The town of Parrish, Alabama, has had a shitty 2018. In February, a train carrying a load of "biosolids" —the fancy word for human poop—from New York City stopped in town's city limits and, well, just sat there stinking up the whole town for months.
Thanks to a neighboring town's injunction to keep the crap out of its county, the turd train was trapped in Parrish on its way to an Alabama landfill company called Big Sky Environmental. So the poop just sat there, baking in the steadily warming weather and making the entire town smell "like dead bodies," while Big Sky tried to figure its shit out. The company promised to have the roughly 10 million pounds of poop moved back in February, but as March came and went, the train cars stayed.
Finally, at long last, it looks like the Parrish poop train has been flushed. According to a new Facebook post from Parrish mayor Heather Hall, the last of the poop trains were scrubbed clean of all the dookie on Tuesday afternoon and the trains will be moving on down the line shortly.
"I know this situation took longer than anyone, especially myself, had hoped it would take to come to an end," Hall wrote in her post on Wednesday. "While what happened in Parrish was, to our understanding, an unprecedented event, there are still small towns like Parrish fighting this situation on a smaller scale. I will say this over and over... this material does not need to be in a populated area... period. It greatly diminishes the quality of life for those who live anywhere near it."
Hall also called for better waste management legislation, blaming the whole months-long debacle on a massive lack of oversight. "There is no entity regulating this part of [the] process," she wrote. "And that needs to change... through legislative action. If there had been even a small amount of oversight this might never have happened."
For now, at least, Parrish residents can breathe a little easier, knowing their town isn't engulfed in flies and fumes from other people's shit.
Time flies, 4/20 is tomorrow, and we've reached the final four in our weed week bracket, where we're letting readers decide, through the power of democracy, the best way to get high. Here are the marijuana ingestion methods that remain in the hunt for the national title:
So exercise your right as a citizen, and vote today for who should go on to the title game.
Water Bong vs. Joint
Weed Brownies vs. Dabbing
And don't forget to check back into tomorrow, the blessed holiday of 4/20, to vote for the winner.
Two years ago, 15-year-old Aubrey Jayce Carroll strolled out of his high school in Griffin, Georgia, and disappeared without a trace. His dad reported him missing, according to NBC News, but was confident his son would come running home at some point. But two years rolled by, and the small southern community feared they might never see Carroll again. Meanwhile, those who missed the teenager conducted candlelight vigils, and the saga even attracted crews from Dateline.
It turns out, however, that Carroll—now 17—was just living the good life out west.
According to Spalding County sheriff Darrell Dix, the teen was touring the country with a group of "people from the Woodstock era in their clothing and lifestyle." The Atlanta Journal-Constitutionreports that authorities managed to catch up with Carroll—who'd been using an alias—last month.
"I'd like to tell y'all thank y'all so much for all your prayers and looking out for my momma. I appreciate y'all so much," Carroll, sporting long hair and a Sublime t-shirt, said in a Facebook video on Tuesday. "I'm all right. I'm OK. I've been smiling, and y'all should do the same."
So while Carroll's family spent what might have seemed like an eternity worried sick about the kid, he appears to have been enjoying the sunshine, growing his hair out, and presumably listening to "What I Got" on repeat, living a parent-free life on the road. In the end, he wasn't the victim of some gruesome crime after all.
"He told us that he left on his own, and had not been abducted, hurt, abused, exploited, or harmed in any way," Dix said, adding that Carroll's mother told him to reassure the teen that "he would not be arrested and that he could live as he wanted."
Which weed strain is best for sex is a difficult question to answer. In fact, says Erica Krumpl of the Los Angeles' Cornerstone Collective, "You can't make a blanket statement about things like this." There are simply too many variables. And what bud is best for the bedroom is pretty specific depending on the starting point before the drug is even introduced. For instance, are you in pain? Anxious? Are you using marijuana to give a boost to a dormant libido? There are different strains for different moods.
But broadly speaking, for the more anxiety prone, experts like Krumpl say it's best to opt for a strain high in CBD and low in THC (AKA tetrahydrocannabinol, the psychoactive chemical that can trigger both euphoria as well as paranoia). Cannabidiol, or CBD, is the cannabinoid in marijuana that helps unfurl shoulder knots; it's what gives you that melted butter body high and therefore can be helpful for getting in the mood. Relaxation—especially for people with vaginas and those with general anxiety—is essential for reaching orgasm.
"If you have anxiety with sex, you can ask your dispensary which varieties would work best for anti-anxiety," says Vanessa Lavorato, proprietor of the cannabis confiserie Marigold Sweets. "I can't say cannabis is some kind of wonder drug that's gonna make you all of a sudden be able to have the best orgasm of your life, but for people who have anxiety, it definitely does help."
"[You have] to actually really figure out what kind of sex you want to be having," says sex educator Ashley Manta about another variable to consider. Whatever strain you decide on, and for whatever reason, Manta says a major key to making cannabis and sex work for you and your partner(s) is a little introspection. "Do you want to have slow, passionate sex with your partner that's really connective with eye-gazing and gentle with a lot of intimacy? Or are you looking for, like, 'Oh my gosh, I just wanna pound the heck out of you!'?"
From Getty Images
That in mind, an indica strain like Yumboldt could be a good bet for intimate, snuggly sex, as it boosts relaxation and happiness levels. To help with nerves, weed-centric media outlet HERB recommends indica strains like Northern Lights as well as hybrid strains with an equal balance of THC and CBD like One to One. For more energetic boning, Lavorato recommends Green Crack, which also gets a nod from "the world's largest cannabis information resource" Leafly for those looking to perk up while getting down.
"If you want the 'fuck your brains out'-kind of stuff, I would look at [strains] that are high in pinene and limonene, which are two different terpenes," Manta says. Terpenes are aromatic oils released in cannabis alongside cannabinoids. Not only do they dictate the smell of a certain strain, they can tweak physical and psychoactive effects. Pinene, marked by its super good spruce-like smell, helps you feel more alert—which can be helpful, assuming you're not content being a doormat in the sac. On the other hand, limonene is notorious for its sour citrus odor and helps significantly at melting stress.
Experts recommend experimenting with smoking or vaping versus something more long-lasting like an edible—that way, you can measure it out toke by toke and see how specific strains and terpenes affect your brain, bod, and bits. There aren't a lot of sex-specific cannabis products on the market, but the infamous weed lube Foria and the hmbldt arouse vape pen also come recommended.
If you're new to weed sex, experimenting with different sorts of highs solo can give you the privacy and freedom to explore. "Kicking off with masturbation is such a smart thing," Manta says. Above all else, if you're truly interested in infusing your sex life with cannabis, keep trying. There's no one-size-fits all option.
The key to getting it right is glorious trial and error, with some applied knowledge about what it is you're smoking/vaping/eating in the bedroom. Considering the topic, its a lesson most won't mind learning.
“Hey, I like the way you jiggle.” “Come on, give me your number.” “Smile, bitch.”
These were just a few of the abusive phrases I heard young women, ages 15-18, hurl at young men at the now-defunct Brotherhood-Sisterhood Camp in the mountains near LA. The exercise is called the Gauntlet, and I experienced it with a wildly diverse group of other teens, which included everyone from gang members to private school theater geeks. Nearly 100 girls would stand in two long lines facing each other, creating a corridor through which the boys, one by one, had to walk.
During this reverse catcall, the young women yelled, whispered, insulted, and humiliated the young men. It was a tsunami of fake flirtation and real rage. They weren't supposed to touch the guys, but the girls did jump in front of them and get right in their face. The young men could not say or do anything. Next, the guys were ordered to sit and silently listen while girls shared their stories of harassment, abuse, and rape. Then, after meeting separately to debrief, both genders came together as one group to talk.
This exercise might sound brutal, but it was meant to get young men to understand the harassment and microaggressions that women endure regularly, to sensitize them to the nuances of that pain, build empathy, and ultimately, change their behaviour.
The author at NCCJ's Brotherhood-Sisterhood Camp in LA (bottom right, on the floor in jeans with her elbows out)
In a city as sprawling, stratified, and segregated as LA, Brotherhood-Sisterhood Camp brought together people from disparate backgrounds. From its inception in the 1950s to is closure in 2004, it led campers through deeply personal interrogations of not only sexism but racism, anti-Semitism, classism, and homophobia. It was all in the effort of creating dialogue that would "build a multicultural, multiracial, and interreligious community.”
Its premise was this: In order to dismantle prejudice and bigotry, we each must examine our biases, head-on. We have to acknowledge that we all discriminate, we all have stereotypes no matter how enlightened we perceive ourselves to be. There’s no way to grow up in this country as a white person and not be racist to some degree, no way to be a man and not be sexist. Admitting our biases, interrogating them, and looking at them in their ugly face is the only way to actually make them dissipate.
Many of us who signed up for the camp thought it would just be a fun week in the woods. Instead, we got our asses handed to us. But the highly trained staff were experts at breaking us down and building us back up. While the week was, indeed, brutal, it was also transformative and led to some of the most honest and long-lasting friendships many of us have ever had.
The camp was run by the National Conference of Christians and Jews, an organization formed in the 1920s around religious inclusion but soon encompassed human relations and social justice more broadly (and changed its name in the 1990s to the National Conference of Community and Justice). The camp was far from some hippy-dippy California experiment.
When women started coming forward about harassment and abuse last fall, I wondered if the #MeToo movement is actually changing men’s day-to-day behavior and attitudes, or if men are now just worried about getting caught. It made me think about the camp, the real transformations in perspective it inspired, and how experiential tactics like the Gauntlet might impact men’s understanding of sexism more deeply than hashtags and other screen-based activism. I know that most people don’t have access to a camp like the one I attended, but here’s a case for why America should invest in training like this to encourage empathy that can lead to action.
I reached out to men affiliated with the camp (campers, youth leaders, staff, and directors) to find out their experience of the Gauntlet. They described it as intense, overwhelming, confusing, and even distressing. Some walked through it quickly, head down. Others got angry and defensive. Some cried.
Reactions often morphed during the walk, as Rodney Lazar, 46, who participated in the camp from 1987–91 and now works in finance as an EVP explained: “My first instinct was to laugh. A woman telling me, ‘Nice ass,’ that’s funny. But as I walked, it became hurtful, eerie, and uncomfortable to just be a body: I’m a butt, I’m a chest, I’m no longer Rodney.”
Another man, Daniel Solis y Martinez, 35, who was at the camp from 1999–04 and is now Associate Executive Director at the California Conference for Equality and Justice said, “My fear at the start of the Gauntlet quickly shifted into shame—seeing the pain, anger, and sadness of women I’d befriended that week, and knowing I was part of it.”
Being put in women’s shoes, even temporarily, had a strong impact. Lazar stated, “It gave me insight into what it felt like to have my personal space invaded, be verbally attacked, marginalized, made to feel like a piece of meat, and to not have control—what women deal with everyday.”
That said, I remember that some guys clearly didn’t get it. They’d strut through the Gauntlet, lift their shirts, and rub their chests. While this peacocking could have been a defense mechanism, it may also be that they enjoyed the attention. I reached out to a few experts, not affiliated with the camp, to get their perspectives on the Gauntlet.
Dr. Kate Manne, a feminist philosopher at Cornell explained, “Men often have a hard time understanding why women wouldn’t like being catcalled or even complimented.” They don’t see it as denigrating, or how a man’s expression of attraction can be inextricable from a woman’s fear of violence.
Dr. Paul Bloom, a psychologist at Yale who’s critical of empathy and argues that it’s a poor guide for moral decision-making, said that an exercise like the Gauntlet might actually increase a man’s scorn for women if he thinks, I like the attention, so women should too; I’d fight back if someone called me a bitch, so women should too, and if they don’t, it’s their fault.
The male campers I spoke with agreed that the importance of the Gauntlet didn’t truly click until they had to sit down silently and “hear women’s stories of how the catcall statements directly connect to real incidents of harassment and abuse.”
Dr. Julie Anderson, an LA-based psychotherapist who specializes in gender and sexuality, confirmed why this act—just listening—was critical: “It focused on women’s experiences from their perspective and context, not the men’s beliefs and experiences.”
But listening to women wasn’t easy. It forced teen boys to confront powers and privileges they didn’t realize they had: “Women were running everything, barking at us what to do, and I realized how normal it felt that men ran things. The flip was really shocking, disconcerting,” said Mike Chavez, now 49, and a Senior Communications Specialist for a healthcare workers union.
Matthew Gibson, who was a camper and youth leader, said, “I was very aware of my lack of power in society as a young black male. What hadn’t dawned on me was my power position as a man. That really hit me.”
Gay men such as Solis y Martinez, who assumed they weren’t complicit in sexism, were forced to grapple with how they still wield power and sexualize women (by enforcing beauty norms, for example), even if they are not having sex with them.
At the camp, I witnessed this exercise turning young men’s worlds upside down. But did it stick? Did it change their behavior after the camp? Chavez said he became estranged from some of his high school friends because, “I was constantly getting on their case about saying ‘bitches.’ Before the camp I was typically sexist, so this was a pretty big transformation.”
Another, a football player, stood up at his first frat meeting as a new pledge at college and told his 50 frat brothers to respect women, to not refer to gay people as “fags,” and why. He got made fun of but kept saying it until they started to listen. This exemplifies what Anderson describes as the most effective way to make men positively change their attitudes and behaviors toward women—by hearing other men talk about sexism and why it’s wrong.
The young men who attended the camp thought an experiential exercise was a more powerful way to understand sexism than reading a book or watching a video. Both Anderson and Manne confirmed the importance of visceral learning and its connection to behaviour change. Anderson said, “An integrated catharsis (physical, emotional, intellectual) can start to change behaviours that haven’t served you well.” Manne explained that visceral learning “can play a key role in equipping people to put moral values into action.”
So what might exercises like the Gauntlet suggest for the #MeToo movement? A hashtag can’t communicate the experience of being harassed. Perhaps experience is what’s needed. According to Manne, “People morally rationalize their actions to avoid seeing themselves as misogynist, creepy, or a harasser.” Visceral experiences can help combat this, she said, but people also must accept that they are perpetuating unjust actions and not retreat into denial, excuses, or victim-blaming. “They have to be willing to face their shame.”
If nothing else, the camp was brilliant at encouraging people to face that shame. While #MeToo leans toward the punitive, shunning “bad men”—as perhaps it should—the camp called guys out on their shit but also called them back in to work through it. There was room for redemption. Not given, but hard-earned. And it wasn’t the responsibility of women to do that work—it’s why the young men met among themselves.
For many guys, the camp started a difficult, self-reflective process of disconnecting their masculinity from sexist behavior—not just catcalling but mansplaining, taking up space, and dominating conversations. But unlearning sexism is a lifelong process. They still wrangle with it, even decades later, cognizant, as Chavez said, “of all the ways I still fail as a feminist.”
Ded Rranxburgaj doesn’t sleep much. He often goes for walks around two or three in the morning, pacing the upper floors of the six-story Detroit church where he’s staying in an apartment with his wife and two sons. He avoids the ground floor, even in the quiet of the night—it’s too close to the outside, where he’d be vulnerable to arrest and deportation, which would mean possibly never seeing his family again. He hasn’t set foot outside for nearly three months.
“Now [it’s] feeling almost like prison,” Rranxburgaj told me. “I got everything here to eat and drink and do everything, but you’re not free. That’s the problem.”
Rranxburgaj, a native of Albania, has lived in suburban Detroit for 17 years and has no criminal record. He serves as the breadwinner for his family and the primary caretaker for his wife, Flora, who has multiple sclerosis. Over a decade ago he faced a deportation order but was ultimately allowed to remain in the country on a humanitarian designation. But in October, ICE revoked the status and issued a new removal order for January 25, a move in line with the agency’s Trump-ordered crackdown on even non-criminal undocumented immigrants. In mid-January, rather than cooperate with an order he knew would devastate his family, Rranxburgaj accepted refuge at the Central United Methodist Church in downtown Detroit. (ICE has a longstanding policy of avoiding arrests at “sensitive locations,” including churches.)
“Central United has been at the forefront of fighting for justice for three centuries now,” Reverend Jill Zundel, the church’s pastor, said at a press conference announcing the family’s move. “We serve a God that calls us to a higher law.”
The family’s plight was covered widely in the media, inspired an outpouring of public sympathy and support, including from members of Congress, but Rranxburgaj’s case remains effectively stalled. In January, ICE denied his request for a stay of the deportation order, and the agency has called him a “fugitive” for failing to comply. His team is still hoping for a legal reversal, but with no foreseeable timeline for action, the family remains in a cruel limbo.
“It feels desperate,” Caitlin Homrich-Knieling, an organizer with the activist group Michigan United, which is supporting Rranxburgaj, told me. “We can collect 700 letters, we can have rallies, we can speak. But we can’t guarantee that they’re going to hear us. They aren’t responding, and it makes you feel hopeless.”
The view from the family's church apartment.
Rranxburgaj, 48, grew up in a large family in the city of Shkodra, near Albania’s northwestern border with what was then Yugoslavia. At the time the country, one of the poorest in Europe, was under the iron control of communist dictator Enver Hoxha and largely isolated. Rranxburgaj remembers extended family members sleeping packed together on the floor of his home, stores that had no bread, and constant discussion of escaping across the border. Ever since he was ten years old, he said, he was thinking about America. “All my dreams is to come to USA,” he told me. “Like many people do.”
Many Albanians, including Rranxburgaj’s brother, snuck out of the country and fled to the West, but Rranxburgaj was never able to. In the early 1990s, soon after communism fell in the country, he married Flora, and a few years later the couple had Lorenc, their first child.
But Rranxburgaj never forgot about America. In 2001, 16 years after Hoxha’s death, he finally made it, flying to Canada with Lorenc and then crossing into Michigan, following his brother to the Detroit area. Flora came several months later. The couple had another son, Eric, who was born a US citizen, and the family settled into a comfortable life in the working-class Detroit suburb of Southgate, where Rranxburgaj got a job as a cook at a diner. “I miss my work,” Rranxburgaj told me. “People now [are asking], ‘Deddy’”—the nickname his coworkers gave him—“‘are you come back? Are you come back?’ And I say, ‘I don’t know. I’m waiting.’”
Once in the United States, Rranxburgaj applied for political asylum, but the claim was rejected, and in 2006 he was ordered deported. He appealed and was denied in 2009. But by then Flora had contracted multiple sclerosis. The illness now confines her to a wheelchair, causes debilitating pain and fatigue, and severely limits any physical activity. Rranxburgaj serves as her primary caretaker, and dresses and bathes her. Because of Flora’s illness, ICE granted Rranxburgaj humanitarian status, and for years he was able to stay in the US as long as he checked in with ICE annually.
Then came Donald Trump. Shortly after he took office, the new president issued an executive order directing ICE to pursue deportations “to the maximum extent permitted by law” instead of prioritizing the most serious criminals, which had been the policy for several years under Barack Obama. The new rules resulted in a dramatic increase in arrests of immigrants already living in the US, especially those without criminal convictions. Out of the 111,000 arrests made from Trump’s inauguration to the end of fiscal year 2017, more than 31,000 had no criminal record, according to ICE data. Instead of annual check-ins, Rranxburgaj suddenly had more frequent appointments. Then, in October, he learned his humanitarian exemption had been revoked, and he was ordered to leave the country by January 25. In a typical practice, he was allowed to remain out of custody after presenting officials a one-way plane ticket, but he and his family were terrified.
“For 27 years I’m married with her, and now I have to leave her? And to leave my kids?” he told me. “To leave the family and you go back, probably never see [them] again—that’s to crack your family.”
Since Trump’s executive order, dozens of places of worship across the country have offered sanctuary to immigrants facing deportation. Ingrid Latorre, a Peruvian national and mother of a young son, has been living in various Colorado churches for over a year; in October, Eliseo Jimenez, a 39-year-old Mexican native and father, moved into a church in Raleigh.
Last March, the Central United Methodist Church, in the heart of downtown Detroit, was among the first in Michigan to declare itself a sanctuary location, offering residence to an African family of six who were seeking political asylum. “We have a message today for Donald Trump,” Reverend Zundel said at the time. “If you want these families you’re gonna have to come through us.” (That family stayed at the church for three months.)
When the Rranxburgajs moved in, to an apartment on the fifth floor, the family was thrilled—it felt like the church had saved their life, Ded told me. And their apartment was more than satisfactory, with a comfortable dining and living area, a kitchen, and enough bedrooms so Lorenc and Eric could each have his own. “I’m very happy, very happy,” Ded said of his reaction. “I said myself, ‘Wow that’s perfect for us!’”
But as the weeks have dragged on, the apartment has begun to feel like a jail, and the wave of initial relief has gradually given way to chronic anxiety over an uncertain future and mind-numbing boredom. A day feels like a week, Rranxburgaj told me, a week feels like a month, and a month feels like a year.
The house arrest has also been difficult for the kids, who worry about their father. Ded and Flora are concerned about Eric, a shy teenager who has advocated publicly for his dad, because he’s been under-eating for weeks. Although only Ded is restricted from leaving, Flora also rarely ventures outside, despite her husband’s encouragement, because she doesn’t want to leave Ded alone.
On Valentine’s Day, Ded walked into the living room and discovered his wife on the couch, shaking and writhing in pain. She needed emergency medical attention, but Rranxburgaj was afraid to call 9-1-1 himself, because it would mean opening the church door. The boys were at work and school. Instead he called Homrich-Knieling, who rushed over and was able to call 9-1-1 and then guide the EMS team to the apartment. She and a church volunteer accompanied Flora to the hospital. (Her episode was possibly induced by stress.)
“It was just like this moment where—what would have happened if Ded were deported?” Homrich-Knieling said. “Who would have been here? Who could have called?”
Rranxburgaj’s plight has galvanized support from around Michigan and around the world. Last month, a letter writing campaign organized by Michigan United prompted 700 messages of support, including various personal stories from families afflicted with MS, quotes from the Statue of Liberty, and direct pleas to Rebecca Adducci, the ICE regional field director. The organization attached copies to the fence of the agency’s Detroit office, creating a startling visual protest. Two Democratic members of Congress from the Detroit area, Debbie Dingell and Brenda Lawrence, and one from Chicago, Luis Gutierrez, also visited Rranxburgaj and called on ICE to grant a stay.
Asked for comment, ICE Detroit field office spokesman Khaalid Walls provided a statement reiterating the facts of Rranxburgaj’s case and that Rranxburgaj “is currently considered an ICE fugitive.” Walls also provided a statement declaring that “ICE does not exempt classes or categories of removable aliens from potential enforcement” and copied the agency’s sensitive locations policy, but did not respond specifically to questions about why Rranxburgaj’s humanitarian status was revoked or whether the agency would pursue him in the church.
On March 30, the Detroit Tigers’ opening day, supporters organized a barbecue at Central United. The church sits adjacent to Comerica Park, the Tigers’ stadium; from the building’s rooftop balcony it’s possible to watch the action on the field. Dozens of people showed up, and Ded and his family spent hours mingling and chatting. The Tigers lost in extra innings, but the day was perfect, Rranxburgaj told me, providing him an emotional lift that lasted days.
Rranxburgaj is committed to remaining positive, he told me—he knows things could be far worse—but every day feels longer than the one before, and often his thoughts become overwhelming. His mind begins racing, filled with memories from his past, anxiety about the future, questions about how he’d ended up confined when he’s only tried to support his family and follow the rules for 17 years.
“But you have to make a deal with [yourself],” he said, and believe that someday it will be better. “My brain just waiting for good news.”
I was sitting on my bed listening to Speedy, who lives several bunks down, tell another one of his tall tales. He'd done prison time in Ohio, Michigan and Texas, according to him, each time for murder charges and each time day for day—one day off for good behavior for every day served. And then the lights went out.
At first, no one thought anything of it. Prison is a dark place, and the lights go out all the time. In a minute or so, the back-up generators would kick on.
This time, they didn't.
After several minutes of confusion, the officer working the dorm made the announcement that we would be in the dark for a while. Around an hour later, stories began to circulate about someone noticing a flash and then hearing a sharp pop. It turned out that some electrical wiring caught fire outside the prison fence-line. We heard that it shouldn't take the power company any more than a few hours to fix it. This was late Saturday afternoon.
As the night wore on, we did anything we could to occupy ourselves. There were a lot of card games, people playing dominoes and reading. Then it began to grow dark outside and unbearable inside the cramped confines of the honor dorm, a unit reserved for inmates with good behavior records. When you’re locked down with nearly 50 men—with no lights and without the luxury of TV and other leisure items—things can quickly become tense. From across the hall came stories of people claiming to see officers running to other dorms, and when pill call came—where prisoners are taken out of their wing to take medication—it was under armed escort. The officers stopped laughing about the lights being out and began huddling together. Any information exchange between inmates and officers came to an abrupt halt.
It's hard to sleep when everyone in the wing knows something is up but not exactly what. Conversations between friends became debates, and through the night, whispers could be heard, plots hatched and old wrongs reevaluated beneath the shadow of darkness and out of sight of the now-useless surveillance cameras mounted every 20 feet. The dark offered ample opportunity for some to find safety and companionship in the arms of another without the prying eyes in the sky. Others took the pitch black as an opportunity to take whatever they wanted from those they felt wouldn't resist.
The third-shift officers arrived in full riot gear, camo green uniforms, tasers, pepper spray, and head-mounted lights. Counts were conducted in silence and questions were answered with shouts of "comply or else." Everyone was on edge.
I listened to my battery-powered radio and silently prayed I wouldn't hear any news about the prison. I'd already survived one riot and didn't need to suffer through another one. Eventually, I found sleep.
The next day, Easter Sunday, we awoke to an announcement and a posted memo: The news was alerted to the blackout, the prison website had been updated to reflect there would be no visits, and we would be in the dark until further notice.
Then came the stories from those who ’d left the honor dorm for pill call. Some said the staff had begun to call what was happening elsewhere in the prison “The Purge,” after the dystopian film in which crime is legal in America one night per year. Overnight, we were told, as many as 20 people checked in to the infirmary with bruises, busted lips and black eyes. We heard rumors that several had been shipped to the hospital, and that a few men had even been raped. Normally, anything I hadn't witnessed with my own eyes would be considered yard gossip, or more appropriately, labeled “inmate.com”—just another piece of useless information to be discarded. Only there was no denying the change that had come over the staff or the atmosphere of caged agitation that could be seen in every eye or heard in every voice, inmate and officer alike.
As I sat safe and surrounded by people who, like myself, had signed up for the honor dorm as a way to escape the noise and day-to-day drama of general population, inmates in other units—mostly older men who wore the label of rat, or worse, "chomo" (child molester)—were apparently being subjected to assaults, both physical and sexual. As the stories poured in, many of us in the honor dorm felt conflicted by our status. A few, like Speedy, felt the need to mouth off to the staff and threaten everyone with a sample of what we heard all those guys in the other dorms were getting. I just sat back and watched for signs of things getting out of hand. More than a few of us voiced disdain toward anyone who felt the need to target the weak.
It took another day for power to be restored, and several more days until life at the prison was back to normal. Some officers jokingly continued to refer to the blackout as “The Purge,” re-telling the story of a man who had allegedly been beaten with not just fists but a canned good in a laundry bag and a lock fastened to a belt before having a television broken over his head—and being urinated on. It was intended as a cautionary tale for those who felt the need to touch children.
I’ve seen the man who they say was assaulted. He was almost 70 and shuffled his feet when he walked—clomp, clomp, clomp. Whether he deserved what happened to him is pure conjecture. I do my best not to judge anyone’s sins. When I asked if the guy made it or not, I was answered with a mix of laughs, sneers, yeses and nos.
Not everyone felt the "purge" was a complete success: Some staff complained they didn't get the opportunity to use their pepper spray, and some inmates still had a few enemies.
All I know is I never used to have an issue with being in the dark, but now I question the caliber of people I share this place I call home with.
Derek R. Trumbo Sr., 40, is incarcerated at the Northpoint Training Center in Burgin, Kentucky, where he is serving 25 years for charges stemming from the sexual abuse of a child. He has maintained his innocence in court. He is a two-time winner of PEN writing awards for his plays, which have been performed in Australia, New York City, and Louisville, Kentucky. Although a current Northpoint Training Center inmate matched the name and description provided by the author, a spokesperson for the Kentucky Department of Corrections did not respond by publication time to queries about the alleged assault and other violence recounted in this story.
On April 20th this year, stoners will convene once again in cities around the world to celebrate cannabis and denounce the laws that prohibit it.
In Canada, where the tradition originates, there are at least a dozen events planned across the country ranging from community-minded garbage pick-ups to full-on smoke-outs with tens of thousands of people. But no matter how the day is acknowledged, 4/20 celebrations this year will be the last of their kind in Canada, because this time next year we will living under legalization.
While that prospect might seem like everything that any 4/20-goer could want, legal weed in Canada won’t be entirely free of harsh tokes.
Eight years ago when I entered the world of cannabis, I went to my first 4/20 rally in Toronto. Having spent most of my life as a non-pot smoker, I had some preconceived notions about what a 4/20 event would be like. The thought of hanging out downtown with a bunch of sketchy ass hippies smoking weed was not something I had any interest in at the time. But having been wrong about virtually everything I had thought I knew about cannabis, I decided to check it out.
Failing to convince a single friend that it was going to be a fun time, I went alone. The thing that struck me that day—and every year since—is how relaxed the vibe was. Sure there were a few hippies and a sketchy person or two, but there was also just about every other type of person as well. Throughout the afternoon, activists and advocates took to the stage denouncing the criminalization of the plant. Standing in that square looking around at the hugely diverse group—people aged 18 to 80—I realized that all these people had a shared dream: a 4/20 where we would celebrate the victory of the long fight for cannabis legalization.
In most western popular culture, 420 is to weed what 13 is to bad luck, 666 to Satan, and 69 to sex. How the number became synonymous with cannabis is something that has been argued and debated by Weed Enthusiasts for decades. In recent years, however, credit has been given to a group of young stoners in California in the 1970s called the Waldos.
The Waldos would convene at 4:20 PM every day to imbibe in the sweet leaf and generally used the three digit number to refer to all things weed. This ritual was then passed on to the arbiters of all things hippie, The Grateful Dead, by one of the Waldos who had the good fortune (in a hippie’s mind at least) to be able to hang around the band while they practiced. 420 was further disseminated through the band’s dedicated fanbase, and as the “Deadheads” made their way around the globe so too did the numerical shorthand, making 420 the call sign for cannabis.
So it was only natural that back in 1995, when employees Dana Rozek and Cindy Lassu at Vancouver’s pioneering Hemp BC store were selecting a date for their peaceful protest against Canada’s cannabis laws, they would select the 20th day of the 4th month. Within a few years, similar events began springing up around North America and over the world and now 4/20 has become the most popular day of the year to acknowledge cannabis and the ridiculous laws around it. The Canadian government itself even seemed to acknowledge the significance when they chose the date in 2016 to announce legalization legislation.
The Liberal government has been adamant about sticking to mid-summer this year as the date for legalization. Although distribution methods have been left in the hands of the provinces the framework proposed is pretty rigid. People looking anywhere in Canada for the medicated candies or glass cases of dabs and pre-filled vapour pens seen in the less-than-legal dispensaries in places like Toronto or Vancouver these days may be a little disappointed in legalization. Edibles and most extractions are forbidden under the new laws, which is unfortunate as both provide convenient, odourless (or mostly odourless) options. Which is ironic, because chances are you won’t have anywhere to smoke your black boxed flowers! In fact, mass smoke-outs outdoors are DEFINITELY not something that’s allowed under legalization.
That’s not to say that laws preventing people from communing and smoking outside will stop 4/20 rallies from happening… I mean, this shit is totally illegal now and that hasn’t stopped it! On the contrary, this shows why a peaceful day of protest is necessary. This may be called legalization but the reality is more like Prohibition 2.0, according to many people in cannabis circles.
Cannabis legalization has been an economic victory, not a moral one. Despite decades of cannabis activists pointing out the moral obtuseness of cannabis prohibition, it wasn’t peaceful protests or well-worded arguments that won the day. This is a legalization brought about by seeing the money that’s being made in places like Colorado and Washington as well as in the multi-billion dollar Canadian cannabis black market and saying: “Yes, give us some of that.”
If this had been a moral victory, legalization would have happened differently. You would have had a Liberal Party come in to power and immediately call for the end of all cannabis-related arrests. They would have opened the cells of all people in jail in Canada for non-violent cannabis-related offences. They would have wiped the records clean of all people who have been unjustly criminalized for a plant that we are all pretty much in agreement was wrong to prohibit in the first place. They would have addressed the racial biases that informed this criminalization (and continues to do so even in places where legalization has happened). They would make it affordable to access. They’d be talking about prioritizing investing in research into the plant and all the claims of the medicinal benefits of millions of people (myself included). They would find a way to allow people to grow their own. And, boy oh boy, would that be a 4/20 worth celebrating!
But, again, this is an economic victory. Instead of a great overhaul of the justice system, we have the government setting the stage for an unprecedented number of cannabis-related arrests as they try to bring a $6-billion industry under their thumb. While there’s is no exact dollar figure on what the justice system have spent in the past two years on raids on dispensaries, the number is certainly in the multi-millions, even though you have senior police officers saying the raids are ineffective and pointless. There is seemingly no hurry to deal with the people criminalized by their involvement with this plant, simply a push to criminalize more people.
The government has to get rid of all competition because the only way to control a commodity that can be grown anywhere is to control the supply. Under legalization people are going to be allowed in theory to grow their own cannabis, the ability to actually legally do so is going to decided province by province and even then, only if someone owns their own spot. People who developed strains and techniques for growing and have had to pay for their commitment to cannabis with their freedom are not welcome in the new market.
Outside of cannabis circles, conversations around legalization generally don’t seem to centre much around affordable access, amnesty for pot prisoners, and certainly not on the potential medical and health benefits that could arise from real study of the plant. The discussion seems to centre around how much money stands to be made from this glorious plant and the need to protect society from it once it is legal… but still profit of it.
This year, on the day we set aside to glorify cannabis, when the clock strikes 4:20 PM and I take the traditional toke (who am I kidding, it will probably be a dab), I’m going to breath a little deeper and hold it in a little longer because god only knows what 4/20 is going to look like next year.
Lois Riess, the 56-year-old gambling grandmother wanted in connection with the murder of her husband and doppelgänger, was said to be "cool as a cucumber" Thursday night when US Marshals finally caught up with her in Texas, the Washington Post reports.
A nationwide manhunt ensued after Riess was deemed a person of interest in the shooting death of her husband in her hometown of Blooming Prairie, Minnesota, allegedly stealing his money to go gambling in Iowa before befriending a woman in Florida who looked like her. That woman, Pamela Hutchinson, was then murdered in what police believe was an attempt by Riess to steal her identity. On Thursday, Marshals tracked Riess down to a restaurant near the Texas-Mexico border where she was, well, acting pretty normal, enjoying a drink at a local bar.
"I promised all along that Lois Riess would end up in a pair of handcuffs," Undersheriff Carmine Marceno of Lee County, Florida, said in a statement. "Tonight, she sits in a jail cell in Texas. We are working as expeditiously as possible to bring her back to Lee County to face murder charges."
Cops believe Riess used the same gun to shoot her husband that she did to kill 59-year-old Hutchinson. They found Hutchinson dead in her Fort Meyers apartment days after she was spotted on surveillance video chatting and dining with Riess at a local bar, and later near her condo. Police said Hutchinson's purse had been ransacked, her ID taken, and her car stolen when they found her body. When the feds arrested Riess in Texas, Hutchinson's car was tracked down in the restaurant's parking lot.
"She smiles and looks like anyone’s mother or grandmother," Marceno told NBC News. "And yet she’s calculated, she's targeted, and an absolute cold-blooded killer."
According to the Post, Riess, an avid gambler known in her hometown as "Losing Streak Lois," is facing possible charges of second-degree murder, grand theft, grand theft of a vehicle, and criminal use of personal identification.
The shooting at Sandy Hook Elementary changed me. I live in Newtown, Connecticut, the small picturesque town that used to be known for its incredible ice cream, not mass murder. On December 14, 2012, the day of the attack, I was in sixth grade at Reed Intermediate School, which is down the road from Sandy Hook. But I still feel its repercussions. I’m in high school now, and instead of prom and SAT prep, I’m thinking about gun violence prevention. Celebrating my Sweet 16 feels wrong when I could be planning forums and writing speeches.
I didn’t choose this path, but when you lose a friend or see the impact of murder on a community, you have no choice but to do something. The shooting at Sandy Hook killed my neighbors and friends. It had me scared for my life for five hours and made me feel like the world was my enemy.
The author's sixth grade yearbook photo
I will never forget the tone of the principal on the loudspeaker when he told us to “get into lockdown.” Our teacher beckoned us in a hushed tone to get under the computer desks in the corner and stay quiet. We sat under those desks playing hand games for what seemed like forever.
The cell phone in my teacher’s pocket rang endlessly. When he finally decided to answer it, he was told what was happening three miles down the road at Sandy Hook Elementary. The look on his face told us we had something real to be afraid of. When we were finally allowed to leave, a barricade of teachers shielded us from the open hallway.
My mom was waiting outside. I’d never seen her cry like that before. We spent the rest of the afternoon calling our friends to check that their younger siblings at Sandy Hook made it home. For 20 families whose children were gunned down, the answer was unimaginable. They never got to grow up, never hugged their moms again like I did.
My peers and I have been dubbed the “Mass Shooting Generation.” I hate that label, because it defines us by what's being done to us instead of what we are actually doing: demanding change. Teenagers all over the country are sick of waiting for legislators to keep us safe. We’re taking gun control into our own hands.
The author (left) at a vigil for Parkland
After Sandy Hook, I felt compelled to do anything—no matter how small—that might make a difference. My sister and I organized bake sales around the country to raise money for the Newtown Memorial Fund. As 11-year-olds, selling cupcakes in front of Walmarts made us feel like we were taking action—and helped us heal a tiny bit.
My high school, Newtown High, is like any other: kids are busy with homework, sports, clubs, and jobs. But we’re also trying to chip away at our own feeling of helplessness by giving back. We write letters to other victims of school shootings to make them feel less alone. It sounds cheesy, but a handwritten note to a grieving teen—or a note to demand action from a member of Congress—can have a huge impact.
We’re also working to change gun laws through the Junior Newtown Action Alliance. The most tangible way to enact legislation is to get people to vote. We’re working so kids like me, who are still too young, can automatically get a voter registration form on their 17th birthday.
Another aspect of our work with the Junior Newtown Action Alliance is raising awareness. One committee is filming videos of students recounting their Sandy Hook stories. A few friends and I are working on an Instagram page called @HumansOfNewtownCT to put a face on the impact of gun violence and show how one AR-15 affected so many more people than those who were actually struck by bullets. I believe if we can get the world to empathize with us, the opposition will have no choice but to listen.
It feels like we are finally beginning to move forward. The fact that this is becoming a national issue instead of one that’s clustered around small towns and groups of people who feel uniquely affected is huge. It seems like America is finally on our side—and that factions of gun violence prevention movements are unifying. The baby steps we were making before are becoming big leaps.
Now I’m interning at The Avielle Foundation, founded by the parents of Avielle Richman, a girl who was murdered at Sandy Hook. They’re studying the science behind violence and compassion to try to understand what drives people to kill.
But beyond understanding why these things happen, I wanted to be capable of literally saving lives. I decided to become an EMT, and for five months, in four-hour adult classes, three nights a week, I learned how to be a first responder. For what it’s worth, this was well before Rick Santorum absurdly suggested teaching children to perform CPR on wounded friends as a way to reduce casualties from school shootings.
Moving forward, teens need to continue to put pressure on politicians who are taking money from the NRA. We need to keep exposing them, because it could have a tremendous impact on the way people vote. We also need to keep sharing our stories. This issue is so much more widespread than people think. By combining our efforts with teenagers from Chicago and Harlem, we can amplify our voices that much more.
The author (center) with other teens protesting at NRA Headquarters
I had the pleasure of meeting Aalayah Eastmond, a student from Marjory Stoneman Douglas High, and Ramon Contreras, a student from Harlem, at a protest at NRA Headquarters last week. They are organizing a Youth Over Guns march in New York City on June 2 to raise awareness of gun violence in communities of color and nationally. We are hoping for a large turnout to really take a stand and give places that get overlooked by the media a chance to tell their stories.
In Newtown, we’re still scared. We had a fire drill today, and even though it was scheduled, I felt a flash of panic and thought to myself, “In Parkland, he pulled the fire alarm to get students out of their classrooms.” My apprehension to walk into the hallway and out of the school, is not exclusive to me—it’s felt all across America. What people need to realize is that we’re not scared of mental illness or unarmed guards, we’re scared of guns and inaction. We need to come together and do something about gun violence now, before another community is torn apart and another town becomes known for mass murder.
A vegan activist group still hasn’t let up on protesting outside of local Toronto restaurant Antler Kitchen & Bar.
The activists have now pledged to not halt protests until the restaurant posts the following oddly poetic message in its window, BlogTO reports: "Animals' lives are their right. In their desire to live and capacity to suffer, a dog is a pig is a chicken is a boy. Reject Speciesism."
In late March, a video of Antler's chef Michael Hunter butchering a deer leg in front of a group of protestors standing outside of Antler’s front window, surrounding the entrance of the restaurant.
“He’s doing it deliberately to mock and taunt us because we’re vegans,” someone says behind-camera in the video. “As you can see, the owner has brought the leg of a recently murdered animal to the front of the restaurant to taunt the activists.” Amidst the butchering, protesters hold a large black-and-pink banner that reads “MURDER” in front of the window, while more and more people look on.
The chef disappeared in the back of the restaurant, came back with a cooked piece of meat, and chowed down in front of pissed off onlookers.
Since then, media attention around the incident escalated, some vegans have decried that the activists hellbent on targeting Antler “don’t speak for all vegans,” and the protests outside of the restaurant have continued. Oh, and Hunter appeared on Joe Rogan’s podcast this Tuesday.
He told Rogan that the rift with vegans started in December after a vegan cyclist riding by took offence to a sign outside the restaurant proclaiming venison was “the new kale.”
“All of a sudden one day, these protesters showed up,” Hunter said. “Originally, I was kind of frustrated because they’re totally misguided... We take a lot of pride in where our food comes from; we have vegan and vegetarian dishes on the menu. I really respect that type of diet.”
Antler is a small restaurant located on Dundas Street West known for spotlighting regional ingredients. Hunter specializes in wild game. In a statement to the National Post, the chef said that Antler’s “identity as a restaurant is well-known throughout the city, as is our ethical farming and foraging initiatives.”
Hunter said on Rogan’s podcast that the protesters started showing up to the restaurant every week, growing in numbers and becoming increasingly agitated. He said they began shouting at customers and in their door in what he said was an effort to harm their business. “I just kind of got fed up,” Hunter explained to Rogan. “I just said screw it, I’m going to get these people out of here.”
The same group of vegan activists have protested fast food chains in the city, such as KFC and McDonald’s. In an April 12 Facebook event, the group says Antler “is an important place to educate on speciesism.” Speciesism is an animal rights term concerning discrimination between species—that is, favouring one over another.
The organizer of the event wrote on its description that Antler is a key place to “educate on speciesism” because “the public sees the chef as the victim, rather than the animals being killed and eaten.”
So will Antler’s chef agree to post the animal rights activists’ message about speciesism in his window?
"We're not going to, there's no way," he said on Rogan’s podcast, "but that's what they want."
Happy 4/20, my dearest friends! We made it. This week, we asked our readers to vote on the best way to get stoned and we're down to the last two—the championship round.
So vote now. Polls close at 4:20PM today. And then we'll finally know the best way to consume cannabis once and for all. It's a win-win for everyone.
On April 20, 2011, two months into the Libyan Civil War, British photojournalist Tim Hetherington was on the front lines with rebel forces at Misrata when tragedy struck. Gaddafi forces blasted his group, killing photographer Chris Hondros and gravely wounding photographer Guy Martin. Hetherington was wounded by shrapnel and survived the attack, only to die later from excessive blood loss.
Hetherington abhorred violence, but he took it upon himself to explore the subject of war on the front lines, alongside soldiers in Liberia, Afghanistan, and Libya. While embedded in Afghanistan on assignment for Vanity Fair (for which he won the 2007 World Press Photo of the Year), Hetherington came to understand war as a function of male sexuality.
Hetherington had an epiphany, thanks to a photograph he called “The Garden of Eden,” which showed American soldiers picnicking in the country. He believed a primal yearning for conflict and the threat of imminent death allowed men the opportunity to openly express love for one another without doubt, fear, or judgment. He thought true depictions of masculinity couldn’t be found in heroic, dramatic, or otherwise artistic representations of war. It lay in casual snapshots of soldiers in their most intimate and vulnerable moments.
Stephen Mayes was Hetherington’s longtime friend and colleague; he’s now the the Executive Director of the Tim Hetherington Trust. To commemorate the seventh anniversary of his death, VICE spoke with Mayes about how Hetherington changed the way we think about war. He also talked about his final conversation with Hetherington, in which the photographer shared how his time on the front lines changed his life.
VICE: How would you describe Tim Hetherington’s mission? Mayes: I met Tim while he was studying photojournalism at Cardiff University in Wales. From the moment he graduated in 1997, he was beyond photography. For the rest of the 90s, our conversation was, “That’s all very well, but what are you going to do with it?”
Tim never really thought of himself as a photographer. He would use any medium to announce the message: magazine work, a gallery exhibition, a multimedia installation, a book, a film, and all the publicity for everything else to talk about the work. It was never just a photograph; it was a life mission.
I first heard Tim talk about war and male sexuality in 2003. He had done a few years in the bush with the rebel forces in Liberia, which was a pretty brutal life. He lived it, and he was in there for reasons. The pictures were almost incidental. When he came out of the bush, he talked about things that he hadn’t photographed, that he couldn’t. He wanted to know why people do this.
What did he discover about the nature of war? For Tim, it came down to how the main thing behind conflict is male sexuality—but it’s not sexual. A lot of the issues of maleness are about the inability to express love. We have this very rudimentary view of male sexuality—that it is an on/off switch—and it’s so much more than that. Because there’s no invitation to men to think about it, explore it, or do anything about it (other than “behave yourself”), we’re stuck.
The reason why conflict is so interesting is because that’s where men express themselves; it’s where men were most human, in the most inhuman environment. It’s where he felt they were able to connect with themselves and with each other in ways they could not when they came home. Tim was looking for what it is that contains men and prevents them from being more expressive.
What makes conflict “male?” In his last conversation with me, Tim talked about why he wanted to photograph the front lines rather than the refugee camps. He felt that the emotional reason was that he was a man, and he wouldn’t be satisfied with being at the refugee camp because he was of the same cut as the men who were fighting.
Tim was struggling to understand what drew him to that. It isn’t as simple as being about territory or money or any of that. He saw it as a profound male need to seek conflict. Yet in his personal life, Tim was an amazingly peaceful man. He was not someone who sought conflict in daily life, yet he was drawn to war. Partly, it’s a sense of adventure. There is also the issue of love. Tim found a sense of love that he couldn’t express anywhere else in his life.
When I say Tim lived it, he really lived it. While he was in Afghanistan on patrol with the soldiers, he broke an ankle and wouldn’t let them help him. He hiked for two days with a broken ankle carrying a backpack across the mountains of Afghanistan to get help. He was of the men and that’s how he came across the idea that soldiers are the software of war.
How did Tim’s time in Afghanistan become the turning point in his career? When Tim received the Oscar nomination for Restrepo in 2011, he reached the point where he had an audience and something to say about male sexuality and conflict. Sleeping Soldiers, his Vanity Fair work, was the first real foray into that.
Sleeping Soldiers is a meditation. It’s not photojournalism, but it gets read that way even now. If you stop looking at what you expect to see and start thinking about what you might be looking at, Tim’s work often leads you to a different position.
Tim had been sleeping in the camp for months on end, and apart from the explosions, nothing much was happening. No one was surprised when he took pictures of the soldiers horsing around but to pick up the camera, creep around, and take pictures while they were asleep was very puzzling.
Tim told me, “This is about more than passivity. This is about being.” Stripped of their uniforms, these men were very different. Tim explained that the American soldier is an international trademark as recognizable as Coca Cola. The soldiers are the brand until you take the clothes off. Then suddenly they are people. Photographing the men half naked and asleep in the middle of the fiercely contested conflict in Afghanistan reminds people of vulnerability and aggression.
It’s interesting you said that Sleeping Soldiers is not photojournalism. What photos are considered "photojournalism?" Essentially journalism is a process of exclusion. For example, if you were photographing a famine, you wouldn’t show people going to the store to buy food, even though they do. It’s contradictory. Photojournalism doesn’t accept that. It identifies one individual or scenario to represent larger problems.
The notion of cliché has a function, which is that it brings us to ideas very quickly, and that’s very useful. For example, if you have a front-page picture, you know what that is, even if you haven’t read the story. The code is there, whether it is war, poverty, or famine. Photojournalism is about fulfilling your expectations about what you are about to see. The media is not in the information business. It’s in the affirmation business.
What are the tropes of war, and how did Tim go beyond this? The tropes are the hardware: uniform, the equipment, and the gear. Tim wanted to talk about the software: the people. He wanted to show the same people in the very conflict without their props or with the props rearranged in a way that revealed the narrowness of conventional reporting. The mission was not to expose journalists. Tim was trying to expand what had been done. He wanted to talk about things that couldn’t be said in places that didn’t want to hear them.
Could you speak about the turning point in Tim’s career? I remember vividly that he walked into my office in DUMBO. He didn’t say a word. He just pulled out contact sheets of work made in Afghanistan and asked what I thought of the photos. There was something happening here that was beyond conventional war photography. I honed in on the men playing, tweaking each other’s nipples, making contact with their shirts off. It wasn’t sexual or erotic but at the same time it allowed them the freedom of expression. That’s what he was trying to say: This looks different.
With Sleeping Soldiers, Tim told the expected story from every possible angle. He won the World Press Photo of the Year prize because there was nothing more to say. Tim recognized that all he could do was repeat himself.
That’s why the “Garden of Eden” photograph became his pivotal picture. He didn’t get it while he was making it, he got it while he was looking at it. He realized that what mattered most to the soldiers was not the fighting—it was being out on a sunny day in the country enjoying each other’s company.
How does Tim’s work help us understand the significance of male sexuality? Here the truth is exposed and the truth is not that men carry guns. The truth is about these deeper things. Tim wanted to talk about it in ways that wouldn’t be challenging—we don’t want to challenge men because then we get the usual reaction. It has to be about getting to men from the inside: recognition.
Tim was feeling something and wanted to know why people don’t recognize it. And of course we do, we just don’t talk about it, or we deflect. That’s what he was trying to get around. He wasn’t trying to make people feel uncomfortable. It was just the opposite. Tim wanted people to feel comfortable in the reality of their lives. From our little realities, the world is made. We should be able to talk about this.
One of the many memories I associate with playing Monopoly is the first time I got drunk. It was 2009 and I'd just turned 16. I was by the seaside in Liguria, northwest Italy, and I managed to get through six beers and half a bottle of gin in the time it took to finish one game. I cannot remember who won.
That experience didn't ruin my taste for Monopoly and its ability to tease out the self-destructive, greedy, unrestrained capitalist inside all of us. So when my editor suggested I should take on the current Monopoly world champion, Italy's own Nicolò Falcone, I jumped at the chance.
Nicolò is a 34-year-old lawyer from Venice, who also happens to work as a stand-up comedian. "Monopoly is a game based on building haphazardly, playing with fake money, and going in and out of prison," Nicolò often says in his routine, building to the punchline. "So it's natural that Italians are good at it."
To challenge Nicolò in a proper game, I need to recruit two more players. So through an extremely complicated and extensive selection process via one Facebook post, I find Elio and Lidia. Nicolò has asked to bring fellow stand-up comedian Stefano Rapone—not to play, but just so he too can be entertained by our inevitable destruction.
Lidia, Elio, and the author
After days of training, which involves reading and rereading the official rules of Monopoly and soliciting tips from former world champion Bjørn Halvard Knappskog, it's game-time. On the morning of the contest, we meet in the VICE offices in Milan. Brief introductions aside, the first task is to pick our tokens, which feature some of the newly designed items and not just the iron, flask, and hat of my youth.
Nicolò picks the vintage car, Lidia picks the T.rex, Elio—who plays in a band called the Pinguini Tattici Nucleari(Tactical Nuclear Penguins)—obviously picks a penguin. To make it clear to everyone that I'm not here to mess around, I select the battleship.
As the oldest player, Nicolò will be the banker. We're playing with an extra dice to speed the game up a bit. Here we... here we... here we fucking go.
The first 30 minutes go as expected, with each player trying to bag all the properties they land on. Elio ends up in prison a few times—a theme that will continue for much of the game, preventing him from establishing an effective property portfolio. As for me, thanks to a couple of fortunate throws, I manage to purchase two of the five most expensive landmarks relatively quickly. And then eventually the big one itself, the most expensive property on the Italian Monopoly board: Parco della Vittoria.
On a high, I make a few shrewd deals with Lidia to swap an electrics company and one of my cheaper properties for the second-most expensive landmark: Viale dei Giardini. I now have a monopoly on the two most expansive and lucrative spots the game has to offer.
Now, obviously, I've spent tons, but I don't care. I grin a giant grin and aggressively mock the other players when they land on any of my properties. Sure, they're only paying me relatively small sums at this stage, but my lord I feel invincible.
Nicolò, though, is staying rather calm and quiet and seems to almost be playing a separate game on his own. He mortgages an electrics company and a station, and he only purchases the orange properties—a popular strategy among the game's elite, as they have the best cost to income ratio, and they're the most likely places other players will land on when leaving prison. Meanwhile, Lidia and Elio have yet to obtain a full set of properties of the same color.
In my mind, at least, it's now a straight shootout between the world champion and me. Soon, we're really building our empires, but after splashing top dollar on a handful of houses, I have, unsurprisingly, run out of money. After a few more turns, Nicolò has also spent most of his cash, but he has hotels as well as homes popping up everywhere. From now on, whoever lands on any of his landmarks risks imminent bankruptcy.
I'm starting to think he's working to some sort of coherent, considered strategy—one that involves more than just buying up the most properties, and instead creating fatal traps that hook and devour his opponents.
Nicolò and Stefano Rapone, laughing at us.
The first to end up in his web of debt is Lidia, who's forced to mortgage all the houses she had eventually accumulated, but still hold on to her collection of train stations—which, in any case, are "useless," according to Nicolò.
After feeling a brief twang of personal satisfaction for taking money from the world champion when he lands in my territory, I end up owing him an extortionate amount of rent just a few throws later, forcing me to mortgage a few properties of my own. It's at this point that Nicolò makes it clear that he's done messing around and won't be accepting any properties as debt repayment. All he cares about now is ruining us.
The only player who doesn't end up screwed by Nicolò's tactics is Elio, who—in keeping with the traditions of Italian property magnates—continues to spend a significant amount of time in prison.
Just short of two hours in, the first chicken to be plucked is, of course, me. Rich in property, but cash poor, I end up enjoying a series of unwanted stays in the champ's hotels, and no amount of complex re-mortgaging can save me. As per the rules, my money and land all go to Nicolò. With the money he has accumulated, he builds some actual hotels on my land. The end is nigh.
Five minutes later, Lidia goes bankrupt. Within 15 minutes, jailbird Elio realizes that he started with nothing and pretty much still has nothing. Nicolò kindly gets out his calculator to help Elio work out whether he can be saved from bankruptcy, and whether his execution can be postponed. It cannot. Two hours and 15 minutes after the start of our game, the world Monopoly champion, Nicolò Falcone, has won arguably his greatest battle.
Before we all leave, I ask Nicolò to rate each player. He says Lidia played well but made three key mistakes. The first was that she only put two houses on her three properties, when it's better to build in groups of three, one per property. Her next big mistake came toward the end of the game when she decided to pay off her debt to him by mortgaging her properties and not selling her train stations. Generally, he says, stations and societies won't really help you win, so get rid of them when you can. The key is to build houses and hotels as quickly as possible.
Lastly, he criticizes her for not being ruthless enough and allowing the rest of us to negotiate our way out of debts. "You shouldn't pity anyone," he reminds her. "You must take them down as quickly as possible."
Elio also played well, he says. "But he made a huge mistake in the beginning by staying in prison too long when he should have paid his way out."
Nicolò explains that prison is a good place to spend time at the end of the game, when the risk of paying expensive rents is high, but not at the beginning because you need to get around the board in order to buy up some free contracts of your own.
As for me: "You played alright, really, but you were unlucky," Nicolò assures me. So, sure, having some base knowledge of tactics and strategies might help you become world champion. But for the rest of us, our success at Monopoly, as in life, is pretty much based on two things: pure luck and minimizing your time in jail.
My Abuela Maria was 14 and pregnant when she dropped out of eighth grade to sell 50-cent joints to her neighbours.
Her mother had died in childbirth and her father was long gone, leaving her to provide for her sickly twin brother, her bisabuelos, herself, and her soon-to-be baby on her own.
Family lore has it that Maria was first arrested for dealing marijuana in 1950, and that she broke out of the McLennan County jail that year to be present at my mom’s first birthday party. She spent the next 50 years of her life serving time on and off, often for pot-related charges.
Our current political landscape is culturally and legally becoming more receptive to the medicinal and recreational use of marijuana. I study the impact of state and national pot policies on people of color, and I’m committed to the decriminalization of the drug. However, as a person of color, and as Maria’s granddaughter, the way black and brown folks are shut out from the current pro-weed movement is embittering.
I’ve seen the racism of the war on drugs up close, and it can’t be forgotten as America dives into the legal weed industry.
After all, prohibitions on marijuana use have evolved in-step with American ideas about race. My home state, Texas, banned the use of marijuana in the early 1900s in response to white anxieties about the Mexican Revolution and resulting immigration. At least 29 states had already outlawed marijuana by 1936 when the propaganda film Reefer Madness seemed to confirm America’s worst fears: weed made Mexicans and African-Americans into violent criminals. By 1937, the Marihuana Tax Act effectively banned cannabis use nationwide, cementing racist drug policies a fact of life in America.
Only in the 1960s, when weed gained popularity among educated young white people, did America’s cultural opinion begin to shift and the laws (slowly) begin to follow suit. And it’s been a real slog since then.
After 40 years in and out of prison, I was told, Maria’s final arrest came when she was 54 and still selling joints and dime-bags. When the police came, Abuela Maria and her brother, Jorge, said they didn’t realize it was a raid, and that Jorge thought a competing dealer was trying to break in. He fired his gun, injuring the officer who kicked down the front door.
Jorge was found guilty of attempted homicide. Abuela Maria was charged as an accomplice and sentenced to life without parole.
As a child, I felt profoundly ashamed of my Abuela Maria, believing she was proof that people who called Latinos uneducated or criminals were right. I didn’t understand the violence of institutional racism then.
Today’s politicians seem to be selling legalization to voters at least in part as a way to transfer the weed business from shady brown and black folks to trustworthy white business owners. There’s an irony in our current president’s declaration that Mexicans are bringing drugs into this country, even as many states move toward legalization and as the former speaker of the House, John Boehner, transitions from politician to glorified drug dealer.
Only in America can a white guy like Boehner, who helped prop up the drug war for years, flip-flop overnight into a for-profit pot lobbyist.
Meanwhile, despite weed’s mainstreaming, people of color are often excluded from the spoils. In many states where marijuana is legal, you must have a clean criminal record to become a licensed dealer and the drug is heavily taxed, pricing out low-income consumers and making unlicensed dealing more accessible—if also more dangerous. All of this means that people of color will almost certainly continue to disproportionately be arrested on marijuana charges in the years to come.
My grandmother was released from prison at age 66 on "compassionate" grounds. Had it not been for the heart condition that was the basis for her early release, she likely would have died a prisoner.
When she came to live with us, I was 13 and still resented the stereotypes she represented for me. I never got to know her well. She passed away in 2016, having spent the final decade of her life working as a re-entry mentor and bible studies teacher at the same Huntsville, Texas prison where she served her last sentence. When I think of her now, I see her determination and resilience, but also the consequences people of color have endured from a century-long drug war.
It’s worth keeping people like her in mind as you celebrate 4/20 and the seemingly magical trend toward pot acceptance in America.
On Friday, the brothers of Syracuse University's Theta Tau engineering frat broke their silence about the viral (very racist) video that appears to show members taking an "oath" to hate "n*ggers, sp*cs and most importantly the fuckin' k*kes." The incident, which sparked protests on campus and an investigation by the school's Department of Public Safety, was, the members claim, just a bit of poorly understood theater.
In an apology the group posted online, the frat explains that the video captured a "skit" acted out as part of its "new member process" that was meant to "roast the active brothers."
This event was never intended to be centered around racism or hate. This year, one of these brothers is a conservative Republican, and the new members roasted him by playing the part of a racist conservative character. It was a satirical sketch of an uneducated, racist, homophobic, misogynist, sexist, ableist, and intolerant person. The young man playing the part of this character nor the young man being roasted do not hold any of the horrible views espoused as a part of that sketch.
In at least one video obtained by Syracuse's student newspaper the Daily Orange, the members not only use offensive slurs for African Americans, Hispanics, and Jewish people, but laugh at gestures simulating oral sex, call people "retarded," make fun of "gay girly accents," and yell "you fuckin’ k*kes, get in the fuckin’ showers!" Their portrayal of an "intolerant person" elicits howls of laughter from the audience, ostensibly comprised of fellow fraternity members.
Still, in what looks like a belated and weak attempt at damage control, the frat argues that the "disgraceful" sketch actually made a lot of active members "very uncomfortable." After the rousing night of theater, the fraternity said it sat down with new members to chat about "their actual beliefs," ultimately agreeing that "those words should never be spoken—in our house, or anywhere."
We would like to believe that the new members seen in the video laughing at the horrible things being said were not laughing in concurrence with these beliefs, but in fact the opposite—that racism, sexism and homophobia are so wrong that they are laughable. None of the satire was said or done in malice.
Still, it's hard to imagine the frat's PR push paying dividends. After all, the behaviour in the video was deemed "extremely racist, anti-semitic, homophobic, sexist, and hostile to people with disabilities" by the university's chancellor, Kent Syverud, who suspended the frat on Wednesday. And most sentient people who disagree with this kind of vile shit probably wouldn't be joking about it in such cavalier fashion.
"We understand that we have thrown a lot of fuel into an intolerant fire burning throughout our community," the frat wrote, an understatement if ever there were one.
There’s a specific scene in Super Troopers 2 where some drug-induced cops hallucinate the words “Highway Patrol”, which pretty much spells out, “High Patrol.” There’s little shock in who make up the audience of the Super Trooper franchise—the damn thing was released on 4/20, some 17 years after the original turned into a modern cult classic.
The rebirth of Super Troopers was funded thanks to the aid of a successful Indiegogo campaign back in 2015. For the sequel, the whole Broken Lizard crew is back for some good ol’ Canadian vs. American shenanigans involving a Canuck town near the border.
With the film set to be released today, I took the necessary time to have a conference call with the entire Broken Lizard team about the most obvious answers to the most important question: who have they always wanted to smoke a joint with in the entirety of human history?
VICE: Where is everyone? Jay Chandrasekhar: These fucking slackers are two minutes late. Ask me some stuff.
Sure, did you guys give Willie Nelson his bong back? Well (laughs), you know, we're trying to keep it held ransom until the next Warner Bros. green lights a Potfest.
Kevin Heffernan: Hey guys.
Hey Kevin. I was just asking Jay about Willie Nelson, how did you guys even get him to do an ad with you guys? Chandrasekhar: Willie is just a human joke machine like that. Every time I see him he tells me six new jokes and he's got a great mind for it. When we were on Dukes of Hazzard we just had a riot. We were smoking and cracking jokes the whole time. So he's constantly bugging us about making Potfest and anything really. He loves to act, so we kinda came up with this little idea, and I called him up and said, "You want to do this?" And he says "HELL YEAH!" So we met him in Rockford, IL at his show, and we went on the bus, shot it in about three or four takes, and afterwards we got a little high, frisked him on stage, and pulled out a bag of weed before singing backup for him.
Well obviously I gotta ask, what’s it like to smoke weed with Willie Nelson? Chandrasekhar: He has great weed, and he likes to punish you for ever saying that you’re as good of a pot smoker.
On a serious note, the kind of love this franchise has maintained from famous stoners, regular stoners, and just fans in general is major. How does it feel to still have that love after all these years? Heffernan: Pretty overwhelming honestly. I think for us, it was doing this crowdfunding campaign that really showed to us just how much the fans love the movie. We turned to them and asked them to help us get this thing done. And like 4,000 of them reached into their pockets and put money into this campaign. It really is overwhelming, because now we go around and do the screenings and things like that, and in those moments, you really interact with the the hardcore fan base of this movie. They show up in uniforms, and they have tattoos of you! It's unbelievable and just an amazing experience.
Steve Lemme: Steve here, yeah that sums it up. It's just incredible to meet these people face to face and know that we made the movie together with them. To me, it's the most connected anyone has ever been with their fans.
Erik Stolhanske: Hey, this is Erik. Honestly, when we were at the Willie Nelson concert the other night, after the show, Willie walks out and he does some signings for his fans and shakes their hands. When we got to do this with Indiegogo backers, it felt like the closest I've ever been to being that kind of musician, when you get to actually have a live experience with those that support you. It was such a great experience for us.
So when was the exact moment when you knew it was time to bring this Super Troopers franchise back to life? Chandrasekhar: Well we made five films in-between. But with this one movie, we’d just get a lot of people yelling stuff at us (laughs), like "who wants a mustache ride?" Aside from that, it also turned into this get out of jail free thing with the cops. Half our crowds are stoners and half our crowds are cops. We're sitting there and saying, yeah, this thing is big (laughs), we need to get crew cuts, grow mustaches again and line it up for when 4/20 lands on a Friday. It's been three years in the making but here we are.
Speaking of cops, they apparently love the franchise. In this day age, there’s the idea that most officers are a bunch of tight asses, at best. What’s your history as far as how they’ve treated your comedy. Heffernan: It seems like they love it! It's weird. We go and do these stand-up shows and it's just full of cops and stoners, and they all have their stories about them playing the meow game, and doing fun stuff from the film to entertain themselves. They’re pulling us guys over and saying great things. I think when you make a movie where the cops are the good guys, the real-life cops really appreciate that (laughs), and you really do get a get out of jail free card.
Lemme: We've all had experiences with cops where we've been let out of speeding tickets. I got pulled over doing 120 miles per hour, and a cop let me off. All I had to do was take selfies with him on the side of the road.
Chandrasekhar: You know, when I was shooting the Dukes of Hazzard in New Orleans, the chief of police handed me his card and said, son...if you get into any trouble down here, you can give me a call, anything short of murder. And he just pauses and says, “actually for you, murder is OK too.”
Woah, was he smiling when he said that? Chandrasekhar: He was smiling.
So in the light of all the bad shit that’s going down involving cops. The shootings and multiple incidents of police brutality, does it make it harder to do a film like this? Chandrasekhar: Of course, we're aware of all the terrible things that are happening between cops and mostly black men. And this is going to sound slightly insensitive in the same breath, though that's not the intention, but most cops are decent people. We need cops. That's the simple fact of every civilized society. Obviously, they gotta stop doing all these awful things, but most cops are still good and decent people.
Lemme: I think that's something that we get from a lot of cops...thank yous. A lot of officers say, thank you so much for portraying us not as violent maniacs or corrupt in some way, or fat donut eating lazy dudes that sit around. This is actually what the majority of cops are like. A lot of times we're just regular guys just like everyone else. We're just doing our jobs. Our fingers are just optimistically crossed that the majority of cops really are good and decent dudes.
Chandrasekhar: And women.
But moving back to the comedy angle. There’s a lot of callbacks, but also a lot of stereotypes at the cost of Canadians. But they seem funny. How did you want to make sure that the whole movie didn’t just turn into a Canuck roast fest? Heffernan: I think one thing we did was cast a bunch of real Canadians in some parts, like Will Sasso, Tyler Labine, and a few others. They brought their own kind of humour and thoughts about growing up in Canada. They brought that to the table and it makes it feel more authentic to us. It makes it feel like they make for better nemeses and better characters in the movie.
Chandrasekhar: Yeah, Canadians have always been portrayed in American films as these really nice guys and women up north. And they're like, oh gosh, gee wiz, oh sorry. But if you hang out in Canada, Vancouver or Montreal after midnight once they get a little beer in them, you'll see some types. You'll see the tough hockey part of Canada and we wanted to be one of the few films to show that side. We don't make donut jokes with our cops, and we made one nod to the polite Canadian with Bruce McCulloch before heading into the other side of Canada. So we're trying to show nuance.
Lemme: If you watch what we say as the Super Troopers, our stuff is really just basically Canadian stereotypes, which is what all ugly Americans know. But when the Canadians come back at us, it's really pointed, accurate put downs that are legitimate critiques on American society. Like gun control laws, and obesity, so I love it when Canadians start coming back at Americans, because it's really really good material.
So what’s a favourite Canadian on USA dig of yours? Lemme: My favourite one is based on a true experience and revolves around Canadians that have their on misconceptions. For one, they claim that they burnt down the white house in the war of 1812. And surprise! We're actually educated, and so when we heard that we were like, what? That's not in our history books! And then if you go and look it up it's actually the British that burned down the White House, but they just happened to be renting Canadian land basically. The Canadians are taking credit for burning down our White House. (laughs)
Canadian vs. USA shit aside. You managed to bring in a lot of other guest stars and major faces to keep the fan service of Super Troopers alive, including Rob Lowe. Lemme: He was dreamy! He's a professional and he's gorgeous! You find yourself doing a scene with him and you're like, holy crap, it's Rob Lowe!
(long pause)
What about everyone else? Feel free to chime in. Lemme: It's funny, because it's like, multiple guy phoners are awkward in that way. We don't want to stomp on what anyone else is saying, we're being very polite and letting everyone speak.
Don’t be polite. Heffernan: Don't be polite? Alright, Rob Lowe's a fucking dick! (laughs) Don't print that!
I won’t. (Editor’s note: he will.) Lemme: But seriously, all the movies we've made, we get the opportunity to work with people that we've grown up watching, whether it's Bill Paxton, Michael Clarke Duncan or whoever, and now it's Rob Lowe. It's amazing shit to see growing up in New York City. When The Outsiders came out, every single woman at every age was talking about how hot this guy Rob Lowe who played Soda Pop was. I've probably seen more Rob Lowe movies than anyone here, so just standing in a scene opposite him in a whorehouse setting, and looking into those baby blue eyes was completely surreal. And I found myself trembling when it was over.
You also had Lynda Carter, classic Wonder Woman huh ? Chandrasekhar: We did! She was in our first film because we were really eager to get this 70s icon into our movie and she said yes, which we could barely believe. That we were actually in the same movie as freaking Wonder Woman. And of course, she came back for the next one because we got to be really great friends with her and she's got a really funny, dirty and wild sense of humour and she fit absolutely nicely with us.
Lemme: But let me say, we're far more susceptible to man crushes then we are to woman crushes and that's just the truth.
Heffernan: Easy Steve, easssyyy
So it’s 4/20, most of your fans are of course lovers of weed. What’s your take on weed legalization? Chandrasekhar: I gotta tell ya, when California had a referendum on it, I thought about voting no because I like that weed was the rebellious thing to do. That was the great thing about it. It felt a little naughty (laughs). But the reason why I ultimately voted yes was an obvious in the sense that it’s no worse than alcohol. There's also no reason that cops and American citizens should be interacting in a negative way around weed. If we accept the same laws as alcohol, it's just logical. Everybody except for Jeff Sessions knows that.
Well in celebration of weed and 4/20, I gotta ask the most important question. If you had a chance to smoke a joint with any fictional or non-fictional character ever, who would it be? Chandrasekhar: Gotta be Bill Clinton right?! He's a big weed smoker obviously. I bet he would inhale if he hung out with me!
Heffernan: I would like to smoke weed with uhhh, Jim McMahon of the Chicago Bears because I just love Jim McMahon from the Chicago Bears.
Lemme: I would like to get stoned with Mick Jagger and Danny Zuko from Grease as portrayed by John Travolta. I know that's two guys, but that's my answer.
Stolhanske: I would like to smoke with David Gilmour of Pink Floyd.
Lemme: Ooooooo (laughs)
Stolhanske: I'd like to know how he played and engineered some of that sound and rips on The Dark Side of the Moon and some of those great songs.
What about some fictional people, I’m going for Yoda here. The guy is already deep without the need for weed. Just imagine. Chandrasekhar: Oooo, that's a good one, you want fictional huh?
Lemme: What about Danny Zuko, he's not fictional? (laughs)
Yeah he’s pretty fictional. What about everyone else? Heffernan: Uuuh, I would like to smoke weed with Phoebe Cates character from Fast Times at Ridgemont High!
Lemme: Man, I say fuck Yoda! Get inside that Darth Vader helmet, put some smoke in there, and just box that shit in there with Vadar himself.
Heffernan: Really good, can't top that one. We're going with Darth Vadar helmet.
In the fourth season of It's Always Sunny in Philadelphia, the gang is scared into getting health insurance after Dee has a minor heart attack. In their grand scheme to get coverage, Charlie and Mack wind up working in an office mailroom, which doesn't go well from the start. They quickly incinerate the mail they deem "unimportant," and Charlie gets overwhelmed when he can't find an employee named Pepe Silvia, starts hallucinating, and ultimately stops delivering any mail at all.
The endless piles of mail put the gang through unprecedented levels of stress—stress that ultimately real-life Brooklyn mail worker Aleksey Germash says caused him to hoard 17,000 pieces of undelivered letters and packages for more than a decade, Pix 11 reports.
Like Mack and Charlie, the 53-year-old allegedly told investigators he was "overwhelmed by the amount of mail that he had to deliver" and resorted only to delivering mail he deemed "important," according NBC New York. He was arrested after police received a tip that he had 20 bags of mail piled up in his car, and investigators later found 10,000 pieces of mail in the vehicle, as well as about 1,000 pieces in his locker, and around 6,000 pieces in his apartment.
Besides bearing resemblance to the Always Sunny plot line, the case is similar to two others that occurred earlier this month. Cops in Italy just arrested a mail carrier with 880 pounds of undelivered mail who had just stopped doing his job because he felt he was underpaid. And postal inspectors in New York recently removed 60 "kitchen-sized bags" of mail that postal worker in Long Island had stashed in his shed.
Although Charlie and Mack were fired after only a few days on the job, the postal workers in Brooklyn, Italy, and Long Island all managed to get away with keeping people's letters for months or even years. It all goes to show that working at a job for years that induces enough stress to make you a hoarder probably isn't worth having—no matter how good the health insurance might be.
Since at least 1903 when audiences ran screaming from movie theaters because they had never experienced anything quite like The Great Train Robbery, the Western has been one of film's most significant genres. From the early days of The Covered Wagon (1923) to the so-called "Spaghetti Westerns" of Sergio Corbucci (Django) and Sergio Leone (The Good, the Bad and the Ugly) to the Anti-Westerns of Clint Eastwood (Unforgiven) and the Coen Brothers (No Country for Old Men, True Grit), the fearsome landscape of the heart has been cast against the unforgiving mesas and painted plateaus of the West. Once you've had your fill of the best dramas on Netflix, squint your eyes like the Man with No Name and ride into our list of the best Western movies and tv shows on Netflix (US):
Ken Burns Presents: The West
Only when you are able to complete all eight episodes, totaling 12 hours, of the mammoth historical triumph that is Ken Burns Presents: The West, can you start wearing a cowboy hat and talking like you know what was up with the West.
Cold Mountain
The English Patient auteur Anthony Minghella set his sights on the Civil War in 2003, and the triumvirate of Jude Law, Nicole Kidman, and Renée Zellweger loaded, cocked, and pulled the trigger (respectively). From Sydney Pollack being a producer to Jack White making a special guest appearance, there are so many small, special things about this epic movie that you’ll want to watch all two-and-a-half hours of it again and again.
Horses are replaced with choppers in FX’s epic, 92-episode neo-Western about the efforts and exploits of an outlaw biker gang. Outstanding performances by Ron Perlman (Hellboy), Katey Sagal (Married... with Children), and Charlie Hunnam (King Arthur: Legend of the Sword), and technical advising from real Hell’s Angels, elevate what could have been a misanthropic circle-jerk into modern Shakespeare territory.
Meek’s Cutoff
Screengrab from Meek's Cutoff
A moment of praise for the low-budget indie Western: If you can successfully execute a period piece for $2,000,000, as Kelly Reichardt (Certain Women, Night Moves, Old Joy) here manages to do with flying colors, you’re basically unfuckwithable. This woman-centric reimagining of the ill-fated caravan story sees a never-better Michelle Williams blasting her way into the legendary ranks of Katherine Ross (Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid), Katy Jurado (High Noon), and Marlene Dietrich (The Spoilers).
Hell on Wheels
AMC’s massive, five-season undertaking is an examination of the bodies that built the Transcontinental Railroad. Stark and unforgiving, it’s not quite as monumental as something like Deadwood, but it’s exactly the kind of action you’ll crave after finishing Ken Burns Presents: The West.
Longmire
A&E’s "highest-rated original drama series of all time" didn’t find much of an audience on cable, but Seasons four to six of this adaptation of Craig Johnson’s best-selling Walt Longmire Mysteries series were right at home on Netflix, where things could be a lot less “viewer discretion advised” and a lot more commercial-free. Robert Taylor’s languid turn as the stiff-upper-lipped Longmire makes for an outstanding throwback to the Western sheriffs of yore.
Ain’t Them Bodies Saints
Screengrab from Ain't Them Bodies Saints
The last time a Bonnie and Clyde story looked this good, it was starring Martin Sheen and Sissy Spacek (Badlands). Star-crossed romances are seriously stupid and selfish, but shot by Bradford Young (Arrival, Solo: A Star Wars Story), they sure are sexy.
The Homesman
The fact that Tommy Lee Jones’s two best Western characters, Sheriff Tom Bell in No Country for Old Men and rancher Pete Perkins in The Three Burials of Melquiades Estrada, aren’t on Netflix, is mitigated by the fact that this Palme d'Or-selected drama, directed by Lee Jones himself, sure is. Oh, and Hilary Swank’s turn as the educated loner Mary Bee Cuddy is freaking stellar.
The Hateful Eight
Sure they’re stylish and substantial, but the best part about Tarantino films is that you get exactly what you pay for. A three-hour post-Civil War stagecoach procedural featuring the ensemble talents of Jennifer Jason Leigh, Samuel L. Jackson, Kurt Russell, Tim Roth, Michael Madsen, Bruce Dern, Demián Bichir, and Walton Goggins? This is no more and no less than exactly that.
Hap and Leonard
James Purefoy and Michael K. Williams make a pretty great odd couple—a draft dodger and a gay Vietnam vet—in SundanceTV’s adaptation of Joe R. Lansdale’s madcap novel series. One part True Detective, one part Dukes of Hazzard, it’s the perfect Revisionist Western for the Golden Age of TV: two superb actors blowing the saloon doors off of pre-established notions of pulp-noir masculinity.
Godless
Godless is a great name for Netflix’s radical reimagining of the Western serial: It’s No Gods No Masters meets #nodads. Technically it’s misleading, though, because Jeff Daniels (The Newsroom) and Sam Waterston (Law and Order) are titans of TV.
Wind River
One of the best movies of 2017 was this understated detective story set on the titular Eastern Shoshone/Northern Arapaho reservation in Wyoming. Elements of the murder-mystery and noir genres abound, but it’s the incisive way writer-director Taylor Sheridan examines justice, otherness, and male fragility that puts this sleeper-hit starring Jeremy Renner squarely in Western territory (both literally and figuratively).
In the first season of Westworld, actor Clifton Collins Jr., as Mexican outlaw Lawrence/El Lazo, delivered one of the best “motherfucker” lines ever filmed. With the second season making its long-awaited debut on HBO this Sunday, April 22, I skyped with the 47-year-old vet. His career spans Poetic Justice, Menace II Society, Traffic, Star Trek, Ballers, a cookbook titled Prison Ramen, and even a healthcare app. We talked about how he got involved with Westworld, what fans can expect from the new season, and how he helped make Super Troopers 2.
VICE: How did you get involved with Westworld? And what did you think of your role in the beginning? Clifton Collins Jr.: Originally, I auditioned for one of either Ben Barnes or Jimmi Simpson’s roles. I got a phone call that the showrunners wanted to meet with me for something different. I wasn't really even sure what it was. [Screenwriter] Lisa Joy sat me down and spoke to me about some of my previous projects that she was a fan of. She started to put through this idea of the Man in Black (Ed Harris) having a sidekick. I was intrigued. Who doesn't love Michael Crichton? Who doesn't love the original Westworld?
They literally tailored and handcrafted this role for me, which is really special because my grandfather was a contract player for John Wayne Westerns. After 30 years of acting, I got a legitimate Western. It's kinda ironic that I wouldn't do any Westerns until I got something that was fantastic and brilliant. It’s a dream gig for me, truth told. I wake up pinching myself every day. I'm sad when I'm on hiatus—I miss being on set.
What can fans expect from Westworld and your Lawrence/El Lazo character this season? That's a loaded question, and you're gonna experience the loaded answer when you're watching. That's a spin I can't even articulate. It's interesting, when you watch a show like Westworld, it really sets the bar high. Having been in the business as long as I have, one always hopes for the best, but they've really done it.
This new season's gonna blow people's minds. I mean, when you've got your cast members showing up to set and their jaws are on the floor like, "Did you read the scene last night?" And like, "Holy shit!" It's just mind boggling, man. It's not gonna let anybody down. I’ll put it that way: It's gonna meet everybody's expectations, and even surpass others.
Your “motherfucker” line is a personal favourite of mine. How much preparation was involved in delivering something like that? There was a lot of preparation. There's so many emotions in the show that one has to go through, but in addressing a cool little line like that, it's almost a line that could be branded. The king of “motherfuckers” is one of my mentors, Samuel L. Jackson. I can only hope to recreate something [like him]. I can't even articulate to you how many hours I spent “motherfuckering” and saying “motherfucker” to everybody I saw, met, and spoke to. With friends, I could say it 'cause they know [me]. But running into people in everyday life, in my mind I would say, Oh thank you very much. I can hardly wait to read this script, motherfucker. Just finding ways to do it in my head.
How did your character’s relationship with the Man in Black evolve over the course of season one, and how do you see it evolving in the new season? You've got an idea on the page when you read these scripts, but they're so intricate and so complex, one never knows how an edit's gonna turn out. The show's so cerebral, the rewrites continue to the very end—'til the show's actually presented. Another way to rewrite the story is through edits and taking pieces from other episodes. I'd venture to say that there's an evolution of consciousness, which for me is the most effective art. Art that touches society most is the art that reflects society; art that reflects the moments that we are all experiencing as human beings. What I can say is, there's some dope-ass horseback riding and I'm alive to talk about now. It's been a blast riding with my compadres.
You published a book, Prison Ramen, with your homeboy who was in prison. How did that come about? I was on set and saw the headline “Riot at Chino Prison.” My buddy Gustavo “Goose” Alvarez was there. I was finding out about people getting shot on the yard by the National Guard and was worried about my friend. I eventually got ahold of Goose days later. He explained to me everything that'd happened. In Southern and Northern California, blacks and Latinos generally don't get along. Goose spent a total of 13-and-a-half years in prison, and through that he's learned a lot of tremendous life lessons that help to encourage and promote empathy and compassion.
After the riot, a lot of the black inmates were locked outside of their cells and per usual, forced to fend for themselves. It was cold. It was smoky. People were bleeding, hurt, in need of attention, and nobody's helping them. Goose took it upon himself to collect everybody's ramen noodle packets and make a giant spread that he passed through the hole that was made in the steel security door that was busted open before the riot was calmed down. Goose brought unity to everybody in that prison through ramen. And as a result, he was like, "I want to spread more of this kinda unity." He goes, "I wanna write a cookbook.”
I said, “Cookbook? You just survived a prison riot. I can still smell the burnt wood, and you wanna do a cookbook?" I just didn't get it. Ramen is a form of currency and staple of food in prison. I said, "Wow. Well, how do we extend this message and provide unity? How do we get more human powers involved?" And that brought me to Father Greg at Homeboy Industries. I brought Father Greg in to help out, and we donated a portion of the proceeds. A lot of my celebrity friends like Danny Trejo, Jacob Vargas, Mister Cartoon, and Shia LaBeouf helped out tremendously with the book. Samuel L. Jackson wrote the foreword. Every recipe comes with a story.
What's your secret as a actor? How do you slip seamlessly into so many different roles? I never felt that I was good enough to portray myself on film. Clifton Collins Jr. is not good enough to be Clifton Collins Jr. But I could present to you this other character. I saw this dude in the hood that was very intriguing to me. I saw this other kid walking on the street. I was hanging out with my redneck uncles and I can create a character. Unbeknownst to myself, I was exercising survival tools. When I went to hang out with the homies in the hood, the Latino ones, I would act and speak accordingly.
When I was hanging out with my Crip friends, I would switch to the ebonics that I exercised. Let me present that to you most recently with John Hawkes in Small Town Crime. But the truth of the matter is, it was a tool of survival. Growing up around so many difficult cultures and having to travel, and not having a father figure, I was always being inspired and influenced by others. As a kid, I would imitate the characters that my grandfather would act with, whether it was John Wayne or Walter Brennan. I would do these voices as a kid.
Not only is Westworld debuting this month, Super Troopers 2 is coming out too. How’d you get involved in that? I'm a fan of Super Troopers. I'm friends with all the Broken Lizards. They're great guys, and they're fans of mine, which is weird to even say. They reached out to me to help them with this film. There were a couple of surprises involved with that film as well. It was weird because I was like, "Guys, why don't we get a big name, like an Anthony Hopkins, Sam Jackson, or Morgan Freeman?" They were like, "No, you're great. You're the guy we want.” I hooked them up with Emmanuelle Chriqui, who ended up playing the lead actress in it. This is a great cast, including Linda Carter and all kinds of great people.
Finally, what can you tell me about the app you helped develop? I've partnered up with this app called FaceCure. It’s the first urgent-care application. If you're sick, just download FaceCure. If you can't make it to a doctor's, or you don't have the time to set up a meeting or a car to get there, you can have a certified medical assistant come to your house. If you don't have insurance, we're doing a trial where you just pay $99. We have the hardware and the gear to actually do live stats on you—your lungs, your heart—in addition to all kinds of other applications such as IVs and B12 shots. Once they run all your stats, they're able to put you on with a live doctor who will assess you. You'll meet the doctor live on-camera. He doesn't have to come to your house, and you don't have to go to his office. He can give you a prescription right there and they'll have the meds delivered right to your door within the hour. It's the future of medicine.
