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I Played “The Boys Are Back in Town” on a Bar Jukebox Until I Got Kicked Out

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[body_image width='1890' height='1063' path='images/content-images/2015/03/23/' crop='images/content-images-crops/2015/03/23/' filename='i-wouldnt-stop-playing-thin-lizzys-the-boys-are-back-in-town-in-a-bar-i-dont-like-and-i-have-suffered-the-consequences-of-my-actions-283-body-image-1427074450.jpg' id='38628']

Illustration by the author

"Nothing is forbidden anymore." —Enrique Iglesias, "Bailamos"

Whenever this winter's bitter breath whips by me and I grow cold and lonely in the nighttime, I scrounge a few dollars out of my jacket pockets and tromp up to the bar I don't like. The bar is about three-quarters of a mile from my apartment and wholly forgettable—ostensibly a metal bar, but the kind of numb-groin Diet Coke metal bar decorated for the comfort and proclivities of handsome people who have never had to take a shit in a parking lot.

The first time I visited, I did what I do whenever I find myself in a new bar: Go to the jukebox and see what record is number 69. Here, it was Thin Lizzy's thoroughly nonseminal Jailbreak. I've never listened to that album the whole way through, and by the grace of God I know I'll never need to, for I know that Jailbreak features at least two songs: "The Boys Are Back in Town," and whatever song comes after "The Boys Are Back in Town," which reminds you that you need to hit rewind.

Let me make one thing excruciatingly clear: "The Boys Are Back in Town" is an incredible song and I love it. I love it so much. My heart beats bwaa-da, bwaa-dadada DAAH dah to match Scott Gorham's guitar riff, and this leaves my physician furious and unable to speak. When my roommate leaves for work in the morning, I genuflect toward his wonderful dog, who respects me. I press my forehead to his flank and I whisper "the boys are back" over and over again. The dog turns his furry brow to look into me and I know he respects me even more, for I have done as Messrs. Lizzy commanded. I have spread the word around.

I am pulled back again and again into this bar I do not like by an uncontrollable and carnal drive: a loyalty to The Boys and a congenital love of hollering. I am usually content to summon this song just once from the jukebox of the bar I do not particularly like, as even one play is a parade for the spirit. That's the life I lived for several months. I would enter the bar, queue up "The Boys Are Back in Town," slam beers until the jukebox arrived at my selection, then clap my hands, clutch them to my chest, and maybe recite a psalm from the mother tongue of my proud rural people (perhaps "oh, HELL yeah!!! HELL YEAH!!!," or "now THAT'S what I'm talking about!!!!") to the silence around me. Then I would leave.

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Over the course of these past few months, I have come upon two bits of forbidden knowledge: One, this bar does not have a working "kill switch" (which allows the bartender to change a song in case someone plays, I dunno, the entire A-side of 2112). Two, this jukebox permits the same song to be played back-to-back if each instance was paid for with a separate bill.

It was 3 AM on a recent Tuesday when, standing in the dark outside my train station, these truths reconciled themselves within me. My compulsion became explicit and inescapable: I needed to stay up and play "The Boys Are Back in Town" as many times as I could. The thorns from the road ahead cleared themselves, and I walked toward the future amid roses to share the gospel with the other patrons of this unlikeable bar. The boys were back.

This is a familiar and lonely road. I play the same song over and over again in my apartment, and I've done it in bars, and I'll do again. One foggy summer evening amid the delightful garbage bars of San Francisco's Outer Richmond district, I watched a shot glass sail past my head when Annie Lennox's (rapturous! transcendent! holy, holy!) "Walking on Broken Glass" surfaced for the fourth near-consecutive time. I've been cut off by America's greatest bartender (the sunbeam who illuminates Wally's in Orlando) when she realized my plan to continually play different recordings of "The Monster Mash." I have compelled friends and strangers in a doomed bar of downtown Houston to listen to Soft Cell's "Sex Dwarf" on loop with me until I was certain that everyone's evening had been thoroughly ruined.

This is the era of late capitalism, where bigger is always necessarily better, without exception. To the true doom disciple, to listen to a song more times is to enjoy the song more deeply. General funnyman John Mulaney wrote a bit about looping Tom Jones's " What's New, Pussycat," which has been sent to me in a dozen gchats, but there are thousands more like me; maybe you've even slept with one, and we're all very sorry. We are terrible, ecstatic, self-ruinous creatures greedy for and undeserving of love. The soul of our sweet delight can be purchased for three songs a dollar. We grab our little joys and squeeze until we've throttled them between white-knuckled fingers.

That night at the bar I do not respect I played Ronnie James Dio's "Holy Diver" between the second and third repetitions of "The Boys Are Back in Town," because that song is excellent.

When Thin Lizzy reappeared, four minutes and 15 seconds or so later, the people of the bar united in groansong. Cocktail napkins flew like weekend litter in a gust of two dozen exasperated sighs. I betrayed myself with a giggle, and the table sitting nearest to me caught on. Some dude asked me why I'd done this. "The boys are back in town," I stammered. "The boys are back!"

The opening notes to the fourth occurrence of "The Boys Are Back in Town" was met with an immediate shattering of glass, a roar of fuck-words, and the small but rapid egress of people whose ears were closed to the good news (the good news about the town, and the boys who were back in it). Two wild-eyed men, drunken and furious, descended upon the jukebox and lifted it away from the wall to get at the plug. When things had resettled, there was a line to queue up songs at the jukebox, which I joined.

"Are you fucking going to play 'The Boys Are Back in Town' again?" asked a voice when I reached the jukebox.

"I absolutely, 100 percent, am not going to play 'The Boys Are Back In Town' again," I promised, punching the buttons to select "The Boys Are Back in Town," which I had memorized.

The voice requested that I refrain from ever playing any songs on that jukebox ever again for the rest of my life.

The next time "The Boys Are Back in Town" emerged, nothing happened and I was finally— finally!—able to celebrate in peace. A few minutes later, when Gorham's guitar kicked in again, this bar I will never celebrate transformed into the island from Lord of the Flies. Two men began pushing each other while the man nearest me grew new throat muscles specifically to scream "I HATE THIS SONG!" at his own lap.

Someone else's music selection granted us a brief intermission, which the bartender—to whom I am sorry—used to issue a funereal notice of last call. As she finished speaking, Thin Lizzy started again. My credit card appeared in front of me, with a request that I leave immediately. I left with a full heart, flush with new knowledge about the town, and the boys within it, who now would never leave, and word of whom I had spread around. I would also be severely late to work the next morning.

The "jukebox in the corner blasting out my favorite song," as described in "The Boys Are Back in Town"?

It's also playing "The Boys Are Back in Town."

Recently incinerated, and with the ashen pallor and anxious charisma of a new and fresh heartbreak, I returned a few evenings ago to my familiar perch at the bar I do not like. This time I bore a new existential befuddlement—I had just seen Chappie, and its simultaneous and incomprehensible awfulness and obvious aspirationalism had both ruined me and made me more beautiful. My motions were poised, automatic—insert dollar, punch the magic numbers 6-9-0-6, gaze thoughtfully into the abyss of the record collection. In that moment I was my best self. I found a seat and waited.

But I never heard that familiar riff I love most. Some nondescript hair metal wafted out the stereo and the evening collapsed upon me with the furious weight of realization. I buckled within myself; I melted into my chair.

This bar I will never enter again had removed Thin Lizzy's Jailbreak from its jukebox.

Where are the boys? I am in the town, looking outward. Time is space; the distance between me and the boys unravels the years before me. I am becoming my own universe. The multitudes within me are expanding and I am breaking at my seams. Come back to us, boys; come back to me. I cannot face death until I have been flung toward the moon.

Thirst will never leave you completely. The body demands water until it drowns. I had spread the word around until there was no word left to spread. Gorged on the beauty of exuberance, I dove, and I pressed myself against the floor of the sea. Today were lost the boys from town, and my whole life has been taken.

Timothy Faust lives in Brooklyn and runs a backyard wrestling league in Austin, Texas. Follow Timothy on Twitter.


Is Portland's Gang Problem Getting Worse?

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At around 11:30 PM on February 24, two officers from the Portland Police Bureau's Gang Enforcement Team and Gun Task Force pulled into the parking lot of Shimmers Bar & Grill, a strip club on the corner of Southeast 82nd Avenue and Foster Road. A crowd outside quickly filed into the bar, but moments later, a man named Quintrell Shaimon Holiman emerged and was confronted by the officers.

As the Oregonian reported, Holiman, 26, had recently escaped from the Northwest Regional Re-entry Center in Northeast Portland, only the latest in a series of incarceration facilities he called home. In June 2007, when he was 17, Holiman received a 60-month sentence in state prison for attempted first-degree assault after a gang-related shooting outside Jefferson High School. When he escaped from the halfway house in January, he had been serving a 33-month sentence for possession of a firearm. Portland police indicated the officers did not know Holiman's identity or his criminal history when they approached him, but Holiman ran, and when the cops chased him, he began firing shots at the officers.

Neither officer was hit, nor did they return fire.

Holiman slipped into a residential neighborhood, where police used a helicopter's thermal imaging camera to track him down. They fired two "less-than-lethal rounds" at a fence near him, followed by a stun grenade. When he still did not respond, officers approached and found Holiman dead from what appeared to be a self-inflicted gunshot wound to the head.

Holiman was a longtime member of Portland's Hoover Criminals, a notorious street gang with origins in South Central Los Angeles. After his death, other Portland Hoovers took to social media, asserting the police shot Holiman and issuing threats against cops. Meanwhile, as local Fox outlet KPTV reported, more than 250 rounds were fired in the city over roughly the first two months of this year, and gang enforcement officers tracked 24 incidents—more than double last year's total at this time.

So does this uptick in violence represent a random burst of activity, or is the city's gang problem spiraling out of control?

Every other week, at the Northeast Portland police precinct, officers, community organizers, business owners, and outreach workers gather together to discuss the latest gang activity. At a recent meeting I attended, soon after the confrontation with Holiman, tensions were particularly high. Cops acknowledged the threats made against them by the Hoovers, while also dispelling the assembled media of misinformation.

"We are not at war with the Hoover gang, which I've heard a couple media outlets say," said Lieutenant Mike Krantz, "just so that's very clear."

"When there's an assault on a police officer, it's an assault on all of us," added Captain Matt Wagenknecht. "We should all be taking this very seriously. This isn't just on the Portland Police Bureau; this is on the city of Portland."

Portland, Oregon, has seen a population growth of 12 percent since 2000. It is one of the fastest growing metropolitan cities in the nation, outpacing nearly every other coastal city, including Seattle, and it is expected to add another 725,000 residents over the next 20 years. Portland has become famous for its progressive ideals and its commitment to sustainability, in addition to its craft beers, coffee, bacon-topped doughnuts, and a certain namesake television show. It is also widely known as the whitest major city in America; blacks comprise just 6 percent of the population. Portland's black residents are often hidden to most of the city, living predominately deep in North Portland or east of Interstate 205, far away from bicycle paths or vegan bakeries. To be black in Portland is to be invisible, forgotten. For black Portlanders, and especially young black men, the need for community and solidarity is real, as is the need to be seen and respected, and gangs are increasingly filling that role.

According to Sergeant Don Livingston of Portland's gang enforcement team, there were 24 gang-related incidents through late February, up from ten by the same time last year. They included a February 13 shooting on Northeast 18th Avenue and Rosa Parks Way that left one man hospitalized; a February 7 shooting outside Billy Webb Elks Lodge on North Tillamook Street that left one man hospitalized; a February 5 shooting near a Northeast KFC that left one known gang member hospitalized, followed by another shooting, possibly retaliatory, that same day on 139th and Burnside, leaving another known gang member critically injured; and a February 2 shooting outside Boss Hawg's Bar 'N' Grill, on Northeast 102nd Avenue, that left two men hospitalized.

The Portland Police Bureau may not be at war with Portland gangs, but there is some kind of war going on.

"I seen my first dead body when I was six." –Raymond Grant

Raymond Grant grew up in Northeast Portland. He has a shaved head, a medium-length goatee, and tattoos of smoking pistols and other gang insignia on the tops of his hands. His eyes, however, are friendly and warm, and he smiles openly. His mother was a longtime Blood, and she raised her son to follow in her footsteps.

"I seen my first dead body when I was six," Grant tells me inside Miracle's Club, a nonprofit organization on Northeast Martin Luther King Jr. Boulevard serving Portland's African-American community. "This was on 16th and Killingsworth. It was one of my mom's closest friends." One year later, Grant's uncle was gunned down in front of his house. "My mom told everybody, 'My son is gonna grow up, he's gonna be my right-hand man.' I didn't have no father. What I had was my mom's homeboys, showing me how to throw gang signs."

Grant identified as a Blood; he wore red flags, listened to Blood music, and spoke Blood talk. "What you drinking right there," he said, pointing to my mug of coffee, "that's boffee. Let me get some boffee, with some bereal. And a bookie."

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Photos by the author unless otherwise noted

The dividing line between Bloods and Crips in Portland, Grant explains, is MLK, where the two of us are sitting. West is the Crip side; the east side, the side Miracle's Club is on, is the Blood side. The only gang on the west side that aren't Crips is the Unthank Park Hustlers, named after a North Portland neighborhood park. During his mother's tenure as a Blood, Grant says, shootouts between Crips and Bloods were frequent on MLK.

Grant was selling drugs at 12 years old, and was caught after stealing a car, his first arrest. At 14 he was arrested after committing his first robbery, then arrested again after his second robbery a year later, earning him his first felony and two years in Oregon State Penitentiary. He dropped out of high school at 17, and was involved in a shooting at 18 that earned him 13 months in Snake River Correctional Institution. At 19 he was back on the streets, and soon after his 21st birthday, in 2005, he was arrested again—after leading the police on a high-speed chase—for driving with no license and no registration, and being a felon in possession of a firearm. It was his second felony. He received 24 months in Oregon State Correctional Institution. While inside the penitentiary, he met his father for the first time, in the next cell over, who was serving time for robbery.

In 2008, Grant was shot three times in his back outside his home, and nearly died. He doesn't know who shot him. He was arrested for the sixth time in 2009, for unlawful use of a weapon, and received a 30-month suspended sentence, 36 months' probation, and nine months in the county jail. He was freed in 2010, but failed to report to his parole officer. Finally, on October 5, 2012, Grant decided to turn himself in.

"I was on drugs. I was tired of running. I was tired of committing crimes," he says. His parole officer told Grant he'd receive a maximum of five days for parole violation, but the judge instead sentenced him to 30 months in Columbia River Correctional Institution. While incarcerated, Grant decided he'd had enough; he got married, quit using and selling drugs, and found a job, and has since become a mentor to young black men in Portland, helping to steer them away from gang life.

"In my mom's time," he says, "it was about people getting a name, grabbing a block, selling drugs. Now they shoot kids for no reason, all because of a color that they wear."

The legend of Portland gangs begins in the mid 80s, when members of the Hoover Criminal Gang (HCG), named after Hoover Street in South Los Angeles, are said to have moved moved north to exploit the Pacific Northwest city's untapped drug market. HCG was followed close behind by the Rollin 60s Neighborhood Crips. Hoovers and Rollin 60s have historically been at odds with each other—competitors in the drug business—and in 2002, differences over an illegal dogfight in the basement of a North Mississippi Avenue home resulted in retaliatory shootings that left two people dead, escalating hostilities.

According to a January 2014 study by the Multnomah County Local Public Safety Coordinating Council, there are at least 133 active gangs in Multnomah County known to law enforcement and outreach workers, though many of them are offshoots of larger groups. Hoovers are considered the largest—an expansive, loosely connected organization with affiliates operating like franchises in various cities. Portland Hoovers include the 112 Hoover Criminals, the 107 Hoover Criminals, and the 74 Hoover Criminals. Hoovers once identifed as Crips, but have since gone independent, eschewing the traditional blue attire for orange. Many local gangs have ties, at least tenuously, to their Southern California counterparts, but others, such as Unthank Park Hustlers, Woodlawn Park Bloods, Loc'd Out Piru (the LOs), Kerby Blocc Crips, and Columbia Villa Crips (the Vills) are homegrown, as native to Portland as rain and roses.

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I visited Shimmers Bar & Grill on the night of March 9, two weeks after the confrontation between the police and Quintrell Holiman. Holiman was a known member of the 107 Hoovers. He had been a fugitive for just over a month when he shot at the cops in Shimmers' parking lot. Shimmers is not a large bar, with one row of glowing video lottery machines and two modest stages on opposite sides of the room for the dancers. It was a Monday night, and it was slow. The few people inside were sitting at the bar, alternating between talking to the bartender and glancing at the TV screens, showing sports highlights. The young blond woman behind the bar had been working the night of February 24, when Holiman and a group of what is assumed to be his friends came inside. The bartender told me her real first name, but I'll call her Georgette.

"I'd never seen them before. They weren't regulars," she tells me. "They were polite, they tipped well, they ordered top-shelf liquor. It was just a normal, busy night."

Exactly how many people were with Holiman—or if he was in fact part of this group—is uncertain. It was a small crew, and they apparently didn't come to Shimmers looking for trouble.

"I think they came from another bar, and they were all here to play on the video lottery machines," Georgette says. "They all knew each other, they were all friends. A few of them got up and went out to smoke, then a few more went outside. Everyone scattered as soon as the police showed up."

According to Georgette, the gang task force for the Portland police routinely drops in on bars like these, twice a week or multiple visits on a single night, often in unmarked cars. They'll either drive through the parking lot or they'll come inside, walk through the bar, and speak with the doorman, before continuing on to the next place. That the police stopped at Shimmers that night, unbidden, was not extraordinary. What is uncertain, and what will likely forever remain so, is why Holiman—who had perhaps been on his way from Shimmers to The Spot, another bar across the parking lot—began firing on Sergeant Duilio and Officer Wilbon.

"I didn't even hear the gunshots," Georgette says. "The music was loud inside. Then the police came in here looking for him, and they were calling everyone within a ten-block radius, telling them to stay indoors. Then, at about 2:30 or 3 o'clock, we got word that everything was OK."

It's hard to say why Holiman, who had already been through so much, would decide at that moment to take his own life. Maybe, like Raymond Grant, he was simply tired of running.

After speaking with Georgette, I approached the doorman, who had also been working the night of February 24. He was the only security at the bar that night.

"From my understanding, the gang is pretty pissed off, and some guys were saying they were pissed off at us," he tells me. "They weren't happy with the bar, for whatever reason. We've had to get another security guy. We have a dress code now. We have to turn people away at the door."

I ask the doorman for his name. He shakes his head.

"That's not something I want to get mixed up in, bro," he tells me. "These guys will shoot at you just because."

India Is Being Overtaken by Armies of Defiant Monkeys

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Image via Pixabay.

Spend about five minutes in New Delhi and you'll probably meet a monkey hanging above the entrance to a nicotine shop, attempting to insert its head up its own anus. Amusing for a tourist, sure, but it's become an increasingly worrying sight for locals.

Over the last 20 years, monkeys have moved into the middle of a difficult Venn diagram of animal welfare, economic resources, and political clout. At last count, there were 50 million monkeys in India. To get a bit of perspective on this, imagine the whole population of England uprooting and moving to India, causing all manner of problems, and altering the course of India's path like something out of a Thomas Pynchon novel.

Take, for example, in 2007, when SS Bajwa, then Deputy Mayor of Delhi, was pushed to his death from a balcony. Or that weird visible damage in the brickwork of the famously impenetrable Chittorgarh Fort? Monkeys. And what about the 11,000 mysteriously misplaced political files taken right from the Home Ministry? You got it. Monkeys.

Monkeys have, apparently, been seen walking down the corridors of power with files tucked under their arms like furry middle management. Picture Congress being shut down because a harmless palm civet wandered in one day; imagine Ted Cruz bolstering his support by being pro-monkey culling.

Monkeys torment important people in India, like Manohar Parrikar, the Defense Minister, who has recently taken out contracts with two army personnel to defend him as he makes his commute through New Delhi's sprawling South Block, the political center. During a recent visit by Barack Obama, men were hired to chase monkeys from his path with slingshots and broomsticks. Last year, the news swept the world that men were being hired to wear large monkey costumes and squeal like langurs to chase off hoards of the rhesus monkeys.

On the face of it, it seems like the perfect stuff of political satire. Monkeys, of course, have no respect for status, creed or power; they're the Shakespearian Puck of India, tiny little tricksters, screwing things up by not respecting order and hierarchy.

But it's not really a laughing matter. Monkeys are belligerent little assholes, a fucking menace, financial drain, and a protected species all rolled into one. They're intelligent and pissed. They steal people's food, attack locals (in the town of Shimla alone there are a reported 400 bites a month); spread disease, and inherit houses.

However, at the same time, they're protected animals, who are only reacting to a situation they have been put into by mankind. It's not as if their actions are motivated out of anything other than a desire to survive.

"Cities are connected by forests and technically a city too serves as a habitat to different animals for a variety of reasons," Pawan Sharma, founder of Resqink Association for Wildlife Welfare (RAWW) told me. "Monkeys in the cities is not the actual problem, it's the human errors that have led to an increase in monkey population."

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Monkey muggers

As India's urbanization rapidly expands into the forests and wilderness, the new blocks replace a monkey's natural habitat—so the only solution is either to co-exist (by scaring them off with ridiculous concepts like the " Langur Protection Squad"), culling them, or move them into sanctuaries—like the Bhatti Mines. None of which have worked and all of which are problematic on an animal rights level.

People don't, to put it simply, have a fucking clue how to live with monkeys. Not on this kind of scale. "The real problem is proper wildlife and human-wildlife conflict management practices in the country," says Pawan.

A 2007 High Court Order made it mandatory for monkeys in sanctuaries to be fed by humans, rather than planting bansa, gram, and banana plants that yield fruit the monkeys can collect themselves.

Feeding is a pretty inefficient way to deal with intelligent creatures—it transforms a recently de-homed, feral animal into a semi-dependent creature that wanders the street stealing food that it believes is its own. Throughout Delhi, it's only a matter of time before new areas get "infested" with monkeys—who were there in the first place.

Weirdly, in 2013, the Indian Government reportedly spent $488,000 a year on feeding 16,000 monkeys at the Asola Bhatti Wildlife Sanctuary, which meant that, on average, they spent more on monkeys than they did on their human population. The problem is, the money is being terribly spent—they don't actually provide proper food or water supplies.

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An angry-looking rhesus macaque in India. Image via Wikimedia Commons.

Human error in dealing with monkeys is a huge problem, obviously, as the government's Forest Department spends most of its cash on feeding them. "Monkeys can find excess food in cities," says Pawan. "And they have no natural predator." Vataran, a not-for-profit organization established to help humans interact with nature more reciprocally, calculated that re-homed monkeys rely 98 percent on their food from humans.

Governmental procedures and policies have created the monkey problem, rather than solving it.

Monkeys are also considered sacred by the Hindu religion, in connection with the god Hanuman, which is a whole different barrel of monkeys. "He is a super hero of Indian god stories and people often pay tribute to god by feeding monkeys," says Pawan. During expansion in the pilgrimage site of Vrindavan, Uttar Pradesh, all the way back in 1997, for example, 600 monkeys were moved to a forest nearby, only to come wandering back a week later more violent than before.

"What people do is feed monkeys," says Pawan, "then, when the monkeys return for more, the people try to scare them away. The monkeys then develop skills to snatch food, which is when they come into conflict with humans, enter houses, societies, apartment complexes. Even on 15th and 20th floors, it doesn't matter. They're in search of food. I receive hundreds of distress calls in Mumbai from people being attacked."

As the monkey population has boomed, with literally no end in sight, normal people have taken against the creatures. Recently, monkeys have turned up dead within the Sanjay Gandhi National Park, Mulund, possibly poisoned. As a protected forest, this is a serious security breach.

"Monkeys are protected under the Wildlife Protection Act of 1972," says Pawan. "Capturing, hunting, or killing them is a violation of the act which may lead the offender to a judicial trial with fine, imprisonment, or both. Having said that, these laws exist only 'inside the books.'"

"In reality, monkeys are one of the most exploited wild animals. For example, monkey charmers trap monkeys by separating juveniles and sub adults from their family, and train them. They're locked into rooms, hit, their teeth broken. They tie a rope around their neck and are taken from city to village, and forced to perform so that the charmers can earn their living."

You could go as far as to say that such attacks on wildlife—hunting, poaching, abject cruelty—is a sort of organized crime. Pawan agrees. "It's a crime from which animals cannot escape on their own. We must change our attitudes, create awareness, and modify our laws with stricter punishments."

Until then, the battle of India Vs Monkeys will continue to bubble away—a large-scale, but strangely under the radar, modern battle.

Follow David on Twitter.

A Brief Guide to Ted Cruz's New Presidential Campaign

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Today, Ted Cruz, the junior Republican senator from Texas, will become the first Republican to officially launch a presidential campaign for 2016, A little after midnight on Monday, the combative Tea Party conservative gleefully tweeted the news, kick-starting a race that other Republicans were hoping to put off for a few more weeks.

As the Houston Chronicle first reported Sunday, Cruz is set to follow this up with a formal announcement this morning at Liberty University, the world's largest evangelical college, founded by the late Reverend Jerry Falwell, a fundamentalist Baptist leader and godfather of the Christian Right. A bastion for Christian fundamentalism, and the birthplace of Falwell's Moral Majority, the school is the home base for the Republican Party's social conservative wing, and its Lynchburg, Virginia campus is a requisite stop for anyone thinking about running for the GOP presidential nomination.

The fact that Cruz decided to launch his campaign at Liberty University—rather than somewhere in his home state—tells you the first thing you need to know about how he plans to run: From the far right, gathering support from conservative Christians and small-government Tea Partiers, the same groups that handed him a victory in his Senate race just two years ago. In a 2016 field that includes men like Mike Huckabee and Ben Carson, Cruz faces intense competition for these voters; his decision to announce before any other candidate is a sign that he recognizes this weakness and is hoping to gain an early edge over his likely rivals.

Monday's announcement is particularly interesting because Cruz is probably the most divisive 2016 candidate, beloved by the right wing and loathed by liberals and moderates, including some in his own party. Born in Canada to a Cuban father and an American mother, Cruz graduated from Princeton and Harvard Law School, and made his name in politics as the solicitor general of Texas before running for Senate in 2012.

A staunch—some might say crazed—opponent of the Affordable Care Act, Cruz's most high-profile accomplishment to date was orchestrating the 2013 government shutdown as part of an effort to defund the healthcare law. While some of his soon-to-be rivals fell in line behind him, hoping to skim off some of the Tea Party love, virtually everyone else in the country still hates him for it, including many of his fellow Republicans, and anyone cashing a paycheck from the federal government. Cruz insists he's proud of his role in the shutdown, and the move did what it was intended to do, casting the Texas senator as an uncompromising conservative in an otherwise compromised GOP.

On all issues, Cruz occupies the far-right edge of Republican politics. He's rabidly pro-life, against any form of gun control, and vehemently opposes same-sex marriage, having recently reintroduced the State Marriage Defense Act, which would allow states "to preserve traditional marriage for their citizens." He's urged Congress to do anything to stop immigration reform, and has called net neutrality "Obamacare for the Internet." And he's an adamant climate-change denier, who last year sponsored a bill, the American Renaissance Energy Act, designed to hamstring the federal government's ability to regulate energy production within the United States.

The one area where Cruz does strike some kind of semblance of a middle ground is in foreign policy, positioning himself as a "third point on the triangle" between libertarian-leaning conservatives like Kentucky Senator Rand Paul and the neocon wing of the GOP, led by Senators John McCain and Lindsey Graham. As the National Journal's Tim Alberta points out, this has resulted in some inconsistency in Cruz's views. "In one breath he says, 'It is not the job of our military to occupy countries across the globe and try to turn them into Democratic utopias,'" Alberta wrote, "and in the next he calls the Islamic State 'the face of evil' and argues they must be defeated with overwhelming military force." All this is further complicated by Cruz's fervent devotion to Israel: He has a framed photo of Bibi Netanyahu posing with him and his wife hanging in his office, and as Alberta notes, has mentioned Israel literally thousands of times on the Senate floor.

As a candidate, though, Cruz is not complicated: he's going to leave so little room between his platform and the far right fringe, it will be a squeeze for anyone to fit in between. But while this strategy got him elected in Texas, it's an open question whether it will be can get him through a Republican presidential primary. Cruz hasn't been known for making friends, even among his own party, and if the Republican response to his shutdown was an indication, Cruz is likely to face a gauntlet of his own party members. Even if he does manage to unite the right, it's unlikely to change any one's mind about him in a general election.

Watch Cruz's speech live below:


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​The Apple Watch Is the Perfect Wrist Piece for Dystopia

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​The Apple Watch Is the Perfect Wrist Piece for Dystopia

North Korea Calls Planned Balloon Drop of 'The Interview' DVDs a 'De Facto Declaration of War'

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North Korea Calls Planned Balloon Drop of 'The Interview' DVDs a 'De Facto Declaration of War'

The Rooms Where Romanian Prisoners Have Sex

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[body_image width='1200' height='800' path='images/content-images/2015/03/20/' crop='images/content-images-crops/2015/03/20/' filename='conjugal-visits-romanian-prisons-cosmin-bumbu-876-body-image-1426874513.jpg' id='38416']

This article was originally published by VICE Romania.

For his latest project, titled The Intimate Room, photographer Cosmin Bumbut spent the past four years visiting 35 penitentiaries across Romania—including juvenile detention centers and prison hospitals—photographing the rooms built for conjugal visits. I got in touch with Cosmin to find out more about how that process works in Romania, and what his inspiration was.

Description: http://assets2.vice.com/images/content-images/2015/03/05/cosmin-bumbut-a-fotografiat-camerele-in-care-detinuii-sunt-vizitati-de-concubine-126-body-image-1425544441.jpgVICE: How did you come up with the idea for The Intimate Room?
Cosmin Bumbut: Back in 2008, I visited a correctional facility in the city of Aiud, where I took some pictures of the inmates—before and after their conjugal visits had taken place. The problem with that was that once I looked at the photos, it was the people who caught my eye. I felt the focus was shifted from the concept of the conjugal visit, and what I wanted was for the lack of intimacy in those spaces to be the center of attention. So I stopped photographing people.

How do you go about asking to use the room if you're an inmate?
In Romania, there are two types of visits: There's the one that lasts two hours and is allowed every three months and needs to involve your spouse or proven partner. Then, if you get married while in jail, you've got the right to use the room for 48 hours as a type of honeymoon. After that, you're entitled to your two hours every month for a year.

[body_image width='1200' height='799' path='images/content-images/2015/03/20/' crop='images/content-images-crops/2015/03/20/' filename='conjugal-visits-romanian-prisons-cosmin-bumbu-876-body-image-1426875104.jpg' id='38419']

How do you prove a partnership?
You can claim they are your partner if they have been visiting you frequently for at least six months, and if you often call or write to each other. Inmates are allowed to call about ten numbers using the public phones in the prison hallways. If their number is included in that list, then they are a proven partner. And if you start the relationship while in prison but they frequently visit, then you're also entitled to use the room.

Have you thought about taking the photograph immediately after a room has been used?
I can't. The first time I went for a photo, I had asked the authorities if the guards could leave the bed untouched. But when I got there, everything was in place and the bed had been made. I suspect that the guards had done it so that it would look good when I got there. But both parties take care of these rooms—especially the inmates—because otherwise they stop getting access to it.

What did you feel when you first saw the rooms?
The first time I visited one of these rooms, I sat on the bed and filmed from the subjective angle of the inmate. I was alone in there, and there were noises coming from the hallway, but I didn't feel much; I didn't ask myself how many people had used the bed. It's strange having an intimate room in such a non-intimate space.

[body_image width='1200' height='799' path='images/content-images/2015/03/20/' crop='images/content-images-crops/2015/03/20/' filename='conjugal-visits-romanian-prisons-cosmin-bumbu-876-body-image-1426875140.jpg' id='38420']

Description: http://assets2.vice.com/images/content-images/2015/03/05/cosmin-bumbut-a-fotografiat-camerele-in-care-detinuii-sunt-vizitati-de-concubine-126-body-image-1425544627.jpgI find the title of your project strange; these rooms are only intimate for a few hours and there are so many people using them.
There was a funny moment at the Vaslui penitentiary. I was supposed to go in at 9 AM one day, but when I called in to confirm they asked me to wait as it had been booked for a 48-hour visit which was supposed to end at 1 PM. I got there at 10 AM, because I was already on my way, parked the car, and called to see if there was anything I could do until the afternoon.

An officer told me that the room was free, because the woman had gotten bored and left. I found it strange; she only got 48 hours with her partner and didn't take advantage of the last few hours with him, because she got bored? To be fair, the room was very small—there was a hallway and the bed was tucked between two walls. And just above the bed, there was a tiny TV. But still.

Have you seen any other strange rooms apart from the one in Vaslui?
Yes, I thought the one in the city of Satu Mare was interesting: Most of the rooms are in the administrative area—separated from the area in which the inmates are held—but in Satu Mare they didn't have enough space. It must be a very strange experience for a female visitor, because she has to walk through the hallway alongside the inmates' cellblocks. I imagine everyone can hear what's happening in there when it's being used, and the kind of cheering and shouting that goes on between the other inmates.

[body_image width='1200' height='799' path='images/content-images/2015/03/20/' crop='images/content-images-crops/2015/03/20/' filename='conjugal-visits-romanian-prisons-cosmin-bumbu-876-body-image-1426875221.jpg' id='38421']

Were there any details that caught your eye in these rooms?
What is interesting is that in each room you are given a set of rules—they warn you to use condoms (there are some available in the room) and tell you what to do in case of a pregnancy.

There's also a list of all the objects in the room. The inmate has to sign a paper that states that he takes full responsibility for everything in there and if he destroys anything or anything is lost after his visit, he can't use the room anymore. There's also a panic button, but it's never been used. Description: http://assets2.vice.com/images/content-images/2015/03/05/cosmin-bumbut-a-fotografiat-camerele-in-care-detinuii-sunt-vizitati-de-concubine-126-body-image-1425544655.jpg

Are there any differences in the way these rooms are decorated that might allude to the region or how the facility is run?
Some were opulently decorated, while other rooms had scarcely any furniture in them but I think that depends on the prison's budget and the money they were willing to invest. It also depends on the frequency of the conjugal visits. Some facilities allow visits once or three times a week, while the Gherla Penitentiary for example, is booked almost nonstop. They actually have two rooms there. On the other hand, the intimate room in Târguşor Prison—which is an all-female prison—is hardly ever used.

Why?
Unfortunately, I think it seems to be that men rarely visit women in prison. Once they get locked up, their boyfriend or husband stops visiting. I can't figure out why this happens. Maybe a sociologist can come up with an explanation for that.

WATCH LIVE: Ted Cruz's Presidential Campaign Announcement

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On Monday, Texas Senator Ted Cruz became the first candidate to officially launch a 2016 presidential campaign, tweeting out his plans just after midnight with a video titled "A Time for Truth."

"It's a time for truth, a time to rise to the challenge, just as Americans have always done," Cruz says in the 30-second clip, over stock images of Little League games, bridges, and churches in cornfields. "I believe in America and her people, and I believe we can stand up and restore our promise. It's going to take a new generation of courageous conservatives to help make America great again. And I'm ready to stand with you to lead the fight."

Cruz is expected to elaborate this morning, with a speech at Liberty University, a conservative evangelical college in Lynchburg, Virginia that is known as the "Vatican of fundamentalism." The location—and likely the speech itself—are a signal that Cruz plans on targeting his White House run at the Christian Right and Tea Party voters. That's not surprising, given Cruz's dogmatic, even zealous, politics—the question now is whether he'll say anything new.

Watch the speech below:


VICE Vs Video Games: YouTube Millionaire KSI Talks About Growing Up Online

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KSI in a still from VICE's documentary on eSports.

This article originally appeared on VICE UK.

KSI, a.k.a. JJ, a.k.a. Ksiolajidebt, or Olajide Olatunji, to give him his full birth name, is a very contemporary celebrity. At the age of 21, he's got what men (and women, for that matter) three times his age still dream of: ownership of a penthouse-style property, a car that's stupidly overpowered for the London streets criss-crossing his 360-degree view of the English capital like asphalt veins, and millions of fans.

He's a YouTube sensation, a "vlogger" if we must, whose channel is Britain's second-most subscribed, behind that of One Direction. His views run to over a billion, and much of his success has come from shouting a lot over footage of him playing FIFA. He's dabbled in music, too, and has a book out before the end of 2015, I Am a Bell-End. As he says in VICE's new eSports documentary, interviewed by Matt Shea: "I guess, essentially, I'm a 21-year-old millionaire through gaming, vlogging, and just my online experience. Yo, I'll take it."

He's also someone who divides the gaming industry. Evidently adored by a public that's wholly on board with his energetic brand of (often physical) humor, his electric personality, and non sequiturs spat rapidly over the country's most-popular kicking sim, he's alienated several professionals in the games media by acting like a colossal dick.

At the Eurogamer Expo, London in 2012, he produced a "being awkward" video that documented his mission to "motorboat" as many women as he could find. Eurogamer subsequently banned him from their future events. In late 2013, after inviting him to perform at the UK launch of the Xbox One, Microsoft severed its ties with KSI. When I mention to peers that I'm calling him up for a chat, their standard response is: why? To them he's toxic, a sad step backwards for gaming culture, and someone who they'd happily subject to more torment than a light roasting from Comedy Central.

But I wanted to hear about the JJ behind the millionaire grin, the young man who's grown up in the public eye, who's made the leap from impish teen to affluent adult in entirely unique circumstances. Has he regretted past mistakes? Does he do more with his money than just splash it on shiny toys and shinier trainers? Is there substance to him beyond, in comedian Michelle De Swarte's words, just a guy "obsessed with sex, wanking, and talking massive amounts of shit"? So I got on the phone.

[body_image width='1885' height='1058' path='images/content-images/2015/03/21/' crop='images/content-images-crops/2015/03/21/' filename='youtube-millionaire-ksi-talks-to-us-about-growing-up-online-632-body-image-1426955935.jpg' id='38499']

KSI speaks to VICE's Matt Shea for our eSports documentary

VICE: Cheers for taking this call, because I know you're busy right now. You've a book coming, you're doing more music, and then there's the YouTube business of course. When did you last give yourself a day off?
KSI: Um, I don't know. It was probably four years ago. And it's not like this doesn't feel like work. Work, for me, is when you're just doing something—so when I'm doing something towards, I guess, my brand, towards KSI. I'm always working on that, so I never have a break unless I'm sleeping. But even if I go on holiday, I'm still vlogging, I'm still on Snapchat, and I'm on Twitter and Facebook posting pictures. I'm always working.

So to have a break you'd have to disconnect completely from the internet, as that's your main means of communication with this 24/7 fanbase you have?
Yeah! But then I'd want to commit suicide at that point, if I was somewhere I couldn't get online. It'd be horrible. I remember going on family holidays, to this villa we had in the middle of nowhere, and it had no internet. It drove me insane.

Do you feel a real need to capitalize on your popularity as it is now, today? Because you're only as hot as these millions of subscribers say you are—and they can easily enough move on to whatever's hyped tomorrow. You are in an industry that can burn up its megastars pretty quickly.
I feel like my YouTube work's produced this snowball effect, if that makes sense. And that shows that the harder you work, the more you get out of it. So that's why I can't stop working—as soon as you do, in this business, it can just be a couple of weeks and people will forget you. Well, I think I've reached a point now where I can have a prolonged stay—I mean, I've been around so long now that I don't think everyone is just going to forget about me if I've not posted a video for a little while. I do want to maintain where I'm at, though, and keep doing as well as I can.

It's a high-pressure world, being a YouTuber, isn't it? If you're a musician and you don't have anything for your fans for, say, three or four years, maybe then people would consider a new record overdue. But on YouTube, that period's reduced to just days, right?
Yeah, exactly. If I've not posted anything for a while, I get messages like, "KSI RIP."

VICE's eSports documentary catches your big-spending side, with the car and the sneakers and the flat you've got. I'm going to sound like your dad here, but are you able to stay sensible with all of this income, and put a good deal of it aside for your future? Because you never know when this is all going to end, do you?
Oh yeah! I've been saving a lot, and investing in property—I've got plenty of houses, man. I'm not dumb with my money. I've been doing this properly, full time, for four years now, so I've saved up a lot. I don't know what my exact net worth is, but I know it's pretty ridiculous. I'm definitely in a very good position, and I'm unlikely to go bankrupt any time soon.

"When I'm KSI, I'm a lot bigger, and a lot louder. That guy is crazy. But you meet me, and I'm just a normal guy."

How fortuitous do you feel you've been, coming through as a YouTube star in the time frame you have? Nowadays, I think it's a lot harder to achieve a profitable profile in that area, as it's become another platform for companies to monetize rather than an outlet for, well, craziness and creativity, which was how you started. You're a founding piece of YouTube culture as we know it now, rather than someone who's tried to break into it from the outside.
Yep, I feel lucky. I came out when, to me, YouTube felt like a bit of a baby, and nobody really understood it. People just saw it as a website where cats would play around and do stupid things. Nowadays, it's definitely advanced, so much. It's become so much more than it was when I started, and I do feel that a lot of the older generation still don't get it. They don't see it as this huge competitor to TV, and radio and other traditional mainstream media.

So you've no great desire to move from YouTube into television?
Oh no. Hell no. Why would I do that?

Well, you do never know when the next big thing is coming online. It wasn't so long ago that we were all on MySpace. Something else could come along and smash YouTube apart.
It could, but then you can easily just move over. You adapt, and that's what people working in my field do. I have Twitter, Facebook, Snapchat, Instagram—I have all of these things and YouTube, and I've always found it easy to hop onto the next thing.

How many batteries do you carry around for your phone, if you're always on these things?
Not enough! I don't carry enough, man. I just go on airplane mode and save as much battery as I can.

The hyperactivity of your personality is obviously a USP, and a major part of your brand. But do you know in your head where, I suppose, KSI ends and JJ begins?
I definitely know the difference between me and the brand. When I'm KSI, I'm a lot bigger, and a lot louder. That guy is crazy. But you meet me, and I'm just a normal guy. I'm chilled, and I think I'm just really nice. At least, that's what people tell me. When people meet me, I think they sometimes are expecting to hate me, and to resent me. But they can't, because I'm actually nice. I've never really been a twat, or an egotistical person. I've always just done me.

But the KSI of the past got into hot water. That's not the KSI we see today, then?
He's had to grow, oh yeah. I got into trouble, definitely. And the bigger I've got, the more I've realized where the lines are. I'm talking to a wider audience nowadays, whereas before I could get away with a lot more things. Now I can't do that many stupid things, and I have to really watch what I do. I want to put out the right message, and I genuinely try to do that. Sometimes I mess up, but I'm human.

I saw your video for the I Am a Bell-End book, and noted one of the top comments on it (at the time, seemingly since removed) was, basically, something abhorrently racist. I know you're hardly innocent in dishing out discrimination in your teens, but how have you come to handle it when it's turned back at you?
I've encountered a lot of racial discrimination over the years, but that could be the same in any industry, not just gaming. Maybe because I've sort of grown up online, though, I've developed something of a shield. So when other peoples' true colors come out, I can ignore them. I suppose I've become accustomed to it, and grown a thick skin, and it doesn't affect me anymore. It definitely did for a bit, like, when I was starting out. I was younger then, and I'd never experienced abuse like that before. But nowadays I can just laugh at it. I almost find it funny. When I see someone use the N-word against me, I just find that hilarious.

"I've encountered a lot of racial discrimination over the years. But now when I see someone use the N-word against me, I just find that hilarious."

That's the faceless masses of the internet, though. What about in person? Have you had any shit said to your face, for being a young, successful black guy in gaming?
Even if someone was in my face with that stuff now, I wouldn't react. I'm so above that—and you have to be. You can't show a reaction to that, it's just not worth it. Anyone can call me any word under the sun, and I will not react. I hope that things will get better, in the games industry, in the next couple of years, regarding this kind of abuse. It's one of those things that we have to work through.

You're best known in gaming for your FIFA videos, but as the VICE eSports doc shows, you don't consider yourself a pro-gamer, do you? Even though gaming is a day job for you.
I guess my relationship with FIFA is a lot like other people's relationship with it—it's just a game that I like to play. And people are entertained by what I do and what I say while I am playing the game. It's as simple as that. I'm definitely not the best at it, though, and I definitely don't consider myself a pro-gamer. I just enjoy playing it. I say some dumb things, some random things, and I try to be entertaining.

You're a showman amongst FIFA players, then. I guess the gaming equivalent of a David Ginola, or a Matt Le Tissier, an entertainer who isn't necessarily the best, technically.
Who? Who are they? I have no idea who those people are.

Sorry, I forget how old I am sometimes. Eric Cantona, then. You know him, and what I mean?
Oh yeah, I know him.

Have you ever really enjoyed any other football games other than the big two of today, FIFA and Pro Evo?
I guess This Is Football, but that's an old, old game. Like, that was way back in the day, but it was a fun game, and you could do some crazy stuff in it.

What do you play to relax with, if not FIFA?
The last game I got to just play was Dragon Ball XenoVerse, as I'm a massive Dragon Ball Z fan. As soon as that game came out I was straight on it, and I play that just to chill. But every now and then I play a random game. I played The Last of Us, and that was great. I don't put those games online because I like to just enjoy them, rather than getting the camera on and having to entertain an audience. I just like them for myself.

It'd be horrible if gaming became a chore for you, wouldn't it? That the fun aspect was lost to the work ethic?
Yeah, exactly. That's something I want to avoid. I don't want gaming to be a job that I have to do. I want to do it, and I want it to stay fun. But right now I enjoy everything.

Just finally, I know you're an Arsenal fan. I'm a Southampton supporter, so any chance you can you have a word with Arsene Wenger and get him to leave Morgan Schneiderlin alone, please?
Ah dude, Arsene gets who Arsene wants. He's consistent. I mean, how many years in a row have we exited the Champions League at this (last 16) stage?

Some, certainly. Cheers for chatting, man.
No worries, in a bit.

KSI features in VICE's new documentary on the world of eSports—check out the full film, presented in five parts, here. Find KSI's official website here.

Follow Mike on Twitter.

How Do You Get Adults to Pay Hundreds of Dollars to Go Back to Preschool?

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[body_image width='762' height='762' path='images/content-images/2015/03/23/' crop='images/content-images-crops/2015/03/23/' filename='adult-preschool-body-image-1427118355.jpg' id='38807']

Michelle Joni Lapidos. Photo courtesy of Hanna Agar. All other photos by the author

It's a Tuesday night around 10 PM, and it's obvious who the preschoolers in this bar are. They're the ones wearing costume jewelry and animal hats, the ones led by the woman with the silver lame dress, feather boa, and pipe cleaners and macaroni woven into her bright pink hair. This is Michelle Joni Lapidos—Miss Joni to her charges in adult preschool—and she looks like what would happen if Ariel from The Little Mermaid grew up on the Lower East Side. She's got that unmistakable charisma common to all good preschool teachers, an aura, though I couldn't say what color that aura is. Is glitter a color?

The idea for the Preschool Mastermind class came to Lapidos over New Year's, when she was at a lesbian wedding. The 30-year-old enlisted the help of her friend Candice Kilpatrick, a.k.a. Miss CanCan, who has a master's in teaching, and together they hammered out the details: Students would apply for a spot in the ten-person class, pay anywhere from $333 to $999 if accepted, and attend about a month's worth of weekly classes. The first day of class was March 3, and the next week led them to Freddy's Bar—an odd place to roleplay as four-year-olds, some might say. In fact, that's what I said to Miss Joni. But she told me I was missing the point.

"It's not about acting like you're four," she clarified while paying for her preschoolers' drinks. "It's about remembering how to explore and be excited."

[body_image width='640' height='427' path='images/content-images/2015/03/23/' crop='images/content-images-crops/2015/03/23/' filename='adult-preschool-body-image-1427118525.jpg' id='38808']

I wasn't the only one who was confused by the premise, if not downright annoyed by it. Media outlets immediately jumped on Preschool Mastermind as soon as the Village Voice wrote about it in January, mostly to deride it as another gauche happening in bizarre, bourgeoisie Brooklyn. Local blog Brokelyn was skeptical, and Jezebel described Lapidos as a "manic pixie dream girl." Not knowing what to think, and expecting there was probably more to the story, I went to meet them at a South Brooklyn bar to see these adult preschoolers for myself.

The first one I ran into was Steven Chu, a diminutive man with a spiky fauxhawk who laughs into his hands like the Stefan character from "Weekend Update" and does a very funny impression of Tyra Banks as a reality show judge. He knew Miss Joni before becoming her pupil—to him, she's a friend and spiritual adviser, and he's taking the class as part of an endless path to better himself through weekly events.

It became immediately apparent that this wasn't a group of strangers. Although early press for Miss Joni's preschool made note of an application requirement, it seemed like no one really filled one out. Miss Joni does tons of similar projects, and I got the impression that she could get her fans to sign up for whatever pops into her imagination. Chu, for instance, met Lapidos at a self-empowerment workshop, followed her on Facebook, and started coming to events she hosted, like an early-evening dance party called the Get Down.

"Generally I'm interested in anything she does," Chu says.

Packaging and selling saccharine goodness runs in her family. Michelle's dad, Mark Lapidos, started the Beatles Fest to celebrate the tenth anniversary of the group's arrival in America and has been heading the business ever since. Besides a five-year stint at Sam Goody, it's been his only job. After graduating from the University of Delaware with a degree in fashion merchandising, Joni started looking for creative ways to make money too. She bounced around various fashion magazine internships, she says, before becoming an editor at Spa Week, where she would post videos in which she'd get a colonic or review various beauty treatments. (Her résumé also includes an appearance in Wet Hot American Summer when she was 16.)

In 2009, she started NYC Game Blog—a creative project in which she interviewed local celebrities about their favorite places in the city, and then document her going there. In 2012, she started another blog called Before and Afro, which consisted of her wearing a giant fake afro to understand the world better or something. Not surprisingly, people found this idea very offensive.

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Looking to bounce back from this controversy, she started the club that would eventually define her oeuvre. Her Skipping Club, which got written up in the New York Times last year, charged participants $20 for a curated, rhythmic romp around town. She's trying to turn her passions into a full-time job, just as her dad and his idols did.

"I'm a serial creator," Lapidos explains. "When the Beatles phenomenon happened, everything they did was original."

And just like her dad created an entire festival for Beatles devotees, Lapidos has assembled a series of events based around the idea that adults need to become more childlike, that there's something noble and maybe even spiritual about finger-painting or skipping or seeing the world with a sense of cynicism-free glee. She's proven to be very good at generating publicity for these schemes—and though they might sound bizarre on the surface, they always seem to attract some customers.

Customers like Amanda Devereux, a New York attorney originally from rural Western Pennsylvania. The 33-year-old looks like a slightly off-kilter Katy Perry with a little Monica Lewinsky mixed in. Devereux met Miss Joni at the Get Down and instantly gravitated toward her, for reasons she can't quite explain. "She was dressed like Michelle, and I thought she was so high," Devereux recalls. "And I was like, 'How is someone so high at 7 PM?' And I realized that was just her personality."

[body_image width='640' height='427' path='images/content-images/2015/03/23/' crop='images/content-images-crops/2015/03/23/' filename='adult-preschool-body-image-1427118764.jpg' id='38813']

Amanda Devereux dances in the superhero costume she made for the class.

The attorney told me she has never had more than two drinks at a time, but frequently takes two bags of Pepperidge Farm to the face. Her sugar addiction got so bad at one point that she had to start mixing up what store she went to out of embarrassment. "I started reading all these things about black-out drunks, and it totally made sense to me," said Devereux, who also self-identifies as "an early adopter of the selfie stick." Now that she's cut back to only eating baked goods "socially," she considers the class her main form of relaxation, and compares it to "going to the spa."

Besides Devereux, there's Sarah Fader, a woman who runs a nonprofit that raises awareness about panic disorder and who happens to be friends with Miss Joni's co-teacher, a woman who goes by "Miss CanCan." Then there's Hanna Agar, a portrait photographer who met Lapidos as a restaurant, instantly signed up for her skipping class, and has been an acolyte ever since. There's also a guy named Eco who has one long dread and wears a Barack Obama shirt over very thin paisley pants. When I asked if he was a roommate of Miss Joni's, he cryptically replied "something like that," but I assumed he didn't pay for the class in any case.

"I want everyone to work on coming up with a creative way to stand up as homework."


The week after the bar meeting, I went to Lapidos's apartment to get a better idea of what the preschool experience was like when the participants weren't in public. The first thing I noticed about Miss Joni's Playroom—the fantasy space that's down a spiral staircase in her apartment—is that her personal brand is everywhere. There's a framed photo of her logo, and the same trademark has been affixed to her cell phone case and printed onto stickers that she happily passes out at random. There's also Beatles ephemera everywhere, dim lighting, incense, and notes all over the walls that says things like, "People have forgotten how to trust themselves and play. Routine makes us disenchanted. Cured by freedom and innocence."

The ten preschoolers—along with Miss CanCan's actual child—sat cross-legged on a rubber alphabet mat in a circle. We were ready to begin.

"I want everybody to stand up," Miss Joni said. They stood up, then she told them to sit down again. "Now sit up," she commanded like a drill sergeant. "Now sit down."

Then she asked, "Does anyone like getting up and getting down again?" Miss CanCan's son shot his hand in the air. "See? Preschoolers don't mind getting up and down again because they're so full of energy," Miss Joni pointed out. "I want everyone to work on coming up with a creative way to stand up as homework."

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Her next instruction was for everyone to "shake their sillies out." Devereux shimmed in pigtails and a pink sweater while Chu, who was wearing a tye-dyed short-sleeved button-up, hula danced to the YouTube video projecting from a wall-mounted screen.

It was picture day, so Agar, the portrait photographer turned preschooler, let everyone take turns posing with his or her silliest face. Meanwhile everyone snacked on hummus, pastries, and chocolate milk. Devereaux, the pastry addict, distracted herself with a 96-pack of Crayola and a Minnie Mouse coloring book.

Then, when we went back downstairs, the class took a self-helpy turn. Chu read a passage to the class on how to make "commercial for yourself" – basically a short, self-affirming speech that's read in the third-person.

"Can I just say I would join a Steven Chu fan club?" said Sarah Fader, the nonprofit runner, who was wearing a Pusheen hoodie. The class took turns congratulating one another for being so positive.

At this point Miss CanCan's son—the only actual child in the room—got bored and started playing on an iPad.

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Steven Chu spent almost 15 minutes crafting the perfect selfie on Picture Day

Later, when I asked Chu what the class meant to him, he made it sound like a quasi-religious experience. It was just before nap time, and the class was getting ready to be read Oh, the Places You'll Go! by Dr. Seuss.

"I'm getting emotional and I don't know why," he told me. As he struggled to articulate his gratitude for Miss Joni, his eyes grew cloudy and red. "The more people laugh at what she's doing, she's like, 'I don't give a fuck what people think. It doesn't matter.'"

He paused for a moment. "There are so many times in adult life where people say you can't do something," he whispered, now fighting back full-blown tears. "To see someone going for it is really inspirational."

Follow Allie Conti on Twitter.

The Man Who Organized a Protest Outside Nigel Farage's Pub Is Getting Death Threats

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[body_image width='1200' height='800' path='images/content-images/2015/03/23/' crop='images/content-images-crops/2015/03/23/' filename='ukip-pubs-body-image-1427108280.jpg' id='38676']Photo by Mike Kear

This article originally appeared on VICE UK.

Last week wasn't the easiest for UKIP leader Nigel Farage. He spent the first few days of it defending himself, after letting slip he reckons we can do away with anti-racial discrimination laws. On Thursday, one of his party's brightest stars, Janice Atkinson, was suspended after the police started investigating her for fraud. If that wasn't bad enough, trolls have been taking the piss out of his new book in a load of sarcastic reviews on Amazon.

So, as many of us would after a difficult few days, Nige headed down to his local yesterday for a quiet Sunday afternoon pint, to forget about the stress and the elections, the over-packed diary and the immigrants, to unwind with his wife.

But a bunch of protesters had other ideas, interrupting his me-time with an aggressive multicultural conga that forced him to flee the pub in his car, leaving his drink (and apparently children) in the boozer. It's caused a bit of a stir; Nigel has called them all "scum," saying his kids were scared shitless, while the organizers of the protest say they are receiving death threats.

[body_image width='1200' height='800' path='images/content-images/2015/03/23/' crop='images/content-images-crops/2015/03/23/' filename='ukip-pubs-body-image-1427108356.jpg' id='38680']Protesters outside the George and Dragon pub in Downe, Kent. Photo by Mike Kear

This isn't the first time Farage has had bother in the pub; a gang of drinkers staged a small walkout after he rocked up to the Phoenix in Faversham earlier last week, while back in 2013 he was forced to barricade himself inside a pub in Scotland by a mob of protesters. Why is this becoming a common occurrence? Is it a dick-move to scare the Farage offspring? Do politicians deserve a day off, too? Or does Farage deserve all the flak? We talked to one of the organizers of yesterday's protest, Dan Glass, in order to find out.

VICE: Right, let's start at the beginning with this: Why did you all head down to Downe in Kent yesterday?
Dan Glass: We went down because that's where Nigel's local is, and for far too long he's been spreading prejudice and hate, targeting communities with sexism, racism, homophobia, HIV prejudice, Islamophobia, and a whole lot more. We'd had enough, so a group of us got together to make a celebration of diversity down at his local, to show him what it's all about, so he knows there's nothing to be scared of.

[body_image width='1200' height='800' path='images/content-images/2015/03/23/' crop='images/content-images-crops/2015/03/23/' filename='ukip-pubs-body-image-1427108450.jpg' id='38681']Photo by Mike Kear

You said a celebration of diversity— what does that entail, then?
We had a Muslim call to prayer, an HIV anti-stigma class, a talk from a Holocaust survivor, a jig from a Palestinian dance group, a bunch of Mexicans came along with a piñata, there were language classes, breast feeing mothers, an "It's Raining Men" gay dance group. You get the idea.

That's a pretty bizarre line-up.
Well, Nigel has said that breastfeeding mothers should sit in the corner facing a wall, like naughty kids thinking about what they've done wrong, so they all came along. When asked which kinds of people should be let in to the UK, Farage said: "People who do not have HIV, to be frank. That's a good start," while another Ukipper said people with HIV should be quarantined.

Gay rights groups joined us, since one of his chums is convinced that it's LGBT people who cause flooding. There was an immigrant traffic parade out the front, since Nigel seems to think they're to blame for traffic-jams on motorways. We even laid on some language classes because he's shit scared of people he can't understand having a chat on the train.

We wanted to show Farage, and anyone thinking of voting UKIP, that we're not people to be scared of. This was the point of our little day out.

[body_image width='776' height='487' path='images/content-images/2015/03/23/' crop='images/content-images-crops/2015/03/23/' filename='ukip-pubs-body-image-1427108619.png' id='38687']Photo by Frances Freeman

Do you think you achieved that?
Yeah, people were getting really involved. To be honest, I reckon even if local people hadn't participated it was a success, as we pulled together groups from all over who have to face the shit that bigotry induces, to celebrate our diversity.

It was so beautiful and heartwarming, I cried at one point. And I laughed. A holocaust survivor smashed up a piñata with "bigotry" pasted on the front while a gay donkey minced through the dining room.

[body_image width='1200' height='800' path='images/content-images/2015/03/23/' crop='images/content-images-crops/2015/03/23/' filename='ukip-pubs-body-image-1427108701.jpg' id='38688']Photo by Mike Kear

Do you really think that turning up at someone's local and making a scene is the way to convince people that UKIP aren't the answer? Didn't you just piss off the people who already thought Farage was on to something?
Not at all. We had loads of great conversations with people who were in the pub with us. People from the area got involved with the talks, participated in the classes, and were having a gay old time.

This was the point, we wanted to show what a world beyond UKIP looks like. He can spout hatred from his soapbox and tell people to be scared of people they don't know, of cultures they may not fully understand. It's easy to target people when they're not near you, painting a picture of someone to blame. We wanted to show that he's lying, and today we proved it.

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Were you really expecting Nigel to turn up to this? It doesn't really sound like his cup of tea...
No, it wasn't on our agenda as such. We weren't there for him, we were there to celebrate our diversity, meet the people at the pub, and if he turned up it was a bonus. If he happened to come along we were going to welcome him with open arms, show him what diversity is all about. The first thing we'd get him doing was the citizenship test led by a Bulgarian migrant group.

Unsurprisingly though, even though we'd been advertising pretty hard online, he was a no show, so we carried on with out him. But as the show was coming to a close, someone came in and told us that he'd turned up at the pub across the road. By that point it was the last act, a "We Are Family" conga line, that we were going to snake around the bar and gardens. But with Nigel so close, it felt rude not to go and say hello, so we decided to conga off to the pub opposite where he was having his pint.

When we got there he clearly wasn't up for joining in and scarpered off to his car.

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Photo by Levi Hinds

You say he "scarpered." Nigel has said his "children were so scared by your behavior that they ran away." Is it OK to scare his kids? They're kids.
Of course not. If his children were freaked out by us arriving then of course we're sorry. But we didn't see any kids, and I'm not convinced that they were even there. We didn't see them, he left in his car, but only with is wife. To be honest, I reckon it's calculated. He must have known we were next door, we'd been shouting about it on the internet, he came along anyway and is now trying to paint a bunch of mothers, dancers and disabled people as some kind of pitchfork-wielding angry mob.

If he was so concerned about the welfare of children, he had a pretty good way of hiding it as he charged through a line of breastfeeding mothers to get to his car.

We all came along as one big happy family, there was nothing to be afraid of.

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Photo by Frances Freeman

Aren't politicians entitled to a day off? It was a Sunday, after all...
When you stir up hatred, cause conflict and create tensions, you can't just take a day off from being held responsible.

Fair enough.
You have to remember, the prejudice and fear he is spreading has consequences. He's inflicting people with stigma and hatred. The groups that he blames for our society being so unfair have to live with the results of his actions every day. Immigrants, gay people, and Muslims don't just face prejudice 9 to 5, Monday to Friday. There's no weekend when it comes to discrimination, so it's only fair that Nigel deals with this on a Sunday, too.

Plus, most of us have to go to work today...

[body_image width='1200' height='797' path='images/content-images/2015/03/23/' crop='images/content-images-crops/2015/03/23/' filename='ukip-pubs-body-image-1427108870.jpg' id='38693']Photo by Levi Hinds

Farage has said he wants a taxpayer-funded police escort while he's on the campaign trail. Do you reckon what you've done just shows he needs it?
Of course not, it's a massive waste of the taxpayer's money. It doesn't take a genius to ask why people are angry. Let's look at the root cause. I can see why he reckons he needs one, as people are pissed. But, if he stopped being so fucking rude about people, then he wouldn't need one. If I went round calling everyone names and telling them they're the cause of all evil I reckon people would be pissed off too.

We don't need to defend him, with public money, we need to stand up to his bigotry. You don't need a bunch of cops to protect you from gays in hot pants, lactating mamas, and a Palestinian dance troupe.

(He reads a text aloud that he receives as we're talking, that calls him "scum," telling him he "needs to be taught a fucking lesson.") What was that?
Just another message. Nigel Farage has called us scum, and I've received about 20 death threats tonight already, I'm not too worried though, it's like water off a gay duck's back. All I'd say to these people threatening us is let's have a cup of tea, and have a chat... oh, and don't vote for UKIP.

Follow Mike on Twitter.



VICE Premiere: VICE Exclusive: Dance Your Face Off to Pale Blue's New Song, 'The Math'

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Remember that movie Drive? It was an hour and a half of Ryan Gosling standing silently in various lightings looking at various things, and ten minutes of Ryan Gosling murdering dudes with hammers. People loved it. Anyway, a guy named Mike Simonetti did two tracks from the Drive soundtrack, and now he's started recording killer dance tunes under the moniker Pale Blue.

Simonetti has gone a lot of places in his music career—he founded the Italian dream pop label Italians Do It Better and went by Troubleman Unlimited in the early 90s noise rock scene, but his latest project might be his most exciting yet. His debut LP is out April 14. The song is reminiscent of the Avalanches, and it meanders from sample to sample without losing traction. Give it a listen, then preorder the album here.

Sophie Calle Films People Seeing the Ocean for the First Time

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Voir la mer, 2011 digital film with color and sound, framed photograph. Edition of 3. Courtesy Galerie Perrotin, Paris/New York

I arrived at the Musee d'art Contemporain (MAC) in Montreal during blizzard conditions. The museum was closed to visitors, so after buzzing security, I entered through a discreet side door. Inside, the rooms were bustling with art handlers working on installing exhibitions. I dropped my suitcase and heavy coat in a press office. I had finally made it. I was ready (though admittedly nervous) to meet Sophie Calle, one of my all time favorite artists, a woman I have idolized for years.

Sophie Calle is perhaps France's most famous conceptual artist. I have always loved her use of images and text to convey personal narratives. Her work tends to be deeply autobiographical, pushing some critics to view her as self-involved, or as The New Yorker art critic Peter Schjeldahl put it, she "has used certain predilections of the art world... to advance/indulge/realize herself." Conversely, in cases where Calle's work is deeply invested in the lives of others, it is sometimes deemed invasive and exploitive. In any case, the work is always intimate, obsessive, jarring, and emotionally charged

[body_image width='1200' height='886' path='images/content-images/2015/03/18/' crop='images/content-images-crops/2015/03/18/' filename='sophie-calle-for-the-first-and-last-time-405-body-image-1426696175.jpg' id='37510']From Suite Vénitienne by Sophie Calle, published by Siglio, 2015. Images copyrighted and provided courtesy of the artist.

In 1978, when Calle was 25 years old, she returned to Paris after seven years of roaming across North and South America. She struggled to re-adapt to fashionable Parisian society, and after months of reclusiveness, decided to follow people in the streets—not because they particularly interested her, but for the pleasure of following them. "I just had to choose a person and follow him and that way my day would simply drift by," she said to Another Magazine. This makes Calle sound like a flaneur, but when she followed a man from Paris to Venice, armed with a blonde wig and a camera, she produced Suite Venitienne (1980), which was quickly noticed and celebrated by both French and international critics.

In her extensive career, Calle continues to incorporate moments of her life into her art, recreating them both beautifully and tragically. She recently filmed her mother minute-by-minute as she passed away (the piece is titled Rachel, Monique). Yet she also produces work where her sense of curiosity and fearlessness are aimed directly into the lives of others.

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© 2015 Sophie Calle / Artists Rights Society (ARS), New York / ADAGP, Paris. Courtesy of Sophie Calle and Paula Cooper Gallery, New York

For the First and Last Time is an exhibition combining two of Calle's recent projects. In 2010, she was sent to Istanbul to make work for the European Capital Culture. There Calle pursued an idea that had been lingering ever since she made Blind (1984), a project in which she interviewed two dozen people who were born blind and asked them to describe their image of beauty. For The Last Image (2010) she spoke to those who were not born blind, but had become blind, and asked them to describe the last image they ever saw. All of the responses have been edited down by Calle, creating a poignant, nostalgic tone.

[body_image width='1000' height='1333' path='images/content-images/2015/03/18/' crop='images/content-images-crops/2015/03/18/' filename='sophie-calle-for-the-first-and-last-time-405-body-image-1426696471.jpg' id='37514'] © 2015 Sophie Calle / Artists Rights Society (ARS), New York / ADAGP, Paris. Courtesy of Sophie Calle and Paula Cooper Gallery, New York

As Calle was making this project, she came across a newspaper article that described a group of Istanbul residents who came from central Turkey, and had never seen the sea. Istanbul is a city dominated by water, and most of them only lived about 15 miles away from it. This immediately caught Calle's attention, and she decided to find some of these people and film their reaction to seeing the sea for the first time. The result is a project titled Voir la mer (To See the Sea).

The exhibit displays 14 short films on large screens. As we stand behind the men and women, we join them in bearing witness to the sea for the first time, their shoulders and subtle movements display their touching emotion. Each participant is directed to watch the sea for as long as they desire, and then turn to the camera. Some are in tears, some in joy. "When an old man or woman has never seen the sea," Calle says, "there is an element of drama to this."

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Portrait of Sophie Calle by Sophie Butcher for VICE

As I watched these people gazing at the ocean, Calle suddenly walked right past me, wearing 50s-style dark butterfly glasses and a big coat. She had blown out, confident hair, and looked effortlessly French. She spoke to a technician about how things were going, and after I introduced myself, gave me a firm handshake and explained that there was still a lot of work left to do; they were replacing all of the video screens, hanging more frames, and finessing many details. She had been overseeing the installation of the show for three days, evidence of the meticulous attention she pays to the presentation of her work.

Calle has a history of being difficult to interview, sometimes refusing to answer questions she finds irrelevant, too general, or boring. In 2009 she wrote, "I should have been a secret agent: if I were secret enough no one would ask me what music I listen to, what books I read, or what art is for. I don't like to answer questions." I had prepared for the worst, but was pleasantly surprised by her attentiveness to our conversation.

[body_image width='1000' height='684' path='images/content-images/2015/03/18/' crop='images/content-images-crops/2015/03/18/' filename='sophie-calle-for-the-first-and-last-time-405-body-image-1426700715.jpg' id='37540']Voir la mer, 2011. © Sophie Calle / Adagp, Paris, 2014 Courtesy Galerie Perrotin, Paula Cooper Gallery

VICE: The last thing your mother Monique wanted to do before she died was to see the sea.
Yes, and we went.

Does that have anything to do with showing people the sea for the first time?
No, nothing. She wanted to see New York, and the sea. We couldn't go to New York but we went to the sea.

[body_image width='1000' height='667' path='images/content-images/2015/03/18/' crop='images/content-images-crops/2015/03/18/' filename='sophie-calle-for-the-first-and-last-time-405-body-image-1426700840.jpg' id='37542'] Voir la mer, 2011. © 2015 Sophie Calle / Artists Rights Society (ARS), New York / ADAGP, Paris. Courtesy of Sophie Calle and Paula Cooper Gallery, New York

Did you have any expectations? What if the Turks in your project didn't react to the sea?
Well, you know, I wasn't sure it would work. I believed in it but I wasn't sure. It's the first time I don't use words—because of my experience with Turkish, there isn't a direct relation, things get lost in translation. I was pretty sure that the emotion was stronger than words, what can you say about the sea? The sea is amazing? The sea is more than what I expected? Its immensity? I was afraid the comment would be banal compared to what the eyes express.

You focus on details, moments in life—I read there was a project you didn't end up doing, it was to ask couples where they met, and then go to the location—at the same time of the year, and day, and wait.
I only did it once. Maybe I'll do it one day. I thought it would be a good idea but I didn't do it.

What keeps you motivated to work on projects?
The wall, making art, books, doing things... it's my way of being alive. It's also my job. I like the life it gives me. To travel. All this keeps me motivated. Pleasure, emotion, money.

When you were younger, I heard you didn't want to be an artist.
It's not that I didn't want to be an artist, I didn't think of it.

But now...
But now I'm 62 and it's the complete opposite, I can't think of not being an artist. Now when I walk in the street, I think how can I use it? I hear a phrase, I register it, and think how can this be an idea? I'm aware in situations, I think of how I can use or transform it. Yesterday, I spent 12 hours in the hospital of Montreal. I have a little health problem. In those 12 hours there were two to three hours where I was afraid, two to three where I was bored, because it was very long, and two to three where I thought, what can I do with this? As life happens a project is always a possibility. But when I go eat with a friend, I'm not thinking what's the possibility of this becoming a project? When I'm at a nightclub, I'm not watching, thinking who can I photograph? But phrases, an article in the newspaper—not my love life, not my friend's life—but an event has potential. There are many things in life that I don't use, there are three men I have used for projects No Sex Last Night, Take Care of Yourself, and another—I hadn't planned to make those projects. For example, it was the way my friend talked about the letter in Take Care of Yourself that suddenly put me on the track. And sometimes, I'm invited to Istanbul and I have to find an idea—a project sometimes just appears in a miraculous way.

Will you ever come back to live in New York?
I fell a little in love with Paris. New York was much more lively, it was good at my age to move out, not be protected. But now I'm a little more lazy, I like to speak in French, write in French, I get tired when I just speak English. Maybe it's a sad reason, but my age is one. I like my house in Paris, and the language is a big part of it. For me, I understand the tonality in French, the pronunciation, but in English I don't have that rapidity. I don't get the accent and the subtleties and language is part of my pleasure. That's the problem about living abroad.

About New York, to say that "it was better before " is a little "vieux con"—how do you say that?—"old asshole." I hate when people say this. But at the same time, I think New York was better before. Maybe because I'm too old to get it now, I don't know, but I think it was better.

Do you ever find showing work in galleries limiting?
Every time I make a project, I make a book to make the project more accessible. It's an easy solution, it's a different pleasure than the wall. The book is more natural, the wall is more complex, more thinking is involved. In a way, I do the books very easily. I love fabricating books, the wall is more of a fight. They are two very different pleasures.

Interior spaces can serve as a reflection of personality. You have many taxidermy animals at home, right?
I have a lot of stuffed animals in my house, more than a hundred. I don't feel morbid at all. On the contrary I feel lively, but I collect a lot of objects linked to death—images of graveyards, stuffed animals... it's an attraction, I'm not Catholic, but I like to pass by the church.

Sophie then showed me a photo of a giraffe taxidermy, with a black and white image of her younger self holding a toy giraffe. "This is me, and this is Monique, named after my mother," she said.

[body_image width='1000' height='1500' path='images/content-images/2015/03/18/' crop='images/content-images-crops/2015/03/18/' filename='sophie-calle-for-the-first-and-last-time-405-body-image-1426704922.jpg' id='37553']The Giraffe, from Sophie Calle's series Les Autobiographies, 2012

The absence of a mother, the absence of life, the absence of sight, the absence of love. No matter how old she is, Sophie Calle is relentlessly questioning it all and—whether through the pages of a book or the walls of a gallery—placing it in front of us thoughtfully, and beautifully.



For the First and Last Time will be on view until May 10, 2015 at the Musee d'art Contemporain in Montreal.

Thank you to MAC, Paula Cooper Gallery, Actes Sud and Siglio Press. Sophie Calle's books Voir la Mer and Blind can be purchased here.

Follow Sophie Butcher on Twitter.


Good Will Butler Hunting: One Blind Man's Quest to Find a Member of Arcade Fire with the Same Name

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Good Will Butler Hunting: One Blind Man's Quest to Find a Member of Arcade Fire with the Same Name

English Nazis Held a 'White Man March' Over the Weekend

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This article originally appeared on VICE UK.

On Saturday, a bunch of fascists from Britain and beyond gathered on Newcastle's Quayside to hold a " White Man March"—a demonstration of White Pride and Jew-hating organized by the neo-Nazi group National Action. The event saw some racist speeches being made, some flags being burned, and some fascists getting arrested.

As is usual with these sorts of things, the Nazis were met by an equal number of anti-fascists who'd turned up to counter their demonstration. As the anti-fascist group gathered around their banner, which read, "Smash the White Man March," bemused passersby strolled past on their way to the shops or the Newcastle United match happening up the road. I asked a passing guy where the march was, and he said, "No idea, I'm just here to watch football. Please don't trash our car."

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It didn't take long before a group of five Nazis strolled past the anti-fascists, scouting out their opposition. There was an uneasy stand off, with neither side seeming too keen to confront the other, possibly because there were a fair few cops about—I spotted at least 12 riot vans close by.

About half an hour later, more Nazis began to arrive for the march, which was in fact a static demonstration. In case the name of the demo didn't make it clear, the event was really, really openly racist, in a way not seen in this country for a very long time—it was the most extreme Nazi demo seen in Britain in years.

Many of them were carrying flags with slogans like "White Pride" and "We must secure the existence of our people and a future for White children"—the "14 words," a slogan used by Nazis and derived from Hitler's Mein Kampf.

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Approximately 100 of them finally gathered 300 feet away from the anti-fascist group—the two sides separated by four police lines.

The fascist rally was a hotchpotch of people from different British Nazi groups—National Action, the National Front, The British Voice, and the British Movement, among others.

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Also present were members of the Polish nationalist party "Narodowe Odrodzenie Polski (NOP)" (National Rebirth of Poland). NOP is a fascist and homophobic party that is notorious for using campaign slogans such as "Fascism? We are worse" and "Faggotry Forbidden." It seems weird that some Polish nationalists would be hanging out with the devotees of a man who killed millions of their countrymen, but I guess logical consistency has never been a fascist strong point.

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The Nazi crowd chanted "Sieg Heil!" "White power!" and other racist slogans, while the anti-fascists shouted "Alerta, alerta, antifascista!" and one woman shouted, "you're the bad ones, you're the naughty boys." Some aggressive shouting was as confrontational as it got at the scene of the march, with the police keeping the groups separate. However, rumors doing the rounds on social media suggest that some Nazis got beaten up outside a pub away from the main event.

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The Nazis made a few speeches, covering all kinds of racist ideology and conspiracy theories. Speakers were applauded for explaining why the "White man" was the "supreme race," or how Muslims were "pimping out our daughters" and asking, "If Muslims are peaceful, how come IS means Islamic State?"

The event reached its nadir when one of the speakers started talking about how paper money was the root of all evil, quickly heading into anti-Semitic conspiracy theory when he said the world was run by Jewish bankers. Someone pulled out an Israeli flag and lit it on fire while the speaker was shouting, "Yes, burn Satan!" The group then proceeded to burn a rainbow and a Che Guevara flag and then stomped the burning pieces on the ground. Another Israel flag was torn to shreds.

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This proved to be a bad idea. The march ended with nine arrests, with all the flag burning and racist speeches being seen as incitement to racial hatred. The remaining fascists disappeared as quickly as they had arrived and the Quayside was back to normal. A couple smoking outside a bar a few feet away told me that they hadn't even noticed what had been going on.

The arrests and rumored beatings taken by fascists haven't stopped National Action chalking up the event as a historic victory. The anti-fascists, too, are claiming they won, with both sides insisting that the other side is secretly embarrassed. I guess it's hard to gauge the embarrassment threshold of a bunch of guys who spend their time talking about how much they love Hitler. Newcastle had seen the biggest openly Nazi demonstration in the UK for some time. On the one hand, that's quite concerning, but then again, the biggest Nazi march for ages wasn't really that big.

More photos below:

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The Harper Government Has a Difficult Case to Make for Legally Bombing Syria

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Azaz, Syria. Photo via Flickr user Christiaan Triebert

The Harper government will announce this week that it intends on extending the bombing campaign against the Islamic State. But the big question isn't how long the prime minister plans to extend the mission, but where he's willing to take it.

Speculation has been following the mission for months as to whether or not the prime minister intends on sending Canada's CF-18 fighter jets to take out Islamic State positions in Syria. Harper stoked speculation last week when he told a room full of media that "the current authorization laid open the possibility of going to Syria, although we have not done that. But we'll address issues like that next week when I make a proposal to the House of Commons."

He had previously said that Canada would be open to bombing parts of Syria, "only as long as those are not interpreted as war against the government of Syria."

Problem is: that's virtually impossible.

If Ottawa announces that it's going to start dropping bombs across the border, it will join a very small contingent of nations in doing so. Right now, only America, Saudi Arabia, Jordan, Qatar, Bahrain, the UAE, and Morocco have launched strikes in Syria.

That would make Canada only the second NATO nation to join the Syrian side of the mission.

There are two main reasons why that's the case: One, it's really hard for a Western nation to legally justify airstrikes on a country against whom you've not declared war and who did not ask you to do so; and two, everyone's afraid that bombing Syria is only going to lead to more chaos.

The former problem leaves Canada with the option of either getting really creative with the law or ignoring it outright, while the latter is a fear that has informed the prime minister's trepidation about Syria for the past four years.

SNC, yeah you know me
While Ottawa has supplied defensive equipment, humanitarian aid and even media training to opposition Syria groups, it has always resisted the temptation to send arms or military aid to the ragtag militias, out of a pretty reasonable fear that they could end up in the wrong hands.

That's partially because Canada doesn't trust its would-be partners in Syria.

While other countries have recognized the Syrian National Council (SNC)—the de facto voice of moderate anti-Assad organizations and, nominally, the political wing of the Free Syrian Army—as the legitimate opposition group to the Syrian Government, Canada has not.

As a policy, Canada doesn't recognize governments—it recognizes states, and it recognizes opposition groups as being 'legitimate.'

Libya's opposition council, for example, got the endorsement from Canada a few months after the Air Force's CF-18s began dropping bombs on Qaddafi's forces (with a UN mandate). That council later transitioned into governing Libya, which hasn't gone all that well.

Canada hasn't even gone so far as to recognize the SNC as the legitimate voice of Syria's disparate opposition groups and, so far, it appears unwilling to reconsider. According to scores of briefing notes obtained from the Department of Foreign Affairs, the government has feared that the SNC has insufficient representation from minority groups, that it is hasn't done enough to denounce radical elements in the anti-Assad coalition, and that it lacks the backing of most of the Syrian population.

Just the same, Canada continued to meet with the SNC. But it flatly rejected getting involved in their fight against Assad.

Lines developed for then-Minister of Foreign Affairs John Baird in 2012 expressly rejected the idea of intervening in Syria on behalf of the opposition groups to either oust Assad or, at least, to reduce his military capabilities.

"Syria is not Libya," the briefing document reads under a header reading: "RESPONSIVE ONLY—INTERVENTION." The language appears in dozens of briefing notes for the minister's meetings with NATO, Arab League, and United Nations counterparts. The documents were obtained via the access to information regime.

"There is no Security Council mandate for international military intervention. The Arab League has not called for intervention nor has the Syrian opposition."

In another briefing note, Baird's responsive lines included: "military option not viable, would likely worsen situation."

He was probably right then, and chances are he'd be even more right saying that now. Less-crazy rebel forces are getting squeezed, especially around Aleppo, by government forces (who have been dropping barrel bombs full of chlorine), the al Nusra Front (who've forged an unholy alliance with the Islamic State), and the Islamic State themselves.

Bombing Islamic State fighters could just make the situation worse.

However, the Americans have focused most of their bombing on Northern Syria, near Islamic State strongholds like Raqqa and around Kurdish-held towns under assault by the Salafist fighters, like Kobani. Most of the fighting between Assad's forces, al Nusra and the main opposition groups are around Aleppo and in the South. So if Canada does get involved, it would likely target a very narrow stretch of territory. At present, it's entirely clear which side of the bloody Syrian civil war would benefit from increased pressure on the Islamic State in Syria.

Going into Syria also raises fears that forces in Syria—either Assad's or the Islamic State's—have the power to shoot Western jets out of the sky. In December, a Jordanian F-16 went down near Raqqa, with the Islamic State claiming they shot it down (the Americans said the evidence suggested otherwise). Whether the plane was shot down, by the Islamic State or whoever else, or whether it was an accidental crash, the captured pilot ended up becoming a part of one of the group's more extreme propaganda efforts. Canadian Air Force personnel have, however, maintained that the CF-18s are generally immune to what they would face in the region, given they've got ample equipment to evade anti-aircraft weaponry.

Mandate, schmandate
Baird was right to note that Syria is not Libya because, thus far, neither the United Nations nor NATO has endorsed formal action in Syria.

Last year, President Barack Obama tried to lead a coalition to bomb Syria. His plan was to send cruise missiles and drones (neither of which Canada has) into Syria to take out military targets. That backfired when the United Kingdom suddenly backed out after a humiliating defeat in a Parliamentary vote on the mission.

Obama's legal justification in the run-up to that mission hinged on the idea Assad had violated treaties on chemical weapons, and thus actions designed to stop him were legally justified.

This time around, Washington invoked protection for Iraq in its reasoning for raining hell on the Islamic State. Basically, Obama said that Assad wasn't doing enough to reduce the threat to Iraq, and therefore America had to do it alone.

Obama also cited the threat from the still-not-really-understood Khorasan Group, saying that America had to act because the group was planning attacks on US soil.

All that legal wrangling has been panned as pretty much meaningless, given that America essentially just bombs whatever it wants.

Canada has never really had that luxury.

So if it actually wants to go bomb Syria, things will significantly more complicated. Syria is, after all, still a member of the United Nations.

Canada has not declared war on Syria, and it almost certainly will not, so right there is one option out the door. It will also be quite a stretch to suggest that bombing Syria will somehow reduce a direct threat to Canadian citizens, which would offer some legal cover.

So what is a prime minister to do?

Legal creativity
Canada may be leafing back through old UN Security Council resolutions, hoping one provides legal cover to bomb Syria.

There is one resolution that encourages UN states to aid civilian populations threatened by the Islamic State, but it, by design, stops short of authorizing force.

Harper could swallow his pride and ask Assad for permission to bomb the Islamic State on territory that Assad still legally controls. That option has already been vocally chided by the opposition NDP.

Alternatively, Harper could do what he's always resisted and recognize the SNC as Syria's government, and ask for their permission. However, the SNC is even more marginalized than it was two years ago, and the Free Syrian Army is virtually non-existent, thanks to increasing prominence of other islamist fighting forces.

It could also follow America's example and argue that it is defending Iraq by bombing Syria, but that sort of stretch is usually only reserved for American jingoism.

A variation on this theme could be to recognize Syrian Kurdistan as independent and cite the bombing campaign as necessary to their defence. Problem is, Ottawa has already flat-out declined to recognize Kurdish independence, as doing so would make Ankara irate.

Ottawa could also try and cite the Responsibility to Protect doctrine, which sort of gave NATO cover in its bombing campaign of Yugoslavia, even though it wasn't sanctioned by the United Nations. But if it's only America, Canada, and a smattering of Middle Eastern states, Harper loses the ability to call the Syrian mission multilateral.

When the question came up last year, University of PEI political science professor Peter McKenna penned an op-ed basically acknowledging that Canada really has no legal justification for the mission and that, by expanding to Syria, it's creating an off-putting precedent.

"It would hardly serve Canada's standing in the world to be seen by others as willfully violating international legal precepts," he wrote.

The likely outcome of the Prime Minister's announcement this week is that Ottawa will inch closer to bombing Syria, depending on cover from NATO or the United Nations, but that authorization will be kicked down the line some ways.

Justice Minister Peter MacKay was asked by CBC on Friday what sort of legal study had been done on expanding the mission to Syria.

"We will have to build a legal case, and that will occur through the Parliamentary process. In respect to that, I'm not going to say what's in the motion," MacKay said. He acknowledged the fear that bombing the Islamic State in Syria could aid Assad's campaign against his enemies, but added that anything Canada does would keep that in mind.

In what may may be a tip of his hand, when asked about why Canada has to be the one to head into Syria, MacKay said the Islamic State "is a direct threat to our country," adding: "they have made very real threats and have participated in threats that have harmed Canadian citizens."

Given the fact that the Islamic State now appears to pose a larger threat to states like Libya, the Sinai Peninsula, Yemen, and Nigeria, Syria might be farther down the ladder than some other countries on Canada's to-bomb list.

Follow Justin Ling on Twitter.

If You Have to Join a Cult, Make it Canada's Shifty Bits

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If You Have to Join a Cult, Make it Canada's Shifty Bits

Meet the Hairdresser Who Claims Scientology Is Trying to Ruin Her Business

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Photos by Jamie Lee Curtis Taete

The Church of Scientology's West Coast base of operations on Temple Avenue and L. Ron Hubbard Way in East Hollywood is LA's answer to the Sistine Chapel. The church bought the world famous Cedars of Lebanon Hospital, painted it sky blue, and mounted a giant Vegas-style sign reading "SCIENTOLOGY" on it. Viewed from the 101 freeway the logo etches itself into the landscape of Hollywood, making sure passing motorists know who is in charge here.

Just 350 feet from "Big Blue," Lynn Campbell operates a hair salon called Shear Perfection. The shop is a stone's throw from daily goings on at the church campus, prime real estate for attracting any of the devout who are looking shaggy. But according to Campbell, Scientologists get their hair cut elsewhere. The Guy Fawkes mask hanging in her shop window, and the sign that directs Scientologists to a number they can call to "blow," (leave the church) serve as giveaways that devout Scientologists aren't the clientele she expects.

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It turns out she's not just some barber who trolls Scientology for fun. Campbell was heavily involved in the church for decades. Marty Rathbun, who was once Scientology's second-in-command, said he remembered her when I spoke to him. In contrast to Scientology's larger than life characters, she stood out for her introversion. "I just remember her being quiet and nice," Rathbun told me.

Last week, Campbell cut my hair and told me about what it's like to run a business as an ex-Scientologist in Scientology's front yard. According to the prominent Scientology-watchers I spoke to, the story she told me was once common. I also reached out to the Church of Scientology to get their side of Campbell's story, but they declined to comment, saying they're "a global religion that does not get involved in the business of hair salons."

For about nine months, Campbell says, she was even a member of Sea Org, an elite group of Scientologists famous for signing "Billion-Year Contracts" and working long workweeks, normally for $50 a week. She only lasted eight or nine months, she said, before the workload was too much. "Anybody who asks to leave is by definition insane," and subject, she says, to a grueling ersatz mental health treatment called The Introspection Rundown before they can leave. Campbell claimed she was locked in isolation for four months.

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When L. Ron Hubbard died in 1986 his duties were transferred to the church's current leader, David Miscavige. On Miscavige's watch, the church began to change, beginning with a reform in the mid 1990s called "The Golden Age of Tech."

"All the rules changed in the mid 90s," Marty Rathbun told me. "For people who had been auditing for decades, it was a colossal mindfuck. They probably lost 50 percent of the people who performed audits." Auditing is a Scientology ritual not unlike confession in Catholicism in both form and importance. It involves bombarding the subject with questions while the person is hooked up to a purpose-built device called an e-meter. During the Golden Age of Tech, high-ranking auditors like Campbell had to be re-trained. In the view of many, the new system contradicted much of what worked about the old system, which led to widespread frustration.

One of the victims of this colossal mindfuck was Campbell, but her departure took almost a decade. Rather than study the new auditing curriculum, she shifted to a lower profile within the church, focusing instead on cutting hair. "I had been just working in my salon, and I had sort of a connection to real life. Then I went back over there to try and do my Golden Age and it didn't make any sense to me."

She told her new auditor, "I don't think the Golden Age of Tech is necessary because I think I got it right the first time." She said that arriving at personal truths that made her feel good was what she loved about Scientology, so she still felt like voicing her belief was the right move, not some unforgivable heresy.

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The trees on Fountain Avenue have eyes

When I talked to Scientology expert Tony Ortega he described "Things That Shouldn't Be" reports as a common way to find yourself in trouble with the church. "You list 'out points.' At the end you write 'This is true,' and sign your name. And then after they see it, a lot of the time they turn around and punish you." Discipline in the Church of Scientology comes from one of the church's officials trained in Scientology's "System of Ethics." Their ethics are more like rules of conduct. As Hubbard himself wrote, "Dishonest conduct is non-survival. Anything is unreasonable or evil which brings about the destruction of individuals, groups, or inhibits the future of the race."

But no discipline was forthcoming, she told me. Instead, she found herself in a waiting room outside the ethics offices in the basement of one of the buildings on Fountain Avenue. "They let me sit there for hours and hours and hours before anybody came to talk to me." The new figures in positions of power, she said, were "young kids" who were "supposedly trained as ethics professors." When someone finally came to help her, she told me, "they didn't know exactly what to say."

Campbell says that after multiple sessions like this, she got fed up. She was sitting less than two blocks from her business, where she could have been cutting hair.

"I just got up and went to the receptionist and asked her, 'Do you know where my shop is?' And she said 'Oh yes, I know who you are. I know where your shop is.' And I said, 'When someone comes to handle me, that's where I'll be,'" she said. To her surprise, that turned out to be her last act as a Scientologist. "I went to my shop and waited and nobody ever called and nobody ever came. So that's the last time I've ever been there."

There was never a big, dramatic renunciation of the faith. But after years in isolation from her religion, she eventually ceased believing in any of it, she says.

Business got a little hard, as word evidently spread that Campbell had walked out of ethics. Ortega told me a slowdown in business is not uncommon for those who leave the church. "The church gives a 'Disconnection Order,' and you lose your entire clientele," he told me. (VICE cannot confirm that Campbell was the victim of a Disconnection Order.)

"The Sea Org members stopped coming first, then the staff stopped coming, and then the public stopped coming. I've had to build it up from other sources, which has been kinda hard. But it's doable," Campbell said.

Rathbun told me he wouldn't be surprised if "the moment she started doing well, Scientology got all over her tits." When Rathbun left the church and was able to make money by counseling other defectors, he was subject to brazen harassment and surveillance by Scientologists—actions that the church has insisted were carried out by individuals acting of their own volition. This was well-documented in the documentary Scientologists at War.

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Then there was what Campbell describes as a puzzling series of burglaries. In the first one, she said someone simply left "the front door unlocked, and the backdoor ajar." Nothing was damaged or stolen, but she was still shaken up. "It had a tremendous effect on me then, because I hadn't decompressed to the point where I wasn't afraid anymore." She felt strange calling the police because she said, "I thought that they would think I was nuts."

But the police were friendly. "They didn't want me to feel odd about talking to them about it, so I've called them for very trivial things," she told me. "I had no evidence, since nothing was missing and nothing was damaged. They wanted to file a report, but they couldn't do anything except say that it was criminal trespass. So they filed a report on that."

In another case someone entered her shop during business hours and snatched one of the signs she keeps in her windows. At the time of the sign-jacking, members of the nebulous hacker and troll collective Anonymous were periodically staging protests in front of the nearby blue building during the Project Chanology round of protests.

Campbell had been involved in the protest movement because she just couldn't help it, she says. "I remember the first day of the protests, they were happening all around the world and I was online and I saw it start in Australia. I said 'Oh my God, look at all those people!' I just can't describe how that made me feel," she said. Still, "picketing probably drew their attention to her," Ortega told me. "That's probably how she got on their radar."

The days of Anonymous vs. Scientology have shaped the present for Campbell. Today, her website still offers V for Vendetta-branded Guy Fawkes masks to protesters. Smaller signs in her windows are a little on the troll-ish side. One says "Since Scientology orgs don't have toilet paper in their bathrooms, we offer Sea Org members a free roll of toilet paper with haircut." Another sign directs bystanders to some of the more prominent Scientology-tracking sites, like Tony Ortega's.

Since adding the signs, she says there's been an uptick in little pranks and interruptions to her flow of business. Non-customers have taken up all her parking. People have filled her books with haircut appointments and then never showed up. People have come in to ask for products that weren't on display, then run off. Bart Simpson stuff, basically.

But, she told me, there might be a way to track down some evidence, or at least an explanation for this. "They probably have declared me a suppressive person," she said, referring to an official church term (" SP") for a person who endangers members by being "suppressive." According to the Scientology website "To be declared a Suppressive Person is extremely rare and results in expulsion from the Scientology religion."

"As far as I know," Campbell said, "I am an SP and I'm dead filed. Dead filed means that any communication coming in from me gets sent to a special place. Nobody ever answers it and nobody is supposed to be influenced by anything that I say."

According to Ortega this was standard procedure in many instances he'd seen. "Some people never really know they're SPs, and just have to assume they've been declared. Some people go years without knowing, and then find out. Some people are told when they're declared right then and there." These SP's receive a piece of paper, he said. "They call it a goldenrod because of the color. It lists your crimes."

Campbell said she wanted to walk over to ethics and just ask once and for all if she'd been declared an SP or not. That wouldn't give her any hard evidence that Scientology had been tampering with her shop, but it would, she felt, make things clearer for her.

In a famous 1967 letter, L. Ron Hubbard wrote that "a truly suppressive person or organization has no rights at all," and that they can rightly be "tricked, lied to, or destroyed." A few years later, campaigns allegedly began against an SP journalist named Paulette Cooper, including the forging of a bomb threat written in her name by malicious Scientologists. Documents were uncovered revealing that the intention behind Operation Freakout, as one of the plots was known, was to get Cooper committed to a mental institution. According to The Hollywood Reporter, when it was decided that Nicole Kidman was an SP, Miscavige plotted successfully to remove her from Tom Cruise's life.

"When I go over there, all I have to do is appear on the block and the security guards on bikes come over and ask me what I'm doing there," she said. It sounded absurd, and then I saw it. As we approached the building, a guy in a gray polo shirt who looked like he was about 20 years old got off his bike and walked alongside us. He wasn't shy at all.

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The door was unlocked. We walked into the spotless interior and found a receptionist. "I love what you've done with the place!" Campbell told her. She pointed us toward the elevator that would lead us to ethics. With the polo shirt guy in tow, we started around the corner past a display of books that just might have been a gift shop.

Suddenly, the polo shirt guy sprang into action. "Lynn," he said, without having asked her name. "I need you to leave right now." His voice was pleasant, but he was blocking her path. Walking up to reception was fine, but heading downstairs was out of the question apparently.

"If I don't go down to ethics," Campbell said, "how do I find out if I'm an SP?" she said, also smiling, but looking much more relaxed than the kid blocking her.

He cocked his head when he spoke, gently urging her to email someone her concerns. He gestured to the front door with an open hand, like a restaurant maître d. Campbell stood her ground for a moment, and then said she'd try the library. "They'll have my file." And with that, she walked out.

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In an odd piece of security strategy, the polo shirt guy, whose name turned out to be Alex, quietly followed Campbell to the library, which was just around the corner. Apparently he was powerless as long as she was on the sidewalk. But he sprang into action again when Campbell hit the stairs. "Lynn, this is private property and you need to leave," he gently reiterated.

A bearded head popped out of the library door. The head belonged to an older security guy who spoke with much more authority than Alex. "Lynn, you know you're not supposed to be here," he said. She approached him and quietly tried to persuade them to let her in for a minute or so. She finally relented when they threatened to call the cops, which the bearded guy said was "not how I'd like this to play out."

Her quest to find out if she was an SP had come to an abrupt end. But maybe the question answers itself. After all, when a person is an SP "that person loses both his or her fellowship with the Church as well as with other Scientologists," according to the Scientology site. That second part is odd. I can't imagine Catholicism taking pains to ensure that the excommunicated never interact with any other Catholics again. The way they treated Campbell strikes me as just what you'd have to do to make sure an SP couldn't interact with anyone in the church.

Since Campbell is worried about people getting in and messing with her shop she keeps the front door locked, even during business hours. Customers can get in; they just have to make an appointment first. In my case it was worth the effort, because Shear Perfection happened to have my favorite tea tree oil conditioner, and she got my neckline straighter than any barber I've ever been to.

Follow Mike Pearl on Twitter.

Note: In a previous version, alleged plots against Paulette Cooper were referred to as one: "Operation Freakout." There were actually multiple alleged plots, and only one had that code name.

Watch Action Bronson's Video for 'Baby Blue,' Featuring Chance the Rapper

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Watch Action Bronson's Video for 'Baby Blue,' Featuring Chance the Rapper

A Jägermeister History Lesson in Germany

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A Jägermeister History Lesson in Germany
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