On Monday, John Oliver got into a heated public debate with Dustin Hoffman about allegations of sexual harassment against the actor while he was moderating a panel at a screening of one of Hoffman's films, the Washington Post reports.
Oliver and Hoffman were sharing the stage at the 92nd Street Y in Manhattan, where they had gathered for a panel at the 20-year anniversary screening of Wag the Dog. Hoffman's co-star Robert De Niro was also onstage, along with director Barry Levinson and producer Jane Rosenthal.
The conversation reportedly began pretty mildly until Oliver brought up recent sexual harassment allegations against Hoffman he said were "hanging in the air." The Last Week Tonight host mentioned the allegations made by Anna Graham Hunter last month, who accused Hoffman of groping her and making inappropriate sexual comments while she was a 17-year-old intern on the set of Death of a Salesman.
"It's hanging in the air?" Hoffman asked. "From a few things you've read, you've made an incredible assumption about me."
Hoffman went on to deny groping Hunter and said he didn't remember meeting her. He emphasized the word "if" in relation to his public apology, in which he said he felt "terrible that anything I might have done could have put her in an uncomfortable situation"—adding that the behavior in question "is not reflective of who I am."
"It’s 'not reflective of who I am'—it’s that kind of response to this stuff that pisses me off," Oliver said. "It is reflective of who you were. If you’ve given no evidence to show it didn’t [happen], then there was a period of time for a while when you were a creeper around women. It feels like a cop-out to say, 'It wasn’t me.' Do you understand how that feels like a dismissal?"
"It’s difficult to answer that question. You weren’t there," Hoffman said. “You made a judgment. A very quick judgment."
According to Deadline, the conversation continued on and off for about half an hour, with some audience outbursts peppered in. Even when the conversation veered back to the movie, Hoffman reportedly kept engaging with Oliver on the accusations, growing testy when the moderator read back a line Hunter wrote about Hoffman being "a pig." Hoffman later said he hadn't been told Oliver would bring up the allegations against him, and that he felt Oliver was unfairly "putting me on display" without warning, according to the Post.
"Do you believe this stuff you read?" Hoffman asked.
"I believe what she wrote, yes." Oliver said. "Because there’s no point in her lying.”
"Well, there’s a point in her not bringing it up for 40 years," Hoffman said.
While most of the exchange centered on Hunter, Oliver did bring up Katharine Ross, whom Hoffman reportedly pinched on the butt during a screen test for The Graduate. Hoffman has also been accused of propositioning producer Wendy Riss Gatsiounis in a pitch meeting in 1991.
"I can’t leave certain things unaddressed," Oliver said. "The easy way is not to bring anything up. Unfortunately that leaves me at home later at night hating myself. 'Why the… didn’t I say something?' No one stands up to powerful men."
It's strange to think that a year ago, the sprawling constellation of stories, accusations, and counter-accusations that make up what we might as well call "the Russia thing" was actually pretty straightforward. In December 2016, US intelligence agencies concluded that Russia-affiliated actors had hacked the emails of Democratic officials in order to destabilize the American electoral system—and help Donald Trump. Some Democrats, notably then-Senate Minority Leader Harry Reid, accused Trump's campaign of being in cahoots with the Russians. But that wasn't even close to a sufficient preview for the past 12 months of twists and scoops that have made everything much blurrier.
Starting with the January publication by BuzzFeed of the now-infamous "dossier" of unverified information compiled by a former British intelligence operative, America has witnessed a cascade of spectacular developments in this saga, the most recent being a Trump tweet claiming he knew disgraced former National Security Advisor Michael Flynn lied to the FBI. That shocking admission was followed by one of Trump's lawyers claiming that he, not the president, had dictated the tweet. Or wait, actually, the most recent break is the news that Robert Mueller's special investigation is now reportedly looking at bank records related to the Trump family.
Given that the public only gets glimpses of Mueller's investigation through news reports and the occasional court document, and given the central players' affinity for brazenly lying to everyone, it's very difficult to keep up with all this stuff. As a way of attempting to sort out what we know and don't know, here are a list of the most important outstanding questions about the Russia thing as of the afternoon of December 5, 2017:
Who knew about Michael Flynn's contact with the Russia ambassador, and why did they lie about it?
In February, Flynn was forced to resign after it came out that he had discussed sanctions imposed on Russia by Barack Obama with the country's ambassador before Trump took office. According to news reports, he had misled other administration officials, including Vice President Mike Pence, about those conversations.
But the narrative of Flynn going rogue was apparently just another falsehood. Last week, Flynn pleaded guilty to lying to the FBI and announced he was cooperating with Mueller's investigation. According to the former general, he had told top transition officials about his communications with the Russian ambassador all along. Among the officials was former deputy national security advisor K.T. McFarland, who has since left the White House and been nominated to be ambassador to Singapore. As part of the nomination process, she was asked by Democratic Senator Cory Booker if she knew about Flynn's contacts and said she didn't—but that's contradicted by emails she sent to Flynn. Presidential son-in-law Jared Kushner was also reportedly involved; allegedly, he told Flynn to call the Russian ambassador as part of an effort to stop a contentious UN vote condemning Israeli settlements. (That vote went through in December, with the US controversially abstaining rather than vetoing it, as it had with past resolutions.)
So did these transition officials intentionally keep Pence (then the head of the transition team) in the dark about a rather important piece of diplomacy? If so, did Trump know they did that? And in that case, why were they retained while Flynn was pushed out? (MacFarland was forced to resign for apparently unrelated reasons in April.) There's an argument to be made that Flynn's Russian contacts were controversial and maybe ill-advised but not criminal except under an obscure, never-used statute called the Logan Act. It's not unusual for an incoming administration to reach out to foreign governments. So why all the lying to conceal those conversations? Was it simply a case of incredibly bad judgment from political neophytes like Kushner?
Did any contact between the Trump campaign and Russia actually result in information being exchanged?
In July, the New York Times revealed that Donald Trump, Jr. met with a Russian lawyer during the campaign who he thought had dirt on Clinton that was "part of Russia and its government’s support for Mr. Trump," according to an email he received. (Other aides, including campaign chairman Paul Manafort and Kushner, also attended the meeting.) He apparently didn't get the promised info, but there were a number of other Trump-connected people who contacted Russian officials in clumsy ways. One low-level campaign aide named George Papadopoulos even tried to set up a meeting between Trump and Russian President Vladimir Putin, lied about it, then later turned into a cooperating witness when faced with the charge (he pleaded guilty to lying to the FBI). The head of a data analytics firm working for Trump contacted Wikileaks, which was releasing emails stolen from Democrats, reportedly by Russian hackers.
None of this, however, proves that the campaign "colluded" with Russia or even Wikileaks in a meaningful sense. Wikileaks head Julian Assange apparently didn't want to coordinate with the Trump campaign (though his group did send Trump, Jr. a lot of mostly unanswered DMs on Twitter); Trump, Jr. said the Russian lawyer didn't actually give him anything; though it's obvious that Russian President Vladimir Putin and Trump both wanted Hillary Clinton to lose and worked toward that end, there's no hard evidence they coordinated in any way. And "collusion" is not actually a crime in any case.
Still, at least some people in the Trump campaign were open to Russian help, and some Russian government officials were interested in giving it. Did those two sides really never exchange information in a substantial way? If they did, did they break any laws—say, about political campaigns accepting "things of value" from foreign governments?
Why did Trump fire FBI Director James Comey?
This is probably the most important question, because it provides a theory by which Trump himself could be credibly accused of a crime. In May, Trump fired Comey, immediately raising the specter of obstruction of justice—if the FBI director was pushed out as part of effort to stop an investigation into Trump associates, that would arguably be illegal. But intent matters in obstruction cases, so the question of Trump's motives is vital.
The initial rationale for the firing was laid out in a letter written by Deputy Attorney General Rod Rosenstein that criticized Comey's handling of the investigation into Clinton's emails. Even before the election, some commenters were calling for Comey to be fired for that reason, so that wasn't so unbelievable per se. But Trump made that look like a paper-thin excuse almost immediately after the letter's release when he told NBC's Lester Holt the "Russia thing" was on his mind when he fired Comey. And Mueller reportedly has in his possession a letter Trump wrote at the time of the firing that delved further into his reasoning but that he was talked out of sending by White House counsel Don McGahn.
According to Comey, Trump pressured him to drop any investigation into Flynn (Trump denies this). If Trump ordered Comey to back off a former adviser he knew lied to the FBI, then fired the FBI director when he wouldn't comply, well, that's bad. But will that most damning narrative hold up?
Will Trump take drastic action?
More current and former Trump subordinates could face serious consequences as the Mueller investigation moves forward, including criminal charges not directly tied to the 2016 campaign or its aftermath. In October, Trump's former campaign chairman Paul Manafort got indicted on an array of charges related to his shady work for Ukraine's old pro-Russia government, among them money laundering. And Mueller is now reportedly looking into the Trump family finances, which Trump has said would be a "red line" for him—which is to say a reason to fire the special counsel.
That would be one way for Trump to try to undercut the investigations; the other way would be to start pardoning his associates. Both would cause an uproar, but such actions would also introduce an endgame that would play out in the political, rather than legal, arena. Which brings us to the last question:
Will anything convince Republicans to move against Trump?
Some Senate Republicans have toyed with legislation that would make Mueller impossible to fire. But a few conservative members of the House have called for the special counsel to resign. How would the party as a whole react if Trump took drastic action or if Mueller concluded that Trump likely obstructed justice? (Some legal experts think the president could be indicted without being impeached, but it's unclear if that would hold up or what it would look like.)
It doesn't seem as if a GOP-controlled Congress would ever impeach him. Republicans have focused not on any alleged wrongdoing by the administration but on holes in the theory that the Trump campaign colluded with Russia at all.
That means denouncing the "dossier"— which was paid for by a firm called Fusion GPS that was working for the Democrats and is full of rather sensational tidbits. (Fusion GPS was originally hired to do anti-Trump research by the conservative Washington Free Beacon.) It means questioning whether said dossier was used by the FBI to get a warrant to monitor Trump aides during the campaign (it's not clear what evidence the FBI used to get such warrants). Fusion GPS did work that aligned with a Russian lobbying effort to repeal certain sanctions, and a Fusion official reportedly met with the Russian lawyer who took that controversial meeting with Trump, Jr. That's led some conservatives to allege that the dossier was actually a plant by Russian intelligence.
Some Republicans go beyond attacks on the dossier and have embraced a shaky theory that it was Clinton working on behalf of Russia when her State Department approved the sale of a company called Uranium One to Russian interests. There's also the story about Peter Strzok, an FBI agent who was involved in the probes into both Clinton's emails and the Russia thing and who was reassigned from Mueller's team to the FBI HR department this summer, after it emerged he had supposedly sent anti-Trump text messages.
All of that hardly discredits the charges laid so far against Flynn and others, but it's easy to imagine Republicans using charges of anti-Trump bias at the FBI as cover to approve of Mueller's ouster. (Ironically, before the election, reports of anti-Clinton bias with the bureau were circulating.) Impeachment isn't a matter of law, but of politics. To survive, Trump doesn't need to convince Republicans he's above reproach—he just needs to give enough conservatives a plausible reason not to take the almost unprecedented step of removing him from office. And as anyone who watched the 2016 campaign knows, Trump is nothing if not a survivor.
British Columbia, home to the world famous “BC Bud,” has released part of its plan to sell recreational weed next year and it’s promising for those who want to see private businesses thrive in the legal regime.
The NDP government said Tuesday that wholesale distribution of recreational cannabis will be controlled by the BC Liquor Distribution Branch, but both public and private retail stores will be allowed to sell the product. The province also set the legal minimum age for purchasing weed at 19, the same as for alcohol.
Though scant on details, including how many retail shops will be permitted, and who will be allowed to legally supply weed to the province’s liquor board, the announcement seems like a small win for supporters of a free market for weed.
BC already has the largest illegal weed market in the country—one study by researchers at Simon Fraser University and the University of British Columbia said British Columbians consume between $443 million and $564 million of pot a year. A legal, taxed market, gives BC the potential to bring in billions of dollars over a five-year period, researchers say.
Vancouver has one of the country’s only business licensing schemes for weed dispensaries; the city had 176 pot shops apply for licenses, though only a handful were approved.
While Ontario’s population is 14 million compared to BC’s 4.6 million, Ontario has opted to go with a very conservative weed retail strategy that includes opening 40 government-run stores next year. That works out to roughly one store per 340,000 people. Toronto alone has around 80 illegal pot shops right now. Experts have said Ontario’s strategy is unlikely to wipe out the black market in part because it won't meet demand.
Quebec’s proposals are even worse. The province of 8.2 million plans to open 15 government-run pot shops next year and it’s banning home growing.
As previously mentioned, we are still waiting on many details about BC’s plan, which are slated to be released in early 2018. But the province has always been in a leader in progressive drug policy and there’s reason to believe that trend will continue.
Let’s get right to the grim facts. The Justice League made less in its opening weekend than the first two Avengers films and Batman Vs Superman. The DC Extended Universe is clearly having a problem right now. And its problem is not big names, ambitious sets, or its CGI budget, and DC knows this.
It’s easy to blame directors and messy scripts for DC’s historic streak of objectively bad films—only Wonder Woman has gotten any sort of critical love for DC since Christopher Nolan’s Dark Knight trilogy ended—but let’s not forget DC is a company so obviously stuck between two eras of heroism. The old, antiquated, golden age comic book-y DC period, and the current DC Extended Universe shit, whose films need a contemporary facelift if they hope in any way to appeal to folks like myself.
Take the single best and worst sequence in Batman vs. Superman for example—a movie so aggressively shitty that I watch it each time just to find some new shit to hate about it. Batman is about to impale Superman (long story), to which Supes mumbles,
“Save...Martha.” Bats responds with a, “Why did you say that name?” all surprised and shit.
And Lois, in all her damsel-y Lois-sy self, shows up and blurts “That’s his mother’s name!” Hours worth of murderous planning and holier than thou convictions are destroyed over some name-drop kumbaya shit (their mothers have the same name).
The buildup to this moment of course is a whole story about Supes collaterally fucking over an entire city in Man of Steel (2013). And a Bat guy who's really mad about it, so shit goes down, leading up to this very stupid moment.
Yes, it was bad. Yes, it was hilariously cheesy in execution, but it was also pretty great. Old school, overpowered shit aside (buildings break), each character showcased human flaws in this scene. The dirty, self-realization that Batman is kind of a paranoid, fucked up nut. And Superman, whose inhumanly high moral standards got him into some very human problems.
There’s a reason why imperfect character moments like these seem so attractive. We root for the Arya Starks, Walter Whites and Omar Littles, who can murder, but do so from a place that’s motivationally identifiable somehow. Yes, they’re outright villains in some cases, but it's in their flaws that we can see the earth-iness; that special something that Marvel just seemed to “get” all the way back in the 60s and 70s.
Stan Lee and co-writer Jack Kirby were on a mission to revamp some old comic conventions in 1961, as spearheaded by DC. Their era was of the Cold War and civil rights movement. So the perfectly haired, bodily chiseled handsome superhero was replaced with broken misfits like Deadpool and Wolverine. They were the nicked and the hurt heroes that felt more identifiable to me as a fan.
Comparatively, I couldn’t say that same thing with a lot of the DC universe, and by extension, the DC film universe, whose heroes are plucked from a 30s and 40s era of hero. Wonder Woman and Superman were always intended to be the optimistic idols for a Great Depression and World War II generation. By nature, their adventures spoke of flawless embodiments of the law, order and mainstream values of the ideal American. And that meant that characters like Superman—good, blemish free, blue eyed, perfectly sculpted hair—resembled no one that I know, and still don’t.
When Zack Snyder took on Man of Steel, he tried to hide this issue of Superman gloss. There was that thing about his relationship with humanity, and his concern for Lois. But by placing Superman square in the front of a conflict with beings as powerful as himself—Earth’s only solution from total destruction—Zack still managed to do the opposite. Instead of a flawed hero, he further pushed that whole perfect savior shtick—the still symbolic, aspirational cup-holder to everyone around him.
And all that is to say that Zack Snyder never needed to do this under some unbreakable character law. DC is definitely not new to making personality changes if the suits and time period allow it. I mean there’s no mistake that DC’s most flawed hero for instance has remained its most successful at the box office for the last 30 years—in both Tim Burton’s successful run of Batman films ( Batman, Batman Returns), and Christopher Nolan’s own vision (we don’t need to talk about Joel Schumacher). Both directors went for a brooding character, obsessed with the death of his family. This was a hero who underwent significant modernization in the 80s (largely thanks to the books of Frank Miller), speaking more to a hero who was deeply flawed, and somewhat unlikeable.
Sure, comic book writers over the years have had liberties over the DC line in fleshing out more true-to-life characters (see Gotham Central). I've read them myself. But the core dichotomy of DC’s “film” universe are still in that crystal sheen phase; steady avoiding a dirtiness on its icons. You’re not seeing this with Marvel’s comparative heroes like snarky asshole Tony Stark, self-absorbed Thor and quippy teen Spider-man.
Solid scripts and director choices have helped Marvel like any other company before it, but the underlying reasons to why the Marvelverse has done so well speaks to the points made above. Their characters are relatable. They have that something that allows them to be at the centre of their own universes without some grand outside conflict always having to move things forward (which to be fair, has happened often). It’s the reason why a Civil War among Marvel’s heroes can be a believable thing; 10 years of ideologies, egos and character flaws that are the stepping blocks to my own broken friendships and bad vices. And when the enviable deaths happen in the upcoming Avengers: Infinity War, they will be felt because we we care.
If DC wants to appeal to a wider audience outside its comic book pages (i.e. making $200-million movies profitable) it has to embrace a reworking of its ideas about brevity and heroism. This isn’t the 1940s anymore. We don’t need to be shown what the perfect hero looks like. We need the human struggles. We need a Superman that faces the realities of unlimited power and the corruption that goes with it (see the Injustice series). When put to the test, is he as well-adjusted as he appears to be? DC’s characters, if they choose to be so OP, need to wrestle with the failures. That one moment when they’re too late in saving the day. What kind of depression comes with those realities? Attention has to be paid to their inner conflicts a movie at a time instead of the wholesale of their feats.
Like Marvel has managed to do, we need to be shown how heroes can be great in spite of being human-ish; capable of the good, the bad, while being as insecure as any regular joe—and in turn, acknowledge the heroism that can exist in all of us. Give them those dents, the unfiltered and defective baggage and allows them to do the damn thing anyway. That is the kind of shit that I’ll always eat up and I think audiences will too.
Canada’s adventures in international free trade are always a delightful spectacle. Justin Trudeau is one of the few world leaders still trumpeting the pre-2016 dream that everything will be hunky dory in the mad world of global politics if we can strike up a few more free trade deals. Cry havoc, and let slip the dogs of unrestricted transnational capital! It’s a show he’s taken on the road a few times now since last year’s Brexit/Trump affairs, and now he’s currently touring it in China.
Opinions are mixed on how it’s going. On the one hand, Paul Wells writes in Maclean’s that the Trudeau administration appears to be soberly considering the feedback it got on its cross-country consultations about opening up free trade with China. Canadians want access to the Chinese market, but they have a number of concerns: not only about the country’s human rights record, but also its unscrupulous pursuit of global economic power. Trudeau and co. understand the stakes involved in balancing the country’s chequebook against the country’s values, so they are diligently and delicately trying to work out an agreement that may still be forthcoming—despite the prime minister having already left Beijing.
On the other hand, John Ivison writes in the National Post that the Canadian government was out of its league getting into this and that Trudeau has already effectively blown it. The Chinese market was always going to be a tough nut to crack, but it is that much harder as America’s global hegemony wanes and China aims to fill the void. The Middle Kingdom has no interest in playing by the old rulebook of the liberal world order. Canada’s apparent assumptions to the contrary are going to lead us, at best, nowhere—and at worst, into a Faustian bargain with Chinese President Xi Jinping.
I am neither an expert on the mechanics of international trade negotiations nor on the geopolitical ambitions of the People’s Republic of China, so I’m not going to pretend I know whether Wells or Ivison is closer to the mark. But I feel I do know enough to do a spit take of my own when Justin Trudeau says, supposedly with a straight face, that a free trade deal with China will help defuse the reactionary populist politics in vogue around the world. What?
It is a talking point that Trudeau and his neoliberal fellow travellers have invoked before. While there may have been some structural discomfort involved in the opening of domestic markets to foreign capital (and vice versa), overall the outcome of liberal trade is an inevitable win for everyone involved. Goods and services cross borders more easily (and cheaply) and freer migration fosters a deeper appreciation for human diversity. Corporate greed might make things look a little lopsided, but it’s nothing that modest state redistribution of the quintessentially Canadian variety can’t sort out.
It is a very nice story but, as we now know, it leaves out a few loose ends. Whenever newly unfettered capital starts freely crossing borders, it is usually accompanied by a cast of somewhat less savory characters: community dislocation, deindustrialization, declining environmental and labour regulations, degraded national sovereignty, and the occasional financial meltdown. (For what it’s worth, Trudeau deserves credit for making more progressive environmental, labour, and gender regulations a sticking point in negotiations.)
Free trade might be a win-win on paper for the countries involved, but within those countries themselves it’s very often a win-lose arrangement for the rich and the non-rich, respectively. In other words, it tends to create its own problems, one of which appears to be right-wing, nationalist reaction. (It’s a convention to just call this ‘populism’, which is sort of true, but also sort of not true, and something we should probably talk about later.)
In the case of Chinese-Canadian trade in particular, there are reasons to suspect that even a successful bilateral free trade agreement might do more to inflame reactionary populism at home than put it out. Wells observes that Canadian access to the Chinese market also entails China’s further access to the Canadian market. This risks further inflating urban real estate values (particularly on the west coast), as well as hollowing out communities based around agriculture and manufacturing. And as a general rule, people who lose a good job and/or get priced out of their home tend to become rather politically agitated.
It’s not clear whether or not the prime minister and his team genuinely believe more free trade will fix the problems it simultaneously causes, or if this is just a reflexive talking point he threw to the media after a long day of trade talks that amounted to fruitlessly banging his head against a wall in Beijing.
Of course, this will all be moot if Trudeau does, in fact, fail to successfully lay the groundwork for trade negotiations with the Chinese. Who knows! The only real certainty is that the Justin Trudeau International Trade show can and must go on.
The men who populate Ritch C. Savin-Williams’s book Mostly Straight: Sexual Fluidity Among Men, released last month on Harvard University Press, are—honestly, truly—interested in women. They may lust for furtive, late-night sexual encounters with a “buddy” or find themselves intensely admiring a male porn star’s biceps, but this does not occlude their love for their wives and girlfriends, nor women in general.
“Mostly straight,” as a male sexual identity, hasn’t entered the public’s consciousness the way gay or bi identities have, though that seems to be changing. According to one trend forecasting agency, only 48 percent of Gen Z identifies as exclusively heterosexual, compared to 65 percent of millennials. And millennials, it bears mentioning, are no slouch when it comes to dismantling hard-line conceptions of sexuality; when an actor like Josh Hutcherson loudly declares himself to be “mostly straight” in the press, he goes a long way in dismantling stigma against sexual fluidity.
Hutcherson’s phrasing, as it happens, inspired the title of Savin-Williams’s book, in which he interviewed 40 mostly straight men to better understand their relationship to same-sex sexuality and how they parse their desires. To the eternal consternation of men who identify as gay, mostly straights aren’t usually interested in long-term same-sex relationships, Savin-Williams writes, but they’re also refreshingly shame-free about their desires, with many not only comfortable with gay culture but even “enchanted” by it.
Savin-Williams, who also works as the director of the Sex and Gender Lab at Cornell University, spoke with VICE about why gay men seem culturally obsessed with mostly straight guys, the need to embrace all the messy nuances of the Kinsey spectrum, and why you can’t assume every guy in the local gay choir is actually gay.
VICE: What drew you to studying “mostly straight” men? Ritch C. Savin-Williams: Usually, straight guys are just very boring, but when I started interviewing them using the same protocol I used with gay guys, it appeared that some had same-sex attractions—and that these men were incredibly complex. At first I sort of dismissed these guys, but then I interviewed the main character of my book, Dylan, who was a hockey goalie, and he was so convincing that I realized there was something going on there. I reviewed everything we knew about “Kinsey ones,” men who deviate just a bit from exclusively straight guys on the spectrum. It was almost as if their status as mostly straight encouraged them to look at their development and realize, “Oh my God, that was a boy crush I had.” Or “I did make out with that boy, and it was kind of fun. I liked it.”
Do you think they’re more comfortable with their mostly straight identity because they’re part of the post-millennial generation, which is by many accounts queer as hell? Yes, but I should add that historically, across generations, you’ll find individuals saying they’re “mostly” heterosexual on the Kinsey scale. The difference is that today it can be an identity, not just an orientation. It’s this increasing acceptance of sexual diversity that’s allowed these men to accept these parts of themselves. Even if they go back to a totally straight lifestyle, a lot of them would say, well, you just never know—maybe, in the future, my wife and I will invite a guy into the bed.
And you theorize that as many as nine percent of the total male population could be “mostly straight.” How did you find those numbers? That’s somewhat optimistic. We read every study we could find that assessed men via the Kinsey spectrum, and 8 to 9 percent was the largest we saw. This is from polling data or from the CDC or the National Institute of Mental Health, whom tend to use the Kinsey spectrum. Another very valuable source was the Add Health Data Set, which is a longitudinal study that began following a sample of adolescents in 1994.
Watch Broadly talk to Margaret Cho about power bottoms and what it's like to be an openly bisexual entertainer:
Were these men also interested in gay culture? Yes, the men I spoke to were kind of enchanted by gay culture, and I don’t know that I’ve ever met an exclusively straight guy who was enchanted by gay culture. Maybe it was because they felt some identification. I got a sense from some of them that they would have liked to be gay—one helped his roommate come out, another sang in a gay chorus. I think the other guys in the chorus probably thought he was closeted, but I checked his pupil dilation while he was looking at porn and I can assure them—he is really, really attracted to women.
You have the receipts. Yeah, you can’t fake your pupils.
Do you think we’ve overlooked the nuances of the Kinsey spectrum to create orientations like gay, bi, and straight? Absolutely. We collapse the Kinsey spectrum into categories. We lump sexual minorities together, as if they’re all the same—like there’s no distinction between having a little bit of same-sex attraction and a whole lot of it.
Hasn’t this historically helped with political expediency? It’s easier to agitate for political change when you simplify and streamline identities, no? Yeah, but it’s like saying all Asians or Latinos are the same. By grouping us, we too frequently buy into the straight world. They want these simple categories—black or white, Latino or Asian.
I also believe that sexologists fully recognize that women are on a spectrum, but they don’t really believe that guys are on a spectrum. I think they believe that if you’re a guy and you have just a little bit of same-sex attraction, you’re either a closet case or you’re just sort of a wayward progressive.
It was interesting that the gay men you interviewed saw mostly-straight men as closet cases. I think a lot of gay guys have the same feeling about bisexual guys—that they’re on their way. And I think it’s because a lot of gay guys have their “bisexual phase.” They think just because they had that, mostly straight or bi guys are going through that as well. Gays don’t really believe mostly straight men exist.
One reviewer said that the hype surrounding Call Me By Your Name reflects gay men’s obsession with straight men as a sexual conquest. Clearly there are gay guys who are very attracted to masculinity. Just read Craigslist ads! When Dylan (the main character in my book) goes to gay bars, they’re always betting on when he’ll turn gay.
I do think mostly straight guys have this dilemma, which is that they’re going to be largely appealing to gay men. And many of them are masculine-looking. They can pass. That’s a tough one and I don’t know, if this identity were to become more widespread, how gay guys would react to it.
Gay men may also want to preemptively reject mostly-straight men so they don’t get hurt, right? It seems like many mostly-straight guys are interested in a one-time encounter, not a real relationship. I think the big thing is that these mostly-straight men are really into women. They’re not going to give that up. But this identity may help them understand their romantic attachments even more than their sexual attractions. They’ve heard of straight guys having sex with other guys when they’re drunk or in a gang or in prison. The way guys get attached to each other, they think, “oh it’s just a bromance.” But some of these guys really feel something more than just a bromance—they feel the fluttering in their stomachs; they get really attached to other men. One of them told me, if I could just meet a woman and have the same attachment as I have with my three male friends, that’d be fantastic.
Interview has been condensed and edited for clarity.
A charity event on a Florida beach went off the rails on Saturday when a skydiver dressed like Santa Claus lost control of his parachute, slammed into a tree, and broke his leg during a crash landing, Bay News 9 reports.
A group of locals had flocked to Gulfport Beach for an Operation Santa charity volleyball tournament, hosted by the Tampa Bay Beach Bums. Soaring above them, George Krokus—an avid skydiver—was preparing to leap out of a plane with a parachute strapped to his back to greet them, outfitted in full-on Santa regalia. He jumped from the aircraft and pulled his 'chute—but as he got closer to the ground, he couldn't manage to slow himself down. In a terrifying instant, Christmas got dark as all hell.
Krokus slammed into a pole, careened into a tree, and tumbled through the air before falling onto the sand, breaking his leg—all to a completely horrified audience of onlookers, some of whom wound up capturing the whole thing on their phones. He was rushed to the hospital, and has since undergone surgery on his broken tibia and fibula. Now, he's hoping to raise some money for his medical bills on GoFundMe.
Dominic Nelson, who helped organize the event, told FOX 13 Krokus—a buddy of his—is "in good spirits" after the spill, and expects to make a full recovery. According to Bay News 9, he wasn't the only one beat up by the fall: The Elf on the Shelf toy Krokus was delivering to a local nine-year-old girl suffered some damage to its leg, too. Krokus ended up taking Kristoff the elf along with him to the local hospital to recoup.
In a note Kristoff "wrote" the girl—who ostensibly hasn't learned this whole Santa thing is a total con—the elf briefed her on his recovery, along with exactly what went down on Saturday.
"As we were about to land this big tree jumped right out in front of us," the note reads, according to Bay News 9. "Don’t worry though… now G [Krokus] and I are resting in this hotel that they keep calling a 'hospital!' G has reservations for a few more days, going to hang out with him so he doesn’t feel lonely."
No one on the beach outside of Krokus was injured, at least not physically. It's still too early to calculate the psychological toll—his spill might've left the kids who witnessed it that much more terrified of Santa Claus.
In fact, state lawmakers plan to start moving on legalization as soon as Republican (and Trump lackey) Chris Christie hands over the keys to the governor’s mansion next month. Christie has long opposed legal weed, arguing in May that the substance would “poison our kids," and that any revenue the state might collect from taxing its sale would amount to “blood money.” But a Democratic-controlled legislature and newly enshrined Democratic governor Phil Murphy appear to be on the fast-track to finally passing the grass.
During his 2016 campaign, Murphy promised to sign a bill as soon as it arrived on his desk, and it looks like that could happen within the first 100 days of his administration. New Jersey would become the largest state on the East Coast to legalize recreational marijuana—and the latest after Massachusetts, where stores will start selling pot by July 2018. (New Jersey already allows medical marijuana and has six treatment facilities designated to facilitate its use.)
Legislators are not likely to run into a groundswell of opposition from the public, either: One poll earlier this fall found 59 percent of New Jersey voters favored allowing adults to possess marijuana legally.
As always, however, there are obstacles looming for reformers. Lawmakers are already haggling over tax rates, revenue collection, and license enforcement, among other pesky details that have derailed legalization efforts in states like Vermont. There are positive examples out West to consider, however: Revenue in Colorado is helping the state reduce homelessness and combat opioid addiction, while Washington sends upwards of 60 percent of its revenue to public health programs and community health centers. Still, excessively high tax rates could boost the black market in states with robust pot markets. And there's the X-factor of Jeff Sessions's Department of Justice, which may not be quite as hands-off during the legalization process as it was for states like Oregon under Barack Obama.
Democratic senator Nicholas Scutari, a longtime legalization advocate who sponsored New Jersey's medical marijuana law, introduced a bill in May permitting state residents age 21 and over to use small amounts of pot. Under the plan, New Jerseyans could carry, transport, or consume up to: one ounce of marijuana; 16 ounces or less of marijuana-infused product; 72 ounces or less of liquid pot, and seven grams of marijuana concentrate. They could also grow up to six "immature" pot plants, but, under the letter of the law, harvest their own bud at home. Customers would pay a 7 percent tax on marijuana sales in the first year pot was on sale in stores, and that would slowly escalate to 25 percent after several years of legalization.
The proposal would also immediately decriminalize possession of up to 50 grams of pot and limit fines to $100 and give the state’s Department of Law and Public Safety the power to regulate licenses for growers and sellers. That alone would make a huge difference in criminal justice policy given there were 24,067 pot arrests in the state in 2013, up over 20 percent from 2000, when there were 19,607 arrests, according an ACLU New Jersey report this year. The same report found black residents were three times as likely to be arrested for marijuana possession as whites.
If nothing else, and despite all the national woe for progressive causes, reform in one of the country's most populous states would substantially reduce arrests in communities of color.
“Very likely New Jersey is going to be the first state to bypass criminalization and go straight to legalization,” said NORML executive director Evan Nison. “New Jersey is still arresting people for possession and charging them with a crime.”
Senator Scutari, for his part, has taken colleagues on fact-finding field trips to Colorado, and modeled his bill on states that have permitted recreational weed use for several years. “States that have legalized cannabis have not seen the doom and gloom scenarios that the critics had predicted," he (accurately) told reporters in May.
Jersey towns would have the option of opting out of the program and restricting dispensaries, although they wouldn’t collect any of the state’s pot profits. But many of the state's local officials, including some in Atlantic City, have strongly expressed interest in opening stores.
Deputy State Assembly Majority Leader Reed Gusciora, who co-sponsored Scutari’s proposal several days later, will introduce a competing marijuana bill in the coming weeks, his office confirmed to VICE. That version would extend the phase-in time of legislation from one year to two years, and cap the number of dispensaries to one in each of the state’s 40 legislative districts over the first two years of the program, with two per district by the third year.
“We want to concentrate them in urban areas and ensure that people will have access to stores in their district, but we don’t want, say, three in a rural Hunterdon County,” Gusciora chief of staff Brendan Neal told me. “There’s no way we want more marijuana shops than Taco Bells—and there are 99 Taco Bells in New Jersey.”
Unlike the typical situation in the US Congress, Jersey's lower chamber—the Assembly—could prove the trickier hurdle, as new Speaker Craig Coughlin, a Democrat, has so far declined to explicitly commit to legalization. "I want to make sure it makes sense," he said last month.
Still, under Gusciora's Assembly proposal, the state’s existing medical marijuana facilities would be permitted to incorporate as separate businesses, which could potentially sell pot to the public four months after the law passes. According to Gusciora's office, the plan would tax pot sales at a lower rate than the Senate bill, and allow individuals to fully cultivate up to six pot plants at home, which legalization advocates generally support.
“Small home grows are allowed in most states including Colorado,” said Nison. “You should be allowed to grow your own cannabis like you’re allowed to brew your own beer.”
Lawmakers will also have to hash out how pot revenue gets spent—which is where the real politics come into play. The state could collect $300 million per year in marijuana tax revenues, according to a report by New Jersey United for Marijuana Reform and New Jersey Policy Perspective, which legislators often cite. Other pot-friendly states set aside percentages of weed revenue for law enforcement, drug rehabilitation, and educational programs. New Jersey will likely do the same, although lots of cash could end up in the state’s general fund.
“The tricky thing with New Jersey is that sometimes money ends up being moved around,” Neal said. “We’ll be looking to make those dedications clear.”
If New Jersey legislative staffers close to the process were optimistic about the bill’s chances, some investors argued the state could haul in more than a billion dollars annually once retailers get settled, which could boost tourism in Atlantic City and along the Jersey shore.
“When you look at the numbers including the population of New Jersey and the areas around it you’re talking about a market about the size of California,” said Leslie Bocskor, a Las Vegas investment banker at Electrum Partners. “You could see $200 million a month in revenue, maybe $2 billion a year two or three years down the road.”
Cannabis-industry players are already scouting locations in Jersey City, Hoboken, Fort Lee, and Newark for potential storefronts. “New Jersey has a incredible opportunity to have a first-mover advantage in the Northeast, particularly the overflow they would likely experience from New York because of the extremely restrictive medical market there,” said Derek Peterson, CEO of Terra Tech, a marijuana agriculture company.
Peterson suggested retailers might offer a mix of products available in other states—and that perhaps half would be raw flour and the other half ready edibles and concentrates.
Supporters scoffed at the threats. “It is a concern for businesses that may open in New Jersey, but we’re going to move forward despite what’s happening at the federal level,” said Neal. “And Chris Christie likes being heard, but I don’t know how much his opinion will matter since he has a 14 percent approval rating. Most New Jersey residents want to see him go."
The Westboro Baptist Church, one of America's most virulentanti-LGBTQ groups, has inspired a few documentaries and amateur adult films over the years. But according to Variety, the hate group is on its way to becoming the subject of a major motion picture that aims to explore how the military, gay rights, and the First Amendment all collided into one explosive Supreme Court case.
Branded Pictures Entertainment has secured The Contender's Rod Lurie to direct Hate (A Love Story), which follows the true story of Al Snyder, a gay man who decided to take on the Westboro Baptist Church after it sent a group of picketers to bombard his son's funeral with "Thank God for 9/11" and "Thank God for Dead Soldiers" signs. The group, which the Southern Poverty Law Center calls "arguably the most obnoxious and rabid hate group in America," believes God is punishing soldiers—like Snyder's 20-year-old, heterosexual son Matthew—for the country's LGBTQ tolerance.
According to Variety, the film will follow the aftermath of the Lance Corporal Matthew Snyder's death in Iraq and his father's $5 million lawsuit against the Church that made it all the way up to the Supreme Court. After the court ruled 8–1 in favor of Westboro's right to picket a funeral, Snyder was forced to pay the group's legal fees. At the time, his partner was battling cancer.
"This story makes allies out of the gay and military communities, as the Westboro Baptist Church's assault on the First Amendment turns out to be an attack on both," Branded Pictures founder J. Todd Harris said. "I'm a long-time fan of Rod, a thoughtful patriot who gravitates toward stories of righteousness. He’s perfect for this movie."
Branded Pictures Entertainment is reportedly still shopping the project to studios, so it's not clear when we can expect to see the fringe group's tactics play out in theaters. But considering what's going on at the Supreme Court this week, its subject matter is still relevant more than a decade after Snyder v. Phelps.
On an all-new episode of VICELAND's HAMILTON'S PHARMACOPEIA, host Hamilton Morris digs into the history of one of his favorite psychoactive plants: peyote. Tribes and shamans have been consuming the cactus for generations, and Hamilton taps a Native American peyotist to help him trace the plant's history—from its humble origins to the place it occupies in popular culture today.
In 2015, shortly before he left office, David Cameron commissioned an independent review into integration and social cohesion in the UK. The resulting Casey report blamed Muslim communities for failing to integrate with British values. One of its solutions was "the introduction of an integration oath on arrival for immigrants intending to settle in Britain".
This is familiar rhetoric when it comes to the issue of "social integration" – a process, according to the dictionary, that's about bringing people or groups with particular characteristics or needs into equal participation with, or membership of, a social group. Yet, in Britain, it's only ever discussed as a one-way process: what can new immigrants do to be more British?
Whether it’s a Daily Mail front page with a "warning" about "UK Muslim Ghettos", further government reports which single out Pakistani women failing to integrate, or Theresa May’s claim that high immigration makes it "impossible to build a cohesive society", the message remains uniform: "they" need to be more like "us".
This message has been strengthened by the emergence of a "British values" narrative. First employed by Gordon Brown and since adopted by subsequent governments, it has been embraced perhaps most wholeheartedly by Theresa May, who says: for too long, the government has stood "neutral" between different sets of values rather than promoting "British" tenets such as "the rule of law, democracy, equality and free speech". Casey’s report also highlighted the importance of groups learning English and entering the workplace.
Yet these values are applied haphazardly. Theresa May isn’t focusing on getting Surrey’s large population of housewives into work; teaching the Bullingdon boys the importance of democratic principles; or Russian oligarchs how to speak English. Instead, these narratives around cohesion are focused on poor ethnic minority communities, normally with a particular focus on Muslims.
There is nothing wrong about wanting to uphold values like gender equality and democracy, and it makes sense to do so in these kind of terms. Britain is British, new immigrants coming here are not, so it’s understandable why assimilation is thought of as a case of foreigners being more like the natives. But that narrow understanding of integration ignores the values of minority communities, assumes political superiority and ignores ways in which white Britons are failing to integrate with BME communities that have been here for decades.
Let’s take Leyton as an example. Leyton is an area in London where 64 percent of the population is from a black, Asian or minority ethnic (BAME) background. It has been this way for decades. But in recent years, locals are experiencing an influx of new residents who are struggling to integrate with the local community: middle-class white people.
The newcomers are having a major impact in the existing communities, and not in a good way. Leyton has seen the highest house-price rises in Britain in recent years. Land Registry figures show a 4.3 percent rise – over five times the London average. The change has been noticeable on the high street, where 25 new shops have opened in the last four years. You might think all this change means regeneration and more business. But when I get to Leyton’s Francis Road, it’s a ghost town. The local hairdresser’s phone has been ringing out for days and I arrive to find a notice on the door saying it will be shut for a few more.
Major works to pedestrianise the road are going on. It’s been claimed that a desire to attract "a new clientele" was cited in a public consultation as a motivation for the project. After wheeling around a maze of barriers and cordoned off areas, I make it to one of the few open shops.
The new pedestrianised zone in Leyton
Anthony* – who asked for his name to be changed to protect his place of work – is suspicious of me when I first approach him. Despite having grown up in Leyton, mine is just another new face he doesn’t recognise in the area.
"It’s not Leyton any more," he says to his friend, kicking off an exchange between them about the changing demographic and how uncomfortable it makes them. They talk about the newcomers in a way that, if you swapped some of the words – "white" for "brown", "posh" for "foreign" – would sound quite UKIP.
But Anthony says that this is about far more than disliking new faces: "I don’t mind if there are more white, rich people in the area; the problem is that they’re so scared of me." He points to a police camera that’s been installed opposite the shop, adding: "There are police cars outside constantly now. It scares my customers. We’re not doing anything wrong."
Anthony is not the only person who talks to me about feeling suddenly alien in his community – another local informs me that she was dropped from her job in a newly-opened deli after being corrected on dropping her Ts.
The council's plan for a "mini-Holland" has been welcomed by many of the newcomers, who describe wanting a "Walthamstow market feel" in the area. But the move also looks to have a huge impact on the businesses and community already living there.
"It’s Friday morning. Normally I’d have ten customers by now," says Anthony. At present his customers, who normally pop in when heading to other places by car, are all having to pre-book appointments. On top of that, the need for parking permits increases the cost of his services by about 35 percent.
"I don’t mind if there are more white, rich people in the area – the problem is that they’re so scared of me."
While a pedestrianised street may well look more in fitting with the new coffee shops and delis on the high street, it poses the threat of older businesses being completely wiped out. Round the corner at Deeney’s, a new café on the high-street, owner Paddy Dwyre believes he is serving the local community. "We obviously opened the cafe because we saw a gap in the market. There’s been a huge change in the demographic… and they need to be catered for," he says.
He quickly picks up on the stereotypes of "yummy mummy" and "young yuppie", but reframes the discussion, saying: "Young people are increasingly becoming freelance and can’t afford a place to work. Pregnant mothers on maternity are often isolated."
I ask him how he accommodates all of Leyton’s demographics. "We’re trying to bring higher quality food and coffee. It costs more," he says. "Some people are opposed to it; there will be places that cater to them as well."
Dwyre acknowledges that the presence of a shop like his isn’t without its tensions: Caribbean women have come in to tell him that he’s not providing for their community, but he argues that he doesn’t want to take business away from existing shops either. "There are difficulties over maintaining a brand and trying to cater for every group," he says.
The conflict for a place like Deeney’s is also symbolic of a bigger battle. When new communities rub up against old, even with the best intentions, the path to cohesion isn’t obvious. Trying to inauthentically gel with the less affluent brown community as an incoming white, middle-class resident is no more of a good look than completely shunning them. If Deeney’s suddenly started selling Jamaican patties, for example, it would hardly help matters.
There is, however, a successful model for integration that is already in place: research suggests that ethnic minority groups are better at integrating with each other than they are with the white British majority.
Ethnic minority groups who were originally concentrated in specific areas have become more dispersed over time. Census data shows that while places like Bradford or Hackney, for example, have become less White British, they have significantly increased their numbers of Black British residents, Turkish residents, and people from White Other backgrounds – such as Eastern Europeans.
White Brits, on the other hand, have become marginally more segregated over that time. If ethnic minorities mix well with another, it seems fair to question whether it’s White British communities not integrating with them, rather than the other way around.
These phenomena are partly due to structural issues like class and wealth. As house prices in Britain have crept up, those living in estates across the UK have been singled out for "regeneration". In practice, this has meant a wide-scale forced dispersal of poorer, ethnically mixed communities from estates, who are "decanted" while their estate is regenerated, often promised they will get the chance to return, only to find that no affordable housing is available in their newly regenerated estate.
The result is that high-rise developments in mixed areas become home to an entirely different community. Tim White, who is researching high-density living for the LSE Cities project, describes the new demographic as "wealthier, quite transient yuppies who are there for convenience".
Many of these residential developments are concentrated in poorer areas. "They are popping up in quite a lot of deprived areas, like Newham and Barking," says White. "On an immediate, physical level, they discourage integration – these huge balconies overshadowing poorer communities."
Reports show how these developments explicitly market convenience to attract a young professional audience. White links this with more segregation: "Increasing hotel-like services within these buildings, such as concierges, gyms and bars, make people less reliant on the community around them."
While high-rise new-build living makes it easy not to leave the apartment, the people inside don't become part of their communities: "Many of these places are marketed on community living, but how much can you promote community if all the people living in that building are from the same demographic?" says White.
A new-build apartment block offering "hotel style" facilities for residents. Photo: Chris Bethell
In the same places, private members' clubs are also popping up to cater to this demographic. The rebranding of these clubs – from sleazy, gentleman’s hangouts to creative haunts for hipsters – means trendy 20-somethings are drawn in by services like rooftop pools, workspaces, bars and super fast broadband. However, hanging out in these exclusive clubs in some of the UK's most diverse areas – like Brick Lane in east London and Notting Hill in west – new residents aren't obliged to mix with locals.
Kensington and Chelsea, home to the private members club Electric House, on Portobello Road, is the richest borough in the UK. The area is also host to one of the huge divides: between wealthy and poor, and black and white. In the 1950s, the borough's slums were home to many Caribbean immigrants, kept out of local pubs with infamous "no blacks, no dogs, no Irish" signs. Today’s private members' clubs, and pools and parks in private blocks, threaten a striking modern-day equivalent, but the divide is class rather than race.
"Expensive fees are a barrier to mixing. It’s definitely a different ethnic and class mix in there than on the high street," says Frankie Lambert, who has lived in Notting Hill for about ten years. He speaks of how the W11 postcode became coveted due to the vibrancy of its diverse community, but problems with integration arise when, as Lambert puts it, those who move in "don’t give a toss about the indigenous population".
That conflict materialises in the willingness of the local community to benefit from all of the "exotic" foods on the market, while campaigning against some of the prided cultural possessions of those cultures, like Notting Hill Carnival.
Allyson Williams is a costume designer and a founding member of the Genesis Mas band. Her late husband, Vernon Williams, was one of the founders of the Notting Hill Carnival. Williams says: "This area became the playground for the rich and famous after the film Notting Hill. But they came here, saw the carnival, boarded up their homes and left whilst it was on."
On the question of integration, Williams says: "They need to do more to integrate. The white, middle-class community need to be educated on what Carnival is about. If they joined in, they would understand the long-standing West Indian community in this area a lot better, and the historic significance of Carnival."
Of course, the preservation of some cultural artefacts in Notting Hill are of concern to both sides of its divided population. Frankie Lambert says: "For something like the food market, residents do come together" – explaining that it’s something that benefits all residents. But beyond exotic food, white middle-class residents aren’t interested in community projects that affect the working class people of the area.
Jacob Rety led a campaign to prevent the local library from being turned into a private school. He is sympathetic to the fact that, naturally, people become involved when an issue affects them, but also sees how it can be problematic, stating: "When there was an issue with local tennis courts, some more affluent residents might turn up and campaign. That’s great, but if the issues don’t affect them any more and then they stop campaigning – that’s an issue."
Shopping around for issues like this might be instinctive, but it makes areas more like holiday resorts and less like communities; some opting in and out of the services that interest them, like tourists. But the same people who provide the exotic foods on the market or play the steel pan – who build up the rich cultural life that so many house prices in the area rest on – might rely on those services to live there. This was something that was shown in the horrific Grenfell Tower fire.
"The issues that divide different socioeconomic groups are things like housing," says Lambert. "Those in social housing have concerns around fire safety, or care about the costs of flats; whilst those who are wealthier are concerned about their house-prices dropping."
Whether it's that these communities choose to segregate themselves or that they do it by accident, what's clear is the damaging effect it can have on existing communities.
Integration is hard. From Leyton's Francis Road, an existing community almost completely wiped out in the bid to cater to a new, more affluent group; to Notting Hill's more entrenched, wealthier parts that don't participate equally in all parts of the community – these are not stories of evil immigrants, but of communities trying to learn to live side-by-side.
One thing that can't help that is the increasing drive to place a monetary value on certain communities, drawing them in at any cost. Companies capitalising on the subconscious drive within humans to be around people like them are increasingly encouraging people to syphon themselves off from community, taking all of its benefits and never having to be a part of it.
That means that our conversation about integration has to change, to protect society rather than the dominant group. Recognising how hard integration is for ethnic minority groups doesn’t mean denying the concept of society; it just means accepting that not all groups are asked to integrate equally.
I've always tried to be fashionable, but I'm not always successful. It's still important to me, though, because being confident in your clothes is an important step to shaping your identity. But although I don’t consider myself unfashionable, my Instagram feed is filled with people far cooler than me. And it often seems that the most influential fashion bloggers are teenagers – strutting around in garms I wouldn’t dare think up.
It's strange to think I look up to people a lot younger than me for my style inspiration, which obviously means, depressingly, that they would look down on my choices. But maybe that's exactly what I need – a few home truths to set me on the right fashion track. So I decided to let a group of critical, fashion-conscious teens judge my outfits.
After spending hours on Instagram, searching my way through the world of teenage fashion, I found five bloggers who were more than happy to come down to our VICE office in Amsterdam and tell me what's wrong with my personal style.
The panel that will be judging my outfits. From left to right: Merlijn (17), Malou (16), Caylani (15), Dora Lin (17) and Boris (16).
Outfit 1
Standing on a table to be judged was a lot more intimidating than I had expected.
WHY I LIKE THIS LOOK:
Firstly, the backpack is smart and really practical. I think its subtle and dark tones really work in my favour. The jacket – a gift from a friend – is one of my favourite pieces of clothing. It's incredibly comfortable and I think the colour really suits me. The shoes are actually working boots for men. If fashion is also about pushing boundaries, then I think my shoes will be the biggest hit with the panel. At least that’s what I read on i-D.
WHAT THE PANEL THINK:
Boris actually starts off by complimenting my shoes. "They’re pretty dope. But they could really do with a wipe." Everybody agrees, but Boris isn’t finished. "The bag is a bit of a problem, though," he says with a smile, which does nothing to make me feel better about him trashing my much loved accessory. "You look like a tourist who's also about to climb a mountain," he adds.
Dora Lin suggests I replace my "old-fashioned" backpack with a leather bag. "Maybe in yellow to make it a bit less boring and a bit more sexy," she tells me. Taking in their suggestions, I steer the appraisal towards my jacket – certainly a winner. They all think it’s cute, but Malou is worried that the coat makes my body shape "look a bit triangular."
The panel all thought I desperately needed some jewellery.
I take off my jacket to reveal my bright yellow blouse underneath. The teens are all fairly warmed up to the task now, don't hold back when it comes to sharing their opinions. Before I can ask them about my top, they start dishing out their thoughts.
Dora Lin: "You could make it a lot trendier by matching it with some jewellery – possibly a nice ring or some necklaces. Also, this is when you really need a pair of colourful shoes." Merlijn: "If I were you, I'd wear a big red belt to go with your jacket." Dora Lin: "You should do something about your hair too." Merlijn: "Yes, maybe put it in a bun or a nice tail."
Dora Lin: "It would look nice in a very high ponytail, with a lock of hair around it." Merlijn: "Still, you definitely need to sort out your jewellery."
Merlijn (left) and Dora Lin (right) were not afraid to tell me exactly what they thought about my yellow blouse.
Fucking hell. I’m starting to think this was a really bad idea. With each passing comment, I'm getting more and more insecure. I thought that a sober, minimalist style would go down really well. But it seems I couldn't have been more wrong.
Boris thinking of ways to help me look less like a train conductor.
As I step out of the room to change into my next outfit, the panel chat to each other. “I’m not sure how to describe her style," I overhear one of them say. "It’s like she's just come straight out of a vintage shop. If she walked pass me in the street, I wouldn’t really notice her.”
Outfit 2
I was told to roll up my trouser legs to make the whole look less boring.
WHY I LIKE THIS LOOK: Well I know the trousers are hot. And I bought the black shirt at a very trendy store in Amsterdam. This is the most feminine look I have, and I think I look beautiful wearing this.
WHAT THE PANEL THINK: Everything I thought I knew about my appearance seems to be a lie. "I think this look is even less sexy than the last," one of the teens shouts out. "I have no idea why you're wearing those extremely unflattering shoes," is the next slap in my unfashionable face.
"There's no shape to the outfit at all," Caylani adds. "It’s not tight, and so everything is just sort of hanging. It looks like something a grandmother would wear." This experiment is starting to hurt – my heart is sinking all the way down to my unflattering shoes. But the comments keep on coming. "You remind me of a train conductor," Boris says.
The panel wondering for the 100th time why I wasn't wearing more jewellery.
However, I'm not a completely lost cause. They also have some advice for me, which I must admit does make a lot of sense. Dora Lin tells me to roll up my trouser legs so I come across more relaxed, while Merlijn reminds me – again – that some nice jewellery would go a long way. Malour rounds it up by recommending I replace my black, functional shoes with some heels, and add a white jacket to complete the new look.
Caylani (left) and Merlijn (right) both gave me some great advice about making my all black look more exciting.
Outfit 3
Pretty much how I felt all afternoon.
WHY I LIKE THIS LOOK: My red sweater cost me about €1, and the jeans and shoes are from one of my favourite vintage stores.
Before I let them judge me for the final time, I ask them where they get their outfits from. If I’m not allowed to just scour the city's best vintage racks, then where should I go? Firstly, they recommend that I stay clear of big, popular chains like H&M and Zara, which "are only good for the basics." According to them, the best way to find nice clothes is to just wander around Amsterdam.
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I ask them if Instagram, and social media in general, play a big role in knowing what's hot and what's not. Apparently not.
"There are no rules anymore – anything is possible," says Dora Lin. "But your favourite celebs are always a great source of inspiration. I love Princess Nokia." That's clearly where I went wrong as a teen. Instead of getting my inspiration from internationally renowned Hip Hop artists, I just copied the older girls at school.
My final look was not the disaster I had expected.
I also ask them about whether breaking gender norms is an important part of modern fashion. Is it okay to wear male clothes as a woman? "Yes, if it makes you feel comfortable," Caylani says. “To be honest, I wish they would make female sizes a bit bigger, because my sister just bought a super dope jacket, and I want it, but they don’t have it in my size," Boris adds. "I almost immediately gravitate towards people who look different from everyone else," Malou says.
WHAT THE PANEL THINKS ABOUT MY FINAL OUTFIT: Surprisingly, they like it. Finally, my first fashionable pick of the day. "The white shoes are cool and it’s nice how they match your white T-shirt underneath," one of them says. Even hearing about my lack of accessories for the hundredth time in a day doesn't dampen my mood.
My final outfit was a winner.
And just like this, the catwalk is finally over. The panel were a lot more honest than I had expected, but I've learned a lot. If I want to be more trendy, I should wear less baggy clothes, brighter colours and learn to accessorise. I should also take a break from my staple vintage shops and just stroll through the city.
Will I take their advice when I next go shopping? Absolutely. Will I ever let a bunch of teens judge my look again? Never.
Once upon a time, long before I began selling my face by the acre for features on VICE dot com, I worked other jobs. There was one in particular that really had an impact on me: writing fake reviews on TripAdvisor. Restaurant owners would pay me £10 and I'd write a positive review of their place, despite never eating there. Over time, I became obsessed with monitoring the ratings of these businesses. Their fortunes would genuinely turn, and I was the catalyst.
This convinced me that TripAdvisor was a false reality – that the meals never took place; that the reviews were all written by other people like me. However, they're not, of course – they're almost all completely genuine. And there was one other factor that seemed impossible to fake: the restaurants themselves. So I moved on.
And then, one day, sitting in the shed I live in, I had a revelation: within the current climate of misinformation, and society's willingness to believe absolute bullshit, maybe a fake restaurant is possible? Maybe it's exactly the kind of place that could be a hit?
In that moment, it became my mission. With the help of fake reviews, mystique and nonsense, I was going to do it: turn my shed into London's top-rated restaurant on TripAdvisor.
SETTING UP "THE SHED AT DULWICH" – APRIL, 2017
First of all, let me introduce you to my site: a shed in a south London garden.
To get started, I need to get verified, and to do that I need a phone.
One £10 burner later and "The Shed at Dulwich" officially exists. Now, I need to list an address – but doing so makes easy work for any skeptical fact checkers. Plus, I don't technically have a door. Instead, I just list the road and call The Shed an "appointment-only restaurant".
Onto my online presence: I buy a domain and build a website. Hot spots are all about quirks, so to cut through the noise I need a concept silly enough to infuriate your dad. A concept like naming all of our dishes after moods.
Now, some soft focus images of those delicious dishes.
Photo: Chris Bethell
You'd eat this, wouldn't you?
Photo: Chris Bethell
Probably best not to.
Photo: Chris Bethell
No, OK, how about—
Photo: Chris Bethell
This sponge covered in paint, with quenelles of shaving foam.
You’re getting it: this isn't what it looks like.
It's an egg resting on my foot.
With the concept, logo (thank you, Tristan Cross) and menu nailed down, it all comes together.
I submit my TripAdvisor forms; the rest is up to God.
On the 5th of May, 2017, I wake up to an email:
Hello,
We’re excited to tell you that your listing request has been approved and is on our site for everyone to see.
[…]
Thank you for giving us this opportunity to let the TripAdvisor community know about The Shed at Dulwich.
Best Regards, The TripAdvisor Support Team
No, TripAdvisor, I want to thank you for giving me this opportunity to let the community know about The Shed at Dulwich.
GETTING THE SHED TO NUMBER ONE
I start out ranked at 18,149, the worst restaurant in London, according to TripAdvisor. So I'm going to need a lot of reviews. Reviews written by real people on different computers, so the anti-scammer technology TripAdvisor utilises doesn't pick up on my hoax.
I need convincing reviews, like this one:
(I've mocked up all the screenshots from TripAdvisor btw, because our legal department told me to)
And not like this:
The celebrity endorsement Shaun Williamson sends me after I meet him in a pub, thoroughly explain my concept and ask for a photo of him eating fancy food in a fancy place, but instead receive one of him eating a roast dinner with a side of chips.
So I contact friends and acquaintances, and put them to work.
CLIMBING THE RANKS
The first couple of weeks are easy: we crack the top 10,000 in no time, but I don't expect much in the way of inquiries quite yet. Then, one morning, something extraordinary happens: The Shed's burner phone goes off. Startled and hungover, I pick up.
"Hello? Is that The Shed?"
"… Yes?" I sound like a radiator that needs bleeding.
"I've heard so much about your restaurant... I know it’s a long shot, as you get booked up so quickly, but I don’t suppose you have a table tonight?"
Panicking, I abruptly respond: "Sorry, but we're fully booked for the next six weeks" and slam down the phone. I'm stunned. A day later, I feel another vibration: a 70th birthday booking. Four months in advance. Nine people.
Emails? I check my computer: tens of "appointment" requests await. A boyfriend tries to use his girlfriend's job at a children's hospital for leverage. TV executives use their work emails.
Seemingly overnight, we're now at #1,456. The Shed at Dulwich has suddenly become appealing. How?
I realise what it is: the appointments, lack of address and general exclusivity of this place is so alluring that people can’t see sense. They’re looking at photos of the sole of my foot, drooling. Over the coming months, The Shed's phone rings incessantly.
THINGS ARE GETTING A BIT OUT OF CONTROL
By the end of August, we’re at #156.
And things are starting to get a little out of hand.
First, companies start using the estimated location of The Shed on Google Maps to get their free samples to me. Then people who want to work at The Shed get in touch, in significant numbers. Then I get an email from the council, which wants to relocate us to a site in Bromley they’re developing. Then an Australian production company gets in touch, saying they want to exhibit us across the world in an aircraft company's inflight videos.
The author during his Skype call with the PR agency
And then, finally, I have a Skype meeting with a "results-hungry" PR agency that promises to get The Shed onto the Mail Online with a Batman-themed launch and a £200 Lizzie Cundy appearance. The representative calls me "obviously pretty cool", which is nice, but ultimately I decide to handle promotion myself.
THE FINAL PUSH
Winter has arrived, and we're at number 30.
But that position won't budge, no matter how many reviews I throw at it.
Otherwise, though, things have taken a turn.
People approach me on my road to ask if I know how to get to The Shed, and the phone rings more than ever before.
The tone of the emails shifts, with people from all over the globe asking to visit.
And then, one night, I get an email from TripAdvisor. Title: "Information Request". Fuck – the game is up. I've been rumbled. My fingers tremble as I open it: 89,000 views in search results in the past day; dozens of customers asking for information.
Why? Well, on the 1st of November, 2017, six months after listing The Shed at Dulwich online:
It's London's top-rated restaurant.
A restaurant that doesn't exist is currently the highest ranked in one of the world’s biggest cities, on perhaps the internet's most trusted reviews site.
On TripAdvisor's website, the company says it dedicates "significant time and resources [to] ensuring that the content on TripAdvisor reflects the real experiences of real travellers". So I get in touch when the whole process is finished to ask how it is that I've managed to sidestep their rigorous checks.
"Generally, the only people who create fake restaurant listings are journalists in misguided attempts to test us," replies a representative via email. "As there is no incentive for anyone in the real world to create a fake restaurant it is not a problem we experience with our regular community – therefore this 'test' is not a real world example."
Which is fair enough; I can't imagine this happens often.
The representative adds that "most fraudsters are only interested in trying to manipulate the rankings of real businesses", so the "distinction between attempted fraud by a real business, as opposed to attempted fraud for a non-existent business, is important". To catch these people out, TripAdvisor uses "state-of-the-art technology to identify suspicious review patterns" and says, "Our community too can report suspicious activity to us." They then quote a 2015 study that found "93 percent of TripAdvisor users said they find the reviews they read to be accurate of the actual experience".
So there you have it: it's done.
LONELY AT THE TOP
Only, it doesn’t stop.
I leave the Shed's phone at a friend's house over a long weekend, and when I get it back it has 116 missed calls. So I start answering again. "We’re booked up," I lie. "We have a christening." Another lie.
"Hello, The Shed at Dulwich."
"Oh my goodness," a frustrated woman says. "I’ve actually got through. I first contacted you back in August. I’ve heard nothing back."
Now I've created this reality, I think, the only thing left to do is make it reality. In just four days, London’s best restaurant will come alive. I'm going to open The Shed at Dulwich.
THE BIG NIGHT
But how? I've never even had more than three people round at once, let alone provided dinner and drinks for 20. There's only one way to do it: recreating the exact location people have been describing in reviews for the past six months.
The food reminds people of home? Well, I'll serve them what I grew up eating: ready meals.
People like the rural yet classy vibe? Well, see that Wendy house? It's going to be filled with chickens, like lobsters at an expensive restaurant, so people can pick their chick.
Our success is down to the gaming of TripAdvisor? I'll fill half the tables with people I know, talking loudly about how delicious everything is.
How are we going to achieve the unmistakable ambience of a real restaurant? By getting a DJ in to play the sounds of a real restaurant on CDJs.
To work. Wendy house?
Chicken House. Lawn?
Tidy. Sub-zero temperatures?
Thawed. Extra seating?
Done.
Soon, Joe – my friend and the chef for tonight – shows up. He's spent the past decade travelling the world, working in fine restaurants. A man worthy of The Shed's whites, if ever there was one. Now, we’ve got produce to source.
Done, all for the price of £31.
Back at The Shed, Phoebe has arrived. She's an intuitive waitress who can really get across the nuances of our menu, like how – by serving pudding in mugs – we're aiming to replicate the experience of what it's like to eat pudding out of a mug.
For the starter, it's Minestrone di Verdure. For mains, a choice of Truffle Mac n Cheese or Once-In-A-Lifetime Vegetable Lasagne. For dessert, The Shed Chocolate Sundae. One last thing I ask of Phoebe is for her to ask the opinions of every guest, privately, so they’re honest.
And with that, my vision has come to life.
Guests sit on the roof, sipping mugs of wine.
Chickens cluck happily in the Wendy house, ready to be slaughtered.
Actors chomp away on spruced-up £1 ready meals.
A DJ pumps out the sound of a restaurant.
It looks, sounds and smells beautiful, and we're ready for our first two guests. I head to the meeting point up the road and, on time, are:
Joel and Maria, all the way from sunny California, vacationing in Europe for the first time. Last night they were in Paris, and tonight is their first night in London. A Pokemon convention tomorrow brings them to the city, but they want to spend their first evening at The Shed.
I ask them to put on blindfolds and they look terrified, but after the two actresses who’ve arrived at the same time agree, they nod.
I lead the four, hand in hand, into the garden. As we approach the house, Maria says, "I can hear the sound of a kitchen!" No, Maria, you cannot. The blindfolds come off. The Americans are silent.
"We serve moods here. I’ll interpret yours and bring a dish that suits. Maria, I get a homely energy from you. Joel? I’m feeling 'cool', right?"
I rush into the kitchen and grab two mains off Joe. As per my request, the DJ triggers "ding" sounds frequently to disguise the noise of our microwave.
I place the pair's dishes down, move away and, observing from a distance, watch them stare at their Mac n Cheese. Maria takes out her phone for a photo, looks at the meal through her camera, pauses, then puts her phone away without taking a picture.
The evening crawls by. Joel spots the two on the roof above him and can’t stop looking. After 40 largely quiet minutes, the couple leaves. Joel looks furious.
In the meantime, two locals arrive, full of questions about the place. I let Phoebe take the lead with them, as I've got a table of four to deal with.
After seating them and disappearing to grab drinks, I hear a scream from the kitchen. Outside, a lady runs across the restaurant, squealing. Trevor – oh, good time to introduce Trevor, the man I hired the chickens from – is following her, clutching a chicken flapping its wings.
Trevor with a chicken
I snatch the chicken off Trevor and stuff it in the Wendy house. As things calm down, the woman's friends begin to laugh. "Why do you have chickens?" they ask. "It’s pick your chicken! We cook the one you like the look of." Their expressions sour. "But I thought you were a vegetarian restaurant? I found you as you’re the top-rated veggie restaurant in London."
My heart skips a beat – I hadn’t thought of this. "Top in all of London, you mean!" I smile. We’re fucked.
People seem to be enjoying the food, but I can’t stop thinking 'flapping chicken'. We need to make good with the table of four.
I feel a tap on my shoulder; it’s one of them, a man, who informs me it’s his friend's birthday. An opportunity to impress arises.
I have a quiet word with my friend and comedian, Lolly Adefope, who's going to privately sing "Happy Birthday" to the birthday-haver. Lolly begins, shushing people who join in until it’s just her. It’s truly beautiful.
But probably not enough. The other real table of two leave, and I see out our foursome. I apologise as we go, bumbling about new menus and difficult circumstances. In the midst of my wittering, I'm stopped. "Yeah, so about availability," the lady says. "Now that we’ve been once, is that easier?"
"What?"
"Yeah, is it easier for us to book a table now?" her husband jumps in.
"Yeah, it would be nice to come again."
I’m absolutely speechless.
"Uh, that’s certainly something we can look at."
They wave goodbye and disappear into the night.
By this point the restaurant has slipped considerably in the rankings (the page has now been deleted, but an archived version is available here), but we were in the top spot for almost a fortnight, and that's obviously had an effect.
I barrel down the garden and scream the news: "They want to book again!" Joe, Trevor – all the crew – look at me. We erupt into laughter. "I’m not surprised," says Phoebe, showing me the customers' feedback, which is roundly excellent – possibly because I didn't charge any of them for anything (the whole evening was free because "we were documenting it for a TV show"), but also possibly because they really did have an excellent time.
So there we go: I invited people into a hastily-assembled collection of chairs outside my shed, and they left thinking it really could be the best restaurant in London, just on the basis of a TripAdvisor rating. You could look at this cynically – argue that the odour of the internet is so strong nowadays that people can no longer use their senses properly. But I like to be positive. If I can transform my garden into London’s best restaurant, literally anything is possible.
It’s December, which means several things. We’ve (at the time of writing) nearly made it to the end of another year without a nuclear war; Sunderland have settled comfortably at the foot of whichever league they’re playing in this season, like a blanket of fallen snow; and it’s nearly Christmas.
Leaving aside my deep ambivalence to thing one, and the crushing inevitably of thing two, let’s focus on the part that I feel really mixed about: the Christmas bit. Over the Christmas period, it’s traditional that a large chunk of the UK’s population throws caution to the wind and does what, realistically, they’d like to do the other 11-and-a-half months of the year: they go out and get blackout drunk five nights a week. All of which sounds fantastically fun and positive, and it mostly is, but there are some of us who utterly dread it, not because we don’t drink, but because we’re the ones who have to work behind the bars the rest of you are merrily propping up, and later being sick on.
What follows, then, is a list of the seven most important things you can do to make your bartender’s life easier over the next few weeks as you go out drinking, so we can all have a lovely time and stagger forth into January with our dignity intact.
Photo by Jake Lewis
ORDER PROPERLY
Ordering your drinks is the most fundamental point of contact you will have with your bartender, and I’m sorry to have to say this, but most of you are shit at it. That bit on your CV where you talk about your "excellent communication skills"? Bartenders – even more than your boss – know that bit is rubbish. So let’s break it down. There are a few basic bits of information you need to communicate with the person serving you: what drink you would like, how many of those drinks you want and in what measure. You then need to listen for the amount you owe and have your card or cash out, ready to pay.
Give the person serving you your full attention. Ordering your drinks takes literally a matter of seconds – there is absolutely no need to continue your conversation with your mate while you do it. If you know what you want to order when you approach the bar, the whole enterprise will be quicker and you can return to your conversation really, really soon, I promise.
Let’s do an example: "Hi, can I have three pints of lager, a medium shiraz and a glass of tap water, please? Thanks. Are you having a good night?"
Compare and contrast: "Okay, two lagers, a wine…. what? I dunno, red probably, and wait a minute, love, Mickey? MICKEY?!!! WHAT ARE YOU HAVING? No, love just wait there…. WATER? WHY THE FUCK DOES SHE WANT WATER?"
(Photo by Jake Lewis)
PLEASE BRING YOUR GLASSES BACK TO THE BAR
You’re coming anyway. It’s busy in here. Mickey has already smashed a load of the ones on your table while hurtling back from the loo after doing a line off the screen of his Samsung Galaxy. (Seriously, why did you come out with this guy?) Just bring them back. We’ll appreciate it.
DON’T MAKE A MESS
The beermats on the table are there to put your drink on. Don’t rip them into tiny pieces of confetti then scatter them across the table, the floor and into the end of your pint, where they’ll later be joined by some blackcurrant cordial, cheese and onion crisp fragments, half a napkin and your number that a girl didn’t want. Why would she? Look at the state of your table.
In the same vein, I know it’s Christmas, I know you’re excited, but there’s really no need to go into the toilet and frantically claw at the spinny mechanism on the loo roll, dispensing most of it onto the floor where it will be trodden into a disgusting mulch that I later have to clean up.
There are other ways to relieve stress, my friends: we live in the age of the fidget spinner. You can buy one for £1. Look, here’s a link to one. You're welcome.
YOU’RE ALLOWED TO TIP
It’s not table service, but it’s still hard work, and your server is still probably only getting somewhere around minimum wage. There are two fairly well-trodden paths to seamlessly tipping a bartender. The first one is saying "keep the change!" – which we like. Most places will let workers keep bar tips, but there’s the odd one that’s a bit funny about staff having money on them on shift, in case they’ve got their hands in the till. This is rare, but it brings me to the second method, which is also doable if you’re paying by card. This method is called "get one for yourself" – and we like it even more. Your bartender will add a half pint, or maybe a cheap shot, onto your order and you will pay for it. They know not to take the piss, so you don’t need to worry about them adding a large glass of Riesling at £7.90 onto your bill.
In my travels through the various bars and pubs of this sceptred isle, I’m yet to work anywhere that won’t allow their staff to take a drink from a customer and have it later. It’s a nice thing to do, and we appreciate it.
DON’T ARGUE OVER WHO’S PAYING
This is one of those unbelievably gauche things that the middle classes always seem to do that I’m yet to wrap my head around. Those of us who grew up with not much money are generally horrified these by loud displays of wealth. ("Catherine, NO, I simply won’t allow it – not after you already paid for the petrol on the way to Gymkhana!") It’s embarrassing, and even more so if we get roped in ("Darling, do NOT take her money – she’s not paying, I won’t have it!") and we could be serving someone else.
WATCH:
GET OUT OF THE WAY
There’s a gap just off the end of the bar, where the staff walk in and out, sometimes carrying heavy things. It’s the bit that Del Boy fell through – and he deserved it, because he was in the way.
Contrary to popular opinion, that’s not actually part of the bar. That’s an exit. Don’t stand there, and for the love of god, don’t put your bar stool there. I don’t come to your work and stand in front of the photocopier, blocking it and preventing you from comfortably doing your job. I might start, though, just to get the point across.
GET OUT
When we ring the bell for last orders, that generally means there’s going to be another bell soon. That second bell means Time, and no, you can’t have any more drinks after that. I recently made the fatal mistake of feeling sorry for a guy (let’s call him Mickey) who insisted he’d been waiting at the bar since well before the final bell, took pity on him and told him he could have his round. Mickey then went on to order nine pints, six different vodka-mixers, plus other drinks for his mates, who were standing behind him whispering their orders into his ear. This is known in the industry as "an absolute fucking piss take". Just because you’ve figured out how to circumvent a rule, doesn’t mean you should.
Anyway, we’re going to kick you out. We’re going to switch off the music, drag the bins through the bar and start putting chairs up on tables around you. It’s not really the kind of atmosphere you want to keep drinking in, is it? It’s called the hospitality industry, not the perpetual hospitality industry, because there has to be a limit. We want to go home, let us.
***
All of this is not to say that bar work is horrible – it can be fun. At least, I mostly enjoy it. But we’re people with ambitions and lives outside of pubs and bars, and we want to have a nice Christmas too. The people who buy drinks from us pay our wages, we know that, and we’re certainly not filled with resentment towards them. Just be considerate. And maybe have a think about leaving Mickey at home, because he's a prick.
A self-described vigilante pedophile hunter has been convicted of criminal harassment after he confronted a young gay man last year and posted the encounter online.
Last November Carl Young, 38, a member of predator shaming group Red Deer Creep Catchers, met up with a 24-year-old man from Lacombe, Alberta and accused him of being a creep. Young had posed as an 18-year-old boy on Grindr but when in conversation with the man, Young told him he was in fact 15. According to their chat logs, which remain posted online, the man said he wouldn’t mind having the teen over for a movie “just as friends.” At no point in the conversation did he express a sexual interest in the teen.
When Young confronted him and revealed that he was a part of Red Deer Creep Catchers, the young man explained that he ran two support groups for LGBT teens. “You can trust me, I am not a creep,” he said in the video, which is also still online.
Young replied, “you know it’s illegal to bring a 15-year-old over to your house for the night?”
At that point the man started crying.
Young claimed (as many Creep Catchers do) that he was recording the encounter to protect both of them.
"Do you realize what you were doing was illegal?," he added.
In tears, the man said, “I am gay but I’m not a pedophile. I was abused but I don’t have nightmares about abusing other kids.”
“I haven’t even said anything sexually to you,” he continued. Young didn't refute this.
But it turns out Young’s behaviour was illegal.
According to the Red Deer Advocate, Young's target wrote in one of his victim impact statements, “So many times the video made me feel that taking my life was the only option” and spoke of how he’d been harassed after it was made public. He also reportedly testified that his learning disability makes it hard for him to pick up on social cues. He now lives with his father in BC.
"This has really ruined someone’s life," said crown prosecutor Katie Clarey during the trial.
She recommended Young be fined and given a year of probation during which time he should be banned from having devices with internet access (except for at work), and barred from contacting the man. Young’s defence argued a fine is sufficient.
Young will be sentenced in January.
A CTV investigation in February also found that Young had an outstanding arrest warrant in New Brunswick for allegedly trafficking cocaine and ecstasy.
A VICE investigation from January found that many so-called pedophile hunters were doing stings on people with mental health issues and cognitive and physical disabilities.
A transgender Edmonton woman, Katelynn McKnight died by suicide after being shamed online by a local Creep Catchers outfit.
By the time I got to interview Bernie Sanders, he was very tired, and honestly so was I—not that I could really complain. The Vermont senator had spent the wee hours of Saturday morning on the Senate floor watching his Republican colleagues pass a tax bill that Sanders called "the biggest act of thievery in the modern history of this country." After sleeping only two hours, Sanders hopped on a flight to Dayton, Ohio, to speak at the first rally of the day. It was part of his weekend-long "Protect Working Families" tour, organized by progressive organizations MoveOn and Not One Penny. He then journeyed to Akron to speak at another rally and got back to the hotel around 11 PM Sunday, where he got in a little shuteye before sitting down for our interview the next morning for breakfast with his staff.
Sanders ordered a single English muffin, lightly patting his belly as he remarked to the table, "I've been eating too much lately." In an hour, the 76-year-old was flying to Philadelphia, then going to Reading, Pennsylvania (in a county Trump won by 18,000 votes), where he would deliver his final speech of the weekend.
I began the interview by summarizing the past two days before asking, "So, uh, how do you do it?" He burst into a long, hearty laugh, bringing some energy to a table full of tired people who (him included) hadn't even had their coffee yet. "You know, I got a job to do, and I do it," he said matter-of-factly. "We believed the bill was going to be voted on Thursday night, and that’s why we arranged for Louisville on Friday evening and Ohio on Saturday and Philadelphia on Sunday... When I make a commitment, I like to keep it, and we had a very good turnout in Louisville and thought we would in Ohio, so I felt it was important to keep that commitment, so I got up early, and we did it."
Sanders's weekend tour, which had the hectic feel of the campaign trail, was just as much about pushing back against the Republican tax plan as it was about looking ahead, presenting voters with a platform that extended beyond, in Sanders's words, merely "saying no to Trump." He advocated for the policies that are familiar to anyone who followed the 2016 campaign: raising the minimum wage to $15 an hour, expanding Medicare to cover everyone, raising taxes on the wealthy, expanding Social Security, switching to clean energy, ending mass incarceration (which he pointed out disproportionately affects people of color), closing the gender pay gap, and standing with immigrants.
What was new, however, was Sanders's emphasis on extending compassion to working-class Trump voters. The three states on his tour all went for Trump in 2016, and it seems likely that Democrats will have to take back at least Pennsylvania, and possibly Ohio, to win in 2020. After the Akron audience booed when he mentioned Trump voters, he said, "Let's not boo anybody. Maybe except Trump." (He was completely OK with the crowd booing Treasury Secretary Steve Mnuchin, however.)
"The reason [Trump] won Ohio and many other states in this country... [is that] there are millions of people who are hurting," Sanders told the crowd, before emphasizing that Trump campaigned on bald-faced lies—but, hey, we've all been tricked before. In my interview with him the next day, he elaborated on why it's so important to him to address Trump voters with compassion.
"It is clear that there is an element of Trump supporters who are racists, sexists, homophobes, and there’s nothing I’m going to say that’s going to appeal to them," he said. "But I think that the vast majority of Trump supporters are people who are in pain, who are struggling economically, who are worried to death that their kids are going to be in even worse shape economically than they are, and they turned to Trump because Trump said things that made sense. He said he was going to take on the establishment, and he was going to provide healthcare to everybody. You know what, it’s pretty much what I said."
The difference, of course, is that Sanders seems to have a plan to provide benefits like health insurance to large swathes of Americans. The question—which may not be answered until 2020—is whether Trump spoke to those voters because of his vague populist promises or because of his willingness to embrace the nastiest aspects of the culture war.
Sanders, evidently, thinks that it's the former. He has obvious compassion for subsection of Trump supporters, an undeniably practical perspective to have—while some on the left might be giddy about writing off the 62,979,879 Americans who voted for the guy, Sanders wants to win them over with his populist, anti-elitist platform.
“We are winning the fight for the future of America," he told the audience in Dayton. "Please never forget we’re the vast majority of the American people.”
It was a necessary reframing, at least for me. After I half-woke up at 5 AM Saturday morning, I made the critical error of checking my phone for the time, where I was rudely flooded with a slew of notifications informing me the tax reform bill had passed the Senate, something I assumed would happen when I fell asleep the night before. The magnitude of the whole thing hit me extra hard so early in the morning, and I went down a rabbit hole of despair I have learned to largely avoid as someone who writes about politics for a living.
The tax bill the Senate passed stands to disproportionately benefit the wealthiest Americans, lowers the corporate tax rate from 35 to 20 percent, repeals the Affordable Care Act's individual mandate, and would likely increase the national debt by $1 trillion over ten years. (It's not clear how closely the final bill passed by Congress as a whole will be to the Senate version.) The bill was unpopular, and the vast majority of economists said that it wouldn't grow the economy the way Republicans claimed. It was rushed through the Senate so sloppily that revisions were written in the margins of the bill's text. This seemed to be evidence that no matter what the left did, no matter what the American people wanted—only about a third of Americans are in favour of the bill, according to a recent poll—the right, funded by Koch brothers and other billionaires, would be able to advance a radical agenda.
But as Bernie addressed the crowded theater of 1,300 in Dayton, proclaiming, "This is class warfare, and we're gonna stand up and fight!" I was like, OK, maybe we're not completely doomed. It's rare you hear any senator talk about the extremism of the GOP as "class warfare," never mind calling his Republican colleagues "employees" of the Kochs.
I might've felt exhausted by the GOP's unabashed greed, but the crowds at the Sanders's rallies were bursting with energy. At each rally, activists from the surrounding areas spoke before Bernie. In Dayton, Portia Boulger, a Sanders delegate from Appalachia who self-identified as a "Bernie bro," bellowed, "Power to the people! No justice no peace!... We will not yield!" to uproarious applause from the audience, many of whom were supporting Bernie gear.
During his Dayton speech, Sanders warned that in the coming months, Republicans might suggest cutting Medicaid, Medicare, and Social Security in order to offset the billions and billions their tax bill would add to the national deficit. “One of their ideas is to raise the eligibility age for Social Security and Medicare,” he said, prompting emphatic boos from two older people sitting a couple of rows in front of me.
"I could never understand, as the Koch brothers do, having $90, $100 billion, and feel the need to lower their taxes," Sanders said in Dayton. “There is something weird and wrong about people who need more and more, and are willing to step over the elderly and the sick [to get it].”
In Akron, the crowd of 1,100 rose to their when Sanders proclaimed, “We have to guarantee healthcare to every man, woman and child in this country.” Half of them began chanting "USA! USA! USA!" while others began a "Bernie! Bernie! Bernie!" chant.
At breakfast, I asked Sanders how he avoids feeling demoralized when the Republicans control every branch of government. "What goes on in the White House and what goes on in the extreme right-wing leadership of the Republican Party concerns me every single day," he told me. "But we just don’t have the time to be demoralized. The stakes are much too high."
"I get a lot of very positive energy from these rallies," he told me. "As I have said many, many times, if we are successful, it’s not about one person, it is absolutely not about one person, it’s about millions of people beginning to stand up and understand that they have power in a democracy and they can make change. That’s what the goal is."
Everything you need to know about the world this morning, curated by VICE.
US News
Trump to Recognize Jerusalem as Israel's Capital The president is expected to announce Wednesday that the US considers Jerusalem Israel’s capital and outline a plan to move the American embassy to the city. The decision violates longstanding US policy and goes against warnings from across the Muslim world—and from experts on both sides—that it will needlessly provoke anger and possibly incite violence. The State Department told US embassies to put extra security measures in place in anticipation of trouble.—VICE News
Steve Bannon Goes After Mitt Romney at Roy Moore Rally The former White House strategist attacked the 2012 GOP nominee after he criticized Roy Moore, the alleged sexual predator running for Senate in Alabama. “You hid behind your religion,” Bannon said of Romney at a Moore rally in the state. “You went to France to be a missionary while men were dying in Vietnam… Judge Roy Moore has more honor and integrity in his pinky finger than your entire family.”—NBC News
Majority of Americans Know Tax Bill Is Gift to Rich The latest Quinnipiac University poll shows 53 percent of voters do not approve of the GOP’s push to make major changes to the tax code. Just 24 percent of voters believe the middle class will gain from planned legislation, while 61 percent of voters think it “favours the rich at the expense of the middle class.”—CBS News
Immigrant in Kate Steinle Case Faces New Charges The undocumented man who was acquitted of murdering Kate Steinle last week was slapped with two new charges on Tuesday. A federal grand jury indicted Mexican citizen Jose Ines Garcia Zarate on charges of being a felon in possession of a firearm—the one charge he was already convicted of—and of possessing a firearm while in the US illegally. The maximum sentence for each charge is ten years in prison.—NPR
International News
Russia Banned from 2018 Winter Olympics The International Olympic Committee (IOC) has decided to exclude Russia from next year’s games in South Korea after agreeing with an investigator's conclusion that the country ran a “systemic” doping program for athletes. Individual Russian competitors who can prove themselves clean will still be allowed to take part under the Olympic flag.—VICE News
Yemeni TV Journalists Held Hostage Houthi fighters are holding 41 people hostage at the Yemen Al Youm TV headquarters in Sanaa, according to the NGO Reporters Without Borders (RSF). Three security guards were injured when militants from the Iran-backed Shia movement took control of the station. RSF called on the Houthis “to immediately release the TV channel’s journalists.”—Al Jazeera
British Police Thwart Alleged Plot to Kill Prime Minister Two men were arrested last week by the Metropolitan Police counter-terrorism division and charged with various offenses. British intelligence suspected 20-year-old Naa’imur Zakariyah Rahman plotted to detonate a bomb at Downing Street and attempt to kill Prime Minister Theresa May inside with a knife. A second man was accused of receiving Rahman's aid in a bid to go to Syria to engage in terrorist activity. —VICE News
Canada Ditches Plan to Buy Boeing Fighter Jets The Canadian government no longer intends to buy 18 Super Hornet jets from Boeing, according to anonymous officials. Ministers were reportedly upset about the manufacturer’s legal complaint against Canadian company Bombardier. Canada is ready to opt for second-hand Australian F-18 military aircraft instead.—Reuters
Everything Else
Johnny Hallyday Dies at 74 The rock and roll legend, long dubbed the “French Elvis,” passed away Wednesday. “He introduced a slice of America in our national Pantheon,” said French President Emmanuel Macron, who described Hallyday as a “vibrant icon.”—Reuters
Eminem to Collaborate with Ed Sheeran The rapper released a full track listing for his upcoming album Revival on Tuesday, revealing that Ed Sheeran features on a song called “River.” The LP also features new work with Pink, Alicia Keys, Kehlani, and Phresher.—Variety
A$AP Rocky Goes in on Cookie Kit The rapper hooked up with It’Sugar to produce the “Ginger Bread Mob Cookie Kit.” Money raised from the baked goods will go to the Always Strive and Prosper Foundation, the drug educational charity set up after A$AP Yams died in 2015.—Rolling Stone
Charli XCX Teases New Mixtape The British star hinted at an imminent follow-up to her Number 1 Angel mixtape. She suggested on Twitter that it would feature Carly Rae Jepsen, Tove Lo, Mykki Blanco, and CupcaKke.—Noisey
'National Enquirer' Editor Accused of Sexual Misconduct Dylan Howard, the chief content officer of the National Enquirer's publisher American Media Inc., has been accused of various forms of sexual harassment, including encouraging female staffers to have sex with potential sources and discussing their sex lives and appearances. Howard, who denied the claims against him, allegedly talked openly about his own sex life and demanded female employees to watch porn, among other disturbing practices.—VICE
India Again Investigates Airborne Feces Phenomenon The country’s National Green Tribunal is investigating complaints made by residents living near Delhi airport who claim human feces is falling from skies. Authorities will collect samples to see if it’s coming from birds or airline passengers.—Motherboard
Make sure to check out the latest episode of VICE's daily podcast. Today we’re looking into noise pollution, and how recorded sounds can help manage stress.
TIME magazine has honored the people who ignited a nationwide movement to expose and punish sexual harassment by naming the #MeToo Movement—which the magazine has dubbed "The Silence Breakers"—as TIME's 2017 Person of the Year.
TIME editor-in-chief Edward Felsenthal made the announcement on the TODAY show Wednesday morning, just a week after the show fired host Matt Lauer for a string of sexual misconduct allegations.
"This is the fastest-moving social change we've seen in decades, and it began with individual acts of courage by hundreds of women, and some men, who came forward to tell their own stories of sexual harassment and assault," Felsenthal said.
The new issue's cover photo features former Uber engineer Susan Fowler, Ashley Judd, and Taylor Swift, among other women who have come forward as part of the nationwide reckoning.
"These silence breakers have started a revolution of refusal, gathering strength by the day, and in the past two months alone," TIME wrote on its website, "their collective anger has spurred immediate and shocking results: nearly every day, CEOs have been fired, moguls toppled, icons disgraced. In some cases, criminal charges have been brought."
This isn't the first time TIME has chosen a group as its Person of the Year, either. The title has been awarded to GIs during the Korean War, kids 25 and under in 1966, and "You," back in 2006, along with other groups who helped sway popular culture and the world in unison.
"The galvanizing actions of the women on our cover," Felsenthal said in a statement, "along with those of hundreds of others, and of many men as well, have unleashed one of the highest-velocity shifts in our culture since the 1960s."
After dropping a handfuloftrailers for new episodes of Black Mirror's upcoming fourth season, Netflix finally announced on Wednesday that Charlie Brooker's reliably exhilarating downer will drop on Friday, December 29—just in time to ring in a future bleaker than 2017.
Way back in August, the streaming service dropped a cryptic season four trailer, giving away just enough to freak people out, but not much else. Then last week, as part of Netflix's "13 Days of Black Mirror," the company released a stream of episode-specific trailers from season four that featured man-hunting dogs, memory-extracting devices, extreme child safety technology, and even Star Trek.
Wednesday's latest trailer melds all six new dystopian realities together in one existential gut punch, promising the season four release will be an even more depressing way to spend your New Year's Eve than cramming yourself into Times Square like a human sardine just to watch the ball drop.
"It's hard to imagine a bright future. But we can and we must," says a character in the new trailer. But based on the latest season four trailer, Brooker and an all-star team of writers, directors, and actors—including Jodie Foster, Letitia Wright, and Breaking Bad's Jesse Plemons—will be doing their best to disprove that idea.
Check out all the trailer from Black Mirror's upcoming season four below.
Black Mirror returns to Netflix on December 29, 2017.
A housing crisis is the perfect setting for scammers to take advantage. If you’ve been following along with the fuckery in Toronto, a Liberty Village bro named Michael Adam Lemke just caught ten charges for a string of rental frauds. But Lemke is only one of a number of alleged fraudsters who’ve been using the housing shortage and skyrocketing rent prices to their advantage at the expense of other people’s sense of security. Robbing someone not just of their savings but potentially even rendering them homeless when they discover they don’t have a place to live days before they were supposed to move into a new place seems especially evil, but this is the world we live in apparently.
While scams like Lemke’s are increasingly advanced and easy to fall for in the current rental climate, I spoke to a number of people who’ve gotten caught up in rental scams in the last few months to come up with the following warning signs.
Unnecessary Virtue Signalling
It’s cool to express that you don’t discriminate based on race, gender, age, and sexuality. But if your prospective landlord is claiming that he’s a “missionary” or a “man of god” who lives in another country but just so happens to have property in your city he’s looking to rent, something might be up. Several people interviewed for this article who responded to suspicious rental ads described this as a common trope in email responses about ads posted on Kijiji and Craigslist.
Odd Rhythm of Responses
Roberta Excell, 25, decided to “get cheeky” with someone she suspected was a scammer and kept contacting him to see how far he'd go. “It seemed like a really normal listing… fully furnished, luxury apartment, in Yorkville… all-inclusive rent,” Excell told VICE. But since she’d nearly fallen for a similar rental scam when she was younger in the UK, she was able to figure out quickly that something was up when she received a response from the poster of the ad. “It was quite a long email—that’s what really got me at first,” she said. Knowing something was up, she continued to contact the person who was hustling a supposed Yorkville apartment. She described how he’d respond almost too quickly via email and by calling her—often within 30 seconds—which set off alarm bells.
Asking for Money Before a Viewing
Tempting given the rental climate and pressure to secure a place before someone else does, but no. Big no.
A screenshot of Earl Merrick's text message string with alleged Toronto rental scammer Michael Lemke. Screenshot provided
Endless Excuses
Earl Merrick, 22, alleges he was a victim of Lemke’s. After viewing a Liberty Village condo, he paid Lemke first and last month’s rent for a room. At the time of our interview, he had received less than half of his $2,200 after Lemke allegedly told him he couldn’t move in days before he was supposed to.
When he didn’t give Merrick back his money in a timely fashion, he became suspicious: “There were about a million excuses he gave: he wire-transferred himself money and couldn’t pay back right away because the wire hadn’t gone through; bank’s not open; he accidentally gave out a wrong cheque to someone and he’s got to wait for that to bounce so he gets the money back; oh, it’s Thanksgiving weekend and I can’t pay you right now, I’m with family; sorry, I’ve been driving all day; I’ve already sent you the transfer, it should come through soon (but he never actually sent it); oh I work construction, sorry, I haven’t gotten paid yet.” Merrick, along with other alleged victims of Lemke, filed a police report.
Asking How Many Months of Rent You’re Willing to Pay Upfront
While it’s normal in a city such as Toronto to pay first and last month’s rent upfront, asking for any additional months of rent is a big warning sign.
Unwillingness to Pay You Back Immediately
Tim Staudinger, 22, came to Canada just over two months ago on a work permit from Germany. Last month, he became a victim of a rental scam in notorious party-hard ski town Whistler, British Columbia when he responded to an ad in a local Facebook rental group. Though it is a small community, it has a housing shortage and therefore is fertile ground for rental scams. Staudinger paid $1,280 to a young man in town after seeing a room for rent. Just before he was supposed to move in, the man told him that the room was no longer available but he could sleep on the floor if he wanted to. When Staudinger said he wasn’t interested in that setup, he asked for his money back. “As soon as he said he couldn’t give me the money back right away, I should have asked him to go to the ATM right away,” Staudinger said.
Staudinger, who works at a ski rental shop, said he spent most of his savings on the ordeal and this could mean the end of his travels in Canada. (He’s currently couchsurfing.) When he filed a police report over the alleged scam, he said cops told him they are hearing complaints about rental scams weekly.
Excessively Low Rent
Know what is typical rent in the area you're seeking housing in. If it seems too good to be true, it just might be.
Multiple Rental Ads with Different Prices
For Claire Hay, a nanny who lives in Cambridge, Ontario and is looking to move to Toronto, the alarm bells went off when she spotted multiple ads on Kijiji with differing prices for the west-end condo she’d already viewed, signed a lease for, and paid first and last ($2,600 total) on. When she had a friend contact the poster of one of the duplicate ads, she said she suspected it was the same person she’d been speaking with. She filed a formal report on Friday with police. Hay also posted about the ordeal in the popular Toronto rental Facebook group Bunz Home Zone with photos of the alleged scammers and screenshots. And through an especially heartwarming testament to the power of Bunz, one of the alleged scammers freaked out and agreed to give her the money back if she took down the post. Hay said she got her money back but never did take down that post. She said other victims of the same scammers have not been so lucky.
A Note: Check In with the Front Desk or Property Manager
If you’re looking to rent in an apartment or condo building, it’s prudent to check in with the front desk (if there is one) and/or the property manager about the unit you’re interested in. Some of those interviewed for this article said asking about if the person they’d been in contact with even lived in the building or if they had the authority to rent out a unit turned up useful information.
Another Note: Rental Scams Are Evolving
Lemke’s alleged way of scamming is a perfect example of an increasingly common trap for prospective renters. He appeared to be living in the residences he showed people and took them for genuine viewings before requiring first and last month’s rent. The same is true of the scam Hay got caught up in. Hay recommends asking to see property tax records as proof of ownership before you believe someone is allowed to rent out a residence. She was supposed to move into her new place on December 1 and is now staying with friends and family. “It’s left me in quite the lurch. It’s your life, you have everything planned,” she said. “I’ve lost trust. Who do you trust?”
One of the only other ways to safeguard yourself may be to go through rental companies or agents who’ve been personally recommended to you by someone you trust.
