Quantcast
Channel: VICE CA
Viewing all 38002 articles
Browse latest View live

Our Favorite Videos of People Embarrassing Themselves at the Oscars

0
0

Photo via Flickr user Doug Kline

The Academy Awards is my favorite day of the year here in Los Angeles. It's without a doubt the coolest event in the world that takes place inside a shopping mall, even cooler than the "Rock the Mall" series at Sierra Vista Mall, in Clovis, Calfornia, and LA Fashion Week at the Grove. Since I've never gone to the Academy Awards, and I can't confirm whether or not Wetzel's Pretzels is open during the event, but I like to stay up daydreaming about Brad Pitt grabbing a Sinful Cinnamon with a side of caramel dipping sauce befor the show starts.

Of course, copping a treat could lead to an awkward situation. You could spill caramel on your tux. The camera could catch you with pretzel in your teeth. You might get stuck in line and miss your name being called. The Oscars are watched by millions of people every year, and any slip-up—pretzel-related or otherwise—could be devastating to your reputation. Nevertheless, some people don't care and throw caution to the wind, staying true to their wacky personal brand (or drug-induced mania), even in their greatest moment of professional triumph. In honor of those brave souls who just don't give a damn, here are some of the most cringe-worthy moments in Oscar history.

–Anna Paquin's first taste of the spotlight came thanks to her Best Supporting Actress win for The Piano, in 1994. I feel bad making fun of her for her stunningly ugly outfit, since she was at the tender age of 11 when she won, and it wasn't really her fault she cosplayed as the Old Lady Who Lives in a Shoe: The Early Years. It was her parents' fault for dressing her as if Whoopi Goldberg from Star Trek: The Next Generation and Kevin Costner in Waterworld had a baby that resembled a slightly uglier Olsen twin. MEMO TO ANNA PAQUIN'S PARENTS: She still hates you for making her wear an Irish peasant dress from the 25th century on the most important day of her life.

–The Best Original Song award is the real wild card of the night. Prince and Eminem have won, and Ray Parker Jr., Matt Stone and Trey Parker, Dolly Parton, Counting Crows, Elliot Smith, Jon Bon Jovi, and Sting (three times!) have all been nominated. And no one can ever take that away from any of them; "Academy Award nominee Ray Parker Jr." does not give a shit you think he's a joke as long as you play the theme from Ghostbusters at least once every Halloween.

Anything goes in this category, and thank God for that, because Three 6 Mafia has an Oscar. The group responsible for the best song ever about drinking cough medicine for fun has an Oscar. That's not embarrassing on its surface, but when you watch this video and peel back the layers, you see that something is very amiss. Was "3/6M" an inside job? Probably not, but...

First of all, Queen Latifah presenting the award is almost too perfect. She's also a hip-hop artist who was nominated for an Oscar. Secondly, why are they already onstage when the award is announced? If they lost, would they have just turned around and sulked back to their seats, Charlie Brown–style? Why do the producers seem to only be cutting to the black people in the crowd? Finally, at about 1:48 in the above video, DJ Paul just starts making noises with his mouth that I am positive are not actually words, but are some Illuminati code to our alien overlords to commence the invasion of Earth. Was he having a mild stroke? Did he hit that lean too hard knowing he was going to win?

I guess conspiracy theories are meaningless because "George Clooney, my favorite. He show me love when I first met him" might be the most memorable acceptance speech quote in Oscar history.

–"What? You said what? The president did what? Aw, man. Hey, that's all good, baby. He got rid of the player haters too? Aw, man. We need to declare this a national holiday. We gonna call this player's holiday. Ant Beezy, what's up, mang?"

–There's a good chance that you've never seen the 2009 Academy Award winner for Best Documentary Short, Music by Prudence. It tells the story of Prudence Mabhena, a disabled woman from Zimbabwe who overcame her country's systemic prejudice against the physically handicapped through the power of her music. In the history of cinema, that film will always be eclipsed by the above moment of insanity: Elinor Burkett, a producer of the movie who had a falling out with director Roger Ross Williams over the film's creative direction, wandered onto the stage and interrupted Williams during his acceptance speech, leading to an entire nation simultaneously screaming, "Why is my grandma at the Oscars?"

–It seems like every year there's at least once totally unexpected "novelty black person" nominated for an Oscar. I don't mean to say "novelty" as a way of demeaning their acting accomplishments, I say it because it's almost always someone you've either (A) never heard of or (B) not associated with acting talent. Quvenzhané Wallis was not a professional actor. Jennifer Hudson was best known as "that girl who got eliminated from American Idol." Morgan Freeman's been nominated a bunch of times, and every time I'm like, "Who dat old man fo' realz?"

Nothing will ever top brash comedian Mo'Nique's winning Best Supporting Actress Oscar for her role in Precious. Her work was stellar and infinitely memorable, but no one was expecting such skill from her. She came out of nowhere to win that award, and she hasn't done much of note since. You could chalk that up to the problems facing black actors in Hollywood—add on the fact that she's plus-sized and a woman, and you have the trifecta of traits that the industry discriminates against. You could also blame her weird acceptance speech, in which she decries the now standard awards-season politicking, which she loudly rebelled against the whole year leading up to the event. Also, am I the only one who laughed when she thanked BET?

–This is, without a doubt, the most embarrassing moment in Oscar history. It only could have been worse if they had given the Best Picture award to Seven Cans of Unexposed 16mm Film, A Box of Used Tissues, or Santa Clause 3: Escape Clause. Pause at the 3:08 mark to bask in the horrified look on the face of Steven Spielberg as reality starts to wash over him. I'd rather watch the Screech sex tape than sit through Crash again. The only difference between the two is I have never masturbated while watching Crash.

Follow Dave on Twitter.


Facebook's Policing of Syrian Opposition Pages Is Drastically Affecting Their Civil War

0
0

All images via the author.

Last December, a woman from the Syrian community in Toronto reached out to me for help after a Syrian opposition Facebook page of which she was an administrator of was deleted from the internet. She told me that in mid-December, Facebook deleted the page called Likes For Syria, which had over 80,000 ‘likes.’ Several Syrian-Canadians organized the page shortly after the revolution in Syria began back in 2011. The page was used as a tool for posting news stories about the crisis, messages of hope, and creating awareness in the western world—something that many feel is desperately needed.

“We feel like our freedom of speech has been totally taken away,” said Faris Alshawaf, another page administrator on the Likes For Syria page. “We have a right to talk about what is happening.” Facebook had removed the page once before, but quickly republished it after administrators made an appeal. Just days later, the page was deleted for a second time.   

As it turns out, the Likes For Syria page was one of dozens of pages that had recently been deleted from Facebook for allegedly violating their Community Standards policy and Terms of Use agreement. In the past six months, Facebook has taken down multiple opposition pages, including one that had been started by Syrian youth, roughly one month before the revolution had begun. Two weeks ago, The Atlantic reported that Facebook opposition pages were disappearing. While I was doing more research into the issue, Facebook took down another page. This time, the Syrian Coalition page was expunged, a move that shocked administrators and caused panic in the Syrian community, as it was seen as one of the most important and safe pages of the revolution. People from the Syrian community reached out to me again, and sent me screenshot images of what had been reported to Facebook. It seemed clear that many of the images would have been very hard to take offence to and they were not violent in nature.    

Now Facebook finds itself in an extraordinarily complicated situation. Its role as the world’s biggest social platform has hit a serious stumbling block, and has put the company in a position where its actions are affecting a civil war. The UN has reported that over 100,000 lives have already been lost. Facebook has become responsible for globally policing its users, many of whom are now part of increasingly violent revolutions whose messages are breaking Terms of Use and Community Standards policies, but who have come to rely on Facebook as one of few platforms on which they can share information.  I can attest to interviewing people in hiding over Facebook chat for stories I’ve worked on. Last spring, we interviewed a man named Louay Sakka who played a vital role in facilitating communications between the FSA from his home in Oakville, Ontario using almost entirely social media platforms, including Facebook.

Media centers have been set-up all over the country where displaced Syrians and rebels can hop onto a revolutionary Facebook page and communicate what is happening and where. To me, Sakka’s role in helping rebels unite halfway across the world seemed pretty outrageous at the time, but this is partly how the revolution has worked.

I reached out to the Syrian Support Group (SSG)—one of the few North American groups able to provide help to Syria—to see if they had been affected. The SSG has also relied heavily on Facebook to communicate with the moderate members of the opposition.  According to Dan Layman, who works very closely with the moderate members of the Free Syrian Army and the US State Department to facilitate aid to moderate members of the opposition, they had. Dan says they were working on the English translation of the Supreme Military Council’s (SMC) Facebook page, which was previously the moderate command structure for the majority FSA groups, but has now been taken down while the Arab page has remained posted.   

“This is really affecting us because we have used these pages to help deliver the messages of what is happening in Syria to the western world and to communicate with members of the moderate opposition in Syria,” Layman told me.  He had reached out the US State Department to try and determine what happened and was told that Facebook had their own group of employees scrolling through the pages looking for red flags that might promote violence or coarse language.   

“I think what is happening is that Facebook has determined that some of the things we were posting was promoting violence, when really we are just trying to explain what is happening. The opposition are not terrorists.” Part of Layman’s work is translating from Arabic to English messages such as: “In Damascus, there was four bombings and many martyrs.” It’s possible that someone at Facebook thought the language was offensive, but no one knows for sure. “The revolutionary page was the easiest way to get the Supreme Military Council’s position out directly to Western media.”    

 Many people in this community believe that the Syrian Electronic Army (SEA) have been behind a vast majority of the reporting, and are in part to blame for all the pages being taken down. The SEA is believed to work closely with the Assad regime, though they steadfastly deny it. Regardless, they have proven to be an intelligent electronic force that has claimed to hack systems such as Skype and Twitter.  

Last December, the SEA posted that they would be working towards having all opposition pages deleted, though that message has since been taken down. Whether they are behind it or not—these pages are coming down at a rapid rate. An internet security expert—who requested to anonymity—told me that if you were to draw a line from the Facebook pages being taken down and images being reported that it would likely lead to the SEA. Although the SEA clearly attempts to orchestrate mass report campaigns, which results in content being reviewed, Facebook has improved its monitoring of mass reporting and clearly believes that the buck stops with the humans who review content for Terms of Service violations. The expert did not believe that mass reports alone could force page takedowns.   

Obviously Facebook can’t be blamed for what is happening in Syria, but there is now a need for them to respond to their role in the revolution and what might happen next. Could they try and shutdown revolution talks completely? The social site is available to anyone over 13 years old, so there are obvious reasons why they would want to keep content clean. But many of the images that have been reported and deleted on the opposition’s pages were warning people about the locations of reported bomb detonations. Other deleted messages included reports from the UN that notified the outside world about the state of the conflict. People like Alshawaf have family in Syria and no real way to connect with them, except through social media.   

I spoke to Linda Griffin, head of policy communications for Facebook in London, the same day the Syrian Coalition page was deleted. There's no doubting that Facebook is in a difficult position in this complicated situation, and she seemed aware that these pages played a significant role for communication and connection. Griffin denied that the SEA had hacked Facebook, stating they learned early on in the platform’s history that people would try and abuse the system this way. She explained that if a page repeatedly breaches the rules, it would be shut and that it doesn’t matter if it has been reported one time or a thousand. Shortly after our conversation, I sent the screenshot images that I received from the administrators of the Syrian Coalition page, and asked her to explain how they broke the Terms of Use for Facebook. I received an email the following morning letting me know Facebook had made a mistake with the Syrian Coalition page, and that they had put the page back up.   

This was considered a relief for many, but administrators for the SMC English and the Likes for Syria want their pages reinstated, too. Combined, they had over 300,000 followers and experienced the same problems the Syrian Coalition page had. They have started an online petition asking Facebook to stop its censorship. All the administrators I spoke with are aware of what will break the Terms of Use agreement with Facebook and say they are trying to avoid this. One of the Terms of Use that is likely being broken is that nudity is not allowed on the site. But many of these pages will often post pictures of emaciated children and adults, and the images are taken down. Unfortunately, these are the images of war.  

There are very few journalists working in Syria because it is too dangerous (though you can watch our Ground Zero: Syria series here) and there are even fewer methods of translating to the western world what is happening. In the absence of journalists, Facebook has become the primary tool of communication to the outside world. When Facebook decides to delete a page, it’s deleting one of few tunnels the opposition has to access the outside world. “In doing that, and taking down the content, they are kind of doing the moderate forces a disservice. It’s not terrorism at all, they are taking down the pages of people who are directly fighting the al-Qaeda affiliated rebels. Someone at Facebook is missing the point,” said Layman.   

At one point, Facebook saw its involvement in the Arab Spring as something to be proud of. Facebook founder and CEO, Mark Zuckerberg had discussed his social media platform as being a useful tool. In 2012 Reuters reported that shortly after Zuckerberg filed papers to raise over $5-billion taking Facebook public, he had sent an open letter to prospective investors. In it Zuckerberg wrote:  

We believe building tools to help people share can bring a more honest and transparent dialogue around government that could lead to more direct empowerment of people, more accountability for officials and better solutions to some of the biggest problems of our time.”

It makes sense that Facebook shouldn't be a place to have organized worldwide violence and they are very clear on that. Facebook also cannot be used as a place to support terrorism.  

This could no doubt become a PR nightmare for the billion-dollar company, but while Facebook figures out how to handle what’s next, revolutionaries who have come to rely on the platform for connecting and communicating will need to tread very carefully and possibly start considering alternative options. But the question now is where will the revolution go?  

Sami says many feel the world has started to turn its back on them, despite the evidence of Assad’s crimes, but that they will continue to get their messages out.  “This will not make us stop on going [sic] on our way to freedom and justice, we will still re-build our destroyed country. We are made of will and determination.”  


@angelamaries 

Yanukovych: ‘I’m the Real President’

0
0

Pro-EU Ukrainians holding a EuroMaidan protest are confronted by a pro-Russian group in Sevastopol, Ukraine, home to a Russian naval base and thousands of Russian sailors. Photo by Victor Neganov

Former Ukrainian president Victor Yanukovych resurfaced today in Russia, claiming at a press conference that he’s still “the real president.”

Overwhelmed by the EuroMaidan protesters in Kiev, Yanukovych fled the capital recently, reportedly to Sevastopol, located on Ukraine’s Crimean peninsula and home to a Russian naval base and thousands of Russian sailors.

The port city of Sevastopol, Ukraine, home to a Russian naval base

Since he abandoned his presidential palace, a new interim president of Ukraine has been appointed, and new elections will take place in May.

Russia is not pleased with this political shake-up.

Several hundred armed Russian troops, wearing camouflage uniforms without insignias, have taken control of several airports in Crimea. Ukraine’s new interior minister called it an “armed invasion and occupation.”

Russia denies involvement. Moscow has denounced the change in Ukraine’s government as “armed mutiny” and “insurgency.” Russian media have dubbed it a “classic coup d’état.” They’re withholding economic assistance, and they’ve also mobilized their military forces on the Ukrainian border.

Meanwhile, another group of unidentified armed men took the Crimean parliament by force yesterday, hoisting a Russian flag on the roof.

This was all sparked by the EuroMaidan protest movement, based in Kiev’s central Maidan square. Protesters took to the streets after Yanukovych accepted a $15 billion loan from Russia in December instead of signing a trade deal with the European Union.

A memorial to a protester killed at the EuroMaidan protests in Kiev, Ukraine

Violent clashes between the riot police and the protesters this month left at least 70 people dead, mostly protesters and police, along with one journalist. 

Protesters were tortured. More than 100 journalists were targeted. Hundreds more, perhaps as many as 1,000, were injured.

While Yanukovych claimed today he never gave any orders to shoot, there’s a warrant out for his arrest for “mass murder of peaceful civilians.”

Naval ships in the port city of Sevastopol, Ukraine

In the southern port city of Sevastopol, a 20-year-old student named Filip told me that the protesters are “brainless vandals” set to do “nothing more than engage in destruction.”

“I believe that those nationalists [in Kiev] really work as destructive forces,” he said. “They are not actually Ukrainian nationalists; they are European nationalists.”

The EuroMaidan protests in Kiev, Ukraine

Like most of the people I spoke to on the streets of Sevastopol, Filip was opposed to closer ties with Europe. He asked to be identified only by his first name so he could speak freely about these sensitive political issues.

Closer integration with Europe is “forced,” he told me. “If that sort of thing were to happen in other countries, it would be stopped. The president doesn’t want to do anything to stop it, so he is kind of sitting, putting up his hands, and not acting.”

Nearly 600 miles from Kiev, there’s little sympathy in Sevastopol for the protesters.

Sevastopol EuroMaidan leader Victor Neganov speaks to VICE in Sevastopol, Ukraine.

Yet there is a small Euromaidan movement in Sevastopol, which has a population of about 350,000 people.

About 100 activists have protested in the city, starting late last year. They initially held demonstrations weekly but have scaled back to bi-weekly protests, in part because of pro-Russian groups that are disrupting their events.

The counter-protesters grab flags, start fights, and make noise—tactics designed to prevent the EuroMaidan protesters from effectively communicating their message.

Now, rallies are being held in Sevastopol in support of Russia. Some 20,000 residents took to the streets on Monday, chanting “Russia” and demanding secession from Ukraine. Crimea was transferred from Russia to Ukraine in 1954.

Sevastopol residents have also been joining ad hoc self-defense and pro-Russian militia groups. 

A EuroMaidan protest in Sevastopol in August 2013

Activist Victor Neganov, who leads the EuroMaidan movement in Sevastopol, said he expects an annexation of Crimea by Russia "because the Ukrainian government is afraid to make steps which are necessary" to avoid that from happening.

He expects the situation to unfold as it did with the former Soviet republic of Georgia in 2008.

Most people in Sevastopol now view Yanukovych as a "traitor," Victor said, because he "failed" as a president and didn't protect the east and south of Ukraine from what they see as the "bandits" of EuroMaidan.

Will this erupt into a civil war? "100-percent yes," Victor told me.

Victor and his fellow Euromaidan activists have been fighting for systemic change.

“We have no democracy here like the US citizens have democracy and European citizens have in the European Union,” said. “We have real democratic law, democratic standards in the law, but this law is not working because the power representatives they just [are] ignoring the law. “

Victor ran for a parliamentary seat, saying “it was fun” but admitting that he lost by “many votes.” He said he didn’t have much money to run for office, which he said is a prerequisite to win.

Now running a small human-rights organization called National Control, Neganov alleges politicians connected with Yanukovych are privatizing public resources in Sevastopol, including access to the Black Sea, for private benefit.

Representatives from Yanukovych’s Party of Regions in Sevastopol declined to be interviewed for this story.

Another EuroMaidan protest in Sevastopol in December 2013, with some counter-protesters screaming their support for Russia and Putin

With strong popular support for Yanukovych and Russia in Crimea, Victor acknowledges the challenge of getting people there to stand up for change. He's uniting groups like labor unions, anarchists, communists, and opposition parties that all have one common enemy: corruption.

“We just can’t live with corruption,” he said, yet “it’s in all spheres of life in Ukraine.”

Sergey Karniyenka, a representative of the opposition group Right Party in Sevastopol, agrees that ending corruption is the biggest problem in Sevastopol and Ukraine. 

As a lawyer, he said he can’t adequately defend his clients. “Today, most of the official systems like military, police, and other authorities live off of [bribes],” he said.

“Yanukovych created the system of riches,” said Sergey, who also represents the ecological social movement Green Front. He described Ukraine’s democratically elected president as a “dictator… for whom riches are the governing force.”

In Kiev, EuroMaidan representative Sviatoslav Yurash told me the opposition there is also united in its stance against corruption.

When I asked 17-year-old Sviatoslav for a specific objective they want to achieve, he replied, “Better life for Ukraine. Better Ukraine. The meaning of that is very ambiguous, but that’s the point.”

“We need a political democracy in which these ideas can fight with each other but on the basis of legitimate law, not on the basis of gang-ruling states,” he continued.

Stanislav Nagorny showed VICE his Ukrainian passport and pointed out that while it shows he’s a Ukrainian citizen, it doesn’t indicate his nationality. He identifies as more Russian than Ukrainian in terms of nationality.

An example of this corruption is how Ukrainian officials are issuing passports to Russian citizens. This is illegal under the country’s constitution. “But money could fix it,” Victor explained. One Ukrainian politician estimated that 5–10 percent of Ukrainians hold two passports.

Russia is reportedly handing out Russian passports, which happened in Georgia prior to the 2008 war there.

Victor estimates tens of thousands of people in Sevastopol have both Ukrainian and Russian passports. He said that most are former Russian Navy sailors who stayed here after their military obligations ended.

Even Sevastopol residents who have only Ukrainian passports identify as Russian.

“We are citizens of Ukraine, but Russian by nationality,” shopkeeper Stanislav Nagorny told me.

Indeed, about 1 million ethnic Russians live in Crimea, where Russian is nearly universally spoken and where only four of 600 schools teach in Ukrainian.

Calling himself an amateur historian, 39-year-old Stanislav said the “mentality” of the people in Sevastopol is different from Ukrainians who live elsewhere.

“The citizens of Sevastopol do not support the protests in Kiev,” Stanislav explained. “In general, we are against the integration with the European Union, because we see it as a refusal to integrate with Russia, which we are close to economically.”

A Russian-flagged ship in the port city of Sevastopol, Ukraine, as viewed from the window of a train

Russia signed a deal with Ukraine in 2010 that extends the lease on Russia’s Black Sea Fleet in Crimea until 2042.

“The Russian Navy will stay in Sevastopol forever," said an ex-commander of the Russian fleet. Retired admiral Irgor Kastonov said Russia will never “give up” Sevastopol, considering its strategic role in protecting Russia's southwestern border.

“Economically, it influences the city for the best,” Stanislav said.

A Russian-flagged ship in the port city of Sevastopol, Ukraine

Victor claimed that the thousands of better-trained and better-equipped Russian military forces based in Ukraine could take control of Sevastopol within a day, if they wanted, “and Ukrainian army or police could do almost nothing about it.”

A 22-year-old Ukrainian sailor, Andrej, says he doesn’t see Russia as a threat. He occasionally trains with the Russian naval forces.

“If we keep together as one force, even Europe would not be able to stand against us. As a united force we are a big force,” Andrej told me in Sevastopol.

He said when the protests started in Maidan, the Ukrainian navy was put on a higher state of alert, “because we were afraid [the EuroMaidan protesters] might attack us.”

A banner in a protester-occupied building in Kiev that expresses opposition to the Russian president, Vladimir Putin.

For the activists leading the small EuroMaidan movement in Sevastopol, Russia’s $15 billion loan to Ukraine is an important indicator of their country’s future.

“I believe whoever gives the money will really control the situation,” said to Aleksej Shestakovich, a member of the anarchist party in Sevastopol.

“For me, the political situation in Russia is more like a police state,” he added. “I would not want that future for Ukraine.”

A small EuroMaidan protest in Sevastopol, Ukraine. Photo by Victor Neganov

But in Sevastopol, some residents see the Euromaidan activists as simply protesting for the sake of protesting.

“The opposition put itself against the authorities, not against specific]positions,” said 60-year-old Vitaly, who also asked that we use only his first name. “So we see it only as a fight for power.”

People in Sevastopol don’t really understand what EuroMaidan is all about, Aleksej claimed. He said they believe the movement is just nationalists and other “marginal” groups.

Communist Valery Balshekov doesn’t agree with what is going on, "because we are against the nationalistic and fascist mottos that we hear in Maidan.”

Valery, who represents the Labor Front of Sevastopol, believes Yanukovych “used” EuroMaidan to “pull attention away from real economic problems.”

Yet he said that this can be an opportunity for the proletariat of Ukraine to become organized against the “ruling forces” and to “destroy the power of the capitalism.”

Sevastopol shopkeeper Stanislav said these activists represent only a “small part of the population” of Ukraine.

EuroMaidan representative Sviatoslav disputes that.

“If you ask people in Donetsk [in eastern, pro-Russian Ukraine], people in Lviv [in western Ukraine], whether they want to live in Ukraine, the majority of them in both places would say yes,” Sviatoslav said. “This proves to us that Ukraine is a state and a nation and will continue on living and continue on progressing and changing its own path.”

“The Maidan is a chance for us to do this better,” he added.

The EuroMaidan protests in Kiev, Ukraine

Yet there remains a perception in Sevastopol that the activists in Maidan are merely armed nationalists.

And there are weapons in Maidan in Kiev.

About 12,000 volunteers make up a “self-defense” force at the Maidan square in Kiev, patrolling the occupied areas and guarding all entryways with clubs and other weapons. Their commander called for the expansion of this force to 30,000–40,000 people from across the nation. “Self-defense is going on the offensive,” one of the militia leaders said.

In response to claims in Sevastopol that the protesters in Maidan are vandals, EuroMaidan representative Sviatoslav says that it’s the result of “an information war.”

The Yanukovych-led Party of Regions, he claimed, has a “monopoly of information” in areas like Sevastopol and puts out propaganda describing EuroMaidan as “wrong and destructive for the country itself.”

The Ukrainian elite riot forces, known as Berkut, stand their ground near a barricade erected by EuroMaidan protesters in Kiev, Ukraine.

Sviatoslav insists the EuroMaidan security forces are “necessary because our government continually shows to us its willingness to attack the people indiscriminately, to achieve total control over the country.”

“That’s what we want to avoid,” he continued, “by creating a militia which can defend effectively the Maidan and the people here.”

Sevastopol EuroMaidan leader Victor Neganov speaks at a protest in Sevastopol. Photo by Victor Neganov

In Sevastopol, the activists have had a tough time even getting people to attend their bi-weekly protests. Still, Victor has big dreams. 

“We need to change the system of the power,” he said. “First, we need to change in our mind that the law and the procedure should be working. When we do it, then all will happen like we want it. Corruption will be stopped, laws will be worked, and we will live much better.”

Victor Neganov leads protesters in Sevastopol.

Meanwhile, in Russia, Yanukovych calls the interim government illegitimate. He claims he was shot at by automatic weapons while leaving Ukraine and will return when security is guaranteed for him and his family.

Hot Links: Food That Is Bigger than Food

0
0

Photo via

Welcome back to our food column, Hot Links, in which Dan Meyer explores the neglected culinary stars of YouTube. Each week, Dan presents a selection of videos highlighting specific food themes, from amateur cooking and local restaurant commercials to elderly drinking buddies and kitchen disasters, all of it culled from the infinite supply of odd YouTube wonders. We encourage you to fall into this culinary video K-hole and include your own comments and contributions below.

Any time food gets too big to eat, it becomes entertaining. One curiosity for me is looking at abnormally large fruits, vegetables, or animals. When you start to explore this universe, you'll find that it's a place filled with record-breaking pizzas, lasagnas, burgers, and other foods that would taste better if they were proportionally sized to your mouth. The process of making and growing these overweight items is a waste of time, a waste of food, and a waste of everything but your attention. But there's an endless supply of videos on this theme, and this small selection is an attempt at singling out the pointlessness of it all. Enjoy.

Picking the World's Largest Watermelon

It's been almost three years since I found this video, and it's still one of my absolute favorites on YouTube. It's the kind of thing I look for all the time and almost never find. If you really want to be transported to a hot summer day in Hope, Arkansas, you should watch this at home, on the big screen, with the volume turned all the way up. The best moment comes when they drop the first watermelon they try to pick and it cracks wide open—without hesitation, everyone in the picking party begins feasting on the wreckage. Stay tuned until the end, when they drive the watermelon to some nondescript loading dock and the entire town arrives to weigh the beast. 

World's Largest Fried Egg!

I don't think that I have to convince anyone that this video is disgusting. Before watching this, I didn't think that you were supposed to fry an ostrich egg, but as soon as she actually started frying it, I knew for a fucking fact that you're not supposed to. Even though I am fighting the urge to throw up, I appreciate the effort behind someone thinking, Oh, that's something you can do, and just doing it.

Iowa State Fair 2102: Biggest Boar

These things get so big that some of them can't walk. Watch as they explain that making these gigantic beasts is a hobby with a lot of luck involved. Almost every moment of this video is worth screengrabbing, but the shots of the boar with green mulch all over its nose and the beauty pageant winner posing behind him are incredible.

Worlds Biggest Pineapple

I don't know what I'm looking at here, but if that's a pineapple, call me Miss Chiquita.

World's Largest Cheesecake Unveiled-Watertown Daily Times

I love cheesecake. I also love small-town bullshit. This video is an auto-win that combines both hobbies. This cheesecake is a contender for the Guinness Book of World Records, but in this video, they never show it firming up. It's a bit sad that they had spent nine years planning this—it actually looks like the world's densest swimming pool, with a cream cheese logo smeared on top. You can never go wrong with interviews conducted in extremely windy conditions. Thanks, Watertown Daily Times.

Largest GUACAMOLE Serving World Guinness Record

One of the secrets to YouTube bliss is typing in anything that comes to mind, and finding a result that almost perfectly matches what's in your head. I didn't realize I would witness a wonderful homemade documentary of a great event. The editing is nice and the camera work is just what you'd expect, but it tells the story. The music is great, and it makes me very hungry. All around, this is an amazing deal.

Eat the Fish, Bitch

0
0

Catfish and hush puppies. Photo via Flicker user Shannon Patrick

I never quite expected my complicated relationship with catfish—of all things—to get played out at the glitziest awards show in Hollywood. 

Yet this Sunday marks the 86th annual Academy Awards, where Meryl Streep is highlighted with an Oscar nod for her role in the film version of Tracy Letts’s play August: Osage County. In this Oklahoma-set story, the catfish moonlights in a particularly unraveling moment when Violet Weston (played by Streep), the sick matriarch of the dysfunctional family, refuses to eat the dish as her daughter Ivy tries to confess that she’s eloping with a relative. Barbara (played by Julia Roberts), another daughter, wants to interrupt the disclosure.

This is the scene in the movie where Barbara screams at Violet, “Eat the fish, bitch!” Barbara uses the catfish as a decoy, a distraction, repeating to Violet the imperative “eat your fish” until Ivy breaks her plate in frustration. Barbara and Violet also throw their dishes of catfish to the floor. What should be nourishment becomes anathema—and then rubbish.

Of course, this Hollywood iteration has a glaring cinematic blooper: Barbara’s dish remains preserved on the table after the outburst. The sneaky catfish—it manages to survive (or at least endure) even if plated and garnished.

Beyond the silver screen, I have become familiar with the peculiar dynamics surrounding this iconic Southern delicacy in my two extended trips to Oklahoma each year. And through that exploration, I’ve managed to resolve a deep-seated resentment I’ve harbored for the benthic grazing bully.

My wife is a native of Oklahoma, where the landlocked geography means seafood is a risky proposition. That said, the state has a thriving lake culture with innumerable catfish cabins dotting the shores of Ten Killer, Grand, and Thunderbird, the prime areas for summer wake-boarding and body-dumping. It’s cattle country after all, and a nice cut of Angus at Cattlemen’s Steakhouse or an onion burger at Nic’s is a fine meal. By contrast, fish here is typically mediocre. Done wrong, it’s downright offensive. 

Catfish is no exception. Bottom-feeders that they are, the whiskered craniates often taste muddy, even after a toss into the deep fryer. But if there’s one maritime dish that Oklahoma chefs can successfully realize, it’s this fish from these besmirched lake waters—as loath as I am to give the bastard predator positive qualities. It’s sullied but, yes, succulent. 

A New Jerseyan by birth, I truthfully brandish a stigma against the detritivore. It was a polemical species for me even before the F-bomb-laden diatribes of the Letts text were written. My grandfather, who ran a blueberry farm not far from the shore, had irrigation ponds on the property that he stocked with catfish. My Pa, arms over mine, would help me launch a cast out to the middle of one pond with my Snoopy fishing pole, the white and red bobber buoyant with hope. The catfish consistently stole our worms and left me kicking stones into the brown shallows, where more catfish brethren taunted us with their flagellating barbels. My grandfather and I never caught a catfish—not once. They're surreptitious and never snatched up our bait. I viewed this scenario with the crushing disappointment of missed opportunity, underachievement.

So during this last Christmas in Oklahoma, I took it upon myself to suss out the state’s best offering of the dish, both to understand its nuanced significance there and to try to conquer my bad associations with the bottom feeder. To be certain, beyond any didactic experience, my desire to try a catfish in the heartland stemmed from my appetite for aquatic redemption.

My opportunity arrived a few days before Christmas at Boulevard Cafeteria, a 65-year-old staple in Oklahoma City, one of those true Southern tray-filling joints where small plates of fried okra and green beans will surround the main protein choice—typically fried chicken or chicken-fried steak. It was in this restaurant that my father-in-law held a huge reunion for his side of the family. He’s a twin and annually seizes the December birthday celebration with his brother as an excuse to bring the entire family together. At the urging of several spirited family members who wanted the sole Yankee to get an “authentic experience,” I opted for a fillet of catfish with some hush puppies and cheese grits.

I dug into it with abandon, remembering those disappointing angling moments from my youth with each bite. I had not caught this catfish myself, but I was experiencing the sweet taste of revenge. My cousins through marriage, Zach and his rowdy band of freckled brothers, watched with bated breath as I appraised the cuisine of their land. The fish tasted good, a bit like cod, fried and squeezed with a hint of lemon juice. The bites were crisp on the outside and tender on the inside, a nice white fish that steamed with flavor.

Sure, I was content with my experience at Boulevard, but I was far from satisfied with just one attempt. I needed to try a second time. I wanted to absorb an excess of this primordial Americana.

Enter Trey. Boyfriend to my sister-in-law Brittany, Trey always seeks adventure and has a nose for where to find it. He has a hard appearance—neck tattoos with the fiery Roman numeral III and a uniform of paint-splattered shirts—but is a snuggly teddy bear at heart. Trey lives in Edmond, just outside of Oklahoma City, and so a few days after our Boulevard excursion, my wife and I joined Trey and Brittany at Bobo’s, a massive food cart that’s perched in a modest parking lot on Fridays and Saturdays from 5 PM to 3 AM. It’s not the safest neighborhood, which is why there’s an armed guard by the truck at all times. Still, rumor has it that the worthwhile food, which is jammed into Styrofoam containers and drenched in honey poured from industrial-size vats, is worth any risk. It’s known for its soul food like chicken strips, wings, fries, biscuits, and shrimp. But the catfish basket is an order to be coveted.  

I was curious to see what Trey, someone who takes his food very seriously, thought of Bobo’s catfish and how it stacked up.

After we worked our way up in line, Trey placed our order: a 20-piece chicken-wing assortment and a three-piece basket of cornmeal-dredged fried catfish. The clerk loudly called out the order to his galley chef, employing a “swing batta-batta” cadence to “CAat-FISH.”

The catfish would take some 15 minutes extra, so we migrated to the right side of the cart, toward the armed guard, who was macking on two dressed-up gals in front of us.

They too had requested catfish a few orders ahead of us. So imagine our surprise when our order was called before theirs.

When we paid, we realized the clerk had only charged us for the chicken.

“We didn’t pay for the catfish,” I said, not knowing that he hadn’t given us catfish in the Styrofoam containers.

Big mistake. The two women still waiting on their catfish paused their flirtation with the security guy to ask why we had gotten our catfish first. They were none too pleased.

“No,” the clerk said. He hadn’t “recorded catfish” in our order and said we had to get back in line to order it.

Of course, I also knew better than to argue here: The catfish, it always gets away. I had learned, at last, to let it go.

The animal has strange powers to meddle, to disappoint—a fact that hadn’t changed since my youth. The fish had wriggled its way free of my grandfather’s fishing line and tricked its way out of our Bobo’s order, just as it had reappeared neatly on the table before Julia Roberts and Meryl Streep in August: Osage County despite the crashing throw of plates to damn it. The catfish—has an incorrigible resiliency. And I’m fed up. So as I watch whether Streep comes away with the prize, rest assured I’ll be sticking to fried chicken.  

The Webcam Girl

0
0

Vintage underwear

PHOTOGRAPHY : JOHN LONDONO AT RODEO PRODUCTION
STYLING : ANDRÉE-JADE HÉLIE

Photo assistant : Virginie Gosselin
Hair: Antoine Jolicoeur
Make-up : Sophie Parrot
Make-up assistant: Olivier Vinet
Model: Brookelynne Briar

@Brooke_LynneLCN


Denim and Supply Ralph Lauren blazer and jacket, Andrea Montle shorts, H&M socks, Coach shoes

UNTLD top, Alice + Olivia by Stacey Bandet shoes, Latex Catfish gloves

Vintage claws, neckpiece and arm bracelet, Alber rings, AIME earrings

Denis Gagnon dress, vintage Jacket at Citizen Vintage, Marc by Marc Jacobs cuffs, Alber earrings, American Apparel underwear, vintage necklace and bracelet  

Matière Noire jacket

Cheap Monday sweatshirt, Diane Von Furstenberg blouse, American Apparel stockings, vintage shoes, Harley Davidson gloves

Christopher Kane sweatshirt, Italia stockings at La Maison Simons, Michael Kors shoes, vintage underwear, Latex Catfish gloves, vintage scarf at Citizen Vintage

Is Vladimir Putin Seriously Going to Invade Crimea?

0
0

A Russian ship in Sevastapol's harbor. Photo courtesy of Flickr. This story is from VICE News, our new news website. See more and sign up now at vicenews.com

Ukraine has lately been home to a great deal of violence, unrest, and general carrying on. So when Russia announced on Wednesday that it would be having an impromptu military exercise right next door, many people in Ukraine—and everywhere else—got more than a little worried.

The exercises are big ones, even for Russia. They involve some 150,000 troops, 90 aircraft, 880 tanks, and 1,200 other bits of military hardware from Russia’s Western Military District. The readiness exercises will include Russia’s 2nd Army, the aerospace defense service, airborne troops, and long-range military transport aircraft. Moscow swears this has nothing whatsoever to do with the recent unrest in Ukraine, and Moscow totally rejects the insinuation that it is considering even the teeniest of interventions in Ukraine. Really. And especially not in the Ukrainian region of Crimea. Promise.

Following months of escalating chaos that led to dozens of deaths and hundreds of wounded, former Ukrainian President Viktor Yanukovich has been ousted and is reportedly hiding out in Russia. His estate has been stormed—his liquor cabinet emptied, his porn stash raided, and his galleon-shaped restaurant mocked. His regime’s collapse has brought instability to much of Ukraine, including to Crimea, a peninsula jutting out into the Black Sea connected to Ukraine by a tiny sliver of land. It’s a strange critter that has been—and continues to be—very important to Russia for a host of economic, military, and psychological reasons. Not least among them is the existence of the excellent harbor at Sevastopol, home to Russia’s Black Sea Fleet.

The harbor doesn't seem all that excellent at first blush. Ships based there have to go through the very tiny Bosporus Strait just to get to the Mediterranean Sea. From there they have to go through either the Straits of Gibraltar or the Suez Canal to finally reach the open ocean. Still, for Russia this is a really big deal—at least, it is in February. The Russians have been after a port that won’t freeze solid in the winter for literally hundreds of years. Sevastopol might not be easily accessibly from... well, much of anywhere, but it’s the best they’ve got.

Crimea is actually majority Russian. Russian ties there go back at least to 1783, when the Tsars, intent on getting their hands on a warm-water port, obtained Crimea through a simple barter transaction: They gave the Crimean Khanate a vicious beat down, and then they took Crimea. Khrushchev did Ukraine a solid in 1954 by giving it Crimea, but the area has a quasi-autonomous status in Ukraine while maintaining very strong ties to Russia.

So when the Euromaidan protests spread to Crimea, outside observers began to wonder how Russia would respond. When Russia seemingly decided to respond by holding a huge military readiness exercise right next door, many analysts came to the entirely reasonable conclusion that Russia was going to move in and conquer the hell out of Crimea, returning it to Mother Russia’s sweet embrace.

Not so fast, says William Varettoni. He's a former Foreign Affairs Analyst at the US Department of State and current University of Maryland PhD candidate in Being Really Smart About Ukraine. Three years ago, Varettoni essentially predicted the current Crimean unrest in an article on Crimea’s Overlooked Instability.

He argues that Crimea is and always has been far more unstable than the not-paying-any-attention-to-Crimea community realizes. Further, he makes the case that while Russia has a great deal of interest in Crimea, it has no desire to go in with tanks and smash things up, because Russia likes it just fine the way it is.

Despite the fact that the Ukrainian flag flaps overhead in Crimea—well, until gunmen there took over government buildings Thursday and raised the Russian flag—the region is basically a little slice of Russia. It’s majority Russian. TV is broadcast in Russian. Ads are in Russian. Russian businessmen routinely visit and get involved in complex, possibly illegal financial transactions. And so Russia has been able to maintain its hold over Crimea through a sustained, subtle, and sophisticated soft power campaign.

So there's not a whole lot of reason for Putin to take drastic measures, especially ones that could trigger a full-fledged insurrection right on his border, next to a major naval base. Besides, if Russia just flat-out invades the place, there will be a whole host of diplomatic hell to pay. Outright invasion runs the risk of Ukrainians taking up arms to defend their country. Plus, even the ethnic Russians in Crimea get a far better deal being governed by the comparatively lax Ukrainian laws than they would under direct Russian rule. Putin pretty much has a zero-tolerance approach to citizens raising a fuss, and he pretty much lets heavyweight Russian oligarchs do whatever they want.

Some would point to the Russia-Georgia War of 2008 as evidence that Russian invasion is imminent, but there are some important distinctions worth remembering. Among them is the fact that there are deep sentimental and psychological ties between Ukraine and Russia. In contrast, Moscow gives precious few shits about Georgians and how they feel.

However, if Moscow has a burning desire to invade, they may very well do so with peacekeepers. “Convincing groups of young men to do something stupid isn’t that difficult,” Varettoni told VICE News. With a bit of prodding, Moscow could easily turn up the temperature of protests in Crimea, and then use that to justify sending in Russian troops to restore order and preserve the peace. By making the right noises about things like protecting minority rights, Russia could control the narrative quite effectively. This option has some appeal longterm, since it would make Crimea even more autonomous than it is now. That would make it even more difficult for Ukraine to achieve any kind of consensus on foreign policy, which in turn would make it harder for the country to move away from Russia and toward Europe.

Alternately, Russia could set up Crimea as a frozen territory. Frozen territories crop up when someone calls "Time out!" in the middle of civil war or secessionist movement. Freezing the conflict locks the lines of control wherever they happen to be at the time. This often results in the creation of something that’s not quite a legitimate country that exists under the sufferance of it’s more powerful patron. The Turkish Republic of Northern Cyprus is an example of a frozen territory; recognized as a legitimate country only by Turkey, it is considered by the UN to be an occupied territory. More recent examples include the Republic of Abkhazia and Republic of South Ossetia, both of which were created in—you guessed it—the 2008 Russia-Georgia war.

So maybe the sudden military exercises are just a prelude to the Crimean edition of Extreme Peacekeeping. Or maybe they don’t amount to much. Last year, Russia held six surprise readiness exercises. The largest, held last July, involved 160,000 troops, about 1,000 tanks, 130 aircraft, and 70 warships.

Military exercises can serve a number of roles. Certainly these exercises will put the new powers-that-be in Ukraine on notice. But ultimately, Russia’s goal may simply be to leave its options open, and to let the rest of the world know that its options are open.

Much like taking a gun out of its holster and flicking off the safety.

Subscribe to VICE News on YouTube

Follow VICE News on Twitter

Like VICE News on Facebook

Taji's Mahal: Eby Ghafarian Wants to Create a New York–Based Skateboard Magazine

0
0

Photo by Darnell Scott 

For this week's Mahal, I spoke to New York–based skateboarder Eby Ghafarian about Stoops, the new skateboard magazine he's currently crowdfunding on Kickstarter. Unlike most skateboard magazines, Stoops will cater exclusively to New York and only publish photos shot in the five boroughs. Intrigued by the magazine's concept, I met with Eby in New York to discuss the history of the word stoops, the classic film Kids, and why New York needs a new skateboard magazine. 

VICE: When and where was the first time you heard the word stoops?
Eby Ghafarian: The first time I heard the word stoops was probably around ten years ago. I used to skate on the first KCDC ramp with a bunch of OGs. I'm pretty sure Rodney Torres used to rock the word stoops pretty hard; most people have used it at some point. If you talk to some of the older skaters in the city, they will say they have used the term for close to 20 years. 

They say stoops in the movie Kids, right? 
Exactly! It's crazy to think about how that movie is 19 years old. So much has changed since then, but there are still so many parallels to the young Lower East Side kids of today.  

What's your vision for Stoops magazine?
New York City skateboarding has never really gotten its proper shine—at least in real time. There have been some amazing retrospectives, but there is so much that happens in the city on a daily basis that gets slept on. We get the occasional exposure in Cali and international mags, but the most you will see in terms of coverage is online clips. I want people to pick up an issue of Stoops and get hyped about NYC skateboarding. New York has some of the most unique, yet grittiest, spots that come and go. We have to deal with pretty terrible ground and millions of people constantly in the way, but there is a spot on every corner if you apply a little ingenuity. Personally, New York is my favorite city to skate in, and I want others to see why.

Why are you using Kickstarter to fund the project? 
There are two primary reasons we decided to go the Kickstarter route: We can start with good distribution numbers (if you dropped an amazing magazine and nobody was around, did it actually make a sound?), and since we do not need investors, the mag can remain independent with no pressures to conform or take on advertisers we do not back. The tough part is that Kickstarter is all or nothing, so there is a lot of pressure to hit our goal—how to convince 1,000 people to donate $20.

Follow Taji Ameen on Twitter.


JR Is Moving from Graffiti to Ballet

0
0
JR Is Moving from Graffiti to Ballet

A Deranged Math Teacher Paid Me to Throw a Concert in My Mom's Guest House

0
0
A Deranged Math Teacher Paid Me to Throw a Concert in My Mom's Guest House

Into the Weird: Is Gypsy Willis a Conniving Mistress or a Misunderstood Victim?

0
0

Photo courtesy of Gypsy Willis

On November 9, 2013, jurors found Dr. Martin MacNeill guilty of murdering his wife, former beauty queen Michele MacNeill. Over six years earlier, Michele's youngest daughter found her dead in her bathtub. Michele had recently received a facelift, because Martin encouraged her to undergo surgery. According to Time, Michele's surgeon said Martin urged him to prescribe her high doses of pain killers after the operation. The original autopsy stated she died from heart disease, but CNN reported that a second toxicology report listed Diazepam, Oxycodone, Promethazine, and Zolpidem as factors in Michele's death. The prosecution argued that Martin's motivation for murder was Gypsy Willis—his mistress who moved in with him and acted as his children's nanny after Michele's death.

Gypsy wasn't your typical mistress. Unlike other infamous mistresses, Gypsy grew up in a conservative Mormon family. She was the eldest of four children, studied nursing, and has had a fought relationship with her parents since she became pregnant before she was married—in many ways, she sounds like the victim of a conservative family. Nevertheless, the media has presented her as a conniving mistress. There's some reasoning behind these claims. Prior to Martin's murder charges, both Martin and Gypsy spent time in prison for stealing Martin's adopted daughter's identity. Curious to hear Gypsy's side of the story, I called her to speak about her background, relationship with Martin, and her assertion that the media has misrepresented her. 

VICE: What was it like growing up with conservative parents?
Gypsy Willis: They are very strict Mormons and very critical of the government. My dad is a doctor who supplemented our income by selling guns. We had a food storage preparing for the apocalypse. My parents are very intelligent people, but they have an alternate point of view on a lot of things. I got pregnant before I was married, and they really freaked out. My dad pulled me aside when my little daughter was two months old and said that I was used goods and nobody was ever going to want me—nobody decent was ever going to want me, and I basically needed to find somebody that was going to take on a child. I fell for whatever I could, got married, and then when the marriage got abusive, I left. I moved back with my family to try to get back on my feet.

What happened to your child?
My family made it out like I was a horrible person for putting my daughter into day care. They thought it would be really hard on her, and they thought it would be hard on me. They took over custodial care and said I should come back on the weekends and I would be mom, but they wanted to keep her there with them. At the time, my Dad was a doctor. They were making pretty good money. They had a farm, and my siblings were all home, so I felt like I would be very selfish if I kept her with me. I moved down to Salt Lake City, and my parents did a full adoption and eventually tried to control me through my daughter. It is the biggest regret of my life that I don't have my daughter with me now.

How did you meet Martin?
We met online. I had a Yahoo email, and as part of that, you could post information about yourself. People could see when you were online, talk to you about your interests, or just say hello and be chatty. What he actually thought was that I was trying to sound smarter than I was. He was like, “So what do you know about physics?” I replied back, and we had great chemistry. I actually didn't meet him as soon as I could have, because I was having such a good time chatting with him on the computer, and I didn't want to meet him in person and find out we didn't have good chemistry in real life.

What was it like the first time you met him in person?
We met for lunch. We got along very well. When we were together, it was every girl's fantasy: the tall, handsome, successful, beautiful person with great chemistry. I was a little bit intimidated actually, but then we spoke, and we got along famously.

What did your family think of Martin?
They thought he was wonderful. I actually thought my mom had a little crush on him. He was a very impressive person, very charismatic.

How did the relationship develop from there?
It was very casual. Once or twice a month, we'd actually get together, and then we'd talk every couple of days—usually by text or whatever. There were a few times when he got really busy, and we [didn’t talk much]. I figured at that point that it was a casual thing. It didn’t matter too much.

Why?
I found out he was married before I met him for lunch—this is the beginning of me sounding like a horrible person. I had determined that marriage wasn't really for me. I knew that he was married. I knew that he had kids. I knew that he had this whole other life. It wasn't my preference, but it was okay.

Do you feel like the media has portrayed you as a bad person?
It's really upsetting. I have been made out to be evil. I went on Dr. Phil last fall, and then on the follow-up episode they had Martin's daughters on there saying that they had heard that I was into dark witchcraft and had been casting spells on the family. Growing up Mormon, I did try to be a good Mormon, but it did not really work. When I got away from Mormonism and my family, I studied everything. I know about the Wicca beliefs—I looked into all sorts of things, but not necessarily to adopt those beliefs. I wanted to compare it against Mormonism so I understood it all. I've also been portrayed as being a gold digger. That really was not the case at all; I've been supporting myself since I was 18.  When I met Martin, I wouldn't have cared if he [worked as a store clerk].

You claim that the media has misrepresented you, but you also claim that you didn’t want to get serious with Martin when reports indicate that you wanted to eventually get serious.
Until Michele passed away, it was not even a consideration that we were even going to be in a relationship. He helped me. I had gotten into an RN nursing program at the end of 2006, and I was struggling financially and couch surfing, so he helped me toward the end of nursing school. It was just until I got out, and then I would pay him back. It was never like, “Hey, we're going to build a life together” by any means. It was what it always had been. When she passed away, it was a terrible shock, but I knew he would be having a difficult time, and I knew I wanted to stay in his focus—in the picture—because I loved him.

Follow Sophie Saint Thomas on Twitter

The Mangy Cats of Marrakech Need Names

0
0

Photos by the author

I go to Morocco at least twice a year to buy textiles for my shoe company, TEN & Co., so I know the country pretty well. When a VICE editor asked me if I wanted to write about the beautiful rugs I put in my shoes, I thought, Yeah, I could do that, but why would I write about rugs when I could tell you about the city’s cats? Last time I checked, 98 percent of the internet wasn't rug photos.

The best thing about Marrakech, one of my favorite Moroccan cities, is its out-of-control cat population. I love cats and have a soft spot for deformed and mangy cats, so Marrakech is heaven for me—all of the city’s friendly people, delicious food, and beautiful rugs are cool too, but I'm really all about the cats. I like naming the cats and picking them up no matter how filthy they are. Here are some of the cats I've met in Marrakech.

I named this cat Paris. He has a cute, wonky eye. I met him in the Ourika Valley while hunting for textiles on a rainy day. He has tiny paws.

This is my friend Alex holding three of the five kittens we found while getting dinner one night. One of them was blind, which was super sad, but he seemed happy otherwise. They slept in a cardboard box. It could be worse! 

Here’s the blind kitten eating a chicken bone. He's such a tiny monster!  

Here’s Moto. He was always lounging in the shade of this motorcycle.  

This is Palace Cat. Every day she sat outside the palace guarding it. I never saw anyone sitting on this bench besides her.

This is Meowy. He’s named Meowy because he meowed a lot when I took his picture. Afterwards, he walked over to me to receive a good pet. Marrakech's cats are typically friendly.   

It’s uncommon for people to have cats as pets in Morocco—at least not in the medinas—but some cats will hang out at shops and become shop cats. You can usually find this cat getting sun at this art shop. The owners don’t mind him because he eats mice and attracts tourists. 

This kitten is puny, especially compared to that big stone lion. There’s a shop I go to to get textiles, and going there is such a treat because cats and kittens rule the place. It’s called Mustapha Blaoui. It is the premier destination for Moroccan cat tourism.  

These cats are tired after a long day. It was around 100 degrees when this photo was taken. So sleepy!

Here’s a momma cat and her kitten outside a stuffing shop. The shop's soft cushions make it a sweet spot for cats to sleep. 

This poor kitty was yowling and bleeding, so she was probably in heat. Many people think cats have periods, but they don’t. They’re just in heat and looking for love. 

Here’s a group of happy cats napping on building supplies, which no one seemed to be building anything with.  

Where do street cats sleep at night? Good question. Who knows. Some nice person left this cushion out for cats to sleep on. Otherwise, the cats would have slept under parked motorcycles or on trash piles.  

This is one of my favorite kittens in Marrakech. He's so fresh and so clean. Unlike adult cats, kittens are clean because they haven't spent years roughing it on the street. 

For the record, I  kissed every single one of these cats. And yes, I am free of all feline diseases, thank you.

Here is a cat sleeping in a fishing boat's shade in Essaouira.

Pregnant cats are all over Marrakech. I named this mom Fluffy Cat. When a cat is a few days away from giving birth, she’ll stake out a house she thinks would be a good place to give birth. As soon as someone opens the door, she’ll run inside and start squeezing out babies. 

This is Felty, a black cat who lucked out. He found a felting shop and a giant pile of felt to sleep on, which is the best spot in town. 

Here are some of the kittens at my favorite shop trying to camouflage themselves on a couch.

When you first look at this photo, you probably think it's another shot of a cat hanging out at a stuffing shop, but please draw your attention to the kittens on the foam stack in the background. Little sneaks!

I was innocently writing postcards at a cafe when this cat, whom I named Sport, jumped on my lap and started purring and kneading me. This was one of the high points of my life so far.  

This is another cat I met at an Ourika Valley rug shop. I went inside to buy some rugs, and three hours and 16 rugs later, I came out to discover he was chilling in the same spot.  

This cat was the biggest pregnant cat I saw—her body was a foot wide, I swear. I named her Stripey.

This is Stripey up close. Babe alert! She’ll have no problem finding another dude to mate with.

Here’s my friend Alex with Lady, the cuddliest street cat in Marrakech. Any time I’m in town, I sincerely look forward to hanging out with her. She’s one of my closest Moroccan cat friends.

Man, these kittens. They live in a hole in the wall at a shop. Their mother was protective but did not stop me from manhandling her kids.

Look at that FACE.

These are the Dirty Cats. They’re best friends. I was people watching at a cafe, when the Dirty Cats came over to chill. I couldn’t touch anything after petting these guys. I had to wash my hands five times to make sure all the cat grime was off me. 

This is Zizi. She had given birth two days before this picture was taken. Only this single kitten survived, but Zizi was super sweet and let us pet her and her tiny kitty for maybe an hour. They live in a cabinet in someone’s house, and a shopkeeper gave me the heads up about them. I have kitten spies all over town. 

An unnamed cat posing in front of a pretty doorway.  

Here’s Shadow Cat ducking behind display rugs on a rooftop.

A butcher threw out some guts for this group of scrappy cats to snack on. They all seemed to be politely sharing the guts. I do not know what kind of guts they were. Nothing goes to waste in Morocco. 

Finally, here’s ATM. He lives at the local ATM.

I hope you’ve enjoyed this Moroccan cat tour! 

Sculpting Nudes in a New York Night Club

0
0

Madame Rosebud, a petite woman with rainbow hair and makeup, posed nonchalantly in the corner of the Raven, a dark lounge in New York City's Meatpacking District. She was completely naked, except for a blue rhinestone necklace and matching earrings. A spotlight reflected off her body as the artist Skye Ferrante busily shaped and shifted a simple piece of wire in her likeness. The purchaser who ordered the three-hour long live nude sculpture, which was indexed on the Raven’s bottle service menu for $10,000, sat adjacent to the model and watched as his artwork began to form.

I arrived 30 minutes into the session, and the wire already resembled the face of Madame Rosebud. My view was somewhat obstructed by the Big Hair Girls, Lizzy Lightyear and Venus, who stood with their arms crossed in matching glittery jumpsuits. They looked like sexy bouncers from A Clockwork Orange. Occasionally the duo would pass out business cards printed with “You can’t afford it.” At ten stacks a pop, that was a sentiment I certainly couldn't argue with. 

Some people crowded around, snapping shots on their iPhones of the naked lady, while others were more preoccupied with enjoying their $1,000 bottles of champagne elsewhere in the bar, but Skye’s presence isn’t just about creating a spectacle set to shitty house music. His work is about exploring the consumerism of wealthy young people.

“You never know when I am going to show up, but when I do someone is going to get naked and spend money. It is a challenge that I have imposed upon myself—to see if I can sell to a class of affluent young people that usually spends money on accessories and ego,” said Skye.

Skye started wire sculpting after a career in ballet 20 years ago, selling his pieces for $20 on the streets of SoHo, where he quickly gained a following. After the economic downturn in 2008, he quit selling his art in galleries and instead created a private burlesque salon, where he sold his art during cocktail parties with live jazz and performance artists. Over the years he has sold over 10,000 works of art to customers like Henry Stimler, the owner of the Raven, where he has now appeared four times.

“I began sculpting in wire after I realized I didn’t have the patience for bronze and it’s too expensive. Of course, other people play with wire, but my influence really came from dance. Everything is about lines and movement. When art works it moves. I have worked with 800-plus performing artists in New York—men, women, and people in between. I can’t help but bring out some of that ballet from my past and be a bit of a performer. Madame Rosebud clearly has a dance background. I love how she is aware of every part of the body.”

Before making appearances at the Raven, Henry commissioned Skye for a piece on permanent display at the lounge—a dominatrix scene sculpted out of one piece of wire, which took three-and-a-half hours to complete.

“Since Henry is British, I thought of a dominatrix because the Brits like to be spanked. I made some calls to my dom friends. A woman and her thug were booked for a modeling session, but at the last minute, she canceled because even though I have a $500 modeling budget, I couldn’t compete with her $300-an-hour cock and ball torture. I made a call to another friend, so her and her friend posed for me. I started on the dom’s eye and finished on the signature, which somehow ended on the ass of the sub.” 

After Skye finished sculpting Madame Rosebud, someone lit the sparkelabra, a contraption invented by Skye, and brought it to the buyer's table. 

“The sparkelabra has ten nightclub sparklers on a 9'' candelabra. I created that so people could see when $10,000 was spent, in this case on artwork. Because people aren’t buying bottles in a nightclub, they are buying sparklers and attention. When I figured that out, I said, ‘If I am going to sell art, it better come with a lot of sparklers, because there is no way my art is going to be sold for less than overpriced bottles of champagne.’”

Follow Erica Euse on Twitter.

Why the Gaming Industry Plans to Keep Gay Characters on the Sidelines

0
0
Why the Gaming Industry Plans to Keep Gay Characters on the Sidelines

The Leslie-Lohman Museum Is a Haven for Artists Who Are Too Gay for Art School

0
0

Photos courtesy of Jason Bishop

As we unwind the bright red packing tape that joins the two coffee cans together, Hunter O’Hanian, the director of the Leslie-Lohman Museum of Gay and Lesbian Art, explains what I’m about to see.

“We think this is his only finished work,” he says, separating the cans to reveal a long scroll made of computer paper taped end to end. Black and white photocopies of twinks—whipped, gagged, crucified, tattooed, and tied—writhe across the pages, filling them almost to the margins. The image has no punctum, white space, or dominant figure to draw in the eye, allowing the viewer's gaze to rest. Instead the eye skitters across the pages, noting a hard cock here and a flagellate there, without stopping on any particular moment. 

Hunter isn’t sure if this is the artist’s only finished work for three reasons: The artist is dead, his partner—who asked that they both remain anonymous—donated the work, and the donation consists of 77 large cardboard boxes filled with gay porn, photomontages, pulp novels, mail-order sex-toy catalogs, books about Dracula, and images of opulent, but empty, rooms lacerated with careful slits to allow for the insertion of pornographic cut-outs.  

A number of the boxes contained only carefully washed plastic clamshells (the kind that might hold a salad from a take-out Thai restaurant) filled with individual male figures meticulously excised from six decades of porn—the processed raw materials for the artist’s apocalyptic sex montages. Like the scroll in the can, each piece of paper has been carefully packed, as if the artist feared their rustling might hint at their true nature, their sexual shame. The line between fear and reverence is nonexistent here. These totemic boys are tools of artistic creation, but if discovered would mean destruction. The scroll itself is an act of mediation between these two poles, a spell cast in porn, simultaneously birthing and caging the artist’s secret desires. 

To date, the museum has cataloged approximately two-thirds of this collection. Despite the detailed sheath of notebook pages that list the contents of each box, it’s a slow process because the closer you look the more you see. For instance, the centerfold of a 1950s physique magazine might hide a cut-out of a Saint Sebastian-esque ephebe in bondage. If you look closely at the image, you will notice that the figure’s tiny handcuffs have been transposed from another image and that his pentagram tattoo was added by hand. As the magnitude of detail hits you, you realize these 77 boxes contain a man’s lifework, his world, his everything—the story of an anonymous artist told through grainy reproductions of sexual torture.

Photo courtesy of The Leslie-Lohman Museum of Gay and Lesbian Art

Call it outsider art, intuitive art, art brut, or neuve invention; it is work made precisely at this intersection of art and obsession, pride and shame, sex and death, that has me scavenging through the museum's archives. Jean Dubuffet, the 20th century painter and impresario of the insane who coined the term art brut, famously said, “Art doesn't go to sleep in the bed made for it; it would sooner run away than say its own name.” How apropos to go looking for it amongst the love that dares not speak its name.

Intuitive artists tend to share traits from a grab bag of commonalities: obsessive tendencies, mental illness, repression, confinement, isolation, a lack of formal training, sexual hang-ups, a sense of persecution, religious or visionary zeal, a focus on the process of art-making rather than its outcome, a disconnect from cultural centers of power, and a belief in the importance of their own work that is separate from its salability or critical appreciation. The original outsider artist, in an American context, is Henry Darger, the orphaned, occasionally institutionalized recluse who spent more than sixty years creating his 15,000-page masterpiece The Story of the Vivian Girls, in What is Known as the Realms of the Unreal, of the Glandeco-Angelinian War Storm Caused by the Child Slave Rebellion.

The Leslie-Lohman Museum of Gay and Lesbian Art is an ideal place to search for such artists. For the last 40 years, the museum and its founders, Charles Leslie and Fritz Lohman, have been dedicated to rescuing and preserving gay art. They’ve created a haven for art makers whose work was unappreciated during their time, whether because of their identity, the frankness of their homosexual work, or their mental instability. 

I am fascinated by the delicate interplay between pride and shame in the lives of these men—their desire to be anonymous while simultaneously believing their art is important enough to dedicate their lives to it and ensure its preservation. (And so far all the intuitive artists I’ve found there are men. The museum now has a broader mission, but it began primarily as a collection of erotic male art, and the majority of its collection is focused on males.)

Much of the work could be considered survival art, rough pieces created in a hostile environment to make sense of the artists’ conflicting desires and unstable worldviews. Even when these men had formal training, they wanted to explore themes removed from what was speakable during their lifetimes. The insider art status was never available to them. Instead their art was an act of pure creation and dedicated to their own vision. Aside from the work that now sits in storage, little is known about most of these men.

Take, for example, Edward Hochschild. In 1995 three of Edward's friends walked into the museum to see if someone could rescue Edward's art shortly after he had died of AIDS-related causes. Wayne Snellen, the museum’s Deputy Director for Collections, recalled that his apartment was “trashed” when they arrived, but they were able to save three pieces: The Vial Cross, an approximately 5' tall wooden cross studded with vials of hair, blood, pills, sand, and all kinds of ephemera and effluvia; a shirt made from Edward’s hair; and a large dildo studded with acupuncture needles, placed under a bell jar, and affixed to a smoke-detector base. Crudely made but powerfully evocative, the three pieces present an inarticulate meditation on sex, religion, illness, penance, and identity. 

Then there is Joseph Friscia, a self-taught sculptor who lived with his mother. In the museum’s files, he has but a six-sentence biography, which notes “his sculpture was the result of a severe Catholic upbringing.” His first donation to the museum was The Church Has Its Way, which consisted of clay figurines of men in various states of religious torture. (One man pleasures himself with a crucifix, which is a sight I will never forget.) After disappearing for years, Joseph reappeared and told Wayne that his mother had died and he was “now free.” He gave the gallery new sculptures, man-beasts molded from the peach pink bodies of fetal mice, and never returned.

Joseph and Edward are emblematic of the outsider artist who is a reclusive creative working out personal anguish through art. The museum’s collection also includes Hokey Mokey, who has anonymously mailed art to the gallery every month for the past 15 years. 

Here, the same dynamic of pride and shame is worked out in a more playful manner. Hokey’s work primarily consists of flat erotic montages placed inside envelopes. The art dares viewers to both open the envelopes and destroy their contents. Each packet is themed around some aspect of the month, like a holiday or a turn of season, and suggests an ongoing attempt to make sense of the world through pornographic art. Over the years, Hokey’s work has developed three-dimensional aspects, layering of colors and materials, and suggestions of an awareness of other collage makers, like artist Barbara Kruger. When finally tracked down, Hokey expressed no interest in having a show of his work or coming to the gallery. He had sent art to a few other people, but said the overwhelming majority of his work (nearly 200 packages to date) has gone to the museum. 

Ted Titolo is another artist who has given all, or nearly all, of his work to the collection—a vast and stunning collection of art in a dozen mediums and a hundred styles. Of all the outsiders in the collection, Ted’s work is the most powerful. Deemed too gay for art school and too crazy for the army, he worked on Wall Street and dreamed of being a “fat lesbian,” according to Wayne. Ted's compulsion to create is cataloged in reams of notebooks, sheaths of drawings, boxes of VHS tapes, and untold scores of photos. 

Ted is often the subject of his own work, although his self-portraits tend to obscure or remove his face. Occasionally, the portraits go so far, they call for Ted’s own annihilation. (In their context, these self-destructive scratches might have more to do with Ted’s desire to obliterate his maleness than his self-hatred.) Much of his art is divided up into “projects,” such as Rasa, an epic collection of writing, drawing, and photography that nearly fills a dozen three-ring binders. Perhaps his most interesting work is American Kouros, an illustrated book created in the late 1960s, which details the “War Between the Monosexes and the Herms.” In this epic battle for humanity’s sexual and emotional future, Ted posits hermaphroditism as our only hope. 

All but two of these men are dead or missing, and of those two, only one is in contact with the museum. They have left their work to say what they never could. For artists who made art outside the broader context of gay life in the 20th century, these outsiders speak powerfully to the experiences of gay men in their time and place. The fact that these artifacts remain—and were created in the first place—is a testament to the ability of pride to occasionally mediate shame in private, on paper, on canvas, or in the bodies of dead mice.

Follow Hugh Ryan on Twitter


Weediquette: Sour Joe

0
0

Photo courtesy of Wikipedia

The first guy I smoked weed with in college became my best friend. His name was Sour Joe. Technically, we weren’t students when we smoked for the first time. At our freshman orientation, the two of us joined a field trip to South Street so we could stray off and find weed. We followed tips from passing strangers, going from corner to shadier corner until we found a skeptical young man sitting on a lawn chair on the sidewalk. After he asked random questions to confirm we weren’t the police, he sold us a few nick bags. We scurried away happily, and that evening we hosted a smoke-out in our temporary dorm room—college hadn’t even started, and it was already shaping up to be exactly what I had hoped for.

Throughout college, Sour Joe and I stuck together through a slew of crazy cohorts. I liked Sour Joe more than my other smoking buddies, because he was as culturally confused as me. A British kid raised in Florida, his accent was completely mangled. If he spoke for long enough, he sounded drunk and incoherent. I cracked up when people asked him where he was from and he replied, “I’m from Florida,” in a British accent.

During freshmen year, Sour Joe was the only dude with an off-campus apartment, so his place became our den of nefarious activities. (Many acids trip culminated in his studio apartment, including the one that turned our buddy Bol into a crazy person.) That first year, Sour Joe didn’t mind hosting this raucous activity, but the following year when he moved in with a guy named Hans, I felt a little less easy about hanging out at their place. Several times Hans expressed his hatred for me with grunts and a disinclination to hand me his ornate headpiece, so eventually I stopped visiting their apartment. I still spent a lot of time with Sour Joe, but instead of blazing in a row house, we discovered amazing places to smoke and trip in Philadelphia. On an average day, we’d explore the stone structures that were strewn about the edges of Fairmount Park. Sometimes we’d walk until we ended up in the wrong place. One time we walked into the center of a highway pretzel—we couldn’t figure out how we’d entered the pretzel, or how we’d leave it, so we sat in the tiny patch of woods with traffic whizzing all around us.

After a couple of years living with Hans, Sour Joe moved into his own spot not far from my apartment. During this period, we mostly smoked inside. We found ourselves aging, losing the drive and stamina that used to land us in Philly's weirdest places. We now ended our chill sessions early so that we could spend some of our free time in complete solitude. Whether we sat in complete silence or acted wildly, we maintained the same level of comfort. 

Like any close friends, Sour Joe and I enthusiastically picked on each other. I always went for a more direct approach, insulting his haircut or harping on his goofy accent, but Sour Joe was a real sick fuck. He had a way of sabotaging my thoughts by saying a few calculated words. During one mushroom trip, he told me that I should try not to pee myself, and it pretty much ruined my whole day. Though some of his jokes were cruel, they were all hilarious, and I missed his quips when I moved to New York.

After nine years of symbiosis, Sour Joe and I unceremoniously parted ways. We both expected to see less of each other, but only Sour Joe was annoyed when it didn’t come true. During the first year, I was back every couple of weeks to crash on his couch. Living in New York was overwhelming, and I needed the therapy of Philly's armchair pace. I would spend the weekend with Sour Joe and his roommate, smoking weed, eating pizza, and watching movies we had seen before. For a while they didn’t seem to mind my visits, but they changed their minds when I violated the code of key borrowing.

At the tail end of one weekend in Philly, I was in a conundrum. I was stoned and alone at Sour Joe’s house, and I had his keys. I was supposed to drop them in the mail slot after I locked up, but I eventually realized Sour Joe wouldn’t be able to get his keys if they were locked inside the house. I knew I couldn’t leave them anywhere outside because this was South Philly. The more I thought about it, the more confused I became, and finally I decided that the best plan would be to make a copy of the key. In retrospect it didn’t make much sense, but that’s how Sour Joe’s couch became the Philadelphia branch of T. Kid Inc. Once I had a key, I would roll through Sour Joe’s spot with little to no notice, coming in like a whirlwind of hair and rolling papers, and depart whenever I woke up on Sunday. I took for granted that our dynamic had changed since I became a perpetual couch guest instead of a neighbor who could allow him some solitude on the weekends. His house was a capsule of the relaxed lifestyle I once had in Philly, but my nostalgia sessions encroached on my hosts.

Once I adapted to life in New York, my frequent visits to the City of Brotherly Love slowed down to a few visits a year. When I returned, I found Sour Joe where I left him, smoking a joint in his living room and watching Bride of Re-Animator. I thought seeing less of me would make my visits more exciting, but it seemed like Sour Joe was sick of me. This weekend I was invited to Philly for a glass show (I’ll tell you about it next week), so I hit up Sour Joe to let him know I was coming through. For the first time ever, I received no response. I think I’ve finally reached the point of no return and have been banished forever from the comforts of a relaxing weekend in South Philly. Perhaps one day my best friend Sour Joe will come around, recalling the days of yore, and open his door back up for his old buddy T. Kid. I don't plan on getting my hopes up though, because Sour Joe won't soften easily. He didn’t get his nickname by being sweet.

Follow T. Kid on Twitter

VICE News: Venezuela Rising - Part 3

0
0

VICE News continues its coverage of the protests in Caracas against Nicolas Maduro's government, where opposition leaders organized a massive roadblock in the center of the city.

VICE News correspondent Alex Miller spoke with MP María Corina Machado, who demanded an end to the violence, the release of detainees, and called for the international community's attention.

'Beasts of the Southern Wild' Star Saves an Iconic New Orleans Pastry

0
0

Dwight Henry at the Sundance Film Festival. All photos by Jess Pinkham

The first time I heard about Dwight Henry, the baker and actor, was in a text message four years ago. “Have you ever had a buttermilk drop?” my friend, Michael Gottwald, asked. After a few minutes had passed and I had not responded, he followed up with a thorough, “If you’ve never been to the Buttermilk Drop Bakery and Café, you have to go!!!” 

The insertion of the third exclamation point was well deserved. The truth was I had a been a few times—it was the only place in New Orleans that had managed to revive the New Orleans buttermilk drop, a deep-fried donut that looks like a giant teardrop that happily cried into a fryer. If you’ve never tasted one, it’s crispy on the outside, but sweetly soft like a pound cake inside. It’s always glazed with an icing that magically, or scientifically, coagulates when it hits the piping hot “drop,” becoming a translucent, sweetly coated veil for the whole thing. Its true selling point comes into play if and when you accidentally leave it in the backseat of your car for an entire day—it remains perfectly crispy and structurally sound whenever you rediscover it.

At the time of Michael’s text message, I was living in New Orleans working as a line cook in a kitchen in the French Quarter that lacked air conditioning, the kind of environment where sugary food items were the only trick to not blacking out on the line. Michael was busy producing his first feature film, Beasts of the Southern Wild, and his office was conveniently located across the street from Dwight’s bakery, the Buttermilk Drop Bakery and Café

Trailer for Beasts of the Southern Wild

Fast forward to 2014 and Dwight Henry has transformed from a 20-year veteran baker into a breakout Hollywood movie star who continues to straddle both worlds. Rewind your television calendar to the Oscars last year, and you’d catch Dwight on the red carpet alongside his pint-size co-star Quvenzhané Wallis, where Beasts of the Southern Wild had been nominated for four Academy awards. In the film, Dwight plays the role of Wink, the hot-tempered father to six-year-old Hushpuppy in a fictional southern delta community known as “the Bathtub” at the edge of the world. Since Beasts of the Southern Wild, Dwight has landed roles as Uncle Abram in Steve McQueen’s 12 Years a Slave and Marvin Gaye Senior in the upcoming Sexual Healing.

The Buttermilk Drop Bakery and Café

With my knowledge of Michael Gottwald's overall confectionery addiction and frequent visits to the Buttermilk Drop Bakery & Café, I wasn’t surprised to learn that the charismatic Dwight was offered the role of Wink from behind his bakery counter. Both novices to acting, Quvenzhané and Dwight were discovered by Court 13, the independent collective of filmmakers co-founded by Beasts of the Southern Wild director Benh Zeitlin. But after Benh and Michael offered him the part, Dwight turned the roll down three times because he didn’t want to gamble with his children’s future. 

Between his hectic movie schedule and baker’s hours—you can still often find him at the Buttermilk Drop Bakery and Café during the graveyard shift—Dwight’s expanding his baking enterprise. There are two additional Buttermilk Drop Bakery and Café locations expected to launch in New Orleans and another café in Harlem. 

This week, Dwight is in New York for both film and bakery matters, so I met up with him to check-in on the progress of his upcoming Harlem bakery that’s tentatively going to be called “Mr. Henry's.” Owned by Dwight and Richie Notar, the New York location is going to be a New Orleans–style café that will serve his famous buttermilk drops and other New Orleans staples like gumbo. According to Dwight, it’s currently just “a matter of construction and some final paperwork” before the Harlem café will open.

Buttermilk drops

When we sit down to have a chat, we discuss some of the secrets behind his technique for making buttermilk drops. Dwight tells me that he had his first encounter with all things gluten during his junior year of high school, when his older brother worked at Rising Sunrise Bakery, the Lower Ninth Ward neighborhood hub for freshly baked French bread in pre-Katrina New Orleans. He watched the muscle memory of the bakers at work, rhythmically stretching the dough against the surface of the flour-dusted counters. With his brother’s help, he landed a job there, where he was taught how to create classic New Orleans baked goods like pistolettes and muffaletta bread. 

Baking takes patience, focus, and a tolerance for working long hours when most people are sleeping. This is the same reason why I have never become a baker. When many New Orleanians were out drinking themselves into a hangover at midnight, Dwight was fastidiously working on proofing his dough. By 6 AM when the bakery opened, he’d already rolled out the dough, deep-fried the donuts, and prepared his café items like smothered pork chops or po’ boys for daily service. For Dwight, “Things have to be so precise, or else you have to throw it in the trash. You have to take your time with it.” 

When McKenzie’s—the bakery chain known for first creating the buttermilk drop in New Orleans—shuttered in 2000 from a scary health department report, a group of local investors purchased the company hoping to recalibrate the business. Originally, there were 49 locations. The revival resulted in bankruptcy, when the McKenzie's name and its formulas were sold off to Tastee Donuts, a longtime rival. Dwight, who grew up on buttermilk drops, noticed a serious opportunity. “You leave a void in the industry, you don’t have to be a rocket scientist to see a hole that you can fill,” he says.  

But when McKenzie’s closed, Dwight was working two jobs—at a donut shop and Southern Hospitality Catering Company—when he began to collect used bakery equipment from advertisements in the newspaper. Every last tool, mixer, and whisk began to consume his grandmother’s garage over the course of the next three years. He opened the Buttermilk Drop Café & Bakery in 2004 shortly before Katrina hit. When the storm destroyed the space, he was forced to close until he was able to relocate to St. Claude Avenue in 2009, which was directly across the street from Court 13 headquarters at the time. The bakery has since relocated to the Gentilly neighborhood in New Orleans.

Even though the fame machine can often influence the ego with the rollercoaster of success, Dwight continues to tread forward between his acting roles and a grounded approach to reality. “I still pinch myself when I see people come into my bakery. I am blessed and very thankful for everything that I have.” 

Like musician Mark Ibold of the band Pavement (who’s been known to bartend when he’s not on tour), in terms of his dedicated work ethic, Dwight explains that he will never give up baking in this lifetime, no matter how busy his acting career can become. “It’s difficult managing both acting and baking now, but it’s all about teamwork. I’m surrounding myself by competent, wonderful people who are helping me manage both industries,” he says.

He’s also working on producing buttermilk drops for online shipping so that he can provide them to customers all over the world. “You can mention Café Du Monde anywhere in the world, and 95 percent of the tourists that arrive to New Orleans are going to make that their first food stop in the city. I want the Buttermilk Drop Café & Bakery and my buttermilk drops to be as popular as the beignets at Café Du Monde.” 

When I ask if any of his diet-conscious co-stars like Brad Pitt and Chiwetel Ejiofor have gotten hooked on his deep-fried confections, Dwight smiles. He politely divulges that both Steve McQueen and Quvenzhané are addicted to the buttermilk drops. He starts laughing and tells me that more than any other customer, “that Michael Gottwald, man, he is a buttermilk drop fiend. It’s almost an addiction with him.” 

We start talking about tonight’s Academy Awards ceremony, and I ask him if he ever intends to retire from the baking business. “You can ask Benh Zeitlin or anyone in Court 13. When I’m picked up for something movie related in a limousine, I’m picked up at the front door of the Buttermilk Drop, and I get dropped off at the front door of the Buttermilk Drop. That’s my baby, and it always will be my baby, so I’m never going to let it go.” 

VICE News: Venezuela Rising - Part 2

0
0

VICE News continues its coverage from Caracas, where students took to the streets once again to protest President Nicolas Maduro's government and pay tribute to those killed in earlier protests.

VICE News interviewed a leader of the student movement as well as the mayor of Caracas. The rally ended in more clashes—protesters threw rocks and improvised explosives and police responded with tear gas and gun shots. 

All Bad News Considered: A Polio-Like Illness Has Affected Children in California

0
0

Photo courtesy of Wikipedia

Whenever a blogger looks at his statistics for the month, realizes he isn't hitting his monthly goal, and decides to waste ten minutes farting out a listicle about “The 27 Greatest Achievements in the History of Mankind,” he's obliged to list Jonas Salk, the inventor of the polio vaccine. Thanks to Jonas, an epidemic that reached 58,000 cases in America, including 3,145 deaths, in 1952 was down to 223 cases worldwide in 2012, despite the attack of Jenny McCarthy. Unfortunately, all Jonas's blog applause may be a tad ahead of itself, because a polio-like illness has been found in children in California. Thank you, everyone who decided to take parenting advice from Jim Carey's ex-girlfriend instead of scientists!

Photo courtesy of Wikipedia

Looks like somebody sent a copy of 2001: A Space Odyssey to the United Arab Emirates, because the country's General Authority of Islamic Affairs and Endowments has gotten scared enough of space travel to issue an official fatwa against Muslims attempting to travel to Mars. “It is not permissible to travel to Mars and never to return if there is no life on Mars,” the GAIAE said in a statement according to CNN. “The chances of dying are higher than living.” Whoever gave the group 2001: A Space Odyssey should refrain from giving them a copy of Stephen King's Christine, so they don't urge Muslims to stop driving cars. More importantly, Christine is a terrible movie, and nobody should have to watch it.

Photo courtesy of Wikipedia

Here are a few questions about Australia's weird decision to ban the Swedish art film Children's Island because it shows a kid's boner: If they really think it's child porn, shouldn't they arrest the director, producer, and distributor? Or if they only think it's gross, shouldn't they keep their mouths shut, because a smart government keeps out of arguments about taste? Hasn't history shown that virtually every piece of artwork that gets banned by a government ends up having a second, greater life as a cult classic? If you think perverts are going to use a tiny clip of a boy's dong as jerk-off material, you shouldn't alert everyone who forgot about the movie (a.k.a. everyone) that it exists.

Photo via Flickr user Chris Gladis

Look up! Not that high. Down a bit, like almost where you started. Now look up a tad above the screen at your computer's webcam that's constantly staring at you. Now stare into it and wave. There's a good chance you made a military surveillance person's day! No, the Guardian's new report that the GCHQ, Britain's surveillance agency, stored millions of people's personal webcam photos doesn't mean someone's watching your every move from that tiny camera, but if you read a news flash in 2019, on whatever dumb thing you're going to be wearing on your head in a few years, that the government is using a device to spy on you, don't be surprised.

Follow Rick Paulas on Twitter

Viewing all 38002 articles
Browse latest View live




Latest Images