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Tallywackers Is Like Hooters, but with Dicks

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In Texas, the "breastaurant" is as mainstream and commonplace as the sports bar. Restaurant chains like Hooters, Twin Peaks, and Redneck Heaven can be found in almost every urban, suburban, or rural area of the Lone Star State, drawing a predominately male demographic. It's a cheap and obvious formula. Come for the hot, young female staff who will pour your domestic pitchers and serve your chicken wings with batted eyelashes in skimpy little outfits, stay for the relentless barrage of HD sports channels over every usable inch of wall space, the patriarchal atmosphere, and, I don't know, 'merica?

Like most Dallas women I know, I've been dragged into a titties n' chicken joint at least once or twice. But when those places come to mind, I always think of the summer I spent working in a local photo lab when I was 19. Every two weeks or so, this weird old dude would drop off four to six rolls of film he'd shot of Hooters waitresses who wore the unique expressions of women just trying to do their jobs despite the voyeuristic and uninvited gaze of a stranger's lens. Every time he came into the lab, I would picture him sitting alone, hovering over various baskets of fried foodstuffs, snapping and creeping away at those poor girls. I always left his order for someone else to develop.

While breastaurants thrive on the patronage of the straight male gaze, it's also not uncommon to see tables of teenage boys and girls, young families, and the happy hour crowd in these places. What is generally uncommon, however, is to see tables of women and gay men, a high-spending demographic in the bar, nightclub, and restaurant industries. Tallywackers takes the breastaurant concept and turns it on its head, with a beefcake all-male staff who come to work in (you guessed it) skimpy little outfits.

Photo by Andrea Harman.

Rodney Duke of Dallas, Texas recognized this void in the market nearly 20 years ago, and finally opened the doors of Tallywackers this month. Over the phone, Duke told VICE, "I wanted to wait for the right timing, the right location, everything to be in the right place." He says he used money from an inheritance to open the first restaurant and is already looking into opening more locations. "Everything's going great for us," he says.

When my three friends and I pulled up to the red-roofed entrance, we didn't expect an hour-long wait on a Tuesday night, but as manager Joshua Peters told us, "We've been crazy busy since we opened, everybody is so sleep-deprived." In the bar and dining room, parties of either all men or all women took in the Tallywackers experience. (Our party was only one of two mixed groups that I saw.)


Watch our documentary on Japanese erotica for women:


If the staff was running on fumes, it was hard to tell. As we started with drinks at the bar, we watched them move about the floor in tiny grey shorts that fell around the same leg region that women's volleyball spandex usually does. Some of them were jacked and muscular, some of them toned and lean, but they were all smiling, laughing, joking, and doting on their guests. The eye candy factor was definitely there, but it wasn't an overtly sexual atmosphere. It was more playful and cheeky than sleazy.

Photo by Andrea Harman.

The Tallywackers uniform includes a red tank-top for the servers and hosts. Anyone who handles food, Peters tells me, must cover up any chest hair while doing so. But before breaking into "Happy Birthday" for tables full of beaming women of all ages, which happened about six to eight times in the two hours we spent there, the staff always take their shirts off to a chorus or squeals, claps, and woos.

"We have a great cross section of people coming out," said Peters, "lots of gay guys since we're so close to the [Cedar Springs] strip, but we've had a lot of women, too."

The Cedar Springs strip sits at the heart of Dallas's "gayborhood," a local hub for LGBT nightlife. Peters implied that working for Tallywackers comes with a certain amount of status for neighborhood dwellers, adding, "It's like we've got 19 mini-celebrities running around in there," as he motioned toward the dining room.

Photo by Andrea Harman.

It's easy to see how Tallywackers is winning its target demographic over. The bar area is large and open, with a backdrop of stacked flat screens playing music videos from the likes of Taylor Swift, Janelle Monae, and Britney Spears. The patio lounge in the back is a sparse but comfortable waiting area. The lush dining room is decked out in red tablecloths, tan upholstery, a small stage for weekly drag shows, and black walls adorned with tacky but sassy paintings of chic women and martini glasses.

On VICE Sports: What's the Deal with Gay Hooters? An Investigation.

Unlike Hooters, there's not a chicken wing in sight at Tallywackers. There's definitely a missed cheekiness opportunity in that there's only two hot dogs on the menu, but my 12oz ribeye more than made up for it. The flatbread, chicken sandwich, burger, and truffle fries received praise from my friends as well. The only part of the meal I didn't like was the Brussels sprouts I had picked as a side option. As my friend Alejandro put it, "When they're undercooked, they're all hard. The only thing you want hard is a Tallywacker."

Photo by Andrea Harman.

As we sat down to eat, my photographer said, "This is all I want from a restaurant. Beyonce's 'Love on Top' video and a hot dog topped with mac and cheese." She also swore that the bathroom mirrors had a slimming effect, proof that these people thought of everything.

Overall, Tallywackers taught us that the breastaurant concept is just another one of those things that gay people do better, much like weddings and New Year's Eve parties. I had never thought much of these sorts of places, but titillation factor aside, I'll take a steak dinner and a drag show over an ESPN overload and dry, cheap chicken any day of the week. Tallywackers is the beginning of its own kind of concept. Who needs a breastaraunt, when you've got a gourmet meatery?

Follow Vanessa on Twitter.


‘The Tribe’ Is a Movie Starring Deaf People That’s Not a Deaf Movie

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When I first heard that The Tribe had been sweeping awards at festivals worldwide, I was skeptical. The film, written and directed by Myroslav Slaboshpytskiy, is set in a Ukrainian boarding school for the deaf and made exclusively in Ukrainian Sign Language (USL). I was intrigued, but assumed people's excitement had more to do with the novelty of sign language than any merit of the actual film. I expected remarks on how "inspiring" it is to see deaf people acting, the way hearing people often declare themselves inspired when a deaf person does something they deem "normal."

Then I watched the film. The plot is simple—a new student, Sergey (Grigory Fesenko), arrives at boarding school and finds himself inducted into an organized crime ring run by the students and teachers. When Sergey falls for the leader's girlfriend (Yana Novikova), the group's power structures are threatened and chaos ensues. The film is explicit in its sexual and violent content—it's the first time I can remember feeling nauseous from watching a movie.


Watch an exclusive clip from 'The Tribe':


Cinematically, Slaboshpytskiy's long takes and wide-angle shots, often of the characters from afar or behind, highlight Sergey's, and our, outsider status from this tight-knit tribe. And nothing furthers this sensation than the shock of watching the film without subtitles—neither subtitles nor voiceover are available. As the movie progresses, though, a tension grows from this same viewing experience. Audience members, who witness USL dialogue but cannot understand it, must learn new ways of extracting meaning from facial expressions and body language, getting a small taste of what it feels like to be a deaf person in a hearing world.

While Nina Raine's successful deaf-centric off-Broadway play Tribes is made for hearing people, with signed or deaf-accented dialogue projected across the stage and a sound design the New York Times called "crucial" to the play's emotional impact, The Tribe is arguably made for no one. Sign language is not universal, the number of native Ukrainian Sign Language users is relatively small, and the film is often shot so not even people who would understand the dialogue can see the nuance of what's being said.

As a Deaf person, I found the film difficult at the start—it was hard for me to watch people signing and not understand what they were saying. Interestingly, hearing reviewers seem convinced they've understood perfectly. And while, yes, I too followed the plot and relationships between the characters, it seems presumptive to assume a full understanding without knowledge of the dialogue. Hearing people say this in part, I think, because sign languages require body and facial movement as components of their grammar, and these movements are often congruous with natural facial and body responses to an emotion or concept. The other part is just run-of-the-mill audism—I don't think they'd say it after watching a movie in an unfamiliar spoken language sans subtitles.

Slaboshpytskiy has said in interviews that this work is homage to the old silent movies. But The Tribe is not a silent movie—not in the way Chaplin's films are. People are speaking a real, complete language; it's just that Slaboshpytskiy and most of his viewers cannot understand it. No one would watch a spoken Russian film with the sound turned off and without subtitles and call that a silent movie. It's undeniable that USL works within a visio-spacial modality. Still, whether The Tribe is viewed as a hearing person's exploitation of the nature of sign language, or accepted as a filmic experiment, I expect will vary across the Deaf community.

A still from 'The Tribe' (2014). Courtesy of Drafthouse Films

For me, what sets this film apart is the fact that the deaf people here are people first. Unlike Hollywood-style appropriations, the actors are all Deaf, and each of their characters is fully-realized, functioning member of society, albeit a dysfunctional one. No inspiration porn here (though at times the film verges on actual porn—there are numerous sex scenes as well as a particularly brutal home-abortion scene). The film's explicit nature shows viewers the human side of deaf people, at their most raw and carnal—that is, the place where they are the same as their hearing audience.

I caught up with The Tribe's leading lady, Yana Novikova, in Brooklyn during a few minutes of downtime in what seemed to be a whirlwind US tour. Here, too, the notion of insider/outsiderness was evident—we communicated via a Deaf interpreter who knew both American Sign Language (ASL) and International Sign (IS), a manufactured sign language much like Esperanto. The three of us, hailing from diverse backgrounds and life experiences, found ourselves united in silence.

The interpreter, the author, and Yana Novikova. Photo by Mariano Carranza

VICE: I've seen you mention Blue Is the Warmest Color as a movie that inspired you as an actor, but are there other films or TV shows that influenced your acting?
Yana Novikova: Well, I saw Titanic when I was a little girl, and that was the movie that first made me feel like, "I want to be an actor!"

How old were you?
Six. [We riff for a moment on the different ways to say the number six in the four sign languages we have between us.] So I was a little kid and watched the movie with my mom, and I was completely fascinated. And I remember saying afterward to my mom, "I want to be an actress like that when I grow up!" And my parents just kind of looked at me and said, "Well, it'd be impossible for you to be in movies. There won't be any work because you're deaf." And I was disappointed, like, "Really!?" But at that point I kind of accepted it, that my options were limited. As time went on I continued to watch and enjoy lots of different kinds of movies—comedy, drama, everything.

When I got involved with The Tribe and realized there would be some explicit sex scenes, I felt awkward and nervous about it; I didn't want to expose myself in that way. So I talked with Miroslav and he recommended a bunch of movies to me, one of which was Blue Is the Warmest Color. And then it kind of hit me again—the women in that movie are so strong and brave and fully open and committed, and I knew I had that in me, so I felt inspired to keep going with acting and not give up. I went back to Miroslav and said, "OK, I can do it!" But initially I was kind of shocked by the prospect of being naked and thought about dropping out of the project.

'My parents just kind of looked at me and said, "Well, it'd be impossible for you to be in movies. There won't be any work because you're deaf."'

It's funny because I think of Titanic as having a kind of iconic sex scene in it, too. That sweaty hand on the window?
[Laughs] Yeah, I remember. Kate Winslet was also a strong leading woman, and I looked up to that even as a kid.

So what does your family think about you acting now that you've found such success?
Of course my family's very proud of me and very excited about the success of the movie. My parents are extra proud—my success is a rejoinder for them in a way. I come from a really old village [in Belarus], very small, and there's a lot of gossip, a lot of backstabbing, so when my mother gave birth to me, a deaf child, there was a lot of judgmental and pitying talk levied at my parents. They just ignored it, but obviously they were kind of seething about it internally. Now that I've gotten this exposure and the film has been such a huge success, people back home are all looking at me with amazement, so my family's been able to be like, "That's our daughter! So there!" They're very proud.


Watch our exclusive PSA for 'The Tribe' from Yana:


Obviously, most of the people who see this movie will not understand the dialogue. If you were going to give these people a hint, something they should know about the story or characters going in, what would it be?
I wouldn't want to give them one. But I would tell them that this movie will change the way they think. After you see it, it will be stuck in your head, really seared in there, and it will change the way you see things going forward.

Certainly true for me! I saw you say earlier while you were filming Vice Talks Film that one of your favorite scenes to make was the one where you and your roommate are changing your clothes and chatting in the back of the van on your way to, we find out shortly thereafter, your work as prostitutes. You mentioned you liked it because Miroslav didn't really write any dialogue at all and you got to do a lot of improv, which was freeing and empowering—that it was "enough" just to be you (or you as your character, at least). I really like this notion of the positive element of the director not knowing sign language—it makes the project in a way more collaborative. Do you think there are other ways the film would be different if the writer/director were deaf?
Oh, I think it would be a totally different film. Miroslav puts a lot of himself into the narrative and the creation of The Tribe —nobody else could make that movie. And everybody, deaf or hearing, has different perspectives and opinions they bring to a project; that's so clear particularly when you're dealing with the creative arts.

A still from 'The Tribe' (2014). Courtesy of Drafthouse Films

How are you finding the hearing world's response to the film overall?
The response to the film has been so diverse. Some people say it's beautiful; some people react like they've just been stabbed in the chest. Some people really connect with it—they say that they feel involved with the characters themselves. The responses have all been really different, like any film.

I've seen Miroslav say in interviews that part of the reason he was interested in making a movie like The Tribe was as homage, a "modern silent movie." But technically The Tribe isn't a silent movie sans dialogue—it's just in a language that most people don't know. What do you think?
Well, the old silent movies, they didn't have sound, but they did have subtitles, even just a word or two, to give the audience an idea of what was going on. But in The Tribe, audiences don't need that because that information is in-built into sign and to some extent visible to everybody. Also this movie doesn't look awkward like the old silent movies. Deaf people aren't restrained in their bodies—they show emotion in the way they move, in their facial expression, their eye contact. And the audience can follow that.

'It's not a Deaf movie, or about showing the difference between deaf and hearing—it's about human emotion and connection.'

So in a way film acting is a natural medium for Deaf people; it's intuitive.
Yes. Thinking about [a hearing viewer's experience] reminds me of reading a comic book. You look at the images you're given, and you try to interpret a deeper meaning from that, and all those frames together add up. [We laugh for a minute while acting out comic-book frames, and sound effects in speech bubbles. Yana mimes a person running with the word "Bam!" in a bubble behind her.]

As for deaf viewers, I've read contrasting views online—lots of people love the film and love seeing sign language onscreen, but some people feel like all the sex and violence is exploitative and presenting a negative view of the Deaf community, especially since the movie has done so well and might be some people's only cultural touchstone for deafness. What do you think?
Just like any creative art, I would expect deaf people to have differing opinions about the film—some people love it and some think it's disturbing, or feel like it doesn't reflect their own life experience. Some might even be jealous that they didn't get to be involved in the movie, since all of us were non-actors at the start. But actually what I think about the film is that reflects deaf and hearing experiences both. It's not a Deaf movie, or about showing the difference between deaf and hearing—it's about human emotion and connection.

On Munchies: What It's Like to Work at a Restaurant Staffed by Deaf People

Is there a question, about the film or otherwise, that you wish people would ask you?
Not really. Now that I've got some recognition people want to know everything about me and my private life. I feel like I've really opened up and showed them my guts, and there's not much left in there!

Are you sick of it, or not yet?
No, it's been interesting to see actually—I've talked to so many different people in different countries, but people from all over the world extract the same feelings and questions from the film.

I guess that goes to further prove its universal element.
Exactly.

Myroslav Slaboshpytskiy's The Tribe, starring Yana Novikova, is now playing in theaters across the country.

Sara Nović is the author of Girl at War (Random House, 2015). Follow her on Twitter.

Private Parking Companies Are Issuing Illegal Parking Tickets

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Photo by Charleston's The Digitel

Parking tickets are a depressing fact of life. Metropolises depend on the little day-reuining envelopes for a hefty chunk of their operating budget—Los Angeles raked in over $160 million from parking tickets in the 2013-2014 fiscal year. That's a nice little regressive tax windfall for the public sector.

Now, private security companies in several major cities have started surreptitiously issuing similar parking violation notices—stuck under the windshield, in a brightly colored envelope, just like the real thing.

The thing is, these tickets aren't real. Only the city has the authority to collect parking fines—which means those private tickets? They aren't worth the laser-printer paper they're printed on.

Still, most people tend to just pay up because that's what you're trained to do when you get an authoritative-looking piece of paper. Los Angeles residents received 2.65 million tickets from the city in 2012-2013, less than 56,000 of which were successfully overturned. If they aren't paid, there's the risk of getting booted, towed, or—if they advance to scofflaw status—an outstanding warrant.

Private ticket-writing companies take advantage of those fears. But unlike the repercussions of blowing off a city-issued parking ticket, those private-issued ones are no more legit than a mall cop's badge. In other words, in most cities, nothing will happen to you if you decline to pay.

Want to get out of paying for parking garages too? Motherboard presents a map of hackable smart parking garages.

There are exceptions. In Portland, for example, a private lot can issue tickets if "the company issuing them is a registered operator and the parking facility is registered with the city." Fines are set and private lot attendants function as deputized meter maids.

But there aren't many cities that run their local government like Portland. A more emblematic example might be Los Angeles, where everyone has a car and parking tickets are simply a way of life. The Attorney General of California ruled in 2011 that "private property owners may not acquire, by means of issuing a written warning or posting signage, the right to issue parking citations imposing monetary sanctions to the owners of vehicles parked on their property." Pretty straightforward refutation of the practice.

The Attorney General went one step further by anticipating how private parking lot operators would respond to their tickets being ignored. Once again, they sided against the lot owners, writing that, "The vehicle owner may have grounds to seek damages arising from the property owner's conduct, such as threatening to report or reporting a delinquency on the part of the vehicle owner to credit reporting agencies."

So not only is no payment due, but if the parking company tries to put a collection agency on you, you might have the option to sue.

Private institutions continue to write the fraudulent tickets. And why not? Anybody who pays is literally just giving them free cash.

Within Los Angeles, only the city has the authority to collect on tickets. And they're not going to write them on a private lot, with one federally mandated exception. Bruce Gillman, the spokesman for the Los Angeles Department of Transportation, told me that "the only way [the Department of Transportation] can go and give a ticket on a private lot is if someone is illegally parked in a handicapped space or has made a fraudulent handicapped sign." Handicapped parking is mandated by the American with Disabilities Act, and the government can enforce its availability. Besides that, the city doesn't get involved in what amounts to a private dispute.

Even four years after the Attorney General ruled that these tickets are basically unenforceable requests for money, private institutions continue to write them. And why not? Anybody who pays is literally just giving them free cash.

In June, Arthur Manuyak received a ticket (below) for $54 from a Westco lot in Glendale, California. The lot was unmanned, with only a box to slip money into. "There was just a broken-down shack where the entrance is," he told me. "You're supposed to put your cash in a slot and drop it into the box. But there's no one working. It all seemed a little sketchy to me. If it looked more realistic I would have paid."

Manuyak's parking ticket

Manukyan copped to not having paid for his 15 minutes in the lot. But he explained that after looking at the back of the ticket he decided he didn't trust paying the fine at all, having discovered it was a for-profit fine. "The sketchiest part," he added, "is the [processing] company isn't even in California."

I tried talking to the operator of the lot, a man named Armando, whose number was listed on the shed as the person to direct "all questions" towards. When I explained the story I was working on, he declined to comment.

There is no reason a person couldn't set up an account, write their friend a ticket for "being a total dick," and then when they don't pay, use Clancy's software to sic a collection agency on them.

I was interested in how the rest of the for-profit ticketing industry worked, so I found that out-of-state company up the chain. It was a Denver-based company called Clancy Systems International, which sells everything you would need to write your own tickets and process them: hand-helds, printers, Android smartphones, and tablets to help run the operation. They also offer software that direct parking lot owners how to initiate collections.

I talked to Liz Wolfson, one of the partners in Clancy, to sort out how the for-private ticketing industry was supplied. Wolfson prefaced my questions by giving, in her words, a "lecture" on the issue: "It is important for private companies to have the ability to [issue tickets]. They are selling a commodity. They are selling parking. They are exchanging goods of services. They have bought or leased that property. They deserve to be paid."

It's a fair point. But the issue isn't whether or not they deserve compensation for renting spaces in their lot. It's the lack of a check and balance in the profit motive. Why would a private company ever overturn a ticket they issued? What if a private company issues a ticket in error?

If private lots don't suit you, try this upside-down parking space in London.

Wolfson explained that mistakes do happen: "[Vehicle owners] paid for the wrong stall, for instance, or the ticket falls off the dashboard. In that case, they just mail in a copy of the paid receipt. We see lots of voids." But, she conceded, "I'm not going to tell you there aren't bad apples."

"Bad apples" are the kind of parking lot owners who serve as judge, jury, and (ticket-issuing) executioner. Where it works something like, "Have a problem with my fine? You can appeal to me, but I have a feeling I'm going to side with me."

I asked what constituted a "bad apple," and how widespread the practice was. Clancy's business is, in her estimate, 92 percent public entities—cities, counties, etc—while the remaining 8 percent is private clients. That's also where a major problem arose.

Wolfson said a few years ago they got in trouble after a parking lot in Buffalo, New York was issuing tickets that looked suspiciously like city tickets. Which wasn't surprising: Clancy supplied both the city and company their ticketing systems.

After that issue, Wolfson said private companies were advised not to use certain language on their tickets. Using a city's name on a ticket was verboten. Also, using the official-sounding term "violation" was a big no-no, though that didn't stop the company that issued Manukyan's ticket from using the word on their ticket.

Even if Clancy has suggested guidelines for their clients, they are unenforceable. Since they are not bound by law, and literally anyone can buy a system and write their own tickets, there is no reason a person couldn't set up an account with Clancy, write their friend a $54 ticket for "being a total dick," and then when they don't pay like the total dick they are, use Clancy's software to sic a collection agency on them.

Photo by the author

Security companies and lot owners are only allowed one way to punish people who park illegally in their lot or violate some "law" of the lot. In California, private entities cannot boot cars or write tickets—but they can tow your car, as long as it is clearly posted where the car will be towed. Otherwise, people could just park willy-nilly. The ability to tow for parking illegally—effectively trespassing—serves as the deterrent, making tickets nothing more than a scheme.

The question is whether or not issuing fines is more a harsh deterrent or an intentionally deceptive money-making scam. To be sure, parking lot owners deserve to be paid for renting out their land. And they should be able to react when people park without paying, lest every parking lot turn into the Great American Car-Dump.

But that's also why private lots are allowed to remove cars that are parked illegally. And as far as collecting payments, pay stations that count people when they go in and make them pay to get out seem to work just fine for the vast majority of lots—more so than using a metal box then paying someone to walk around and issue excessive fines.

It's pretty damn hard to see why a private company should issue a "ticket" for any reason other than to take advantage of people's already-instilled instinct to pay a fine it's notoriously hard to fight. And in the case of a private lot, it's a fine they have zero reason to ever overturn.

While the laws vary slightly from city to city, one truism in the private parking lot industry is that they do not have the authority to fine you any more than I do. Unless they are contracted by the city, or the city itself issues the ticket, a private entity cannot act as a low-stakes Judge Dredd "I am the law" meter maid. So feel free to ignore them.

Follow Jacob Harper on Twitter.

The Terminal Artist

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Illustrations by Kyle Mccullough

This article appears in the June Issue of VICE Magazine.

At the time, her death had seemed in the order of the way things sometimes go, when bad luck and the physiological nature of the trauma—in this case swelling of the brain after cancer surgery—combine to betray the curative efforts of the medical establishment. We mourned her death as a natural event. Right away (even the day we got the news) we felt her absence as a part of the wider—again natural—scheme of the world. She had simply gone the way other living things go, succumbing to the frailty of biological systems. The cancer had been excised in a clean and sharp procedure, but then another factor had come into play. This is not to say that the loss wasn't great, but in the end her death seemed part of yet another beautiful tragedy. What was hoped for and what happened were at odds. Her children—two young daughters—would never have a mother, and her wonderful voice—she sang in a gospel group—would never be heard again. For a few months our grief continued to sharpen and then, day by day, it tapered off until what we could remember about her—that lively, light laugh, her lovely eyes—began to erase the painful day of her burial.

Six years later the Terminal Artist—as the media dubbed him—confessed to having killed patients in an upstate hospital. He had tweaked the medication on several post-op patients (always doing so in a professional manner: easing them over the line with clinical care, never just simply pulling a plug or drowning them in ridiculous amounts of morphine. He performed mercy killings that were meant, he claimed, to save—his words—a world of suffering). When he came to light, the hospitals and insurance companies were forced to review cases and slowly, over the course of several months, began to solve the mystery of several deaths that had been attributed to natural causes. Perfectly fine post-op cases, young men and women with strong physical constitutions and powerful wills, with the odds on their side, often came out of anesthesia, lived a few days, and then died quietly in the middle of the night, resisting heroic efforts before they fell into the void forever. While the so-called Terminal Artist was busy admitting that he had killed four or five patients in an upstate hospital, authorities went back and traced the history of his employment to ten institutions that had eagerly hired him over a 15-year period because not only was he a nurse, in high demand at the time, but a male nurse to boot. Not only a male nurse but a highly trained one, highly personable, with a clean-shaven, tidy disposition and a voice that seemed pleasant, calm, and bright. The kind of man you would want at your bedside, thoughtful and considerate while at the same time efficient and orderly. One of those careful chart checkers and hand washers. A man who probably lived a somewhat lonely, austere, bachelor life, working the long hours the job required out of a dedication to the profession. I'm a mercy provider, he explained in court a year later. I dole out mercy. I ease burdens. I relinquish pain. I help provide a smooth transition to the afterlife. I'm obligated to God. I do God's work. The Lord is my heart. His will will be done. I end lives to provide salvation. Only mercy, all the time. He went on like this until the judge put his hand up and ordered him to stop.

At the hospitals where he had worked, those cases that had been most certainly natural, a part of the order of the natural world, became automatically suspect. Whereas certain cases, at least the ones that he had admitted to outright, about ten, maybe 15, and a few others, were immediately reclassified as homicides. Each (confessed) death (suddenly) had an exact cause: a micromanaged drip of morphine, just enough to induce heart failure that looked somewhat natural; an extra dose of digoxin that sent a patient—just out of open-heart surgery—tumbling over the life-death line in a way that looked to be a matter of simple physics. With pride in his voice, he spoke of providing mercy with the application of what he called calibrated pushes, nudges that simply served to augment what otherwise were perfectly natural (his phrase) situations, so that, for example, the muscles of the heart, already tired and weak after being put into a holding action, released their energies and gave up in a way that was a relief to their fibers (he said); or in the case of a young child who was in an induced coma, simply allowing her to continue her journey to God instead of allowing her to rebound back into a life of earthly hell. All of this just to say that when my friend died, after brain surgery, in a small hospital in upstate New York; died in the dead heart of a wintery night, alone, in a room in the intensive-care ward; when her brain swelled in a post-operative condition and the unrelieved pressure somehow—this is pure speculation—caused her heart to fail later the next day, it was originally chalked up to an act of God, if you believed, or just one more natural failure of the body. One more tragic cancer death that left behind two children and a father and an empty silence beyond reckoning. It seemed to be the type of death that allowed only a certain vantage, because to get too close to it, to hone in on the loss, would be to touch a kind of madness and to admit that there was only raw chance and nothing else involved, and to fully admit to that would—at least for me—be to give in to the purest kind of terror. All I could do at that point was try to get as close as possible to the elemental loss: mourn her absence; remember her lean, lovely face and soft laugh; pray, or not pray, that her soul would live on in one form or another, if not up in some heavenly place then at least in those who held memories of her life here. But then, six years later, a story appeared in the media that the above-mentioned Terminal Artist had been caught, or tracked down through careful scrutiny of two similar cases in the same upstate hospital.

Many, hearing the word upstate, couldn't help visualizing a series of particular images: cracked roads swaying along the Hudson River, which is always hidden down an overgrown verge; wide fields of weeds and grass leading to the second-growth forest that has overtaken whatever agriculture once flourished up there, if it ever did; rusted factories leaching PCBs into the river. The upstate of the imagination begins just about where the salt front, the upmost reach of the flood tide coming up from the New York Harbor, ends in Newburgh Bay. (My image of upstate has been shaped by the photographs of Richard Prince: abandoned clapboard houses, rust-smeared trailer homes, silent [also rusted] basketball hoops, roads with skid marks left by the obligatory rites of bored teenagers who find solace in jack-starting cars, fishtailing dramatic 360s. Muscle cars, powerful beyond everyday need, shudder outrageously while the long, lean contours of their hoods—glossed to a high polish—stretch out to lick the bleak horizon.)

The Terminal Artist, never venturing south of Newburgh, worked the second-tier hospitals that formed a constellation of upstate New York medical care stretching all the way up to the edge of Buffalo, which somehow escapes the upstate tag by being along the shore of Lake Ontario, which for its part touches the shore of Canada. All this just to say that the fact that he worked in upstate hospitals seems to resonate retroactively with the region itself and the fact that so many—not all, but many—of its population already suffered, and so had to suffer doubly from his actions. The assumption—in the media—was that his victims, by virtue of being cared for in hospitals upstate, actually lived upstate. This wasn't the case. Cherie was living in a small Hudson River town about 30 miles upstream from Manhattan when she had a divine vision in which God told her—she explained this to her friends shortly before the operation—to seek out Dr. Drake, a stout neurosurgeon with a prim manner and a few brain operations under his belt.

In any case, outside the hospital on that cold winter night was a landscape somewhat dismal, lonely, silent, abject, and sad, struggling mightily to hold up against tough economic times, working hard to shrug off a stigma that came from being beyond the cultural gravity field of the great city downstream. (In all honestly, until I got word of the Terminal Artist, I held the entire region implicit in her death.) For a long time after I got the news about the Terminal Artist, I found it hard to believe that this dear friend of mine had succumbed to a complex array of chances, an infinite range of factors that had combined to put her in a particular bed, in a particular hospital, to have a particular form of surgery, to solve a particular medical problem, and in doing so met with a particular ward nurse, who happened to have been on duty that particular night, and who had a particular derangement, or sense of obligation to a particular concept of mercy, and administrated a dose of some particular, albeit unknown, substance (the case is still open). Most found it nearly impossible to grasp the complex factors that had vectored together to put her life into the hands of a madman (case still open).

When news of the Terminal Artist broke, her death was six years in the past, not much more than a blip of pain, an old memory that included the day I got word of her death, one dreary afternoon at the cabin upstate (not really upstate, at least theoretically: a small cabin near Goshen, not far from the Wallkill River, a place to hang my hat when I'm out in my waders—and somehow that stretch of river, drawing a wide array of rather rich folks from the city and suburbs, seems protected from the various associations one has with the term upstate); just sitting reading Isaac Babel while the baby dozed and Irene took a cat nap; nothing but a kind of deep silence—not even the murmur of the fridge, maybe the wind sweeping through the strand of Scots pines at the end of the property. Then my phone rang and my father-in-law, a doctor himself, went into it carefully, speaking in his precise medical voice, sticking with the facts: She had died overnight, deep in the night, the time not exactly known, and had succumbed to heart failure after swelling of the brain and so on and so forth. That memory—the deep white hiss, maybe, of wind through the trees and the baby's soft snoring, not so soft actually, really a rather loud sound to be coming from a six-month-old girl. That memory merged with memories of the funeral, a vast affair in a big domed church that had once been a music hall: everyone in white, except for those of us who had come up from the city, and the women wearing pants (those who weren't were provided with wide linen napkins to cover their knees, for the sake of modesty, I suppose). The entire service had a tone of jubilation, of joy and replenishment based on the idea, maybe the concept—no, much deeper, the knowledge—that she had passed forth into some much better realm; that she had been provided with a direct trip into heaven, so to speak. The tone was assured, brilliantly bright—with her own gospel group singing rapturously while we confused city folks tried to ride with it in an agreeable manner, holding our own as much as possible, trying not to draw judgments because her African American culture rubbed up against our whiteness and we, as whites, assumed the privilege of assuming we had no real ethnicity, just a void that was—I'm guessing here—the norm—tried hard to imagine our way into their attitudinal stance: painful joy over the foreordained status of being offered up into some holy receivership that was visualized as pearly gates, perhaps, wide-open arms, holy, draped in white. All this—in memory—was six years in the past when the news broke of the Terminal Artist's confession (case still open) and sparked a turning back to old memories that had been blurred and tarnished by time—and perhaps amplified: the smell of the lavender perfume of the woman who escorted us to our seats. Her father's large, morose face—beading with sweat as he sang. The delusional notions of the Terminal Artist, who claimed he'd been helping his patients along the path to heaven, blended with the jubilation at the funeral over the fact that she had made the trip to heaven and was at the feet of her holy maker, or through the pearly gates, or already up there in some cloudy realm, cottony and light.

There was that long period of time when we had no knowledge of the Terminal Artist, those beautiful days when we carried a sorrow born—we thought—out of somewhat natural processes. Not man-made sorrow. (Going down to the river, I was still thinking. Man made? That phrase is all I hold to because the rest of it—the interminable series of chances, the long retrospective chain of incidences, from the fact that she got cancer at that particular time, or at least spotted it, to her deciding upon that particular hospital, out of some deep religious idea, maybe [too many factors to name, I thought, heading down to the river, wading through the brush, the overgrowth of wild bamboo and thicker brambles to the stream edge], while, at the same time, the so-called Terminal Artist had moved from one hospital to the next, taking advantage of the high demand for nurses, moving from one upstate hospital to another, and then to a hospital in Lancaster for a few months before heading back upstate, leaving a trail of dead behind—seemed too much to ponder.)

In my work, I've described the way it feels to step into the icy water with waders on while the rubber compresses against your legs. The odd sensation of stepping with felt bottoms onto the slick stones and toeing along, always somewhat fearful of the plunge into the unknown but secure somehow after years of doing it, able to sense the dangers. I've used fishing as metaphor, but never shamefully. I've used the sway-back motion of the cast, the old-fashioned basics of tying the fly to the line. Once again I've turned to it because in the strange solitude at the center of the river, with the water flowing on both sides, I feel grateful that at least for six years we were able to think of her death as natural. I'd never be able to use her death in a story. I'd have to find some other way, I thought, and then once again I unleashed a cast and once again watched the line spread itself neatly across the surface so that the fly, at the end of the tapered leader, was invisible, sunk in the glimmer of light, floating ahead—one more image making me alive to that particular moment, with the hard, cold surge of flow all around me, floating beautifully along on an infinite number of chance vortices. But of course that day on the stream is six years old, and the funeral itself is six years behind that, so that 12 years have passed since our friend died and six since we got the news about the Terminal Artist. Six years have passed, and the story of the Terminal Artist has faded from public memory and been replaced by other, more current, and therefore seemingly more urgent narratives, so that all we can do, each day, is hold on to the hope of finding an attendant structure that might begin somehow, on a cold fall afternoon, in a hospital room, perhaps, or maybe out in the parking lot during a smoking break, when the killer nurse (dubbed the Terminal Artist) takes in the air and relishes the beauty of the afternoon breeze, bringing with it a briny, sea smell of the river's ebb tide. There is a pristine blue sky overhead, and across the street the leaves have changed on the trees, spilling brilliant colors into the air. Everything is hard and bright. He is thinking carefully about his next move, deliberate and thoughtful. There is the glory of God in the air, he thinks. He shuffles his feet a little bit and flicks his cigarette into the curb. He is anxious to get in and get started. He has work to do. Good, hard work. Then he bows his head and says a little prayer, offering his services directly to the Lord, just like Abraham did up on the mountaintop, clearheaded and unconfused, with his son in his arms awaiting the knife, offering up his soft, smooth neck for the moment at hand.

Say Your Prayers and Watch Sabbath Assembly's Bloody New Video for 'Ave Satanas'

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Say Your Prayers and Watch Sabbath Assembly's Bloody New Video for 'Ave Satanas'

New Charges Laid in Lac-Mégantic Rail Disaster

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New Charges Laid in Lac-Mégantic Rail Disaster

VICE Premiere: People Somehow Dance Beautifully to Shoegaze in Glass Gang's New Video

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Glass Gang is an outlier, a relative mystery in an age of oversharing. They don't do interviews, they don't release much information about who they are, their press photos are careful not to show off their full faces. Some musicians have played the enigma card as a marketing stunt, trying to build buzz off the anonymity, but it seems like Glass Gang is simply standing silently in the background so their music can do the talking. Whatever they're doing, it's working—they've been touring and building up a following, and they just recorded a new single with Sonny DiPerri, who's known for working with M83 and Warpaint.

This video is for the track "Believe," off the recent mixtape Lower, which they self-released earlier this year. The video was directed by Brendan Burdzinski, who's worked with David Byrne and Michel Gondry, and was choreographed by Elle Erdman, who's created work for Eckhaus Latta and danced with Kim Gordon's Body/Head. You wouldn't think that choreographed movement could be so well paired with Glass Gang's shoegaze/hip-hop—but, like everything else the band is doing, they pull it off.

Glass Gang's music is available for free download at glassgang.us

Study Sheds Light on Trauma Suffered By Migrant Children Detained in Canada

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Study Sheds Light on Trauma Suffered By Migrant Children Detained in Canada

Why Jordan Spieth Can't Cure Golf's Tiger Woods Hangover

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Why Jordan Spieth Can't Cure Golf's Tiger Woods Hangover

Electronic Music Promoters In Newfoundland Are Trying to Keep “Skeets” Away By Throwing Safer Events

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Electronic Music Promoters In Newfoundland Are Trying to Keep “Skeets” Away By Throwing Safer Events

What Does Ty$ Think of These Polaris Prize Nominees?

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What Does Ty$ Think of These Polaris Prize Nominees?

Chomsky and Krauss: Why Send Humans to Space When We Can Send Robots?

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Chomsky and Krauss: Why Send Humans to Space When We Can Send Robots?

Photos from the Northern Irish Tour That Led Up to 1992's Coalisland Riots

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This article originally appeared on VICE UK.

It was 1992. I'd just turned 20 and was back in Aldershot with the 5 Airborne Brigade garrison when we were given orders to prepare for an emergency tour of County Tyrone in Northern Ireland. What exactly the "emergency" was, no one really knew outside the operations room. But I was well aware that plenty of IRA activity was going down, with Tyrone being an IRA stronghold.

I'd recently been trained as a military photographer at the Northern Ireland Photographic Assistant course in Wolverhampton. This new role meant taking photographs of IRA terrorists—or "players"—for intelligence purposes prior to patrols going out. It was my second tour of the province and I wasn't happy being sent to a place where it always pours with rain, especially after returning from a three month tour of Kenya with an all-over-body tan.

Prior to deployment to Northern Ireland, all military personnel are sent to the Tin City in Lydd, Kent for specialized training. Now I was a unit photographer, so my training was different: I trained in civilian clothes and learned pairs fire and maneuver with guns, just in case I ended up in a shoot-out at an illegal Provisional IRA vehicle check point. I was taught how to hold and fire a handgun confidently by a scary looking SAS man called "The Grey Wolf."

We flew low level by Chinook all the way from the UK mainland, and by the time we arrived in County Tyrone most of us were feeling ill. It was also pissing down rain. We all had to get into a fire position around the helicopter, so I decided to try and get a few frames on my Nikon camera. "Put the fucking camera away, Griffiths," a sergeant ordered. I knew then that this was going to be a testing tour for me, the designated photographer who wasn't allowed to use his photographic equipment.

My day-to-day routine was mostly spent in the operations room, making tea and hoovering. I'd occasionally get sent on a covert pick-up and drop off, meaning I had to carry a gun in my jeans while driving a civilian vehicle. I'd take a Nikon camera with a 200mm lens, should I come across any known IRA "players" whom I could photograph for intelligence briefings.

This undercover work didn't last long; it was far more difficult covertly taking photos of known terrorists in the rural badlands than in the country's city centers. Instead, I was sent out with five-day foot patrols, carrying heavy ECM equipment—the stuff used to disrupt and jam signals for remote improvised explosive devices (IEDs).

I didn't spot any IRA players who I could photograph on the long arduous patrols, and my morale was slowly being disintegrated by all the heavy lifting and repeated electric shocks to the balls from the many farmland electric fences. I began photographing the Paratroopers instead, just to keep me sane. I'd come up with an idea loosely based around a "day in the life," which my superior officers approved of at the time. It was to be a visual record of this emergency tour.

At first, everyone seemed OK with me taking photos; and then certain officers began to make it difficult for me: they would take any opportunity to get me on "remedial physical training," carrying a 30Ib "Wombat" anti-aircraft shell around.


Watch our film about the UK Army Cadet Force, a military scheme that takes in 12 to 18-year-olds and teaches them how to embody British values (and how to use a gun):


I was in the operation room one day, reading a newspaper article suggesting that we were all in Tyrone to bolster the Tory vote for the 1992 General Election, when suddenly I heard the panic-stricken words, "Contact, wait out," over the radio network. A patrol had been involved in an explosion and there had been casualties. A young soldier fresh from his passing out parade had stepped on an IRA land mine in the republican stronghold of Cappagh that had blown off both his legs. Paratroopers then went on a rampage in nearby Coalisland, the TV news said, with footage of running battles on the main roads between civilians and armed Paratroopers. It progressively got worse from then on, and the clashes were responsible for the only time in the history of the Northern Irish Troubles that a senior British army officer was disciplined.

Living in our Cookstown base was like being sentenced to prison. No one could leave, unless heavily armed. When you got any time off you were allowed two cans of beer and could sit in front of the TV spinning out from your quota. I was getting books sent over from hippy girlfriends in Manchester—stuff like William Burroughs's Naked Lunch—and hidden inside the pages were ready-rolled joints, which would have offered some welcome relief, but weren't exactly easy to smoke while confined to a security forces base.

After some time there, the pay clerk handed me my papers to either renew my terms of engagement, or sign off and become a free man. I no longer wanted to be a Paratrooper, so I signed off. It was then that the skies opened up with shit—I was treated like some kind of traitor for leaving the brotherhood.

Everyone on base was then ordered to get their equipment as the BIKINI alert state had risen to "Black Alpha" (now known as Black Special), which meant there was an increased likelihood of an attack. Everyone was briefed to "flood" the area, and I was placed on guard duty outside the gates with sandbags and a general-purpose machine gun. I decided to take photographs of the Paratroopers pouring out past me. At last, I thought, some action to photograph.

RELATED ON MOTHERBOARD: Watch the UK's New $300 Million Military Drone Take Flight

I shot two rolls of black and white film, but had to pass the guardroom to get back into the base. Here, I was ordered to hand over my camera film. I had to protest that it was my own film, but the guard-duty sergeant just snarled, "I could not give two fucks, Griff. You're just a number here—you're not out yet. So hand it over, you little cunt, or you're going to be quick-marched to jail."

I've always wondered where those rolls of film ended up. Years ago, after repeated FOI requests, someone working in the Ministry of Defense told me that I was wasting my time trying to find them because they had probably ended up in skip with most of the other once "top secret" photographs from the province. There's nothing in the National Archives, or in the Imperial War Museum.

The photos you see above and below are all that I have left from that emergency tour of County Tyrone, the tour where I decided that I was done with being a Paratrooper.

See more of Stuart's work on stuartgriffiths.net, and more of his photos from the 1992 tour below.













The Legal Skateboarding Movement Is Gaining Speed on the Crusty Streets of Montreal

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Stills via DAILY VICE

In most cities, the act of skateboarding in public spaces exists in a suspended limbo of legality, a wishy-washy purgatory where the same action can have any number of consequences, from fines to high fives.

Hitting a street spot like a stairset or ledge is a roll of the dice every time—you could garner a gaggle of onlookers getting hyped on your trick, or you could summon a rent-a-cop on a power trip trying to snatch your board out of your hands, or even fuck you up in mid-air.

Skateboarding itself isn't a crime anywhere as far as I know (as these mid-2000s stickers suggest), but cops can trump up charges of destruction of public property, trespassing, excessive noise, or public nuisance for skating in the wrong place. But some days you can get your trick and post to Insta and grab some pizza with your homies without a care. It's a Pandora's Box of skateboarding tolerance out there.

In Montreal, the tide appears to be turning in skateboarding's favour. The movement to legalize skateboarding has literally taken to the streets, and skaters are winning pivotal municipal battles block by block. One of the greatest victories has been the full legalization of skateboarding in Peace Park on St. Laurent Boulevard, a historically seedy strip that separates east and west districts of the city. Once a grimy haven for homeless people, crack sales, and murder (which never stopped skaters from hitting its utopian granite ledges), the park is now a positive, thriving environment on the Main.

Skateboarder and filmmaker David "Boots" Bouthillier shot a documentary on Peace Park in the mid-2000s and put together the plan to legalize skating there, as well as organized this year's first-ever legal Go Skateboarding Day. I sat down with Boots to discuss the state of skateboarding legalization in Montreal in 2015, and the transformation he's seen Peace Park undergo.

David "Boots" Bouthillier's documentary about Peace Park

"In 2001 when all the Hells Angels were arrested and thrown in jail, [...] the park turned into a warzone and everyone was fighting for control of the crack sales in the park," Boots said.

"Automatic weapons just brrrrr, just mowing them down, [...] people getting killed, stabbed. It was pretty hectic for a minute there."

But with the influx of skateboarders in the park, the city shutting down the sex clubs in the area and the neighbouring Société des Arts Technologiques (SAT) breathing life into the park with summer music and film events, it seems Peace has turned a new leaf.

"There's no more crack, there's no more sex workers, there's barely anyone drinking in the park," he said. "Skating really helped bring back a positive vibe."

After the successful premiere of his skate/social commentary documentary Peace Park in August 2013, Boots approached the SAT to try to get skateboarding legalized in the park again, after a previous failed attempt in 2004.

"The movie created a lot of awareness about some of the problems in the park and put skateboarding forward as a solution to some of those problems," Boots said.

Montreal's mayor Denis Coderre personally backed the idea and the pilot project was launched in summer 2014 with skateboarding fully legal during daylight hours. Skating in Peace that summer had a euphoric glow about it, with the knowledge that it was un-bustable and skaters were actually welcome there—like what I imagine sipping the first beer was like after a long, lonely prohibition. An official city sign emblazoned with a skateboard inside a green circle stood tall over Peace Park, something I never thought I'd see in my lifetime.

But skaters weren't reckless with their newfound privilege, and their tender love and care of the beloved skate spot shone through. With the park in visibly better shape by the end of the pilot project, it was no surprise when skateboarding at Peace became officially legal this spring.

"Skateboarding was legalized in Peace Park on April 14 at 8:44 PM, I made a post at that moment," Boots laughed while pulling up his Instagram post from the city council meeting.

David "Boots" Bouthillier at the ribbon-cutting for Go Skateboarding Day. Photo courtesy Sebastien Roy

Outside of Peace Park, however, skateboarding still exists in the no-man's-land of quasi-legality. Prior to Peace's legalization, Boots had received over $7,000 in tickets for excessive noise and "misuse of urban furniture," which rose to $600 a ticket in the late 2000s.

"You're allowed to skateboard on the sidewalk but most people don't know that, not even the police officers. I've been given tickets for skateboarding when I was on the sidewalk, but I looked up the laws and I went to court and I fought and beat the ticket," Boots said.

"There's also a rule for reckless skateboarding, for skateboarding 'in a fashion that is disruptive to the circulation of pedestrians.' So you can still get a ticket for being on the sidewalk, but it's allowed—it's kind of like a reckless driving ticket."

Bike paths in the city are also a crucial battleground for skateboarding—rent-a-bikes, souped-up mobility scooters, and more are allowed free rein on the paths, while skateboards are still currently banned. But plans are in motion to change that, put forward by skateboarder/city councillor Sterling Downey. But veteran skateboarder, city councillor and all-around radical human being Sterling Downey is determined to change that, and he tabled a motion to city council last month to grant skaters freedom in the bicycle paths. It passed unanimously.

Sterling Downey, skateboarder and city councillor

"Cyclists are allowed on the road, the sidewalk, and bike paths, why aren't skateboarders?" Downey asked during a recent interview at Peace Park. He explained that he sold the council with the idea that skateboarding was a mode of "active transportation," not just a recreational activity.

City councillor and mother to a young skateboarder Justine McIntyre also put forward a motion to allow skateboarding in Montreal's streets which received city council's approval in October 2014, although the proposal would require changes in the Highway Safety Code, which is provincial law.

"The mayor has agreed that skateboarding should be legalized in the bike paths but it hasn't gone through yet, [...] there's a process to it. So the city says, 'Okay, yes, we can legalize skateboarding,' now they have to change all the laws and make it all happen," Boots said.

"Since the city is supporting skateboarding in the bike paths, the word out is that the police won't give you a ticket, but then again they still could."

Along with Peace Park, another inspiring story from the legalization push in Montreal is that of the Big O fullpipe at Olympic Stadium, the scrapped concrete tunnel left over from the 1976 Olympic Games that doubles as a fullpipe for skaters. In 2011, after decades of use as a skate spot, the Olympic Stadium planned renovations that called for the demolition of the pipe. Professional skateboarders Barry Walsh and Marc Tison, who had written a book together on the Big O in 2006, along with the skate community fought to preserve the pipe, and Joey Saputo of the Stade Saputo made it happen. The 175-ton improvised skate structure was physically uprooted and moved to a new location in 2013, becoming a legally sanctioned skate spot and a designated landmark for skateboarders. It's even featured on the Olympic Stadium's tourism website.

"The stars really started to align when Saputo saved the Big O. It was a big step forward for skateboarding," Boots said.

"That's when things started to change in the city, the first sign of a new era for Montreal and skateboarding. When we were trying to legalize skateboarding, we were like, 'Well, even Saputo recognizes the importance of skateboarding and preserving historical skateboard spots.' So, big ups to Saputo and Mark and Barry. Yeah, that's when the tide started to change for skateboarding in the city."

So in 2015, it's never been a better time to be a skateboarder in Montreal. I joined the epic skate soiree in the streets on Sunday, June 21 for Go Skateboarding Day, fully legal for the first time in the city. With support from the SAT, Boots had wrangled permits to reserve seven downtown blocks for a "rollout" of over 100 Montreal skaters. He cut the ribbon to the riotous applause of boards smacking the pavement, and then we were off to the races, an armada of rowdy, rolling thunder.

Similar rollouts have taken place in Montreal under the name "Wild in the Streets," which happened illegally for five years before getting shut down in 2011. But this year, police cruisers cleared the way for us and blocked all traffic for safe skater passage—a seriously surreal and exhilarating sight.

The rollout's final destination was, naturally, Peace Park, and skaters barely slowed down to start hitting the granite ledges and manny pad. The rain held off all day, and a packed skate jam, live music and best trick contest played out the rest of the GSD festivities, with harsh slams and good vibes for all.

"I think skateboarding is finally shedding the stigmas surrounding it. It's becoming more accepted by the general public and people are realizing that it's something positive and it can be a creative solution to solving some of the city's urban problems," Boots said.

Boots had some real-talk advice for skaters trying to legalize skating in their own communities, adding with a laugh that just legalizing skateboarding in the one-square-block park took him ten years.

"The best thing to do is go to your city council meetings. A lot of people go to city council meetings to complain, but they don't propose anything, they don't present a plan to actually make it happen," he said.

"Clearly, skateboarders need to take charge and they need to get organized. You have to want it and go after it, and try not to piss anyone off or step on anyone's toes in the process."

Because of skateboarders like Boots' efforts, Montreal is now a trailblazer for skaters' rights, an insane and revolutionary development for the East Coast city. While there's still much work to be done, skateboarding's prospects have never looked more inviting than in the city of potholes and poutine.

Follow Jake Russell on Twitter.

Britain's 'Sharing Economy' Is Creating a Desperate Servant Underclass

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Black cab drivers gum up a London street to protest against Uber. Photo by Chem Squier.

This article originally appeared on VICE UK.

It was seven o'clock on a cold January evening when Orhan, a taxi driver for Uber, first realized he had a problem. Well into his second shift of the day, he tried logging on to the mobile app that connects him with his customers but found himself shut out and staring blankly at the words "network error."

Just an hour earlier he'd been on Twitter arguing with disgruntled Black Cab drivers who he says were racially abusing him. One of the "trolls"—upset at Orhan's choice of language—had reported the exchange to Uber, and Orhan had been blocked from accessing the system.

Parked up in his gray Toyota Prius in the suburbs of North East London, a text came through from the company asking him to come in the following morning to "discuss the account." He arrived on time, if a little nervous, expecting to have his case heard and quickly get back onto the system. Two minutes later he left the office without a job. In the cold, dystopian language of cyberspace capitalism, he'd been "deactivated." And there was nothing he could do to contest it.

In the UK, thousands of people like Orhan are working in a new type of industry called the "sharing economy." Through cutting-edge peer-to-peer software platforms, companies like Uber offer buyers and sellers a place to do business outside of old corporate hierarchies. If you have a car or van you can turn it into a micro-business through an online app. If you have a fixie you don't use or a parking space you don't need, you can rent them out with your mobile phone. And if you have skills—from assembling furniture to organizing parties—you can offer them to a client base at your fingertips.

It's a growing and popular sector. According to a recent study by accountants PWC, the value of the UK's sharing economy could rise from £500 million [$787 million] to £9 billion [$14 billion] by 2025. Last year the British government commissioned a review into the sector to help aid that growth, led by one of the industry's leading advocates, Debbie Woskow, chief executive of Love Home Swap. In the "independent investigation" into her own industry, Woskow encouraged the government to "embrace the opportunities offered by the sharing economy," outlining how the UK could become one of the sector's "global centers." Job centers were encouraged to start promoting task-sharing platforms and sharing economy businesses were encouraged to start lobbying the government.

Woskow's views echoed the popular narrative around the industry, whose founders are often lionized as "pioneers" and "disruptors" offering people cheaper, more personable ways of exchanging goods and services. As the writer Evgeny Morozov has said, its advocates "invite us to imagine it as a feel-good utopia... driven by the altruistic spirit of Wikipedia and open-source software."

But hidden beneath the smart new apps and the language of collaboration is another side, left out by Woskow's review, and by much of the media attention the industry has received. The sharing economy is often described as "the future of work" but none of the companies that make up the sector are employer-businesses. What they offer are electronic mobile platforms that connect one user to another. For the companies involved the benefits of low labor costs are obvious, but for workers like Orhan—employed as freelance contractors—the implications are stark. Work in the sharing economy can be fleeting, poorly paid, and without the safeguards and benefits of normal waged labor, highly precarious.

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Despite its wide popularity among customers, Uber offers the clearest example of these problems. While many of the company's drivers praise the flexibility of the system—they can work if and when they want—as freelancers their lack of rights has left many in a state of permanent fear.

Part of the way Uber maintains "standards" is by using a consumer-driven rating system that lets each user score the driver from one to five. Uber says this weans out bad drivers and empowers customers, but many workers see it as arbitrary and unfair. If their star rating dips too low because of poor conversation, a slow journey or a price surge, they can find themselves at risk of deactivation. Orhan's story—one of a number I heard—is testament to how damaging this can be. With four children at home, a rented vehicle, and a mortgage to pay, his life was thrown into total chaos by the click of a button.

"I felt betrayed," he recalled, speaking from the driver's seat of his car. "How do you go home and tell your family that you lost your job for that kind of reason? I have four children living under my shelter. It really hurt me."

On their contracts, Uber drivers are listed as "partners" of the company. But aside from choosing their own hours they are effectively powerless, unable to challenge the fare structure and employment terms Uber sets. One of the few powers drivers have over their work is to rate their customers and potentially get bad ones barred. When Ali (not his real name) a driver I started contacting began working with Uber in 2013 his fare was set at £1.70 [$2.68] a mile. Now, as the company tries to expand in London, the mileage rate has been cut to £1.25 [$1.97], leaving Ali, he claims, significantly worse off. Many of those I spoke to described the same problem but with the threat of deactivation and no rights protecting them as workers, few were willing to do so publicly.

An Uber driver protests in New York. Photo by Grace Wyler.

"Drivers are oppressed and scared," Ali said. "They're getting dropped because of speaking out. I had a passenger in my car that was racist towards me. I parked up and refused to take him. The passenger reported it to Uber and they then issued me a warning, saying I wasn't allowed to make passengers leave my car. I was lucky. But as self-employed workers there is nothing there to protect us."

In a statement from the company, Uber contested any unfairness in their deactivation process. "Uber takes a zero tolerance approach to any concerns of racism, sexism, homophobia, or any other type of discrimination from either drivers or riders," an Uber spokesperson said. "Whilst we can't share details on individual cases, any decision to permanently remove a driver from the Uber platform due to customer complaints or a serious incident is only taken after the issue has been investigated and discussed with the driver in question. No driver has ever been removed from the Uber platform without a just cause. After all, our partner-drivers are the most important part of our business."

"If a driver's rating starts to fall we send them tips on how they can improve it and give them plenty of opportunities to improve it," the spokesperson added. "If it still remains low we invite them in for a training session, which one of our top performing partner drivers runs."

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Another area of the sharing economy operating on the same model as Uber is the market for casual labor, a place where people can outsource bite-sized errands they'd rather not do to an army of multi-skilled "taskers." One of the largest companies offering this in the UK is TaskRabbit, an online mobile marketplace founded in the US in 2008.

Like Uber, "taskers" are registered as independent contractors rather than employees. With no benefits or guarantees, they too move around from gig to gig, not knowing where they'll be next, how much they'll be paid, or what they'll be doing. With a rating system also determined by customers, the same fears and anxieties follow them wherever they go.

It's hardly surprising that this kind of service has taken off in London, where income inequality is so high. To many it looks like a new kind of servant economy, a space for the city's haves to clap their hands and be waited on by a growing pool of eager to please have-nots. Some jobs are simple enough, like handy-work and cleaning, but as Liam (not his real name) a young tasker I met in East London told me, some can be bizarre and humiliating."I know a tasker that was asked to cue up in a store to get a jar of custom Nutella from Selfridges and then drive it to the client," he said.

When faced with these criticisms, advocates of the sharing economy often highlight the system's flexibility. When TaskRabitt's founder, Leah Busque was designing the system this was, she claimed in the Financial Times, her inspiration: "How do we really revolutionize a global labor force, really give people flexibility to work when and where they want?"


Related: Want to learn more about workers struggling with their conditions? Watch 'The New Era of Canadian Sex Work'


Making furniture in his spare time, the tasker I met certainly fits into this picture. Unlike those using the platform full-time he chooses to work if and when he needs the extra cash. That sounds like the nice side of casualization, but is it really? Just this month, research from the House of Commons showed that 150,000 Londoners now take on two jobs to help make ends meet, a massive 50 percent increase on the previous decade. Since the Conservatives entered government in 2010, the UK has seen the longest decline in real wages for 40 years—leaving people hundreds of pounds poorer.

Seen in this context, the sharing economy looks more like a symptom of failure that technological progress—the mark of a post-crisis economy where those already in work are forced into a world of odd jobs and side-gigs just to stay afloat.

"My job is such an unstable profession and the housing situation can make you feel a bit like the future is hopeless," Liam told me. "Twenty or 30 years ago the rates in my industry were higher—you wouldn't have to worry so much about bills. Of course I would rather be well paid in what I do. I don't want to be building furniture for the next 20 years but for now it provides stability."

One company that has benefited particularly well from the growth of side-hustle Britain is AirBnB, a popular platform that allows people to rent out space in their houses. On the company's website, it claims that 80 percent of its UK hosts rent out their primary residence to help afford the increased costs of living. It's a fact they appear to be proud of, but the reality—as I found out after setting up a profile on the website—is people reluctantly selling space in their own homes to avoid, in many cases, defaulting on mortgages and other debts.

When John, a teacher from Buckley, started using AirBnB mid-way through 2012, he did it because "he had the room to do so." Now, he told me—communicating through the website's messaging system—he uses it because he needs extra money to help pay off his mortgage. If it wasn't for the debt he said he wouldn't be using it.

The same is true for Andrew, an illustrator and comic book artist I spoke to based in Manchester. When he started renting out space last year, he did so out of financial necessity—a combination of low income from freelance work and a high mortgage. Since then he's moved into full-time employment but told me the additional income is "invaluable" for paying off credit card debt and making other purchases. Like John, he said he wouldn't be using the system in an ideal world and described the amount of work he has to put into it as "like an additional job."

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Not everyone I spoke to shared the same concerns. Those using the industry for full-time work tended to describe the erosion of their rights more acutely than those moonlighting to help pay the bills. But all seemed to represent a failure of the present economy in one way or another.

And while the sharing economy makes life tough, it also makes it difficult for people to organize to improve things. In the past, plenty of freelancers have been able to organize together to change their working conditions but in the sharing economy things are much tougher. Microtaskers work in a landscape that is ephemeral and unstable, switching between multiple platforms and companies without employee status and without ever really crossing paths with people in the same position.

Over on VICE News: Selfie Soldiers – Russia Check in to Ukraine

Nevertheless, in the UK a group called the London Private Hire App-based Drivers Association was recently set up for Uber drivers to meet and make plans. On a windy evening late last month I found myself sitting at the back of a stuffy basement at the headquarters of a major British trade union, listening in as 50 Uber drivers discussed the possibility of unionizing for the very first time.

The room was filled with anger. Drivers shared stories of being deactivated, having their fares cut, and lacking any kind of meaningful rights. "Does anyone in the room want a protest?" one animated driver standing at the front shouted out at his colleagues. Hands flew up into the air. "They want us on our own," another driver told me after the meeting had finished, a bluetooth headset still fastened above his ear. "What we need is solidarity."

Whether or not unionizing can change the fundamental nature of freelance work in the sharing economy—where many labor laws just don't apply—remains to be seen. One possibility that Uber drivers in America are exploring is challenging their classification as independent contractors altogether. Only last week a ruling by the California Labor Commissioner decided in favor of one particular Uber driver being classified as an employee.

Other ideas range from simple measures like better access to legal advice and collectively switching off apps, to working toward a genuine sharing economy where workers own the software platforms themselves and set conditions according to their own needs. It all sounds deeply challenging, but if the Uber drivers I met in the center of town are anything to go by, a struggle for rights in the UK's sharing economy is about to truly begin.

Follow Philip Kleinfeld on Twitter.


Is This Guy Actually Doing Cocaine on the London Tube? Or Is the Video Fake?

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'The Wolf of London Underground,' as he was dubbed today by the 'Sun,' appearing to smash lines of coke on the Northern Line. Image via the 'Sun'

This article originally appeared on VICE UK.

Few things go more comfortably hand-in-hand than city workers and cocaine. The boys and girls from the square mile are famed for their love of powdered Red Bull, slowly trying to erode wine bar cisterns all over town, and using crumpled bank notes to wipe away their runny, translucent nose goo on Monday mornings. It is their prize for essential number crunching, for keeping London at the forefront of world economics. Chefs and doctors have cigarettes, moody detectives have alcohol, and city workers have cocaine.

Usually, they are able to indulge this vice with total impunity. As far as illegal drugs go, it's probably the easiest to do discreetly. Literally all you have to do is lock yourself somewhere away from prying eyes and breathe in to get high. To the outside world, you could just be taking a shit while struggling with a cold.

Read: I Got Cocaine Blown Up My Ass So You Don't Have To

Sometimes, though, the chang madness gets you by the balls, and you start to behave in erratic ways. This may be what happened to the gentleman who has become internet-famous in the last few hours for appearing to hoover away at a baggy of nostril boggler in full view of a packed tube train.

While I want to believe this is true, we all watched the first season ofTrue Detective, and we know that things are not always as they seem. So let's take a deeper look at the video and try to figure out if it is legit or faker than that gram of "cocaine" you picked up off of "Ricardo" in the early hours of Sunday morning.

THE CASE FOR IT BEING REAL

Image via the Sun

First, let's give him the benefit of the doubt. Let's say our friend here is actually just a stupid, gakked-up city boy who's either trying to get home or—and this seems more likely, given his demeanor—to another shindig where there's a gang of fellow moneymen waiting, like a murder of crows perched on the bar of a B@1, squawking chauvinisms at a barmaid. He's excited: He's about to rejoin the pack. The bag he's holding certainly has some kind of white powder in it, though his hands get in the way of his drizzling action, so we can't actually see the crystalline grains pile up on his chubby mitts.

Post-inhalation, he throws his head back, and begins to make the guttural straining sound of someone whose throat is being numbed by gear. The wild stare he employs, and the cavalier way he offers the wrap around, also points to him being fucked with a capital whoosh.

Also: Would we really be that surprised if a city boy, quite easily the most maligned people in the whole of London, were to do something as heinous as bang a load of nosebag in front of some unsuspecting commuters? The jejune excuse of "I just like taking it," saying shit like, "This is no playground, boys," calling everyone "boys" like the whole underground system is filled with fellow suited mash-up artists ready to pillock their way through an unsuspecting night out. This is par for the course, no?


Related: Watch our film about Sisa, Greece's life-ruining "cocaine of the poor"


THE CASE FOR IT BEING FAKE

Image via the 'Sun'

Well, perhaps not. There's just something a bit off about the whole thing. It's all a little bit too "Mr. Comedy Cocaine Man!" Check this guy out, he's being so brazen! And he's wearing a suit! And doing cocaine! On the tube! Man, these city boys, it's almost like they're a parody of themselves.

The frequency with which he's doing it is also suspect. There's no respite, no long, grinding chats with strangers. He's acting drunk, not high. The cocaine, while still making you act a cunt, would sober you up slightly, up your intensity rather than frivolity levels. And why do that much cocaine on your own, at 11 PM, as the Sun claims? Where are all his posh-bloke friends? Don't they travel in groups? Phalanxes of Hugos and Bertrams passing round Cava bottles and wraps of hooter? Why has this man been left behind?

His chosen mode of transport raises suspicions, also. I thought city boys were meant to be wealthy. So why is this one getting the tube? The tube is for the regular Joe, the idiots who can't organize hedge funds or quantitive easing or whatever the fuck it is that they do. This guy should, at the very least, be getting an Uber. If not an Uber Exec, then a regular one.

This guy is a prick, there can be no questioning that. But is he really bashing out little pyramids of bona fide charlie on the Northern Line? I think not. Next time on VICE Solves: the conflict in the Middle East.

Follow Joe Bish on Twitter.

Apparently Everyone Has to Stop Wearing Skinny Jeans Now

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This dude has a death wish, basically. Photo via jiulliano

This article originally appeared on VICE UK.

Oh, apparently we're not allowed to wear skinny jeans anymore, it says here, because there was a study in the Journal of Neurology, Neurosurgery, and Psychiatry—possibly my favorite neurological, neurosurgical, and psychiatric journal, although Practical Neurology has its momentssaying skinny jeans are a health risk. So take your pants off immediately. Take them off now.

All right, now that we're all extremely naked on our bottom halves, we can talk about why skinny jeans are a health risk. Skinny jeans are a health risk because a woman in Australia did too many squats while wearing them and her calves swelled up like blood balloons and she had to be sliced out of her pants. She was helping someone move. Kept squatting down to pick up boxes. Fell over. Couldn't get up. Special pair of scissors to get her out of her jeans. Nightmare.

Now, I know this is taboo. I know this is a taboo thing to say about other people's injuries. But that is very funny to me. Close your eyes and imagine: a woman, in skinny jeans, her calves positively Popeye-esque, struggling while a crew of firefighters go at her trousers with a hydraulic claw. That's funny, right? If that happened in Broad City it would be an amusing consequence of one of the characters wearing an overly tight pair of jeans. I mean, she had to spend four days in the hospital, so it's not that funny. But if it weren't real and it didn't make us all think of our own mothers, sisters, aunts, girlfriends, wives, and particularly hip grandmothers in similar kinds of agony, it would be funny.

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Due to this isolated incident of "compartment syndrome"—nerve and muscle damage to the calves, caused by overly constrictive jawnz—doctors are warning people not to wear skinny jeans, for fear of something similar happening again.

"The present case represents a new neurological complication of wearing tight jeans," the Royal Adelaide Hospital report said. That—paired with a 2008 study that found a number of patients had reported tingling and aching pains in their thighs after wearing similarly fitted jeans—means that basically, humans have developed a way to hurt themselves with their own invention: pants. I mean, humanity is fucking doomed, aren't we? We cannot wear jeans without almost dying.


Pants off? Unsure what to do next? Watch "The Digital Love Industry" for ideas:


I think if we put health warnings on every item of clothing that someone has inexplicably hurt themselves while wearing then we would be a very sad and nude human race. Example: I have punched my own face while urgently putting a T-shirt on. I once got a T-shirt caught over my head and fell down a small step. I wear T-shirts a lot and I am clumsy. I once put a T-shirt on and managed to victoriously punch a low ceiling and really did some damage to my hand. My shoelaces once got caught in a bike pedal and I nearly got hit by a van. Wearing clothes is dangerous, man. Who can truly look the gods in the eye and say a pair of pants hasn't fallen down on them because they forgot to put a belt on and fell over and almost chipped a tooth? It is nobody. And I haven't even gotten started on specialist girl clothes, like underwire bras and heels. Essentially: being anything but naked is a painful and dangerous chore.

What is the upshot of this skinny jeans fatwa? The natural conclusion is that flares—prescription flares, medically ordered by doctors—make a soaring comeback. That'd be good, wouldn't it? Bit of swish around the ankles. Bit of funk to liven up our days. Way fewer vivid outlines of dicks and balls being thrust toward us every single day through the thin denim crotches of every single stranger on the subway. Hospitals and GP services handing out muumuus and sarongs. "Be safe," medical practitioners are saying. "Be breezy." Or, I guess—and this is just a left-field opinion, and believe me, I am no doctor—or maybe, if you cannot comfortably squat and pick a box up in your skinny jeans, maybe you could just go a size up instead? Just wear slightly less skinny jeans, so a hospital does not have to put you on a drip to help you recuperate your legs.

Follow Joel on Twitter.

The Dawn of American-Style SuperPACs in Canada

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The Dawn of American-Style SuperPACs in Canada

Mallrats

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Left to right: Patagonia jacket, Nanushka sweater, Calvin klein jeans; Vintage jacket, vintage sweater, vintage skirt, Topshop sandals and socks; Topshop top, Paul Smith skirt, Unique Boots; Alexander wang windbreaker, Priory plaid shirt, Vintage hat, Nike socks, Acne shoes

Photography: Katrin Braga
Styling and creative direction: Juliann McCandless
Hair: Frida Norman
Makeup: Win Liu

Models: Tommy Genesis from Lorde Inc, Rhi Blossom from RadKids, Kristy Jacobsen from RadKids and Magdalena Crossley from Detention Agency

Special thanks to Gravity Pope clothing.

Watch i-D's New Documentary About Fashion in Tembisa, Johannesburg

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Watch i-D's New Documentary About Fashion in Tembisa, Johannesburg
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