This article originally appeared on VICE Greece

"I feel sorry for us. We are so stupid for not having moved our money abroad. It's our own fault for wanting to act all proud of being Greek. Now look at us," said an elderly woman as she came out of a Greek National Bank branch in Kalithea, Athens.

On Wednesday morning, the Greek government ordered banks to reopen to allow pensioners without ATM cards to make small cash withdrawals. A maximum withdrawal limit of 120 Euros ($133) has been placed on their retirement funds.

"I've been queuing here since 4 AM, and I was just told that I'm not getting paid today," the woman went on.

"Pack your bags and get out of this country while you're young," Spiros, who is on a state pension, told me. "And as if not having any money wasn't enough, we are also being internationally ridiculed," he continued, motioning towards the crowd of foreign reporters surrounding us.

The queues outside each branch were several meters long. Those whose last name starts with letters between A and K will be paid today. Thursday is for those between K and M and Friday will be M through Z.

"We deserve to be treated like this," said another old gentleman at the end of the queue. "We're the ones who allowed Merkel to tell us what to do."

Right at that time, a policeman showed up and began distributing queue tickets. I guess the branch had run out of employees to do the job. There was a short moment of panic as the crowd of pensioners literally jumped him. Those who managed to get a ticket left with a smile on their face.

At the time of writing, the queues remain endless.

Watch our doc 'Escape from Greece,' and scroll down for more photos of the lines:

Fanmail jacket

PHOTOGRAPHY: MATT GRUBB
STYLING: KYLIE GRIFFITHS
TEXT: ZACH SOKOL

Make-up: Jessica Ross using CK One Colour Cosmetics
Hair: Holly Mills using R+Co
Model: Seth Troxler

Seth Troxler has meat guilt. When I met the 29-year-old dance music producer and record label impresario during a brief stint in Brooklyn, he was holding a plate full of pulled pork and ribs and his scraggly mustache was stained with a light coat of barbecue sauce. We were supposed to discuss the environment, Troxler's biggest passion outside of music and partying, and he recognized that ordering those glorious slabs of beef wasn't the best look, even if they tasted damn good.

"I'm a complete hypocrite," he said. "I love meat, I love the idea of cooking meat, but meat production has a huge impact on the environment." When I mentioned that it's probably fine since the meat was from a local, farm-to-table spot, he wondered out loud if local farms with grass-fed cows possibly consume even more water than commercial farms. "Either way, eating meat does affect climate change," he concluded. "To deny that is like doing drugs and not considering the fact that it's keeping the cartel in business."

For a while, we chatted about Troxler's three new label imprints, Tuskegee; Soft Touch; and Play It, Say It, but eventually the conversation reared back to eco responsibility. "I'm nearly 30, man. When you're a teenager, you think nothing you do can hurt or change the world around you, but then you get older and you start to feel your own mortality. So I get meat guilt. Then I get meat sweats."

Read some of the rest of our chat below.

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VICE: So you consider yourself someone who is actively passionate about nature and the environment?
Seth Troxler: Yes, very much. I'm interested in the idea that the US government knows that we're in dire, cataclysmic times, and it's not doing anything about it. The only political institutions that can really affect climate change are governments with rigorous e-waste restrictions and limitations on industries, like oil, gas, plastics, etc.

But every institution like that is so caught up in capitalism, instead of policy reform, and each one is watching our species enter a phase of possible near-extinction, and they're just like, "Eh, ya know."

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It's also hard to get the public interested in changing things, since these institutions feel so big, somewhat abstract and impenetrable. As an artist, do you think you have the opportunity or even responsibility to get people to pay attention to issues like this?
I think artists have the visibility and platform to connect loads of people, and they should raise awareness about a specific conflict, or at least spark a bigger conversation about it.

What's cool about this position [as a musician] is that there are lots of different people, who may seem unconnected, all paying attention to one source. They all at least share an appreciation of the artist, which is a unifying thing. So if an artist can use his or her place in culture to get diverse fans to pay attention and talk about one thing, like climate change, then that's huge. Even if it sounds cheesy, art can affect people on an emotional and intellectual level.

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What about music festivals—they consume a huge amount of energy. Do you think there's a way to change and adapt them to make sure they are eco-friendly?
Yes, people should look at festivals like Wonder Fruit in Thailand. In five years it will be self-sustaining and completely run on its own energy. I'm behind festivals like that, and want to see more like Wonder Fruit created. Playing at more festivals that use a similar model would be like killing two birds with one stone for me—two passions on one stage.

See the rest of the photos below:

Brooklyn Denim Co jacket, Fanmail T-shirt, Levi's jeans

In God We Trust jacket, Brooklyn Denim Co shirt, Levi's jeans

Image by Jan Utecht

This article originally appeared on VICE UK

I first heard Occvlta in the lead up to the very first Live Festival back in 2009, where legend has it Jan, the frontman, basically told the former organizer that they were playing the festival, no questions asked. I was helping out with band interviews for the zine to accompany the festival, but finding Occvlta was tough. Back then they weren't even listed on Encyclopaedia Metallum (Wikipedia for metal-nerds, basically), such was their relative newness.

I eventually tracked them down though, and Jan was the ideal interviewee. His confidence in getting a place at the festival (their first show, if I'm not mistaken, and first-up on the bill of what would be a legendary festival) wasn't unfounded. They fucking slayed.

Then, when VICE's music site Noisey was launched, I traveled to an Occvlta show in three-degree weather in Berlin around December, 2010, to see them desecrate White Trash alongside infernal death-bangers Deathhammer, and 80s Italian speed metallers Fingernails. This performance was captured and features in their Noisey show. Jan had just had his first-born around that time (hey, Grimur!), but as his lady and offspring were out of town for a few days, he put me and a few other beer/weed/sweat-stinking metalheads up in his ludicrously cheap Kreuzberg apartment for a few nights, and the allegiance formed.

Jan (middle) in Berlin, 2010. Photo by Dylan Hughes

Anyway, recent-ish-ly he did a mix for the prestigious Lodown Magazine, which is mostly made up of just weird stuff and no metal, and it reminded me, 'Hey, wasn't he supposed to do a mix for me?' So here it is, all ready to be devoured, below a few words from Jan himself:

Well, this mix—what to say about it. In a way, it's a mirror of the metal I listen to and how I feel at the moment. Which is mostly black and heavy. You'll find obscure stuff and songs you've probably known for ages. I was introduced to a lot of the songs by my brother or my friends, hanging out with cool people and listening to cool music.

"Devil Eyes" and "Princess of the Night" I owe to my brother, Torben; Sapphire, I owe to Tooth [drummer of New York band Natur]; "Lady of Mars" to Marcelo; and Winterhawk I think was originally introduced to me by Henry, but it took a few years until Torben played it—and then BOOM. There you go.

TRACKLIST:

1. Wendy Carlos and Rachel Elkind (USA) - "Main Title 'The Shining'" [1980]
2. Aura Noir (Norway) - "Towers of Limbs and Fevers (Original Version)" [1994]
3. Mighty Sphincter (USA) - "Ghost Walking" [1985]
4. Isengard (Norway) - "Our Lord Will Come" [1991]
5. Darkthrone (Norway) - "As Flittermice as Satans Spys" [1994]
6. Kringa (Austria) - "Pearly Gates, Abhorrent Ascent (Unreleased)" [2015]
7. Mayhem (Norway) - "Life Eternal" [1994]
8. Mercyful Fate (Denmark) - "Devil Eyes" [1982]
9. Sapphire (England) - "Encounter" [1982]
10. Dark Star (England) - "Lady of Mars" [1981]
11. Saxon (England) - "Princess of the Night" [1981]
12. Winterhawk (USA) - "Free to Live" [1982]

A Fist in the Face of God Presents: The Initiation by Mxnv on Mixcloud

I've also been keeping up my monthly radio show on NTS, where I play the finest in forgotten metal for two hours. The shows are chronicled here, for those not in the know.

See more of Dylan's stuff on his website here.

Screencap from 'The Terminator' (1984) via Orion Pictures

According to a Hollywood myth, the original Terminator came to James Cameron in a dream. By that I mean, Cameron once said he came down with a fever in the 80s and imagined a killer chrome skeleton-bot. But as for the plot about a time-traveling soldier from the future on a mission to kill a foe in the present? He stole that—yep, stole in the legal sense—from an old episode of The Outer Limits written by sci-fi god-among-men Harland Ellison. But in the process of creating that amalgam of new and borrowed, he set in motion one of the most elaborate, ostensibly continuous, time-travel plots in the history of the movies.

It's supposed to be so simple: Sarah Connor will give birth to the chosen one who can fight the machines, but the machine-man from the future will stop at nothing to carry out the world's most invasive, pre-pregnancy abortion to prevent that from happening. Sadly, the series can only continue if the premise keeps adding complications.

For instance, the second film added a wrinkle to the closed-loop conceit of the first by informing us that despite the Connor baby successfully being born, spare robot parts left in the present ensured that Judgment Day, the first shot of the robot war, still happened. T2, in turn, went to great lengths to quash Judgment Day's eventuality once-and-for-all. But the thing about "once-and-for-all" is that T3 is a profitable idea, so screenwriters futzed around with time, and Skynet miraculously came online once again.

To understand how all this time-travel jiggery-pokery works, I called Caltech theoretical physicist, author, and science consultant on Terminator: Genisys Sean Carroll. He helped me get the Terminator cinematic universe back into focus, since I tend to lose track of how it all works after the part where lightning strikes Arnold's bare ass.

[Warning: Terminator franchise spoilers abound in this edited interview.]

VICE: As a scientist, how's the science in this movie franchise just generally?
Sean Carroll: There's no question that it's a horrible mess, really, which is very, very common in time travel movies. I think it's very very rare for a time travel movie to work hard to keep everything consistent and sensible. The movie will plod along in whatever way the writers want to get from point A to point B and messing with timelines is definitely a way to do that.

Let's start with the first film: The Terminator. The guy who goes back in time has sex with the mother of the guy who sent him back in time, and turns out to be his father. Does that make sense?
There's nothing illogical about a chain of events that leads to itself. The only illogical thing is when there's a chain of events that prevents the initial event from ever happening? That would be bad.

And does that happen in the series?
It does in subtle ways. It's very clear from the very premise of the first movie that at least Skynet and the resistance in the future think it's possible to change the past. Skynet lives in a world where John Connor exists, and they want to prevent him from existing. So we certainly are operating under the impression that timelines can be changed.

The Terminator films might be more realistic than you think. Don't believe us? Watch 'Israel's Killer Robots':

Is that a fatal flaw?
It's not necessarily flawed by itself. A layer that you can try to add to this is, "Can we imagine a set of timelines that are different from each other, and yet the whole shebang is consistent?" So let's say we have a simple world where the first terminator succeeded, and John Connor was killed. Then you can imagine there's a timeline where John Connor was killed, and one where he was not, and they're sort of separate from each other.

So to understand multiple timelines, we have to get into the weeds of quantum mechanics for a second. Can you explain that briefly?
Quantum mechanics is a true theory of the world that helps us explain the subatomic realm. When you have a particle in a certain position, there's no such thing as where the particle is. It's spread out through space until you observe it. And when you observe it, you see it in some location or another, and that's given by a probability that you'll see it in one place versus some other place.

The idea that there are branching timelines, where slightly different things happen is very realistic as far as physics is concerned.

That's the "quantum" part. But where do whole separate timelines come in?
There's a very respectable version of quantum mechanics, which is not yet known to be true, which is called the many-worlds interpretation of quantum mechanics, and it says that when you observe a particle, and you see it in one position, there's another world that comes into existence where it's in some other position, and yet another position, and so forth. So the idea that there are branching timelines, where slightly different things happen is very realistic as far as physics is concerned.

But that doesn't necessarily mean we can time travel, right?
That has nothing to do with time travel. That's just branching because the universe is becoming more and more complicated and varied over time. You could add to that the idea of time travel, where you're going back into the past, but the place you're going back to isn't the place you came from because the world has split into a different timeline.

That sounds like it would give the Terminator films a lot of flexibility. Do they stay consistent enough for the multiple-timelines explanation?
The weirdness in the Terminator films is that it sort of goes beyond that, with people passing back and forth between timelines, not just creating more every time somebody goes back.

It's easy to go forward in time. I went forward in time yesterday by 24 hours, and here I am.

Right. Time travel in the Terminator films is all back in time, never forward. Is there a scientific basis for that? Might we be able to go forward someday?
It's easy to go forward in time. I went forward in time yesterday by 24 hours, and here I am. It took me 24 hours to do it, and I'm gonna do it again in 24 hours. We're always going forward in time, and it seems to be a one-way street. The English language isn't really up to the task of talking about this. We say we move "forward in time," but it's not the same kind of movement we talk about when we're talking about moving through space.

So you just stay on course, but faster to go into the future. How would terminators get to the past, though?
If you ask, "If you did go to the past, what would the rules be?" We're making stuff up. We can guess.

Yes, please guess.
The scientific question is, "Can the shape of the universe be distorted so much that you and I can locally, in our neighborhood of space, be moving forward in time just like we always do, but that forward motion in time twists around so much that we end up coming back to a point before we left?" This is what's called a "closed timelike curve" in physics.

There's no part in physics that says I can just disappear and reappear somewhere else. There's nothing even remotely respectable about that.

Would it look like what we see in the Terminator movies?
If you want to be physically reasonable, one of the very first things you should object to in movies like The Terminator is if you could travel backwards in time, it wouldn't be that you disappear, and then reappear in the past.

Why is that a problem?
Einstein taught us that time and space are both part of one four-dimensional thing called spacetime. So in general relativity, which is Einstein's theory of spacetime, if you want to go backwards in time, you just move through spacetime in a particularly curvy way, so that your path takes you to a point before you left. But there's no part in physics that says I can just disappear and reappear somewhere else. There's nothing even remotely respectable about that.

What should traveling into the past look like using a closed timelike curve?
You'd have to hop in a spaceship and fly around for several years until you finally got back to the year 2011 or whatever. It's a lot less visual, and it gets in the way of the story you're trying to tell. That stuff doesn't bother me. That's just violating the laws of physics. That just goes without saying in movies like this. It's violating the laws of logic that I find to be much more annoying.

Aren't other movies worse about that though?
The classic example is something like Back to the Future, where you see the photograph changing because of something that happened in the past. That doesn't make sense in anyone's version of anything. I mean, what is right now? Why is it changing now? What is this supposed to be? It's something that happened years in the past! It's clearly a mixed-up attempt to change the past and yet only have one timeline. That would not make sense.

Have you figured out why screenwriters keep getting tripped up there?
Storytellers tend to mix up the narrative time with the actual flow of time in the universe as being described in the story. That's what makes it impossible to reconcile this in any scientific way. That only makes sense because there's an omniscient godlike narrator point-of-view who's showing you different things happening. From that narrator's point of view, things are simultaneous, but no physical person in the story's point of view. In some sense, Terminator's not really that bad.

On the Creators Project: Drawing Robot Sketches C-3PO and a T-800 Terminator

Are there specific problem areas in the Terminator universe, where the timeline is altered?
In the third one, it's very clear that they have affected the timeline. But I think it was still, at least until then, possible that it was just a branching structure, where more and more timelines were being created by all these people being sent into the past.

In the third film they think they've stopped Judgment Day, but the robot tells John, "Judgment Day is inevitable." Does the concept of inevitability have any scientific basis?
You can invent an idea that's not based in physics, or anything we know about the laws of nature, but you could invent an idea [that is] sort of like fixed points in the future. There are choices that we have now. Different things could happen. But no matter what we do now, there's going to be some ultimate outcome. That's not in any way how physics works. You're making up a story. You don't have time-traveling robots either.

What's wrong with the inevitability conceit, science-wise?
If in the Terminator universe there is this rule, how do they know that? Have they been in every timeline? It seems completely impossible to me to verify something like that. Maybe that was someone's point of view, and that point of view turns out to be wrong. The narrator's voice of God can say that, but I don't see how any person living in that universe could know something like that.

There wasn't really any time travel in the fourth movie. So what what was your contribution to this new one?
Alan Taylor and I chatted a couple times. You know this is something where I go into Paramount, and I sit in his office and we chat for an hour and then I leave. And then a year and a half later, the movie appears.

Can you share any of the substance of the conversation?
We talked a little bit about why the Terminators are always naked when they come back.

Oh my God, yeah! Why is that?
Who cares, really? They wanted to show Arnold Schwarzenegger naked.

Fair enough. So as a consultant on these movies, do you have a general mission for filmmakers?
I think that the moviemaking profession, and the moviegoing audience are both becoming a little more sophisticated over time. So these days more than ever, you make a better movie if you try to make it make sense. If you really just slap things together because you thought that every individual scene is adorable, but don't worry about the underlying logical structure, the audience will be bugged by that.

Terminator: Genisys opens in theaters today.

Follow Mike Pearl on Twitter.

The Supreme Court wrapped up its 2015 session on Monday, and predictably, presidential candidates have been vomiting talking pointsin response to the landmark decisions handed down in the past week. With over a dozen Republicans and a handful of Democrats who have been angling for the White House, though, it's easy to forget that one of them is going to actually have to do this job at some point. And part of that job—arguably, one of the most important parts—is going to be nominating at least one Supreme Court justices.

The current SCOTUS lineup—has been in place since Elena Kagan's confirmation in 2010—is, by any measure, very old. Liberal mainstay Ruth Bader Ginsburg is an 82-year old pancreatic cancer survivor; conservative giant Antonin Scalia is just a little younger at 79; and Anthony Kennedy, the court's typical swing vote and author of every major Supreme Court opinion concerning gay rights dating back to 1996 is 78. Stephen Breyer, a Clinton appointee, is 76. And Clarence Thomas, although a youngster by comparison at 66, has been on the bench for more than 20 years, and his strange silence over the last eight or so suggests he might not be in love with the job.

Related: Why the Supreme Court Ruling Against the EPA May Not Be a Big Deal

With four justices who will be in their 80s by 2020, it's likely that whoever takes over the White House will get to fill at least one spot on the bench—a decision that could dramatically shift the balance of the court. Ginsburg's future in particular has been the source of much speculation since 2014, when it became clear that Democrats weren't going to hold their majority in the Senate after the midterm elections. Some liberal commentators called on her to resignto give Barack Obama a chance to pick a likeminded successor, but Ginsberg has so far unequivocally declined.

Should she change her mind though—or if Breyer decides to step down—a Republican president would likely nominate a conservative successor, giving the right-leaning justices a clear majority on the bench. Conversely, if Scalia or Kennedy decides to retire, a Democratic president could pick a liberal successor, tipping the scales to the left. Even one replacement has the potential to alter the way the Court falls on major decisions. Bush v. Gore, Citizens United, and now Obergfell v. Hodges are all recent 5-4 votes split down ideological lines—in each case, just one judge could have changed the course of the decision entirely.

"It is inevitable that there's going to be a change,"said James Magee, a University of Delaware political science professor who specializes in constitutional law and the Supreme Court. "If Hillary Clinton or another Democrat wins the election next year, Ginsburg will probably retire, with the assumption she'll be replaced by someone who shares her values."

Ironically, though, the intense political polarization that has gridlocked Congress for the past five years could actually lead to more moderate Supreme Court justices down the line. The heightened political stakes for presidential nominations, Magee explained, have made it nearly impossible for ideological purists from either side of the political spectrum to get through the notoriously arduous Senate confirmation process—especially when the Senate and the White House are controlled by different parties.

"Someone like [Harvard law professor and liberal constitutional scholar] Laurence Tribe or [Senator] Ted Cruz could never be nominated, because they're too predictably liberal or conservative," Magee said.

Presidents looking for a reliable ally on the court also often have trouble predicting what their nominee will do once they get on the bench. Former Justice David Souter, for example, was a former Republican attorney general of New Hampshire nominated by George H.W. Bush, but turned out to be a reliable liberal vote on the court. And Chief Justice John Roberts, who was nominated by George W. Bush and confirmed by a Republican-controlled Senate in 2005, has outraged conservatives with his two decisive votes on the Affordable Care Act.

Sam Erman, a University of Southern California law professor who clerked for both Kennedy and former Justice John Paul Stevens, suggested that political chatter around the court stems more from politicians and the media rather than the justices themselves. "They have the job for life, so they don't have to worry about politics in the way that other powerful members of the government have to,"Erman said. "So even though their decisions seem political to us, I think that the justices are committed to the notion of legality."

WATCH: Was the Senate Torture Report Biased? An Extra Scene from the VICE News Interview with Michael Morell

Even so, 2016 White House hopefuls likely have a pretty good idea of what they'd look for in a potential justice. Jeb Bush, who's been trying to sell himself as the most reasonable Republican option, has singled out Thomas as his closest ideological match on the current court. Hillary Clinton told a group of Democratic fundraisers in May that her "test"for future Justices would be a pledge to overturn Citizens United. Bobby Jindal thinks we should just get rid of the court all together.

It's also possible, Erman noted, that the current justices decide to stay on the bunch, regardless of old age, for the simple reason that people are living, and working, longer. "Even if everyone is appointed at the same age, their tenures on the court will be longer,"he explained. "So these influential moments for presidents [to nominate justices] may become farther and farther between."

As for Ginsberg, the beloved liberal jurist and feminist meme, Erman warned against predicting her future. "She's still at the top of her game, and hasn't indicated that she wants to retire,"he said. "People have underestimated Ruth Bader Ginsburg before."

Follow Paul Blest on Twitter.

For almost two years, Michael Lansu's days began with a quick tally of the times and locations of deadly overnight shootings in Chicago. From there, the 32-year-old native of the city's North Side would cull more information from police—names, dates of birth, addresses—and get to work reporting on many of the men, women and children murdered in Chicago each year. As editor and reporter at the ChicagoSun-Times' Homicide Watch, Lansu told stories of death. In the case of Lil Durk's manager, Uchenna Agina, whose death came just hours after meeting with Chicago Bulls Center Joakim Noah at an anti-violence event, Lansu combined his deep police sources and in-depth knowledge of the city's rap scene to tell a story steeped in tragic irony.

But in early June, Lansu was laid off from the Sun-Times after a decade at the paper. The newspaper, like many of its brethren across the country in both small towns and big cities, has struggled in recent years to keep up with online competition. In 2013, theSun-Times famously—or infamously if you're a journalist—laid off its entire photo staff. Late last year, the newspaper's parent company announced a series of websites aimed at covering other metropolitan areas—not by staffing newsrooms in other cities, but by aggregating content provided by local news sources.

We recently caught up with Lansu to talk about his time as one of Chicago's preeminent murder reporters, and what his future holds.

VICE: Give us an idea what a typical shift on the Homicide Watch desk looked like for you.
Michael Lansu: A typical day as editor of Homicide Watch started with checking on the overnight violence first thing in the morning. How many people were shot? How many people were killed?

This was done in a variety of ways, including reading news briefs written by overnight reporters, contacting police sources, and checking social media. The next step was to post brief news stories on the night's killings. From there, I would either go to the scene to try and talk to friends and family or, if there were numerous murders, try to contact friends and family via phone and social media.

Other regular tasks included going to court for bond hearings, creating databases, searching for trends, running social media, and assigning stories to interns and freelancers.

There is no blanket solution for the entire city.

A lot of people try to make sense of the violence in Chicago, like there's a single reason for it or some sort of moment of enlightenment to be gleaned from the mayhem. What did you learn during your time covering the city's murders?
Just like everywhere else, from big city to small town, there is not one single reason for violence. Some of the shootings stem from gang or drug disputes, others from taunts over social media, and yet others start from disputes among people who have been drinking or doing drugs at a party. Chicago also has its share of domestic killings that stem from family disputes.

The perception that all of Chicago's violence comes from gang members standing on corners and fighting over territory is just not right. It is a very complex problem that includes illegal guns, a culture of violence, and sometimes a lack of problem solving skills.

If you had to choose, what is the single greatest reason that so many people in Chicago die from gun violence?
There is no single reason because every neighborhood is different. Parts of the West Side have long been known for open air drug markets and disputes of drug sales. In recent years, much of the South Side violence has stemmed from gang disputes that start as social media taunts. There is no blanket solution for the entire city.

Is there any way to stop it?
The Chicago Police Department often talks about the easy access to illegal guns, and what they claim is insufficient punishment for those arrested with those guns. And while that is part of the problem, there is clearly a culture of violence in some Chicago neighborhoods where shootings are a daily occurrence. Many people have spent their entire lives in these neighborhoods... In recent years, the police department has worked closely with the community to try and stop conflicts before shootings (or retaliation) happens.

...police definitely know who the gang members are, and anyone with even basic internet skills can find YouTube and Instagram accounts with photos of guns and drugs.

Local favorite Young Pappy was killed last month, marking just the latest in a line of rappers who were making waves online only to be gunned down. Where did Pappy fit in Chicago's rap hierarchy, and was he as much of a gangbanger as the cops say?
Young Pappy had been growing in popularity recently, in part because of several YouTube videos that got lots of views. In recent years, Chicago has produced a lot of rappers that have had national success. Just like other types of music, there are those who have big-money record deals, those with smaller record deals, and up-and-comers releasing their own music. At the time of his death, Young Pappy was gaining in popularity, but still releasing his own music.

Young Pappy had lyrics that taunted rival gangs. He had been the target of at least two other shootings that left bystanders dead.

It seems like you listen to hip-hop artists in Chicago's scene for different reasons than the average music consumer. What have you learned from these artists about life in Chicago?
When drill music became popular a few years ago, a lot of Chicago rappers had success with the more aggressive songs that sounded like the violent streets where they grew up. But not every Chicago rapper is making songs about violence. Those who are often have lyrics that include references to local gangs or areas. Learning what the references mean can be helpful in understanding specific areas in specific neighborhoods.

How much do police focus on the online flame wars and music videos coming out of the city?
Chicago Police pay a lot of attention to social media conflicts. The police department has made a lot of changes in recent years toward more modern police tactics. Some people think it has worked, others believe the old way was better. But police definitely know who the gang members are, and anyone with even basic internet skills can find YouTube and Instagram accounts with photos of guns and drugs.

It seems like there's a lot of grumbling among Chicago media folks when reporters or outlets from outside the city cover it. I'm thinking specifically about the Guardian's pieces on the police detention facility at Homan Square. Can you explain why this is?
I don't think local media grumbling about national media is unique to Chicago. Every reporter takes pride in knowing their city and gets upset when outsiders come in.

In regards to Homan Square, the initial Guardian story rubbed many Chicago reporters the wrong way. Lots of reporters got hung up on the term "black site," since they had known that the building was CPD[Chicago Police Department]-operated for years.

The initial story left a lot of local reporters and editors asking questions like: "Why didn't they file a lawsuit?" "Had the suspect ever been arrested before, and what is he comparing the experience to—this is Chicago after all?" and "I could have gotten comment from police through my sources."

Some people came out and criticized local media for not covering the story because the media is too close to the police department. I don't think this is true. Obviously some reporters have more police sources than others, but if it was deemed to be an important story, it would have been assigned.

I really do believe the reason it didn't get more coverage is because this is a big city with lots of people making accusations every day. Most media outlets have a policy where they don't write about accusations or threats of lawsuits. They will cover the story when a lawsuit is filed, and I think that policy dictated a lot of the local coverage.

Along those lines, how much do you hate the term "Chiraq?" It seems to be a favorite among media outside the city, but Chicago rappers like Montana of 300 seem to have taken to it too, and Spike Lee is currently filming a movie in Englewood called Chiraq.
I don't hate the term, [but] I see it as another nickname that gives the city a bad name. "Chiraq" was just as likely to catch on as "Killinois." I chuckle [about how] the nickname has caught on and some days gets as much media attention as the violence problem it is supposed to represent. Other cities have unflattering nicknames as well (Cleveland has long been known as "The Mistake By The Lake"), but arguing over nicknames instead of focusing on the problems that prompted the nickname seems silly to me.

Check out Noisey's documentary, Chiraq, on the violence wrapped up in Chicago's hip-hop scene.

What do you miss most about the job? Least?
I am going to miss the Homicide Watch project. I really believe that local media should cover every murder and not pick-and-choose based on the staff available or the neighborhood where the killing happened. I hope Chicago media is able to find a way to constantly improve on its murder coverage.

You now join the distinguished ranks of journalists let go because of the difficult economics the industry. What are your plans for the future?
I enjoyed a little bit of time off from the daily grind that was 24/7 murder coverage in Chicago. Like all reporters, it is hard to stay away for too long and I am ready to get back to work. I have some stories that I am working on while I look for my next project.

Follow Michael Lansu on Twitter.

Follow Justin Glawe on Twitter.

All stills taken from the trailer for 'Her Story,' via YouTube.

This article originally appeared on VICE UK.

Her Story has surprised a lot of people, not least its own creator, Sam Barlow. Reviews have been amazingly positive—"profound" and "gripping" wrote Digital Spy—but players have been split. "This is what I call Polygon bait," comments user reviewer "Tubey" on Metacritic, awarding the game a measly 4/10 and referring to the American gaming website; "a game that site loves to laud as 'artistic,' but... it's not actually a video game." Another, "frumps," is rather more blunt: "This is not a game. It is a gimmick to sell to people who don't play video games or know what a video game is." He scores it 0/10.

Out now for PC, Mac, and iOS, Her Story certainly isn't a title that gamers of every stripe were ever likely to get behind. The entire thing is presented through a desktop computer-styled interface, fitting its mid-1990s setting. The sole gameplay mechanic is typing in keywords that yield video results from a police database. These clips are of a woman being interviewed regarding the murder of her husband, and the first keyword that the game automatically puts in place for you is just that: "murder." From there onwards, though, it's all down to the player. You piece the story, her story, together from the clips, finding a suitable order for them, learning more about the case with every second of video. Did she do it? The complete picture can't be achieved until every clip has been unlocked, and with no set path to the game's conclusion, such as it is, it's unlikely that any two players will see the story unfold in quite the same way.

Not too long ago, on these very pages, I wrote about how I wanted there to be a digital version of the board game Sherlock Holmes: Consulting Detective. With Her Story, it's almost like I've got my wish. Not content to just play the game, I wanted to get some more insight into the design process. So I got in contact with Barlow, who previously worked on Silent Hill: Shattered Memories, to discuss (spoiler free) how the game was made, and how he came to some of the decisions surrounding its story.

"'Kitchen sink drama' is a term that people came up with to talk about a wave of plays and films that we had back in the 1950s and 60s," Sam tells me. "This was a movement about telling stories that represented and dramatized the struggles of ordinary, working-class people. So much of the drama took place around the drudgery of the kitchen sink. This was an important movement because it was about making sure high art spoke for, and also to, the larger audience."

This isn't just a term related to films and plays, however. Sam would often encounter it when he was working in big game development. "It's used as a way of dismissing material that is contemporary, not fantastical. So, you know, it's OK to pitch a game about a cyborg assassin from the future. That's aspirational, it's 'wow,' it's very 'video game.' But if you want to make a game about something that's set in the real world, that is a story on a smaller scale? That's too kitchen sink. And I used to get frustrated at these kinds of reactions."

"You see that lack of confidence with the material in stuff like David Cage's games [for Quantic Dream] where they add in robots and aliens, or cyberpunk VR glasses, when the characters and their drama should be enough to carry the game. I was so lucky, too, with the Silent Hill franchise because, horror and supernatural elements aside, the core stories there are absolutely of that domestic, personal scale. And you didn't have to argue about it, it was part of its DNA."

Now that he's working on his own, Barlow can put as much kitchen sink in as he wants, and he's very glad about it. "With Her Story, I was very excited to have the freedom to engage with material that takes place in a contemporary setting, where the characters aren't superheroes. The stakes are personal and intimate. The details are ones that people will recognize from their own lives, from the lives of their families. I'm not saying every game has to be like this, but we do need more that are."

It's unsurprising that Her Story's reception has included questions regarding whether or not it's even a "game." Interactive fiction? Sure, obviously. But a game? Barlow has a neat answer to this. "I see interactive fiction as a subset of games, so my answer to that question is: it's both. As confusing as the word might be, 'game' is probably the best word we have for these interactive digital things whose experience requires the direct participation of a player."

There is a kind of "game" element to Her Story however, as the database is only able to display five results per keyword at a time, so as you try and unlock more of the story, you have to become ever more clever with your searches. "Yeah, the 'five entries' is my one free-pass: I know this isn't utterly believable, but go with it," Barlow says. "But also, having worked with government computer systems of that time, I know it's not that far-fetched." The game's presentation wasn't locked in from the start, though. "Initially, this [interface] wasn't a big part of the experience. But once I'd developed the story I kind of knew it was taking place in the 90s, and once I was in the 90s and started to research police computers of that era, I just got deep into that look and the aesthetic—it became important to make sure it was as authentic as it could be."

The trailer for 'Her Story.'

Every now and then the monitor flickers, providing a glimpse of "you" looking into the old CRT monitor, or a solemn piece of piano music plays. The first time this happened to me, I had just watched a clip detailing how the murder victim's body had been found, and was pretty freaked out by it. I wondered if this was intentional. "There's some logic which tracks the emotional intensity of the clips to drive the music, and if it spikes the lights can flicker. So the flicker will naturally occur when you've watched a juicy clip or seen a couple of semi-juicy ones in succession." I have to tell you, it works really well.

With this stripped back mode of gameplay, and player-directed story progression, I had to ask Barlow about games like Gone Home and Dear Esther, to see whether they were an influence on him. "What links Gone Home, Dear Esther, games like them, is that we're all absolutely in love with the idea of video games; we're all in love with the telling of stories. And what drives us is finding new ways to combine those two passions, to tell stories that are truthful and memorable, and to tell those stories in ways that only games can provide.

"Gone Home was very interesting to me because for all that people felt it was a different kind of game, to me it was very clearly in the tradition of the big name games Steve (Gaynor) worked on. It was a BioShock game, but in a domestic scenario. What impressed me was how much the performance aspect drove that title. How key the writing and the voice acting were to its impact. In a way, Her Story reacts to that by focusing in on that aspect to the exclusion of all others, and trying to explore how we make that part more interactive, more involved.

"Dear Esther was a big influence, naturally. Other than the sheer emotional grunt of that game, it hits you in the heart, right? It's a great example of how players can create a narrative in the space between clips. The game has a random selection of audio, which isn't, if I recall correctly, necessarily consistent. But each player draws together the themes and symbols and pieces, and creates something very moving. I think there's a tendency in games to spell everything out, and to not do so might be a user interface failing, right? But in many ways this utterly compromises the player's imagination. And it's the player's imagination that is driving this. Look at cinema, the medium that's all about pointing a camera at things—often the craft in that medium is about what you don't show."

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All the player ever sees is one woman, played by Viva Seifert, in a room, sometimes playing with a cup, sometimes her hair. The game takes place over a number interviews spanning several weeks, so her appearance varies from one clip to the next and, more importantly, so too do her emotions, sometimes wildly. I wondered if each clip was recorded separately, or whether the interviews were shot as one long session.

"We shot for a week, roughly in chronological order, and it was grueling," Barlow recalls. "At times it felt like we had been stuck in a room being interrogated ourselves! If I remember correctly, we sort of ran clips together, so the flow was there. Viva was reacting to the detectives, who you never hear in the game, but who were fully scripted. That was painful to me as a writer, to consign all those words to the dustbin—but on the other hand, I was acting out those roles on the shoot, so I was quite happy for my performance to never see the light of day!"

As for the writing, Sam had "all the histories, stories, and so on plotted out, on paper, and in detail, these long biographies for everyone [mentioned in the game]. Then I had a very loose structure for the interviews: 'The detectives have found this and will ask about this on day three.' But from there, when I actually sat down and wrote the interviews, I was very much in the moment, writing from inside the characters' heads."

During my time with Her Story, I found that the writing was almost responding to questions I had in my head. I'd type in a keyword, and the woman on screen would react in the way I'd imagined her to, as if I were conducting the interview. It's wonderfully clever, all the way through.

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While he may not have been keen for people to see his acting performance, Sam is overjoyed with how Viva played her character. "Luckily, I'd worked with Viva before, and I knew from that project that I could work well with Viva. She has a very precise control over subtle things—her voice, her gestures, her facial expressions. And that would be key in a game like this. In fact, when I was first thinking about the idea of Her Story, I had Viva in mind. I particularly recall that when she came in to do a previous casting, her initial read was so good, and that memory of her in a plain room, no costume, captured on video, just nailing it... that was definitely in my mind when I was imagining the concept of Her Story."

Finally, I ask Sam how he feels about the reception for his game, so far.

"Floored. I felt like I had something that would appeal to a niche group, and maybe would have some word of mouth, maybe pay for itself over six months or so—so to see that happen within days of launch? Wow. It's hugely satisfying to see the world at large be so receptive to a game like this. So many times I've been told that certain ideas, certain styles, just don't make sense. So to see that in the modern, digital world there's a way to actually reach an audience with a game like this, that's a great counterpoint to some of the discussion around the online audience and the marketplace for games."

Follow Matt Porter on Twitter.

Eden is the fourth and most ambitious feature from the 34-year-old French director Mia Hansen-Løve, known for her coming-of-age dramas All is Forgiven (2007) and Goodbye First Love (2011), as well as her beautiful melodrama about a failing, depressed film producer, Father of My Children (2009). Eden is, in Hansen-Løve's words, a "low-key epic" about Paul, a DJ who rises to fame amidst the emergence of the "French Touch" music scene in Paris, and eventually finds himself at odds with his age and the real world. Hansen-Løve captures the same sensations of growing up and adjusting to life's ebbs and flows as in her other work, but in a completely fresh setting—mostly on the dance floor.

The filmmaker's brother, Sven Hansen-Løve, was a successful DJ in the 90s as part of the duo Cheers, and his real-life experiences form the basis for the storyline. Eden burns with authenticity in its portrayal of this cloistered world of music and the generation that defined it, which Mia Hansen-Løve describes as idealistic. Furthering the verisimilitude, Daft Punk even figure as side characters in the film—their prominence was also solidified in this period—and Eden gets at some of the vibrancy and nuance in the club scene that usually goes unarticulated in cinema. Jam-packed with 42 songs on its soundtrack, Eden is itself like a magnificent DJ set, with just the right amount of rise and fall, narrative and theme. You may find yourself dancing in your seat as the film sweeps you into the Parisian nightlife just as you may find yourself wiping a few tears from your eyes. As with her other films, Hansen-Løve again shows the pains and joys of living as inseparable elements that define us. And so the beat goes on.

After catching Eden at the Toronto International Film Festival, where it premiered last fall, I spoke with Hanson-Løve to talk about her new film and its unique challenges. Although we initially met in person, the following interview was conducted over Skype.

VICE: In a way, your first three films feel like takes on similar themes, driven by a coming-of-age story. In Eden, Paul has to deal with living in the real world while also having to live in a very specific world of music.
Mia Hansen-Løve: I do think the film is in continuity with my previous films, a different kind of coming-of-age story about becoming an adult. Maybe not an adult, not about growing up, but about time passing and sticking to who you are, and to and idealism and purity, in fidelity with your feelings. But you can't help but change and accept some things, and moving with them.

In Eden you also explore a different dynamic of the individual and the world and those around him.
Yes, this film is in a way related to my other films. But it also allowed me to explore new territory. This film is also about friendship more so than my other films, and something more collective. I had never filmed scenes with that many people before, about being together with others and losing yourself in friendship. Also, the filming of nightclubs and [incorporating] music in so many scenes was totally new and challenging for me.

If you're making a living from being a DJ, at some point the gap in age between you and the people who come to your parties gets bigger and bigger.

In contrast to Richard Linklater's Boyhood, which is about people change with time, Eden is more about looking at someone who stays the same as the world ages.
About somebody who is unable to change, yes, and can't keep up but realizes that time passes faster and faster and that he has to. If you're making a living from being a DJ, at some point the gap in age between you and the people who come to your parties gets bigger and bigger. You play these shows, but meanwhile you're an adult with a job and family and the audience keeps changing, their age the same. I don't think it helps with finding someone to share your life with or adjusting to the world.

It could be alienating.
Yes, it's at the heart of this film.

Felix De Givry in 'Eden.' Photo courtesy of Broad Green Pictures

And in all your films, really, characters are having to adapt to things changing around them.
For me, it has to do with my perception of time and life. I do believe that cinema is able to transmit that. The feeling I have is that most films don't really do this. They don't show you how time actually passes because usually the viewer knows more than the people in the film—the script is one step ahead of the characters and also the characters know exactly what they want, and have specific goals. That's why the characters in my films seem more passive, or people feel that way, because when people see characters who are closer to people in real life, it seems different than what we are used to in films. Viewers can get surprised when they encounter realistic characters because they're not used to seeing them in movies.

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Eden had a troubled production history. Your first producer fell through, and initially it was supposed to be a three-hour film? Could you talk about the struggles of making a movie today?
It's so tough now. This was a nightmare actually, and it could have taken all my energy or discourage us. But miraculously it never did. I never stopped believing in the film. At first, I was working with my usual producers, and they tried very hard to get it financed. I had written a two-part film, so it was essentially like two scripts, and that made things difficult. I would have released the parts separately, and I wrote it this way because I was so obsessed about the idea of making a low-key epic about someone who fails. But it was unrealistic. Not enough other people believed in it this way, so I ultimately had to shorten the film and scale back the concept. We had to look outside of France and try new ways of finding support. It was really important for us to actually shoot some interiors in New York, to shoot in multiple seasons so we could have real winter. These were stipulations that caused trouble, but we were stubborn.

Did this process of adapting and compromising the project result in changes that ultimately improved the film, having forced you to revisit it so closely again and again?
Maybe one thing. I had wanted to shoot in MoMA PS1 from the beginning. It was very important to have this one scene with thousands of extras. Initially, I envisioned we'd have more control of that environment for shooting, but the compromises led us to shooting it in a wild, documentary style that is way more rock 'n' roll. Also, in Paris, there were a couple of scenes we were forced to shoot that way, too. In one club, we just shot without sound in the middle of the active club. We did have authorization, but we did it low-key to capture the real atmosphere. It gave us more freedom in the end. The film is a balance between complete control and complete freedom.

[The film is] a portrait of this generation's ideas, hedonism, idealism, and its trouble integrating into society.

Your brother's real-life experience as a DJ is the backbone of the film. This was his first time writing a movie?
Yes, though he has always been involved with writing, just like you see with the character in the film. He had written short stories, but never a script. It wasn't planned that we'd write it together. I started on my own, but would ask him so many questions about his experience, and it evolved into me asking him to do some dialogue and to develop characters. He would give me these pieces and I would fit it into the story. Eventually he was writing full scenes, and it changed my writing, and the overall film a lot—he infused a lot of humor and atmosphere.

To what extent do you balance real life and fiction?
It's just something that happens naturally. It's just my language, I think. It's not autobiography, but all my films are heavily influenced by who I know and love, and what I experience. It's always coming from life.

Director Mia Hanson-Løve on the set of 'Eden.' Photo courtesy of Broad Green Pictures

There's a character in the film who I suppose is a fictionalized version of you, but she's younger than Paul and is only in Eden briefly. How close were you to your brother's world?
I was there a lot more than in the film. I met all his friends, I went to lots of parties, and I'm more like the other characters in the film that are involved in the scene. My own memories of this world were the basis of the film before I brought in my brother to help. The sister character is me you could say, but not really. It was a sad time in my life, when my older brother left home and I was left alone with my parents. Every time he'd visit home, he'd bring back new music, and connect me to that—and his—world.

What about the generation of you and your brother in general did you want to capture in Eden?
Through Sven's story, I hoped I could really make a film for our generation. His story was more relevant than mine [portrayed in Goodbye First Love] to accomplish this, and I thought it could be universal, this story of the difficulty of growing up is I think very specific to this period. It's a portrait of this generation's ideas, hedonism, idealism, and its trouble integrating into society.

If you want them to make it, you gotta start 'em young. Watch Baby DJs:

You do an amazing job of filming dance floors, and capturing that essence, which is something movies usually get wrong. What did you set out to do differently with these scenes?
There are films with nightclub scenes I like, but there weren't any films with nightclub scenes that had the authenticity or truth I was looking for. Being aware of that made me excited about the challenge of capturing the atmosphere and making it powerful and raw in terms of the music, and to also bring out the poetry of it while making it realistic. That was hard. I wanted to merge the realism I was interested in and the ecstasy of the experience of dancing and the music. Once we were on set I realized it was about finding my own rhythm for each scene, not necessarily attached to the songs we were playing. Even if the music was very loud or strong, I found a certain slowness and quietness—

—There's something soft about the way you filmed it.
Yes, a softness. That belonged to me. It was important not to imitate the style of the music. Then it becomes a video clip.

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It's a more sensitive way of filming club scenes. There's more nuance to that club experience than just the beat. There can be a transcendence.
There was this concern about how to do the sound to illustrate that. I really tried to work with the sound in a way that was concrete. If we were completely realistic and used the natural sound, it would be too distorted. I didn't want that—I wanted to bring out the melody and the lyricism, its beautiful music. At the same time, I wanted to bring out the real feel of the dance floor. I had to get the rights to the music before shooting so I knew what we were using in each scene.

And there are 42 songs in the film.
Yes, and we needed to work really precisely with how the scenes and songs relate. There are moments where the characters are talking in clubs and we let the real sound play so it was realistic. In too many movies people talk in clubs normally but that's impossible, you have to yell, and it even changes your body language, what you say, so we wanted to have that. These questions of realism had consequences on every level. For the extras, we worked for one year before shooting. We didn't want professionals. We found them at electronic music festivals and clubs. We chose them one by one. I knew so many of their names. We worked with them so closely to make sure we had authenticity.

Mia Hanson-Løve's Eden is in theaters now.

Adam Cook is on Twitter.

"I'm the lead dickologist. There's nobody on Earth who draws penises like me." - the Prime Minister of Dick

The Prime Minister of Dick is trying to bench press some weights on my friend's roof, despite the fact that some kids recently busted up his legs while robbing him in Woodside, Queens. His casts are off but he still walks with a limp, and the 35-year-old can still do more reps than me. "It's the shizzle," he says in reference to the joint he insisted we smoke before talking on record. "It's giving me super strength—mind and body. Now you want to talk about dicktures, or what?"

And make no bones about it: Dicktures—i.e., pictures of dicks—are what the Prime Minister of Dick traffics in. Born Michael Zwane, The Prime Minister of Dick (or PMD, for short) is a South African artist who specializes in rendering male genitalia in the most fascinating ways possible. Anthropomorphic dicks, monstrous dicks, colorful dicks, and creatures with dicks on their face and balls on their chin. They're framed using cheap material and sold for roughly 30 bucks a pop—though a "small dick can go for less if you know what I'm saying..."—and haggling is fair game. Sometimes PMD says he "slings dicks," other times he says "I draw dicktures," or that he works as a "dicktator." Consistently, he will re-assert the fact that he's the only living "dickologist" in New York.

If you live in New York City, you may very well have already encountered him—PMD is pretty hard to miss. He's the guy with cornrows who sometimes dresses like a caricature of a pimp (fake gold chains, dark shades, a brown overcoat, often adorned with a fedora or flat-brim hat) and is probably camped out in foot-traffic heavy areas like Times Square, Union Square, or on Bedford Avenue in Brooklyn. In a thick South African accent he shouts at anyone who passes, "Dicks on dicks on dicks! Dicks for sale!"

PMD primarily works in Williamsburg now, as there are younger, "edgier" people and fewer hustlers grappling for attention from passers-by. It may be safe to assume that tourists are more likely to approach the surprisingly family-friendly Naked Cowboy in Times Square than a foreign guy with a thick accent shouting about a painting called "Booty Scratcher Pothead Shooting Heroin in His Balls." (Williamsburg is also more residential than Times Square, and the artist realized people are more likely to buy a framed illustration if they don't have to carry it very far.)

On a good day, he can make a few hundred bucks selling dicktures, and has sold every copy of some limited-run art books and written texts he's made. The artist has even been included in a couple gallery group shows in Chelsea, including (according to him) Launch Pad Gallery and Harris Leiberman Gallery, but has never pursued serious representation or a more stable source of income than selling his work on the street.

PMD isn't your average New York City weirdo, and his dick illustrations don't look like your average bathroom tag of a stick-figure pecker. The artist makes surreal, impressionistic, and sometimes brilliant drawings that are as idiosyncratic as the man himself.

"A White Man with a Black Dick for a Nose" by the Prime Minister of Dick

My favorite PMD drawing is the relatively simple "A White Man with a Black Dick for a Nose" (above). It's a pen-and-marker illustration of a grinning fiend with bloodshot eyes and, well, a dick-nose. The character's sideburns clumsily blend into a mustache and his wrinkled forehead juts off his face, as does his flaccid dick-nose. The colors are ugly and a nauseating neon-yellow border frames the image. At the same time, the character looks developed with intense bravado and zero sense of self-consciousness. "That's one of my early dicktures—I love my early work," the artist told me. When asked how he would describe the image to a buyer, PMD replied, "I'd say 'White Man with a Black Dick for a Nose' for $20, and that's a dickscount!" It hangs above my desk, and every time I look at it, I'm reminded of the special mixture of horror-fascination I felt after watching Ren and Stimpy for the first time.

I first heard of the Prime Minister of Dick when a friend showed me a copy of his art book 9/11: The Synopsis, which compiles many of the works he still sells on the street today. Having nothing to do with terrorism or politics, the limited-run collection of illustrations includes hundreds of images of warped human faces, demon-ish characters, and lo-res collages that feature appropriated images from tabloids and hip-hop culture. And, naturally, The Prime Minister of Dick inserts a phallus into most of his images in some shape or form—frequently as the nose or appendages of his characters. PMD sold the collection at his streetside 'dickstop,' but it's now out of print.

Above, images from 9/11: The Synopsis

While the art in 9/11: The Synopsis was what originally piqued my interest, what got me hooked on the dicktures was PMD himself. The man is a hustler in the truest form. He spends all day hanging out in the midst of hyper-stimulating tourist hubs, and is undeniably the most salient person in the herd. Watching him interact with customers is electric.

On multiple occasions, I've heard him tell customers, "I don't mean to boast, but people have told me I might be the greatest artist who ever lived," before trying to sell them a drawing called "Penis Titty Balls Head." Or he'll question an ambivalent onlooker, "Don't you want dicklicious decorative [pronounced dick-hor-a-tiv] dick art in your home?"

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PMD is the rare type of New Yorker who earnestly and unfailing believes the city can make the American Dream a reality. He thinks that New York City is the only place where you can do what you want without compromising—where you can tell everyone to fuck off and "sling these dicks instead of getting a boring job."

The man loves New York and New Yorkers—and is even married to an American woman named Alicia—so why is his first art book called 9/11: The Synopsis? PMD explains: "I named it that so when I was slinging dicks on the street, people would think, 'He's crazy!' and come talk to me. Or they'd be offended and come talk to me. This is not about politics or people dying. This is about me smoking marijuana from 9 AM to 11 AM. 9/11. I made it my goal to smoke shizzle in the morning for two hours because when I'm really, really high I can start drawing dicks and balls. The title is all about getting people to remember the dickology brand—the man who incorporated dicks."

During one of our several conversations, PMD explained that before he started drawing dicks, before he made a business card that states he has a PhD in Dickology, he wrote several books, sans-illustrations, including The Prophet Michael's Dreambook, Sausage Head, and The Passion of Shizzle Mo'Nizzle. The first two texts were inspired by a vision he claims he had after moving to America. PMD told me he emigrated from Soweto, South Africa in 1999 and moved to Wildwood, New Jersey. After settling, he quickly became unhappy. He was working for people he didn't like and regularly jumped job-to-job—admittedly drinking and smoking too much during the time. He decided to fast with members of his Christian church, hoping to find a solution to some of his problems. After not eating for several days, he had a hallucinatory experience. PMD told me he saw himself come out of his own body and float up toward the sky before getting caught "in the dark area up there, just before heaven." When he was up there, he met up with "God, or something godly" and was placed in one of the lines in the figure's fingerprints.

"He started talking to me, and then showed me the planet. He showed me images of people getting drunk, fighting, doing stupid things," PMD said while lying on the weight lifting bench on my friend's roof. "I realized later on that those people, their energy, all represent this thing I call Sausage Head. Sausage Head is a parable for all the bad things in humans—you know how a sausage is made out of a lot of different kind of meat? The fat, the tail, this and that. Sausages are mixed up in the head. I, too, was mixed up in the head. I had to take all these things the Godly figure showed me and do something with them."

PMD wrote a tome, of sorts, called The Prophet Michael's Dreambook to explain his vision, and then wrote Sausage Head to expand on the parable by turning "Sausage Head things" (e.g. human depravity and selfishness) into a character, also named Sausage Head. Soon after, he began visualizing this character through illustrations. At first they featured lewd scribbles of naked women, alongside a beastly man with sausages protruding from his body. "We all have demons in us, and creating these Sausage Heads is a way of exorcising them." No one bought those drawings, though.

Above, the cover of 'Sausage Head' the book, and a later drawing of a Sausage Head character

Then one day a guy saw a version of the Sausage Head character and asked if it was covered with dicks. PMD said no. The potential customer told him that was too bad because he would have bought the illustration if they were dicks. PMD paused, then the two of them started cracking up. "I thought, ain't that something?" he remembers. "So after that, I started drawing some dicks, and they started selling. I decided I was going to employ myself off of dicks from then on."

When I asked him about his fascination with cocks and balls during a different interview, he had a less business-oriented explanation. "People always ask me, why dicks, why dicks, and I say, 'Why not dicks?'" the artist told me as he was hawking his wares on the street. "There's a saying you must never forget: Remember where you came from. And at the end of the day, we all came from a penis."

Despite his local cult fame, PMD casually shrugs off the idea of fitting in with the white-cube gallery world. "I can't say nothing ill-willed against the artists of today and all that... but nah. My mind is working like crazy; I can create something way crazier than anything you'd see in a normal gallery. My life and my dicktures are all me. I believe that the best things that ever came out involved somebody saying, 'I'm starting a new movement; I'm starting something new.' And that's what I'm doing, know what I'm sayin'?"

Stranger things have happened in the arts and culture world than a guy like the Prime Minister of Dick making the jump to the NYC gallery game. For example, composer Philip Glass drove a taxi and worked as a plumber for years before he became famous, while artist Raymond Pettibon made gig posters and album art for punk bands prior to exhibiting in any galleries. Jack White used to run an upholstery business (and used to hide his music inside furniture he was working on), and the singer Jewel was discovered at a time she was living out of her van and didn't even have a demo CD.

Still, PMD may never become anything bigger than a strange outsider artist who loves making dirty, exquisite drawings. But what's certain is the guy would rather keep living the life he's living and fade into obscurity than be rich and not peddling peens. Ultimately, there are countless famous artist, but only one Prime Minister of Dick. At the end of our conversation on my friend's roof, I asked if there ever could be another dickspert. "I don't think there could be another dickologist, but maybe there should be," he replied. "Fuck it, there could be a bunch more and it doesn't matter. I'll always be the elite dickologist."

Follow Zach on Twitter. See more of Bobby's work on his Tumblr.

Sharks—not as terrifying as they seem. Photo by Flickr user Travelbag Ltd

In Gansbaai, South Africa, the self-claimed "white shark capital of the world," a whole industry has evolved around the Great White. Eight competing companies offer shark-diving trips, and boats with names like "Cage" and "Shark" sit docked in the harbor. These boats set sail every day, as long as the weather is good.

Today, the weather is especially nice: sunny with a slight breeze. Twenty shark divers have gathered in the harbor to board a boat called Slashfin, a 46-feet long catamaran vessel, awaiting their chance to swim with the great beasts.

Shark diving is the second largest tourist attraction in South Africa, after safaris. The excursions bring divers face-to-face with sharks, though separated by large cages.

Two years ago, the Australian government waged a war on sharks after several fatal shark attacks in the country. The government's solution was to start killing sharks, due to the increasing fear from the public. Although the policy was abandoned after critique from scientists, the Western Australian government still reserves the right to kill individual sharks who are believed to pose an imminent threat. The guidelines allow for culling of sharks when there has been an attack, or when multiple sightings of a "high hazard shark" have taken place, and where the shark is considered to be "high risk."

The policy is not unprecedented: Between 1959 and 1976, over 4,500 sharks were killed in Hawaii, in an attempt to alleviate the public's fear of shark attacks. More recently, after a 12-year-old girl was bit by a shark in Oak Island, North Carolina, the town suggested killing any and all sharks that "look like they're posing danger." According to one study, 100 million sharks are killed by humans every year.

Christopher Neff, political scientist at the University of Sidney, says a "Jaws effect" has influenced the debate surrounding the killing of sharks. According to Neff, film-based analogies are used by politicians to frame sharks as serial killers, which prejudices the policy option of killing sharks. He describes this strategy as a "blame-casting device that informs causal stories." Neff argues that because shark attacks are framed as intentional, vicious, and fatal, it's easier to support the option to kill sharks.

On Motherboard: Australia's Shark Cull Is Killing the Wrong Sharks

But are sharks actually dangerous? Or is it all a big misunderstanding? Shark-diving excursions, like the ones made popular in Gansbaai, bring humans closer to sharks, and teach them that the creatures are really just big, beautiful fish.

"Every year, only five to ten people get killed [globally] as a result of a shark attack," said Nicolas Stelluto, a marine biologist at Marine Dynamics. The company organizes Cage Diving trips for tourists, but also researches sharks in cooperation with the University of Cape Town. Stelluto works on the "tourist boat" and is involved in the shark research, by taking water samples and keeping track of the shark population around Gansbaai.

"Usually when people get attacked by a shark, that happens because the shark mistakes them for a seal," Stelluto explained. "There is a higher chance you will die being attacked by dogs—or even by a falling coconut. However, animals are animals. You never know how they are going to react, so you always have to be cautious."

Kalyani Lodhia, a 19-year-old from England, works as a volunteer on the boat. "At first I thought, sharks are just big things that eat everybody. But they are actually quite cute." Stelluto echoes the pet-like sentiment, speaking fondly of "his sharks" and even gives them names. "They all have their own personality. Some are a bit more playful than the others, some are more curious. I seriously can't imagine a more beautiful animal."

Guess what? You can now own a pet great white shark.

Critics say that cage diving is harmful because it attracts sharks to the shores and makes them associate people with food. But according to Stelluto, that assumption is false. "We do not attract sharks to us, but [rather] go to the places where they already are and use their natural curiousness." Boats like Stelluto's use chum—a mixture of fish remains—to attract the sharks to the boat, but they don't actually feed the sharks.

The first half an hour at sea, nothing happens. It's a bright, beautiful day and everyone seems to be enjoying the excursion. Then, suddenly, Stelluto shouts out: "There! Look!"

The slash fin of a shark is just visible above the water. Stelluto and his crew throw bait made out of wood at the shark, and the shark attacks it fiercely. Some of the passengers seem a bit less at ease.

The cage is thrown in by the crew of Slashfin. One by one, the passengers go into the cage and into the cold water. Visibility is around two meters with no shark in sight. Suddenly, someone shouts: "Down guys, down!" Everyone in the cage pushes themselves under water.

The shark swims by, smooth and elegant. He is so close that, if you had the courage, you could touch it. The shark swims away fast and is gone for a few minutes. Then, it comes back and attacks a wooden piece of bate with great strength, all its sharp teeth are clearly visible.

"OK, I've had enough, get me out!" someone in the cage shouts. She doesn't have to wait for a very long time—the next group is already waiting to go into the cage.

A second shark shows up a few moments later. It's a big one, and a few tourists lurch to grab their cameras. "It's a male of four meters," Stelluto says. "Female sharks can get even bigger. Two weeks ago, we saw one of five meters."

You know what else might save sharks and humans from each other? Magnets.

It's possible to see sharks up close in these waters without the cage diving excursions, and many experienced divers have swam with sharks before without the added drama of the cage and bait. But for those who wouldn't witness the creatures otherwise—and especially for those who consider sharks frightening or dangerous—the trips offer a chance to recharacterize sharks.

A few hours later, when we're tired and shaking from the adrenaline, the final group of shark divers gets back on board of the boat. A Dutch tourist, Daniel Goos, looks into the water with a dreamy gaze.

"It's an almost spiritual experience," he says. "The sharks are so graceful when you see them from the water. They are not scary at all. They are just fish. Very beautiful fish."

Follow Joost Knaap on Twitter.

Look at Anna Haifisch's art and comics at her site.

Image via Flickr user Insomnia Cured Here.

A few days ago, the insanely famous actor Jim Carrey tweeted, "Greed trumps reason again as Gov Brown moves closer to signing vaccine law in Cali. Sorry kids. It's just business." He ended it with an elaborate winking emoticon.

The "vaccine law" he was referring to was signed into law yesterday by California Governor Jerry Brown, and will require that starting in July of next year, all California children entering school must be vaccinated against whooping cough, measles, and other diseases, regardless of personal beliefs.

In recent years, parents in California have been cautious about vaccinating their children, citing specious science that links vaccinations and autism. As a result of less children being vaccinated, rates of whooping cough and measles have risen in the state dramatically.

Jim Carrey apparently does not give a fuck about these statistics, or the fact that thimerosal, a preservative that contains mercury that anti-vaxxers cite as the smoking gun in the non-existent vaccination/autism link, has been removed or reduced to trace amounts in children's vaccines for many years. He was in a movie called Liar Liar, which was about a man who had to tell the truth, and he is convinced he is telling the truth about vaccines.

Jim Carrey was also in Bruce Almighty, a movie where he played a guy who became God. Jim Carrey wants to know why we are playing god with our children.

He was also in The Mask, a movie where a man put on a mask and transformed into a superhero. He has been asking why we've been wearing a mask of lies about vaccines since 2009.

In Dumb and Dumber, Carrey played Lloyd Christmas, a man who drove around with his buddy in a dog van and was dumb. He thinks we are dumb if we give our children vaccines, and even dumber if we let the government tell us what to do! In a 2011 blog post for the Huffington Post, he wrote:

In this growing crisis, we cannot afford to blindly trumpet the agenda of the CDC, the American Academy of Pediatrics (AAP) or vaccine makers. Now more than ever, we must resist the urge to close this book before it's been written. The anecdotal evidence of millions of parents who've seen their totally normal kids regress into sickness and mental isolation after a trip to the pediatrician's office must be seriously considered. The legitimate concern they and many in the scientific community have that environmental toxins, including those found in vaccines, may be causing autism and other disorders (Aspergers, ADD, ADHD), cannot be dissuaded by a show of sympathy and a friendly invitation to look for the 'real' cause of autism anywhere but within the lucrative vaccine program.

Continuing, he wrote:

I've also heard it said that no evidence of a link between vaccines and autism has ever been found. That statement is only true for the CDC, the AAP and the vaccine makers who've been ignoring mountains of scientific information and testimony. There's no evidence of the Lincoln Memorial if you look the other way and refuse to turn around.

Regardless of what Carrey and the many other anti-vaccine celebrity advocates want, kids who attend school in 2016 will have to get their dang shots.

Still, there's always the possibility that this is an elaborate, years-long public joke that Carrey has been playing on the American public. He portrayed Andy Kaufman in Man on the Moon, so the guy definitely knows a thing or two about humor as performance art.

Perhaps the most damning proof that Carrey is anti-vaccine is that if he weren't, maybe he could have been vaccinated against the disease that stopped him from being funny in like, 1995.

Follow Drew on Twitter.

Jeff Koons in front of one of his sculptures. Photo by Art Comments via.

This article originally appeared on VICE UK

Sometimes, when I'm at the cashpoint, withdrawing the last £10 [$15] of my overdraft, I think about Jeff Koons. I think about the man whose orange sculpture of an inflatable dog sold for £37.1 million [$60 million], the largest sum a work by a living artist has ever fetched at auction. If I had £37.1 million, I would almost definitely spend it on a massive Italian castle over a steel balloon-animal, but clearly there is more to this blow-up dog than meets the eye: I'm told that, as you stare into its gleaming exterior, you see a warped version of your reflection looking back—kind of like those fun house mirrors, but more profound.

I met Koons recently at the Guggenheim in Bilbao—the final stop on his career retrospective: a comprehensive survey of 40 years of work, including his iconic "Michael Jackson and Bubbles" and his silver "Rabbit," two pieces that are equally recognizable for both their shininess and their creepiness. The show arrived here from the Pompidou Centre in Paris, and, before that, the Whitney in New York. It broke both galleries' records for the number of tickets sold.

In person, Koons is about as hard to size up as his great big balloon dog. I watched as he straightened his suit and led a frenzy of photographers between his works, stopping to pose at each, grinning with every single one of his teeth. For the photos, he stared at his own creations—an eight-foot knock-off of the Greek statue "Farnese Hercules," for example—as though awestruck by their sublimity. I assumed he was taking the piss, in a knowing, arch sort of way. But then he started talking.

"I hope you see that a great artist gets better," he said of the retrospective, before extolling the "raw power of his early work" and comparing his "DNA" to Picasso's. He spoke in self-help book jargon, discussing his journey to "self-affirmation." I don't know what exactly I was expecting from Koons, but it was clear almost immediately that I'd found the Kanye West of contemporary art—a man whose conceitedness actually makes him more compelling.

Balloon Dog (Magenta), 1994–2000. Mirror-polished stainless steel with transparent colour coating. 307.3 x 363.2 x 114.3 cm. Collection Pinault. © Jeff Koons

Koons was born in 1955 to a mother who made bridal dresses and a father who ran an interior design shop. He claims that he began painting at the age of three-years-old. Previously overshadowed by an older sister who, with age on her side, could walk, talk, and do literally everything better than him, painting was something little Jeff was finally good at.

Koons says he revered the work of Salvador Dali throughout his childhood, and, at 18, after enrolling at the School of Art Institute in Chicago, gave the Spanish painter a call to request a meeting. For whatever reason, Dali agreed. "He was incredibly generous," recalled Koons, who was expecting a few minutes with the Surrealist, but got an entire afternoon.

After meeting Dali, Koons "knew he could do it." He knew that he could be one of the greatest artists the world has ever seen. This self-belief manifests itself in Koons's persona, and his debt to Dali is apparent throughout his canon, from the surrealist landscapes to the recurring use of lobsters, echoing a number of Dali's works. Clearly, the experience was pivotal.

Inflatable Flower and Bunny (Tall White, Pink Bunny), 1979 Vinyl, mirrors
The Broad Art Foundation, Santa Monica © Jeff Koons

By the mid-1970s, Koons had relocated to New York City to "hang out in the heart of [his] generation." Here, moving in the same circles as artists David Salle and Julian Schnabel, he says he "automatically started to have the confidence to go in strong, and to be involved with the dialogue of art." Salle and Schnabel introduced Koons to influential gallerist Mary Boone, who took an interest in his series of inflatable flowers and rabbits set against mirrors—inflatables he'd buy from cheap shops downtown, before turning them into conceptual pieces at his studio on East 4th Street.

During this period, Jeff the burgeoning artist worked a job selling memberships at MoMA to pay his way. Scott Rothkopf, curator at the Whitney and the man behind the retrospective, says "Jeff was always a salesman"—which might be why, for a brief period in the early-1980s, he became a commodities broker on Wall Street to fund his art practice. This piece of Koons trivia would be dredged up again and again in discussion of his work as commodity.

Because much of Koons's work is related to value, which, he says, is "really about potential" or, more specifically, "seeing or realizing the potential in something." Evidently, Jeff saw the value in himself—his own skill to turn something innocuous into something resembling a masterpiece. As examples, he offers up his " Puppy" art work—the giant, flower-covered sculpture of a terrier that stands outside the Guggenheim Bilbao on public display—and, once again, that "Balloon Dog."

Interested in digital art? Check out the art section on our technology website, Motherboard.

"It's like something you'd get at a children's birthday party," he said of the latter, standing in front of it proudly. "But it's also like a Trojan horse."

I walked the halls of Frank Gary's Guggenheim, taking in Koons's monsters, from the sinister, metallic "Popeye," to "Equilibrium," a series of basketballs suspended in tanks of distilled water. Like the ballon-dog-cum-Trojan-horse, they're each a trick in their own way—something disguised as something it's not.

Koons will often use cheap or industrial materials like steel to create the effect of more expensive finishes, like silver or platinum. Rothkopf calls this "material transubstantiation" and relates it to Koons's "Statuary" series, in which the artist would take something like a small junk shop statue of Bob Hope and recast the actor almost like a religious figure—a cheap disposable item becoming a coveted auction piece.

Michael Jackson and Bubbles, 1988 Porcelain. Edition no.
1/3 Private Collection © Jeff Koons

I stared into a Rococo-style gold mirror in the "Banality Room," where a porcelain pig sat behind me, across from a porcelain statue of Jacko and Bubbles the monkey. This is the campest room I've ever been in; kitsch relics of low culture reproduced for a gallery setting. By elevating items out of the banal and into the baroque, Koons comments on art practice itself—and its ability to imbue something with value.

Is this a deliberate and self-effacing critique of art as commodity? Or an earnest attempt to create something that circumvents the boundaries of taste altogether? It's difficult to know, and Koons isn't in the business of letting on: "I ask for the acceptance of everything as perfect in its own being," he offered, explaining how it was early on in his career that he called for the "removal of criticism."

"Jeff and Ilona Made in Heaven", 1990, from the "Made in Heaven" series. Photo by René Spitz via

"Made In Heaven" is Koons's most controversial series of works—a collection of garish and erotic pieces made in the late-80s and early-90s, inspired by the concept of a fictional film.

"When I made 'Made In Heaven,' I wanted to remove guilt and shame with the acceptance of biology," said Koons. To do this, he employed a number of artistic techniques, from the mock-movie poster of him posing with then-wife and former porn star Cicciolina, to a marble bust of him kissing Cicciolina, through a life-sized plastic statue of him fucking Cicciolina and, somewhat incongruously, a poodle made out of wood.

Needless to say, the project wasn't too well received, and the public condemned Koons as a raving narcissist. But for Koons, it was liberating—"Like a sex tape," says Rothkopf, "the work was emancipatory."

Want more art? Watch our doc on the Chapman brothers:

These days, Koons's work has descended into a caricature of itself; his faux Greek statues feel tired, repeating the same old tropes as seen in the "Statuary" series, only in reverse, with Greek-style busts cast in cheap materials like plaster, and made kitsch with adornments like flower pots. The blue "Metallic Venus" from 2010-2012 doesn't feel remotely new in the trajectory of Koons's career. Nor does "Gazing Ball," a plaster-cast statue of the Greek mythological character Ariadne balancing a metallic blue sphere on her stomach. By this point—the final room in the retrospective—I was bored.

That said, seeing Koons's work almost in its entirety (there were 100 pieces in the show) and in loose chronological order did give me a newfound appreciation of it. Until now, I had thought of the "Duchampian" readymade—existing objects re-appropriated as art—as a pretty lazy form, but was now able to understand how, in Koons's pop art-influenced world, it made sense as a meta-statement about just how the fuck someone can reproduce something so simple and make so much money out of it. If you added up the retail value of every balloon on the planet and compared it to the auction price of Koons's "Balloon Dog," the figures probably wouldn't be so different. Also, they're both useless items—decorative, at a push.

Koons maintains that art should be objective rather than subjective, and that although some art may have more "significance" to the viewer than other art, value systems are inhibiting and only without them can you achieve universal appeal. Perhaps this explains Koons' success: he makes art without value. "My joy has always been to participate in the dialogues surrounding art," he said. "The economic aspect is so far removed and abstract to me."

Whether Koons's works are intentionally critical or otherwise, the real irony is the zeal with which the art market has consumed them. No wonder he looks permanently amused.

Follow Amelia on Twitter.

'Jeff Koons: A Retrospective' runs at the Guggenheim Bilbao until the 27th of September.

For someone who looks like a leather bag covered in hay, Donald Trump has been causing a remarkable stir in the Republican presidential primary. His popularity is startling, with a recent Fox News survey showing Trump trailing only Jeb Bush in the GOP's 2016 race. And while the numbers probably don't mean much at this point, they've come in at the same time that Trump has been saying and doing some crazy shit—specifically, waging a bizarre feud with the nation of Mexico.

It all started at Trump's campaign launch, when he accused undocumented Mexican immigrants were "bringing drugs, they're bringing crime, they're rapists, and some, I assume, are good people." Hispanics were, understandably, upset by the remarks, and took it out on Trump's Miss USA pageant. The co-hosts of the event, Roselyn Sanchez and Cristian de la Fuente, resigned their jobs in protest; Colombian singer J Balvin said he would no longer perform at the pageant, citing Trump's "hateful political rhetoric"; even Ricky Martin, was born in Puerto Rico, got in on the action, attacking Trump on Twitter for having "much hatred and ignorance" in his heart. Eventually, Spanish-language TV network Univision got the message, and announced it would no longer air the Miss USA telecast.

In response, Trump tweeted:

Then, he sent a lunatic letter to Univision chief Randy Falco that sets a new standard for petty behavior and litigious grandstanding.

"Please be advised that under no circumstances is any officer or representative of Univision allowed to use Trump National Doral, Miami — its golf courses or any of its facilities," he wrote (because that, of course, is the most important issue at hand here). He goes on to demand that Univision close a gate that's being built between the Trump and Univision properties, and concludes by noting that, if he becomes president, the days of favorable trade deals for the Mexican government will be over. ( Read the whole thing—it's insane.)

Trump didn't stop there. Earlier this week, he announced he is filing a $500 million lawsuit against the network, suggesting that Univision is breaching its contract by pulling out of its Miss USA telecast. After NBCUniversal—which has aired Trump's Apprentice franchise for years—announced it would not air the pageant either, Trump claimed that it was he who ended the relationship, posting a letter to Instagram that declared, "NBC is weak, and like everyone else is trying to be politically correct—that is why our country is in serious trouble." (He also took shots at Brian Williams, because why leave bridges unburned?)

Still, the backlash hasn't died down. Earlier this week, Grupo Televisa SAB, the world's largest Spanish-language media company, announced it was also cutting ties with Trump, saying that he "has offended the entire population of Mexico." On Wednesday, Macy's announced it would pull all of Trump's merchandise from its stores.

In the face of political humiliation and multimillion-dollar business losses, a reasonable person could be expected to backtrack, perhaps even apologize for overly generalizing the criminal tendencies of 122 million Mexicans. But Donald Trump doesn't placate, and he certainly doesn't back down. Because, as he told Fox News, "Donald Trump can't be silenced."

None of this bodes well for Trump or his empire. But Trump isn't just repping Trump anymore: He's a Republican candidate for president, which means he's rubbing off on his party as well. And at this point, Trump is polling well enough to make it on stage at the party's first primary debates, giving him a party-sanctioned stage from which to wage his feud with Mexico.

As former George W. Bush press secretary Ari Fleischer explained to Politico. "Donald Trump is like watching a roadside accident. Everybody pulls over to see the mess. And Trump thinks that's entertainment. But running for president is serious. And the risk for the party is he tarnishes everybody."

All this is particularly problematic because Republicans has been trying very hard to win over Hispanic voters. Until Trump burst onto the 2016 scene, things were going mostly as planned: Two of the Republican candidates, Ted Cruz and Marco Rubio, are Latino, and Jeb Bush once accidentally claimed to be. (He is, in reality, married to a woman from Mexico.) For the first time this century, the party looked like it could make substantive inroads with the Hispanic community.

It's not just about these candidates. After Mitt Romney's collapse in 2012, Republican National Committee Chairman Reince Priebus started aggressively reaching out to Latinos, realizing that the party desperately needed to expand its constituency beyond white men over age 45 if it ever wanted to win another presidential election. He laid this out in a 2013 piece for the National Review called "Engaging with Hispanics":

"I want to take this moment to say a word to my fellow Republicans, including candidates and officeholders at every level, from the courthouse to Capitol Hill: If you're not engaging with the Hispanic community, you better get to work."

Since then, he's urged Republicans to ease up on the anti-immigrant rhetoric and accused Obama of lying to Latinos .

Now, Trump is undermining all of that, not just with his casual racism—at an appearance in Baltimore last week he suggested that black youths have "no spirit"—but by actively waging a fake war against the country of Mexico. The longer Trump stays in the race, the harder it could be for whichever Republican gets saddled with the party's nomination to repair the damage he caused.

Whether Republicans want to repair it, though, is a bigger question. Cruz, for one, has come to Trump's defense: "I like Donald Trump. I think he's terrific, I think he's brash, I think he speaks the truth," Cruz told Fox News. "I don't think you should apologize for speaking out against the problem that is illegal immigration. I recognize that the PC world, the mainstream media, they don't want to admit it, but the American people are fed up."

Follow Kevin Lincoln on Twitter.

The Aokigahara Forest is the most popular site for suicides in Japan. After the novel Kuroi Jukai was published, in which a young lover commits suicide in the forest, people started taking their own lives there at a rate of 50 to 100 deaths a year. The site holds so many bodies that the Yakuza pays homeless people to sneak into the forest and rob the corpses. The authorities sweep for bodies only on an annual basis, as the forest sits at the base of Mt. Fuji and is too dense to patrol more frequently.

This week on City, watch a dark and gripping documentary about Japan's "suicide forest."