"In the privacy of intimate relationships, I have engaged in role-playing and other consensual sexual activity," the state’s top prosecutor wrote in the wake of a bombshell report that he beat and strangled multiple former girlfriends. "I have not assaulted anyone. I have never engaged in non-consensual sex, which is a line I would not cross."
The denial of the story published earlier the same evening by the New Yorker was both instructive and troubling, according to domestic violence experts canvassed by VICE. On the one hand, "all abusers are deniers," as Chitra Raghavan, a psychologist at the John Jay College of Criminal Justice, put it. On the other, she told me, there are still worrisome gaps in the way the law understands domestic violence that takes place in the bedroom, ones that could scuttle attempts to hold men like Schneiderman accountable.
"We tend not to look at sexually violent men as part of domestic violence," Raghavan explained. "Yet it’s one of the most powerful forms of abuse, because women have difficulty talking about being controlled sexually, or being hit during sex. It’s powerful precisely because it’s invisible."
"We hear it all the time from survivors," explained Liz Roberts, Deputy CEO of Safe Horizon, one of the country’s largest victims' service agencies. “When you work with survivors every day, you get used to that reality.”
"The historic context has enabled people to have public personas that are different from what they’re doing behind closed doors," Guzman explained. "Socially, we are all still deconstructing this concept that what happens between two people is private."
Often, the schism seems to exists within abusers themselves. Roberts described how same-sex abusers frequently used homophobic slurs when they beat their partners. Raghavan said that, in a recent study she conducted of 130 convicted abusers, all but a tiny handful outright denied the violence for which they had been sentenced. There was no way to tell whether they were lying to the researchers or to themselves.
"It’s not just that you were arrested—you went to court, you were convicted," she recalled thinking during the interviews. "Do you have so much chutzpah that you can say you didn’t do it, or do you truly believe you didn’t do it?"
So was Schneiderman’s Twitter denial legally shrewd or psychologically revealing? While his accusers described clear patterns of control consistent with domestic violence, much of the physical abuse they alleged seemed to have taken place during or proximal to sexual encounters that were otherwise consensual. Both choking and coercive sex have a clear and legally codified relationship to dangerous and even lethal abuse, but sexual degradation has almost no legal standing, Raghavan said. Survivors are rarely ever even asked about it.
"Certainly the women had said very clearly that if he was into violent sex it wasn’t consensual," but that’s not well captured either by current conversations around sexual assault or domestic violence, Raghavan said. "We ask, 'Does he coerce you?' but not, 'Is he rough or demeaning?' We included forced sex, but that's not what’s happening."
If nothing else, we know more about choking by domestic assailants in New York because of the law Eric Schneiderman helped pass.
"Choking is very common, and ironically when he wrote strangulation into the law we started being able to pay attention to it," Raghavan told me. More than 80 percent of survivors surveyed by Safe Horizon said they’d been choked by their partners, whereas about half that many had been coerced into sex, according to a report shared with VICE.
Yet sex and strangulation are linked. You can’t open RedTube without seeing a woman being choked by a man—it’s as ubiquitous as an abuser masquerading as a male feminist, which is why men like Eric Schneiderman can tweet obliquely about having done "role-play" without apparent fear of reprisal. Choking is effective as a tool of abuse as much because it is intimate as because as it is painful. There is no shock like the shock of being strangled, except for the shock of being strangled in public, in the street, on the ground.
"It’s the same hands that hold you," Raghavan explained. "It’s close, it’s personal. Pulling out a gun is very terrifying, but if you’re choking someone it says you can kill them with your bare hands."
But while the law recognizes the violence of choking, it still fails to grasp the terror of its intimacy, just as it fails to capture the coercive control inherent in sexualized beatings.
"Researchers have looked at choking for a long time as an indicator of dangerousness, but we need to look at it as an indicator of control,” the psychologist said. “We focus on the violence, but what we really need to focus on is why there such a need to control and demean these women."
The already stacked cast list for Tarantino's movie about the Manson murders just got a little more crowded. On Tuesday, Margot Robbie announced that she will star in Once Upon a Time in Hollywood, finally confirming the long-standing rumor that she will be playing Sharon Tate—the pregnant starlet and wife of Roman Polanski who was brutally murdered by Manson's followers in 1969 inside her Cielo Drive home, Deadline reports.
"Tarantino is one of my bucket-list directors," the actress told IndieWire earlier this week. "As long as I can remember, I’ve been a huge Tarantino fan." As for the idea of tackling the role of Tate, Robbie said she feels "a responsibility with every character I play, whether they’re fictional or real life to play her right, play her truthfully, and kind of understand her emotional journey."
Robbie is the third major star to sign onto Tarantino's ninth film alongside Leonardo DiCaprio and Brad Pitt, who will be playing Rick Dalton, a former Western star and Tate's next-door neighbor, and his stunt double, Cliff Booth, respectively. But it looks like there will be some major additions to the cast coming soon, too.
According to Deadline, Tarantino is eyeing Burt Reynolds for the role of George Spahn, the aging, blind owner of Spahn Ranch. Spahn Ranch was a defunct Western set where Manson set up his commune, reportedly keeping Spahn happy with sex from his young, female followers, and seeing as how DiCaprio and Pitt's characters are out-of-work Western actors, the Spahn connection seems only natural.
Other Tarantino standbys Tim Roth and Michael Madsen are apparently eyeing roles, as well, along with Kurt Russell, who previously starred in Hateful Eight and Tarantino's Grindhouse movie, Death Proof, but it's not yet known who they'll be playing.
None of them seem particularly well-suited to play Manson, though, so maybe Tarantino's planning to just pull a Pulp Fiction suitcase on us again and never actually give us a glimpse of Charlie himself. We'll find out for sure next year, when Once Upon a Time in Hollywood hits theaters August 9, 2019.
A New Brunswick woman who infamously hid from authorities for 10 weeks in 2016, has been found guilty of first-degree murder and arson without regard for human life for killing Moncton teen Baylee Wylie.
According to CBC News, the jury took three hours to deliberate before convicting Marissa Shephard, 22, of her crimes. Wylie, who was 18 when he died, was found in December 2015 in a burned out triplex in Moncton, where he’d been tied to a chair, beaten, and stabbed more than 200 times.
While on the run, Shephard was known for using various disguises to evade authorities. She was arrested in March 2016. While in custody, she was sentenced to four months in jail for spitting in a guard’s face.
Two men—Devin Morningstar, 22, and Tyler Noel, 20, were also convicted in Wylie’s death. Morningstar is serving a life sentence for first-degree murder and arson; Noel is serving a life sentence without the possibility of parole for 16 years after pleading guilty to second-degree murder.
Morningstar told police that he was a drug dealer and on the night Wylie died, all of them had been smoking crack cocaine, according to interrogation records played at his trial. He said he and Shephard wanted to frame Wylie for drug possession. He said Shephard hit Wylie in the head with a glass bong, while Noel covered his face with plastic wrap and beat him. Then he said the three of them stabbed Wylie repeatedly. After he died, Morningstar said he poured bleach on the body and Noel and Shephard set a fire.
Shephard’s crimes come with an automatic life sentence, however she will be back in court in June to determine parole eligibility.
I love my mom, but like a lot of old people she believes some pretty insane things. For one: that Brexit won't ruin the UK. And also: that there might be some truth to the Flat Earth theory, that wacky philosophy espoused by rapper B.o.B and, it turns out, an alarming number of other fully grown adults.
A primer on Flat Earth theory: believers believe that the Earth isn't a round sphere, but a flat circle neatly surrounded by huge impenetrable ice walls.
Slightly bizarre, yes, but is it really such a crazy idea? I've never seen Earth from outer space with my own eyes, so technically I'm putting all my trust in other factors: photos, videos, mountains of evidence and the expertise of scientists and institutions like NASA – none of whom have any reason to lie about such a thing. So, actually, yes: it does seem a little crazy.
This, of course, is where one of the main Flat Earther arguments lies: as a group, they're big into observable facts, preferring to do their own research rather than blindly trust the "experts". My problem, though, is that – in doing my own research – everything I've found has just further convinced me that the Earth is a sphere.
As part of that research, I asked my mom why she believed. "This subject has been written about over the years by people who have studied it in earnest, but their work was disregarded because only a few people read it," she explained. "With the internet, it's available for people to reflect on. It's something that I never thought to question, which I think is fascinating not just scientifically, but emotionally and spiritually."
This, perhaps understandably, wasn't quite enough for me – so when I saw there was a Flat Earth convention happening in Birmingham, the first of its kind in the UK, I decided to go with my mom to see if a whole room full of people like her could change my mind, and to find out how exactly they came to believe in a theory which has been so routinely rejected. Unfortunately, after buying her a ticket and everything, my mom was too ill to go on the day, so I went by myself.
I arrived at the venue – a Jurys Inn hotel – on a wet Saturday morning, to discover that the event was essentially a small carpeted convention room boasting a few cameras, some stalls selling Flat Earth merchandise and 70 or so attendees watching Powerpoint presentations beamed onto a wall.
The author with his fluoride-free toothpaste.
As I entered, I was offered a gift of "fluoride free" toothpaste. This made perfect sense, given the location. A popular conspiracy theory states that governments across the world have been putting fluoride in our water supply to tranquillise the masses, despite the fact the only piece of "evidence" for this theory – which involves both the Nazis and the Communists – has been widely discredited.
With the tone set for the day, I sat down to watch some speeches.
The speakers all seemed well aware of how "Globe-Earthers" view the Flat Earth theory, i.e. ludicrous, and their talk of the current scientific establishment felt very "us versus them" – a nice bit of truther tribalism.
One speaker talked at length about the moon, and how its orbit proved the Earth couldn't be spherical, which seemed a little counterintuitive.
Another talked about how the Egyptian pyramid structure points toward clues that the Earth is a flat diamond shape, supported by pillars.
Between sounding off about the Vatican and the fact the establishment has indoctrinated us to believe all sorts of things, including that the Earth is a sphere, a third speaker suggested that cancer is caused by negative emotions and argued that dinosaurs didn't exist.
I'm not going to pretend to know anything more about science than what I was taught in my GCSE Physics class – and I'm actually fairly susceptible to certain conspiracy theories – but "Egyptian pyramids are a clue the Earth is supported by pillars" and "bad vibes give you cancer" both sound like a bit of a reach to me.
So how do people come to believe this stuff? For my mom's part, it was after watching some YouTube videos and realising that "with all this movement, water stays flat, calm and reflective to the point of being a perfect mirror, something that is not possible on a curve".
But what about the people at the convention?
Steve and the author
"I got into Flat Earth around when Trump came out," explained Steve, who was wearing a snazzy Flat Earth T-shirt. "I started looking into Hillary, then [the debunked conspiracy theory] Pizzagate, around March, 2017. [Trump] was the catalyst to seeing that maybe there was a mass indoctrination going on – he kicked off my research into the Illuminati and the deep state. It took me about three months to get my head around it, and six months to accept it, and now I can really know we're not on a spinning ball."
Like Steve, many of the people I spoke to seemed generally predisposed to believing conspiracy theories, or at least questioning the official version of events. And most – like my mom – also had their lightning bolt moment of realisation while watching a YouTube video.
Gary John
"I think conspiracy theories like 9/11 and the fake moon landing keep your mind receptive and take you on this new journey towards the truth," Gary John, the event organiser, told me. "When you look at the moon landings, what you notice is: when you look at what you've been shown in the past, you think, 'Hang on a minute, I've noticed a bit more.' It's almost like you read a book and you don't understand it, then two years later you read the same book again and you do understand it. The book hasn't changed – it's the same words – but you've changed. So [Flat Earth] made me more skeptical, more aware."
One more recurring theme was that, like Gary, many attendees and speakers got into Flat Earth in 2017. Another was that they all seemed to have a lot of time on their hands – so much so that it was almost a point of pride.
Darren and Fiona
"I think [Flat Earth theorists] tend to be people who have time to research things for themselves. When you have jobs and families, you just don't have the time to sit down and think about things in a deeper way," explained Darren, who was there with his partner Fiona.
Fiona continued: "I think, being African-Caribbean, you tend to live to a certain extent on the outskirts of mainstream society, and it's something the majority of white people don't experience," she said. "Many things that have happened to me personally, the way you regard the world, the way the world regards you, it puts you in that mode anyway, questioning things, because you're forced to question... culturally, there is always a question mark, so you take nothing for granted."
That was probably the most reasonable thing I'd heard all day: if you've been marginalised and feel like you've been lied to by institutions and people you're supposed to automatically trust for much of your life, why should you trust what any of them have to say?
Sarah
"Power has always been taken away from the people – that's the way the world is going – and this is one of those things where we're taking the power back: we are the centre of it, and we're not being ripped off," said Sarah, who was selling Flat Earth T-shirts. "They've got control of your reality, your perception and even the way you are. And the story is so flimsy from day one – like, how did we all believe it? It's just conditioning from an early age."
Speaking to attendees, it seemed like many found some kind of solace in Flat Earth theory. It gives them a sense of power over their destiny; control over the both minor issues in their lives and the existential ones; the belief that they're onto something the rest of us aren't, and the sense of satisfaction that brings.
Steve
"It's been a positive – a massive one, really," explained another Steve, who got into Flat Earth after losing his job and being told by the Job Centre to watch YouTube videos on how to be more employable. "I believe in myself again, rather than everything I've been told."
Allegedly Dave
"You either allow it to change your life, or you live a lie," added Allegedly Dave, who now travels the world benevolently helping people out with their life problems. He believes climate change is a fraud, and in drinking your own urine. So how has Flat Earth changed his life?
"There's no tangible changes you make; it's more mental," he explained, staring deep into my eyes. "The fear of things, like asteroids destroying the Earth, or space stations falling down... you know, it's bullshit, so it removes fear."
With that, I thought I'd got to the bottom of what attracted all these people to the Flat Earth theory. Through believing, they have gained a sense of order to their lives – an alternative belief system; a crutch, almost, in much the same way faith can help religious believers feel more secure about the world and their place in it. And, in its essence, there's nothing too wrong about that. Where it becomes problematic is the general distrust for modern science – a very helpful thing in all of our lives, and something you'd be actively harming yourself to reject.
Luckily, while my mom might believe the Earth is flat, she's not on the "bad moods cause cancer" vibe quite yet.
From giving out a $25,000 college scholarship to granting towns with sexual-sounding names free premium porn, Pornhub has pulled plenty of publicity stunts throughout the years. To announce their new line of "pro gear" masturbation socks, the site dropped one of their weirdest ads yet, an overwrought inspirational commercial full of eye-roll-inducing puns. During Wednesday's episode of Desus & Mero, the VICELAND hosts let loose on the absurdity of the odd spot.
You can watch the latest episode of DESUS & MERO for free, online, right now. New episodes Monday to Thursday at 11PM on VICELAND.COM.
Kelly Pocha, the woman who unleashed a violent and racist tirade at a group of men at a Lethbridge, Alberta Denny’s, has been fired from her job at Cranbrook Dodge.
Pocha’s rant, captured on video, went viral yesterday. In it, she is seen berating a group of men at Denny’s because she doesn’t believe they are Canadian.
“Shut your fucking mouth then, ‘cause you know what? You’re dealing with a Canadian woman right now and I will leap across this table and punch you right in your fucking mouth,” Pocha tells the men.
She accuses them of not paying taxes and tells them to “Go back to your fucking country.”
Pocha told Lethbridge News Now she felt “provoked” when she heard the men “talking in their own language” because she assumed they were making fun of her. She claimed she was having an “off day” but that her racist words were “not who I am.”
After the video, which has been viewed more than 1 million times on Facebook, went viral, Pocha said, “I don't know how to handle this kind of attention.”
Her employer, Cranbrook Dodge, condemned her actions in a statement issued on social media.
“We have recently become aware of a disturbing video that involves one of our employees. We are deeply concerned about the content of this video and want all of our friends, families, colleagues, and customers to know that this behaviour does not reflect the values of Cranbrook Dodge,” the statement says. “The employee in question has been terminated and we deeply apologize for her actions.”
One of the men Pocha verbally attacked, Monir Omerzai, said both Denny’s management and police asked his group to leave the restaurant before kicking Pocha out. Denny’s head office has not yet responded to VICE’s request for comment, though a manager from that location told VICE he believes police removed both parties.
Lethbridge police have not yet responded to multiple interview requests, however they did issue a statement saying that when they arrived, Denny's staff had already separated the two parties and had refused them service.
"Any information being circulated on social media suggesting that police advised only one group to leave and escorted them out of the restaurant is false," the statement says. It says there have been no further reports to police given by anyone involved in the incident.
According to Pocha’s LinkedIn, she worked as a controller at Cranbrook Dodge for more than 11 years.
Lethbridge Mayor Chris Spearman described the incident as racist and “embarrassing” for his community.
Amy Schumer's latest movie, I Feel Pretty, is basically an inverted version of Shallow Hal, only with SoulCycle-induced head trauma filling in for Tony Robbins. Also like Shallow Hal, it's, uh, apparently not very good.
But on Wednesday afternoon, Twitter user Jaye Hunt apparently decided to brave the bad reviews and go see I Feel Pretty anyway—and she wound up getting a lot more than just a mediocre movie. According to Hunt, Lady Bird director Greta Gerwig also happened to drop in to watch it—giving a loud, play-by-play account of exactly what she thought of the thing.
Hunt, who was mostly alone in the theater until Gerwig and her friends showed up, then did exactly what you're supposed to do when the Patron Saint of Sacramento happens to sit down in front of you and start heckling a midweek matinee: Live-tweet the entire two-hour experience.
Behold!
To be fair, we can't be certain that was actually Greta Gerwig in the theater, but Hunt told Junkee she was "99.9% sure" she had the right person. Regardless, the idea of Gerwig bellowing "IN. COMP. RE. HENSIBLE!" in the middle of a quiet theater is so glorious, you kind of have to assume it's true. It doesn't sound like Saoirse Ronan ever did show up, for whatever reason. She was probably busy checking out Overboardnext door.
There’s no way your dealer has a “30 Minutes or It’s Free” guarantee, but according to a recent study, a large number of cocaine users say that they can have their drugs delivered faster than they can get a pizza.
More than 130,000 people from more than 40 countries participated in the Global Drug Survey (GDS), an annual study of current or former drug users and their habits. In the section on cocaine use, 17 percent of respondents (about 22,100 people) reported that they had used cocaine in the past year, while a full quarter of respondents (32,500) said that they had used coke at some point in their lifetimes. More than 15,000 people chose to complete a ‘special section’ about their coke use—and this is where it got really interesting.
“We asked 15,000 cocaine users from around the world whether it was quicker to get a gram of cocaine delivered or a pizza,” the GDS explains. “Overall, 30 percent said they could get cocaine delivered in 30 minutes or less, compared to only 16.5 percent who could get a pizza delivered in the same time.”
That’s right: You can have a gram in your hand quicker than you can have a bite of pepperoni in your mouth. According to the responses, the fastest coke delivery is in Brazil, the Netherlands, Denmark, Colombia, Scotland, England and the Czech Republic; in all seven countries, more than half of participants said that their blow would be delivered in under 30 minutes. (And a whopping 45 percent of Brazilians said that it took less than half an hour for their drugs to arrive). The United States was slightly below the global average, with only 23 percent of same-day coke customers reporting that their deliveries arrived in under 30 minutes.
The three fastest localities for cocaine delivery are all in Denmark, where more than 40 percent of users in the regions of Midtjylland, Nordjylland and Syddanmark reported delivery times of less than 30 minutes.
“Our findings show that drugs are just another commodity, and highlights that in any competitive marketplace a retailer with something to sell will endeavor to break down as many barriers to purchase as possible and beat their competition in customer service,” the GDS said. “For a drug like cocaine, easier access and rapid delivery may lead some people into using more cocaine more often, and may make it more difficult for some users to control their use.”
The GDS—which is conducted by an organization of the same name—hopes that its respondents can help them “explore the positives and negatives of drug use,” with the aim of making drug use safer by developing harm-reduction resources, self-assessment tools and online interventions for those who need or want them. “We are a serious bunch of academics and we research things that we hope will help people use drugs more safely and to help craft optimal public health policies,” the GDS explains.
And maybe its findings will make pizza joints pick up their game. Slower than the average drug courier? Come on, guys!
After months of radio silence and confusion about the status of its hit show, Adult Swim has announced 70 new episodes of Rick and Morty. Co-creators Dan Harmon and Justin Roiland announced the show would be renewed this morning in a video taken in the shower.
While the announcement didnt' include when new episodes will air, Adult Swim has announced a national tour of the Rickmobile pop-up shop starting in Atlanta, GA May 17th.
Folks, Canada’s cuck-in-chief sure does love to say he’s sorry. We’re almost up to four formal apologies to minority groups for historical wrongs since he was elected in 2015. What’s the deal, Trudeau? Why are you ashamed of our country and its history? Are you just a big crybaby? Maybe it’s a sign that you’re not fit for Canada’s highest and proudest office!
Hell yeah. I’m going to get that whole paragraph made into a vinyl decal and slap it on my truck and everyone who sees it will pound their car horns with such furious ecstasy that the police will write me several tickets for noise complaints but I’ll ignore them because I’m a free thinker and I don’t give a hoot who knows it.
Right. Anyway, the prospect of Justin Trudeau giving a state apology for the treatment of the MS St. Louis—a refugee ship full of German Jews turned away by Canada in 1939 that resulted in many of them returning to Europe and perishing in Nazi death camps—has got some Canadians wondering if he’s going too far with this whole apology thing. (And by “some Canadians” I mean at least Tory MP Marilyn Gladu and John Ivison at the National Post.)
Everyone agrees that the MS St. Louis, the Komagata Maru, the residential schools in Newfoundland and Labrador, and the mistreatment of LGBTQ+ soldiers in the Canadian Armed Forces are all bad things that the government probably should apologize for. But apologizing for too much, too fast, is apparently sketchy to some critics. There is a risk people might (incorrectly) start to think that Canada has actually done a lot of bad stuff in history, instead of zero-to-three bad things. MP Gladu also suggested so many formal state apologies might cheapen the practice, which might be a fair concern if Trudeau had made forty apologies so far but feels a little overstated when he’s only made four in about three years.
Ivison is more transparent about his apology anxiety than Gladu. Formal apologies for ancient historical events is the thin edge of the SJW wedge. We are no longer learning from our shared history but we are gripped by it, paralyzed by what we witness as it fractures to pieces under the pressure of 2018’s fashionable political correctness. It locks us into an endless cycle of trying to alter yesterday’s injustices by coddling today’s special interest groups. Soon we’ll realize that everyone from history is somehow “problematic” and the only logical conclusion of this is the quickly-approaching day Justin Trudeau strips his father’s name off the Montreal airport because Pierre said something racist in the 1940s. So obviously the best solution to any history-based grievances is to just move past it. Blah blah.
It is exhausting to read this line of argument, again and again, every time Canadians are forced to think about Canadian history. So here we go again for the kids in the back: it is Good when a prime minister acknowledges the country’s past crimes.
As anyone who has ever dealt with a long-term problem in their lives can tell you, you can’t really move forward until you acknowledge what has happened in the past and the ways in which it may be connected to what is happening in the present. It definitely sucks for anyone heavily emotionally invested in the idea of Canadian exceptionalism to learn that large swathes of Confederation are indeed built out of graft and violence. I’m not thrilled about it either—no one likes to find out that their favourite celebrity is a sex pest, or that they are the more-or-less direct beneficiary of atrocities committed by their government. But anyone who is concerned that formal apologies or compensation for past injustices somehow involves “rewriting history” is already working from a fairy tale.
Of course, Ivison is right in his final conclusion: “apologies do not erase iniquity” in the same way that a diagnosis doesn’t cure disease. But shunning them because they simultaneously accomplish too much (altering the past!) and too little (cynical virtue signalling!) is a sure sign that this isn’t really about formal apologies. What is really at issue here—as it nearly always is in Canada, the world’s most neurotic nation—is a contest over what “Canada” means. And, once again, nearly as often, that becomes a preoccupation with preserving whatever “the Canadian nation” meant a generation ago to all the white writers mining nostalgia for content in the pages of the national press.
As always, the deeper concern here is the depth of the prime minister’s cynicism. Apologies handed out as tokens without material restitution and/or demonstrable institutional reform are arguably exploitative and definitely manipulative. I have no doubt that in his heart of hearts, Justin Trudeau is genuinely sorry for Canada’s uglier heritage minutes. He shouldn’t put his mouth where he wouldn’t put his money, but he almost invariably will, because that’s his thing. But this is probably more a combination of the man’s temperament and his party’s ideologically-blinkered policy options, rather than a nefarious effort to airbrush the triumphs of Western civilization out of Canadian history. Which I feel like is a pretty banal observation, but there you go.
Anyways Justin, if you’re reading this I would like a formal apology for having to both read a bad op-ed on this subject and then write one of my own. Just kidding! That would be an an actual example of cheapening the apologies process, for anyone who might get confused again the next time a politician acknowledges that it was probably wrong to brutalize minorities back in the day. I can see how you’d make the mistake.
John McTiernan's original Predator from the 1980s was brilliant because of its stupid simplicity. It was everything you could possibly want from a sci-fi action movie, distilled to its elemental parts. There were no romantic subplots, no lulls in the action—just 100 minutes of dewy, glistening men with lumpy muscles who grunted heroically as they waged war on a crab-faced alien.
Unfortunately, the sequels never quite managed to replicate the magic of the original. Predator 2 bizarrely brought the titular alien into some LA gang disputes, 2010's Predators had this convoluted premise about an alien game preserve, and the Alien vs. Predator movies... well, those were honestly sick as hell.
On Thursday, 20th Century Fox dropped the first trailer for Shane Black's upcoming franchise revival, aptly titled The Predator, and it actually looks promising—though there seems to be more actual plot and character than the original, for better or worse.
This one isn't a full reboot of the series, though. According to the film's synopsis, The Predator takes place in present day, a few years after the events of Predator 2 but before the dumb shit that happens in Predators, meaning that humanity has fought and won a couple battles against the aliens already. Unfortunately, in the intervening years, the predators have been off visiting other planets and upgrading their DNA by splicing it with other species.
Now, the trailer reveals, they're bigger and badder, and have set their human-hunting sights on the suburbs, apparently all thanks to some kid who mistakes alien technology for a toy and inadvertently flags down a spaceship. From there, some buff military dudes get their asses handed to them in typical Predator fashion, a scientist played by Olivia Munn gets very worried, and a bunch of stuff explodes. Keegan-Michael Key and Sterling K. Brown are in there, too, because why not?
Shane Black has been a pioneering force in the action genre since he wrote Lethal Weapon back in 1987, and he even played a role in McTiernan's original Predator—so if anyone can revitalize this franchise and give us the kind of pure, stripped-down spectacle we want, it's him. The Predator is set to hit theaters September 14, but until then, give the trailer a watch above.
I’m going to tell you a secret: Until a few days ago, I hadn’t seen any movies in the Marvel Cinematic Universe outside of Iron Man. The first one. From 2008. That’s right, I hadn’t even seen Black Panther.
Here’s the other thing you should know: When I was growing up back in the days of VHS tapes, my parents didn’t let me watch blockbuster action flicks. They’d buy all sorts of arthouse films (because apparently they didn’t think Belle de Jour would warp me for life). As a result I’ve never been in-the-know about super mainstream movies.
But with all the hoopla surrounding the release of Avengers: Infinity War—apparently the heroes are going to war with a thumb with legs called Thanos? And it made an insane amount of money?—I figured it was time to catch up on ten years of superhero movie homework.
This is how I wound up spending nearly 40 hours (that’s right) watching 18 Marvel movies over the course of a week. These are my takeaways. [This post contains spoilers for every single MCU movie ever.]
Iron Man (2008) or “The Suit That Launched an Entire Franchise” (Run Time: 2 hrs 6 min)
It’s been ten whole years since this film chronicled Tony Stark’s (Robert Downey Jr.) transformation from an arrogant, rich, drunk degenerate to an earnest, America-loving, metal-clad degenerate. It’s your basic corporate espionage plot, but I had a lot of fun yelling at Tony and sighing when he and his assistant Pepper (Gwyneth Paltrow) shared smiles and blushes. I had never watched the end credits before, so when Nick Fury (Samuel L. Jackson), the leader of S.H.I.E.L.D., popped up, I realized if I hadn’t been impatient in the movie theater, I wouldn’t have been so shocked that more movies were coming. A million more movies.
The Incredible Hulk (2008) or “White People Fucking with Science” (2 hrs 15 min)
Wow. Too many feelings. This iteration of the Bruce Banner (Edward Norton) saga features major PTSD, shady government death squads, and Liv Tyler. I had CONSIDERABLY less fun watching this than I did Iron Man. I didn’t start this marathon to confront any actual issues, OK?
In terms of Hulks, Norton is hands down my favourite: Looking at his traumatized, sweaty face takes me back to Fight Club. Then again, I haven’t seen the Eric Bana/Ang Lee version in a minute.
Iron Man 2 (2010) or “HEY TONY, STOP SHOWING OFF THANKS” (2 hrs 4 min)
Back to Tony, my irresponsible fave. Iron Man 2 introduces Black Widow (Scarlett Johansson), because it turns out Tony needs protecting, since he can’t shut up about being Iron Man. I didn’t expect emotional growth from Tony as he grapples with his new metal-cased alter ego, but I’m not mad about it.
I don’t know if there are any outstanding villains in this franchise so far, but the weird, vengeful, and snarky Whiplash (Mickey Rourke) was fun to watch. Sidenote: very glad to see Tony’s BFF James Rhodes is back from the first movie, even if he has an entirely different face now. (He was played by Terrence Howard in the first film and Don Cheadle in the second…) Nope, nothing strange about that!
Thor (2011) or “It’s Hammer Time!” (1 hr 55 min)
I spent this entire movie slightly dazed by Chris Hemsworth’s Nordic beauty. That chiseled chin got me through a lot of the mythological/sci-fi yadda yadda. I can appreciate the painstaking detail that went into the world-building; I just can’t remember any of it. I’ll leave you with this: Thor not being able to lift Mjølnir (his big CGI hammer) is the saddest bro moment to ever bro on screen.
Captain America: The First Avenger (2011) or “Cap’n Murica” or “Are You Sure This Isn’t Hellboy?” (2 hrs 5 min)
Hell yes! Now this is what I came to this cinematic universe to see! That said, I could NOT stop comparing this to Hellboy. Occult magic, icy tundras, bright red faces, Nazi-adjacent (or flat-out Nazi) troops… but resemblances aside, this my favourite Marvel movie thus far. Steve Rodgers (Chris Evans) is noble, his shield is made of Vibranium (see you soon, Wakanda), and his nemesis Red Skull (Hugo Weaving), member of the #BigForeheadSquad, is here for some truly villainous villainy. Cap is the most emotionally accessible of his billionaire/green monster/thunder god compatriots. And apparently, like ten hours in, I’m getting attached to fictional characters.
The Avengers (2012) or “Let’s Destroy New York (Again)” (2 hrs 23 min)
The gang’s all here! Honestly, though, I was kind of bored by this one. I’ve seen New York destroyed so many times that I’m numb. Sure, it was exciting to see Thor, Iron Man, Cap’n Murica, The Hulk: Mark Ruffalo edition, Black Widow, and Hawkeye (Jeremy Renner, who got a half-assed introduction in Thor) assembled in their famous posse, but I would have liked to see the Avengers assembled in a coffee shop, Friends-style, for a few hours to get some banter in pre-destruction. It was hard to care about the team when they only get, like, a dozen lines a piece. Also, way too many CGI aliens! Now I’m going to find some shawarma.
Iron Man 3 (2013) or “Too Many Iron Men” (2 hrs 15 min)
Tony Stark is trash in Ferragamo loafers. I love it. Tony Stark also needs a psychiatrist, a REAL non-Bruce Banner therapist, a nice long yoga retreat, and to STOP SPEAKING TO THE MEDIA. Sure, he’s a genius with a heart that bleeds red, white, and blue, but he has no sense of self-preservation. The greatest part of this movie was seeing him face the consequences of breaking the superhero code: protect your identity at all costs. Seeing his house sink into the deep was quite satisfying. I’m tired of rehashing Tony’s Terrible Past™, though. We get it—he was an asshole. But there’s a little Tony dance/hip action in this one, so I’ll let it slide.
Thor: The Dark World (2013) or “Loki Needs Some Therapy” (1 hr 52 min)
“Your birthright was to die as a child!” Well, DAMN Allfather (Anthony Hopkins), way to engender love from your homicidal son! I’d dress in black and try to sabotage my brother too if I were Loki (Tom Hiddleston). I’m also almost 1,000 percent sure the Night King from Game of Thrones is in this movie… Paying attention to the (mandatory) mythological/sci-fi yadda yadda was easier this time because I know Thor is going to swing that hammer and bodies will hit the floor. Loki is a massive inferiority complex wrapped in leather. But the dysfunction makes for great drama!
Captain America: The Winter Soldier (2014) or "Friends: How Many of Us Have Them?" (2 hrs 16 min)
WOW. Cap’n Murica is back to the future after being frozen for decades, and he’s kicking ass. Steve adjusting to modernity was charming (that little notebook!), although I felt a crushing sadness that everyone he’s ever known died quite some time ago. Except, you know, his murderous best friend. Laugh all you want, but I had no idea that the Winter Soldier was brainwashed Bucky (Sebastian Stan). Way to keep this one light Marvel!
This was the most Nick Fury I’ve ever experienced, and I actually want to see more of him; he’s a calm and competent leader and has security clearance for his missing eye, which means he’s a practical man. I also LOVE how Nick says, “Don’t trust anyone,” and then Steve proceeds to not only tell people what Nick said, but then trust everyone. Sidenote: I ship Steve and Black Widow. “Was that your first kiss since 1945?” *Slinks off to Archive of Our Own*
Guardians of the Galaxy (2014) or “I Didn’t Come Here to Cry, Motherfucker” (2 hrs 5 min)
I am down with this plucky, ragtag family and their myriad emotional issues and—most importantly—this soundtrack. We have Star-Lord (Chris Pratt), a walking jukebox abducted by aliens as a child; Rocket the kleptomaniac raccoon (Bradley Cooper, lol); everyone’s favourite sentient plant Groot (Vin Diesel); Gamora (Zoe Saldana) the exasperated assassin; and a walking vengeance machine named Drax (Dave Bautista). We’ve got Plot Things™ happening with the Infinity Rocks™ , but I’m just here for warmth and love. Chosen families sustain us, and it’s good to see that holds true in this galaxy, too. Also: NO ONE TOLD ME BENICIO DEL TORO IS IN THIS MOVIE, AND I AM UPSET!
Avengers: Age of Ultron (2015) or “Bro, I Said There Were Too Many Iron Men” (2 hrs 22 min)
And we’re back! Nothing like seeing the gang hanging out, drinking, and being attacked by sentient machines. I was actually excited for more group movies after this one; the chemistry of the heroes is solid, New York is relatively safe from harm, and Tony and Bruce are clearly responsible for this robot clusterfuck and everyone knows it. I get why you have to watch the movies preceding this one; there isn’t enough time to indulge in tons of character development, but there is time for large explosions and unparalleled destruction.
Ant-Man (2015) or “Not Gonna Lie, I Skimmed This” (1 hr 58 min)
Upon consulting with Marvel Experts, I was assured I could half-ass this one. So that’s exactly what I did while “watching” it at work. Sorry, Paul Rudd. All I know is that you were human sized, and then you weren’t. Oh, and Michael Douglas is in this one! Marvel really has an A+ roster.
Captain America: Civil War (2016) or “Consequences! Finally!” (2 hrs 28 min)
Cap’n Murica REALLY loves Bucky. I’d go to the end of Earth for my best friend—I wouldn’t start a war within my super hero squad, but I’d bail her out of jail for sure. Steve deciding to protect Bucky at all costs broke my heart a little; he’s arguably lost the most of all the Avengers (don’t @ me). So starting a war with his friends and comrades to protect his last connection to the past? Yeah, makes a lot of sense. Captain America movies always push me the furthest emotionally, and that consistently surprises me! Leave it to Steve to be loyal to a fault, even as an outlaw. Gonna get him killed one day.
Doctor Strange (2016) or “Sherlock Holmes with an MD” (1 hr 55 min)
In what seems to be an Iron Man remix, we have an arrogant, gifted man who is irrevocably changed by a traumatic life event and becomes an earnest protector of… well, the universe this time. I’ve never taken acid or shrooms before, but I did watch this after eating a weed brownie and thought I was on a bad trip when Doctor Strange (Benedict Cumberbatch) was time looping Dormammu (also voiced by Cumberbatch, lol), the villain who looks like an Ent. A glowing Ent. *Sigh* Look Marvel, I really don’t want to meet anyone new. Please, stop introducing me to more characters.
Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 2 (2017) or “Waaaaahhhhhhhh” (2 hrs 18 min)
I cried a lot. Between sisterly dysfunction courtesy of Thanos (Josh Brolin), the thumb with legs, Star-Lord meeting his out-of-this-world father, and burying his actual Daddy Yondu (complete with Yusef/Cat Stevens vocals) this movie was way more emotional than I anticipated. Baby Groot and his loving, unhinged family live up to the hype. Teen Groot is a nightmare I’ll pay good money to see.
Spider-Man: Homecoming (2017) or “Which Spider-Man Reboot Is This?” (2 hrs 13 min)
I talked a lot of shit about this movie. I saw the Tobey Maguire Spider-Man trilogy in theaters, back in the ancient, pre-YouTube days, and suffered through the Andrew Garfield reboot, so I didn’t quite see the point of yet another Spider-Man. As Titus Andromedon (from The Unbreakable Kimmy Schmidt) would say: There are too many Spider-Men!
But baby Peter’s enthusiastic, amateurish start as your friendly neighbourhood Spider-Guy (I mean, Man); Tony Stark’s turn as the drunk uncle we all want to impress; Michelle (Zendaya) and her portraits of despair; and Donald Glover and his ice cream made this my actual-factual favourite Marvel movie. It’s a lot of fun. No gritty realism to be found. Inspirational but also a mess. Like me.
Thor: Ragnarok (2017) or “It’s Not Hammer Time” (2 hrs 10 min)
Thor 3.0 finally gave me a god who was a wreck. His world is collapsing around him due to the sins of his father. Poetic. We had spiteful sisters, more daddy issues, the Hulk channeling his fury in an arena, and a fresh new haircut in time for spring! I giggled a bit during the other movies (I don’t think I’ve laughed consistently outside of Guardians and Spider-Man), but this was a treat. There’s gonna be another Thor movie, right? RIGHT?
Black Panther (2018) or #DatVibranium (2 hrs 15 min)
This is where all that Vibranium comes from, guys! T’Challa (Chadwick Boseman) is a cool hero, but he’s too noble for my taste; I’m all about Killmonger (and it has nothing to do with Michael B. Jordan’s abs. Nope). Killmonger’s strategy will bring nothing but chaos, war, and death for the very people he’s trying to empower, but he is a man of action. It hurt to see him go. You all saw this movie and talked incessantly about it, so just revisit your favourite tweets and takes. Just know Blackness is, and always will be, incredible, whether it’s in the fictional Wakanda or the very real world. Also, #Shuri4Life!
Avengers: Infinity War (2018) or “Motherfucker Are You Serious?” (2 hrs 40 min)
WAIT A SECOND. [MASSIVE SPOILER.] So I watch 18 of these movies and then Thanos the Giant Thumb comes through and gets all of the Infinity Rocks™ and wipes out half the universe? That’s the entire plot, by the way. Surprise! And Dr. Strange, who has dominion over TIME ITSELF can’t unmake this disaster sooner? I nearly threw my popcorn at the screen.
Here’s the some shit I didn’t appreciate: Peter Parker crying in Tony’s arms before turning to ash, T’Challa’s death (he just became king!), and Groot dying AGAIN. Word on the street is that his last words to Rocket translate to “Dad” and now I’m going to re-watch Guardians of the Galaxy again to upset myself. I notice no main Avengers died off, so I guess Thanos’s gauntlet discriminates between first and second-string characters. But… what is this bullshit? I know that many of these dead heroes have sequels and spin off films slated for the near future, and this is a two-parter, but I still feel like I’ve been punched in the stomach.
It’s been wild. Seeing these individuals—gifted with super strength, or advanced technology, or walkmans full of sick 80s tunes—converge in this one movie was so worth the agony of watching ten years worth of movies in a week. You’ve got me Marvel. I’ve been suckered in. Take all my money, but also fix this!
Last year I went on a date with a woman and as you do these days, I googled her afterward. What I found shocked me: She was a Donald Trump supporter.
Though I had decided I didn’t want to keep dating her even before I found out about her political leanings, I kept thinking about it. I honestly didn’t understand how it was possible for a lesbian to support him. As a queer Latina and daughter of immigrants, I see Trump and those who support him as a direct threat. At the same time, my instinctive reaction on meeting a Trump voter gave me pause—If I didn’t want to date a Trump supporter, did that mean I had crossed into intolerance myself?
The vast majority of LGBTQ Americans didn’t vote for Trump, and many feel less safe under his administration. They have good reason to, considering Trump’s move to ban trans people from military service, his administration’s apparent position that people can be legally fired for being gay, and the president’s elevation of homophobes like Vice President Mike Pence and Attorney General Jeff Sessions, among other actions. But while there are plenty of prominent gay male conservatives—Milo Yiannopoulos, Guy Benson, and Bruce Carroll, to name three—there are far fewer gay conservative women in the public eye. They exist, but are seldom seen or heard—maybe because they worry about the consequences of airing their views.
The lesbian community is often depicted as one of tolerance and acceptance, with a dedication to liberation—and to an extent, that is certainly true. But that ethos would seem to tacitly lead to the rejection of individuals who are seen as jeopardizing those values. I spoke to several other queer women about whether they’d date a Trump supporter, and all of them said no.
“Honestly, I would run for the hills,” said Spencer Henry, a 25-year-old marketing specialist from Oakland. “I have a hard time supporting someone whose ideology directly doesn’t support people of their own community as well. I would not date a Trump supporter, period.”
“A lot of people say that politics are separate from who we are morally as people, but after having gone to law school, I realize that’s definitely not true. A lot of our political views stem from our moral views, so morally I just know that our views wouldn’t line up,” said Jaylin Hansen, a 23-year-old law student from Los Angeles.
Given all that, I figured the woman I went on a date with, Kiara Robles, would have had trouble dating. But Robles, a 26-year-old programmer for a Bitcoin company in San Francisco, told me that most of her dating experiences as a lesbian Trump supporter have been overwhelmingly positive.
“You have these little intellectual scrimmages, like little battles, and you hash it out until it’s finished,” Robles said. And when it comes to her views, Robles said they do eventually find out—but it’s not something she feels she necessarily needs to disclose or hide. “My values are my values, and it’ll become apparent very quickly,” she told me. “If someone doesn’t want to date me for my views then I don’t want to date them anyways. And I am very confident on my views, because it’s taken me years to get to this point.”
A registered Republican since the age of 18, Robles has a sharp, eccentric no-bullshit demeanor, and didn’t pause when I asked why she supports Trump. Her two big issues are immigration (she thinks the H1-B visa program for skilled workers exploits immigrants and supports the travel ban) and the media. “I voted for Trump because he was going to destroy the media. And he did. Nobody trusts the media anymore,” she said. “I don’t love the guy, but he’s the only one who’s ever gonna get any shot at immigration. I would have loved to vote for Ron Paul, but the guy is so dry.”
Robles is very public about her views. She made a YouTube video where she “came out” as a Trump supporter in 2016, and last year she got pepper-sprayed at a Milo Yiannopoulos event, then sued the University of California, Nancy Pelosi, George Soros, and others for $23 million. (The suit was eventually dropped.) Wouldn’t an experience like that, and the visibility it brought about, make dating harder? Generally speaking, Robles said, dating as a conservative woman “sucks, but it’s kind of funny. And oddly enjoyable.” People often fail to see the bigger picture of who she is as a person, she said—and “if that’s all someone thinks of you, how can you not think that’s funny?”
“Why is it that when I go to a lesbian bar the most interesting thing to say about me is that I’m a Trump supporter?”
Robles is unmoving in her support for Trump. “I voted for the guy. And I’m more outspoken about it and think people are very unfair to his presidency. What is it about Trump that makes voting for him evil?” she said. But when I brought up that Pence is a known homophobe who supports conversion therapy, Robles acknowledged this was true. She also wasn’t totally happy with all of Trump’s moves. “He makes really poor administration decisions, unfortunately. I think there’s a lot of really annoying people that like Trump and support everything he does,” she said. “I understand there’s prototypes for the wall, but where’s the funding for it?"
Though she doesn’t have a problem sharing her conservative side with others, Robles said it’s frustrating that women become completely stuck on it. “Why is it that when I go to a lesbian bar the most interesting thing to say about me is that I’m a Trump supporter?” Robles said. “Because that’s the anecdotal thing people want to smash into my identity.”
“I work at one of the biggest Bitcoin companies in the world. Almost no one asks me about that,” she added. “Which is fucking hilarious to me. Bitcoin is a greater part of my identity to me.”
Another lesbian Trump supporter that I spoke with, Yvonne Parkinson, a 27-year-old EMT based in Las Vegas, echoed Robles’s sentiments but said her dating experiences have been far more negative. Backing Trump, Parkinson told me, is a part of her that many women are unable to get past. “I’ve had women scream at me, walk away from me; I’m surprised none of them have slapped me. They get pretty worked up.”
Her awareness of potential blowback due to her views has also led Parkinson to steer clear of particular environments, and of women she may not be compatible with. “I try to avoid certain situations—not that I silence myself, but situations where I’m sure it’s gonna be full of Trump bashing or whatever,” she said. “I’ve definitely lost friends over it, unfortunately, but there’s nothing I can do about that.”
Parkinson typically avoids women who self-identify as feminist, figuring they’d clash, but she’s dating a feminist now. “We sort out our differences, we’ve gotten into debates, and it’s very respectful,” she said.
Being a gay Trump supporter sounds like a paradox to a lot of folks in the LGBTQ community. “It’s like a betrayal to the group,” Robles said. “The most hostility I’ve ever received has come from gay women, as far as I can tell.”
While Robles told me that being known as a Trump supporter hasn’t negatively impacted her life, she said that other lesbian Trump supporters have been harassed. After she posted her video about backing Trump, she said, numerous gay women privately messaged her, expressing their concerns about coming out as a gay conservative or Trump supporter. “People have sadder stories than me,” she said; some of them expressed fear of losing their jobs, friends, and family.
Robles is frustrated her that many assume her sexual orientation must go hand-in-hand with her political views. “Why is being gay a political ideology? To me that’s kind of boring, like what I do on a day-to-day basis is more interesting,” Robles said. “I don’t make things political when they don’t need to be.”
But these days, it’s difficult for anything to not be political. As a member of the LGBTQ community, I would never want to make someone an outcast, even someone whose views may be in direct conflict with mine. But at the same time, I’m not willing to date someone whose politics are so antithetical to mine.
Porsha Brown, a 28-year-old attorney from El Paso, had similar thoughts. When I asked her if she’d take a Trump supporter, she said, “When I was younger, I would have unequivocally said no. Now that I’m older, I would say that I’m always going to give a strong preference to women who have a similar habits, socialization, education, intelligence as well as emotional intelligence as myself. Unfortunately, I just don’t think that’s a Trump supporter.”
Dating isn’t always easy. Ghosting, catfishing, harassment and assault are all too common. When we throw politics and sexual orientation into the mix, our assumptions and stereotypes about who we think people are can cloud our ability to see them fully. And though queer communities should be the first to withhold judgement of others, we’re often the last.
Although none of the women I spoke to for this story would date a Trump supporter, they unanimously agreed that queer people who support Trump shouldn’t be treated with disrespect, rejection, or violence. “I think everyone is entitled to have views and voice them without getting verbally harassed, or have active violence committed against them,” said Andrea Jones, a 28-year-old graduate student in Denver. “I don’t think kicking people out of the conversation is exactly helpful to changing the political landscape of today. Their points of view needs to be heard. It’s important to include those voices and have a conversation without driving them away.”
Meeting Robles made me realize that my assumption that all queer women automatically lean left excluded women who fell outside of that category. I honestly didn’t believe I’d ever have to ask a queer woman if they were a conservative because I figured there was no way they could be one. Consequentially, I set myself and any queer woman I encountered up for failure and limited our ability to talk to one another.
Though I didn’t continue to date Robles (and disagree with her, obviously), talking with her reminded me of the importance of not assuming, and also reassured me that it is possible to have a tolerant conversation with someone with opposing views. Had I let her conservative label prevent me from doing that, I would be guilty of perpetuating a stereotype and failing to create a space where a dialogue is very much needed. As much as I may abhor Trump, it would be hypocritical for me to disregard or shut Robles out based solely on her conservative views.
The mother of Lil Tay—a tiny, foul-mouthed kid with a penchant for making it rain for her 1.7 million Instagram followers—has been fired from her job at a Vancouver real estate agency.
Earlier this week, VICE published a story explaining who Lil Tay is; in short she’s a nine-year-old girl who appears to have a shitload of money and luxury cars she isn’t able to drive. On, in her words, the “youngest flexer of the century!”
Lil Tay’s antics include taunting other people for not being as wealthy as she is (“Bitch, I just bought a Lamborghini! Y’all bitches can’t afford this shit, OK?”) and beefing with her counterpart Bhad Bhabie aka the “cash me ousside” girl.
But it seems the recent headlines about Lil Tay have resulted in her mom, Vancouver real estate agent Angela Tian, being fired. Tian has at times been seen filming her daughter in the backdrop of her videos. Tian’s former firm Pacific West Realty confirmed to VICE they terminated her employment last week; she had worked there for six months.
“When we found out about this activity last week we had to dismiss her,” Jim Lew, director of business development for Pacific Place Group, told Daily Hive, noting the behaviour in Lil Tay’s videos has “no place” in the real estate industry. VICE reached out to Lew and confirmed Tian is no longer with the company.
Judging by the fat stacks of USD Lil Tay enjoys flashing, she may be able to help her mom out.
You might be forgiven for missing what looked like the end of Donald Trump's infrastructure crusade. The faux populist's campaign promise to "build the roads, highways, bridges, tunnels, airports and the railways of tomorrow" gave way nearly two years later to an admission on Wednesday by White House Press Secretary Sarah Huckabee Sanders that "I don't know that there will be [an infrastructure bill] by the end of the year." Since after this year Republicans will have presumably lost seats in Congress and maybe even lost control of the House, she might as well have said, "RIP Infrastructure Week."
But how did it die?
As Jonathan Chait noted in New York, Trump's passion for infrastructure projects was a key component of the "economic nationalism" that set him apart from his fellow Republicans. When Steve Bannon was in Trump's favor, the strategist touted a trillion-dollar infrastructure plan; there was speculation that infrastructure would be a way for Trump to work with Democrats rather than Republicans and shake up the normal politics of DC.
This did not happen, not even a little. Bannon was unceremoniously kicked to the curb by his boss, who quickly embraced a traditional Republican domestic agenda of slashing taxes and gutting people's access to healthcare. Trump had promised to come out with an infrastructure plan during the first 100 days of his administration, but by December no such plan had materialized. Finally, in February, a plan did come out only to be pronounced dead on arrival. Rather than spending money directly on infrastructure projects, it mostly sought to shift costs onto state and local governments and hand out only $200 billion in grants, a fraction of what the American Society of Civil Engineers said was needed to repair America's damaged infrastructure. Democrats rejected that approach, and since Republicans in Congress have never given much of a shit about infrastructure to begin with, the proposal was largely ignored. (It didn't help that in a separate budget proposal, Trump had proposed what Democrats said amounted to cuts to infrastructure.)
Trump has actually at least tried to follow through on many of his campaign promises, and broke through in some key areas. He tried and failed to repeal the Affordable Care Act, passed an across-the-board tax cut that benefited corporations and the super rich like him, began to pull out of the deal Barack Obama made with Iran over its nuclear program, restricted citizens of some Middle Eastern countries from traveling to the US, made life harder for undocumented immigrants, and has recently started to impose tariffs on China. He's also preparing for a summit next month with North Korean leader Kim Jong-un.
But nearly all of these moves could have been made by any Republican president. Trump promised to be a different breed. At one point during the 2016 campaign, he criticized Hillary Clinton's own infrastructure plan as being too small-minded: “Her number is a fraction of what we’re talking about. We need much more money to rebuild our infrastructure." Over and over, as a candidate then as president, he made noises about a great national project of construction and economic rejuvenation.
The problem was that tackling infrastructure would have required a great deal of effort on his part. He would have had to attract Democratic support by following through on his promise to actually increase domestic spending, which would mean going up against anti-government conservatives. He would have doubtless been able to steamroll any such opposition thanks to his popularity among the GOP base, but Trump has no shown no willingness to fight that kind of fight. Instead, he's left many key areas of national policy entirely in the hands of congressional leaders like Paul Ryan. Maybe Trump really wants to rebuild America's infrastructure, but he doesn't seem to care enough to actually try to do it.
The punchline is that Trump voters don't appear to care all that much either. His approval ratings don't appear to have suffered because of his infrastructure inaction. No insurgent Republican politicians seem to be focused on the issue. The populist right-wing media doesn't talk about it—Breitbart covered Trump's February plan favorably, but hasn't pressured the administration on it since. No one ever showed real, sustained interest in holding Trump accountable on infrastructure, so it was easy for him to walk away.
It’s been a week since Hawaii's Kilauea volcano erupted, and the destruction hasn't shown signs of stopping. Fissures that opened up in the surrounding neighborhoods sent lava spewing as high as 300 feet in the air, swallowing homes, cars, and roads in molten rock and forcing roughly 2,000 residents to evacuate. And according to a warning from the US Geological Survey Wednesday, the volcano could wreak even more havoc by hurling massive, ten-ton boulders of hot rock from its summit, as the Washington Postreported.
Ever since Thursday's initial blast, the "lava lake" in Kilauea's center has been draining, as molten rock flows into and around Leilani Estates and Lanipuna Gardens via underground streams. According to the USGS, if the lake keeps dropping, it could hit groundwater within weeks—creating a buildup of steam pressure that might cause the volcano to explode, shooting ash, rocks, and boulders as far as 20 miles away.
"If an explosion happens, there’s a risk at all scales," USGS volcanologist Donald Swanson told the Post. "If you’re near the crater, within half a mile, you could be subject to ballistic blocks weighing as much as ten or 12 tons.”
According to Swanson, smaller rocks could fly miles from the volcano's summit, and a cloud of ash might fly "from the sky like snow."
Meanwhile, new fissures were continuing to crop up on the Big Island, with one cracking open a half-mile from a geothermal power plant on Wednesday, Reuters reported. The plant contains thousands of gallons of flammable chemicals, which—if they catch fire—could spark an explosion with a blast radius of up to a mile. On Wednesday, Hawaii governor David Ige issued an emergency proclamation to make sure that doesn't happen.
FOX has cancelledBrooklyn Nine-Nine, and personally I'm devastated. "Sources note the series went into its current fifth season with an eye toward an endgame," Variety reported. "That the single-camera comedy is produced by an outside studio—Universal Television—did not help the series, which will not return for a sixth season."
I don't give a shit about any of that, and I don't care that ratings dropped in the fourth season (which was probably the worst season, but it bounced back in season five). The important thing was that I was watching it, and you should have been too (maybe if you had been watching, it wouldn't have been canceled). The show was adored by critics, like Parks and Recreation and 30 Rock, its spiritual ensemble comedy brethren. It was light and playful despite being set in a Brooklyn police precinct, perfect comfort television. The breakout star of the show—Captain Raymond Holt, the father figure—is portrayed by Andre Braugher, formerly of Homicide: Life on the Street, who revealed an untapped talent for comedy. "The Brooklyn Nine-Nine cast is mostly comedians, but the Juilliard-trained Braugher often steals the scene," the New York Timesgushed in 2014.
There's no shortage of shows that aim to be sweeping epics or psychological thrillers, so it was a relief to have Brooklyn Nine-Nine out there keeping it light. The show still grappled with social issues—it has to, it's set in a police precinct with a captain who is black and gay—but it does so without being preachy or serious. Most of the time, it's straight-up goofy, like when the show's protagonist, Jake Perralta (played by Andy Samberg), makes suspects in a police lineup sing the Backstreet Boys.
There is an upside to living in the era of the reboot, however—it could always come back.
"I recently experimented with pouring Equal, the sugar substitute, on my genitals and had an oral sexual encounter, and it made me have ball-and-dick brûlée," Marilyn Manson tells Courtney Love, apropos of nothing. "I regretted it automatically because I couldn't get it off. Because I don't like to shower."
Welcome to the guest commentary on the Rick and Morty season three Blu-ray release, which hits stores and online retailers next week. In the wake of Adult Swim ordering 70 new episodes of the show, viewers will find a treasure trove of awkward behind-the-scenes clips, like the one below of co-creator Justin Roiland directing Spencer Grammar to rip ass in character as Summer Smith. The Reddit crowd will latch onto the commentary tracks for each episode, in which Roiland, co-creator Dan Harmon, and a rotating who’s who of the cast and crew drop subtle hints about season four. Manson and Love aren’t the only celebrities who weighed in on the new episodes. David Benioff and D.B. Weiss suggested a Game of Thrones x Pickle Rick crossover when they watch the third episode with Peter Dinklage, and both musician John Mayer and comedian Russell Brand weigh in on season three episodes as well.
But it’s old pals Courtney and Marilyn who truly shine in a surreal, free-flowing, NC-17 rated convo that, at times, sounds as though the two forgot they were being recorded. It’s a racy, madcap, and ultimately thrilling romp through their psyches.
The sometime collaborators are given free reign to react to the season three premiere, "The Rickshank Redemption," unguided and uncensored, and the two rock icons certainly deliver. During the episode, they cover a range of topics, some of them actually in the orbit of the Rick and Morty ep at hand, but often not. A brief rundown includes: 1) Marilyn’s penchant for making women he’s hooking up with eat a Plan B pill “the night before,” which he calls “Plan A,” 2) The myriad uses of duct tape, one of which is inexplicably “condoms,” according to Manson, 3) The virtue of animating characters with five fingers like Rick and Morty instead of a Simpsons-esque four (better for fingering, you see), 4) an appetite suppressant called Ayds that tanked in the 1980s, and 5) which of the pair’s genitals would be easier to draw with an Etch-e-Sketch (they agree on Manson's).
Which brings us back to Marilyn’s odd habit of putting Equal on his dong. He was inspired by Def Leppards’ “Pour Some Sugar on Me,” naturally. "You do the most weird sexual shenanigans!" Love replies to his admission that he uses the sweetner as a form of hygiene, coining a term—"sexual shenanigans”—heard many times throughout the episode commentary’s 22 minutes.
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"I've been hearing about your sexual shenanigans since 1993," she tells him at one point. Manson shoots back, "I've been hearing about your sexual shenanigans since 1993,” before adopting a loose impersonation of Rick. “You're just listening more, Morty."
In a fairly passable Morty voice, Love replies, "OK, Rick."
It’s not all talk of sexual shenanigans and sugar substitute-coated shlongs. There’s pretty in-depth talk of the show, too, of course. The two are giantfans, and during the ep, they wonder aloud who's sluttier, Morty's sister or his mom (they settle on his sister), the Szechuan sauce phenomenon, Rick's unibrow, and so much more.
"Everyone needs a Morty in their life,” Manson says while watching the character cope with his family. “Someone to just abuse constantly. I always like to keep a few Mortys around."
"Yeah..." Love agrees.
"I think Rick has an empty soul," Love later says as they watch him outwit an alien cop. The two laugh mightily, and Manson points out the irony. "Says Courtney! Says Courtney to Manson!"
Watching the episode with Courtney and Marilyn is pretty fascinating. You learn what pop-culture references the motley duo recognizes and identifies with, which characters they relate to, and generally get to see the show through a whole new set of eyes. Other commentary track might be more informative, and contain Roiland revealing he's got plans for Tammy and Phoenix Person, or that Dan Harmon wrote the final showdown between Rick C-137 and the Council of Ricks in an adrenaline-soaked eight-minute spree that caused the whole writer's room to stop what they were doing and watch. But all things being Equal, Courtney and Marilyn are just as entertaining.
The first time 27-year-old artist Cameron Welch dove into a dumpster in Crown Heights, Brooklyn, he was thinking about how the ancient relics and mythology celebrated by modern society largely exclude black identity. Sifting through the trash, he found artifacts of the recent past: CDs, brooms, mirrors, statues of black angels, and an Aboriginal Djembe drum.
“All the things I find have histories to them. They are references to time and identity. You go to the Met and you don’t see people of color,” he told VICE. “What do you do when you want to pose a new paradigm in representation? People always look back to look forward but stop at like 1950, and I’m like, ‘Why can’t we look back to Greece and ancient craft making?’”
Welch’s recently opened exhibition Retrograde at Rental Gallery incorporates objects the artist found while dumpster diving, but reinterprets them as a cross between painting and mosaic. It’s classical art making with a twist—instead of ancient ceramic fragments, Welch uses smashed pieces of colorful bathroom and subway tiles.
VICE caught up with Welch recently to talk about nostalgia, vandalism, embedding his personal identity in art history, and why modern culture needs new myths.
Portrait of hte artist by Joshua Olley (L). Cameron Welch, Slow Dance. Oil, acrylic, spray, collage, found objects, and ceramic on panel. 60 x 48 inches. 2018 (R)
VICE: What inspired you to start using mosaics in your paintings? Cameron Welch: I was thinking a lot about what could be a new myth and trying to create a new world where people of color get to be represented in this way. So I thought about mashing ancient myths around beauty, sexuality, and identity with more modern signifiers. There are CDs—which are like fossils in the world now because we don’t use them anymore. I was interested in the stories they evoke for people. Or you have a keyboard in Jazz that someone played and then threw out, and I wanted those histories embedded in the work. The mythology doesn’t really stop at the depiction of the thing by me but takes on different things with the different people who see the paintings.
Cameron Welch, Jazz. Oil, acrylic, spray, collage, found objects, and ceramic on panel. 60 x 48 inches. 2018
How did dumpster diving make you more interested in using black figures in your work? I always rely on the readymade. There’s something about the tactility of an object that’s lived within an image. I was trying to combat institutional painting, a very white history of painting, and surround it with a story of blackness. Now I am creating a [more direct] new narrative. I can pose different questions while bringing in all of these things from the outside world. I’m now thinking about actual objects.
Cameron Welch, Lover Boy. Oil, acrylic, spray, collage, found objects, and ceramic on panel 48 x 36 inches. 2018
How does embedding the actual objects rethink ideas of race presently and in the past? The entire body of work is about the intimacy of self recognition. The use of mirrors for every figure’s eyes makes you address your own relationship within the proposed narrative and past narratives. Like Lover Boy is about romance—it’s the idea of a Romeo, or the ancient romantic—and we have a black figure holding a bouquet of flowers in the mirror, and it’s more about you seeing yourself as this person.
I create mosaics because there’s something kind of cozy about them that’s inviting and beautiful and asks, “Where are you within this story? What do you see when you literally see yourself reflected in this thing?”
Cameron Welch, Persephone. Oil, acrylic, spray, collage, found objects, and ceramic on panel. 60 x 48 inches. 2018
Persephone is the only depiction of a white figure in the show. What are you trying to advance with that around the myths of identity? It’s interesting because I’m mixed, and I’ve used my work to navigate my own identity. It’s funny, too, because that figure is exactly the same as the black figure in most of the other paintings. I wanted to see what it’d be like when just one of the figures in the entire show was white. It’s all about that same question I was posing: what happens to a viewer when they are forced to see themselves in a narrative? The white figure is sort of a bait and switch even though they are all painted the same way; all of the characteristics of their faces are the same, but one is white. What happens? I’m posing more questions than answers.
One of the other things you do, that brings the street into the mostly lily-white tradition of history painting, is use graffiti on the mosaics, which alludes to tagging. Do you think of your paintings as a form of vandalism? It is vandalism as a means of establishing a new history. I am literally rewriting old histories by writing on top of them. I think there’s something really radical about that reclaiming of space. The mark making in my work references the potential of reversing power structures.
L: The artist at work. Photo by Corinne Rendinaro. R: Outward Bound. Oil, acrylic, spray, collage, found objects, and ceramic on panel. 48 x 36 inches. 2018
Why do we need new myths? I think it’s all about possibility. I think I’ve always tried to find balance in the sort of binaries of my own self-identification. In terms of gender, race, and politics, I think we have gotten to this point where we see fluidity in a lot of the socio-political realms in society that has bubbled up to the surface. I have a younger brother, for example, and a lot of his friends don’t identify as one thing or another. They actually hate the idea of being forced to identify as one thing. I think that’s a beautiful idea that’s often talked about in this really grandiose, utopian way.
And with bringing people of color into the representative sphere of mosaic making or history painting, I’m starting to talk about that. The paintings are proposing the idea of getting rid of a lot of these boundaries. I’m putting black figures in romantic spheres to do away with the construct that people of color can’t be represented in that way. I’m an artist that doesn’t want to be bound, materially speaking, to one mode of representation. I think it’s all about pushing a new myth of liberated existence in terms of self-identification but also knowledge and narrative. I think it’s all about being free.
When I'm having sex, I don't really care about the music playing in the background. But the number of Spotify playlists solely dedicated to helping users on their journey to an orgasm – usually including The Weeknd's " Earned It", the world's most popular song to have sex to – makes it clear that, for many, music is a potent aphrodisiac.
In 2001, Canadian researchers found that, during sex, the same pleasure centre of the brain is stimulated as when you're listening to music. That means that if you're listening to a song you love while in the moment, that should trigger double the endorphins and double the pleasure.
The creators of Bed Beats probably had this in mind when they developed their app, which aims to offer the ideal soundtrack to their users' boning. It works by measuring the rhythm and vigour of any thrusts, and intuitively syncing music with that tempo – in theory, creating the perfect sex playlist. To find out if our style was more Sampha or Seal, my boyfriend and I decided to test it out.
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After downloading the app for €2 and calling my boyfriend over to sleep with me because Pulitzers don't win themselves, we got down to figuring out how the software works. At first glance, the app's basic interface and the way its tunes are described as "high-quality custom music" ruined the mood faster than when my parents knocked on my door midway through my first time.
Also, it turns out that "high-quality custom music" doesn't mean songs you know and love, but a series of generic melodies you'd expect to hear in a supermarket or an elevator.
The app did, however, take our musical tastes into consideration – we got to choose from six different categories: chill, dance, funk, roots (essentially country-folk), smooth jazz and trance. Your preference only takes you so far, though, as the app offers one song per genre. If you want more variation, you'll need to make an in-app purchase. We chose not to spend any more money on it and just brave the country banger if it came. I didn't really understand how the app planned to guide us through our lovemaking on a single song per genre, but there was only one way to find out.
As per the instructions, I placed my phone next to us on the mattress. While we settled into the first position, the app, to my bitter disappointment, started to bellow out some funk. Plucking string sounds playing on a relentless loop is not what I'd call orgasm-friendly, but we had no choice but to work with what we had.
As my boyfriend moved faster, I picked up the phone to see that we had jumped from a "Level 1" to a "Level 4". That's how I learned the sobering reality of the app – it plays one and the same melody, but just speeds the tempo up along with you. The thumping funk bass had also gradually incorporated more and more guitar sounds, in an attempt to sync the music with the crescendo of our movements.
We decided to change position and genre, moving on to missionary and "chill" – a rattled keyboard composition. To push things along, my boyfriend grabbed the phone and decided to make it his personal mission to reach the last level, whatever that might be. It was clear that this app was bringing a whole new dimension of romance and intimacy to our relationship.
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Soon after, we reached Level 7, and the keyboard ramped right up. But it became hard to stay focused on the task at hand – and once I started giggling, my boyfriend collapsed on top of me. We became a human ball of uncontrollable laughter, and the pseudo-sexual keyboard riffs didn't really know what to do with us anymore.
We figured that if the app measured speed in movement, we could just vigorously shake the phone to reach the highest level, without having to painfully ram into each other. I used the oldest trick in the book and rapidly pumped my left hand up and down while holding the phone. Unfortunately, the app didn't go beyond Level 7. It seemed we really had exhausted it.
Finally, we decided to get back at it with the trance song. I sat on top of my boyfriend, who had set the phone on his stomach for accurate measurement. We were soon doing it to a faux 90s techno beat, which didn't do much for me aside from making me feel like I was on the set of a low-budget porno. I asked my boyfriend to turn the app off.
While the app's "high-quality custom music" was hilarious at times, that's generally not what you're looking for in these kind of situations. "I was so focused on my rhythm that sex felt more like work," my boyfriend admitted during our evaluation afterwards.
But, to be fair, when isn't a first time hard work and kind of shitty?
