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Dan Harmon Admitted Treating a Female 'Community' Writer 'Like Garbage'

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Dan Harmon has a habit of landing himself in controversies, and he's notoriously open about his flaws. On New Year's Eve, the Community and Rick and Morty creator went ahead and flat-out called himself an asshole, vowing to do better in 2018—leading a former Community writer and producer to call him out for mistreating her during her time on the show.

Harmon got back to Ganz—who left Community after season four and went on to write for Modern Family and It's Always Sunny in Philadelphia—apologizing in vague terms for treating her "like garbage." The back-and-forth never cleared up exactly what happened between the two, but as Ganz tells it, whatever Harmon did scarred her.

Harmon then turned the conversation toward himself, explaining that he built a "wall" between he and his co-workers in the wake of what happened with Ganz.

Ultimately, Harmon offered to make an (even more?) public apology to Ganz, vowing to acknowledge his behaviour in any way she might want him to, before working in a cringeworthy pun about mansplaining.

It's not clear exactly what happened between Harmon and Ganz, but his response is a lot more measured than some of his scathing Twitter screeds. Recently, he's publicly tried to defend—not denigrate—women he currently works with. After a horde of Rick and Morty fans started terrorizing the show's female writers online, Harmon spoke out against the mob, saying he's "made no bones about the fact that I loathe these people" and their "disgusting," "testosterone-based subculture."

At the very least, it does look like Harmon is trying, in his own words, to be "Not as Much of an Asshole."

Follow Drew Schwartz on Twitter.


Seven Pieces of Priceless Art People Ruined in 2017

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My third worst fear—after kidney stones and nuclear war—is getting yelled at by a museum security guard. Maybe I'm a weenie, but I dread the unique embarrassment that comes from trespassing against our culture's hallowed protectors.

Thankfully, I'm not any of the following people.

Last year I compiled a list of all the priceless art people destroyed in 2016, at least partly in the hopes that we humans would better preserve our artistic legacy in 2017. Then, 2017 happened. Here’s what we lost:

A Yayoi Kusama Pumpkin

Yayoi Kusama’s Infinity Mirrors exhibition had been open for less than a week at Washington D.C.’s Hirshhorn when a visitor broke a glowing pumpkin sculpture in late February, reportedly while trying to get a selfie.

Museum spokesperson Allison Peck confirmed the incident, which occurred in the Kusama mirror room titled Infinity Mirrored Room — All the Eternal Love I have for the Pumpkins. Peck told Hyperallergic that “a piece… sustained minor damage and the room was closed temporarily,” and confirmed to the New York Times that a guest “took an accidental misstep” from a small platform, damaging one of the spotted sculptures.

Though a single similar Kusama sculpture sold for nearly $800,000 in 2015, Peck told artnet that “the individual pumpkins within the Infinity Room hold no intrinsic value on their own,” explaining that the cost of replacing one pumpkin was “negligible.” A replacement pumpkin was sent for, and the room of gourds was back up and running the next day.

Thomas Gainsborough’s The Morning Walk

In March, a wing of London’s National Gallery was evacuated after a man attacked a famous Thomas Gainsborough painting with a drill bit. 63-year-old Keith Gregory reportedly vandalized the English painter’s work, The Morning Walk, after he said voices in his head told him to “put a mark on the painting and your family will find you.”

The 1785 painting, valued in the tens of millions, suffered around $13,500 of damage from two scratches, and was restored and reinstalled in ten days. Gregory, who was formerly homeless and had been treated for paranoid delusions and auditory hallucinations, was charged with causing criminal damage, but was cleared of the charges by reason of insanity in December.

Christopher Wool’s Untitled 2004

In early May, an unknown man wearing sunglasses and a hat entered Aspen’s Opera Gallery and slashed a painting by American artist Christopher Wool.

The painting, Untitled 2004, is valued at just under $3 million. The man, whose motive and identity are still unknown, cut two holes into the canvas with a sharp object, destroying the work according to gallery owner Gregory Lahmi. A representative of the painting's owners later stated through an attorney that the damage was “minimal,” though the lawyer did not say how much it cost to repair.

The disguised art attacker has yet to be caught, with an Aspen police representative saying in November that local cops were in the midst of an international investigation “dealing with sending search warrants from little ol' Aspen to Interpol."

Simon Birch’s 14th Factory Crowns

In July, a woman visiting British multimedia artist Simon Birch’s interdisciplinary exhibition The 14th Factory in Los Angeles lost her balance while taking appearing to take a selfie, sending a series of pedestals carrying avant-garde crowns tumbling in a domino affect.

A clip of the incident, uploaded to YouTube by a man claiming to be a “mate” of Birch’s, has racked up more than 7 million views to-date.

Though some speculated that the video could be a staged stunt for viral promotion of his exhibit, Birch told media that it was truly an unexpected accident, estimating the damage done to his art at about $200,000.

Jacques Newashish’s La Femme De La Nuit Hibou

Last August, a wooden totem created to honor missing and murdered Indigenous women at Montreal’s First Peoples’ Festival was accidentally destroyed by a city employee. According to the Montreal Gazette, Atikamekw artist Jacques Newashish spent three days using a chainsaw and an axe to create a wooden sculpture titled La Femme De La Nuit Hibou ("The Owl Night Woman"), which he planned to eventually burn in a symbolic purification ceremony.

A city worker assigned to clean up wood chips at the event, however, was reportedly ordered by a festival official to throw out the nearly-finished totem along with the scraps. "The fate of this artwork is ironic given the message that the artist wanted to send, emphasizing the injustice experienced by missing Indigenous women and affected families," Newashish's partner, Clode Jalette, said on Facebook. Festival organizers called the situation "an unfortunate error" and admitted that they "should have been more vigilant."

Two original Warhols—and more

Just barely making the cut in time for this list, a Texas woman was accused of destroying two original Andy Warhol paintings in late December. According to CBS affiliate KHOU, freelance court reporter Lindy Lou Layman, 29, was on a first date with prominent Houston attorney and Trump fundraiser Anthony Buzbee when things apparently went sour.

After the pair ended up at Buzbee's mansion, Layman, who Buzbee claims was drunk, allegedly refused to leave the house after he called her several Ubers. He says she then began defacing his high-end art collection, reportedly pouring red wine on two original Warhols, valued at $500,000, along with another expensive painting, and throwing two sculptures, valued at $20,000 each, across a room. Layman, who reportedly caused $300,000 worth of damage, was arrested on felony criminal mischief charges and released on a $30,000 bond. "She also pulled a Renoir and a Monet off the wall," Buzbee told Texas Lawyer. "Luckily those weren’t damaged."

Follow Peter Slattery on Twitter.

Barry Jenkins Deserves an Oscar for These 'Notting Hill' Plane Tweets

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Notting Hill is one of those rom-coms from the 90s that makes you believe you're just one meet-cute away from romantic bliss, instead of hopelessly Tindering your way through your 20s. To be honest, Hugh Grant probably ruined love for all of us with his sad basset hound eyes longing after Julia Roberts (who essentially plays herself) in the 1999 classic.

Really, there's just one thing that could make Notting Hill better, and that's Academy Award–winning filmmaker Barry Jenkins live-tweeting the whole thing on a plane. On Wednesday, that's exactly what happened: From his flight to LAX, the Moonlight director apparently enjoyed the film without sound as a passenger watched next to him—the way some of us prefer our movies. What followed was an emotional rollercoaster of commentary that included Rick Ross, comparisons to antique lamps, Twitter polls, and Woodford Reserve bourbon—and is just about as entertaining as the rom-com itself. See below:

He means this dude, who is a legend:

To be more specific, Grant's character owns a travel bookstore. But hey, it wouldn't be a rom-com without someone working as a baker or something and living in a multi-million dollar apartment so...

We've all been there, Barry. Generally, watching a movie over someone's shoulder on a plane is the best, but, yes, creeping during the sex scenes feels kind of like watching the dirty parts of a movie with your parents.

Bravo, Barry Jenkins. This is some next-level critical analysis. If you feel like drinking bourbon and watching rom-coms for VICE sometime, you know where to find us.

Follow Kara Weisenstein on Twitter.

You'll Have to Wait Another Year for the Final 'Game of Thrones' Season

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Bad news, Game of Thrones fans: The show's final season won't be coming to HBO anytime this year, according to HBO.

On Thursday, the network officially announced the eighth and final season will drop in 2019, Variety reports. Shooting on the final six episodes started last October, and production is set to continue through the middle of 2018, which could contribute to the months-long delay. That whole multiple-decoy-endings thing probably doesn't help it along, either.

That's good news for anyone who's been pretending to watch the show and needs to catch up after its last seven-episode season, and bad news for any of its superfans craving the show's zombie dragons and incest drama. A record 16.5 million viewers tuned into the season seven finale last August, not to mention the folks who pirated the show more than a billion times last year.

HBO didn't say when exactly GoT will be coming back in 2019 or hint at what we might be in for, only revealing that showrunners David Benioff and D.B. Weiss, along with David Nutter and Miguel Sapochnik, will be directing the episodes, with Bryan Cogman and Dave Hill helping the showrunners write them.

If nothing else, the announcement makes an even stronger case that 2019 is going to be a solid year for TV, since we probably won't be getting more Rick and Morty until then, too.

Follow Drew Schwartz on Twitter.

Steve Bannon Is Less Important Than Ever

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For those who follow the White House the way more balanced people follow Star Wars or the Marvel Cinematic Universe, the past few days have been the equivalent of a blockbuster. A new gossip-filled book from journalist Michael Wolff, Fire and Fury, appeared from the ether like a late Christmas gift to Donald Trump's many haters. Going by initial excerpts in New York and British GQ, it portrays Trump as an addled narcissist and describes his inner circle as a bunch of self-interested dolts convinced he would lose the 2016 election. And, in what might be its biggest bombshell, it features former White House adviser Steve Bannon describing a meeting Donald Trump Jr. took with a Russian lawyer as "treasonous" and "bad shit."

Predictably, these comments drew the wrath of Trump, who promptly insisted Bannon "lost his mind." Trump's lawyers have since accused Bannon of breaking a nondisclosure agreement and even threatened to sue Wolff's publisher. Bannon responded by saying on Twitter that his words were "taken out of context" and reaffirmed his support for the president he helped elect, a man he called "the great white hope for the USA." (Trump on Thursday acknowledged his wayward acolyte's mea culpa without explicitly accepting it.)

Bannon's remarks also set off a wave of commentary—is he right to suggest the Russia probe might end in even more prosecutions? Is he actually not all that bad of a guy? Can Wolff's reporting even be trusted? Trump and Bannon (and Wolff) are naturals at ginning up controversy, so this bomb cyclone of a spat is naturally consuming a lot of oxygen in the media world. But it's important to pause between bites of popcorn to ask a different question: How much does Steve Bannon even matter at this point?



Bannon might argue that he's very, very important. He's spent an awful lot of time selling himself as a political prophet, if not quite a Sith Lord. "Dick Cheney. Darth Vader. Satan. That's power," he told Wolff in 2016 after Trump's victory during an interview in which he also said his new political movement would "get 60 percent of the white vote, and 40 percent of the black and Hispanic vote and we'll govern for 50 years" if Trumpism—or Bannonism—could "deliver."

At the time of that interview, Bannon's power was at its apex. The journalist Joshua Green's book Devil's Bargain has since described him as a sort of visionary, seeing a path to victory for Trump that no one else did. And it may be that he deserves some credit for embracing a scorched-earth strategy—a combination of economic populism and xenophobia with unhinged attacks on Hillary Clinton—that put a reality star in the White House. Certainly a lot of people, including many liberals, have given him the kind of man-behind-the-curtain attention he so obviously craves, with SNL going so far as to portray him as the Grim Reaper.

But since Trump's win, Bannon's record—and his portrayal in the press—has taken a nosedive. The most prominent candidate he's backed in a subsequent election, Roy Moore, managed to lose a Senate race in Alabama despite being on the Republican ticket. Similarly aggro Republicans also lost in Virginia and New Jersey this past November. The crop of anti-establishment challengers Bannon is currently supporting looks like a list of crackpots and literal ex-cons likely to flame out in general elections if any even get that far.

Strategists and politicians from the establishment wing of the Republican Party have been openly disparaging Bannon since Moore lost, and more and more conservatives seem to be abandoning him. The billionaire Mercer family, whose hedge fund wealth has historically helped finance his many operations, have reportedly dropped him. (He may have a new benefactor, a Chinese billionaire who has attacked his home country's corruption, which apparently makes him acceptable to a man who sees China as America's number-one threat.) On Thursday, right-wing media impresario Matt Drudge tweeted compliments about other Breitbart executives but not Bannon, a fairly obvious bit of shade. Even Alex Jones is going in: The Infowars host said on Thursday that Bannon looks like “he has organ failure” and “has been run over by a truck with dandruff all over him.”

Without Trump and the Mercers in his corner, Bannon doesn't have nearly the same kind of access to levers of power. Among the Trump base, he may not be especially popular or well known, either: An April poll from Quinnipiac found that 61 percent of Republicans, and 51 percent of whites without a college degree, still didn't know enough about him to have an opinion. (In all, Bannon's favorability was at 11 percent.) That doesn't bode well for his supposed political ambitions.

If Bannon is not forced out at Breitbart, a move the company's board is apparently debating, he'll be able to play some role in shaping the conversation on the hard right. But that website's vitriol hasn't proved effective at influencing policy or elections by itself—and with Bannon in Trump's doghouse, that doesn't seem likely to change. He'll pop up now and again in the news, because if there's one thing he's good at, it's appearing in headlines. But he's not the grim reaper anymore, if he ever was. He's just a guy with too many shirts.

Follow Harry Cheadle on Twitter.

A Very Metal Clown Was Arrested for Smuggling Drugs into Japan

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An extremely metal clown has been arrested in Tokyo.

To be more specific, the clown in the clink is Dicksee Diànno, aka a 44-year-old Vancouver musician named Daniel Whitmore, who is the lead singer of the clown-inspired Iron Maiden cover band Powerclown.

Like Icarus, it seems Whitmore flew a little too close to the sun.

The musician was arrested on December 11 in Tokyo's Narita International Airport. He was allegedly caught with a load of drugs worth more than $7 million, reported to be stimulants. To get the drugs past customs, Whitmore apparently used tea cannisters and his guitar case. According to the News of Japan, Whitmore was going to drop the drugs off at a hotel.

"I was supposed to carry a guitar case as requested by a Chinese-based person in Canada," News of Japan said Whitmore told police. "I was scheduled to deliver it to a hotel in Narita City."

A screenshot from a video showing the guitar case that Whitmore allegedly used to smuggle.

Whitmore faces up to 11 Wasted Years in a Japanese prison, which famously has a zero tolerance policy when it comes to drug charges. Two days before Whitmore was arrested, a Facebook post on his page—which is under the name Dan Scumm, another one of his alter-egos—seemed to hint at his actions:

“Are you an Asian drug dealer? Because you're bringing me down…”

Powerclown, which consists of Sketchy Clown, John Wayne Gary, Steve Hairlips, and Lippy Dongstalking, and fronted by Whitmore, is (if their webpage and numerous event pages are to be believed) made up up of members from several other well-known Vancouver punk bands like DOA, The Real McKenzies, and Death Sentence. While Dicksee—whose stage name is a reference to Maiden’s original lead singer Paul Di’Anno—was still Running Free, the band played shows for years including one as recently as just months ago.

Whitmore’s bandmates seem neither to be letting the alleged drug slinging clown off easy nor giving up on him. In a Facebook post put up by band member Sketchy Clown, they say the hope that they’ll see him “slide into his cock-pink pants and dance himself back home.”

“Flags are flying half mast at the Powerclown circus tent. I assure you, any frowns we are wearing are real. Painted on or not. All we can do is hope for the best for him,” reads the statement.

“Clownery and parlour tricks, whether by him or us ain't gonna do no good. Even with his voice, the voice of a songbird, and his velvet-painting-smooth charm, he won't be able to talk his way out of these hijinks, even if he did speak Japanese.”

It’s unknown if Whitmore will attempt to Run to the Hills or if he’ll be a Trooper and face the music.

Follow Mack Lamoureux on Twitter.

Colorado's 'Mad Pooper' Might Have a Number Two

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Back in September, a rogue jogger nicknamed the "Mad Pooper" descended on Colorado Springs and took dumps on people's lawns, ticking off the local residents and prompting a police investigation. Now, it looks like she might have a copycat a few states over with an equally intriguing codename: the "Shit Bandit."

According to FOX 16, Tiffany Mattzela of Little Rock, Arkansas, is the latest denizen to fall victim to a nefarious serial shitter. Just after she left her house last Saturday, she came across an abnormally large dookie by the passenger side of her car. Figuring some mammoth dog might be to blame, she and her fiancé checked their security footage to try to track down the beastly pooch behind the poop.

"When we did, we found it was not a dog," Mattzela told FOX 16. "It was a person who had been jogging down the street, ran up between our two cars, defecated, and ran away."

Just a few days later, the mysterious jogger struck again. On Wednesday, Mattzela went to open the door of her car when she found herself gripping a poop-stained paper towel that had been wrapped around the handle—what she believes was the sprinter's makeshift TP. Once again, her security cameras caught him in the act.

"I mean, it was vile," Mattzela said.

Mattzela posted about the turd terror in an online neighborhood group, where a handful of other Little Rock residents said they too had been subjected to his stinky wrath. She's since filed a complaint with the police.

"The neighborhood's calling him the Shit Bandit," Mattzela told FOX 16.

There's no telling if the Arkansas Shit Bandit is in leagues with Colorado's Mad Pooper, inspired by her brazen work, or just going above and beyond to score a year's supply of Charmin.

Follow Drew Schwartz on Twitter.

The 'Workaholics' Guys Made a Movie That's Basically 'Die Hard' with Shaggy

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The Workaholics guys may have finally climbed down off their roof now that the show has ended, but only to start zip-lining around high-rise hotels, apparently.

On Thursday, Netflix released the full trailer for Workaholics creators Adam Devine, Anders Holm, and Blake Anderson's first feature-length film together—and the thing is basically Die Hard but with the singer Shaggy instead of that one coked-out guy.

The movie—called Game Over, Man—was written by Holm and stars the trio as "three friends [who] are on the verge of getting their video game financed when their benefactor is taken hostage by terrorists" at a Los Angeles hotel, according to Netflix.

The dire situation apparently inspires the guys to dress up like waiters, sneak into the terrorist-laden hotel, and pull some John McClane stunts to save their financier... and Shaggy, because he's being held hostage, too. Yes, this Shaggy:

The two-and-a-half-minute trailer is full of blood splatter, machine guns, and Vin Diesel references, and is basically exactly what you'd expect from its Workaholics-in-Nakatomi Plaza premise. Plus, the fact that the movie's title is a nod to Bill Paxton in Aliens shows what kind of 80s action terrain Devine, Holm, and Anderson are dipping into for inspiration.

The action-comedy is produced by Superbad duo Seth Rogen and Evan Goldberg and directed by Workaholics co-creator Kyle Newacheck. It's slated to hit Netflix on Friday, March 23, and is just one of the many, many, many films that the streaming service will be cranking out in 2018.

Give the trailer a watch above and pray that Shaggy calls someone "bubby" at some point in the movie.


Does the Pilot of 'Entourage' Actually Suck?

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We open on quick cuts of a crowded Los Angeles street packed with women in low-rise
Abercrombie & Fitch jeans and skimpy halter-tops. There are no men on the street—like, not even one. Each shopping bag–toting woman is transfixed on one thing: Turtle, the round and fluffy dirtbag catcalling women and grazing their midriffs with his slimy hands. One car full of girls slows down to watch this majestic creature float into a restaurant with the grace of a sewer rat.

Played by Jerry Ferrara, Turtle is one of the four charming protagonists in HBO’s hit show
Entourage. The show debuted in 2004 and churned out eight seasons, as well as a nostalgia-filled feature film in 2015. For years, the show was the pinnacle of bro life and masculinity, and was hailed as must-see television for men. As a 2000s kid, I admittedly felt a twinge of sentimentality watching digital cameras and flip-phones flourish in the pilot. But as a gay woman breathing air in 2017, I found the toxic masculinity, homophobia, blatant misogyny, and aggressive rape culture to be gutting.

In the show’s first episode, there isn’t one fully dressed woman who speaks of anything besides insisting on being undressed further. This is the story of Entourage: While we loosely follow protagonist Vincent Chase (played by Adrian Grenier) pursuing fame and fortune, we’re mostly just watching four men hit on girls and “live the life.” In this show, the actual “business” is as unimportant as the women.

Turtle swaggers into a restaurant and joins Vince, Vince’s brother Johnny Drama (Kevin Dillon), and Vince’s best friend Eric, or “E” (Kevin Connolly). Two model-like women strut by and ask why they’re not invited to Vince’s movie premiere. Turtle quips, “Because you’re not hot enough.” Instead of being offended or disgusted by this crown jewel, they smile and effusively coo, “Good luck! Call us!”

They call E’s ex-girlfriend a “bitch.” They talk about Warren Beatty’s dick size (but not in a gay way). At Vince’s red carpet premiere, Turtle yelps, “Check out the tits on the girl from Extra.” Women are constantly and obsequiously begging our protagonists to grace them with their four-inch dicks. After Turtle serves his duty on “ass patrol,” the bros take a group of women back to Vince’s mansion to swim in lingerie.

Each man secures his takedown, but Turtle pleads with his girl, “C’mon, what I gotta do to get a little?” He reminds her that Vince has already disappeared with two other women and adds, “C’mon, let’s make out a little, and I’ll show you where Vince eats breakfast.” Given the current deluge of women outing predators, harassers, and rapists, it felt especially harrowing to watch our four “lovable” dudes freely coerce women into performing sexual favors that they don’t feel comfortable doing. In this show, not only are women objects robbed of personalities, they’re also prizes meant to be won or conquered. (Sexual assault is sometimes even reduced to a punchline: The next morning, while the dudes compare war stories, Turtle jokes about juggling his girl’s “speed bags” while she told him about the time her uncle touched her in the shower.)

Outside of treating women like garbage, the catalyst of this show is coolness. “Cool” is a currency in Entourage, and everyone’s trying to siphon it off one another. They hit golf balls off the roof, play basketball together, dress Turtle up in hockey gear and sic a foaming-at-the-mouth Rottweiler at him. There’s no shortage of evidence that these are cool, tough men. Vince is so noncommittal and chill that he doesn’t even care about his life or career. He demands that E make his decisions so he won’t have to (and later in the season, E becomes his manager).

There are real repercussions to television that brandish rape culture like a war medal—just ask Jeremy Piven, who played Vince’s vulgar and predatory agent, Ari Gold. For years, Piven and Entourage’s millions of male viewers were told this behavior was not only kosher—it was something to strive for. Late last year, Piven was accused of several alleged sexual assaults. If you’re still scratching your head as to why so many men think they can get away with serially harassing and assaulting women, Entourage is one of many examples to look toward.

Ten Questions You Always Wanted to Ask Someone Committed to a Psych Ward

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Back in 2005, Laurie Kramer wanted to kill herself, and she had a plan. That was enough for her psychiatrist to send her to the psychiatric ward of a hospital to stay for a week and a half of observation. The following year, during a manic-depressive episode, she was sent away for two weeks, this time to a facility devoted entirely to mental health.

Despite the recent inroads made in legitimizing and de-stigmatizing mental illness and those who suffer from it, the mysterious facilities in which these ailments are treated often still carry negative connotations. With pop-culture representations of these places rarely straying from the clichés of a spooky Victorian-era asylum filled with rusting bed frames and uncaring Nurse Ratcheds, it's not difficult to see why that may be.

I spoke with Kramer about her time in the psych wards to see what her experience was like, and if they're as bad as we've been lead to believe.

This interview has been edited for clarity and length.

Phillip and Laurie Kramer, their dogs, and Santa. Photo courtesy of the Kramers

VICE: What was a typical day like in the wards? Was it fun? Were you bored?
Laurie Kramer: You get up and change into clothes for the day, and then you make your bed, and then you have breakfast. Then there would be group therapy for a couple hours, and then you'd have lunch, and then you'd have more group therapy.

The second time, I didn't go to the group therapies. It wasn't really part of it. The ward was run differently, and attendance wasn't mandatory. I preferred that one because I hated group therapy. I didn't want to listen to all these people prattling.

At the second hospital, they had an arts-and-crafts room and a stationary bicycle. That would be the "fun time." But I was very, very bored all the time.

Could you leave any time you wanted? If not, when and how did you or the doctors know you were better enough to be released?
No, I couldn't. I was on a locked ward both times. You can't walk out until they clear you.

The first time, I was encouraged to attend the group therapy sessions. You got points for doing stuff, and going to the session got you points. And you wanted those points because they were what got you out.

The first stay, I really hated being there and wanted to get out. I think I did a pretty good job of explaining myself to the psychiatrist why I was ready to go. And I was a lot better, actually.

What eventually cured me, and has kept me sane for ten years now, is one particular anti-psychotic medication. Some day soon, genetic testing is going to make prescribing medications a lot easier, but for now it's just trial and error with dosage. Now I take two antidepressants and two anti-psychotics and that works for me. I took lithium for a while, but that had side effects that were pretty untenable.

While I was sick, I was seeing my psychiatrist once or twice a week. Then, after all that, I would see them every few weeks. Now, just every few months to check in.

Were you given shock therapy? If so, what does it feel like and do you think it helped?
I got ECT [electroconvulsive therapy] three times a week: Monday, Wednesday, and Friday. I had it for a couple weeks after I got out of the hospital, too.

You'd get on a bus and go across the street to this facility for day procedures. There were about six to eight of us who would go. You get changed and go lie down on a table. The anesthetist comes first and knocks you out, and then the psychiatrist comes and applies the electricity to your head. Out cold the whole time. No pain, no nothing.

Waking up, I was confused. And the more ECT I had, the more confused I would be.

It didn't help. It turns out, the first week, they gave me anti-seizure meds, which they sometimes used for psychiatric problems. And that was preventing me from having a seizure, which is the goal of ECT, to induce a seizure.

Were you ever in a straightjacket or padded cell?
No, but, at one point, I was put in four-point restraints. But I'll let my husband explain it because I don't remember any of it.

[Laurie's husband, Phillip, enters the conversation.]

Phillip Kramer: They called to tell me that she was quite agitated and they had her restrained and wanted to know if I wanted to come in. I'm a physician, so I did want to come in, which they seemed surprised by. By the time I got there, they only had her restrained at three points, allowing her one arm to be free. But she was still very agitated.

The room was not padded, though. It's essentially a comfortable bed with straps for the limbs. I've ordered that for a patient in the regular hospital. We try not to do that and there's all kinds of rules about it, but that's the closest thing to padded rooms these days.

Did you ever swap meds with other patients or pretend to swallow your pills to trick a nurse?
Laurie Kramer: Never did or saw anything like that. You have to do it in front of the nurses, and they watch you take it. I wasn't aware of anyone trying to stash it in their cheeks.

How severe were the other patients' conditions? Did you ever feel unsafe around them?
Some of the people there were quite sick. I wasn't well myself but... There were a lot of different characters, both times. There was one woman who was clearly psychotic.
Phillip Kramer: At the first hospital, the people I saw there, at any given time they seemed normal and could have a conversation with you. At the second hospital, you instantly knew something was wrong with them. They were in a different state and clearly mentally ill.
Laurie Kramer: I was too, though. I was much sicker that second time. I was having the ECT, which causes confusion. I don't know if I was ever psychotic, but I was delusional. I thought "they" were out to get me.

Were you able to make friends?
It was tricky. A lot of the other people in that ward weren't—how to put this—as smart as I am. The first time, I made friends with two or three of the women, and we really hit it off and were sort of a little clique there for the week.

The second time, I didn't really have someone I could call my friend. There were long days then.

Were there any lucid moments where you were able to see how your sanity was slipping or see the illness from a different perspective?
There was one time where I'd come back from ECT, and I was convinced it was doing nothing for me. I called Phillip and was screaming to him about how it wasn't helping, et cetera, and one of the nurses told me, "I don't like the way you talk to your husband." And it kinda hit me. This wasn't acceptable.

Were the orderlies or doctors ever abusive?
I haven't seen One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest, but I know enough about it to say that there was no abuse like that at all. The nurses and other practitioners I saw were pretty nice and understanding.

How do people react when they hear you've stayed in a mental hospital?
That's hard to say. Our friends know it.
Phillip Kramer: It's not as if anyone stopped being our friends or anything. You usually don't tell someone something like this until they've known you a while and, the fact is, Laurie is a perfectly normal so their reactions, if they even have any, are of surprise.

Follow Justin Caffier on Twitter.

Painting the Pain and Beauty of Black Life

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Presenting one gallery show at a time is challenge enough for most artists, but this fall the painter Nina Chanel Abney opted for two. “It was a good opportunity to make a huge statement with all the work, so I pushed and I got it done,” she said, laughing. “But I really don’t know how.” The exhibits— Seized the Imagination, at New York’s Jack Shainman Gallery, and Safe House, just a few blocks north at Mary Boone Gallery—were two halves of a whole. Taken together, they formed side-by-side portraits of black American life.

The works in Seized were just as kinetic as the show’s title suggests, picking up on themes of racialized violence, police brutality, and information overload that have long been present in Abney’s work. The paintings depict near-constant conflict, with culled-from-the-headlines imagery recalling brutal police interactions. These frenzied works bombard viewers with disjointed and sometimes contradictory suggestions, creating a visual language that’s as endless and overwhelming as scrolling through Twitter.

The paintings in Safe House at Mary Boone were the antidote. Their figures—all black, as opposed to the interracial brawlers of Seized—engage in leisure and domestic activities. They depict black life as it exists outside of the headlines. And as Seized used the visual language of the social media era, Safe House drew on another medium particular to its time: occupational safety posters from the 1960s. Though the specter of postwar American supremacy is most fawningly invoked by those who would make the country great again, by adapting the posters and turning them into vehicles for black joy, Abney was re-appropriating conservative nostalgia.

The author (left) and artist Nina Chanel Abney (right) at Mary Boone Gallery

Abney has never shied away from politics. Her first major work, which earned her gallery representation, was a race-swapped group portrait of her Parsons School of Design MFA graduating class, in which she was the lone black student. She painted her classmates as black prison inmates, with Abney herself as their blonde, white guard. But as political tensions have heightened, impelling artists and public figures of all kinds to frequent and direct political messaging, Abney now takes a more oblique approach to social commentary, raising countless questions and answering almost none of them. It’s both fascinating and infuriating. In a time that’s left us begging for guidance and certainty, Abney offers only a mirror.

VICE visited Seized the Imagination and Safe House with Abney late last year to discuss race, painting politics, and creating a visual language for the emoji era.

Nina Chanel Abney, Untitled, 2017. From Seized the Imagination at Jack Shainman

VICE: You’ve described your process as intuitive—is that still the case?
Abney: That’s still the case—none of these [paintings] were planned out ahead of time, so it’s all intuitive. I feel like I work intuitively because if I planned it out ahead of time I’d be bored. So I feel like it keeps me interested in the work as I’m making it. That’s pretty much why I just go for it, so I keep myself challenged. Like I don’t plan any of the paintings out, but I at least come up with a general idea of what I want to make a painting about.

Does that idea evolve while you work?
I usually stay under the general main idea, but as I’m working, anything could happen in the work, which I like because it keeps it very current. So that’s how I can make a painting where something that could have happened two weeks ago is in the work.



How are the works in these two simultaneous shows related?
I found an artist who makes fake art therapy books. And the title of one of his pieces is How to Feel the Way You Felt Before You Knew What You Know Now. So [the show at Jack Shainman] is the chaos of what you know now, and the work at Mary Boone’s is kind of like how you felt before.

We could leave here, one of us could get pulled over by the cops, and it could instantly be an incident. But then after that, where would you go? You might go work out the next day. [The Mary Boone paintings are] just more reflective of our day-to-day—that we have these chaotic things happening, but we have these things from our daily life that occur in between.

Nina Chanel Abney, White River Fish Kill, 2017. From Seized the Imagination at Jack Shainman
The author (left) and artist Nina Chanel Abney (right) at Jack Shainman

It feels like sometimes there are snippets of familiar scenes in your paintings, like White River Fish Kill has imagery that recalls the incident when a black girl in Texas was slammed to the ground by police. She was at a pool party in her swimsuit at the time.
Out of all the paintings, this is the one where I took the actual image and then switched out the figures. I typically do that to kind of take it away from what it was initially.

The cops are black in your painting.
Yeah.

You’ve talked about the struggles of painting black figures, which are so often read to be inherently political in the art world. How do you deal with that?
That’s why I work the way I do, where I switch out the [races]. I will mix genders, race, and figures. Just to broaden the story, so just because this person’s black, you don’t just assume one set story to the painting.

I’m always trying to expand people’s minds beyond one set definition. What I’ve learned is that a lot of people want to view a painting, and they want the answer right away. So I’m constantly trying to figure out ways to challenge that.

Nina Chanel Abney, detail of Untitled, 2017. From Seized the Imagination at Jack Shainman
Nina Chanel Abney, Request One Zero One, 2017. From Safe House at Mary Boone Gallery
Nina Chanel Abney, detail of Untitled, 2017. From Seized the Imagination at Jack Shainman

What’s the relationship between your work and social media?
The way I paint now is really driven by social media and how we take in information now. I try to reflect that chaos. We take in so many different things at one time: you scroll down your timeline, someone died, and you’re like, “Oh, that’s sad.” And then you go down and your friend’s at a party, and you’ve forgotten about that previous post in a second. So I wanted my paintings to kind of reflect all of that information in one spot.

And since you work in one of art’s most revered mediums, we’re forced to consider your work in a way that’s almost the opposite of social media—entering a gallery space, meditating on it.
Yeah. I felt like if we had to sit down for a minute and really actually process the information, what would that be like? So if I can present it in a way that makes it feel like one narrative, it forces us to consider what all this means together.

Nina Chanel Abney, Penny Dreadful, 2017. From Seized the Imagination at Jack Shainman
Installation view of Safe House at Mary Boone Gallery
Nina Chanel Abney, All These Flavors and you choose to be salty, 2017. From Seized the Imagination at Jack Shainman

You’ve said that you’re interested in emojis. Is that still true?
Oh yeah, for sure. All the symbols and things I use in the work. Another way of me challenging one defined answer is in creating a shape or something that could mean multiple things depending on who’s looking at it.

Are you trying to create a visual language that’s as universal as emojis are?
I’m just trying to create a language that’s simplified, where anyone can come into the show from any background and read into the work in a way that they can relate to, just like an emoji.

Given the political climate, do you feel any responsibility to communicate anything specific to audiences?
I’m not trying to dictate any specific message to the viewer. I obviously have my opinions on the things that are happening, but I at least just want to start a conversation around it. Someone could send me negative feedback based on what the subject matter is, and that’s OK. It doesn’t mean I agree with it, but at least... I welcome all opinions.

Seized the Imagination was on view at Jack Shainman Gallery through December 20. Safe House was at Mary Boone Gallery through December 22. Learn more about Nina Chanel Abney on her website.

Follow Gabrielle on Twitter.

In Prison, It's Hard to Tell if You're Dying or Just Depressed

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This article was published in collaboration with the Marshall Project.

Again?" replied my cellie, Jay, after I asked him to step out for the third time in 90 minutes so l could use the toilet.

"My doctor says it's normal," I insisted.

Actually, I don't feel normal. I'm always tired, no matter how much sleep I get. Last week, I nodded off at a meeting—even though I was outside and standing up. My mouth and eyes always feel dry, despite my drinking 100 ounces of water a day. My bowel movements, according to what I learned on an episode of Dr. Oz, could indicate cancer. (I don't have internet access, so yeah, I watch Dr. Oz for medical advice on a personal 15-inch TV.)

Sometimes, I wake up in the middle of the night with cramps in my calves. I occasionally get electric shock-type feelings in my toes. I have sciatica that never fully healed, and there is a bump on the base of my lower spine that stinks. Plus I have Raynaud’s disease, which means less blood circulates to my fingers and toes when it gets cold.

Also, my blood pressure charts around 88 over 65, though the nurses say that's a good thing.



The doctors who work for the California Department of Corrections and Rehabilitation say my problems aren't life threatening or even medical. All my blood and urine tests read normal, so they think my issues are mental, maybe caused by depression.

In so many words, the doctors have called me a hypochondriac.

I don't feel like a hypochondriac, though. Yeah, maybe I am a little depressed, but who in prison isn't? That's the nature of this place—it's sad. But it's also unhealthy: The prison largely serves and sells processed foods, and they keep us in cages.
How can I eat like this for over a decade, sleep on a thin mattress over a metal bunk, and still be healthy?

Or maybe I am paranoid. I remember how it felt to walk past the poster in North Block, the one that had the faces of the men who died here from old age or natural causes, all within the same year. As I stood before them, noticing how young some were, I thought about what it would be like to die with the last thing I saw being prison bars, guards, and my failures.

Any one of those men could have been me. I am 47, with at least another 13 years to serve. I, too, could die behind bars, alone, 3,000 miles from my family back home in New York.

That’s why I need to know if I’m crazy or if medical is missing something. I need answers, whether for peace of mind or to save my life. But how do I get information from inside this system?

I have complained about my slowly worsening health issues since 2003. With every new symptom, I file a request to see the doctor and jump through hoops to get an appointment. At least seven of them have said the same thing: I'm healthy. I don't believe it, though, because I don't trust the system to care about the quality of life of a man convicted of murder.

I don't want to end up like the guy in West Block in 2015. They say he went to medical complaining of chest pains. He was sent back to his cell. Hours later, we heard he died of a heart attack.

I also need to take care of myself to have some kind of quality of life on the outside. I want to go home able to make up for missing my sons’ whole lives—by being the best grandfather ever. I will teach my grandchildren how to play basketball while my boys take their wives to see Broadway shows I’ve bought them tickets to. I don't want to endure decades of miserable conditions just to die among strangers who don't care about me—or go home with a chronic condition just to be a continuing burden on my family.

I saw on Dr. Oz that cleanses help, so I tried one with the only food I had access to that qualified: apples. For three days, I held up the line on the way out of the chow hall, stopping by the kitchen worker passing out the fruit. Ignoring strange looks from fellow inmates, I took away four apples at a time.

I had to stretch out the apples through each day, watching the minutes tick by until my next scheduled snack. It was voluntary torture. At the two-and-a-half-day mark, they served hamburgers in the chow hall, and I decided to forget Dr. Oz and bite into some meat.

I felt lighter after the two days of cleansing, but all my symptoms remained. Next, following my doctor's advice, I went to see the mental health department, hoping to rule out hypochondria.

On the day of my appointment, I checked in with the officer at the desk.

“Have a seat," he said.

I went over to a knee-high metal bench and sat in a room packed with men. I thought to myself, Damn, there are a lot of people seeking mental health help in here… I felt like I was at the DMV.

After about 15 minutes, an older lady with short hair and brown eyes called my name. I followed her through a maze of corridors to a small office, where she signaled me to sit in one of two chairs.

"So your doctor referred you here," she said.

"Yeah, they think I'm a hypochondriac."

"Why do they think that?"

I told her. We talked for about 30 minutes.

She asked about my family, my job, my general feelings and my odds of going home. I told her that my mother just visited in July, my writing career was going well, and, with upcoming changes in the law, I could be home earlier than expected. My only complaint was being incarcerated.

She said it sounded like I had a mild case of depression. She advised coming back to mental health to see someone on a regular basis.

I agreed, albeit while disappointed that getting to the bottom of this wouldn't happen in a day, and headed back to my cell.

"What they say at mental health?" Jay asked.

"They said I'm not crazy."

Jay laughed and said, "I guess you have to use the bathroom."

"My doctor says it's normal," I replied, and we both laughed.

The next day, after jumping down off my bunk, I noticed that the bottom of my left foot hurt. I sat down on the toilet, took off my sock and looked at it, and saw a purple growth under the skin.

This time I didn't report the problem.

Rahsaan Thomas is a 47-year-old inmate at San Quentin State Prison in San Quentin, California. He is serving a 15-year-to-life sentence for second-degree murder, with a 35-year enhancement for using a firearm. He shot and killed two men he says were armed and stealing property from him.

Australia Would Only Last a Week at War, Apparently

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Incoming Liberal Senator Jim Molan, a former senior military officer, has warned Australian forces would be rendered “impotent” within days by the absence of fuel and missile stocks if the country was blockaded or attacked.

Australia is one of just a few places that don't have government-mandated strategic reserve of fuel, Molan told the ABC. “There are things that we can probably never build in this country, such as the Joint Strike Fighter [an attack aircraft development and acquisition program] and the most advanced missiles.

"But we should guarantee their delivery to Australia, which you can rarely do, or we should have them in warehouses.”

Molan, in his senior officer days, was the chief of operations for coalition forces in Iraq. He then went on to drive "Operation Sovereign Borders" under the Abbott Government, which stopped asylum seekers reaching the mainland.

With an unsurprisingly healthy appetite for increased defence spend, Molan also warned that the United States would not necessarily be there to lend a hand. Writing in The Australian, he said:

“We have an expectation (not a right or guarantee) that the US will come to our aid in an extreme scenario. There seem to be very strong grounds to question that expectation and to adjust our defence policy accordingly while remaining the staunchest of US allies.

“But still we need to defend our national interests independently. In particular, we need to address our critical vulnerabilities around fuel security and high-end weapons holding. Without doing so, we could be reduced to impotence in less than a week.”

Last year, according to the Stockholm International Peace Research Institute, Australia's defence spend was $USD 24.3 billion. The country announced $30 billion in additional spending in the next decade in the 2016 White Paper, meeting the two percent GDP target urged by Trump on NATO allies.

Molan believes this may not be enough, however: “You can’t just hit two per cent and achieve military perfection," he said.

The Conservatives Kicked a Senator Out of Caucus for Publishing Racist Letters

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Conservative Senator Lynn Beyak has been kicked out of the party’s caucus for publishing racist letters defending residential schools on her individual senator website.

Beyak has previously said “remarkable works” that came out of the residential school system responsible for the deaths of thousands of Indigenous children are often “overshadowed by negative reports.” She has posted around 100 letters from Canadians who support residential schools to her senate website.

One letter claims other minority groups in Canada were likely “envious of the pampered aboriginals [sic] that got free school, free food, free housing and that still wasn’t good enough.” It goes on to say “it seems every opportunistic culture, subsistence hunter/gatherers seek to get what they can for no effort.”

In a statement issued Thursday, Conservative party leader Andrew Scheer said “to suggest that Indigenous Canadians are lazy compared to other Canadians, is simply racist." He said he demanded Beyak remove the offensive content from her website but she refused.

“As a result of her actions, the Conservative Senate Leader Larry Smith and I have removed Senator Lynn Beyak from the Conservative National Caucus.”

Conservative Party spokesman Jake Enwright tweeted that Beyak was fired over her actions, not as a result of her refusal to remove the posts. He said the party was made aware of the letters two days ago, despite the fact that it’s been the source of social media backlash for at least a week.

NDP leader Jagmeet Singh called for Beyak’s resignation.

“Senator Beyak’s attempts to justify her racist comments on residential schools are disgusting. She has once again failed to live up to basic ethical standards as a senator. I call on all leaders to stand up & demand her resignation,” he tweeted Thursday.

In 2008, former Prime Minister Stephen Harper issued an apology for the residential school system, which stripped Indigenous children from their homes in an attempt to assimilate them and exposed them to widespread physical and sexual abuse. However, the apology did not include five schools in Newfoundland and Labrador. In November, Prime Minister Justin Trudeau issued an apology to former students of those five schools, saying “The kind of thinking that led to the establishment of the residential school system and left deep scars for so many has no place in our society. It was unacceptable then and it is unacceptable now.”

Canada operated around 130 residential schools with approximately 150,000 students in total.

Follow Manisha on Twitter.

This Japanese Comedian Celebrated New Year's in Blackface

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Here's some proof that 2018 is exhausting already: On a Japanese TV show's New Year special, comedian Masatoshi Hamada wore blackface to portray Eddie Murphy in Beverly Hills Cop. Suffice to say, it caused quite an uproar.

In light of the current controversy, Desus and Mero delved into other moments in Japan's pop-culture history where celebrities thought blackface was A-OK—like when pop group Momoiro Clover Z dressed up as "The Tempura-tations" (according to Mero).

You can watch the latest episode of Desus & Mero for free online now, and be sure to catch new episodes weeknights at 11 PM on VICELAND.


How I Lost My Camgirl Virginity

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I started just over six years ago. It was the October after I had turned 18. I did a lot of artistic modeling and stuff like that from the time I was 15. It was kind of a natural progression for me; being in front of the camera was something I always loved.

When I turned 18, I did some nude photoshoots. I found a couple of sites I could sell the photos on online. On one of the sites I was selling them on, they offered video chat as well as the ability to sell videos. So it went from selling my nudes on the internet, to doing live shows and making videos. It kind of snowballed from there to taking me where I am now.

Doing photos and stuff like that, you can delete the ones you don’t like or edit it. When I first starting camming, I had no idea what angles looked good on cam or what to expect. There’s always that worry: What if they don’t like me? What if I do something wrong? The apprehensions are there when it comes to self-esteem.

The biggest thing I always tell girls who are interested in doing this: First off, never ever get into this industry if you have any qualms about people finding you. They will find you, you will be outed. There’s no hiding it. You can put a fake name, you can wear a mask—it doesn’t matter what you do, someone will find you. If you’re not comfortable with everyone in your life seeing you naked, don’t do it. Once it’s out on the internet, it’s there forever, and there’s no taking it down.

I tried to keep everything on the down-low when I first started. One of my exes actually took a bunch of screencaps of my cam show within like a week of me starting. I never really had the opportunity to make a decision as to whether or not I wanted to be found out. He sent screenshots to my mom, everyone I went to high school with, my friends.

I did a podcast about being worried about people finding you, and the takeaway was this: If you want to be a successful camgirl and make the kind of money that makes being a camgirl worth it, you have to promote yourself to the point where everyone can see you. If you are afraid of being caught, you will never be successful in this industry, so it’s not even worth it.

Once you’re past that, do a ton of research. There’s a bunch of of camgirl forums out there that are super-welcoming: Amber Cutie’s Forum, StripperWeb.com, WeCamGirls. Once you have a good grasp on how everything works and you’ve decided what site to join, start and put as many hours in as possible. You won’t know how to do it unless you’ve done it.

My first-ever cam show was a one-on-one session. It was so nerve-wracking because I had no idea what he wanted to see, how to position myself properly. I was a mess, and it was so, so awkward, but I powered through it.

It was actually a cam-to-cam show, which totally threw me for a loop. It took me by surprise that I was able to see him. He knew it was my first time, so he got the exclusivity of taking my cam virginity in a way. I had no lighting, I had the shittiest webcam of all time, just like built into my laptop. I was on my kitchen floor just watching this guy jerking off just sitting there with no idea what to do. I just waited for his instructions, did a little teasing—but I didn’t really do anything unless he asked for it. I literally just sat there and was like, “What do you wanna see?”

I remember exactly what I was wearing my first time: It was a red-and-black bra and panty set from La Senza, and I had it forever. I’ve never been one for crazy lingerie. It was the cutest thing I owned, so I put it on—but it came off pretty quickly. The show was about ten to 15 minutes.

Dahlia Dee at the start of her camming career (left) and now. Photos submitted

He actually became a long-time regular client of mine for a while. He liked me to sit weird places and masturbate for him: “Oh, sit on your stove” or like “Sit on your washing machine.” That was kind of his thing.

My first group chat was much longer. That was a totally different experience. I wasn’t prepared for that at all. I wasn’t prepared to entertain a whole room full of people.

My first night I had a cute bra and panty set on, just sitting in my living room. I was so, so amateur and awkward. What am I doing? This is the worst idea ever. I had 200 to 300 people in my room watching and talking. It was so overwhelming.

That kind of got me hooked. Having all these people in the room admiring you, telling you how attractive you are—it really makes you feel good, and then you want to keep doing it. That was where my addiction to camming came in. I decided I wanted to do this for the rest of my life. I never found another job I enjoyed as much as hanging out with a bunch of people on the internet.

I was online for six hours. I started around 8 or 9 PM and didn’t sign off until early morning. That’s average for a camgirl on sites like that, to stay on for six to nine hours, a typical shift. It takes that long for people to come into the room, start contributing to a goal. My first goal was a basic masturbation show. There’s a bunch of people watching instead of just one, but it really gives you the opportunity to show off and do what you want to do, whereas a one-on-one show, you have to listen to what the other person wants.

We hit goal in those six hours. It was around $200, super low, super easy. I had no idea—back then, $200 to me was like, oh my gosh, I just made so much money. Now, I’ll do a whole bunch of goals: my first will be a topless goal for $50, a bottomless goal for another $50, then there’ll be another goal for, say, a dancing or twerking show ($100), and then another goal for a cum show would be $200. My goal at the end of the night now is to make way more than the $200 I did when I first started.

It’s honestly the best feeling in the world. Clearing goal and having all these people tell you, “OMG, you’re so gorgeous!” really swells your ego. Then knowing you made money on top of that, it’s an addictive feeling. It’s one of the reasons many camgirls end up crashing and hating the industry. You chase that high. You do all these shows, and if you don’t hit that goal and feel that way again after you sign off, it’s disappointing. You keep trying. You’re eternally chasing that feeling. It’s indescribable.

I think every camgirl knows the feeling of just blowing a show out of the water. We can all sort of relate to that. Not everyone’s first show was successful in their eyes, but every girl has had at least one of those shows where they’re like, “I nailed it.”

In my first group cam show, I didn’t have music on at first until someone suggested it. They were like, “Hey, when you’re not talking, it’s awfully quiet in here. You should have some background music.” The members of the site really helped to shape the show because, being in all these rooms, they knew what they were doing. They were offering me constructive criticism, helping me figure out how to work the site, what buttons do. I was really lucky to have a sweet group of people who helped me put on a good show. I probably would have been completely eff’d without them.

There’s definitely a recurring theme in camming, though: You have the trolls who have nothing better to do but sit in their mom’s basement and make fun of girls on the internet. That’s their thing. There are guys who make accounts just to rip girls apart and say mean things or try to scam people. When I started, I was a lot more tolerant. You’re kind of scared about pissing people off, so you put up with a lot more than you should. At this point, the ban button is my best friend. But at first, it’s hard, and you really try to put up with it. That mentality definitely goes away.

I didn’t feel like I knew exactly what I was doing until two years in. I went to a convention in Toronto, the Everything to Do with Sex Show. They had a setup with a bunch of girls, and we were camming from there. At that point, I was like, I got this. I’m super profesh. But up until that point, because you don’t have coworkers to meet in person and bounce ideas off of and see what they’re doing, you don’t really have that feedback. You just feel like you have no clue what you’re doing.

After I had done it for a couple of years, once I built up enough of a fanbase and was making more from camming than my vanilla job, I decided to do it full-time and put all my eggs in one basket. I’ve been doing that for the past four years or so. Realizing I still love it after all this time has made me see that I don’t want to stop doing this. Whether I end up more in a producing, directing, or a mentoring position, I just love this industry. I love everybody in it, and I like everything it stands for. On the sites I cam on, there’s women who are like 80, 90 years old who are camming, so I’m like, I could do this forever. Everyone likes something different, and these women are a niche that guys are into. People are like, “Oh, once you get to a certain age, you won’t be able to do this anymore.” And it’s like, au contraire, yes I could. Now that I know it’s possible, I’m going for it.

Dahlia Dee is giving a presentation on getting into the porn industry on January 23 at 9 PM at Oasis Aqualounge in Toronto. Follow her on Twitter .

Watching 'The X-Files' Stoned Is the Only Good Thing About 2018

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Peer pressure is bad, but if you took issue with the premiere episode of The X Files's 11th season, you should probably get high and chill. I’m not telling you that you have to partake to enjoy it, but watching Mulder and Scully fumble around in the dark with some flashlights whilst chonged on a bobo is one of the last minor American luxuries that everyone can enjoy.

In a world where nuclear war feels less like a threat and more like a GCal invite I have yet to reply to, the fact that there are new episodes of The X-Files blows fresh, THC-laden air into my lifelong commitment to turning on, tuning in, and dropping out. It’s the closest I’ll probably ever get to the feeling of renewing my wedding vows, only my partner in sickness and in health takes the form of two mid-level government employees fighting against a galactic alien conspiracy. The show's an 11-season love story told through off-hand glimpses, with as many inconceivable twists and turns in 52 minutes as there are in a year of the current White House. You’re not gonna watch that high?

Seriously, the only logical reason I can come up with for why us reefer heads are hell-bent on ingesting weapons-grade THC percentages is to make watching things like The X-Files even more entertaining. Whether or not it’s a gateway to other things, you simply cannot deny its influence over generations of open minds—weed, I mean. But did you know there’s also a strain of weed called X-Files? Yeah. The X-Files is weed. And there are people who hate weed so much they want to destroy it. It’s messed up!

When The X-Files returned after a 13-year hiatus, it was less a gift for fans of the show's story than it was for fans of a certain—dare I say psychoactive—approach to storytelling. It's a universe imbued with depth not through plot but through truly three-dimensional characters. Manipulating the way you tell it allows your audience to glimpse the magical: See The Twilight Zone’s “Twenty-Two,” Breaking Bad’s “Fly,” and The X-Files’s own “Monday” for unforgettable examples of style slam-dunking on popular conceptions of substance—and well-executed style often comes from people who are relaxed, if you get my drift.

On the other hand, you have the utterly un-stonerly self-seriousness that means Jon Snow can’t go wight-hunting without cheapening all of Westeros. Even Eleven can’t have her “trip to the big city” episode without lifting veil on the illusion that Stranger Things is more than a hundred-million-dollar ad for a “retro-inspired new arrivals” collection at your mall’s alt-department store. In an era where more Americans everyday actually believe the earth is flat, we need TV that gets as high as we do.

The best part about pot is that it makes plot holes less pressing than possibilities, and that’s why I’ll be watching the new season of The X-Files—the show that is weed, way higher than an earthbound It balloon. And if you’re the type who'd rather argue on the ship than take a spacewalk, suit yourself: You didn’t want to believe in the first place.

A Twitter Joke Convinced People Trump Watches the 'Gorilla Channel' All Day

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Revelations from Michael Wolff's new book on Trump, Fire and Fury, have been dominating headlines all week as reporters sift through its dysfunctional, bizarre portrait of the White House. Ahead of its release Friday, @pixelatedboat—a parody Twitter account—posted a fake excerpt from the book all about the president's unquenchable desire to watch "the gorilla channel."

The joke, of course, went viral. It's one of @pixelatedboat's go-to bits: writing fake, goofy-ass tirades and posting them as if celebrities actually said them. But next to all the other bizarre stories from Wolff's book, the excerpt apparently didn't seem too unbelievable for some Twitter users.

Wolff dredged up a lot of absurd stuff that he claims he witnessed over a year at the White House. Apparently Trump doesn't let his maids touch his toothbrush for fear of being poisoned. Jared Kushner reportedly offered to marry Mika Brzezinski and Joe Scarborough, claiming he was an "internet Unitarian minister." And once, when an aide was trying to explain the Constitution to Trump, he allegedly got too bored to make it past the Fourth Amendment. That's probably why many thought the gorilla channel spoof came straight out of Fire and Fury's pages.

After way too many people started taking @pixelatedboat's tweet at face value, the account changed its name to "the gorilla channel thing is a joke" in an effort to clear things up.

Maybe it's time we all get off the internet, check out a copy of Fire and Fury, and try to separate fact from fiction ourselves—a task that might not be so easy, considering the thing is selling out faster than you can say "the way you hit that other gorilla was good."

Follow Drew Schwartz on Twitter.

Former Green Party Candidate Arrested For Hate Speech in Germany

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On the surface Monika Schaefer looks every part the archetypal hippy-dippy Green Party candidate.

However, if you dig a little deeper you’ll find that what exists at her core isn’t just folksy fiddle playin’ and patchouli but also some intense conspiratorial anti-Semitism. This vocal Holocaust denial has netted Schaefer an online following, an Albertan hate crime complaint and, just recently, a reported arrest in Germany for inciting hate.

Schaefer—who ran federally for the Green Party in 2006, 2008, and 2011 in Alberta’s Yellowhead riding—first gained infamy in 2016 by releasing a video called “Sorry Mom, I was wrong about the Holocaust.” In the video Schaefer, a violin teacher by trade, shreds the fiddle before going into a diatribe about how the Holocaust is the “most pernicious and persistent lie in all of history.” The Green Party quickly cut ties with Schaefer after her views came to light.

Monika Schaefer in her infamous 2016 video. Photo via YouTube screenshot.

Schaefer’s arrest was first caught by B'nai Brith Canada, a Jewish Canadian activist group, who, on Thursday, put out a statement saying they have confirmed her arrest.

"German officials should be commended for taking action against Holocaust denial," said chief executive officer of B'nai Brith Canada, Michael Mostyn. "We will continue to work, even across borders, to ensure that racism and bigotry find no haven in Canada."

Schaefer was apparently in Germany visiting her brother, and fellow Holocaust denier, Alfred Schaefer so she could view the trial of Sylvia Stolz. Stolz is an infamous German Holocaust denier who has been previously jailed for openly denying the genocide—it is illegal to deny the Holocaust in Germany and carries a punishment of three months to five years in prison.

In an open letter, Alfred Schaefer, Monika’s brother and fellow Holocaust denier, also confirmed that his sister was arrested (VICE will not be linking to the open letter). In the letter Alfred writes that Schaefer was arrested in connection with her “Sorry Mom, I was wrong about the Holocaust” video—however, the exact details surrounding her arrest are still unclear. Schaefer said that Monika was arrested during a break in the Stolz trial and is attempting to start a letter writing campaign.

“What has angered the Jews is the fact that this one little video has undone hundreds of millions of dollars worth of their psychological warfare that most of us had become victims of,” reads a particularly egregious passage from the open letter.

“They thought that their ridiculous ‘Holocaust’ program was now firmly wired into our brains, and then, along comes Monika and blows it out of the water with a simple apology to her Mom. That really surprised them.”

Since the posting of the video, Schaefer was able to transform herself from an unknown political candidate to one of western Canada’s most recognizable Holocaust deniers and has thoroughly embraced her infamy. In the past two years she has collaborated with another well-known Albertan conspiracy theorist in University of Lethbridge professor Anthony Hall and, if that wasn’t enough, she also seemingly headlined a 2016 event put on by the Calgary chapter of the white supremacist group Blood and Honour.

Furthermore, this isn’t the first time that Schaefers have dealt with German hate laws. In late 2016, Alfred Schaefer, who lives in Germany, was investigated for making similar comments as his sister and faces similar charges. Alfred is a prolific YouTuber focussed on memes who has, in the past, called Jewish people “parasites,” and praised Hitler.

Both Schaefer’s online following and her brother have, unsurprising, taken to blaming the Jews for her arrest.

Follow Mack Lamoureux on Twitter.

Armed Neo-Nazi Attempted Terror Attack on Amtrak Train, FBI Says

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A member of a neo-Nazi group is facing terrorism charges after allegedly stopping an Amtrak train armed with a loaded handgun and other weapons, according to newly unsealed federal court documents.

The FBI claims that the 26-year-old Missouri man, Taylor Michael Wilson, broke into a restricted area of the cross-country train back in October and pulled the emergency brake in an alleged attempt to derail it. According to the criminal complaint, the train was jolted to a halt in rural Nebraska, and Amtrak staff restrained Wilson as he yelled phrases like, "I'm the conductor, bitch," and attempted to reach inside his waistband.

When authorities finally arrived at the scene and arrested Wilson, they found a loaded .38 caliber handgun tucked in his pants and a nearby backpack containing more ammunition, a knife, and a face mask, the Lincoln Journal Star reports.

Wilson was also carrying a business card for one of the largest active neo-Nazi groups in the country—the National Socialist Movement—and had white supremacist materials and "a series of individual PDF files, each with a skill related to killing people," on his phone, FBI special agent Monte Czaplewski wrote in the affidavit.



"The described documents are possessed and utilized by individuals and groups attempting or planning to commit criminal act or acts of terrorism or violence," Czaplewski added.

When authorities searched Wilson's home in Missouri, they found a hidden compartment behind his refrigerator filled with a cache of weapons, ammo, handmade body armor, and white supremacist documents, the St. Louis Post-Dispatch reports.

An acquaintance who knew Wilson also told authorities that the 26-year-old had "expressed an interest in 'killing black people'" and was a part of the recent neo-Nazi protests in Charlottesville, Virginia. According to the Dispatch, he's also been linked to two alleged hate crimes—a road rage incident in which he pointed a gun at a black woman while driving, and pasting "whites only" stickers at a local St. Louis restaurant.

After undergoing a court-ordered competency evaluation following his arrest, Wilson was approved to stand trial. He's been charged with an attempted terrorist attack and is currently being held in federal custody without bail.

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