When Charlie Lindsay thinks about what basketball meant to him growing up, he remembers playing as a young kid at the neighbourhood courts in Cabbagetown, Toronto, but he also gets particularly nostalgic about Vince Carter as a Raptor.

Today, Lindsay is one of the most renowned photographers in the city, where he’s a regular at the Air Canada Centre, shooting the Raptors up close. He’s also shot Drake’s annual OVO Fest concert the past four years, and traveled to many arenas around the NBA to shoot games.

“Basketball has been such a huge part of my life,” Lindsay says. “I think that helps me see certain sides to the game that people might miss, because I’m so emotionally attached to it.”

But all Lindsay cared about growing up was the Raptors, basketball and Vince Carter. Like many young hoopers in Toronto, Lindsay wanted to be the next Vince Carter, whose legend culminated with the 2000 Slam Dunk Contest, when he put the Raptors on the map with a once-in-a-lifetime performance. One particular dunk stood out to Lindsay and millions watching from around the world. During the contest, Carter took a bounce pass from his teammate and cousin Tracy McGrady and put the ball between the legs in mid-air, completing a dunk that led many to declare the contest over.

That dunk would make such an impression on Lindsay that he would try obsessively to recreate it with a plastic basketball in his bedroom. He would eventually go on to be captain of his high school basketball team. But in university, his interest turned to photography—attracted to the idea of capturing the kind of excitement that Carter generated with his gravity defying dunk. After he graduated, Lindsay decided to build his personal portfolio with a do-it-yourself approach to shooting his friends playing basketball. “I wanted to find something that I loved to do,” Lindsay said. “This was the perfect mix.”

He would invite friends who were good at dribbling and dunking to come out to the courts, where he would experiment with different angles. One time, in the winter, Lindsay invited two of his friends for a shoot that ran way too long in the freezing weather.

Lindsay had climbed up to the top of the backboard to find a new bird’s eye view angle and spent hours shooting his friends playing one-on-one. “They were constantly falling because it was so slippery,” Lindsay said. “But I wanted to replicate what it was like when I used to play basketball in the snow as a kid.”

Lindsay’s DIY basketball shoots took him everywhere in the city, from his neighbourhood court in St. James Town to other places like the outdoor court at Harbourfront Centre. The hours of shooting his friends at the courts paid off. Lindsay’s portfolio didn’t go unnoticed and he soon started finding regular work at NBA arenas.

Today, Lindsay’s resume is the envy of many in his profession. He’s had the opportunity to shoot many of the game’s biggest stars, from LeBron James to Kobe Bryant. But there is still one person that is on his NBA bucket list: Vince Carter. Lindsay hopes to catch the now 41-year-old before he retires.

“That would mean everything,” Lindsay says. “I’m not even sure how to describe it. It would mean a lot, especially because he was so instrumental in me loving this game so much, it would be pretty crazy.”

When Rachel Crooks met Donald Trump, she was a 22-year-old receptionist from rural Ohio who was new to New York and he was a world-famous real estate developer with a gold-plated office building named after him in downtown Manhattan. The one thing they had in common was they worked inside Trump Tower, which is where she'd regularly observe him from inside the glassed-in office as she answered the phone for the Bayrock Group.

One day in the winter of 2005, she says, they met outside an elevator bank at their shared workspace. She wanted to thank Trump for inviting her to the building's holiday party that year, so she boldly introduced himself the much-more powerful man. But what she intended to be a handshake turned into kisses on the cheek and eventually into a forcible kiss on the lips. "It was so inappropriate," she told the New York Times last year. "I was so upset that he thought I was so insignificant that he could do that."

Allegations of sexual assault levied by Crooks and several other women obviously didn't preclude Trump from ascending to the nation's highest office. But in the aftermath of the post–Harvey Weinstein reckoning, she and three other accusers decided to take another stab at justice by retelling their stories at a press conference on Tuesday. This time around things were different: More than 50 Democratic female members of the House are now calling for a congressional investigation into his alleged misconduct, and six Democratic senators have demanded that he simply resign.

There are a number of ways Trump's presidency could end prematurely, even if none of them seem particularly likely. Obviously, the Russian investigation looms, and if credible evidence of a crime committed by Trump emerges, more Democratic lawmakers will join calls for impeachment. There's also a defamation suit filed by former Apprentice contestant Summer Zervos that is likely to go forward in New York State Supreme Court. If Trump takes the stand as part of that civil suit, he could perjure himself. Meanwhile, in light of several high-profile politicians being forced to resign as a result of the #MeToo movement, the call for a congressional investigation presents a fourth way that Trump could fall. Experts say it's an unlikely scenario, although not beyond the realm of possibility.

Allan Lichtman is an American University political historian who thinks that Trump will be impeached—most likely due to the Russian investigation—though he notes that if he ends up being deposed in the defamation lawsuit, he could commit perjury and fall into what he calls the "Clinton trap." However, he also believes a congressional investigation could play an important role. He remembers being riveted by the Watergate hearings playing on TV as a kid, and says that while they have no legal weight, an inquiry into Trump's past behavior with women would play a crucial role in shifting public opinion.

"That's one of the most important functions of a congressional investigation—to get the information out to the American people," he told me. "If there is such an investigation and it puts Trump in a really bad light, it makes it more likely that he’ll be impeached for obstruction of justice or conspiracy with the Russians because it just diminishes his standing and his clout. It makes him more of a liability to members of his own party."

Although Lichtman would have thought it impossible a few months ago, he now thinks that it's "reasonably likely" that the Democrats will take over the House. But in the meantime, if the Democrats are serious about such an investigation, they could start now.

Charles Tiefer, a law professor at the University of Baltimore who served as the Special Deputy Chief Counsel of the House Iran-Contra Committee in 1987, explained that even though Democrats are in the minority, they could simply form a committee to take it on, or delegate the issue to an existing one—most likely Labor, since several of the allegations against Trump could be construed as workplace harassment or discrimination issues. Republicans could certainly undermine the investigation by refusing to participate in hearings or bringing in Trump defenders to testify and undermine alleged victims, but they couldn't block it outright.

He detailed how the process would work: Members of the committee would bring in the women to either testify publicly or behind closed doors in someone's office, where it would filmed for later release. Because they don't control Congress, they'd be unable to subpoena Trump for a response, though they'd likely ask him for a sworn statement in which he'd have to tell the truth or risk charges of perjury—something that could theoretically lead to impeachment but is hardly the kind of theatrical event that the Watergate hearings were.

Tiefer told me that whether the hearings are on TV might not make much of a difference in terms of impact. From 1995 to 1996 the United States Senate Whitewater Committee looked into real estate deals and commodities trades that the Clintons made back in Arkansas. The hearings were so dull they rarely made the evening news.

"There's a great deal of public interest in sexual harassment issues [right now]," Tiefer told me. "When they write a minority report and they issue it to the press, it will get more coverage than ten boring majority hearings."

Creating enmity between branches of government can backfire. After Bill Clinton's impeachment hearings, his approval rating soared. Given that some people doubled down on their support of Alabama Senate candidate Roy Moore after he was accused of molesting a teenager, it's distinctly possible that probing Trump's past could cause some Republicans to rally even harder around the president.

Still, both Lichtman and Tiefer maintain that the opposite is more likely—that once people have the details about what allegedly occurred, a demand for action will be imminent.

"You want that groundswell of interest to work two ways," Tiefer said. "One is to see whether Trump’s character is called into question, his fitness, his ability to be the way presidents traditionally were, which was a role model to the nation. And the other is if there is something official like further legislation on the subject of abuse of women in the workplace, then beside the examples from the entertainment world, you have an example of someone in the Oval Office. That increases the chances of some sort of legislative action to strengthen workplace rules."

Follow Allie Conti on Twitter.

Former Westjet flight attendant Mandalena Lewis is celebrating today after a “very big” decision from a BC Supreme Court judge.

Justice Mary Humphries threw out the Canadian airline’s attempt to block her sexual harassment case from moving forward.

“The fact that our case is allowed to proceed at this point is very big because this would have been Westjet’s opportunity to shut this down or reroute it,” Lewis told VICE.

Lewis launched a class action suit against WestJet in 2016 alleging widespread sexual misconduct against female flight attendants. Her case argues that systemic mishandling of assault and harassment complaints violates the company’s own employment policies.

Court filings allege Lewis was sexually assaulted by a pilot in 2010 during a stopover in Hawaii. The pilot allegedly dragged Lewis to his hotel bed and groped her, but she pushed him off and got away.

“I was not raped, but it was attempted, and it was an awful experience,” she told VICE last month. “It’s something nobody should ever have to go through.”

Lewis claims the company repeatedly fails victims who report assaults like hers. She alleges the pilot was not disciplined or fired, and she was told to keep quiet about the incident. She also alleges the company dropped her from flights with the pilot and lost income as a result. Later, she discovered another attendant was allegedly assaulted by the same pilot in 2008.

Lewis told VICE this adds to a company-wide culture that degrades and sexualizes female flight attendants on the job. Because of the power imbalance between mostly-male pilots and mostly-female attendants, most women choose not to speak up, she said.

“A lot of people are there trying to make it work, trying to change it, but that’s not going to work until we pinpoint what the problem is,” she told VICE.

WestJet argued that Lewis should have taken up her complaint with the workers’ compensation board, or launched a human rights complaint. “They thought this was an inappropriate venue to go through with this claim and it’s not a systemic issue,” she told VICE.

VICE reached out to the lawyers representing WestJet but did not immediately hear back. Lewis’s claims against the company have not been tested in court. BC’s top court will make a decision whether or not to certify her case sometime in 2018.

Follow Sarah Berman on Twitter.

Between the threat of budget cuts, major restructuring, and having a climate change skeptic run the show, it's been a pretty rough year to work at the Environmental Protection Agency. On Thursday, things only got shittier.

Employees at the EPA headquarters in Washington, DC, discovered that sewage was literally spewing out of the water fountains, E&E News reports. They got an email at about 9 AM letting them know that there was a "water line back up" causing an "issue" with the fountains. According to the folks inside, "issue" was an understatement.

"A sewer problem at EPA HQ has resulted in poop exploding out of water fountains," Dan Becker, director of the Safe Climate Campaign, told E&E.

The poopsplosion pictured apparently detonated outside the EPA's Office of Policy, in a hallway nearby EPA administrator Scott Pruitt's office, Mashable reports. According to E&E News, a few other water fountains overflowed on the same floor, and the odor from the black sludge wafted into nearby offices. The whole thing might have caught some unsuspecting employees off guard, but according to one former agency official, the water fountains at EPA HQ have always been a little suspect.

"Sometimes there were some very odd smells coming out of those drinking fountains," he told E&E. "I can't imagine that anyone would actually drink out of those drinking water fountains. I think I used it to pour my coffee down."

Maybe the sewage misfortune was just a stroke of bad luck, or maybe Mother Nature was trying to mess with Pruitt, a guy who killed Obama's Clean Power Plan, didn't bother to mention climate change in the agency's four-year plan, and relies on oil and gas reps to help him do his job. Things have apparently been so bad under Pruitt that the agency has lost more than 700 employees under his tenure—not to mention, the office clearly has some issues with its plumbing.

Follow Drew Schwartz on Twitter.

Filling one’s bong with a liquid other than water is a far-from-novel idea. The annals of early internet forums are rife with comments by intrepid young stoners positing questions and anecdotes on the pros and cons of using various H2O alternatives in their pipes. And while there’s no concrete evidence to back this up, I can only assume that this experimental practice is as old as the water pipe itself. Take the oldest known specimens, these solid gold proto-bongs enjoyed by Scythian tribal chiefs who ruled Eurasia 2400 years ago. You can’t tell me these fellas didn’t occasionally get wild and throw some yak milk in there.

Today, with cannabis laws continuing to slacken around the world and the stigma and dangers once associated with getting high dissipating, pot smokers will soon have even more leeway to get creative with their fluid selections. And with more liquid options available to them than at any other time in history, there are likely to be more than a few sublime water substitutes out there waiting to be discovered. With that in mind, and using the suggestions of VICE’s sadistic editors, I assumed the role of human guinea pig and prepared to smoke from a bong filled with 11 unorthodox liquids.

The strain I used throughout, the all-around average hybrid, Gorilla Glue, was chosen partially because I knew it wasn’t too potent, but mostly because it’s what was on hand. To further keep some semblance of rigor, I vowed to take only one chamber-clearing bong rip per liquid and regain sobriety before attempting the next on the list. I’d also clean out the bong between tests, of course. I deluded myself into believing that these strictures were going to somehow elevate this from “cautionary tale” to “science.”

As I filled a shopping cart with the sundries needed for the coming week’s trials, the only question on my mind was “how many Pulitzers can one article win?”

HOLY WATER

I started my journey with a substance that I thought would offer both a palate cleansing baseline and a potential blessing upon the entire endeavor: holy water. Though I never learned the exact origin of the petite, corked bottle of sanctified water that my editor donated for the experiment, he assured me it was indeed blessed by a man or woman of some sort of cloth. Unfortunately, there wasn’t enough water in the tiny vessel to adequately fill the bottom of the bong, so I was forced to top it off with some from the tap, crossing my fingers that this wouldn’t dilute the Lord’s powers in any way.

The hit was clean, albeit a bit mildewy—I think the bottle’s cork had begun to rot—but the ensuing high was disappointing in its secularity. I guess DMT’s still the tried and true drug route to meeting God.

LA CROIX

Still getting my sea legs, I chose a mango-flavored La Croix as my next water replacement. Though included on the roster primarily as a craven ploy for the kind of web traction that comes stock with any usage of 2015’s “it” beverage, this one turned out to be an unexpectedly pleasant experience.

The carbonation and hint of mango added some tropical fizz to the hit and the high was what I imagined Instagram celebrities must feel like 24/7.

HOT SAUCE

Now comfortable with the testing process, I took off my training wheels and picked one of the scarier contenders from the list. As someone who actually enjoys hot sauce, I couldn’t bear to part with any of my good shit for this escapade, so I dumped a bunch of Tabasco bottles into the bong instead.

Before I’d even had a chance to spark the bowl, the spicy fumes wafted up and filled my eyes with tears. I flicked the lighter and Inhaled deeply, taking in what felt like off-brand mustard gas before crumpling into a coughing fit. This was not an enjoyable experience.

MOUTHWASH

To give my lungs a bit of a reprieve, I poured minty blue mouthwash into the chamber and lit up.

Akin to a Camel Crush, this combination gave the smoke a menthol taste, with a nice and smooth draw. And for the first time in my life, I coughed zero times after a bong hit.

PUMPKIN SPICE LATTE

As ‘twas the season, I popped into my neighborhood Starbucks and picked up a piping hot PSL for the next round. Because I like neither lattes nor the now-ubiquitous “pumpkin spice” flavor, I had never actually seen the fluid outside of its opaque containers before and was somewhat disturbed at the orange bisque-like substance that poured into my bong.

Surprisingly, none of the cloying gourd flavor made its way into my hit. I only tasted the burnt weed, which was not dissimilar to the burnt coffee bean frequently found in Starbucks orders.

CASAMIGOS TEQUILA

Articles like this are as much about preparation as they are about the writing and, I’ll tell ya, my editor and I agonized over which alcoholic beverage would be the funniest for me to fill a bong with. After popcorning out-of-touch ideas like Fireball and Four Loko around, we finally settled on Casamigos tequila because George Clooney recently sold the company for a billion dollars and he looks kinda douchey in the ads for it. Hilarious, right?

The hit itself was robust, like licking the bar at Mexican restaurant. I kinda liked it. I also liked the hint of smoke that was infused into the gently-used tequila that I recycled from the bong into a cocktail.

COLD-PRESSED KALE JUICE

The next morning, to combat the hangover from my tequila-soaked night, I dumped a healthy cold-pressed juice into the pipe and took a draw while seated on the floor in the lotus position.

The juice bubbled like one of those algae-filled hot springs that look fun but actually give you a UTI. The hit itself was just as unexpectedly gross. The grassy juice flavor latched onto the smoke and gave me the kind of wet, stuck cough that comes with a black mold infestation.

Watch:

MOUNTAIN DEW

More of a punch line than soda at this point, Mountain Dew seemed an obvious, if not perfunctory sacrifice for the bong. I stuck with OG Dew, rather than veering off into its myriad permutations not just out of respect for the product, but also because the radioactive green sugar water in the clear glass made for some cool mad scientist imagery.

The smoke had a somewhat sweet aftertaste but, overall, this hit was unremarkable. As required by law, I spent the following high playing video games.

5-HOUR ENERGY

I had taken some unpleasant hits up to this point, but this was the liquid I was most afraid could actually do me harm. Though my caffeine tolerance is already way too high, I feared smoking pot through 20 hours’ worth of energy would somehow transmogrify the drug into a meth/bath salts hybrid and either send me on a nude rampage or explode my heart.

Fortunately, none of that happened. I just got high like usual.

RANCH DRESSING

What good would this whole ordeal be if I didn’t push my lungs and bong to their very limits in the process? In an affront to God that surely cancelled out the effects of the holy water I’d tested, I uncapped a bottle of Hidden Valley ranch and stuck that bad boy upside-down at the top of the bong's neck, letting gravity slowly pull out its viscous contents. Even as a fan of ranch, the acrid smell was making me queasy. Furthermore, I worried I wouldn’t have the required lung-power to pull smoke through so thick a fluid. After read a few motivational quotes and putting on “Eye of the Tiger” to pump myself up, I sparked the bowl of my experiment’s final boss.

“If you’re going through hell, keep going.” This quote—misattributed to Winston Churchill—ran through my head as I battled with the predictably stubborn dressing, struggling to spark the bowl. Try after try, my flame found no purchase on the green in the bowl. Onward I pressed, my alveoli on fire, until finally, with one big primordial bubble, the smoke broke through to the surface and rushed into my chest with the jolt of a defibrillator resuscitation. As I coughed for the next half hour, I noted that the smoke was surprisingly devoid of any additional ranchy zest.

SOMELLIER SUGGESTION

Days and countless dishwasher cycles later, with my bong finally purged of all ranch remnants, I prepared to fill the chamber one last time to conclude the trials.

In an effort to restore order to the universe, I reached out to famed water sommelier Martin Reise for his recommendation on the purest, most perfect water with which to fill my bong, hoping this recalcitrant overture would absolve my sins and restore order to the universe.

“I do not smoke, but I think a chilled Fiji would be an amazing bong water," suggested Reise. "The cold Fiji will chill down the smoke and the smooth and silky water texture of Fiji will give the cannabis flower a beautiful crisp and clean taste.”

When I expressed my shock that the man behind a $14 bottle of water and an expert on all the most obscure brands had chosen such an accessible bottle, Reise replied “Why should I recommend a water nobody can try out for themselves?”

I ended my journey with what was indeed a crisp and clean hit and the newfound knowledge I could have gleaned by simply talking to a doctor, scientist, or other professional with actual understanding of the subject: your bong’s fluid has no bearing on the actual high.

Follow Justin Caffier on Twitter.

Welcome back to Can't Handle the Truth, our Saturday column looking at the past seven days of fake news and hoaxes that have spread thanks to the internet.

Let's talk about how journalists know what they know—and to do that, we'll take a look at Omarosa.

Omarosa "Omarosa" Manigault-Newman rose to prominence in 2004 as a contestant on the first season of The Apprentice, where she showcased her inscrutable and often infuriating personality, which she parlayed into a career as a TV villain and a tabloid fixture. Later, when her former show's star finagled a job as president of the United States, he gave Omarosa a job in the White House, making her communications director for the White House's Office of Public Liaison. That came to an end on Tuesday, when it was announced that she was resigning, effective January.

But because this is Donald Trump's White House, her departure stirred up a load of controversy. Though she says she has decided to quit, it really doesn't seem like she's leaving entirely of her own volition. Various anonymous sources told mainstream news outlets say she was fired and then escorted out of the White House, or dragged out, or even that she triggered alarms in the process.

Omarosa, for what it's worth, says this stuff is essentially fake news. She claims that someone who hates her is just lying about her, that anyone who says otherwise is telling "interesting tales," and the proof is that there aren't any "pictures or videos" of her making a scene. So, what happened? And why does it matter?

To take the second question first, publications like the New York Times and the Washington Post have covered this story even though Omarosa was a relatively minor figure likely because these allegations of her messy firing represent another data point in a larger story about an administration marked by sloppiness and disorder.

But the question of what happened in this specific case is trickier. There aren't cameras documenting everything that goes on in the White House, so journalists have to rely on accounts from officials that are sometimes second-hand. Ideally you get multiple accounts that all agree with one another, making it more likely that the events they describe are accurate (blockbuster Times or Post stories about major topics like the Russia investigation can sometimes have dozens of sources). But ideally that sourcing can be supplemented by documents, photos, videos, or other hard evidence. That's why the audio recording of Richard Nixon talking about the Watergate break-in was such a big deal—it was a lot harder for him to deny everything after that.

So we don't know for sure what happened when Omarosa left the White House, though if multiple people are describing her departure the same way, they probably aren't all 100 percent wrong. But in today's crazy media environment, even things that seem like proof can turn out to be fake. Let's take a look at a few that came up this week:

Senator Chuck Schumer Paid Off Someone He Sexually Harassed

It seems as though someone wanted to sting journalists earlier this week by tricking them with forged court filings about a supposed sexual harassment claim against Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer. It wasn't a very convincing fake: The document was suspiciously similar to a career-ending claim against Congressman John Conyers. The fake was so similar, in fact, that it contained references to a disciplinary policy that applies to members of the House, but not Senators.

According to the Daily Beast, reporters at CNN, the Washington Post, BuzzFeed News, and The New Yorker all said they'd received the fake documents, and apparently made no public mention of them.

After just a preview of the document on Monday, notorious alt-right shit-stirrer and sometimes conspiracy-monger Mike Cernovich, (who was the first person to acquire those documents about Conyers, which he gave to BuzzFeed) gloated online about what a big scoop he had on his hands, tweeting a Facebook screengrab (now deleted) of a a colleague claiming to have dirt about a "major" US senator and implying that "the full case file" would soon be forthcoming.

That colleague was Chuck C. Johnson, whom I have referred to in the past as a "longtime purveyor of journalism-flavored character assassinations (and failed assassination attempts)." On Monday, Johnson notified his Facebook followers that "Michael Cernovich & I are going to end the career of a U.S. Senator," so the stakes were clearly pretty high. Then Schumer's office reported that the documents were phony and that the authorities had been called, and Johnson and Cernovich both lost their enthusiasm for posting on social media about the story. As noted in the Daily Beast's coverage, forging such a document in Washington, DC is a felony punishable by up to ten years in prison.

Cernovich, to be fair, reportedly said that he learned a valuable lesson when it was all over: "This is a learning experience for me—not to hype something until it’s fully developed. I felt a great deal of embarrassment because I thought it was real," he told his Periscope viewers.

Doug Jones's Victory Relied on Voter Fraud

Last week, I voiced my skepticism about some types of online satire, directing my ire at The Beaverton, a Canadian site that ran a story last week about Palestinians recognizing Houston as the capital of Mexico—a story that tons of people apparently believed, or at least helped spread.

In a much more egregious example of this phenomenon from Thursday, according to some site called Ladies of Liberty that considers itself an outlet for "satire," Alabama Senator-elect Doug Jones stole the election from Roy Moore.

According to the Ladies of Liberty story, Jones received 5,327 votes in a town of 2,256 residents, and if that story were true, it would be a clear-cut case of electoral fraud. But since it's actually "satire," I guess the underlying truth that's being comedically skewered here is that Democrats are all, at bottom, ruthless criminals. I don't think the joke works all that well. Forgive me if I posit that the purpose of the article was probably never humor at all, but simply to lure the impulsive rage clicks of credulous conservatives.

At press time, the fake vote count from the story had been lifted from its original context, and was getting passed around on Facebook with no news link attached. One user who posted the story on Facebook wrote that he was feeling "about ready to lock and load!" And that's why I don't care for most satire these days.

Goodbye Redskins. Hello Redhawks

I hear you saying, "OK, well, what's good satire then, smart guy?"

This week a Native American advocacy group called Rising Hearts executed a glorious piece of satire involving the Washington Redskins, the bizarre football team representing the nation's capital, which somehow manages to carry on playing games and selling merchandise despite having a slur for Native Americans as its name. The fake story here was that the Redskins organization was sorry and was changing its name to the "Redhawks."

But this wasn't just some crummy fake news article. Instead, it was a work of art. The Redhawks hoax consisted of a plausible looking team website, a team Twitter, a fake Washington Post story, a fake Bleacher Report story, a fake ESPN story, and a fake Sports Illustrated story. All the fake stories were set against realistic page layouts unique to each of those publications, and written in (very roughly) the house editorial style of each. Rather than shoddy graphic design or grammar, the first giveaway that the stories were fake (according my editor who knows a lot more about sports than me) was that "it'd be super weird for [Redskins owner] Dan Snyder to do something reasonable."

I was reminded of the Yes Men, a comedy duo known for positioning themselves as the subjects of their criticism (by lying their way into TV newsrooms for instance), in order to make plausible-sounding claims in interviews and speeches, and thus forcing the offending organization to formally retract the false claims. The denials themselves become the final artistic flourish, because the stage is set for an organization to simply go along with some seemingly humane and popular idea, and they reveal their own monstrousness by not doing so.

The Redskins did not disappoint in that regard:

Very rarely, you wish that some fake news was real.

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Shot over five years, Joseph Rodriguez’s newly re-released book, Spanish Harlem: El Barrio in the ‘80s, was the first body of work that the now world-renowned photographer ever made. Growing out of a group project undertaken as part of his scholarship year at the International Centre of Photography, the work captures a community facing the challenges of poverty, violence, drugs, and gentrification. Driven by his own Puerto Rican New York roots and his struggles with drug addiction and the criminal system, Rodriguez’s commitment to showing the beauty and resilience of East Harlem gave the project a depth and complexity he felt was lacking in mainstream depictions of America’s inner-city communities in the 80s. VICE spoke with Rodriguez about the book’s origins, the persistent relevance of the issues it explores, and the importance of not forgetting what it’s like to be a kid.

VICE: How did a Brooklyn native like you start photographing East Harlem in the 80s?
Joseph Rodriguez: As teenagers we used to go up there to get high. The thing is, when you were hanging out on the block, music was everywhere. The place had a soft spot in many people’s hearts in part because of that song "Spanish Harlem" by Ben E. King. But there were plenty of other songs, too. We listened to these great salsa musicians on the street, Tito Puente and Willie Colón, and so on. This area was like the capital of Spanish America. We would be hanging out, drinking beer, smoking a little weed, looking at all these pretty girls. It was a little like a West Side Story thing, without wanting to romanticize it too much.

So when did the photographic work there come into play?
In terms of doing anything serious about this place, it wasn't until later, when I went to the International Centre of Photography on a scholarship. I was stressed, I had no money, had no film. This was in 84–85. Bruce Davidson had done a very famous book called East 100th Street, and the community wanted him to come back and photograph the area again, as it was undergoing some gentrification, all while some people there were still living like animals. Bruce was busy, but he talked to Fred Ritchin—who was my teacher and who writes the afterword of the book—and said, "Why don't you let your students go up there and try and photograph the gentrification?" So we went. We had students from Iran, France, Canada—all of us doing a group project in East Harlem. We made our first multimedia project there with black-and-white slides and audio recordings.

How did you feel about that early work you did there?
I was still very green, and I didn't make the photographs I wanted to. Once I graduated, I started working for a photo agency called Black Star. I was working as a photo researcher, going through the archives and looking at the work of amazing photographers—James Nachtwey being one of them. I was hungry! Hungry in the way any artist would be when they feel they aren’t good enough. That pushed me to work on my weekends up there. After a full year of working full time in the week, driving a cab on weekends, but coming up here in my own time to shoot two rolls of film a week, I told Black Star I was going to quit. When they asked why, I showed them the work, and my editor Howard Chapnick, took my slides, loaded them into a carousel, and started shopping them around. He took them to everybody, eventually National Geographic became interested, and that's how this work continued. I used National Geographic not as an assignment, but as a grant: You want to give me free film? Give me all the Kodachrome you want!

The work in El Barrio spans five years. Was part of that a reaction to how you felt communities like this were being depicted photographically? Was it a willful effort to not stop by, make a few photos, then leave?
It had to do with a very simple thing. When we grew up here in the city, all we ever heard about the community was that it was bad. We heard about babies being thrown off roofs, overdoses, and violence against the police… That’s what we grew up with. I decided very early on that there was more to this place than drugs and death. That was the drive for me more than feeling specifically like other photographers weren’t spending enough time there.

Did your decision to depict the community with balance hinder your efforts to sell the work?
Everyone wanted me to shoot the dark side, and at that time of course there really was a serious problem in the community with drugs—and also, of course, this period was the beginning of AIDS. There’s two photos of that in the book: to me the strongest is the one of the African American sitting on the bed with all those doctors around him who had come in from all over, just staring at him. Then there’s the other of the baby in a hospital on the bed watching Gilligan’s Island on TV. He died after his dad just died upstairs. So this was serious stuff.

But where I found the balance, was understanding what it’s like to come from this world, being an ex-heroin addict myself, having been to Riker’s Island a couple times. When you are born below the curb, you are going to be looking up . I have students from all over the world that probably had a better start in life than me, and they immediately start off by looking down. Not because they are bad people, but because photographers often do that—they look for the hard stuff. Even with photographers I really respected, I had a problem with it when they shot a whole book on drugs and you’d never see a photo of a father or a mother. Man, I know what a drug addict is. Not all drug addicts beat their kids. I wasn’t seeing that other side of it. This project was about providing that balance.

Does the book take on an added weight in the context of New York in 2017?
The work is relevant right now. Yeah, it’s the 1980s, maybe the fashion’s changed, but all the issues are the same. Take gentrification—it’s happening right here. We are in the epicenter of it right now. There’s a photo in the book of Good Friday. Passionate Catholics come out and pray. But this was not just a typical Good Friday, they were going from church to church, and they used each as a platform to talk about the issues that mattered: teen pregnancy, crack, housing.

I think the book is relevant in terms of how America is right now. This could be Baltimore, this could be a lot of places, but it happens to be Spanish Harlem. It has to do with how people are represented, and how I felt I was represented in the media back in the day, how I dealt with the criminal justice system.

Take this picture here from Johnny Colón's East Harlem School of Music. The kid was from the Bronx, and he came down there to learn to play music. It was beautiful. It gave kids a sense that they could do something that maybe didn’t fit the typical Northern European schooling model. I wanted to show that, to show that we were more than they told us we were.

That seems a universal facet of your work: You want to offer a counterpoint to the predominant news angle, and to especially show young people with honesty.
I never forgot what it was like to be young. That is it—that’s Joseph Rodriguez, 100 percent. I am 66 years old, and I can still kick it with somebody who’s 15. Things have changed in terms of music, or phones, or whatever, but being young is being young. Honouring that, and respecting that journey, that’s how I get close to people.

I am going back to LA soon to revisit my work there—it’s become a sort of trilogy. First was East Side Stories, then there was Juvenile, which looked at what happens when these kids get locked up, and now we're looking at these same people who are now parents, who have done all this time. I don’t really do ‘photojournalism’ any more. The work is more social anthropology. What’s important to people, why do they do these things? When I pick up the camera, it’s not about, "Woah, you look cool in your new sneakers." People look at my photos of these LA guys in their big pants, but they don’t know what that takes. That’s three hours of work, bro! I was there one time on a Friday night, three hours getting ready, one guy ironed his underwear. I said, "What’s up with that?" and he said "If I get busted, I go tp prison, I want to look clean in my underwear when they take my clothes off me." And you know what? I respect that, and understanding that way of growing up and understanding young people helped me working in LA. It helped me in New York, or in Malmö with Muslim youth there.

You have to listen to people. When you learn to spend time with people, you actually capture something.

You can see Spanish Harlem: El Barrio in the '80s at the Bronx Documentary Center now.

Lebanese artist and performer Moe Khansa sprints in 20 minutes late for our appointment, gasping for breath and apologizing profusely. He’s wearing black sportswear with a sizeable bag slung over one shoulder, out of which he fishes a laptop even before sitting down. He has to finish a funding application, he explains—it’s due in half an hour and the internet is not cooperating.

Khansa (his stage name) ducks out at one point to buy additional phone data. It’s often easier in Beirut to hotspot to your 3G rather than rely on dodgy WiFi. He finally manages to submit the application, but laments that his chances aren’t high. The topics he chooses to deal with are too “queer” for many Middle Eastern organizations, and he has had to write around the specifics of his project.

Before this year, the 25-year-old was best known as a taboo-busting belly dance enthusiast. But his real emergence into public consciousness was the release of the music video “Khayef” in the summer of 2017, which attracted press coverage and a flurry of social media attention. While he dances in the video, it’s his voice and his vision that saturate the clip—repurposing Egyptian singer Mohammed Abdel Wahab’s 1929 hit “Khayef Akoul Li Fi Qalbi” (“I’m Afraid to Say What’s in My Heart”) to comment on contemporary issues of masculinity and tell an intimately personal story. Directed by Mohammad Sabbah, with music by Mohammad Zahzah, the video’s lyrics and baroque, sensual imagery upend traditional notions of gender.

Though known as a dancer, Khansa's artistic practice is much broader. To create his music videos, another of which was released on December 7, he contributes creative direction, his newly-discovered singing chops, and his expressive body. He also collaborates with local talent—directors, music producers, actors—to realize these idiosyncratic, evocative spectacles. He draws inspiration broadly: Björk, FKA Twigs, and Arca are his “people,” he says. He also cites influences like Robert Mapplethorpe, Sufism, Pier Paolo Pasolini, and Syrian playwright Saadallah Wannous. His art is multilayered, synthesizing diverse cultural references to tell a untold story about the Middle East.

Just ahead of his most recent music video release, Khansa spoke with VICE about his evolution as an artist, the importance of telling Middle Eastern narratives, and the creative climate in Beirut.

VICE: How did you first get interested in dance?
Khansa: My mother was a dancer. She wanted to go on a TV show in the category of belly dance, but my uncle refused. He didn’t want his sister to go, and back then, big brothers were always in charge. So she became a diva in her own community of friends and family. When her song comes up, she goes on, in a very conservative outfit. But it's one that showcases her curves, and she’s dancing—literally one of the most beautiful and excellent dancers you could ever get an eye on. I was always influenced by that.

You’ve just finished filming a new music video? Tell me about the project.
When I started exposing myself as an artist, I was initially known as a dancer. People recognize me through my TEDx Talk about belly dance, but that was very spontaneous: I won a talent show, and one of the judges asked me to give a speech about it. But it wasn’t the career I was trying to shape, because—from my perspective, at least in Beirut—being a dancer without doing all the things that I do is not enough. There’s the dancing, the singing, the lyrics, the writing, the whole aesthetic. It’s all connected together, using the sound of technology, the electro-pop.

Behind the scenes of "Khayef," photo courtesy of KHANSA

The first video I did was “Khayef.” It’s a remake of an old classical Egyptian piece. I’m in this phase where I’m kind of retouching. I take the work of these artists—which was all about presentation, being on stage, allowing the people to listen, which was so beautiful—but we’re now in this era where you need to make a change. We have a lot of issues. So I’m retaking these pieces and talking about these issues. I’m working with a fresh, young producer with an EDM background to take it in an electronic, experimental direction, away from the classical Arabic.

The first video was about diversity and identity. The second is basically about suicide. It celebrates Middle Eastern art, it celebrates Egyptian diva Umm Kulthum. And it also has a gender element to it, because I’m a man playing Umm Kulthum’s role. We share this small story of an artist as a reference to Hassan Rabeh: a Syrian dancer who was living in Beirut. He was one of the most beautiful dancers you could ever share a space with. Very quiet. But his energy was so beautiful. He took his own life a year ago. The last thing he did was dance, amidst the whole Syrian crisis.

How collaborative are the music videos?
I’m still fresh to the whole music scene. When I write something, it’s kind of a visual composition. I’m a dancer and performer initially, so the first thing I see is something physical: bodies moving, certain incidents that are either narrative or aesthetic, but so rich I end up writing about them. This is how it starts: looking at the whole experience, and then going to the right person to do the sound that is required for that experience. There are so many collaborations I would like to do. Some people have turned me down—they give you a reason but it’s actually just because it’s very queer for them. But collaboration is elevating. It’s taking you to different places.

Your work is very focused on the Middle East and the cultural heritage here, which strikes me as perhaps slightly unusual for a young artist in the region.
[Laughs] Whereas everyone else wants to be Beyoncé? Yeah. Everyone just tries to step away—they’re like, fuck this country. Or they want to make the change but they just get [frustrated]. For me, the change happens when you just do it. If you are living now in the Middle East and you’re an artist, then you have a duty here before you start doing something for outsiders. People don’t ask us about our sex lives, about our relationships, about all these things—and there’s so much to talk about. Some people are like, "Yeah, but there’s no point in saying it in Arabic." But why must you say it in English?

Now, I consider myself bankrupt. I have nothing in my account, I’m still living with my parents, and it’s a mess. I’m a college dropout and all of that. I’m at the stage where I walk on the streets eating a can of tuna—and that’s the highlight of your career, because you realize that you’re not trying to do pretentious work or work that’s not real to you, just because you want the money or you want to be out there. We’ll reach a point in life where we want to talk about transcendence like Björk and everyone else, but we’re not there yet.

Moe Khansa, photo courtesy of Alireza Shojaian

Tell me about your interest in gender and sexuality. How did you decide to incorporate these concepts into your art?
It’s not that I decided to incorporate them—I live them. I still remember the first time I performed as a kid. I didn’t know it was called “drag,” it was just me as a kid, maybe 12, 13. I was wearing a big dress, in front of families, parents who were clapping and cheering for me. I used to just hold a garlic masher and be performing like that. I would put on outfits—not to become a woman but to become a persona, a character. And that still speaks to me. When you’re dancing with a female body, you’re uniting with the rhythm—you’re no longer defined as a female body, you’re something different. That’s what I’m trying to reach.

Gender fluidity seems to be embraced more and more, but here, like elsewhere, macho culture is so overwhelming.
I have so much to say about that. One of the songs that I just finished is called “Khabberny Kif” (“Tell Me How”) and in the video that I have in mind, I’m talking about the macho community. Not just the heterosexual community, but the gay community,where everyone’s afraid of femininity. It imposes beauty patterns based on a heterosexual matrix. But I like that! Not that I endorse it—but I like that it’s there for me to play with and talk about. We have these gatherings where there’s so much testosterone. But what if someone just walks up and starts throwing glitter on everyone? Just trying to transform it into something else…

Photo courtesy of Moe Khansa

You gave up on college before finishing your degree?
I took that time to really figure out who I am as an artist. I was making my own New York, in a way. I created my own curriculum, jumping from place to place. At university, it’s all designed in a way to work for the market here, but there’s not a market for performers. I know at some point I’m just going to reach a dead end and be like, "Oh shit, I really need to go back to school." But I realized that in the beautiful team of artists working with me, I’m the only one who doesn’t have a degree, and I’m the leader. Everyone has faith in me. That feels huge.

Is Beirut where you want to be?
I want to—Beirut is awesome. But I’d be stupid if I stayed. There are so many options outside, and here it’s very limited. There’s so much you need to invest in to develop as a performer and all I do is teach belly dance classes for lovely old women to pay for my own classes. That’s why I take side jobs to fund my artistic projects. So many ideas are not going to work in Beirut. But the story is from here.

Kirsten O’Regan is a freelance writer living in Beirut. This interview was condensed and edited for clarity.

Photographer Constance McDonald grew up at the bottom of the world: the southernmost point of New Zealand’s South Island. But that doesn’t mean she was isolated from other cultures and perspectives. For five years of her childhood, McDonald’s family hosted Japanese students from an all-girls high school in Tokyo. The experience made such an impression that she decided to reverse it and see the country for herself as an adult, signing up for a year of teaching English at an all-girls high school just a train stop away from the one that had sent its students to her home all those years ago. She brought her camera along, of course.

While their sailor-style uniforms feel familiar from anime and manga, McDonald’s images lack the male gaze through which we come by many pop cultural depictions of young Japanese women. Instead, she acts as a neutral force who is able to capture the bright-eyed teenagers in all their optimism and ambition.

“Mostly I was struck by the self-confidence and passion of the schoolgirls I taught,” she tells VICE. “They have big goals and dreams for their futures.”

McDonald wanted to pay tribute to the girls who she says “deviated so far from the Western perception of the meek and shy Japanese schoolgirl”. So she asked the school and its students for their consent to turn her project into a photo book, I Will Be My Dream. It takes its title from a sweet conversation she had with one student, Yu, who confessed she aspired to one day work at the United Nations.

“My dream is so difficult,” Yu told McDonald. “But I will be my dream”.

The below portraits show the students smiling, laughing, and pursuing their passions—in sport, music, studying, and while having fun with their friends.

“They are not depicted as one-dimensional sub-plots,” McDonald says. “They are the main characters.”

Follow Constance on Instagram

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

US News

Trump Says He Won’t Fire Mueller
The president waved off the idea that he might be on track to eventually fire special counsel Robert Mueller. When asked if he was considering the move, Trump responded: “No I’m not.” Still, the president did attack Mueller’s team for getting a hold of Trump transition team emails via the General Services Administration, describing the development as “pretty sad.” The special counsel’s spokesman Peter Carr said the emails had been obtained through an “appropriate criminal process," dismissing the notion of illegality.—CNN

Power Failure Wreaks Havoc at Atlanta Airport
A power outage forced Atlanta's Hartsfield-Jackson International Airport to go into a virtual lockdown Sunday, with travelers stuck in terminals and on planes for hours. Almost 1,200 flights were canceled before the electricity was restored just before midnight. Atlanta’s authorities opened up the city’s main convention center for stranded passengers who had no place to stay Sunday night. Delta canceled another 300 flights, most of which were scheduled to arrive at the city, on Monday.—NBC News

EPA Employees Targeted for Voicing Concerns
A lawyer with the Republican group America Rising made FOIA requests to obtain the emails of three staffers at the Environmental Protection Agency who had aired worries about agency's direction. The request demanded any emails that made mention of EPA boss Scott Pruitt or President Trump. “This is a witch hunt against EPA employees,” said one EPA worker, after an operation affiliated with America Rising was officially contracted to do media work for the agency.—The New York Times

Carolina Panthers Owner Seeks Sale Amid Misconduct Investigation
The NFL team’s owner Jerry Richardson said he will sell the franchise at the end of the current football season. The news follows Friday’s announcement by the Panthers that Richardson would be investigated by the organization for “allegations of workplace misconduct.” On Sunday, a Panthers spokesman confirmed the NFL was taking charge of the formal probe.—ABC News

International News

US Intelligence Helped Russia Stop Potential Terrorist Attack
Russian government spokesman Dmitry Peskov said “meaningful information” given by US officials prevented a planned attack in St. Petersburg on December 16 and helped “save many lives.” Seven suspects have been arrested, according to Peskov. “It cannot be called anything but an ideal example of cooperation in fighting terrorism,” he said.—Reuters

Conservative Candidate Wins Chilean Election
Sebastián Piñera has won the country’s presidential run-off with just over 54 percent of the vote, beating the left-wing coalition candidate Alejandro Guillier. Piñera, a billionaire who has promised to cut taxes, said: “I want to talk to [Guillier] about the points we agree about.”—BBC News

Gunmen Attack Kabul Military Camp
At least five gunmen reportedly stormed a military training facility in the Afghan capital Monday morning. The country's interior ministry said attackers traded fire with security forces for several hours, but there was no confirmation about the number of injured or dead. ISIS claimed its fighters—who were believed to have been killed by police—were responsible for the attack.—Al Jazeera

Honduras Finally Declares Winner of Presidential Election
Three weeks after the national vote, the Honduran electoral tribunal declared conservative incumbent Juan Orlando Hernandez the winner, announcing a 1.53 percent victory over left-y challenger Salvador Nasralla. The Organization of American States (OAS) has called for a new vote, suggesting the first try did not have “democratic quality.”—Reuters

Everything Else

‘The Last Jedi’ Nets $220 Million Debut
The latest installment in the Star Wars franchise had the second-best opening weekend ever at the North American box office, falling just short of the nearly $248 million taken by The Force Awakens. Episode VIII enjoyed a global opening of $450 million.—The Hollywood Reporter

Gene Simmons Denies Sexual Battery Allegation
An anonymous woman filed a lawsuit against the Kiss star alleging he made “unwanted, unwarranted sexual advances” during and after a radio interview. Simmons said he planned on “vigorously countering these allegations.”—Noisey

Sarah Palin’s Son Again Facing Domestic Violence Charges
Track Palin appeared in an Alaska court Sunday to be arraigned on felony burglary, assault in the fourth degree, and criminal mischief charges. He was previously arrested on domestic violence charges in January of last year.—NBC News

LeBron James Shares Political Message on His Sneakers
The Cleveland Cavaliers star played with one black and one white shoe Sunday, with the slogan “EQUALITY” seen across both. Referring to Trump in his post-game comments (after a win), James said: “We’re not going to let one person dictate us… how beautiful and how powerful we are as a people.”—ESPN

Tom DeLonge Has Weird Connection to Possible UFO Video
Luis Elizondo, a director at the former Blink-182 member’s nonprofit To The Stars, reportedly once helped investigate UFOs at the Pentagon. He even commented for a New York Times story about a declassified military video of an unidentified, rotating object in the sky.—Noisey

Trump Angers Doctors with List of Words Banned at the CDC
Doctors and scientists were outraged over the weekend after the Trump administration reportedly told officials at the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) not to use seven words or phrases, including “evidence-based.” "fetus," and "transgender." The Association for the Advancement of Science said the new policy was “ridiculous," while the agency's director insisted there was no ban per se. —Tonic/PBS

Make sure to check out the latest episode of VICE's daily podcast. Today we hear from one of our own reporters who lived like Trump for a day.

This article originally appeared on VICE Germany

In November of 2017, Dirk and Stephan, two homeless friends from Berlin, placed an advert on eBay in search of a "landlord with a heart" to help them get off the streets. "We are two nice, sensible, homeless men, looking to get our lives back on track," their advert read. "We’re both in our early fifties, drug-free and we're not alcoholics."

Paying rent wasn't an issue for them. They have several part-time jobs between them – delivering beer kegs, helping people with their shopping and taking pets to the vet. "Every month, we make between €1,800 and €2,000 [£1760]," Dirk said. "That’s enough to afford a flat."

But landlords in Berlin still wouldn’t rent to them because they didn't have a credit score, they couldn’t submit several months of pay slips or prove that they had no outstanding debts. Also, the pair couldn’t come up with the large deposit most landlords in the city demand from tenants.

After their search for a flat became public, Dirk spent hours taking calls from TV networks offering a chance to appear across German television, but Dirk and Stephan turned them all down. They didn’t want that kind of attention – they just wanted a flat.

Finally, a month after their ad went up, they were offered a flat. I spoke to Dirk about their search, their new home and why they turned down the chance to be famous.

Dirk's sign, which reads, "Homeless, German, Not on unemployment benefits / Marriage, adoption, donation – decide now!

VICE: Hi Dirk, so how did you end up getting a flat?
Dirk: An Italian businessman got in touch with us. He had seen our listing, and had a flat that was available to rent. I didn’t believe it until we actually signed the contract last week. Incredibly, it’s an unlimited lease, too.

The apartment is in an old building and it has two rooms, a kitchen and a bathroom – I pay €630 (£556) all-in. It’s in Moabit in central Berlin, which is a great location.

Do you know why he decided to rent to you?
He told us that when he first advertised the flat, he received over a hundred enquiries. But he’s deeply religious, and said that his inner voice – or God – instructed him to wait a bit longer before deciding who to rent it to.

He saw our ad a few days later and contacted me straight away. I explained to him that we had no credit rating or proof of income, but he said it was fine and that he would give us a chance. We eventually found out that 20 years ago, he was kicked out of the place he was living in by an ex-girlfriend and spent a week homeless – so he could empathise with our situation.

Watch: VICE Life Hacks with Oobah Butler – How To Get Free Food

Did a lot of people approach you after your ad was so widely shared and reported on?
There were so many enquiries from journalists, and an unbelievable number of people on Facebook offered us stuff – like furniture. Beyond that, we collected almost €2,000 through a crowd-funding campaign to go towards a deposit.

We still need a top-load washing machine, though. Could you put that in your article? Top-load, not front-load.

Some people offered you jobs to do, right?
Just dealing with the all the enquiries alone has taken up most of the last two weeks, but we both carried on working our part-time jobs. In the future, I want to start my own online business.

Did people recognise you?
My friends knew that our story was in the media, but, thankfully, strangers haven’t spoken to me about it – nobody recognised us from the photo in the ad either. I’d wouldn’t like to be famous, which was one of the reasons why we didn’t want to go on TV. Even when they offered us money – up to €500 (£440) per programme – we said no, because we didn’t do this to become celebrities. We just wanted to find somewhere to live. I couldn’t really go on TV on Saturday morning, and then come and sleep rough on the streets the next day. Everyone would see and laugh at me.

Police said the bodies of Barry and Honey Sherman, a Toronto couple worth nearly $5 billion and known for their philanthropy, were found hanging from a railing that surrounded their in-house pool Friday morning.

According to the Globe and Mail, the couple, who had made billions off the pharmaceutical industry, were discovered by a real estate agent who was preparing the mansion worth several millions for an open house Friday morning. The Globe goes on to report that there was no note or anything explaining the deaths of the two and no sign of forced entry.

A Toronto Police spokesperson would not confirm the information contained in the Globe story to VICE but in a news release they did confirm that homicide was investigating the deaths they deemed “suspicious.” An autopsy confirmed that the deaths of both the Sherman’s were from “ ligature neck compression.”

The couple were worth a reported $4.16 billion and Barry Sherman was considered the 13th richest person in Canada in 2016, according to Canadian Business. The 75-year-old Barry Sherman made his money after the founding of Apotex Inc, a pharmaceutical giant that produces generic medication for a wide range of diseases and ailments. The couple, especially the 70-year-old Honey, were known for their philanthropy, supporting many causes over the years.

The Toronto Star, and other media outlets, have referred to the deaths as a “possible murder-suicide” but friends and family of the Shermans stated that this was “impossible.” The family, who released a statement on Saturday, called the Globe and Mail’s police sources who speculated about this “irresponsible.”

"Our parents shared an enthusiasm for life and commitment to their family and community totally inconsistent with the rumours regrettably circulated in the media as to the circumstances surrounding their deaths," the family said in a statement released Saturday evening.

"We are shocked and think it's irresponsible that police sources have reportedly advised the media of a theory which neither their family, their friends nor their colleagues believe to be true."

On Sunday, Apotex paid tribute to its founder on its website stating that Sherman started the company from a two-man operation in Toronto and grew it into a global giant with over 11,000 employees and waxed poetically about his philanthropy.

“Sherman embraced the obligations that come with success,” read the statement. “As a testament to this, Apotex provides significant support to a variety of charitable organizations and community groups in Canada and around the world, and invests significantly in the universities where many of our employees earned their degrees.”

The release goes on to say that Apotex has given over $50 million in the last ten years. Tributes from all around have been pouring in for Barry and Honey Sherman, including the Prime Minister of Canada who tweeted his condolences for the pairs family. Senator Linda Frum‏ called the couple “one of the kindest and most beloved members of Canada’s Jewish community.”

Follow Mack Lamoureux on Twitter

It’s harder than ever to enjoy the holidays.

It’s cold and dark all the time and suddenly you have several thousand social obligations in varying shades of intensity. If you’re not already broke when the season begins you’ll become broke very quickly. If you have one of the increasingly common 24/7/365 service/retail jobs, you won’t get much in the way of a “holiday” at all. And God help you indeed if you have a shitty relationship with your family this time of year, because you will be endlessly reminded that you have failed at love.

The whole thing, honestly, is a racket. This is not a controversial opinion.

People have been hand-wringing about the holidays for longer than most of us have been alive. The basic premise of most beloved holiday classics (starting with 1843’s A Christmas Carol) is how to find that inscrutable seed of seasonal joy beneath the mountain of bullshit. Charlie Brown was lamenting the commercialization of Christmas some half a century ago, in a fictionalized small town that probably still had Sunday shopping laws. Today’s Black Friday-Cyber Monday weekend orgy would likely give the poor bald child a stroke.

But just like unto the Peanut kids, we too must seek out the sacred among the profane. Charlie Brown’s tree was garbage, but it contained within itself the possibility of an unthinkable magnificence—just like the King of Kings born to an impoverished teenage mother in a manger among the dung.

This is the true lesson of Christmas. And it has been brought down to us again today by a man in Calgary who baked a Kielbasa Wellington and found within it the Holy Family and the infant Christ.

Original image via Paul Ritchie/Global News

Paul Ritchie was having a reasonably ordinary day—I mean, he did bake a fucking Kielbasa Wellington—when he had a low-key spiritual revelation while eating his supper. There was something oddly striking about the innards of his sausage pastry, but it wasn’t until he was out walking his dog later that it struck him. This was no ordinary culinary experiment: Ritchie’s repas had unwittingly invoked the blessed Baby Jesus.

Look: we all know our homeboy The Lord loves popping up in people’s foodstuffs from time to time to remind them of his infinite love and also that he is constantly judging the shit out of us at all times. But usually he flies solo, so to see his whole posse roll up in a crumby mess of pork and peppers only underscores the legitimacy of this miracle.

This Kielbasa Wellington was obviously inspired by the Spirit. No one on earth would ever be tempted to bake a pork sausage, red pepper and olives together inside a pastry crust without supernatural direction. The meal depicted in the photo is uncanny in that it looks like something you could theoretically eat, but that you never actually would. It’s a perfect vehicle for God to declare both “unto us a child is born” and also “motherfucker this pastry is as dry as a middle-school diorama board, do not eat it.”

If there’s a secret hotline to heaven in every tube of processed pork, it’s something that Newfoundlanders have known and kept secret for years. It’s why the Big Stick Bologna Man is the centre of our annual Christmas parade.

The Big Stick is a delicacy and a sacred mystery. People form great winding queues to hang him on their yuletide trees, for in the Bologna we see God make true his promise that the last shall be first. All the effluvia of the slaughterhouse is transubstantiated into the finest meat of all. If you cut open a Big Stick Wellington, you would reveal the glorious and awful splendour to come on the Day of Judgement.

The Kielbasa Christmas glyphs the redemptive economy of the universe: that the swine are ultimately indistinguishable from the pearls. Small wonder it all transpires around the sacred winter solstice, the yearly death and rebirth of the sun. The meat tubes remind us that even in the darkest and coldest night of the year, our star still shines somewhere beyond the horizon. Morning always comes again as the bright immortal dawn of another summer day, and this liminal gap in the cosmos is bridged by a string of sausage.

Follow Drew Brown on Twitter.

Conservative MP Michelle Rempel wants Canada to expand the definition of bestiality in Canada’s Criminal Code to include more than just penetration.

In 2016, the Supreme Court of Canada ruled that a person must actually penetrate an animal or vice versa in order for the act to be considered bestiality. The ruling pertained to a case in which a BC man, known in the judgment as D.L.W., tried to make his teen stepdaughter have sex with the family dog. When that failed, he spread peanut butter on her vagina and made the dog lick it off while he photographed it. Later he asked his stepdaughter to do it again, so he could make a video.

While the man was originally found guilty of bestiality, the conviction was overturned by a lower court and later the Supreme Court, both of which decided that bestiality is limited to penetration between a person and an animal.

That ruling said the courts are not in a place to broaden the definition of bestiality.

Rempel, an MP for Calgary Nose Hill, recently introduced a private member’s bill to change that definition to “any contact by a person, for a sexual purpose, with an animal.”

In a press release, Rempel said the Liberal government should have made the changes a long time ago.

“This is a non-partisan issue that is clearly needed to keep both humans and animals safe,” she said. “The current law is reflective of an archaic understanding of sex, and the change that I am seeking to make with my bill both reflects the language of the Supreme Court ruling, and frankly is a no-brainer.”

Previously, Liberal MP Nathaniel Erskine-Smith tried unsuccessfully to pass a private member's bill to close loopholes in Canada’s bestiality laws and expand animal protection laws.

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As the rest of the world squealed over porgs at The Last Jedi this past weekend, Senator Ted Cruz and Star Wars star Mark Hamill got into some serious beef on Twitter.

The exchange started Saturday morning, when Hamill tweeted about his disgust with FCC chairman Ajit Pai's brain-bleedingly bizarre, meme-packed anti-net neutrality video. In the short clip, Pai waves a bunch of fidget spinners and a lightsaber around, apparently hoping that the toys might make you forget about the shady plan he's shilling. Hamill—the man who brought the lightsaber to the big screen—wasn't too pleased to see the Jedi weapon in Pai's hands.

For some reason, Cruz read Hamill's tweet and apparently felt deeply compelled to fire back. The Texas Republican unleashed a series of convoluted Star Wars-referencing tweets in hopes of owning Hamill, but just wound up owning himself along the way. Cruz attempted to compare the Obama-era net neutrality regulations to something the Empire might try to pull, even though ignoring a majority of the American people isn't exactly the democratic world the Rebellion was fighting for. Then he worked in a Yoda quote for good measure.

Hamill responded with a pretty solid burn about Ted Cruz's porn fiasco, which melted the internet back in September.

The saga eventually petered out after Hamill, with typical Luke-like sagacity, just stepped away from the whole mess. The lesson here? Ted Cruz should know not to lecture Luke Skywalker about the Dark Side.

Next month, recreational marijuana sales will officially be legal in California. But instead of a bacchanalian scene where previously surreptitious stoners share the sidewalks with suburban dads blazed off fizzy, cannabis-infused root beers, the transition to a post-prohibition California is almost certain to be a messy one. Since passage of Proposition 64 in November 2016, the state has been slowly wading through the regulatory issues and legal grey areas surrounding recreational weed. This despite the state’s long and well-documented history of liberal (ostensibly) medicinal marijuana use, which dates to the 1990s and has amounted, in some instances, to a climate of quasi-legalization.

“It’s going to be a bumpy road the next 12 to 18 months,” said Adam Spiker, executive director of Southern California Coalition, a trade organization representing pot businesses. “It’s going to take time for licensing and regulation to get where it needs to be and for a multi-billion dollar industry to fully come out of the shadows.”

Under the terms of Proposition 64, local governments make their own decisions about whether they’ll be home to cannabis businesses, and what hoops those operations have to jump through. Most cities and counties have opted not to license pot sellers initially, waiting to see how it plays out across the state. But this uncertainty could open up the businesses that do operate right away to special scrutiny from law enforcement. Cops, after all, may not see them as job-creators for their communities, but rather as piggy banks for eventual civil asset-forfeiture actions, where police take property without even charging anyone with a crime.

In a worst case scenario, the federal government—with a Justice Department once again run by an old-school drug warrior—could partner up with local police to create an environment where no one who operates a pot business does so without constant fear of losing their whole livelihood at any moment.

Earlier this year, California's state treasurer, John Chiang, convened a working group to look at how pot businesses might best protect their assets under legalization. Because the federal government still considers marijuana a Schedule I drug (along with substances like LSD and heroin), these businesses have long been shut out of traditional forms of banking. In already-legal states, like Colorado and Oregon, some businesses have found ways around this by hiring armored car services to help them pay their taxes and move their money, or by doing business at least in part via digital currencies like Bitcoin. But in California, with about double the population of all previously recreational marijuana states combined, there will be billions of dollars available for potential seizure at any time.

“The medical marijuana businesses that have operated with impunity are the ones where the local district attorneys haven’t been opposed to it, like in northern California,” said Wesley Hottot, an attorney with the Institute for Justice, a nonprofit libertarian litigation firm that has fought against civil asset forfeiture in dozens of states. “But places like Los Angeles and San Diego, where they have their own micro-climate of politics, the legal landscape for any individual marijuana business is much more uncertain, and that’s where you’re running the, ‘Any day I might get raided’ type of operation.”

The threat posed by possible asset forfeiture on part of the federal government is so great that it merited mention as a key reason the industry has been shut out from banking in Chiang’s report. “One of the risks cannabis businesses face is the possibility of asset forfeiture, that is, that federal law enforcement officials might seize their assets. Since assets such as business property might be used as collateral on loans, a bank lending to a cannabis customer would have no recourse if the property were forfeited,” the report read.

California began regulating wider use of medical marijuana in the mid-2000s, and in the years since, the Department of Justice has been constrained in its response by two separate policies. One was an Obama-era enforcement priority known as the Cole Memorandum, which called for a focus on possible sales to minors as well as sale to residents in non-legal states, among other issues. The second was a congressional budget rider first passed in 2014 that prevented the Department of Justice from spending money to interfere with state medical marijuana programs. This rider has been passed annually each year since, and is currently tied to the passage of the congressional spending bill by the end of 2017.

But US Attorney General Jeff Sessions is no friend of the cannabis industry. In fact, he's repeatedly voiced an eagerness to begin cracking down on legal states. “I do not believe there's any argument [that] because a state legalizes marijuana, that the federal law against marijuana is no longer in existence," Sessions said in a radio interview this October. "I do believe that the federal laws clearly are in effect in all 50 states and we will do our best to enforce the laws as we are required to do so."

The Department of Justice did not respond to a request for comment for this story, but if Sessions continues to be barred from committing major resources to such enforcement, his subordinates may not have the money they need to go after California businesses.

That's where local law enforcement comes in.

By teaming up with the feds to form task-forces, local cops can help enforce federal law, while federal agents can crack down on weed businesses. And when they pull off a raid, both can share in the spoils. Democratic lawmakers in the state tried to stop this type of cooperation last legislative session, drafting a bill that would block local police from helping federal law enforcement take action against licensed marijuana stores without a court order. This was fervently objected to by the California Sheriff’s Association, whose president, Kern County Sheriff Donny Youngblood, called the bill “offensive "and argued, "at some point the federal government is going to have to step in and say, ‘You can’t do that.’”

For its part, Kern County has banned all commercial cannabis activity. The anti-task force bill stalled out in the State Senate, and the California Sheriff’s Association did not return a request for comment on its future enforcement plans for this story. Another proposed bill would call on California's Highway Patrol (CHP)—essentially state police—to step up their own enforcement of "black-market cannabis activity," but did not move quickly enough to advance during this fall's legislative session.

Meanwhile, under California law, over 60 percent of forfeiture proceeds have historically gone to local law enforcement, according to a report by the Institute for Justice, which studied asset forfeiture in California between 2002 and 2013.

That's exactly what happened in January 2016, when local law enforcement, working with support from the Drug Enforcement Agency (DEA), seized over $300,000 in an early-morning raid on a medical marijuana dispensary. Last week, after a lengthy legal process and months of hardship, the owner of the dispensary finally got most of his money back. The government still got to keep $35,000, which is not a bad haul all things considered. (Hottot at the Institute for Justice represented the owner of the dispensary, who pleaded guilty to misdemeanors after initially not being charged with any crimes.)

Sometimes, elected officials in the same city will push enforcement in different directions: Even as San Diego has worked to regulate marijuana sales in city limits, the local district attorney has pursued several high-profile raids of dispensaries.

It’s this kind of anti-weed enforcement action that University of Alabama law Professor Julie Hill, who has written extensively about the legality of marijuana businesses and their banking issues, predicted we could see plenty more over the next few years. Such raids that can have a chilling effect on the pot industry as a whole.

“The next best thing to actually enforcing the law uniformly is having a really big enforcement tool that you only use sometimes. That way, you can intimidate people into doing what you want,” Hill told me in an interview. “Maybe that’s why the federal government is happy with the blurry lines these businesses are forced to operate in.”

And while California was one of the blue states that spoke loudest in rejecting Donald Trump on the ballot last fall, some local police departments in its more conservative regions could see teaming up with the feds in targeting weed as a great way to serve their constituents and pad their pockets at the same time.

Chiang, the state’s treasurer, told me he will be monitoring how the process plays out.

“We have to make sure that law enforcement is upholding the laws of the state, and if people see them doing something contrary to that, then there’s going to have to be some sort of public debate about their role.”

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Not every gift you get this holiday season is going to make you leap into the air like you’re starring in a ‘80s Toyota commercial. Occasionally you might receive some truly inappropriate, ill-conceived, or tacky presents—items that make you wonder if the gift-giver has ever even met you before. Random, ill-fitting clothing, half-eaten food, literal trash; it’s enough to make you seethe, “ No, you shouldn’t have. You really shouldn’t have” between gritted teeth.

We asked friends and co-workers about the worst gift they’ve had the displeasure to unwrap. Here’s what they said:

“Booze-filled chocolates. I was five.” - Liz, 29

“Fugly necklace boyfriend bought from casino.” - Courtney, 26

“Was re-gifted a broken popcorn maker.” - Billy, 25

“A used copy of People magazine.” - Alia, 30

“Jumpstart cables for my new car.” - Livia, 29

“Dog shampoo for my own hair.” - Stephanie, 27

“Gameboy game. (Didn't own a Gameboy.)” - Maria, 34

“Ugly shirt with detachable Velcro letters.” - Jenna, 29

“At work: white elephant Squatty Potty.” - Allegra, 25

“Fat analyzing scale for 16th birthday.” - Megan, 33

“A used bottle of nail polish.” - Tanya, 33

“Socks when everyone got Game Boys.” - Chris, 37

“In junior high, a jump rope.” - Nicole, 35

“A thighmaster from my kid brother.” - Carie, 41

“A massive Santa ornament. I'm Jewish.” - Chelsea, 32

“Plaster cast of an ex-boyfriend’s hand.” - Kelly, 33

“Half-eaten heart cookie on Valentine’s Day.” - Julia, 26

“Broken Halloween salt and pepper shakers.” - Corey, 31

“Steve Urkel shirt. I wore glasses.” - Mike, 37

“Guidebook on sorting your life out.” - Nicola, 33

“A set of partially-consumed bitters.” - Shawnté, 39

“Got a vape pen. Don’t vape.” - Ellie, 34

“My mom just got me tweezers.” - Kari, 22

“From my boyfriend: a bread loaf.” - Laurenne, 37

“Floor-length pink flannel granny nightgown.” - Brianna, 37

“Inexplicably, an entire bag of scrunchies.” - Beth, 32

“Pregnancy test from my mother in-law.” - Kate, 36

“Sugar-free black-bean 'chocolate' cake.” - Molly, 28

“Picked from trash. ‘Better than nothing.’” - Alice, 34

“Pair of white XL granny panties.” - Amy, 25

“Fish tank and accessories. No fish.” - Erika, 36

“Barbies from grandma. I was seventeen.” - Ana, 26

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If you needed a reminder about how bad the Toronto-area rental market is, look no further. This Craigslist ad, for a place located near the airport, is the creepiest we have seen in a long time.

Though the title of the listing, posted three days ago, reads innocent enough—”$500 / 1br - 1 Bedroom even short 1 or 2 month stay available close to YYZ (Elmhurst/Islington)”—what lies inside is a nearly 1,200-word monologue containing a strange amount of detail, expectations, shirtless selfies, and of course, a little bit of racism.

As always, people are intent on getting attention on the internet, so do take this listing with a grain of salt. (For what it’s worth, we ran the photos on the post through Google reverse image search and didn’t get any hits.)

“My name is Eddy,” the listing begins. In what follows, “Eddy,” who appears silver-haired, yet fit, does the following:

• Offers for his prospective roommate to stay in his king-size bed with him—an accompanying photo shows a pillow divider down the middle of said bed: "pillows in the middle means not interested ok," the post reads
• Discusses how he is recently married and is waiting for his wife to immigrate (she will need to approve of the living situation, apparently)
• Insists he will only accept a woman as a roommate, but “NO GUYS APPLY or Black Ladies even though I had one girlfriend that was Jamaican”
• Says the numerous typos in the listing are because he recently dropped his phone in water and that he used voice dictation for the entire thing
• This: “I seen a lot of bodies alive and dead so chill love and respect ...I want you to sleep well .. Don't worry bring your parents and let them help you make your room . Meantime I will explain to your parents not to jump all over me Hahaha”
• Insists he doesn’t want sex
• Asks for pics and provides pics, including shirtless ones: “What's wrong with asking for a picture of who you will be with?”
• Requests first and last but will accept just first “since it’s Christmas”
• Offers breakfast in bed and rides in his car (pictured) to his prospective roommate

Eddy and his ride (photo via Craigslist)

“It's going to be hard for whoever comes here to leave that's how nice it is here,” the listing ends.

Hmm, gonna be a hard pass from me, dude. Best of luck, Eddy.

Nine months after they were targeted in a country-wide police sting, cannabis activists Marc and Jodie Emery have been sentenced to two years of probation and $150,000 fines for drug trafficking-related offences.

The couple pleaded guilty Monday to possession for the purpose of trafficking, and possession of the proceeds of crime. Marc Emery additionally pleaded guilty to trafficking marijuana.

In addition to the fines, they were ordered not to take part in the illegal cannabis industry.

Addressing the court, the Emerys’ lawyer Jack Lloyd argued his clients operated dispensaries as a form of civil disobedience to protest unfair laws.

The couple was arrested in March following a Toronto police investigation known as Operation Gator that saw their Cannabis Culture dispensaries raided. Fellow Cannabis Culture partners Chris and Erin Goodwin and Britney Anne Guerra were also arrested; the three of them also pleaded guilty to trafficking-related charges on Monday and were sentenced to smaller fines and two years of probation each.

Cannabis Culture started out as a magazine in 1994 and gradually expanded to include dispensaries across the country. Founder Marc Emery was sent to jail in the US in 2009 for selling cannabis seeds through the mail. At that point, Jodie Emery took over as owner and operator of Cannabis Culture.

According to an op-ed posted on Cannabis Culture’s website, Jodie Emery said she wanted to open up recreational dispensaries in the beginning of 2016, to “raise money for activism efforts, and promote our message of cannabis freedom, dignity and equality.” According to Global News, Crown Attorney Kiran Gill pointed out that the Cannabis Culture location on Toronto’s Church Street alone made $45,000 a week.

The couple has been highly vocal about ending the war on drugs and critical of the Liberals’ legalization plan, which they’ve likened to another form of prohibition due its many restrictions.

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The United States of America is as deeply divided as ever. Despite––or, perhaps, because of––this, comedian Sarah Silverman recently wrapped the first season of I Love You, America, her variety show on Hulu that tackles America’s greatest challenges with an open mind and heart.

Silverman’s delivery in I Love You, America is distinct from that of other hosts. Her material is less tethered to the news, and she rarely utters Trump’s name or weighs in on specific political viewpoints, instead drawing on broad themes of the moment––patriotism, nationalism, immigration––and reaching across the divide. We spoke over the phone while she was in her LA studio, where she had recently finished taping the show’s recently-aired finale:

VICE: What’s the version of “America” you based your show on?
Sarah Silverman: The tenets of Mr. Rogers––how much I love him, and how much we need him right now. We’re so divided, and we can’t even agree on the facts of what we’re fighting over. Truth has no currency. Mr. Rogers’ Neighborhood was a kids show, but adults are just kids plus time. I wanted to get back to the basic things without using jargon or politics.

Jargon is elitist by design. The smartest people use the simplest words—the Pope, the Dalai Lama, Ghandi. The basic truths in life are simple. We need a kids show for adults right now, to remember to see what’s important.

On your show, you say that there are “two kinds of patriotism.” What does that mean?
The right has perverted the meaning of being liberal, or being feminist. Even "social justice warrior" is an insult. We pervert language so much. Patriotism has always been a bit owned by the right. The last disillusion on all of our parts is that there are two parties, and they’re made up of two very different kinds of people. I have to think that oligarchs and billionaire wealth addicts aside, for the most part, are more alike than we think. We’re just getting our news from outlets that are telling us different types of stories.

Patriotism is perverted. We’re not on the same page of what it means. To me, being patriotic is loving your country—being a citizen, having a voice, being e pluribus unum. How perverted it is to go from “We are one” to “We are number one,” which is such a childish idea. There’s a difference between childlike and childish. The president is childish. He was stunted around eight years old––maybe something traumatic happened––but he stopped growing emotionally. And yet, he got all the way to the presidency. There are a lot of pathologies that are not healthy but can bring great success, if that’s how you measure success. The deepest people look at the world with wide-open eyes—which is childlike, not childish.

While attempting to learn from people in different parts of the country, you throw a dart at a map of the US, then you visit a family in that location. What have these visits been like?
They’ve made me both hopeful and disheartened. I went in with preconceived notions for some of them, but what I found was, in some cases, they’re not getting their news from anywhere. It’s total apathy. They’re not concerning themselves with anything outside their front door.

I’m on a journey, to use The Bachelor term. I’m very excited by being changed by new information as I get it. I went to Nashville and wrote a country song, and I fell in love with the guy who helped me. He’s running for Congress now, as a Republican, and now there’s someone who’s a Republican running for office that I love. We have to look at the hypocrisies inside ourselves. It’s important to listen to other people and find out where our disconnects are.

At one point in this season, you casted Fred Armisen as Jesus in a sketch. What does religion mean to the concept of America?
Like patriotism, religion can be sometimes used as a weapon, or to support someone’s own narrative or fears and prejudices. These Christian-fringe, Roy Moore, do-what-I-say- not-what-I-do people––they’re not very Jesus-like. I see them as fringe the way I see ISIS as fringe.

But when we look at the fringe as a whole, it’s dangerous. That’s why there’s the Muslim ban. They’re taking a tiny fraction of a people that’s loud and making it the entire people. That’s dangerous. The left often does that with the religious right. The religious right is not all of religion. The notion of religious freedom used to be this beautiful notion that all religions can come here and practice. What it’s become is legal homophobia—or racism.

The comedian Laurie Kilmartin wrote in The New York Times that “stand-up comedy is
hard on its women.” Can you talk about your experience?
I’m not going to pretend that every woman’s experience is what I’m experiencing now. I remember going somewhere years ago with someone famous, and they said “Everyone’s so nice here!” And I said, “No! They’re nice to you! That’s what you see!” I’m always cognizant of that. When I started, it was a different time––and I’m grateful that it’s changed, and is continuing to change.

When I was starting out, I was told by great male comics, “The only way you’re a great comic is if your jokes can be told by a male comic and still work.” Which is totally nuts. They’d say, “Hack female comics talk about tampons.” It took me many years to go, “Oh, so talking about our experience isn’t comedy?” That’s how it was. They’d give me the example of Paula Poundstone, and say “She’s a real comic––because a man could do her material.” There might be more women in the world, but they’d say, “Women are only going to comedy clubs on dates, and they’re only laughing at what their date is laughing at.”

I have a certain amount of shame for letting that shape me in my formative years—of taking that in as fact and not questioning it. It took me a long time to go Fuck this! I’m talking about my own experience!” Being “One of the guys” was a big compliment. They’d never put two women comics back-to-back—there would never even be two women in the show.

How did that experience shape you?
Every comic becomes funny out of survival of their childhood. I was hairy and dark, and there were no Jews where I lived—it was white, blonde, and Republican. My role was to be non-threatening. There are probably black comics who did this, too. I had an innate sense that I had to put people’s parents at ease. All of my friends parents would say, “Are you from New York?” But I was born in New Hampshire. That’s what their parents thought—that Jews were from New York.

That carried into being a woman in an industry where the men had all the power. I became non-threatening to men—I became a man. You become very malleable when you feel like your very existence is threatening to people. Women have been doing that with men for so many years. We’ve protected their feelings. Even in rejection, if a guy’s trying to fuck you, you’re terrified of hurting his feelings, or his ego. Just being a woman at all has been, for so many generations, taking care of men’s feelings. In ways that they have no idea. They are truly ignorant.

[While] holding people accountable for the way they lived their lives decades ago, it needs to be taken into consideration that we all were complicit. I’m not defending men, but as a society, we are changing. As a person, I’m constantly changing. Thank God I’m not the kid I once was, or the young woman I once was, or the comic I once was. My material that dealt with race makes me really upset today. It was totally misguided and ignorant. Well-meaning, yes—but ignorant and misguided. I can only be in charge of who I am now. I have to look at other people that way too. I don’t think compassion is a waste of time. The world is changing fast. It’s hard for some people.

What would comedy look like if more there were more women headlining?
You’re going to see. It’s constantly changing. I see comedy as led by women. There are some great male comics out there, but I think the most exciting new comics right now are women. It’s not a coincidence—it’s all about opportunity, and that has to be enforced at the early stages. Guys are good at basketball because they shoot and shoot and shoot and shoot, and miss until they’re good at it. When women play, they say, “Oh, I shot and missed,” and they think they’re not good. Men are afforded the luxury of trying and failing. We have to be afforded that luxury—we need to give ourselves that luxury.

Ever since I got my driver’s license I would go to the Y and play pickup games, and it was mostly men. Every basket I missed, I was so down on myself. I was thinking the men were angry they were on the team with me. No man has that weight on them when they’re playing a game. [Finally] I was able to throw that away, and just play hard, miss, not give a fuck, and talk shit and laugh.

You’ve been in comedy for over two decades. How have you changed?
I’m always changing. I’m curious about shit. When you learn something new, you have to be
changed by it. Change is scary to people for some reason. Just like saying sorry is impossible for some people, and for me it’s just the most freeing thing to do. I like to be changed. It does make me look at older stuff and cringe. It can make me sick to think of, in the light of everything I know now. I have to forgive myself on some level. Be hard on yourself––until you change.

I sat and read the news a couple of years ago and said, “I can’t believe there’s this epidemic of unarmed black teenagers being murdered by cops.” It took me a second to realize this isn’t an epidemic. This is how it’s always been. Under that realization, I was totally changed. I looked at stuff I’d done about race that I thought was “woke,” before that was a word, and it was so ignorant. It fucks me up thinking about it, but all I can do is make it right.