Comic-Con 2014 Photos by Julia Prescott

Since 1970, the San Diego Comic-Con has brought comic book fans and sci-fi/fantasy enthusiasts from all across the world together to share stories, discuss the great mysteries of existence (Kirk vs. Picard, how does Superman shave, where is the bathroom on the Millennium Falcon), and purchase expensive collectibles. My first time attending was in 2007, and it was all I had dreamed of when I was kid making my Waterworld action figures kiss. It was a magnificent spectacle of the obscure, the misunderstood, and the marginal in pop culture. I was at home.

In the last 20 years, the Con has taken on a different tone. It's less a conclave of dorks than an opportunity for Hollywood to pitch their latest projects to the masses; the Cannes Film Festival, but with a 24-hour Subway on every corner. For VIPs and industry bigwigs, the experience is private cars, lavish hotels, and fancy parties with copious amounts of free drinks. For people like me who just want to get their Sandman trade paperback signed by Neil Gaiman, it's a whole lot more frustrating. Here are all the reasons why I now dread going to Comic-Con:

There Are Lines for Everything, Even Taking a Shit

Comic-Con is extremely popular—like "Pamela Anderson in Baywatch" popular. Yearly attendance is estimated at over 130,000 people, but on a normal day, downtown San Diego only holds around 28,000 people. Those numbers do not add up. The area around the convention center morphs into what looks like a makeshift disaster relief zone, but I suppose that's also the ideal scenario for sci-fi/fantasy fans, because it's like you're living inside the movie World War Z. 

An area that's so severely overcapacity is bound to create lines for just about anything you could possible want or need. There's even a line to get into "Preview Night" on Wednesday now. Get excited to "preview" the back of somebody's Farscape t-shirt for two hours while you wait to get into the convention center!

The area was just not built to contain that many hungry, sleepy, drunk people who really need to pee, which means competition for basic services is fierce. One of the most sought-after items at Comic-Con isn't a mint condition copy of Action Comics #1... it's a working toilet. Lines can become truly interminable, possibly due to how long it takes for a guy to unzip and get out of his "Xenomorph from Alien" costume. When wearing an outfit with that many moving parts, finding your dick takes some time.

Photo via Flickr users Dave & Margie Hill

The Lonely Celebrity Signing Area

I remember when the highlight of Comic-Con was getting face time with my heroes, like the original Apollo from Battlestar Galactica or the dolphin from seaQuest DSV. They actually seemed happy to be there, eager to soak up the adoration of the loyal fans that remembered their glory days. Yes, ma'am. I did see your guest spot on Dark Shadows. You were great. I always wish they had brought your character back to get revenge. It's a shame M.A.N.T.I.S. got canceled, isn't it?

Now that the Con is primarily about new stuff instead of nostalgia for the past, the celebrity signing area has turned into a grim reminder of the fleeting nature of fame. Sure, there are still a few hearty souls who get pumped up about having a chat with 64-year-old Erin Gray from Buck Rogers. There just aren't enough of them left to keep the guests of honor from looking as though they've been told it's terminal and they should get their affairs in order.

My Comic-Con badge from 2011. Yes, they spelled my name wrong.

Trying to Get a Badge Is Awful

As rough as it is to attend Comic-Con, getting there is an even bigger hassle because of the sheer amount of interest and the wonky nature of Comic-Con International's online purchasing system.

From comic-con.org:

"If you are interested in purchasing a badge for Comic-Con International 2015, you must first sign up for a Comic-Con Member ID. Your Comic-Con Member ID will act as your login to the EPIC online registration system during EPIC Open Online Registration and will also add you to our verified special member 'E-List.'"

Not sure what "EPIC Online Registration" is, but it sounds really neat, huh? I gues I'll click on Comic-Con International's FAQ page to get more info:

Comic-Con International will send an email with the Open Online Registration date and time to all eligible members at least 48 hours in advance of the sale. At least 24 hours prior to the sale, all eligible members will receive an additional email with their personal registration code and a link to the EPIC Registration landing page.

To guarantee you receive all email notifications from Comic-Con, please be sure to sign in to your Member ID account and click the “OPT-OUTS” option on the “My Account” tab. Make sure you have not checked the “Email Opt-Out” box. If you have selected to opt-out of email notifications from Comic-Con, you will not receive important registration announcements.

Oh... so that means I'm guaranteed to be able to buy a ticket at that point, right? RIGHT?

Do you know what do I do now since this came up? @SD_Comic_Con @Comic_Con pic.twitter.com/a3MRcAmNgK

— Yo It's Katy-o (@InsanelyKaty) March 15, 2014

OK. Great. That worked out.

Everything Is Expensive, Especially Parking

Local merchants, realizing that Comic-Con week is their best chance to ensure they turn a yearly profit, jack up the price of everything. They really screw you on anything that's a finite resource (as is their prerogative in this glorious capitalist nation), and parking is the most finite resource there is due to the aforementioned population issue in downtown. It's best not to drive at all during Comic-Con. There's always taxis, the San Diego Trolley, or pedi-cabs. Pedi-cabs are great, right?

Pedi-Cabs Suck

These pedal-powered personal conveyances are ostensibly designed to make getting around downtown San Diego much easier for Con attendees. Sometimes, they actually can be fairly handy, if you need to get a few blocks faster than your legs can carry you (and you have a few extra dollars in cash burning a hole in your wallet). Other times, they are guided missiles with one mission: hitting you while you try to cross the street.

The drivers are also kinda pushy about getting you to ride with them if they see you hoofing it. Like, why would you walk if you can hop in the cart on the back of my bike that's shaped like the Iron Throne! Pedi-cabs are Comic-Con's natural predators. Beware.

Everyone's Constantly Getting "Turnt"

Since when did a comic book convention for people who have a hard time making eye contact turn into a 24/7 rave? Once the floor closes for the day, San Diego's Gaslamp District rises from the ashes like a Phoenix (you know, from X-Men #101-108) and is reborn as a geek-themed frat party. The big star of last year's convention was not the Guardians of the Galaxy trailer or Benedict Cumberbatch. It was this girl's puke, since we all got to step over it and around it, and smell it. The smell is what I'll never forget. Good lord, the smell.

Hall H

Everyone wants to cram into Hall H to see sizzle reels, trailers, and sometimes just logos from various upcoming genre films and TV shows. Despite being the largest room in the convention center, Hall H only has a capacity of 6,130. That's a small fraction of the people who attend the Con.

The demand for Hall H presentations is so intense that in 2012, I stood in line for three hours to get into the Doctor Who panel. I finally made it to the front of the line when the security guard informed me that Hall H was now full, but I was welcome to be first in line to see The Cleveland Show panel. You know, the cartoon with the black people.

Needless to say, I did not stay, but everyone behind me did, because by sitting through the interminable banter between the voice cast of The Cleveland Show, they could stick around for the next panel, which was either the Firefly reunion or a sneak peek at the font that would be used in the end credits of Iron Man 3. I don't remember. 

If you actually get into Hall H to see a panel, you pretty much can't get up to walk around or take a leak, because someone will take your seat, especially if it's close to the podium or the Q&A microphone. You're stuck there. I hope you like combing through the Comic-Con program to find something to read or futily trying to get service on your cell phone. Don't expect the panels to start on time, so download Angry Birds now. You're going to be real familiar with that game soon enough—unless you came with a friend, in which case you can discuss which restaurant you're going to wait in line to maybe eat at after it's all over.

Good Luck Carrying All the Toys You Just Bought

Here are some things I've bought at Comic-Con: the entire set of Enterprise bridge crew figures from Star Trek: First Contact, a giant Dark Knight Batman toy, a Con exclusive Indiana Jones poster, a Judge Dredd t-shirt I never wear (because when is that socially acceptable outside of Comic-Con?), a Star Trek: The Motion Picture mini-poster, a bootleg DVD copy of Re-Animator, multiple sonic screwdrivers, and a Mon Mothma Star Wars figure (still in the package, natch).

I love all of this stuff, and I proudly display it all at my home. Actually getting all that crap to my home is the hard part. The people in the above photo had to drag a fucking cart around all day to hold all their toys. What happens when they both have to pee at the same time? Do they bring the giant laundry basket full of toys with them into the bathroom? What about if they want to sit down to a nice meal? Can they bring that goddamn thing into Hall H with them? Isn't that a fire hazard?

The Religious Protestors

What better place to proselytize and convert lost souls than a large-scale gathering of kindred spirits who also obsess over sensational fantasy stories about the conflict between good and evil, with a healthy dollop of questionable gender politics? It's like shooting fish in the proverbial barrel, folks. That doesn't make it any less annoying. I'll take my Christ in allegory form—straight from Krypton, resplendant in blue and red tights. Thanks.

Follow Dave Schilling on Twitter

Mike Young is a writer of great grace, which is weird because the things he tends to write about are oatmeal muffins, garbage vacuums, robotic butterflies, Ice Cube, and pretty much anything you could find out in the dumpster behind a 7-Eleven in Weed, California. If that sounds like a mess, that’s because that’s a mess, but somehow Mike Young weaves monologues through it that sound sort of like a NyQuil kid who got banged on the head and came out better. Better yet, beyond all of that, there is something at the center that seems to actually care, to have a living, breathing heart made out of refuse, perfect timing, and best of all, true empathy for what makes a human a human.

A Mike Young poem might explain the time he met Tom Waits in a cafeteria in the same breath as remembering the night he told his friend Bryan he was going to kill himself on AOL Instant Messenger, and then a moment later mention: “The more a game fascinates you / the less chance you’ll win.” The verse is slim and grandiose somehow at the same time, neighborly and ancient, as likely to swing through the gas station to buy weird candy as it is to wake up on a bus several states away from home. Young has some vaudeville in him, some Harmony Korine-like want for entertainment in the everyday, but perhaps the best thing about his work is the way that it seems like an insanely huge sponge made out of eyes and ears, vacuuming up the moments that most often disappear, and cobbling together monologues that carry their aphorisms in the same arm as their jokes.

I’ll even go so far as to say Mike Young is the Dante of post-boredom, guiding us through the rings of hell, reawakening something new inside of us that we have yet to become, hidden underneath the repeating string of days. I believe that knowing certain people are alive can remind you to be a better person in your own life. Mike Young’s writing does that to me, but not in the annoying, “Dude, here is the eternal truth right before you ”kind of way, but also not not in that way either, you know? I’m saying: It feels good to remember people care, and that some of us have found a magnetic way to say it.

But the reason for all this talk of what Mike Young does comes on the occasion of his latest book, Sprezzatura, which also happens to be my favorite book of his, and a good introduction to him for anyone who wants to put his face into the feeling of a good, calm electricity.

ENOUGH TO HASH THINGS OUT

I like it when the audience camera accidentally catches
the kid who doesn’t give a shit about the home run.

Carolyn says you need to wait ten seconds before
CPR, which is a delay never depicted in movies, I feel.

Imagine living as a rollercoaster critic. Some people like
certain frozen meals so much they learn how to make

real versions of them. A Pop-Tarts restaurant opened in
Times Square. You can buy Pop-Tarts sushi. When you read

a lot of news stories about these kinds of things, you realize
that only one kind of humor is allowed in contemporary

journalism. The world suggested by this humor is something
distant, like a card trick you get in the mail. Do you ever take

overheard advice? Like if one stranger swears by coconut water
to another stranger, will you try coconut water? What can it hurt?

Aren’t there many people you have failed to thank? One of my
stronger memories is sitting in the Blueberry Twist, realizing

who made his living off poker. One girl who worked at
Blockbuster was always negative. Even when I saw her

excited about something the other day—maybe a coupon
for paper towels, maybe a new color of berry—she seemed

more anti-complaining than actually expressing happiness.
Speaking of anti, the father insisted bats weren’t real and tried

to get everyone in the car. One time Chris said he had nothing to
do on Christmas Eve and he was planning on driving by my house,

but he didn’t. He told me this around March, I think.

CAN WE GET ICE CREAM AT THIS HOUR?

I am not that smart. Or that sad. So where do I get off
with your attention? Dear those who buy the salsa
suggested on the chip bag. Sons who ate caterpillars
when Dale Earnhardt died. Friends are the ones who
wave at you. Is your heart a bundle of shoelaces stuck
together by honey? Dear muumuus and instant potatoes.
We are all pretentious. Consider the flavors we choose
for bathroom aerosol. Dear Saran Wrap and gulch mud.
Is your life a milky dumafidget? Do you care about the word
in German for your loneliness? Let’s arm wrestle in the pantry
and straight up fuck this shit. My bros want poems to rap more.
Their fathers want less cussing. How do I explain that I have
bros who say bro in quotes? If it’s cold, there’s a blanket in the
pickup. This poem does not star a robot suit. Or a talking top-hat.
Those poems have all the nice clues for rain, but my dreams
are clogged with Folgers tins. Coupons for Hamburger Helper.
TV trays and powdered eggs. Dear aunts of shopping networks
in the dark. Dear coaches who still don’t quite understand
vitamin water. It’s like you fiddle all the ones you love across
the couch so they’ll each fit in the photo, except it never works
because it’s not their photo: it’s always just a photo of your love.
Dear men who conceive of suicide only by motorcycle,
you would have the most awesome beard if you would just
read poetry. It is true that I value their thermoses above others,
but why? Didn’t I break up with Amber over her use of the
word weird? Then there was the daughter of a Democrat who
sprayed his wife’s perfume behind the couch. Thank you
Pell Grant for the people I have met through you. Witty
dress shoes. The luxury to be congratulated for my loneliness
when I explain it through a fantasy of several million lonely
YouTube videos compiled together to form the definitive
trailer for The Season of Big Loneliness, which is a let down and
too long. It is true that I have friends and different friends and
rap videos we all watch. Except with certain friends I fall asleep
scuffling of feelings (as we are doing here, thank you) and others
who talk about how Egypt was built by the aliens and God alights
upon Kraft singles. Let’s hear about Hunter. He’s in Europe,
but only because of the Air Force. He dips Red Man and calls girls
biddies. We don’t keep in touch, and his mother believes he has the
soul of a deer outside the hospital, the one she heard shot dead during
labor. In the middle of the night she Googles his Wiccan horoscope.
I am not making this up. Dear sunflower seeds. Dear Superball tickets.
If I could make this up, wouldn’t I be the one who knows you?

NINERS WIN I LOVE YOU, NINERS LOSE I LOVE YOU

for BC after Portland 2009

They’re behind, but it’s not over.
38-25 and the Niners are driving.
My throat still hurts from fritter and lyrics,
while my search engine claims “Memoir of
environmentalist Greyhound driver”garners
no hits. Are we to believe they haven’t invented
themselves? In last night’s fog and cattle, I stole
a nap from my fever on the bus, chanting head songs
more sick than I really was, because a song’s the
epic you dust stir, and a body’s just an eep to sire.
What if you replaced the day part of on-the-road- don’t-know-what-day-it-is with people? The Niners
tied it. There’s the going on, the went, the want, the we,
the shower you dream of, and the bath salts given to
me for Christmas that interact with my mistaken belief
that all gifts are instructions on how the giver wants to spend time with the givee. Giraffes don’t play football. Environmentalist Greyhound giraffe—his right-parted haircut sticking out the top, plexiglass guarding him from passengers with chainsaws
and trail mix—screeches the bus to a stop in the desert, dust
muzzling the tires in a temporary cloud, all the yellow flowers
no passenger can name. Interstate stubble. No passenger knows
why we’ve stopped because no one looks up to see our driver,
the giraffe, coughing blood. I miss all my thieves. I miss my own
heart when it sneaks out, borrowing my cough syrup and windbreaker. Three out of every eight readers are currently tolerating this poem
out of concern for the Niners. Sorry. I forgot. OK, there goes
a commercial. When the Niners come back, I will tell you
the score. Love is a giraffe with blood parachuting from its height. Whoops. Arizona intercepted a pass. It’s all over. We blew it.
Our coach was too busy whispering into his playbook: You never saw the pills that stole your friend. Pretty soon people will take photos
of you and call you after where they found you, because they can’t remember how to call you what you are. That’s nobody’s fault.
When we say our own names, we make a weird face. Sure, even
the quarterback. Even the draft pick. Even the other team.

Follow Blake on Twitter.

Buy Sprezzatura at Publishing Genius

The Unist’ot’en  C amp, a pipeline blockade on unsurrendered indigenous land in the interior of BC, peacefully evicted a pipeline crew that was found trespassing in their territories earlier this week. The crew was conducting preliminary work for TransCanada’s Coastal GasLink pipeline project, which the company hopes will carry fracked gas from north eastern BC to Canada’s pacific coast.

Where the eviction took place, multiple fracked gas and tar sands pipelines have been planned without consent from the Unist’ot’en clan. The clan has never surrendered their lands, signed treaties, or lost in war to Canada or BC. Under a system of governance that predates Canada by thousands of years, the Unist’ot’en have taken an uncompromising stance: All pipelines are banned from their territories.

“We’re not willing to sit down at any table with them because our firm answer is no… An official letter with the clan’s letter heading and the chief’s signature will go to the company and mention that they were evicted off our territory and that they’re not permitted back and that if they come back it’s trespass,” Freda Huson, Unist’ot’en camp’s leader, explained. If TransCanada is caught trespassing again, Unist’ot’en’s laws will be strictly enforced: “They’ll leave without their equipment.”

Given the untreated status of Unist’ot’en land, the pipelines represent more than environmental risk. They are a direct attack on the Unist’ot’en clan’s land rights and assertions of sovereignty—effectively a land grab by government and industry. “Wherever they put the pipes, they’re going to say ‘we own that piece now,’ and we’re not allowed to utilize that piece of land anymore,” Huson said. “That’s a big land base these pipelines are proposing to try and take.”

Part family home, part activist community, part compound, Unist’ot’en camp has reoccupied the traditional territories of the Unist’ot’en people to monitor development and to ensure that the clan’s system of governance is the sole law of the land. On the only bridge into the territory, a border is enforced. Those looking to enter the territory must answer questions to establish that their stay will benefit the Unist’ot’en people, following a protocol of free, prior, and informed consent in accordance with international law.



A blockader confronts the helicopter crew. All photos via the author.
TransCanada’s helicopter crew avoided this protocol, circumventing the bridge by flying overhead. They landed without permission in a low valley though the mountains, which they intend to become a pipeline corridor. Even a TransCanada subcontractor, who spoke freely while awaiting his helicopter ride out of the territory, could empathize with the Unist’ot’en’s protectionist stance. “Its magnificent country—really rich in wildlife, really interesting terrain,” he commented. “I can understand its value to people.”

We spoke amid a clear-cut left behind by logging companies that were evicted previously by the Unist’ot’en—a site of environmental degradation that has begun to rejuvenate as industrial activity has ceased. “The berries are almost ripe in these cut-blocks, I noticed, so the bears should be living large for a while. And the fish, the salmon should be coming through some of these streams before too long,” he said.

The eviction was undertaken peacefully and TransCanada complied without dispute. Employees were briefed ahead of time that they might be confronted, though the subcontractor I spoke with had “no indication what anyone might say or do.” He had no idea whose territory he was on, though his crew received instruction to enter Unist’ot’en land and to avoid the “camp at the Morice River Bridge. We were informed that there was a 10km radius no work zone for the current project from the camp.”

The pit house.
“We are unsure who came up with the 10km radius around the camp,” said Toghestiy, Freda’s husband and a hereditary chief of the neighbouring Likhts’amsyu clan. “They were aware that they were in the wrong by hoping to avoid confrontation by those of us who are living here on the lands… This entire territory is in lockdown to all pipelines. They flew over the camp quite a few times on their way to work and could easily see the huge NO PIPELINES lettering on the bridge.”

The enforcement of the eviction, and the firmness of its delivery, run counter to the daily grind of the camp. Volunteer labour is divided between protecting the camp, expanding its infrastructure, and sustaining its volunteers in an environmentally friendly, traditional mode of living.

The camp hosts an extensive permaculture garden that produces hundreds of pounds of organic food and uses a unique solar powered irrigation system. Large food stores of traditional meats like salmon and bear are collected and preserved. Daily upkeep involves chopping firewood, security patrols, and undertaking construction projects to facilitate the camp’s growth. Unist’ot’en intends to teach alternative lifeways to those who are interested.



Molly Wickman and Cody Merriman prepare sockeye salmon for Unist'ot'en's smokehouse.
“I always try to encourage people, come and see for yourself—even the ones that are sitting on the fence,” Freda Huson invited.

“The number one thing when people take away from here is they drink water, fresh from the river, still got the minerals intact, and it’s still pure compared to what they get out of the tap back home. And they see everything around—the animals, the beauty, the mountains, and all the plants,” said Huson. “They see all that and see what it is that we’re protecting here and see that we’re human, we’re not militant as the media would try to portray us, but we’re actually human like everybody else. We got educated, we got jobs, walked away from jobs because we felt it was important to try and protect the remaining lands that we still have left, which is a very small amount.”

The initial impetus for the Unist’ot’en’s hard-line anti-pipeline stance is the devastation of their traditional territories by the colonial governments that overtook them. Several times, including as recently as 2004, Unist’ot’en cabins were burnt down in attempts to see them forced from the land.

“We saw more and more that a lot of our land was devastated, through mining, logging, and there wasn’t very much left. There’s probably ten percent that’s pristine like this area here, and we’re trying to hang onto that ten percent for our future generations,” said Huson.

“This place has been in the hands of the Unist’ot’en people for thousands of years–they’ve managed it,” said Toghestiy. “Governments and corporations moved in, forced us onto reservations, and came out and mismanaged it. Now the Unist’ot’en are back out here and they’re going to manage it again–they’re going to manage it properly.”

Although the camp is currently under threat from the actions of government and industry, its long-term goal is to become a cultural centre, where Unist’ot’en people, as well as people from the broader Wet’suwet’en nations, can come to practice their traditional cultures, live out on the land, and gain autonomy from the colonial state that requires them to work 9 to 5.

“All of our sisters and brothers out there who are indigenous–get out of the urban centres, get out of the Indian reservations. Go home to your ancestral lands,” Toghestiy said. “It’s not just ‘come out and blockade,’ it’s ‘come out and live on your land again.’ Learn how to live, learn how to be free, learn how to make decisions on your own, learn how to survive on your own, learn how to be self-sufficient rather than dependent on a system that’s there to make you sick and make you die. Come out and learn how to live and be indigenous.”

Freda, Toghestiy, and Cody Merriman perform traditional songs for Unist'ot'en guests.
With First Nations, like the Gitxsan to the north, being offered millions of dollars in signing bonuses for pipelines, Freda Huson identified a different kind of wealth that the Unist’ot’en camp seeks to preserve. “How our people measured wealth is what you could take off the land—the food, the medicines, the berries,” she said. The protected lands are home to lynx, black bear, grizzly bear, beaver, eagles, grouse, deer, moose, and many types of salmon. Living here, I have been fed food from the territories, creatively assembled as bear teriyaki, moose stew, or fish head soup.

The camp’s main area is strategically positioned next to the Widzin Kwah, a massive and pure river that multiple pipelines are proposed to travel beneath. Within all of Unist’ot’en territory, Widzin Kwah is the last river that is safe to drink from. Its water is mineralized, frigid, and rejuvenating.

At the centre of the blockade, in the path of Chevron’s Pacific Trails Pipeline project, is a traditional pit house that will become the home of Freda Huson, her husband Toghestiy, and their children upon completion. Wet’suwet’en have been living in structures like these for thousands of years, including a few hundred metres from the present day camp. Under the optic of Canadian law, the presence of this archeological site and the current use of a pit house bolster the Unist’ot’en clan’s claims to land title. “According to all the case laws that exist now on Aboriginal rights, what we’re doing here is completely legitimate and legal–even in their own systems,” explained Toghestiy.

Although pit houses long predate the modern home, they represent the pinnacle of a certain type of technology. Logs are petrified in fire to prevent insects from living in them, and arranged in a triangular structure that will be planted over with soil and native plant species. The house will grow some of its own food. Without electricity, the pit house regulates its own temperature: It is cool in the summer, blocking out the sun, and warm in the winter, trapping in heat. Upon completion, it will be furnished with modern trappings – solar power, multiple rooms, and modern furniture.

A clear-cut in Unist'ot'en territory near the eviction site.
While Canada and British Columbia assert jurisdiction over this territory by issuing project permits for the area, they do so with little regard for a Supreme Court of Canada ruling that confirmed the land’s unceded status in 1997. TransCanada has undertaken consultation with some indigenous leaders, though the decision making process under traditional law is the responsibility of all clan membership and Unist’ot’en membership is unaware of any meetings that occurred on their behalf. In a 697 page document on its efforts to consult with First Nations about Coastal GasLink’s environmental impacts, the phrase “Unist’ot’en” is not used once.

“While we believed we had permission to do this work, our crew decided to safely leave the area after being confronted by people wearing masks,” Shawn Howard, a TransCanada spokesperson told me in an email. He noted that TransCanada appreciated “their professionalism and how they conducted themselves.” He said that “we recognize that with any kind of project–a pipeline, an industrial project or even a residential community–not everyone will support it but we have been having focused consultation with over 30 groups since we announced the project and that is what we are going to continue doing.”

“No means no and we have the final jurisdiction on our own territory,” Huson said. “This is not Crown land, this does not belong to Indian bands... this is my peoples’ territory and we never gave up our decision making power to anybody. Tell them to produce their papers, or anything, that say we gave them the power to decide for us. Our governing system is our hereditary chiefs system and its members.”

TransCanada has engaged in consultation with and paid funds to the Office of the Wet’suwet’en Hereditary Chiefs, a treaty office that the Unist’ot’en clan backed away from a few years ago. Office of the Wet’suwet’en has no jurisdiction on Unist’ot’en territories, or on the territories of the neighbouring Likhts’amsyu clan where the pipelines must also pass. Referring to the lack of consultation with Unist’ot’en’s membership, Freda Huson said: “If they think they spoke to the right people, those people aren’t decision makers for our territory.”

In press releases, the Office has articulated a strong anti-pipeline stance–yet they continue to work with TransCanada in their environmental assessment process. Among the helicopter crew, a woman identified herself as an Office of the Wet’suwet’en contractor, inaccurately asserting “this is my land” when confronted by the Unist’ot’en camp’s defenders. She seemed unaware, however, that the data was being collected for a pipeline giant. Caught off guard, she asked the other workers, “are you guys with TransCanada?”

For dealings like these, the Office of the Wet’suwet’en are barred from entering Unist’ot’en territories. By engaging in the environmental assessment process, even if they say “no” to TransCanada, the Office is enabling the construction of this project. “If there isn’t an environmental assessment process, if there isn’t an environmental assessment approval, the pipelines won’t go through,” explained Molly Wickham, a Unist’ot’en camp supporter and member of the Gitdumden clan. “This is just one part of the process they’re entering and engaging. To me, and within Canadian law, that’s engagement–meaningful consultation.”

Unist’ot’en Camp is now closely monitoring the back end of its territories, with permanent sentries set up with food, water, and firewood supplies, and a radio to call for backup if needed. “They’re essentially our warning system, so if they are spotted in the area we will respond again and confiscate their equipment,” one camper explained.

In protecting their community and their land, the Unist’ot’en clan will not back down. “The fact that we came in and kicked TransCanada out after they knowingly were entering into unceded territory, and sent their workers ill-informed into the territory, we see it as an end to a project that they were attempting to start,” Toghestiy said. “They can’t win. There’s no winning against a force that just refuses to back down, a force that has constitutional backing, a force that has case-law backing, a force that has the social backing from the common every day person who lives here in North America–people who are becoming de-colonized, people who are becoming more aware and waking up to the climate crisis.”


@m_tol

A street scene in Camden, NJ. Photo by Gabe Angemi

Earlier this month, New Jersey Governor Chris Christie stood in a parking lot in Camden—one of America’s poorest and most dangerous cities—and said that it was time for the city to “move beyond its troubled past and… make its new history.”

That day, the Governor announced a deal to build a nuclear power plant parts factory on the Camden waterfront that would bring at least 235 jobs to the city. The month prior, Christie announced another deal to build a Philadelphia 76ers practice facility in Camden that would bring about 50 new jobs to the city.

The cost for Camden’s new history: $342 million in tax breaks, or about $1.2 million of taxpayer money for each guaranteed new job.

As New Jersey’s economy struggles to recover from its Great Recession lows, bumbling along at number 13 on the list of states with the highest unemployment, Christie has trumpeted massive tax breaks as a way to turn the economy around. His new pet project is Camden, a city where nearly 40 percent of residents are living in poverty. But many Jersey residents aren’t so sure Christie’s strategy will work. They say Christie’s plan might only minimally help Camden, and could empty out the state’s coffers in the process.

The nuclear deal would bring Holtec International to Camden, guaranteeing at least 235 new jobs for $260 million. The 76ers deal would have the basketball team move their practice facility from Philadelphia to Camden, creating at least 50 jobs for $82 million.

Local politicians have been enthusiastic about the deals, saying the moves signal the start of a full-on renaissance that’s sure to return Camden to its former glory.

“Camden is on a path to reestablish itself as the mecca of manufacturing,” said Robert Corrales, the business administrator for the City of Camden. “Holtec and the 76ers are just the beginning.”

The beginning of what is unclear. Many residents, activists, and politicians say the money Christie is giving to companies could be better spent on job training for Camden residents, on transportation infrastructure, and on education. And experts seem to agree. Several studies in the last few years, including one from the Kauffman Foundation, have found that using tax incentives to lure large companies to flailing economies doesn’t usually bring much economic revitalization at all.

Raymond Lamboy, 45, is now the president of the Latin American Economic Development Association in Camden and a city resident. When he was growing up, he sat outside his father’s furniture store on Broadway in Camden every Saturday.

“I watched the city crumble before my eyes,” Lamboy said.

Camden used to be booming. Its residents built famous warships, made Campbell’s soup, and manufactured high-quality RCA stereos. But RCA moved out of the city for Indiana in the 1940s. Camden’s main shipbuilding company left in the 1960s. And Campbell’s closed its factory in 1990. The company still proudly calls Camden home, but it only houses a few hundred corporate employees there, in a business park surrounded by walls taller than most basketball players.

Governor Chris Christie announces a deal to build a nuclear power plant parts factory on the Camden waterfront. Photo via the Government of Camden, NJ

The gap between what Camden once was and what it now gives people like Lamboy reasons to doubt Christie’s plan to save Camden. “The typical unemployed person can't go through a training program and wait four years to get a job,” he said. “We’ll take the Holtec-type jobs, but we’ll also take the jobs that basically if you have two hands and are able-bodied and are ready to work—those types of jobs. The typical guy or gal can’t find anything in the city today.”

Holtec International’s owners, and Christie’s boosters, say the new Camden plant could eventually bring 3,000 jobs to the city, and give the city a needed jump that will attract more investment, including the kind people like Lamboy are looking for.

But Holtec is only legally required to bring 235 new jobs to the city, and transfer another 160 existing job from another facility in New Jersey in order to get its $260 million in tax break. The factory will take four years to build, and Holtec is free to leave without any consequences after 15 years. If they do leave, the state will be out $147 million, according to Gordon MacInnes, the president of liberal-leaning think-tank New Jersey Policy Perspective.

“It’s the most recent example of NJ providing the most flamboyant tax breaks in the nation,” MacInnes said. “Christie is setting records in terms of the magnitude.”

Even if Holtec stays, MacInnes says the state’s analysis of potential benefits from the deal are “wildly optimistic.” If Holtec survives for 35 years, MacInnes says the state stands to get about $150,000 in tax revenue.

Terms of the 76ers deal may be even worse for Camden, with the deal’s backers admitting only about 50 jobs would be created by bringing the practice facility downtown, and the eventual tax benefits are even more murky.

But you don’t need to look 35 years down the line to see how Christie’s strategy will play out. It’s already been tried across much of the state and across the country, without much success.

Camden, New Jersey, is one of the poorest and most dangerous cities in the country

Christie gave a $261 million tax credit to Revel, a shiny new casino in Atlantic City, justifying it with the same grandiose claims he used in Camden—that one big project could help revitalize the downtrodden city. In June, Revel announced it would declare bankruptcy. 

Christie also approved a $390 million tax break for a project called American Dream, an insane shopping complex/indoor ski jump near New York City that will have been in construction for nearly 10 years by the time it’s slated to open in 2016 (and it may not open by then).

In total, Christie has spent $4 billion on tax breaks and incentives since becoming governor, according to New Jersey Policy Perspective.

Christie has also been accused of using tax breaks to reward companies with owners who are politically connected to him, including with the Holtec deal.

The strategy is starting to take a toll on the state budget. This week, Christie lobbied New Jersey residents to support his plan to cut billions from state workers’ pensions to make up for a nearly $3 billion state budget gap.

According to the Kauffman Foundation, using tax incentives to bring jobs to a state is almost never a good idea. Incentives usually just shift jobs around without creating any new ones, Kauffman’s report says. It says encouraging entrepreneurship, training people on how to open small businesses, and bringing immigrants into cities are all strategies more helpful and less expensive than giving away state money to corporations.

New Jersey knows firsthand how tax incentives can be harmful.

This week, bubble wrap manufacturer Sealed Air announced it would move its headquarters and 1,300 jobs from Elmwood Park, New Jersey to North Carolina in exchange for $36 million in tax breaks. In other words, North Carolina got a much better deal than Camden did, poaching each job for the fire sale price of about $27,600.

Even for people who aren’t totally anti-tax incentive, the tax breaks in Camden seem too high to justify—seemingly enriching a few select companies while the rest of the city remains poor.

“If you compare what other states are doing, I think New Jersey is giving away the store,” Republican State Senator Michael Doherty said. “If you look at Holtec, it’s just too much. It’s crony capitalism and it’s unprecedented.”

Follow Peter Moskowitz on Twitter.

Image via Creative Commons.
Sometimes, I’m truly #blessed to have a couple of heavenly weeks in a row during which I escape blatant harassment from men. So usually, I begin this column with an outward-looking lamentation of events so misogynistic they sound made up. I’m in a bubble. Then, the bubble unceremoniously bursts, and I’m always yelling about patriarchy.

So I was home in New Brunswick this week visiting family. My Dad said he sometimes doesn’t read my writing because it’s “angry.” He’s said this before, but this time he went on at length about how he doesn’t understand what I’m so angry about.

I told him to read the column to find out what I’m angry about. (In summation: women’s risk of facing rape and physical violence, lack of recognition of trans* folk as human beings, state-imposed regulation of women’s reproductive rights, women of colour being at more of an economic disadvantage than white women due to double-edged sword of systemic racism/sexism, glass ceilings, concerted ignorance of violence against and murder of Indigenous women, etc.).

I shook off the argument, and later that day, I went down to the river with my brother to swim. Afterward, as I was walking to my car, alone, a group of boys who couldn’t have been older than 18 started hollering at me to “take it all off.”

First of all, I wasn’t in the process of taking anything off. They were yelling at the wrong overalls-clad, drowned rat looking bitch.

I marched over like an angry mama, stuck my head in the car and started regaling them with rape statistics, letting them in on the fact that many women are scared of/hate being cat-called because they are, really, afraid of being raped and killed by the harasser. Three of the kids couldn’t look me in the eyes, but the fourth, sitting in the back seat with his insolent blue eyes and half-smoked cig hanging out of his slack mouth, stared me down and argued.

“What, are you afraid I’ll jump out of the car and grab you?” He said. I told him that happens far more often than he’d think, and when it does, media convinces women it’s their fault. I then went on my way so as to avoid doing something that would get me arrested or molested by these young creatures, because that’s what you have to do as a smart young lady. Avoid getting molested by being on your best behaviour. In short, be scintillating, but not so much so that someone feels compelled to abduct and molest you!

Dudes: please don’t verbally sexualize women against their will as they walk by you. It doesn’t feel good; it feels scary. You either want to pick up, intimidate, or make a game of women when you do this, and none of that is kosher. If you find a woman beautiful or interesting, by all means approach her politely and see if she wants to talk. Say hi. There’s nothing wrong with that. I’m not saying never speak to women you don’t know. I’m just saying don’t do it like a coward from the safety of your car, and don’t leer at her as though you may eat her. And I mean eat her, eat her, not…you know. Eat her. She is more than capable of accepting or rejecting your advances. Let her do it instead of hooting pathetically at her from the confines of your individual transportation pod.

Anyway, here’s some other horrible shit that happened this week:
 

NFL Player Knocks Out Fiancée, Gets Two-Game Suspension

Baltimore Ravens running back Ray Rice punched his fiancee so hard she passed out, then dragged her, unconscious, from an elevator earlier this year. The abuse was caught on camera at an Atlantic City casino in February, and he was charged with aggravated assault.

His punishment? Rice was suspended from the first two games of the year, without pay. But the guy makes a million dollars a year, so this punishment is really just the equivalent of a restrained little smack on the wrist of a toddler who, I don’t know, punches his baby sister in the face because he thinks it’s funny.

The NFL released a preposterous statement playing on the supposed complete lack of intelligence of the public at large.

Why are we so devoted to applying endless excuses for athletes when they behave this way, but when other celebrities, like actors or comedians, commit these crimes we jump down their throats with unparalleled and unforgiving tenacity?

When an athlete actually commits violence against a woman, his employer excuses him. Rice was let off easy despite the charges, joining a diversion program which could lead to the charges being expunged, if he successfully completes it.

The only thing funny about this (and it’s rather dark humour, I assure) is that another player was charged with a 16-game suspension for smoking weed, Jezebel reports. Off season. That means beating a woman is 1/8^th the crime of smoking a joint, which is recognized as medicine in some states.

Yet again, this “incident” proves that if you have enough money, it is perfectly fine to beat women. No one from the NFL has truly indicated otherwise.


 

Image via WikiMedia Commons.
San Diego Cops Take Nude Photos of Strippers, Strippers Sue

Whilst ostensibly conducting licensing inspections in a San Diego strip club, a bunch of cops felt it prudent to take “nearly nude” photographs of the dancers who were working. This happened at two different clubs, on two different occasions.

While the cops photographed, they allegedly made “arrogant and demeaning remarks,” and intimidated the dancers to keep them from leaving, according to Reuters. Apparently, the officers thought it was necessary to document every single one of the dancers’ tattoos. My face just looks like that emoji who doesn’t have a mouth. What?

And the dancers aren’t having it. They’re suing. No fewer than 30 of them have filed a lawsuit because their rights were violated during the too-vigorous inspections, which happened in March at Club Expose and in June, 2013 at Cheetahs Gentlemen's Club.

The police are supposedly allowed to make “regular inspections” at any given time, but why said inspections should include detaining women against their will and forcing them into multiple poses, then photographing them—also against their will—is far beyond me.

How about, instead, police include in regular inspections a plainclothes officer who sits in the clubs and pays attention to all of the attempted sexual assaults that go on in the club that night? That would be a useful way to regulate a workplace, I would say, since what the dancers are doing is 100 percent legal and licensed.

The damages, the dancers say, centre around “emotional distress and pain” and should be enough to “punish and make an example” of not only the city, but police chief Shelley Zimmerman. That’s according to attorney Dan Gilleon, whose firm filed the suit.

They need to be made an example of because, also according to Reuters, no fewer than four San Diego cops have been charged with sexual assault since 2012. Two of them are charged with committing sexual assault against more than five victims each, aka, it’s pathological. Two are fighting the criminal charges, one was convicted, and another pleaded no contest.

What it all boils down to is that these cops, presumably, are insecure about their dicks, and they signed up for a job where they can get guns to compensate. They make their spooky and abusive rounds, threatening fabulous tattooed naked dancers to feel better about themselves. It’s about intimidation on the part of a group of sick, sad individuals.

Sadly, then, I can’t imagine the lawsuit going anywhere. “Get thee a chastity belt” the judge will likely say. I’m praying to the goddess for the dancers, though.


@sarratch

GIFs by Daniel Stuckey. Thumbnail photo by Julia Prescott.

While we're sitting at home feeling totally left out, San Diego Comic-Con is happening and people from all walks of life—including this little wood nymph elf creature—are having the time of their lives in sunny Southern California. If you're like us, and you wish you were slamming 40s and trading Pokemon cards with your "bros," then come along as we filter some hot Comic-Con news through the glorious medium of GIFs.

A virtual reality X-Men experience, located inside the Fox booth at Comic-Con, will use non-commercially available Oculus Rift headsets to simulate the mind-reading Cerebro device from the series. For 90 seconds, convention attendees will sit in a mock-up of Professor X's wheelchair and, like, see through the eyes of a mutant or whatever.

The irony of standing in line to sit in a wheelchair will surely be lost on them. Each "virtual adventure" will be recorded and made available to post on social media, so participants can share the joy of sitting in said fake wheelchair with all the virtual friends they met on Reddit.

Comic-Con, it turns out, isn’t exactly the safest place in the world to be a broad wearing a Sailor Moon outfit. In years past, many women have reported being groped, stalked and photographed without their consent at the event. A group called Geeks for CONsent (get it?) is demanding Comic-Con organizers take sexual harassment seriously by posting signs in the convention halls that tell dweebs to keep their hands to themselves.

Comic-Con ain’t goin’ through with it, though, which makes sense. I mean, if all them broads who got their ruffled panties in a twist didn't want to be sexually harassed, they shouldn't have dressed like fictional characters from cartoons made for children. Y’know what I mean?

If you do decide to show up at a comic book convention, you might want to consider bringing a large, muscular black man with you. I'm pretty sure those unwanted advances will stop real fast.

The cowl and cape portion of the Batsuit Ben Affleck is gonna wear in Batman v Superman: Dawn of Justice, a movie that inexplicably doesn't come out for another two goddamned years, was unveiled on Thursday. It looks exactly like, well, a Batman costume. I’m sure, however, people will still find something to criticize about it.

Warner Brothers also announced at the convention that Batman v Superman is taking over two years to make because they want to ensure the script is “perfect.” (LOL, J/K, they just need to add ‘splosions in post.)

Chuck Palahniuk will be on hand Saturday to talk about his upcoming Fight Club 2, a graphic novel sequel to the "so 90s it actually really hurts" book and film that spawned a million dorm room posters. In spite of the fact that said sequel was asked for by 16-year-old boys in 1999 and no one else, it will be “dropping” next year.

In further irrelevancy news, Kevin Smith will also be revealing the trailer to his needlessly shrouded in mystery next movie (note I said "movie," not "film"), Tusk, in an effort to appeal to the same "16-year-old circa 1999" demographic. Godspeed, Bluntman. Or was he Chronic? Ah, who fucking cares.

Follow Dave, Megan, and Dan on Twitter.

For the record, I will say I do not like white rappers. There have been a few decent ones over the course of rap’s history, but the scales are so tipped the other way that it’s just easier to make a blanket statement against all white rappers. I grew up reporting on hip-hop in the 90s, the de facto greatest era of rap music. Aside from 3rd Bass, there weren’t too many specs of salt in the pepper shaker worth mentioning and I quite liked it that way.

Worst than my dislike of white rappers is my distain for skateboarders who rap, of any creed or color. It tends to be the absolute most hideous abuse of a genre of music that is meant to be beautiful. I don’t know how to explain skate rap to you other than for you to close your eyes and think of everything you love about hip-hop (the rhythm, the flow, the fluid word play) and then discard that. Picture Helen Keller in a sound booth calling for someone, “To turn my headphones up! Turn my headphones up!”

The ironic thing about it is Helen Keller was a genius whereas skate rappers tend to be so deaf/dumb/blind that they miss the fact that they are creating the worst sounds and noises ever recorded by man. I wish I could understand the thinking behind it. All I can surmise is that their level of success in skateboarding has affected their view of reality and how the world operates. Most successful skaters have never had a real job, most are high school dropouts and yet big checks and boxes of free, expensive merchandise magically appear at their door step each day. Add an unhealthy amount of marijuana to that equation and you’ve got a kid with a sense of entitlement that leads them to believe they can be successful at anything they do despite all evidence to the contrary. It’s truly painful to watch with second-hand embarrassment as someone throws away any credibility their career might have earned them in pursuit of a pipedream.

Vert skating veteran Chris Gentry, the original rapping skateboarder, is an exception to the rule for the simple fact that he’s never taken himself all that serious. Back in the 90s when skateboarding was beginning to adopt this inflated sense of self that’s so prevalent nowadays, Gentry and his ex-wife were making absurd ads where they floated in outer space or skateboarded cars on handrails. And yes, he rapped. Admittedly his stuff wasn’t that good back then, but he also wasn’t quitting skating to start a rap career. Rhyming was just something he did in his spare time when not riding a skateboard.

And 20 years later, he’s still doing it. He recently started CGNN (Chris Gentry Neighborhood Network), where he drops a monthly YouTube video of him rapping all the latest news in skateboarding, BMX, and Motocross. It’s beyond ridiculous and you can’t help but love it. (I think more kids would watch the news if it was rapped at them…)

I caught up with Chris right before his demo in Butte, Montana, for Evel Knievel Day to discuss skate rappers, touring with Gator after he murdered the girl, an entire generation of skaters lusting for his ex-wife, and more.

VICE: What are you up to these days, Chris?
Chris Gentry: I just moved down to Carlsbad. I bought an RV, so I’m living in the RV at the DC Ramp and just skating every day. I’m trying to get a video part going. I’ve been knocking out a few bangers, just spending time on each trick. I got a whole list of tricks I want to knock out.

You’re 40, what’s it like living in an RV?
It’s just one of those things. I could have a house if I wanted to, but it’s just too much work to get to it and go home and go to the ramp and all that. I was just like, “Man, I just need to be at the ramp!” I don’t have no rent. I basically just got an RV and am living there and traveling around on the weekends, going camping, going to different ramps. I got a full editing studio in the RV. I don’t know if you saw that last video I did—Ridaz Gotta Ride: The Ridalution Has Begun—but I have a whole series of those episodes. They’re going to come out once a month.

You’ve always been rapping and skating. Are you trying to pursue one more than the other these days?
No, not really. I just do what I love. I skate all day and then work on music and these videos at night. I put my energy into all that. I’ve been changing my style up a little bit to where I don’t just sit and write songs and go shoot a video anymore. Now I shoot the video first and then I write the song to the video for my little network I call CGNN. It’s a play off CNN and I basically just report the news by rapping about skateboarding, bikes, motocross, action sports, whatever.

The first episode had legends like Too $hort and Scarface in there. How’d that happen?
Scarface, I’ve known for a while. He’s my boy in Houston. I’ve known him for nine years and he’s always down to represent. He’s backing my whole Pro Rider thing. But he performed with Too $hort and E-40 in LA and I went and filmed him and showed love and he showed love back. He’s one of my mentors.

Do they look at you as a white rapper or skateboarder first and foremost?
Both. They know I do both and they show respect, which is cool. They probably look at me as a skateboarder first because that’s what I’ve been doing the longest.

Some skaters suck at rapping. Actually, most of them suck. How do you get around that?
Ha! Most of them suck?

Wouldn’t you agree?
Yeah, it’s kind of terrible. I don’t really pop it all in my deck and listen to it. It’s kind of funny. I wasn’t always the greatest either. I still don’t think I’m the greatest. But I grew up on Scarface. He’s my mentor. I try to keep it as real as possible and do the best I can with what I got and what I’m working with. I’m not really pursuing it to be a rap star or nothing, I just love doing it and putting these episodes out is just fun to me.

How did you start rapping? Because as far back as I can remember in your long skate career, you’ve been rapping.
It’s just one of those things where after you skate, you’re just on down time. What else are you going to do? Rap has always been a part of my life. I just love listening to it and I love wordplay and metaphors and putting it all together and making it make sense.

Didn’t Snoop Dogg hook you up with a track at one point?
No, I never gotten any tracks from Snoop Dogg. But Kokane was on Snoop’s label for a while and I was rolling around with him. I did my first album, Gangster Rock, with Kokane. That’s how I got in with the Snoop camp from 1999 to 2004.

Like I said, most skate rappers suck. Who do you think doesn’t suck?
I don’t really know how many there are. I can’t even name them all. I think Terry Kennedy is pretty good. I like his stuff. He spits good.

Who is awful?
Man, I don’t want to say all that. You already know.

I do. But I’m curious about the opinion of an actual skate rapper.
I don’t want to bash anybody. You never know, they might suck today and be the best rapper tomorrow.

What do you think of JR Blastoff?
JR? Jereme Rogers? I mean, he’s doing what he likes to do. He loves it. I don’t like to say, “He sucks,” because he’s trying the best he can and he’s working with what he’s got. Nothing comes easy. It’s just practice. When I was rapping and coming out it was kind of odd. People weren’t used to that. You just have to listen to your heart. He’s just listening to his heart. You can’t really bash anybody if they’re just listening to their heart.

What if they don’t have a heart?
Oh man… I don’t know. That’s on him.

Did anybody say to you early on that you suck?
Oh yeah. Not that I actually heard them say it. But I put out some stuff that I look back on now and know it was kind of whatever. I didn’t think it sucked. At least it was on a rhyme pattern and it had somewhat of a style. I don’t think I ever came out sounding 100 percent corny.

Would you have been deterred at all if someone told you, point blank, that you sucked?
No, it’s like skateboarding. You can suck for awhile, but eventually you’re going to get good if you love it and do it every day. You’re gonna start landing shit.

I like that philosophy. Do you consider yourself the original rapping skater?
Yeah, I can’t think of anybody before me. The only person that really comes close is Gator [Mark Rogowski, former pro skater turned convicted murderer]. I don’t know if you’ve ever heard any old Gator music back when I was on Vision, but Gator was producing a bunch of songs. I don’t know if I’d say he was rapping, but it was kind of rock with him saying some shit over it.

Like Limp Bizkit-style?
Yeah, kind of like that. I remember getting a tape from Gator a long time ago and I was like, “Damn, Gator is doing music.” But yeah, I think I was the first skateboarder rapper that I can think of.

Wait a second! Do you have a track somewhere of you and Gator together?
No. I don’t have any of that. That would be cool. Well, I don’t know if that would be cool, but it would be something. Something like, “Whoa!”

Were you teammates with him when he killed the girl?
Yeah, I was on tour with him after he did it with Mike Crum. We went to the Reno Finals back in 1992. He just became really religious and was reading the Bible all the time and acting odd. Like, we went to this mall in San Francisco one time and he gets out of the car and runs around the mall with no shoes or shirt on. We were driving around the parking lot trying to find him. He was just doing weird shit. But we had no idea he killed someone. Nobody did. It was a super shock to me when I heard the news. I was like 16, I just turned pro for Vision and he was a big part of putting me on the team and then to hear that was crazy. Everybody was shocked.

Have you ever tried to go see him?
No, I’ve never gone to go see him. I don’t know what I would talk to him about. I wasn’t cool with how that all went down. I don’t want to go visit somebody that killed somebody.

No, I agree. Fuck that dude. Let’s talk about something more upbeat. Your brand Kingdom Skateboards was the shit. Everybody loved those Kingdom ads. Was that all you and how did you come up the ad concepts?
That was just brainstorming. Skateboarding was kind of serious and everybody was taking it serious and we were just lightening it up, making it fun and having a good time with it. I wasn’t trying to pay all these riders to ride for us. We were just coming up with funny ads to get a reaction, from the skateboard cars to floating in space to Ricca [Chris’ ex-wife] grinding down handrails. As we thought of them, we just shot them and did them. We’d photoshop it all together and try to get a rise out of everybody, with a good sense of humor.

I heard you built all those props yourself.
Yeah, I built every one of those ads myself. I built all that stuff out of balsa wood. I built the lowrider skateboard truck, the monster truck, the limo, the spaceship—shit, all that stuff.

I feel like that stuff was pre-No Limit Records album covers by Pen and Pixel. Do you feel Master P ripped you off?
We were doing all that shit way back then. Nobody was doing ads like we were, but I don’t know if he ripped me off. He had his own little style of doing things. Master P was definitely out right around that time. We were just trying to be different from everyone. It was just me and Ricca running the thing. We were hoping people would get a kick out of it. They’d either love it or hate it, but I didn’t care ether way.

What happened with Kingdom?
I just got tired of doing it. There was just so much competition in the game and I was overdoing sales. I didn’t want to be a competitor to the industry no more. I just wanted to be a skater. The business side is a whole other world that will stress you out and make you not like skateboarding. So I wanted to get away from that.

I thought maybe it was tough for you knowing every skateboarder everywhere was jerking off to photos of your ex-wife.
Ha! Right! No, that wasn’t it. We did those calendars of her. Remember those? It was all just fun shit. We were just doing it. I wasn’t really tripping off all that. I knew what I was getting into. You can’t stop people from looking at your chick. No, I was just working too much and not skating.

Your ex-wife and Rosa from Shorty’s were probably the two most desired women in skateboarding in the 90s. Who was hotter?
My ex-chick! She’s way hotter! Yeah, she just got married again eight months ago. He’s cool.

I would like to possibly apologize to both of you for something I may or may not have done. Someone told me that at the premiere of the Big Brother video CRAP in 2001, I pulled out my dick and pissed on your ex-wife. I was really blacked out for those years and if it’s true, I would just like to take this opportunity to apologize.
No, I don’t know if I remember that. I think someone is just fucking with you. Yeah, I would’ve known and she would have freaked out. Drama would have went down. You would’ve been beat up. I think someone is pulling your chain.

That was my thought. You would have knocked me out. So I feel better knowing that didn’t happen. But if it did, I am sorry. To wrap it up, you have 30 years under your belt. What’s been the craziest memory?
The wildest story probably in skateboarding history of partying and riots was in Le Grand Bornand, France in 1991. It was the new generation and the old generation of vert riders. You had the new generation of me, Mike Crum, Sluggo, Danny Way, Colin McKay, Omar Hassan, Sean Sheffey. And then you had guys like Craig Johnson, Dave Duncan, all the old generation on the same bus as us going from Germany to France. The bus ride there was crazy with bottles of booze, inflatable dolls, and shit. And then we get to Le Grand Bornand and it rained for three days so nobody could skate. Everybody just got wasted in this little bar everyday, all day long. Jason Ellis was pissing of the balcony. Three hundred skaters were all crammed in this little room playing pool and Craig Johnson was leaning against this light and his dreadlocks started heating up and smoking and caught on fire. Craig turns around and grabs the light by the socket and begins yanking on the light and starts ripping the cord through the drywall all around the whole room. After that, the window opened and people started crawling out the window. Next thing you know, cars are getting jumped on as they drive by. They sent the National Guard out. People were getting maced. It was a full riot zone of young, drunk ass skaters going nuts. It was chaos. It was the gnarliest party I’ve ever been to.

More stupid can be found at Chrisnieratko.com or @Nieratko

Follow Chris Gentry on Twitter.

With lactose intolerance and allergies on the rise, cow milk consumption has been on the downslope for four decades. Don’t despair, dairy lovers: There’s a Swiss company that’s turning to donkeys to make milk, and you bet your ass it’s coming to a store near you soon.

After seeing the devastation Lake Enriquillo's massive growth has inflicted on the region, VICE News meets residents who have lost everything and finds out what they're now doing in order to survive.

VICE News travels to the Dominican Republic, site of a looming environmental and economic crisis many experts believe is the result of climate change. Lake Enriquillo is the largest lake in the Caribbean—and for the past 10 years, it's been getting larger. Having already doubled in area, the lake is destroying everything in its path and displacing local residents who are being forced to take extreme measures to survive.

The VICE News Capsule is a news roundup that looks beyond the headlines. Today: Russian opposition activists jailed for inciting mass riots, suicide bomb attacks target a cleric and a former president in northern Nigeria, Rohingya Muslims in Myanmar can't get health care, and cargo ships are killing endangered blue whales off America's west coast.

Feral hogs are prolific breeders that spread disease, ruin farms, and eat everything from garbage to their own offspring, and they’re quickly becoming more prevalent in most of the southern United States. Hogs have even been known to kill dogs and small children, to the extent that municipal governments in places like Texas and Arkansas have set up “pork chopper” laws allowing hunters to shoot down feral hogs from helicopters.

According to the Discovery Channel, feral hogs can grow up to eight feet long and four feet at the shoulder (Google Hogzilla for a better sense of these nightmarish proportions). I love animals. But feral hog infestations make me think that some animals deserve to die. I decided to sign up for a guided hog hunt in Okeechobee, Florida, so I could do my part ridding the nation of these beasts.

Before I left for the hunt, I called up Stephen Dubinksi, a seasoned feral hog hunter, to get a better understanding of America’s hog problem.

“The rate of reproduction is unbelievable,” Dubinski explained. “More people are getting involved in harvesting them. But it just seems like a losing battle. It’s just crazy and worrisome, especially when they’re near little kids. It’s dangerous. I don’t have any idea of how to deal with it except more killing.”

I asked him what feral hog overpopulation looks like up close.

“I haven’t seen any type of wildlife explode the way these hogs have,” he responded. “From one tree stand, one afternoon, I saw over 70 piglets, all sizes. All the ones I’ve shot over the years have been pregnant.”

“What do you do with the fetuses?”

“We let them lay in the grass,” he said. “Other pigs will come and eat them. Nothing’s there in the morning.”

When I told him that I’d signed up for a guided hunt in Okeechobee and planned to kill a feral hog as a Mitzvah to the world, Dubinski said he didn’t know what a Mitzvah was, but that he hoped I’d get out unscathed.

“Aim for the shoulders,” he told me. “Kill as many as possible.”

I flew into West Palm Beach airport on a day in early June with my friend Sarah McKetta—whom I call McKetta, because otherwise, when I address her in public, every woman’s head turns.McKetta is, incidentally, a vegan. But here we were, gearing up to slay some hogs.

The streets leading from West Palm Beach airport to Okeechobee are named after citrus fruits, brands of alcohol, dead presidents, and politically incorrect terms for Native Americans. Moss hangs from the trees and power lines alike. Roads are lined with huge, toothy plants that look like monsters. Most of the storefronts are abandoned or for sale.

We settled into our hotel room and then set out for dinner at a local Applebee’s.

“Is there anything fun to do around here?” I asked our waitress as she seated us.

“I been here since 2003,” she said pleasantly. “There’s nothing.”

“We’re going hunting tomorrow,” I said.

She nodded. “People around here are always hunting something.”

On the ride over to the hunting grounds the next morning, we passed a sign that said, “BE A MAN: BUY LAND.” The radio told us that Tracy Morgan had gotten into a car accident and was in critical condition. Most of the storefronts we passed were abandoned, and despite the air-conditioning blasting in our faces, we couldn’t stop sweating.

Entering the dirt road leading to the 800 acres surrounding Ron’s Guide Service felt like entering Jurassic Park. There were multiple gates and warning signs with terrifying beasts on them. Dust blew in our eyes as we ducked out of the car. It was time.

“You my ten o’clock?” a man in jeans called to us. He was standing under a metal lean-to, surrounded by meat hooks, wiping off his hands. I wouldn’t call him a handsome man. His skin looked like beef jerky, but he seemed healthy. I felt safe around him, like he would save me, even though later he would have me sign a waiver that made it very clear he would not.

“Is Big Mama here?” I asked.

I had spoken to Big Mama on the phone a few days prior about appropriate hunting gear. “Wear anything except booty shorts,” Big Mama had said. “It’s Florida, so the bugs get in.” She kept calling me Honey Child and asking me to speak up. “I’m deaf from all the crossbows, Honey Child,” she explained. I liked her.

“Big Mama’s not here.” The guy said, shaking his head. The look on his face suggested that Big Mama might be dead. “But I’m Joe.”

Joe led us to a locker full of guns and asked which ones we wanted. McKetta explained that she wouldn’t be hunting, just watching. She said that if we needed her she’d be taking pictures of the alligator heads scattered on the ground. Joe had her sign a waiver before she left.

“We also have crossbows and knives,” Joe told me. “But sign that waiver first.” It said that I could die that day and it would be nobody’s fault but mine. I signed it.

“Is a knife too crazy?” I asked.

Stephen Dubinski had gotten weird on the phone when I’d asked him about knife slaughters. He said that knife kills were too up-close and personal, even for him. At the same time, I’m the kind of person who regularly leaves the stove on and falls over while putting on shoes. Carrying a crossbow or a gun seemed like a good way to accidentally kill McKetta.

“No way,” Joe said, handing me a ten-inch blade. “Stabbing’s the most fun.”

I told him that I’d never hunted before. I explained that in Wisconsin, where I’m from, lots of people hunt—deer mostly. Back home, part of me had wanted to go hunting, but the other part of me regarded deer as too humanoid to kill—like majestic centaurs, or like Bambi, who spoke English in the movie.

Joe looked at me like I was speaking in a foreign language.

“How long have you been doing this?” I asked.

“25 years,” he said. “My entire life.”

He dragged two dogs out of their kennels and put them in separate cages on the back of the truck we’d be driving. One of the dogs hooked its hind legs around the outside of the cage, not wanting to get stuffed inside.

“Can I pet them?” I asked.

“Pet Sadie,” Joe said, indicating the dog who did not seem to have truck-related PTSD. “Spoon’s demented.”

I pet Sadie and then followed McKetta into the truck. The terrain was so rocky that I had to squat a little over my chair and clutch the bottom of the seat so as not to get tossed overboard. There were no seatbelts.

“So that sign back at the meat hook place,” I yelled to Joe over the engine. “There was a sign on the wall with various animals and amounts of money.”

“The price list?” Joe asked.

“Yeah. What was the thing about ‘Dogs: $2000’?’ Is that if people want to buy the dogs?”

Joe laughed. “That’s if people kill the dogs. Sometimes guys stab them by accident.”

“What? How?”

He shrugged. “I don’t know. But then we get $2000.”

“I heard some places, they put the dogs in Kevlar vests,” I said.

Joe laughed again. “Not here. Scars are beauty marks.”

I felt like passing out. It was hot, the gigantic truck was lurching over giant holes, and I was worried about stabbing myself with the knife clutched in my hand.

“There’s one,” Joe yelled. “Do you see?”

McKetta and I shook our heads. Joe stopped the truck, climbed down, and unlatched Sadie’s cage. She leapt out, bounding through the tall grass like a happy dog from a dog food commercial—only skinnier, and probably abused.

“How does this work, exactly?” I asked, when he had settled back into the driver’s seat.

“You mean stabbing?” Joe steered the truck to follow Sadie down the dirt road as she followed the scent of some unseen hog. “You go through the armpit and hit the heart.” Without stopping the truck, Joe took my knife and mimed stabbing on himself.

“Do humans get hurt on these things a lot, or just dogs?” I said.

“That’s why we had you sign the waiver.”

“But it’s not bad or anything, right?”

“Sometimes it’s real bad.”

“Don’t worry,” Joe added, seeing the look on my face. “The guys who get hurt are the crazy ones. They jump off the truck onto the hog’s back or whatever. It’s insane.”

“You’re going to shoot it before I stab it, right?”

“Nah, I’ll just hold its legs.”

“But what about it’s tusks?”

“You need to be careful. That’s why you signed the waiver.” Why did he keep bringing up the waiver?

“Sometimes people get thrown off the truck and break a bunch of bones,” he added. “And if you fall, the hogs’ll get you, especially now that Sadie has them riled.” His professionalism was terrifying.

Sadie barked and we slammed to a stop. Joe hustled off the truck to unlatch Spoon, who burst from his cage, frothing at the mouth. I clutched my knife and followed, McKetta at my tail.

“Joe?” we called in unison. We couldn’t see him through the jungle of leaves.

In the distance, the foliage was starting to rustle. Wiry hair poked through the top and then something charged us.

“Hog!” I yelled, throwing an elbow over a low branch and swinging my leg up like a monkey, trying not to stab myself in the process. By the time McKetta looked up and saw the feral pig coming, and before Joe even yelled, “Watch out,” I was fully in the tree.

McKetta shrieked and hurled herself into a ditch. The hog flew by and I jumped down to chase it. Only in its wake did I realize it had no tusks. The hog was a sow.

“C’mon,” Joe said. I pushed aside high brush and saw that he had the hog by her legs. Spoon had her by the face. The hog was screaming—not the high-pitched squeal that I would have expected, but a desperate, drawn-out, grunt. She must have weighed 200 pounds.

“Do it!” Joe said.

I threw a leg over her and lined up the tip of my knife with her armpit. Spoon was struggling to keep her head still and, even though I could see the sow’s fangs glistening in the melee, I could tell she was in pain.

For a second I didn’t think I could do it. I considered that God had made her and me in His image, and that she didn’t deserve this unnatural death.

But then I stabbed the shit out of her.

I hit the heart on the third try. Then I stabbed her three more times. Later, when we took the heart out of her body, I saw that I had nailed it. Twice.

McKetta whooped, wiping sweat off her face. She’d watched the whole thing. “That thing was a monster.”

“Fuck off,” Joe yelled. It took us a second to realize he wasn’t talking to us, but to Spoon, who wouldn’t let go of the sow’s face.

“Spoon, get!” Joe swatted at him with a stick but Spoon wouldn’t let go.

“I said, ‘Get!’” Joe said, kicking Spoon in the head with his steel-toed boots. McKetta and I held our breath as he kicked him again and again.

In retrospect, I think Joe hoped that I would buy the sow’s head, have it stuffed and mounted and pay extra, or whatever. He needed Spoon to let go—to stop destroying what he could potentially sell.

Just when I thought Spoon might die, he growled and backed away from the corpse.

“You want the meat?” Joe asked me.

I shook my head. I’m sure she tasted great but I didn’t have room for a whole hog in my freezer. I’d read online that you could donate feral hog meat if you want, so McKetta found a nearby church that took all sorts of animal meat donations—even raccoons and armadillos. When we’d called earlier, they said they’re absolutely crazy for feral hog. “Hog wild,” the person on the phone said, laughing. “Praise the lord.”

Back at the meat hooks, the next group of would-be hunters waited for their turn with Joe. They were from a nearby Baptist church.

When they learned I’d stabbed the sow that Joe was gutting, they nearly lost it, hooting and hollering.

“Let me take your picture,” the preacher said. “I want to show my wife so she knows literallyanyone can do this!”

The preacher wanted to see the knife. He wanted to know if it was hard for a girl like me to find a date.

I realized that the only females in our vicinity were McKetta, me, the dead sow, and Sadie, who was now passed out from exhaustion in her cage.

“She probably hunts her boyfriends!” a man with a pregnant-looking belly yelled. “They don’t got any say in it.”

“Oh come on, Larry,” another guy said. “Those two girls are gay as gay gets.”

“Huh?” I said.

“You and your friend.” He grinned. “Your girlfriend.”

I looked at McKetta, who was busy snapping photos of the entrails. At the time I was annoyed—what business of this was his? But later, looking back through the photos, I sort of see where he was coming from.

“Is there anything here I can pet?” I asked. There was blood on my hands and I needed to hug something, like a therapy dog or potentially a social worker.

“Here’s a puppy,” the preacher said, handing me their hunting dog. She was small and soft and licked my face.

“You want the hog head?” Joe asked, hosing blood down a drain. “I got Spoon off it in time. There’s hardly a nick on either ear. We can do it up for you nice.”

“Let me get you the head as a present,” McKetta offered.  “I’m proud of you.”

“Really?”

“Yeah, that was scary. I thought it would bother me but it didn’t.”

Joe grabbed another knife and skinned the sow so that her hide dangled inside out around her face. Then he snapped the skull from the spine and dropped the whole thing into a large brown paper bag. Blood seeped through the thin paper.

“We’ll write your name on the head bag,” he said. “That way they’ll know to call you.”

“But when I get it in the mail, how will I know if it’s the right head?”

“Who cares?” he said.

He was right. Feral hogs are a bunch of monsters, and they all deserve to die.

Follow Kathleen Hale on Twitter. 

Photos by Amy Lombard

“Goodbye, city I own!” 

New York businessmen and 16-year-old rich, white kids who think they're gangsters regularly scream these words—but for once a 24-year-old girl was screaming, and that girl was Sydney Leathers, the notorious 24-year-old who ruined Anthony Weiner’s mayoral campaign when she leaked sexts he had sent her. 

In late May, I rode a Metro-North train with Sydney from New York City to Bronxville, New York. Sydney had flown to New York from her home Indiana to attend my graduation from Sarah Lawrence College.

When I enrolled in Sarah Lawrence, I never expected a politician's mistress to attend my graduation from America's most expensive lesbian liberal arts college. I thought my parents would come and applaud as I walked across the stage. But then, in January, everything changed. After years of on-again-off-again fighting, I felt like I had no choice but to briefly become estranged from my mother. It was my choice, and I assumed my mother wouldn't attend my college graduation. I wasn't happy about the predicament, but at the time, it seemed like the right thing to do.

Around the same time, I interviewed Sydney over Skype about her failed attempt to auction her jarred labia following a labiaplasty. When Sydney saw me tweet that none of my biological family members would attend my graduation, she contacted me and told me not to worry. She would come to my graduation and be my “new mommy.”

Sydney said she related to my troubles because she has a difficult relationship with her mother, Laura Leathers. (Yes, that is her real name.) Thanks to intense childhood trauma, Sydney suffers from PTSD. Sydney wouldn't go on the record about what she went through, but she said, “My mom put my oldest brother and me in a pageant, but not my middle brother,” Sydney said. “How fucked up is that? Now look at me! I’m a grown-up JonBenet Ramsey.”

Impulsively, I invited Sydney to live with me for a week.

Many of my friends called me crazy for inviting an IRL stranger—let alone a stranger who is best known for sexting a politician and trying to sell off her labia—to live with me for a week. But having to stop talking to my mother also seemed pretty insane, so living with Sydney seemed like a great idea to me.

When Sydney arrived at my Brooklyn apartment late one night, she strutted into my building, struggling to drag her huge suitcase behind her. She told me how she paid hundreds of dollars on a cab from JFK to Bushwick. 

“You've been ripped off,” I said. 

She cursed, but didn't seem surprised. Sydney knows she's both a knowledgeable, old soul and very naïve. 

A few weeks before Weinergate unfolded, Sydney flew to Texas to attend rallies supporting Wendy Davis, and she was originally known on the internet for running a popular politics blog read by some Washington, DC, power players. (To prove this to me, she agreed to show me old conversations between her and DC figures who read her blog, as long as I promised not to publish their names.) Sydney said she loved politics this because she thought politicians wanted to help poor people: “I was that naïve.” 

Today, Sydney surrounds herself with few political acquaintances. The second night of her stay, she took me to the Outback Steakhouse to meet some of her New York friends: Greg, a comedian; the novelty song performer Adam Barta; CrackDoubt, a girl Sydney met at a porn convention; and a feminine guy CrackDoubt claims is straight.

When Sydney first met CrackDoubt, she sold sex toys for a living, but CrackDoubt now works as a cam girl. Over a Bloomin' Onion and in between puffs on her vape, she asked Sydney to help her set up her pricing system. Sydney helped her fix her pay system and then Sydney told her about the first time she squirted during sex: “The first time I squirted, I squirted blood. Of course it happened in Baltimore.”

Sydney’s overshare made me feel comfortable so I tell her about a hookup I recently had.

“Did you swallow?” Sydney asked. 

“I don’t swallow.” 

Sydney started screaming.

“I will swallow when I blow someone I love,” I said.

“You don’t need love to guzzle cum!”

Somehow, this discussion leads everyone to talking about Tan Mom. “Didn’t she have a song?” Greg asked. “’It’s Tan Mom Bitch’?”

 “That was me!” Barta screamed, bragging that he had recorded a song with Tan Mom as if he was Mariah Carey and Tan Mom was his Nicki Minaj. 

Barta and Sydney share the same manager, Gina Rodriguez, who specializes in keeping D-listers like them famous for more than 15 minutes. That night, Gina was booking Sydney on a talk show for while she’s in New York. The talk show would pay Sydney to stand on a stage and argue with one of her friends who disliked the plastic surgery she’s received since she outed Weiner. None of Sydney’s friends hate her surgery, so she needed to find someone to pose as her friend. CrackDoubt volunteered to tell Sydney she looked like shit. 

Sydney understood what was going on. Throughout her stay in New York, she openly discussed how she has experienced poverty. “We were never so poor that we were like homeless of anything, but my mom certainly had a lot of relationships when I was younger, and we moved around a bit, and my dad worked really hard but made less than $35,000 a year,” she said.

At the Outback, she said she only takes these gigs because they’re the only work someone will give a girl who is dealing with something much bigger than a scarlet letter—a scarlet jarred labia. 

The next morning, Sydney woke up and walked out onto my balcony to smoke a cigarette. Looking at her unkempt face shocked me. Even in the age of TMZ, we rarely see celebrities, whether they’re Jennifer Lawrence or Octomom, without makeup on. 

“I have a sex tape, but I don’t like people knowing I smoke cigarettes,” she groaned when she saw me taking notes about her cigarettes. 

Before Sydney put her face on, she wanted to paint my nails and play dress-up with the pigeon and horse masks she traveled with. She grabbed my hand and started to apply confetti-colored nail polish to my nail. 

She threw this see-through mask at me and then told me she had given me “disco nails.”

As Syndey prepared to get dress for a guest appearance on VH1, she received a call from Gina Rodriguez. The talk show passed on CrackDoubt, but were willing to use Barta’s friend who Sydney had never met. Immediately Sydney started hypothesizing ways to make their friendship appear legitimate. “We can tell him we’ve known each other for two years,” Sydney told Gina. “We met through Brian, although I don’t know who Brian is.”

Sydney had little time to get dressed and make her VH1 show and sighed as she quickly attached her fake eyelashes to her face. “You’re lucky you don’t have to wear fake eye lashes, Mitchell. You're just a pretty little cunt,” she said. “The most important thing I learned this year was how to put on fake eyelashes.” She failed to realize that she didn't need them.  

Sydney doesn’t glow like an A-list celebrity like Marilyn Monroe, but she does emits the same charisma as Joyce McKinney, the subject of Errol Morris’s Tabloid who became a British media fixture in 1977 when authorities accused her of kidnapping a Mormon. 

“I have qualities about me that are really immature and silly but also I have a depth to me,” she said. In her hometown, everyone always said she would become famous, which makes sense considering her name is Sydney Leathers, but Sydney never thought it would turn out this way: “Now all the people from my hometown who though they ‘deserved’ to be famous totally hate me, and it’s hilarious.” 

She comes across as defiant when she says statements like this, but as I spent more time with her, I realized that her neighbors and commenters’ negative statements about her cause her harm. As we walked to Times Square for her VH1 appearance, she worried about being recognized. I thought she was paranoid, but then I saw a creepy man walk past her and whisper, “Sydney.”

Sydney credits her current predicament to three Buzzfeed reporters: Andrew Kaczynski, Ellie Hall, and Michael Rusch. Although Sydney anonymously leaked Weiner’s messages to The Dirty, she intended to stay anonymous. But, a year ago this week, Sydney received a Facebook message from a stranger with a mysterious that included a link to a listicle the three reporters wrote. 

“You're going to be famous,” the message said.

The listicle outed Sydney as Weiner's digital mistress. That week, Sydney broke down and contemplated suicide. Sydney didn't want fame; she simply wanted to stop Weiner from winning the election because she thought if he was lying about sexting, he probably was making other false statements. She wanted to work in politics to help people, and that was now impossible. As reporters swarmed her apartment, she broke down and contemplated suicide. 

“I like Ted Kaczynski more than Andrew Kaczynski,” Sydney told me later as she lay on a blow-up mattress on my floor. “I believe he has more of a heart and soul, and he’s the fucking Unibomber.” 

At the same time, Sydney admitted that none of this would have happened if she had never leaked Weiner's messages in the first place. She's someone with bad luck who has also made terrible decisions, and she seemed to regret exposing Weiner. She started to scream at one point when she talked about how Weiner has been able to continue living her life, as she has to suffer from the mistress stigma, yet she doesn't hate Weiner.

“I think we both are [troubled],” she said. “I think that’s why we got along—we have similar impulse control issues for one thing.”

Sydney has managed to find humor in her situation. She joked about how her last phone conversation with Weiner was about House of Cards, and after we walked away from the creepy man in Times Square, she posed for dirty, on-brand photos with a street performer dressed as Elmo. 

The performer started to get touchy, so Sydney sprinted across the sidewalk to Toys R Us.

“All Elmos are a little rapey,” she said.

Afterwards she approached a man dressed as Toy Story's Woody and asked him to pose in a dirty photo with her, but he refused to touch her. “You need to act like you are fucking my ass!” Sydney screamed at him.

I told Sydney how Woody and Elmo probably can't find other jobs.

Sydney laughed. “Welcome to my world!” 

The one plus about Weinergate is that Sydney has been able to receive all the cosmetic work a girl could dream about. After her VH1 appearance, I followed her to Dr. Richard Westreich's office on the Upper East Side, where Sydney received botox injections.

”I don’t want to look like a Real Housewife,'” she told the doctor. 

Sydney occasionally expresses shame about who Weinergate forced her to become since she once aspired to work in politics, but in many ways she has skills and opportunities the rest of us may never have. When we weren't running to talk shows, doctor's offices, or events at Sarah Lawrence, Sydney and I sat on beds in my room talking about sex and pop culture.

I told Sydney that I had struggled to meet guys after I was sexually assaulted a few years ago. I knew how to write about sex, but I wasn't very good at meeting dudes. Sydney grabbed my phone and started to rebrand my Grindr. First, she strolled through my Facebook pics to choose a new default photo for me.

Then she had me pose for pics to send to guys.

And finally, Sydney taught me how to sext. “Tell him, ‘Hey sexy,’” she said. I sent the pick-up line to every guy on Grindr I found sexually attractive. Within a few hours, I had received at least ten dick pics. By 11 PM, I was sucking a 26-year-old Columbia graduate student's cock. 

When Sydney lived with me, I felt powerful, the same way PCP addicts feel when they do drugs and jump off buildings. I could have sex. I could make offensive jokes. I could do what I want, and nobody would care. For the first time in a long time since I stopped talking to most of my family, I felt at peace.

When other people are around Sydney—from CrackDoubt to Amy, the photographer who shot these photos—they said they felt the same way. Sydney understands their feeling: “I thought I wanted this very structured, almost corporate work life,” she said, “and then all of this happened, fucking throwing everything for a loop. I think there are people that get stuck in that corporate world, who can’t fully express themselves, whether it’s just through humor or sexuality, whatever it may be. I have this platform where I can say whatever the fuck I want and don’t have repercussions really.”

Weinergate has freed Sydney in many ways—but this is still America, where nothing is free, and Sydney has paid a price for this freedom. Where most people’s family members only had to worry about their phones blowing up with work emails, Sydney had to deal with guys tweeting unsolicited dick pics at her during my graduation. After Barbara Walters appeared on stage to donate her archives to Sarah Lawrence, Sydney seemed depressed.

She smiled in photos with me wearing a pink and gold dress, which Farrah Abraham also wore when I interviewed her for VICE, but I could tell she was down. When we arrived back at my place, I asked her what was up. She said she was unsure if she could ever go back to college to finish her degree. She could probably land an interview with a Walters-like TV host, but she doubted she'd ever graduate.

Last summer, before Buzzfeed outed her, she was working on finishing her degree. If she went back to college, could she fit it in? Would people stare at her. Could she survive? I told her I wasn’t sure, but I knew she was smart enough to graduate at the top of her class. 

When I arrived home from work the next day, I found a labia-less mattress on my floor. Sydney was gone. I only spent a week with her, but I missed her. Like Eeyore in Winnie-the-Pooh, she’s a downer, but she brightens up every situation. Her absence made me sad, so I wandered to my bed to lie down. On my pillow, I discovered the masks Sydney and I played dress dress-up with. I picked it up, and I remembered a short story I read many, many years ago.

Sydney Leathers, I thought, You are a beautiful child. 

Follow Mitchell and Amy on Twitter. 

Photo courtesy Michel Gondry

Audrey Tautou, famed for her role in Amélie, isn’t the easiest person to cast in your film. So when Michel Gondry was ready to shoot Mood Indigo, his whimsical adaptation of Boris Vian’s 1947 novel, Froth on the Daydream, how did he ask her to play the part of Chloé? He made the inquiry in the form of an animated short, of course. Tautou agreed to take the role; she just hadn’t gleaned from Gondry’s cartoon that the production was already a sure thing.

In the film, which premiered last Friday, Chloé is the subject of a trippy enchanted romance. She pairs with Colin (played by Romain Duris), a pretty, do-nothing-rich-kid working on a needlessly French invention: a piano that mixes different drinks based on the notes played. Plagued by an illness which requires Chloé to be constantly surrounded by fresh flowers, Colin must take up employment as a gun maker which requires him to constantly lay around with his dick pressed into a mound of dirt—because that’s where guns come from (duh).

The couple meet for their first date in one of Paris’s ugliest sins, Le Forum Des Halles: a shopping mall-construction site in the center of town that’s been in the works for decades. Still, the two are charmingly swept off their feet by a magical cloud car, and proceed on a date that feels more like an acid trip. But what else do you expect from the guy who made Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind?

I met with Michel at a hotel in SoHo, New York, last week. After about 20 minutes, Audrey Tautou let herself into the room, plopped down on the bed between us, and joined the conversation.

VICE: So, you’ve had a lot of questions about the book?
Michel Gondry: I’m going to discourage you from starting by asking me questions about the book.

Everyone reads it in France as a teenager?
Yeah, that’s one of the difficult things about doing this adaptation from French, because it’s not like a book that very few people know about, or have read. Everybody has read it. Like, everybody.

And there have been adaptations of it in the past, right?
Yes, there have been adaptations, but they were not very big or famous.

How do you think the people who read the book as children will feel about the film?
Some people find it like they imagined, and other people had a different idea, so they feel it’s intrusive to the imagination. It's complicated because I made it the way I imagined it, and I understand that other people had imagined it differently.

The characters are younger in the book than in your film, right?
It’s true, yes. It was hard for me to imagine. There are these actors, very young, in their early 20s in French theater, who have this thing where they are a little bit—or very—self-centered. I don’t know why. I mean, I guess it’s because when they come into film and acting they look at themselves too much in the mirror. I couldn’t think of an actor from this generation who I’d like to work with, so I went a little older and went with Audrey and Romain because I felt they were great actors and they didn’t have these image issues I see in younger actors.

Michel Gondry and Romain Duris. Photo courtesy Michel Gondry.

I didn’t know what to expect from Mood Indigo because I wasn't familiar with the book. I saw the poster for it, thought of your previous work, and thought it might be a good idea to show up to the press screening with a couple hits of acid.
Really, you took some acid?

No, it was clear I didn’t need to after it started. But maybe I made a mistake?
You have to try it. I mean—I don’t want to push you to use drugs. Sometimes people ask me if I use drugs, but I’m too scared to take drugs.

A few years ago in Brooklyn there was an art show that had a pianococktail—like the one Colin is building in the film—on display. Did you see that?
The pianococktail is very famous from this book. I remember something to do with that, but then there was also the shit machine, where you’d feed the machine food and it would process it like the body. It was really funny. It would poop a shit. That, to me, is a bit similar. It’s like a machine that does something that a human does in a sort of organic way.

Yeah.
Of course, you don’t drink the shit, but there are some similarities, I would say.

There's a scene in the film where a room full of women sit in front of a conveyer belt with numerous typewriters on it, and each one types a few words before the machine goes on to the next woman. Something about that reminded me of the Jean Luc Goddard film Tout Va Bien, and I was wondering if it was a comment on the French work ethic.
Yeah, well, the book is making fun of some of that. Bertrand Russell made a book about laziness as a quality. You’re tricked by society into believing that work is necessary and good for you. I think it’s good for you when you like your work; it’s not good for you if you don’t like your work. It’s as simple as that. There is a comment on work in the book, and I couldn't agree with it more. Colin, for instance, could work very hard on his pianococktail, but it’s not so fun that he has to work on writing this book, or this story, or work in a factory building guns, and stuff like that.

Michel Gondry

Colin’s a bit of a vagrant with a trust fund, right?
Yeah. I mean, he’s really against working, it’s very humiliating to him. And there’s that part where he says "Oh, bad news. I have to get a job." It’s sort of in contrast to the heaviness, or bad news of Chloé’s sickness. It’s sort of ironic that the worst thing is that he would have to work.

But he becomes less self-centered, right?
Yes. He becomes dedicated to Chloé, but yes, he’s very self-centered in the beginning. He’s very eager to show his invention (the pianococktail) to his best friend, and then he finds love and becomes more centered on his girlfriend. He becomes devoted to her.

Colin and Chloé go to Le Forum Des Halles, an underground market in Paris, for their first date. I've been there, and that place is a hole. Why that spot?
Oh, yeah, well, it’s ironic. When I grew up they used to have this big market there, and then it was a hole for years, in the '80s. It took forever to build this market center. And then they changed it. So it’s been up for 20 or 30 years, and then they'll change it again. That’s why Chloé (Audrey Tautou) says the true Des Halles is back again, because it’s truly been a hole for most of its life.

Chloé (Audrey Tautou), Colin (Romain Duris) float above Les Forum Des Halles, Paris. Photo courtesy of Drafthouse Films.

Was that your favorite scene to shoot, Chloé and Colin's cloud car ride above the hole of Des Halles?
No, it was a nightmare. It was very complicated.

Actually, the scene where there is interaction between the actors, and they have this nice scene, this very dark scene where Alise comes to visit Chloé, and she’s trying to open the window and they get smaller and smaller. Then she puts a flower on Chloé, and they have this nice little discussion about lovers and I thought that was a very sweet moment where you saw friendship in this really crazy world where everything is shrinking, you still have something that is very much alive.

Chloé (Audrey Tautou) surrounded by flowers to cure her illness. Photo courtesy of Drafthouse Films.

And there were some scenes like that where the acting was very vivid I think, despite the crazy things going on around them.

And then there’s the Jean Paul Sartre, or excuse me, the Jean-Sol Partre cult following. Were you ever into him?
Well, I read Nausea, which I thought was very impressive, but I read a lot of his stuff that was very heavy. I think it was a bit overrated. I think he has this position that you couldn’t say that communism in the USSR was a bad thing, and he wanted to lie to people about it, and there was this big argument with Albert Camus, where he wanted to be honest about it, and I think Camus was a much deeper philosopher, and a better writer than him.

[Audrey walks into the room.]

Audrey Tautou: Hello, I’m going to take a little nap.

It just seems strange to me that people would want to collect the hair of Sartre. It doesn’t seem like him.
It was like that at the time! There were really these fans of Jean Paul Sartre that Boris Vian made fun of. And as well, later on, Sartre stole Vian’s wife, Michelle. That was before, but I think Vian was making fun of how there was something a little bit snobby about him.

Beatlemania.
Yeah! I think the parity that would make them closest now would be like Steve Jobs and Apple, and people who wait for the next product.

I’ve totally done that before.
I wanted to use that type of thing, but then I thought it was too far from the book.

Audrey, how did Michel get you to work on this film?
Tautou: Well, he sent me a cartoon, a little short animation movie that he had done for me where he was asking me to play in his movie. But I didn’t know that he was working on a movie, so I didn’t understand. So I asked him to explain it to me in a more conventional way—I ruined his effect. [Laughs] No, no, no. But I thought it was a very nice thing, and a great premise for the future.

Gondry: The last cartoon that you see at the end of the film was made by Audrey, frame by frame.

Oh?
Tautou: Yes, he did one for me and I did one for him.

Audrey Tautou and Michel Gondry. Photo by the author.

Gondry: That’s really her character that is doing the drawing for real, and then we shot it together on a weekend with my camera.
Tautou: So I didn’t get bored waiting in between scenes.

How many frames?
Gondry: A lot. Three hundred. It’s a very smooth animation, very impressive. I had to push her. I am good at pushing people to be creative. And there is this one thing that no one ever knows, is that Paul McCartney plays on the soundtrack. He plays a bass in the score, in half of the tracks.

Oh.
You don’t care. Nobody cares.

Nobody cares?
I mean. You seem so unimpressed right now.

[Laughs]
If you were to say that to me right now I’d be like, “WHAT THE FUCK?!!” And you are just like, ‘oh.’ I was hoping I would impress him, Audrey. I’m sorry you’re not—I’m sad you’re not impressed by this thing I’m very proud of.

Which was your favorite scene to perform in, Audrey? Did you enjoy riding in the cloud car?
Tautou: Everything was just so new and a surprise everyday that, you know, I had my food for a whole year. Je crois qu'il n'a rien compris de ce que je lui ai dit.

I can’t answer to what was my favorite scene, but I can say the one that I hated the most.

Which was?
Tautou: The one in the cloud car, because I was afraid. It was very scary.

Gondry: She was really afraid because she was high in the sky. It was super high, and she had vertigo, and when she’s up there talking to Romain (as Colin), it was a DP that was sitting instead of Romain. But I think for the vertigo, you could feel the vertigo, it was nice.

Chloé (Audrey Tautou) and Colin (Romain Duris) sit on a bench. Photo courtesy of Drafthouse Fims.

So if that was terrible, then what’s the coolest date you’ve ever been on?
Tautou: The coolest date?!

Yeah.
Tautou: Well, we don’t do dates in France.

Gondry: You just go and have sex.

Tautou: You just go and go. [Laughs]

Gondry: You just send a text message, and you meet and have sex. We don’t do this bullshit.

Tautou: Less expensive, you know.

Gondry: And then you get pregnant.

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Photos by Peter Larson

The FBI may consider the juggalos a gang, but love is in the air this weekend at the 15th annual Gathering of the Juggalos. A lesbian couple holds hands as Dark Lotus raps about how they “they built the Pyramids while bumpin’ this shit.” A crewmember says he saw “a couple jump in a dumpster” presumably to procreate, and near the Gypsy Row Campground, juggalos gather for a juggalo wedding.

The bride and groom, Tiffany and Dip Set, met two years ago at a Twiztid afterparty when Tiffany’s ex’s sister introduced her to Dip Set. They fucked, and shortly afterwards Dip Set moved in and started taking care of Tiffany’s two sons, whom he now sees as his own children. 

On the way to the wedding, my friends and I pass campers’ beautiful pop art portraits of the allegedly pregnant celebutante Tila Tequila. For a fee, they let other juggalos can throw things at Tequila. According to the paintings, all proceeds will go towards a battered women’s shelter.

The wedding takes place at the Carousel Stage. Corinthian columns have been set up on the stage for the wedding, and a woman with lime green hair entertains the crowd as we wait for the bride. Rows of black chairs sit in front of the stage for the bride and groom’s close juggalo family members, while other juggalos sit on bleacher stands. We join those guys on the metal stands, taking a seat by a bunch of whippits someone left on the ground earlier during the festival. 

Behind me, a man wears a Survivor buff around his neck, and another dude discusses “designer amphetamines” he recently snorted that made him “see rivers.” You can either snort or drink the drug, and he recommends you drink it because snorting the drug will “burn” you.

A man hands out Faygo bottles to the crowd. “We ask that you hold your Faygo till we [bless] the bride and groom,” the woman with dyed lime green hair says. She tells the crowd Dip Set and Tiffany have been together for two years and “now they’re gonna make it official in front of the family. Can I get a whoop whoop?”

“Whoop! Whoop!” the crowd shouts. 

The groom arrives first. Although some of his friends have come to the wedding without shirts, he wears black-tie attire: a tuxedo, white gloves, and a Jack Skelington top hat.

 “I’m gonna try to fuck her in the butt tonight!” he tells his friends in the front row.

“Fuck her in the ass!” A random guy screams.

Shortly afterwards, police sirens go off in the background, threatening the wedding. “Fuck the police!” the girl with green hair says. Thankfully, the cops are elsewhere on the campsite, and the only person driving to the wedding is Tiffany, the bride.

A crewmember drives her golf cart, which naturally says “Just Married” on the front. She sits shotgun in a traditional white wedding gown, while her little person friend sits in the back. 

The flower girl rocks sexy boots like a straight-up gangster bitch.

She hops off the vehicle and starts walking down the aisle. I notice Tiffany has no father in sight, but on the side of the stage, a man plays guitar as they walk down the aisle. 

As juggalos hold each other, a man serving as a priest-like figure appears on stage wearing a top hat. He describes the three times of families: biological families, co-workers, and “the family you make.”  

“The family you make is the family you show your true self to,” he says, echoing the story of how Dip Set acts as a father figure to Tiffany’s two sons. “This is the family of the dark carnival.” 

“She is swearing her titties to one man for eternity,” the priest guy says. “All love is finding someone who is as fucked up as you are!” Which is true considering some of the juggalo family members wait to spray the bride and groom at the end of the ceremony. 

In honor of “men who want don’t want their balls ripped off,” the priest guy asks Tiffany to say her vows first. 

“Two years ago,” she says, “I wasn’t looking for love.” She was focused on her two sons and was blown away when Dip Set moved in and became a father figure to them. “You’re the best man I’ve ever had, and I love that.”

Unlike Tiffany, Dip Set’s vows reflect his dark sense of humor: “I promise to consistently fuck you in the ass as you’re fucked-up drunk.” He assures her he will love her even when he’s “bald and has cancer,” and then starts to stutter, overcome with emotion. “I will always have my insecurities,” Dip Set admits. “You’re the shit and always will be. [Your sons] aren’t baggage in my eyes.” 

The fake priest interrupts Dip Set to ask him if he will love Tiffany even when “she’s a bitch?” But he’s not being sexist, as the media portrays juggalos. The priest goes somewhere few straight dudes will go and questions if Dip Set will pleasure his babe, asking him, “Do you promise to stick your tongue wherever she asks?” 

“I do.”

The last time I saw a straight guy express his emotions this honestly, my dad was crying because his father had died. 

The priest guy then asks Tiffany if she will be down for Dip Set even when he refuses to learn how to drive and if she will “fuck his brains out on a regular basis until death do you part?”

“I do,” she says.

As she slips a ring on Dip Set’s finger, she says, “No matter how bad it seems… you’ve always got me.” Once the ring ceremony ends, the priest guy orders them to “make out in front of everyone.” 

Like good juggalo horn dogs, they obey.

“It’s so beautiful, I want to puke,” one guy says to his pal before the crowd unscrews their Faygo bottles and start spraying the bride, groom, and little person as they walk down the aisle. 

The couple appears to love the sticky Faygo as they strut towards the golf cart. 

“Toss her salad tonight!” one guy screams at the married couple. 

“Whoop! Whoop!” Tiffany screams as their golf cart bounces away through the dust. 

Watching the married couple ride away in a golf cart covered in Faygo reminds me of “What a Wonderful World,” the Louis Armstrong song my Catholic school teachers forced me to sing as a kid. Of course, unlike the Catholic Church, juggalo culture actually supports family values. Since the Gathering of the Juggalos started 15 years ago, mainstream society has portrayed juggalos as the degredation of American society. The FBI has labeled the juggalos as a gang, and intellectual magazines like n+1 have described the group as violent poor people. 

This presentation of people like Tiffany and Dip Set is accurate as Obama saying he will shut down Guantanamo Bay. 

Sure, some juggalos do drugs, but Wall Street bankers are the biggest cokeheads around, and the government doesn't even charge them for a crime for destroying the economy. As Tiffany and Dip Set's wedding shows, the juggalos are what their liberal haters pretend to be—members of a group open-minded enough to discuss anal sex in public and to create non-traditional families that have little to do with biology. Unlike refined East Coast families who donate to the Clintons and spend $100,000 on wedding flowers, the juggalos accept non-traditional families and view the instituition of marriage as a promise between two people to take care of each other forever out of love, not out of an obligation to social climb. 

If more people in this country became juggalos, America would be a better place. 

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