has to do with the importance of watching what you're doing on social media and watching what your kids are doing on social media. I think that's really important. Our cameraman has two kids, and he got freaked out, and I know for a fact that he's going to be more vigilant about what they do online. They're both under 10. I think parents in general will probably be the most freaked out about this. I don't know for better or for worse whether they're going to clamp down on them, but yeah, this is also a great comment on how we act online and how we have these personas online and how easy it is to meet people that you don't know online.
The joy of A Series of Unfortunate Events is, in fact, its bleakness. The book series, written by Daniel Handler under the name "Lemony Snicket" and which debuted in 1999, stood out by not adhering to the happy-ever-after formula. We meet the children as they learn that their parents just died, then we follow them—for 13 increasingly grim books—as they bounce from guardian to guardian, trying to escape the clutches of villainous Count Olaf. The adults are terrible and useless; the children can only rely only on one another as they plunge further and further into an overarching mystery about their parents' secrets. Throughout, the narrator—Snicket, maintaining a wry, depressive, and darkly amusing tone—repeatedly tells readers to stop, put down the book, and seek out something happier. Of course, the more he does so, the more we want to keep reading.
It's fitting (and promising), then, that the theme song of Netflix's A Series of Unfortunate Events television adaptation begins by warning viewers to "look away"—because it quickly proves to be a series that you can't look away from. The eight-episode first season adapts the first four books, each split into two parts. It closely follows the Baudelaire children: 14-year-old inventor Violet (Malina Weissman), 12-year-old voracious reader Klaus (Louis Hynes), and baby Sunny (Presley Smith, voiced by Tara Strong), who's known for her powerful teeth and subtitled quips. Neil Patrick Harris takes on Count Olaf, fully embodying the character's evil, murderous nature while also being just campy enough to land the dark jokes and play up Olaf's many disguises. (And yes, there is a musical number.)
The cast also features always-welcome Joan Cusack and Catherine O'Hara, as well as series highlights Aasif Mandvi and Alfre Woodard, as Uncle Monty and Aunt Josephine (two characters who were white in the books). Patrick Warburton is Snicket, the narrator who repeatedly breaks the fourth wall with warnings or waxing poetic about his own personal tragedies, exhibiting an eerie sense of calm when describing tragedies that elevates everything on screen instead of making it redundant.
Warburton's always been known for his deep, gravely voice that made even the cheesiest of punchlines (see: Rules of Engagement) funny, as long as they're delivered in a deadpan tone. It works so well here that it'll soon be impossible to read (or re-read) the books without hearing his voice in your head. Warburton's presence also manages to keep a lot of the books' fun and nerdy wordplay, sometimes functioning as a sly dictionary (Snicket pauses to explain what "dramatic irony" is before we see it firsthand; later, he explains what an "optimist" is—not to be confused with optometrist, though both, Snicket warns, can be dangerous.)
In an early press release, Handler joked, "Netflix has lured millions of people to their programming, causing them to stare mesmerized at bewitching storytelling for hours or even days on end. Who better to adapt A Series of Unfortunate Events, which is a cavalcade of abject misery — a binge, if you will, of sadness and woe?" His penchant for hyperbole is on the money here: A Series of Unfortunate Events is perfect for Netflix.
The books are easily split and digestible in smaller increments. The ongoing mystery spans the book series, particular the second-half, but each installment includes standalone horrors, sets, and characters. Of all the shows Netflix has released in recent weeks, it's A Series of Unfortunate Events (which is neither too-adult or too-childish to fit well on a major broadcast network) that makes the most of its streaming home, and that showcases the best of Netflix's ability and strategy.
By making each episode an hour long, the show has room to breathe without rushing through; by dividing each book into two parts, we're able to see the full story of each gloomy misadventure. It's built for both binge-watchers and patient viewers (I watched two a day, to slowly let the horrors creep in). Daniel Handler serves as the executive producer and penned a handful of the episodes (in contrast, the film was written by Robert Gordon), while Barry Sonnenfield—who earlier honed this fun/dark balance in Addams Family and Pushing Daisies—directs four episodes.
A Series of Unfortunate Events takes place in creepy locales—Olaf's dilapidated home, Aunt Josephine's precariously built house on a cliff overlooking hurricane central, the dangerous and nerve-racking Lucky Smells Lumbermill—that are brought to life by the set design. While the 2004 movie (which received mixed reviews, resulting in the cancellation of a planned franchise) seemed to sacrifice story for style, this new series successfully blends both together in a way that heightens the delightful grimness. (It also depicts a wonderful attention to detail: Reptile-obsessed Uncle Monty has a snakeskin print rug on his stairs.) There is a sense of perpetual doom and gloom, and an ongoing feeling of unease, as the camera pans through Olaf's disgusting kitchen or lingers on the woman-size hole in a glass window.
There is also no set time period for these events, which adds to the story's necessary confusing and imbalance. Transportation is deliberately old fashioned, typewriters are popular—but there are still mentions of contemporary musicians and, of course, Uber. An aversion to the norm fuels the series, down to the smaller moments; a male news anchor named Veronica casually throws to his co-anchor, a woman named Vincent.
But the dark writing is still the star of the show here, bringing the characters to life in all of their misery. Aunt Josephine is so plagued by a trauma that she goes from being "fierce and formidable" to a woman who is scared of everything from the stove to real estate agents, but the show doesn't have to spell out PTSD for us to understand. Count Olaf's villainy is mostly comical, but sometimes downright disturbing (spoiler: an early plot involves him trying to marry a 14-year-old) in a way that's hard to shake.
Still, the most haunting aspect is the desperation of the Baudelaire siblings. Every episode, they try to get an adult—any adult—to see what they see, to understand the evilness they are surrounded by, to point out that the villain is quite literally standing in front of them—but in a wig!—yet they are constantly told that they are wrong, that it's just their grief or paranoia talking, until it's too late to be fixed. The adults will never quite learn, but the series at least wants viewers to take note of the lessons.
With Republicans in control of the White House, Congress, and (soon) the Supreme Court, progressive groups are considering ripping a page from the conservative playbook to advance and defend their priorities—workers' rights, gun safety, immigrant protections, environmentalism, and more—over the next four years.
That page? Federalism, the idea that state and local governments can and should pursue policies independent of (and even in conflict with) the federal government's priorities.
In terms of ideology, federalism is most often embraced by libertarians and conservatives, who love to cite the Tenth Amendment's granting to states any powers not explicitly given to the feds. These people are opposed to big government, and no government is bigger than the one looming in Washington, DC.
A common critique of federalism is that no matter how good local control of laws sounds in theory, in practice "states rights" has been code for opposition to civil rights laws that protect the right of minorities. "Many [liberals] think 'federalism' is just a code word for letting racists be racist," Yale law professor Heather K Gerken observed in 2012.
"Cities are the places where we live where we work where we play," says Nikki Fortunato Bas, executive director of the Partnership for Working Families. That means local and state governments "are the places that we can resist the most regressive and harmful policies."
Liberals have dipped their toes into federalist waters before. In the 1980s, Minnesota governor Rudy Perpich sued to prevent deployment of his state's National Guard to Honduras; the Supreme Court ruled that the feds had control over guard units.
More recently, progressives have pursued their priorities at the state and local levels, when Congress proved too gridlocked to allow meaningful legislation to pass. The "Fight for $15" minimum-wage campaign has mainly taken place in major cities. It's also mainly urban areas where local officials have resisted fully cooperating with federal immigration authorities, creating so-called sanctuary cities. And the fight over marijuana legalization has taken place at the state level, with the federal government—so far—displaying a light touch in states that choose a permissive path.
Progressives have also taken their campaigns directly to voters at the state level: In November, voters in deep-red states like Arizona were joined by voters in Colorado, Maine, and Washington in approving minimum-wage hikes. Those sorts of populist, worker-friendly policies—which few in the GOP seem interested in pursuing—could counter some of the ruthlessly pro-business goals the Trump administration may pursue.
"Washington appears poised to slam the brakes on worker protections Obama has strengthened in the past eight years," says Paul K. Sonn, general counsel and program director for the National Employment Law Project, a labor rights group. "Progressives are likely to respond by going local, where there's more latitude to make progress."
Republicans don't just control the federal government; they're dominant in most state governments these days, too.
"The landscape is complicated, but there's deep grassroots support to challenge inequality and improve job conditions," Sonn says. "Even in the red states, there's a lot of grassroots energy at the local level."
The defense of local prerogatives may find its strongest expression in California, where state officials have hired former US attorney general Eric Holder to fight Trump administration initiatives in court, just as conservative state attorneys general sued the Obama administration over the Affordable Care Act and his immigration policies. "It shows that we're very serious in protecting the values of the people of California against any attempt to undermine the policies that have made us the fifth-largest economy in the world," State Senate leader Kevin De León told the Los Angeles Times last week.
But states are at a disadvantage when they come into a conflict with Washington. Trump ran for president promising to crack down on sanctuary cities that protect undocumented migrants from federal deportation; those cities could face a loss of federal funding if they don't go along with the feds.
"The playbook for opponents is that if they're losing at the local level, they'll go over city's heads to the state to try to block local action," Sonn says.
Beyond the federal government being in the hands of Trump, activists say there are good reasons to push for change at the state and local levels.
"Our theory is you can build power at the local level in a very deep way," Bas says. "The federal government has a tremendous amount of power, but at the local level, city hall has control over regulatory power, minimum-wage laws, land -se power, and also purchasing power, which is a huge thing—both in terms of purchasing and in terms of economic development."
And Sonn believes GOP domination of state governments is misleading.
"You go to any major city—Houston or Birmingham—there's much less partisan divide," he says.
Joseph McLaughlin, director of the Institute for Public Affairs and Center on Regional Politics at Temple University in Philadelphia, says there's one other reason liberals should take federalism seriously: America's just damn big and diverse.
"The parties are straining to represent a country that is in many ways is polarized—not just politically but geographically and economically—and they're having a hard time doing it," he says. "That may just be a recognition there's only so much a national government can do about the way people want to live their lives, when they have such fundamental disagreements."
"When you have a continental country with such varied economic and cultural entities, it makes sense not to have one size fits all," Gutzman adds.
In the meantime, progressive groups are organizing. Liberal federalism, Bas says, will face its challenges quickly after Trump takes office—particularly on the immigration front.
"Can we resist mass deportation, resist cooperating with any kind of registry?" she says. "We're waiting to see what happens post-January 20."
Despite being the largest and best-educated generation in the country, millennials are far worse off financially than baby boomers were, spelling out a troubling financial future for young people throughout their lifetime, according to a depressing new analysis from the advocacy group Young Invincibles.
After looking at 2013 Federal Reserve data for 25- to 34-year-olds and comparing it with the same age group back in 1989, the analysis found that millennials today are making a median income of around $40,000—a whopping 20 percent drop from what baby boomers were earning when they were just starting out. Baby boomers also had twice the number of assets that millennials have now.
We've been seeing this trend develop in different ways over the past couple years—millennials are more burdened by student loans and less likely to own a home, choosing instead to move back in with their parents. Despite being well-educated, entering in to the job market during one of the worst recessions since the Great Depression has resulted in lower starting wages, which could lead to an overall stunted standard of living.
As far as solutions go, the analysis offered some suggestions to policymakers, like raising the federal minimum wage, offering paid family and medical leave, and providing more apprenticeships for middle-class jobs. The study also found that, despite how expensive it might be, college is still a good investment. College grads with student debt own homes at a higher rate than baby boomers did in 1989, and they are currently saving more for retirement than those without a degree, according to the study.
"By demonstrating the severe intergenerational declines impacting today's young adults, we hope policymakers take up young adult financial security as a priority issue, and that these recommendations serve as a guide of how to level the playing field and offer basic social and economic protections in today's economy," the study says. "As the largest and most diverse generation in history, and a plurality of our workforce, the financial health of young adults is the financial health of the nation and will dictate our shared economic future."
Sneaking into music festivals is as old as festivals themselves. And that's because while we all love them—once you've forgotten about the scorching heat, the bad trips, and the showers—we've all found ourselves on the wrong side of the fence at least once. VICE asked around to find out the times you snuck in and succeeded, or ended up stranded on the side of the road in the middle of nowhere.
Toby, Byron Bay
How to stay warm when you didn't sneak in a sleeping bag
It was Saturday, day three of one of the Australia's biggest music festivals, and I was at work in the city. The fear of missing out was building rapidly, and my mind kept drifting off to what was happening at the festival. I decided I wasn't going to miss it. I texted my mate to see if he'd be down to sneak in.
We didn't have a car so we had to get a train to the country town and hitchhike. After about two hours of attempting to hitch a ride, a friendly local girl on her way home turned around to see where we needed to go. She explained we'd have a really hard time getting picked up out here. So out of the kindness of her heart she drove us all the way to the country town where the festival was happening.
The sun started going down as we ran through the bush. We changed into all black clothes, assumed a position up on a hill, and waited until complete darkness. From up there, we could see the security guards were ripping around in utes and 4x4s with massive spotlights looking for likeminded sneakers. Every now and then you'd hear someone make a run for it, and then lights would follow them down through the dense bushland.
As we made a move, we were sure we got caught by a spotlight pointing directly at us, the guards making their way closer. It felt like we were escaping from prison. The last 50 metres before the fence line we had to commando crawl below the spotlight view. Then we made the final sprint. My mate pulled way well ahead of me. Trying to keep up I tripped over a log and face-planted, before face-planting once again over a barbed wire fence. I made it in, but I'll always buy a ticket from now on.
Iman, Kuala Lumpur
Confident, sneaky foxes
We got caught trying to sneak through a farm. We tried to be stealthy but then we saw a ute coming towards us and tried to run away and hide in a bush. A guard caught us and drove us back, telling us security had been notified and they knew what we looked like. He said to leave or they would call the police.
We sat on the road for a long time pretty stressed about what the fuck to do at that point. We were completely stranded there. Eventually, we decided that our best option would be to go suss the front gate and maybe buy a ticket. Even though that would've meant all of our money gone.
At the gate, we noticed there were so many people lining up to buy tickets. Being the sneaky foxes that we are we just kept walking without saying anything. I quietly said to my friend, "Put your hand in your bag like you're looking for something" so security couldn't see that we lacked wristbands. No one stopped us and we just waltzed on in and had the best five days of our lives.
Nick, Stockholm
Niklas at a festival in Portugal, now a paying customer
My adventure started with me flying last minute to Barcelona, Spain and driving all the way to the festival in Portugal. When we got close I jumped out of the car. My friends, who had tickets, would drive in with all of our stuff. The only thing I had was my shorts, a shirt, and my wallet. I met a French guy and an Irish guy and we started to plan what would be the best way to sneak into the festival. We waited until it was dark, and really fucking cold. I borrowed a pair of shoes that were way too big for me from the Irish guy, and weird Dune leather jacket from the French guy. We started our hike, taking regular pit stops to enjoy some treats on the way, and noticed there were guard towers lighting up the woods with flashlights, so we had to hide. Although, this might not all be true because, by this point, we were pretty fucked up.
After hiding and treating ourselves for three hours we finally made a move, climbing a huge wall. One more wall and we were in. Suddenly I was all alone inside the festival somewhere. In the distance I saw my French friend climbing another wall and suddenly getting chased by a gang of six guards. He ended up getting tackled to the ground. I found this both hilarious and scary, but I chose another direction. It was every man for himself at that point.
After about five metres I was stopped by two guards. They took me in the back of a ute and dropped me off in the middle of nowhere and told me to go home. I realised that walking to the nearest town would take at least four hours along the curvy mountain roads, so I decided to go cross-country through the bush, jumping barbed wire fences, which made my legs bleed. After a few hours, I decided to go back and pay the hundreds of dollars to get into the festival. I ate a bag of mushrooms, went in to find my friends, and had one of the best times of my life.
Jess, Melbourne
A celebratory snap inside the festival
As I clung to dear life from the edge of the train station platform, looking down at the three-metre or so drop onto the train tracks, I thought to myself, maybe I should have bought a ticket. We drove to the train station, crept along the platforms and climbed over a nearby fence. We had to lower ourselves down from a cliff-face with our fingertips before literally dropping onto the train tracks below.
The three boys before me dropped off with no worries, but I was shorter and nowhere near as brave. I dropped into the hands of my friend Mitch, who had snuck in before and knew the tricks of the trade.
As I dropped down, my legs slid along the rock face and as soon as I landed on solid ground my legs began to bleed. We crept along the train tracks under a tunnel and we could hear the festival up ahead. As we crept closer, adrenalin increased.
Arriving near a bridge—that had walls close enough to jump over—we looked around to see if the coast was clear. A group of legends up ahead spotted us and beckoned to us, waving us through and letting us know it was safe to enter. We jumped over the train line wall and sprinted into the festival. All in all, a great success (despite a few cuts and bruises).
Dean, London
Dean at the security tent after being busted
We drove on our merry little way from London to Cambridge for a sold out festival, arriving around 9 PM under the cover of darkness. We scoped out the entrance. It was armed with more security than the Gaza Strip. We conspicuously glided by with our bottles of cheap brandy, and started making our way though the fields to the glowing festival site. The walk should have taken us less than an hour. It took us the better part of three. The more brandy we drunk, the more we thought we were American soldiers wading through the thick Vietnamese jungle, Vietcong and booby traps around every corner; rather than just a couple of guys walking through the knee-high grass in a farm in rural Cambridge. Having escaped the clutches of farm dogs and a dive into some thorny bushes when a security van drove by, we had made it to the site.
Watchtowers and floodlights scanned the ground whilst we hid in the shadows. A five metre high hedge stood in front of us. We waited for two patrolling guards to walk by. Then, like a drunk little mole, I went face first under the hedge. I felt my face and arms get torn apart trying to make a human-sized hole. Once I got my dangling legs through, I fell into a watery bog on the other side. As I was stuck between the hedge and a fence, a number of torches started to shine through in our direction, accompanied by shouts and authoritative threats. To make matters worse, my backpack had ripped open while I was crawling through and the 200 nangs were now somewhere in the bog, lost forever.
With options looking slim, we pathetically crawled back out and into the arms of security and failure. The security put us in the back of a police van and escorted us to a strange holding pen for wannabe festival freedom fighters. Banning us from the city of Cambridge for 48 hours, they then spewed us back into the outside world with a mere slap on the wrist. Amidst a large number of fellow disaster stories, we partied in purgatory to the muffled soundtrack of the festival so near, yet so far away.
This Monday, the internet classifieds platform Backpage.com decided to voluntarily shut down its "adult" advertising section. The move came after intense pressure from members of Congress, who have repeatedly cited the goal of protecting children, mainly teenage girls, as they allege that Backpage has facilitated underage sex trafficking.And while it has been pointed out that the shutdown of the US's largest online venue for adult service ads will make it less safe for adults who opt to do sex work, what hasn't been widely discussed is how forcing sex workers back to the street by limiting their ability to obtain customers disproportionately affects trans people, especially trans women of color.
Unlike for young trafficked girls, there is no widespread movement among legislators to protect trans sex workers, because underage girls are considered innocent victims, while transgender workers are thought of as willing participants in a stigmatized industry. However, it is not in their innocence that the two groups differ. Rather, it's that seeing trans sex workers as innocent requires legislators and the public to confront their complicity in creating and maintaining the oppressive conditions that drive trans people, especially trans women of color, into the sex industry in the first place.
In a 2015 report on sex work among trans people by a coalition of organizations, including the National Center for Transgender Equality, 14.9 percent of 3,007 surveyed transgender women reported having done sex work, as well as rates between 6.5 and 7.4 percent of people identifying as other gender identities under the trans umbrella. And an astonishing 39.9 percent of black trans people reported having engaged in sex work.
As the report notes, there are few reliable estimates of how many Americans have engaged in sex work overall, making it hard to extrapolate what percentage of them identify as trans. But what's certain is that transgender Americans face increased rates of economic hardship, which can be blamed on a "combination of discrimination in education and workplace." Indeed, the report went on to reveal that trans people are four times more likely to earn less than $10,000 a year, and that 34 percent of black trans people live in extreme poverty. For many, sex work is a necessity to survive.
Online platforms like Backpage allow sex workers to control interactions with clients in ways they can't on the street; for trans sex workers especially, who must navigate ways to disclose their trans status without risking physical harm, street work is decidedly more dangerous than arranging work online, where one can sniff out suspicious and unsavory clients from afar. Given that rampant street violence against trans women of color has resulted in dozens of murders year after year, with many of the victims tied to sex work, Backpage provided a necessary degree of protection against many of the inherent dangers of being visibly trans on the street.
The alternatives to Backpage include exclusive sites with high membership fees that are out of reach for low-income workers, and other sites without nearly its reach. The shutdown has been well-criticized by technologists and free speech advocates, and sex worker advocates have pointed to the site as a "critical investigative tool" for law enforcement to find exploited children and prosecute pimps. But lawmakers seemingly see these and other concerns as trivial, and to do so, it becomes necessary for them to distinguish underage victims of sex trafficking from sex workers, to portray the latter group as exposing themselves to danger by choice.
I once resented that trans women like me are associated with sex work, and took pride in not being one of "those" women. Yet I won't forget a sex worker advocate friend who explained to me what got her into the business of sex work in the first place—an arrest for solicitation at 15, when police saw her walking down the street and perceived her to be a man in woman's clothes. It's a charge well-known in the community as "walking while trans." She figured that since she didn't have any other viable options—and she was going to be arrested for being black and expressing her gender anyway—then she might as well make money.
I've listened to many similar stories, from trans women forced into sex work after getting kicked out of their homes, after being bullied in school to the point where they had to drop out, after being unable to find sustainable employment, after needing to raise funds to pay for trans-related healthcare on top of those realities. It's easy to portray trafficking victims as innocent, because we can easily dissociate ourselves from the evil people who take advantage of them. But those who end up doing such work in order to survive are also unwilling victims. Their innocence, however, is harder for us to see, because that means admitting our society is racist and transmisogynist enough to produce the heartbreaking rates of poverty and discrimination among the trans community. And that means admitting that each of us is directly complicit in propagating a society that severely limits opportunities for trans people, or indirectly so by not doing enough to help trans people lead sustainable lives.
Rather than shaming sex workers, today, my shame resides in knowing that the stigma our society feels against sex workers, especially trans women of color, comes after denying to ourselves that we continually oppress people who are already among the United States' most severely oppressed. I would rather be taken for a trans sex worker than continue to be associated with a society that forces trans people into sex work to survive, and makes it so hard for them to even do so without risking their lives.
