The cover of Schartmann's book

Available for pre-order right now via publisher Bloomsbury, the latest entry in the long-running 33 1/3 series of books focusing on individual albums and collections—"probably the most remarkable regular event in rock journalism today," according to the New York Times—is a pretty special one for gamers and aficionados of all things retro. Joining thorough examinations of classic albums like Joy Division's Unknown Pleasures, DJ Shadow's Endtroducing..., and Patti Smith's Horses is Andrew Schartmann's debut for the series, on Koji Kondo's Super Mario Bros. soundtrack of 1985.

Kondo has been at Nintendo since 1983, with his first projects including Punch-Out!! and Arm Wrestling. But when Super Mario Bros. went supernova in '85, his minor masterpiece melodies were injected into the mainstream, never to be forgotten. The game's main Overworld or "Ground Theme" has been close to ever-present in Mario games ever since, and has been performed by orchestras the world over. Kondo's work, which also includes The Legend of Zelda, has proven incredibly influential, inspiring composers like Nobuo Uematsu (several Final Fantasy games) and Tommy Tallarico (Earthworm Jim, 2000's Spider-Man).

VICE Gaming is pleased to provide readers with an exclusive excerpt of Schartmann's book, examining Kondo's compositional philosophy.

Over the years, countless interviewers have asked Kondo to single out the music of which he is most proud. His choice is always the same: the original Overworld themes from Super Mario Bros. and The Legend of Zelda. Many of us would agree that these are the tunes we remember best, but it seems odd for a composer to locate his greatest achievements in the nascent years of his art. What about the steady lifting of compositional constraints afforded by advances in technology, which allowed Kondo to expand his "orchestral" palette, write considerably longer scores, and wield precise control over dynamics, rhythm, and other facets of the musical canvas? Wouldn't this freedom make for better work in the hands of a good composer? Not necessarily. Despite appreciating the variety of sounds now available to him, Kondo views technological advance as a double-edged sword: "[P]eople sometimes think, 'well, we've got all of this.' So rather than having to create something that's really great, they ... rely heavily on technology, or say, the instrumentation." In many ways, the stringent limitations of the 8- and 16-bit systems (i.e., the NES and SNES) fostered innovation to a degree unrivaled by modern consoles. The point, however, is not to tally bells and whistles, but rather to focus on the underlying substance of the music. And so we arrive at Kondo's compositional philosophy.

Although Kondo's more recent work is painted with lush orchestral colors, his philosophical approach to writing music remains constant. As nearly every interview with the maestro reveals, writing a catchy tune is only half the battle. The other half involves matching the music to both the game environment and the experience of the player. This might seem obvious today, but when Kondo came onto the scene, video game music was still fully steeped in its arcade origins. Sound functioned primarily to attract the attention of customers and to provide background filler for gameplay. A tight bond between sound, environment, and gamer had not yet been formed. In an effort to create this bond, Kondo demanded that his music fulfill two principal functions: (1) to convey an unambiguous sonic image of the game world, and (2) to enhance the emotional and physical experience of the gamer.

The Overworld/Ground Theme from 'Super Mario Bros.'

The first of these functions seems relatively straightforward: Compose music that gives the player a general sense of the environment. As you'll read in the second part of this book, Kondo does this (in part) by creating a sonic lightness/darkness binary. By using rhythm, harmony, melody, and form in different ways, he creates two different "sound worlds"—one that is bright and fluffy, and another that is dark and heavy. But Kondo doesn't stop there. He pushes this function one step further by coordinating his music with the animation of various on-screen characters, such that their movement corresponds in some way to the rhythm of the music. This innovation was made possible by Nintendo's unusual development process. As Kondo recalls, "At Nintendo, we were able to start working on the game as soon as the rest of development was ramping up, so we'd be working in parallel with them. I know in some cases other developers have hired someone to do the sound after a game was pretty much done, so the results and the process were ... different." Inspired by this highly collaborative working environment, Kondo eventually formalized his greatest contribution to video-game music—the second of the two principal functions listed above: in Kondo's view, the relationship between sound and physical movement should not be restricted to on-screen animation; it should extend to the gamer him or herself.

Despite Kondo's groundbreaking contribution, it would be dishonest to ignore important precursors to the idea that music can enhance a player's physical and emotional experience. Space Invaders is perhaps the earliest example of a game whose music elicits a strong emotional response. The tune is simple (a four-note descending scale that repeats over and over again), but the fact that it speeds up as the invading aliens approach is revolutionary. In Space Invaders, music is no longer just a background effect; it is part of a visceral gaming experience—one that affects the heart rate of anyone who tries to defend the world against Taito's pixely intruders. The "Time Warning" theme, which initiates a twofold increase in tempo to nudge Mario toward his goal, provides an obvious parallel in Super Mario Bros., but whether or not Space Invaders had a direct influence on Kondo is debatable. The general sound, however, was surely in his ear. Not only did Kondo play the game growing up, but its unprecedented success also made it impossible for anyone in the field to ignore. In fact, one could argue that a large part of that success was due to the game's innovative use of sound. When asked to explain the mania surrounding Taito's blockbuster smash, the company's import manager S. Ikawa emphasized the game's "feeling of tension"—a tension created primarily by the music.

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No matter the reasons for the success of Space Invaders, the game's latent embodiment-of-music aesthetic became a central pillar of Kondo's compositional philosophy. In Super Mario Bros., Kondo developed that philosophy and applied it on a much larger scale. Instead of using music to incite a particular emotional response (e.g., using faster notes to increase tension), he tried to anticipate the physical experience of the gamer based on the rhythm and movement of gameplay. This is much less abstract than it sounds.

Imagine yourself at Nintendo during the development of Super Mario Bros. You've been asked to compose music for the game, and the developers have invited you to try one of their working prototypes. As you play through the level, you get a feel for how Mario moves through his environment: Your body sways as Mario jumps, stops, runs, changes direction, and so on. You also notice the movement of other creatures: how the Goombas' feet move, how often Piranha Plants open their mouths, and so on. After a while, your body starts to beat in time with the game—you have internalized the rhythm of its movement. Having done so, you head back to your studio and translate the movement of your experience into sound.

On Motherboard: Mario Has Become Self-Aware

It is exactly this innovation that Kondo stresses in his many press appearances: "the [Super Mario Bros.] music is inspired by the game controls, and its purpose is to heighten the feeling of how the game controls." In essence, if music does not reflect the rhythm of the game, and, by extension, that of the gamer, it becomes background music. Unfortunately, it's quite difficult, if not impossible, to identify the exact mechanisms by which Kondo's music meshes with a player's movement. But that doesn't relegate his philosophy to the realm of esoteric hullaballoo by default. When I play Super Mario Bros., the music is always eerily in sync with my on-screen marionette. Individual experience aside, Kondo was convinced that game sound could lessen the gap between Mario and the hands that move him. With Kondo's visionary techniques, players do more than control a character on screen; they form an intimate bond with it—a bond forged by the motional spark at the heart of Kondo's music.

From this perspective, the curiosity that initiated our discussion becomes far less curious. Why does Kondo take the most pride in his earliest hits? Because it was in these early pieces that he first understood how he was different from those who came before him. More than just a handful of catchy tunes, Super Mario Bros. is the cradle of Kondo's lifelong contribution to video-game music. So it is only natural that he should cherish it as he does.

Andrew Schartmann's 33 1/3 book on the Super Mario Bros. soundtrack is published by Bloomsbury on the 16th of July. More information here.

Follow Mike on Twitter.

All photos by Mircea Topoleanu

This article originally appeared on VICE Romania

All of Bucharest's Metrorex subway trains have a daunting red button in the driver's cab. Big and bold, it sticks out like an ominous plastic mushroom on the dashboard, waiting to bring the train to a halt in the event of someone jumping out from a platform onto the tracks. A long time can pass without someone having to press that red button, but driver Ştefan Căpăţână never keeps his hand far away from it. If he sees the slightest warning sign, his instincts are trained to smack it as if he's swatting a fly.

Căpăţână has become a legend amongst the city's metro operators. He seems to have an uncanny ability to sense suicide attempts moments before they happen. He's had people jump in front of his train four times so far, but none of them have been killed.

The last time he came face to face with someone trying to end their life was two years ago. Early one morning, Ştefan's train was pulling into the platform of Bucharest's Titan station at about 50 miles per hour, when he managed to spot a person standing extremely close to the edge of the platform. Realizing that something wasn't quite right, he pushed the emergency button and the train howled to a standstill. Ştefan remembers it as if everything went into slow motion—the teenager jumped from the platform with his arms and legs locked perfectly straight. "He jumped so neatly. It seemed as if he was diving into a swimming pool. He was so tall that when he landed, he was spread out over three tracks. If I'd run him over, he'd have been cut up in three pieces."

Miraculously, the train stopped two inches from the teen's neck. He wasn't harmed but he was very much stuck under one of the carriages. Ştefan did what all drivers are instructed to: He contacted the train dispatcher to report the incident, then made a public service announcement that purposefully avoided using the word "suicide."

"Due to some technical issues involving a passenger on the tracks, this will be the final stop," he said.

Ştefan Căpăţână. The red emergency button is on his right-hand side.

In all the madness, he remembers one passenger coming up to him trying to start a fight. "You asshole, I'm going to be late for work!" the man shouted. Ştefan didn't have time to reply. Instead, he bounded out of the train so he could comfort the suicidal boy, who was lying on the tracks, curled up and screaming for help. While waiting for the ambulance, Ştefan asked him why he did it. "Get me out of here and I'll tell you," said the teenager. It turned out that his girlfriend had just left him.

Out of the 43 subway trains that Ştefan has driven in his 30 years on the job, he's strangely only experienced suicide attempts on one of them—train number five. All of the suicides had the same root cause, too—love. He recalled one young beautiful lady jumping out on tracks. Again, he was lucky enough to hit the breaks in time. "She stank of alcohol so I told the station's guards to take her to the police station until she sobered up. The guards were so enamored by her beauty that they just let her go when she said was fine. Unfortunately the moment they did, she tried the exact same stunt at the other side of the station." Amazingly she dodged another bullet after wrongly guessing which side of the tunnel the train would come from.

Love was again the cause of another suicide attempt back in 2000. The poor guy had found out that while he'd been busy working abroad as an engineer, his wife started seeing another man. There's a good chance he may never have known about the infidelity if his wife hadn't gotten pregnant. She might even have been able to get away with it if it wasn't for the fact that they hadn't seen each other for longer than nine months. When he found out, he lost his mind; he went straight down to the station and lay down across the tracks. Luckily, the wind made the corner of his jacket wave up in the air like a little flag and Căpăţână was able to stop the train from running him over.

Related: 'Mexico's Land of Sorcerers'

Last May, a 38-year-old man jumped onto the tracks at Universitate station. His name was George Dumitru—a lawyer employed by famous Romanian businessman Dan Adamescu, who is currently under investigation for bribing judges. Friends knew George as a lawyer who swore by one principle: "You should never do anything that keeps you up at night."

After jumping, Dumitru fell between two carriages but was not killed immediately. He managed to stay alive for a couple more minutes, in excruciating pain. A student named Raluca Popescu happened to be on the train behind the one the lawyer had thrown himself under. "Back at the station, rumors were floating about that he was still alive. The driver had made the mistake of publicly announcing that there was a suicide and everybody was just screaming about the fact that they were going to be late. Others were complaining that he'd chosen rush hour to commit suicide," Raluca remembers.

According to psychiatrist Gabriel Diaconu, "Some studies examining suicide on subway systems have shown that the survival rate is actually quite high but that the consequences are quite dramatic as the victim is often left with multiple handicaps and injuries. Usually, these are people who attempt suicide for the first time—people who are under the impression that this particular method is foolproof. But they're wrong."

As I stand on a platform talking to Ştefan Căpăţână, a train stops behind him. He surveys it with a trained eye and immediately recognizes his coworker. "That's George, he's been through a lot of, well, 'executions,'" he says. It is obvious he's had a hard time choosing the right word to describe these deaths. Apparently, George has had 11 people jump in front of his train. He's never managed to avoid any of them but, somehow, only two have died. Many of those who have survived have had their limbs severed.

Căpăţână knows just how much this has affected his colleague. "After his second execution, George aged visibly overnight. He was extremely traumatized. He told me that the last guy he ran over had blood spraying from his neck like a decapitated chicken."

There's no public record of how many people throw themselves in front of Bucharest's subway trains and how many survive; Metrorex keeps those numbers a secret. It also remains unknown just how many drivers suffer from nervous breakdowns after such incidents.

Piața Unirii Station, Bucharest

Some psychologists argue that the emotional aftermath can be so powerful that the drivers could end up with the exact same psychological symptoms as the person who attempted suicide to begin with.

"The first phase that the driver goes through is psycho-emotional shock, which can later lead to post-traumatic stress disorder. If the shock isn't treated quickly, the subject can experience feelings that could lead to severe anxiety and depression," says clinical psychologist, Alina Maria Blăgoi.

In many cities around the world, platform screen doors have been fitted to prevent suicide and accidental falls from the platform. The doors look like giant shop windows and only open when the train reaches the platform. Other countries have gone even further and looked at different ways of calming people. Researchers in Japan realized that the suicide rate was very low in stations lit with blue light so they installed blue LEDs everywhere. Apparently, this light has a calming effect on agitated people as humans associate it with the sky and the sea.

In terms of modernizing its infrastructure, Metrorex told VICE Romania that they are considering different options but didn't go into specifics.

Psychiatrist Gabriel Diaconu has a more nuanced take on the matter. "It's a very delicate subject. Look at it like this; a bridge's architect isn't responsible for those that jump off it. On the other hand, if the authorities were to install platform edge doors at subway stations, then such situations would probably be avoided."

Broadly is a women's interest channel coming soon from VICE. Follow us on Twitter, Facebook, and Instagram.

WitchsFest 2015 is, in many ways, a typical New York street fair. This weekend, vendors lined the sidewalk; passersby pointedly avoided eye contact with people handing out brochures for various goods and services; and a young girl in a tiara wove through crowds giddily attempting, as she explained to her mom, to photobomb strangers. In other ways, though, it wasn't your standard street fair—the vendors were selling fairy dust, tarot card readings, and sensual steampunk garments; the brochures were for stores that specialize in yoga and healing crystals; and several of the tiara-ed child's photobomb victims were wearing elf ears.

WitchsFest, which is organized by the Wiccan Family Temple, is billed as a pagan street faire-slash-fundraiser. This was its fourth year of existence, though the third nearly didn't happen—in 2014, the local community tried to cancel the event, claiming it didn't have enough of a connection to the neighborhood. But the Wiccan Family Temple prevailed, as witches are wont to do, and the fest this year went on without any resistance.

The crowd looked exactly as you'd expect a crowd of polite pagans to: Near the corner of Lafayette and Astor Place, a woman swathed in pink gauze was holding a lecture on goddess worship. About a block away, two members of the Brooklyn–Queens Ecumenical Pagan Fellowship explained their relationship with the divine to an inquisitive young man in a polo shirt. And, across the street, a woman in a witch hat filmed a small choir of madrigal singers in assorted mythological accessories.

Like basically every milliennial woman who didn't fit in in high school, I strongly identify with witches. I like that they wear all black; I like that they are powerful and self-sufficient; I smiled and nodded approvingly when I read that the whole riding-on-brooms rumor originates from the fact that they would take hallucinogens vaginally by putting them on the end of a broomstick. I especially like that witches are threatening to a male-dominated society, which is a tradition many of WitchsFest attendees continue to honor.

"This planet has been male-dominated for too long," said a man clad in a headdress and sunglasses and clutching an ankh scepter. With his wife—the aforementioned woman wrapped in pink—he runs the Network for the Realization of the Goddess , a Dianic spirituality circle devoted to "helping women find and nurture that direct connection with the spark of the Divine Feminine inside of us" through meditation and guided discussion. (He gave me a pamphlet.) "Now we're ready for energies to be balanced again, both male and female," he added before bowing the ankh scepter in blessing.

The madrigal singers—a choir from Kalamazoo called the Bell Book and Canto—have a less spiritual, but arguably equally effective, way of achieving that gender balance. "All the good drinking songs and wenching songs are written for men," lamented their group leader, Jennifer Jones. "We, as women, like to drink and get drunk and do stupid stuff, and so we believe that we ought to have music that reflects that." In 2016, thus, Bell Book and Canto is coming out with an album called Poor Life Choices. One song, "I Came to Faire," details the story of a woman who returns to a renaissance faire—having gotten blackout drunk and subsequently pregnant the previous year—in order to determine the father's identity. Another, "Big Little Problem," tells of a woman who "breaks up with her lord because he's not well enough endowed for her," as Jones gently (and mirthfully) put it.

One stall away, I spoke to two women who participate in annual Maenad rituals—an orgiastic ritual to Dionysus, conducted away from the presence of men. "We do the Maenad ritual for Ostara, which is in the beginning of the pagan year," explained a woman named Natalie who was wearing feathered wings. "This one time of the year, [the women involved in the ritual] would be able to go into the woods [and] take off most of their clothes. They'd have ecstatic dance and trance, and they'd eat poisonous herbs and berries and, you know, trip out. When they'd get a little hungry, they'd just catch animals, rip them open, and eat them raw."

"We don't do that stuff," she added. "That's just what the ritual's based on: that concept of being able to let go of all of your responsibility and chains." (But really, even with the tearing apart of live animals, the Maenad ritual does sound sort of like Coachella—especially since the women involved choose to wear "ripped-up tutus.")

The idea of sincerely practicing witchcraft isn't something many would take seriously—Wicca still struggles for mainstream acceptance in a lot of ways. However, I was struck by how thoughtful many of the people I interviewed were. When I asked one of the representatives from the Brooklyn–Queens Ecumenical Pagan Fellowship whether he really believes in pagan deities, he responded, "My relationship with my gods is very centered on Plato and his idea of the universe being this unknowable thing; really, all that matters is my relationship to it. I guess you could say that I see my gods as almost Jungian psychological metaphors in a way."

Of course, not everyone was quite so straightforward with me. When I asked the headdressed priest from the Network for the Realization of the Goddess how he and his wife first met, he responded, "We've been soul mates for ten thousand years." Noting my perplexed stare, he started laughing. "I know that doesn't answer your question," he said. He refused to elaborate further.

- Callie Beusman

Follow Farah on Instagram. Callie is the executive editor of Broadly; follow her on Twitter.

A photo of piled up laughing gas canisters released by Lambeth Council recently

This article originally appeared on VICE UK.

Lambeth is a London borough with high levels of crack cocaine use and life-ruining gang-related violence. But police there have finally decided to get tough on drugs—by targeting people who have the temerity to drop laughing gas canisters in the street on Friday and Saturday nights.

This week, the Met and Lambeth Council revealed that over the last year they have noticed an increase in the number of NOS canisters, also known as whippets, discarded in local gutters. A photo of the things, distributed by the local council, is doing the rounds on the internet, but to me the way they're piled up looks unnatural—almost as if whoever took it has their own agenda to push.

Read: All the Drug Dealers You'll Meet in Your 20s

Anyway, Lambeth has decided to invoke a new power, a Public Spaces Protection Order, which will allow the council to dole out fines of up to £1,000 [$1,500] to people caught using, possessing, chucking away, or selling legal highs such as nitrous oxide in the Borough. So, you could get fined £1,000 for 15 seconds of synthetic laughing. Or for dropping a little metal thing on the floor.

"We want to protect local people's quality of life and get on top of this problem," said Lambeth councillor Jane Edbrooke, cabinet member for neighborhoods. "Legal highs are linked to antisocial behavior, drug dealing, and particularly littering around south London nightlife hotspots such as Vauxhall and Clapham.

"The mess left in some of our neighborhoods after a Friday and Saturday night just isn't acceptable," continued Edbrooke, "with families having to witness this behavior on a regular basis, as well as coming across these canisters in their playgrounds, parks, and streets."

Related: Watch our film about Sisa, the street high that is ravaging Greece's drug-addicted poor

Nitrous oxide is not a particularly harmful drug. Not compared to GHB or crystal meth, the real problem nightlife drugs in these parts of south London. NOS is a highly dangerous drug only in the minds of the general public, who have been fed a diet of hippy crack scare stories because it is the drug of the moment. Laughing gas is yet to directly cause a death in the UK (all the deaths linked to nitrous oxide, despite what the media says, are cases of asphyxia caused by contraptions used to take the drug). Next to laughing gas, GHB, crack, crystal meth—all of these things are diabolic.

The Lambeth move looks like being one of many. Public Spaces Protection Orders (PSPOs) were introduced last year under the Anti-Social Behaviour Crime and Policing Act 2014 to give councils and police extra powers to tackle activities in public deemed likely to have a negative effect on the quality of life for locals. On June 1, the town of Taunton in Somerset introduced a PSPO ban on people taking intoxicating substances including alcohol and legal highs in public places. Taunton followed in the footsteps of Lincoln City Council, who introduced a similar legal high PSPO scheme in February.

The tactic is being used by Lambeth and others despite the arrival of a new psychoactive substances law from central government later this year. The main aim of the new law, which will introduce a blanket ban on all psychoactive drugs with exceptions for substances such as alcohol, coffee, and medicine, is to prevent teenagers and vulnerable people getting easy access to powerful synthetic cannabinoids and mephedrone-type stimulants via high street head shops.

Laughing gas paraphernalia seized in Shoreditch, East London last month. Photo via Met Police

However, the decision to go after laughing gas users in Lambeth is a symptom of an increasingly PR-led (rather than intelligence-led) form of policing in the UK, often fueled by what the noisiest members of the public happen to be kicking up a fuss about at the time, rather than what the police should actually be doing.

It's an attitude that appears to be particularly prevalent when it comes to tackling drugs. Like all public services, the police are increasingly aware of the power of PR in influencing people's perceptions of their success. So even though fining people for inhaling a balloon of laughing gas—a light-headed high that most mothers experience when they opt for "gas and air" during childbirth—is a relative waste of time, the police will do it because it's essentially an exercise in placating the public.

It's a far cry from the "Brixton Experiment," a scheme set up down the road from Vauxhall and Clapham by Brian Paddick when he took over as Borough Commander in 2000. He introduced the scheme after discovering that one of his officers was on a charge for failing to arrest someone for cannabis, which led to all the other PCs arresting everyone with cannabis on them for fear of getting told off. In Brixton, a mass weed clampdown could have created civil unrest.

Brian Paddick in Southwark. Photo via Liberal Democrats

Paddick knew that the real problem in Brixton was not cannabis, but crack and heroin, which was fueling robbery and violence. So he took the heat off cannabis users and blitzed the Class-A drug trade, resulting in a fall in serious crime.

Despite his brave approach, Paddick was kicked out of his job after an article in the Mail on Sunday claimed his gay lover had watched him smoke weed (an allegation the newspaper later retracted and paid damages for). But by then the damage had been done and Paddick's progressive experiment was mothballed.

Now, 15 years later, police in Lambeth will shortly be having to book people for inhaling laughing gas from balloons because they might cause a bit of litter. This is not progress.

The new focus for local and regional police forces appears to be to operate at the level of a public service duty, a bit like an on-call garbage removal firm. It's certainly easier, for cash-strapped police forces who now have tiny budgets for catching the big guys because surveillance and undercover work is so expensive and time consuming, to tackle drugs in this 2D way. If there is a specific problem the public want to get cleared up, the police will respond. And if the police can clear up this problem with as much showboating as possible, everyone is happy, blissfully unaware that the most damaging crimes are feeling less heat because they are invisible to the public.

This type of happy-clappy policing first got the high profile treatment in Manchester in 2011, during a PR event that could have actually been called Britain's first "Drug Bust Safari," although it actually went by the ironic name of Operation Audacious.

Around 150 schoolchildren, community workers and business leaders had a ringside seat in minibuses as 1,000 police officers jumped from meat wagons and mounted nearly 100 dawn raids on smalltime drug dealers' homes, dragging the culprits out in front of the cameras in their pants. #OpAudacious was launched in a multimedia publicity whirl on Twitter, Facebook, and YouTube, with senior officers at pains to stress that the biggest drugs bust in Manchester's history was as a direct result of public concern.

That the police are responsive to the concerns of the public all sounds fine. With the positions of Police and Crime Commissioners now secured by vote there is an added need for the actions of local police forces to appease their electorate.

But in terms of cost effectiveness, in terms of "good policing," this kind of "call out" policing is a waste of money. To take up officers' time by targeting those fiendish late-night laughing gas litterers in Lambeth smacks of a positive feedback loop that pleases PR people and Disgusted-of-Tunbridge-Wells types, while achieving virtually nothing in the way of serious crime prevention.

Follow Max Daly on Twitter.

Photo by Flickr user Woodley Wonder Works

I only see my jizz on occasional mornings. The wet dreams are casual, and the lover's face is always vague, like a finger-painting. In the dreams, I say something like "thanks for coming" as I touch her phantom body. She says, "I'm glad to be here, really enjoying myself." Then a hot pink nipple floats into my vision like a comet, and I gently press it. I wake up in the humid Florida morning, my sheets wet beneath me.

My body does it quietly and unconsciously, like the tiny cheer I let out in empty elevators after I've talked to a cute girl. But for me, the nocturnal emissions are often the only release my body gets, because in my 21 years on this Earth, I have never masturbated.

Most people find this appalling: Masturbation is natural! You'll get all blocked up if you don't pop one out!Some consider it an act of perseverance, as if not masturbating were an accomplishment. Even to the most open-minded, I am the punchline to that old joke: "98 percent of people masturbate, the other 2 percent are lying."

It's not that I haven't thought about it. I've just never felt the urge. I may be the only man in existence to have never touched himself, but there are many things I haven't touched—a 2013 Subaru, a caribou, an authentic New York bagel. At the risk of sounding self-aggrandizing, there are an infinite number of things more interesting than me than sitting alone with my dick in my hand.

What guy doesn't have a story about the first time he realized his penis could be rubbed to orgasm, like a Genie in a magic lamp? Masturbation is a landmark in growing up; later, it becomes a habit that may prevent cancer, or at least prevent insanity. Death and masturbation are the taboo inevitabilities underlying all life and art.

Horniness is like the Holy Spirit. I've seen some filled with it, singing in praise, weeping at altars of affection—but I've always found it kind of silly.

Masturbating is like belonging to a secret club: Everyone knows what goes on, so no one needs to talk about it outright. There's an episode of Seinfeld where George Costanza sits down at a table and tells Jerry Seinfeld his mother "caught him."

Jerry asks, "Doing what?"

George grimaces, "You know..."

The studio audience erupts with laughter, because we all know. The innuendos unite us. In Tallahassee or in France; surrounded by strip malls or art relics; pants are down and folks are fucking themselves. And the world needs it. Without masturbation and patient anticipation for a Friends reunion, blood would run down the streets of your town.

Except, I never got the password to enter that club. The pubescent moment when you're meant to discover the wonders of the male anatomy never presented itself to me. It still hasn't.

Need a reason to not masturbate? Here are some of the most dangerous things that could happen while jerking off.

Horniness is like the Holy Spirit. I've seen some filled with it, singing in praise, weeping at altars of affection—but I've always found it kind of silly. I was raised Catholic, and before my first Confession, I was given a worksheet to track my sins. The common sins were listed:

I DISOBEYED MY PARENTS.

I SAID THE LORD'S NAME IN VAIN.

I MASTURBATED.

I always scrawled a question mark next to "masturbation" and handed the worksheet back to Father Ennis. I honestly didn't know. He thought I was being cheeky, so I always received abnormally high penance, and my family would leave me in the pew still repeating mandated Hail Mary's until they lost meaning. "Holy Mary, mother of God, pray for us sinners..."

You don't need the church to pay penance. Secret Voicemail Project allows people to leave anonymous voicemails confessing their sins.

Photo by Flickr user Woodley Wonder Works

I once attempted masturbation—sometime in high school—after hearing a great deal of hype (conversations with men take two minutes, at most, to pivot toward dick discussion). With all that lotion in preparation, my penis resembled a sparkling porcelain porpoise, wet and glistening. The whole thing struck me as absurd. What was I supposed to do with it? It seemed silly to slip into a fugue state; to fantasize myself with a nude beauty and invent moments that didn't actually exist. So I gave up.

Forget masturbation—watch MUNCHIES's video about sploshing, the erotic act combining sex and food.

The first time I came in my waking life was inside of my ex-girlfriend. She took my virginity when I was 20 years old. We did it after a party, in the midst of drinking some McDonald's ice coffee. When I came, she came, too. It was a mutual stirring of fluids. I went blank for 15 minutes, gurgling the complexities of it all like a novice at a wine-tasting. Orgasming felt natural, normal—almost mundane. This is what men kill for?

In the morning, we bought celebratory iced coffees that tasted the same as the day before. Over us, The Wanted crumbled through McDonald's house speakers: My universe will never be the same. I'm glad you came. I'm glad you came. She whispered to me, "So am I."

Sex became a regular thing. After coming, I would return to my natural state of gawkiness—I've always been awkward in social situations, even alone with loved ones. But my girlfriend said I was a different person in bed. She called me her best lover. I felt proud and impressive. Maybe that's manhood.

When we broke up, we agreed that our friendship was something worth saving. But then she leapt out of touch. She said she couldn't be friends with a former intimate—the orgasms complicated things. And then she never spoke to me again.

When I think of her, I remember those days when we would just lay together on soiled sheets, in awe of our orgasms. And maybe that is what makes masturbators: being left dick in hand, chasing memories.

Read more by Alex O'Keefe on his website.

Poster image by Brett Gundlock

Have you seen our annual Photo Issue? Not to toot our own horn, but we're happy to have collaborated with Magnum Photos on putting together what is one of our best issues to date, featuring Magnum members Bruce Gilden, Alec Soth, Bieke Depoorter, Peter van Agtmael, and Mikhael Subotzky, as well as Magnum Foundation grantees and a handful of VICE's favourite young photographers, including Canada's Aaron Vincent Elkaim.

To celebrate the launch of the Photo Issue, VICE Canada will be hosting our annual Photo Show entitled "The New Photojournalism" in Toronto and Montreal. On top of that, we're excited to announce that the show was co-curated by legendary, award-winning photographer Larry Towell. Towell is Canada's first photographer to be associated with Magnum Photos and his photo stories have been published everywhere from LIFE, the New York Times Magazine, and Esquire to Elle, Rolling Stone, Geo, and Stern.

VICE and Towell share a passion for bringing an immersive, global perspective to the world, and together we've selected some of the best new works from photojournalists from Canada and beyond: Aaron Vincent Elkaim, Brett Gundlock, Dominic Nahr, and Mauricio Palos.

So come join us in Toronto this Friday, July 17, 7 PM at the Angell Gallery, and next Friday at 7 PM in Montreal at the Phi Centre for the opening night. Refreshments will be served.

Image via Wiki Commons.

Fashion designer Christian Audigier died last Friday, at the age of 57. His sudden passing reminded the internet about the two trash-fashion brands he helmed to great success in the 2000s: Von Dutch and Ed Hardy. Both brands pushed the sort of gaudy, expensive looks so intrinsically tied to a specific time and place that it would have taken an act of God to allow them to age well.

But who knows? Fashion is cyclical. Trends hit, then go out of style. A few years later, they return in a somewhat mutated form, like a bent-up boomerang. This happened when bell bottoms made a resurgence in the early 2000s as "flared" jeans. It happened again when baggy jeans got killed by "skinny jeans," although for the most part, the new skinny jeans were just the old jeans that actually fit. So even though shirts with glitter and skulls haven't been cool since James Blunt was tearing up the pop charts, who's to say 2015 isn't the perfect time for a trucker-hat comeback?

We live in a society in which, for better or worse, we define ourselves online through commodities. The music we talk about on Twitter, the TV shows we GChat about, the articles we post to Facebook, the brands we associate ourselves with, etc. As the internet has made us more and more performative, the easiest way to establish yourself as an iconoclast is by aligning yourself with stuff that most sensible people hate. This is a super tempting thing to do, both because it's really fun to argue that, say, Con Air is a better film than anything Fellini ever made, and because if you're forceful enough in your arguments about why something is good, you might actually influence people to start thinking the same way that you do.

Ed Hardy is the Con Air of menswear. The clothes are, for the most part, ugly. Like, really ugly. They are to the eyes what Axe Body Spray is to the nose. Still, the brand hasn't been cool for so long that there's a certain ironic distance that can be drawn between its heyday and now. In the 2000s, Ed Hardy was the rhinestoned battle flag of electro bros and jocks. Now, it represents no one in their right mind. If you're looking to prove you're too advanced for reality, you could do worse than mining the unforgotten but unloved fashions of the early 2000s, especially if you're one of those dudes who is into dressing aggressively normal (i.e., following the dreaded "normcore" trend).

"A 'cool guy' wearing True Religion tees and Ed Hardy hats on Instagram in 2015 seems to be consciously taking the normcore look a step further," says Lawrence Schlossman, editor-in-chief of the men's fashion site Four Pins. "Normcore is an easy look to ape if you're lame and broke with no taste, so the supposed 'tastemakers' of this set evolve." There are two types of coolness at work here: There's being ahead of the curve and figuring out what's going to be the new hotness in a few months, and then there's submitting the curve to your bidding and dictating what's next.

When someone like the rapper/videographer Uzi wears an Ed Hardy T-shirt in an Instagram photo or rap socialite Ian Connor decides he's going to start wearing Skechers, it's an act of hubris. Extremely hateable brands are unclaimed territories in a sense, which allows cool kids to stamp their own personal brand and attempt to revive them through sheer force of will.

Still, Schlossman says, "Keep in mind this is all happening within a bubble within a bubble." Beyond a few weirdos wearing this stuff as an ironic goof, it's doubtful that something like Ed Hardy could ever make something resembling an actual comeback in fashion. There's just too much left to be explored. At some point, even the coolest kids have to find something new.

Follow Drew on Twitter.

NYC tabloids react to the non-indictment of the police officer who subdued Eric Garner in December. Photo via Flickr user Mike Mozart

The family of Eric Garner, the Staten Island father of six who died after New York City Police Officer Daniel Pantaleo subdued him with a chokehold last July, is being awarded a $5.9 million wrongful death settlement from New York City. The family had reportedly given the city until Friday—the one-year anniversary of Garner's death—to negotiate before they took their $75 million lawsuit against the NYPD and the city to court.

In a statement late Monday, New York City Comptroller Scott Stringer—who's empowered to settle claims against NYC before they turn into lawsuits—acknowledged the impact of Garner's death on the city, but stopped short of apologizing for wrongdoing.

"[Garner's death] forced us to examine the state of race relations, and the relationship between our police force and the people they serve," Stringer said, adding that "While... the City has not admitted liability, I believe that we have reached an agreement that acknowledges the tragic nature of Mr. Garner's death while balancing my office's fiscal responsibility to the City."

Earlier Monday, the New York Daily News had reported that Garner's widow, Esaw Garner, had rejected a $5 million settlement against the advice of the family's attorney, Jonathan Moore, who suggested they accept the offer and then sue the EMTs who failed to offer Garner medical treatment. But after the city's settlement was announced Monday night, the New York Times reported that the Garner family attorney had reached a separate settlement—the amount remains confidential—with Richmond University Medical Center, the hospital that dispatched the medical workers, before a lawsuit was filed.

But even if the Garners have accepted the $5.9 settlement, they aren't finished fighting police brutality.

"They want to make clear that the money does not in any way interfere with their pursuit of justice," Al Sharpton told the Daily News. "We won't be happy until there's a conclusion and strategic changes in the NYPD and the way the Justice Department handles these cases."

In a statement, New York Mayor Bill de Blasio acknowledged that cash alone cannot reimburse human loss.

"No sum of money can make this family whole, but hopefully the Garner family can find some peace and finality from today's settlement," de Blasio said. "By reaching a resolution, family and other loved ones can move forward even though we know they will never forget this tragic incident."

Similarly, Stringer told the Times, "Financial compensation is certainly not everything, and it can't bring Mr. Garner back. But it is our way of creating balance and giving a family a certain closure."

The Daily News reports that $5.9 million is the largest wrongful death settlement related to a police officer–involved killing in the city's history. The payout represents the family's official compensation since a grand jury declined to indict the officers who subdued Garner in December. Several months previously, the city medical examiner's office had declared his death a homicide, citing his weight and "the compression of his chest and prone positioning during physical restraint by police."

Video of Garner's interaction with police went viral, and appeared to so clearly depict police brutality that even law-and-order conservatives Fox News' Bill O'Reilly and former US President George W. Bush expressed discomfort with the grand jury's non-indictment. In the clip filmed by neighborhood man Ramsey Orta, Garner—who was approached by police for allegedly selling loose cigarettes—accuses officers of harassment, declaring, "This ends today." Subsequently, Officer Pantaleo applies the notorious chokehold that apparently ended the man's life. With officers surrounding him and pushing his head down towards the cement, Garner desperately pleads, "I can't breathe"—words that continue to serve as a rallying cry nationwide—11 times before apparently losing consciousness, and then lies on the sidewalk for at least a few minutes without medical attention.

Though jurors did not indict Pantaleo—who remains on modified desk duty—the city and much of the country responded with calls for reform. In a speech following the jury's decision, Mayor de Blasio said, "Anyone who believes in the values of this country should feel called to action right now."

Indeed, in signs they carried and chants they shouted, demonstrators with the burgeoning Black Lives Matter movement carried Garner's words "I can't breathe!" across New York. His death became such a high-profile example of police killings of unarmed black men—and more broadly of the tension between police and black communities—that the incident made its way all the way up to the White House. President Barack Obama, who gave a speech on the day of the non-indictment, suggested at the time that the case "speaks to the larger issues that we've been talking about now for the last week, the last month, but last year and sadly for decades."

The Garner family is expected to host a press conference at Sharpton's National Action Network offices Tuesday morning, and a rally to call for justice for victims of police killings and for federal charges against the officers involved in Garner's death is planned for Saturday. A probe into the killing by the federal Department of Justice is ongoing.

Follow Kristen Gwynne on Twitter.

All photos by Thomas Rennie

Thomas Rennie is a designer, artist, photographer, and nice guy. In 2011 he was living in New York when he got news his dad, Andrew Rennie, was dying. He came home to spend time with a very large, and sometime opaque, figure in his life.

After his father's death, Thomas set out on a ten-month motorcycle journey across the US and Mexico. He took photos of everything and tried to manage his grief. When he returned home the weight of loss, his ever growing appetite for weed, and unchecked bipolar disorder began to press on him.

Andrew Rennie hang-gliding as a young man

I've been friends with Tom for almost a decade, and was one of the many who witnessed the following months as he began to unravel. The idea of artistic temperaments shifting between psychotic and enlightened is played out. But after so many years with Tom, his big claims, luminescent ideas, and at times random comments, I was slow to notice he wasn't OK.

Luckily his family and closest friends did and he was hospitalized after a psychotic episode. He spent five weeks in hospital, and during this manic period an idea for a book emerged. Always one to keep a visual record, he began intensively collecting and documenting everything that was happening to him, certain it all carried some higher meaning.

Drawings made while in hospital

When Tom got well he decided to make a book, and the result is a beautiful, at times upsetting, account of death, grief, and coming undone.

It's an exploration of his lost father, a journal of a road trip, a disjointed series of thoughts, drawings, and correspondences between friends and families. Even when he was at his most unwell, Tom's work still carries a dreamlike quality. His long, disjointed emails occasionally offer a phrase or thought that's so true you have to stop reading.

It ends with his recovery, and a feeling that he and everything is different now. He called it Riding Around and Getting It.

'Riding Around and Getting It' is made up of photos, drawings, letters, screenshots, and objects.

VICE: Hey Tom. Did you have any sense of this book when you started the trip?
Thomas Rennie: No, I only got a camera halfway across the country. But I wanted to do something with the photos and stuff. When I went into the psychosis I became obsessed with the idea of the book.

You actually got the idea in hospital?
The idea, yes. But it was so morphed I got to a place where telling the story was the most important thing. And the book all of a sudden was the world's biggest project. I was gathering content from everything, I was also paranoid I was going to forget everything. So yeah, it was kind of hard to start it.

Tom travelled through the US and Mexico.

Did that obsessive collecting help when it came time to pulling it together? You would have had a mountain of content.
When it came time to actually lay it out the content was just everywhere, and it was just pages of stuff and screenshots. In a way it was kind of like being a curator of my own crap.

Did it feel cathartic to wade through it all when you were well?
It was confronting—but cathartic and confronting can be the same thing. There're parts of it I could only read once. I had to show bits to Andrea (Tom's girlfriend) and ask, "Can you go through this and tell me if there's anything I should not publish?" It was a nerve-wracking and stressful process, but in the long run it's paying off.

The book includes series of Facebook messages Tom sent to friends in a manic state.

It's only been out a few days, but people's reactions have been pretty emotional.
I didn't expect this extent of a response, or how personally people connected with it. I had people—good friends and people I've never spoken to—message me saying, I'm so proud of you, thank you, this is my similar story, and my similar struggle. It was amazing, and overwhelming, and beautiful. I'm still kind of getting used to it.

It's interesting how so many barriers are being broken down, but we still really struggle to talk personally about mental illness.
Even I am. I don't have the words to describe it, reach out to people to make them comfortable but not overwhelm them. But like anything, when something starts to enter popular conversation it starts to change. That's the first part.

It's strange talking about your trip now. When you were on it—even though I knew what you'd been through with your dad—it was hard to not feel jealous. You've always been able to make things seem magical. How did you feel, being on the road like that?
I did have an incredible time being in nature. Especially camping. In general everyday was just about getting to the next stop. That was enough purpose to keep going.

It was a distraction so I could forget, and didn't need to think and process what I needed to when you go through grief. Instead it was like: Do cool stuff, keep going forward, and that was enough for me at that time. In general, it was happy/sad.

How was it coming home and losing that velocity?
That's the thing, when you go on a huge trip you get passionate and think, I wanna take all this home. You're so excited to start new things, and do new projects. Then I got home and it was a big change. To have been going pretty hard, and before that I was in New York working and really focused, then suddenly you're home and that's lost. I didn't know what to do, and I ended up withdrawing into a dark little house and I just slept a lot.

Tom's living room days before being hospitalized.

When you talk about projects, this book has been a vein through so many recent stages of your life, when you finished it was there a fear of, What am I without this book?
That probably would have been a fear if I was in the mindset I was. But in a way I'm happy that in these past months I've felt the momentum of putting it out, to see what the next one's going to be. It feels good. I need that in my life. I need direction. I need to be working on projects. You need a reason not to dwell on your own sorrow, and in your own thoughts, and get lost.

This has a happy ending, you got better, and in hindsight your recovery was pretty swift. Why do you think you pulled out of this when so many people don't?
It's the love from all my family and friends, and my luck of the draw. I grew up on a little hobby farm in Flinders. I went to a private school that encouraged creativity and set me up for a successful career. When I moved out to go to a good uni my folks could help me out so I could spend cash a few nights a week going out and making friends.

The idea for the book came about while in a manic state.

After my attack, I went into deep depression, I was bedridden. I couldn't work, but my rent got paid. So I could chill and concentrate on getting well, just take baby steps each day. Soon I was slightly comfortable talking to people again and I creeped back into working. Working was a big part of my recovery, I needed a daily purpose to get out of bed.

Now flip that. Say I was born into foster homes and battled my way through schools that lacked resources. I turned 18, I was on my own. Uni wasn't an option and I had to work. I didn't go out, I didn't make hundreds of beautiful friends.

Then after some trauma I have my first attack. I'm released from hospital. I'm scared, confused, and embarrassed. Even if I could lift myself out of bed I can't go to work because my boss thinks I'm a psycho. My rent isn't paid.

I fail getting public housing or support because my shitty education didn't include navigating bureaucracy. I drift through shelters, and end up on the streets. With all those struggles, the path to recovery isn't a path, it's a jagged glass cliff face.

Tom will be launching Riding Around and Getting It on July 23 at The Good Copy in Melbourne. Sales of the book on the night will go to the Black Dog Institute, which works to improve the lives of individuals affected by mood disorders.

Follow Wendy on Twitter.

Photo by Natalie Olah

This article originally appeared on VICE UK.

For as long as Victor* has lived in Britain all he has wanted to do is provide for his family. Starting with causal work when he first moved over to London in 2007 he quickly found himself a permanent position, working night shifts stacking shelves in a chain supermarket. With a degree in science from his hometown in Nigeria it was far from his dream job—but it was enough to support his wife and three young children.

When I spoke to him last month, almost eight years after arriving in the UK, Victor was sitting in a detention center he described to me as a "prison" just a few miles down the road from a London Airport. As a foreign national offender (FNO) he is caught in the middle of Theresa May's new "hostile environment," facing deportation for using false documents to find employment, a crime he struggles to really accept.

"I am trying to work hard because that's what my parents told me," he said. "I won't rob a bank and I wont take drugs. I have two hands to work and that is what I want to do."

Last year, as part of the 2014 Immigration Act, the coalition government passed a little-known policy called "deport first, appeal later." Under Articles eight and three of the European Convention on Human Rights FNOs are able to appeal their deportation on the basis of rights to family life or the risk of "serious irreversible harm" being caused. In the past they were able to do this from within the UK—close to the legal teams they are trying to contact and the authorities they are trying to contest.

But under the new policy this all changed. Today offenders who are not facing what the Home Office perceives to be the threat of "serious irreversible harm" can be kicked out of the UK and removed to their country of origin before they get a chance to appeal. According to data I obtained from the Home Office under the Freedom of Information Act, the policy resulted in the removal of 614 people between July and December last year, with 127 appeals made in response.

According to the Home Office, having in-country appeals allow foreign criminals to clog up the British justice system with what it calls "spurious claims to human rights." "At the moment," British Home Secretary, Theresa May said last year, "the system is like a never-ending game of snakes and ladders with almost 70,000 appeals heard every year. The winners—foreign criminals and immigration lawyers... the losers—the victims of these crimes and the public."

But what the Home Office describes as "spurious" others see as entirely genuine. From 2012 to 2013, 32 percent of all deportation appeals made by FNOs were successful. As Sarah Campbell, a research and policy manager at Bail for Immigration Detainees explained to me, many FNOs are residents "that have been in the UK for years, in some cases decades" often with "children born and brought up here." With these kind of offenders now being deported without an opportunity for their cases to be heard, Campbell says many with a legitimate claim to remain could be permanently, unjustly expelled.

Related: Deportee Purgatory

For Victor—who was contesting the decision to deny him in-country appeal through judicial review when we spoke—these fears are very real. As he struggles to navigate the complex and hostile environment of immigration law from within the UK, he dreads to think what will happen if he is forced to a country nearly 4,000 miles away.

"If I am left alone in Nigeria I won't know the situation," he told me. "I need to chase people up that are directly involved and meet solicitors. I have a family here, too—a wife and three children. They should look at the impact my deportation will have on them. They should let people do their appeals here in the UK, not just abandon them."

Another offender facing a similar fate to Victor is Joseph*. Still young in his mid-20s and with his entire family based in the UK, he too is subject to a deportation order after completing a prison sentence for a "property offense." According to Lewis Kett, an immigration caseworker who has launched a judicial review challenge on his behalf, Joseph will face destitution if he is forced to appeal from Nigeria—his country of origin—and his chances of returning will be severely weakened.

"We're challenging the decision to personally apply the law to him," Kett told me. "Our client used to have indefinite leave to remain and his entire family are now all in the UK. If he goes back to Nigeria he's not going to have any family support there. He's likely to face destitution. How can he start and run an appeal from that country when he's got no assistance to do so?"

Public support for strict policies on FNOs has grown consistently since 2006, when it was revealed that over 1,000 offenders had been released into society over a seven year period. The news sparked a moral panic that ended in the dismissal of then Home Secretary Charles Clark and turned foreign offenders into national pariahs. As recently as this May, the Sun's front page featured a story about four male foreign criminals, their crimes—terrorism, rape, murder, and pedophilia—splashed across the cover. "Their rights... or yours?" the headline screamed.

Read on Noisey: No Money, No Space, No Time: How London Has Forced Out Musicians

These kind of stories have a clear impact on immigration policy, but they're far from representative. Data from another FOI request I made reveals that 58 percent of the foreign nationals removed since "deport first, appeal later" measures were introduced were actually non-violent offenders. And despite being the emphasis of so much media coverage over the years, less than five individuals had committed murder (the Home Office was unable to provide an exact figure due to ensuring the "identities of individuals can be protected") and 20 rape (just over 3 percent of the total affected).

Stories like Victor's are much less likely to be heard. For years he worked in the same supermarket, pulling long hours, night after night. Then the company discovered he'd been working with a fake passport and he was sentenced to several months in prison. When he was finally released back into society things only got harder. Allowed to remain in the UK but barred from work, he quickly lost the ability to support his wife and children. As rent became unaffordable, and the family slipped into council tax arrears, he was forced to reoffend: buying another fake passport and applying for work once again.

This time around, things ended even sooner. His new employer quickly discovered he was working using false documents and they too called the police. After a short case at the Crown Court he pleaded guilty and was sent back to prison for 12 months behind bars. Despite having a family dependent on his support, and despite saying he had no option but to offend, Victor's crime is seen as no different to someone who has committed a murder as far as deportation is concerned.

"I would appreciated it if people could see there are offenders in my situation," he said. "It's not entirely true that all FNOs are murderers and rapists."

Home Secretary Theresa May. Photo via the Home Office

Campbell, whose charity deals with many deportation cases like Victor's, also objects to the skewed media coverage foreign offenders tend to receive.

"We deal with people that have committed a variety of offenses but in many cases the reality is very different from what people would think when they hear the label FNO," she told me. "We dealt with one case with a father from Zimbabwe who was convicted of theft after stealing some diapers for his baby because his family couldn't afford to buy them."

With a majority in the House of Commons the Conservatives now plan on taking what they have already achieved during the Coalition with the Immigration Act even further. Under plans put forward in their manifesto, deportation without appeal could be extended from FNOs to all immigration appeals and judicial reviews with the exception of asylum cases. And despite the harshness of "deport first, appeal later" and the Legal Aid, Sentencing and Punishing of Offenders Act 2012 stripping many FNOs of the right to legal representation, a new removals policy is being planned with satellite tracking devices introduced for every offender subject to deportation. For those like Victor, trapped in the middle of a system that doesn't want them, Teresa's May's "hostile environment" could well get even tougher.

*Names have been changed

Follow Philip on Twitter.

The tarmac of the grandstand after day 9.

You've all seen the pictures: cowboy hats. Girls on mechanical bulls. Deep-fried treats that will be pure evil when they leave your body. A 20-year-old man hunched over, puking in an alley. That's the Calgary Stampede that we all know and love.

But what happens when the party dies?

Rather than photographing everyone's indiscretions and hangover-inducing nights, I grabbed my camera and headed out to the midway and grandstand to take a look at the underdogs of the ten-day event: the Clean-Up Crew.

Karen Danczuk, self-proclaimed "Queen of the Selfie"

This article originally appeared on VICE UK.

Every so often, this country stumbles upon a politician, or vaguely political personality, who truly speaks to the nation.

Unlike, say, the Labour leadership contest, they are not elected by ballot, nor are they chosen by the trade unions. They are not people who have been nurtured in the elite greenhouses of Oxford, Cambridge, and Eton.

Instead, this person is elected as unofficial spokesperson for the country using a different set of criteria, which may include, among other things, whether or not they can get a double-page spread in the Sunday Sport about them "romping" on the reg, or if they've got the cachet to record their own, self-funded novelty Christmas single. This person—whether they're Sally Bercow, Lempit Opik, or Neil and Christine Hamilton—will have some, possibly tenuous, link to Westminster and yet be beyond delighted to be on the same guest list as Gloria Hunniford at the launch of a new mobile phone tariff.

And for 2015, or at least summer 2015, our zenith of tabloid-flavored politics comes in the form of Karen Danczuk.

A former Labour councillor—married to and salaciously separated from Labour MP for Rochdale, Simon Danczuk—Karen came to the country's attention when she started posting selfies featuring her rigorously St. Tropezed whammers on Twitter in 2014. She now goes by the self-appointed title "Queen of the Selfie."

As any novelty political couple worth their salt will know, their PG-rated personal life should completely overshadow their work. Karen and Simon have excelled at this. There have been rumors—which have all been "leaked" by "sources"—of "affairs" with shadowy "personal trainers" or "salesmen," and of Karen being subsequently "sacked" as her husband's secretary.

Both Simon and Karen have courted publicity—all the while trying their best to look like people who aren't courting publicity—speaking to everyone from the Sunday Times to Channel 5 News. Their current "split" hinges on some alleged affair Karen's supposed to have had. She denies having one.

Read: Why Are London Cops So Worried About Laughing Gas?

Much like Neil and Christine Hamilton who came before them, the Danczuks don't appear to care if they're embarrassing themselves, or anyone else. While the Hamiltons did the done thing in the early noughties by going on reality shows and recording forgettable World Cup single "England Are Jolly Dee," the Danczuks deal in the modern trade of human tragedy and conflict. Much like a dad having a screaming breakdown in the bacon aisle, the couple are acting out their breakup in public.

For context, the Sun runs at least one story on them almost every day, and the Mail and the Mirror aren't far behind. Channel 5 recently dedicated eight-and-a-half minutes to grilling Karen about the alleged affair. That's eight-and-a-half minutes of Karen sighing about being "in the public eye" and saying "I am human" and swishing her Pantene-worthy hair about her serious business-woman-jacketed shoulders. When she's not on TV, Karen's on Twitter, reminding everyone that she's still in the press by tweeting that she hasn't spoken to the press.

Related: VICE Meets Slavoj Zizek

However paralyzingly predictable the whole thing could be, there's something in Karen's vanity and naked ambition and lack of cynicism and beautiful cow eyes that's utterly endearing. Beguiling, even. She's Rochdale's answer to Princess Diana, Westminster's Madame Bovary. She comes across as a woman who just wants to be special.

Using the lexicon of your Katie Prices or Luisa Zissmans, Karen has a fondness for discussing vague business ventures and making sure everybody knows she's strong and inspirational on Twitter. Her tweets are all signed off "KD" so we know she wrote them herself.

Most recently, Karen was ingeniously flogging busty selfies on eBay that she'd had printed and then sprayed with Chanel perfume. When questioned about whether it was really appropriate for an elected councillor to sell pictures of her breasts (and face), she said: "I'm a businesswoman, it's what we do."

Read at VICE News: The Islamic State's Head Songwriter Has Reportedly Been Killed in an Airstrike

Much of what Karen is reported to have said in written media gets there via a mysterious "source." Whether there really is a mole embedded deep within the Danczuk family, or a network of spies tapping the couple's phones, we may never know. But whoever it is, they have a certain way with dramatic phrasing.

"She loves sending saucy snaps and was well flirty and suggestive in her texts. One time she stripped to a bra on her bed and he couldn't believe his luck. The word 'exhibitionist' doesn't do her justice," a "spy" told the Mail when the allegations emerged of her affair with personal trainer, Ben Bate.

"Everyone knows Karen is famous for her selfies but she's never done a topless one—so you can imagine how this bloke felt when she whipped off her bra just for him! It's a bit of a collector's item."

Here are some examples of collector's items: Elvis's wigs. Marilyn's bras. Michael Jackson's Pez dispensers. A grainy iPhone picture of Karen's boring nipples is not one. It's just not.

But herein lies what is so special about Karen—she's resolutely ordinary. Her nipples are no more intriguing than yours or mine. Forget your otherworldly Karlie Klosses or Miranda Kerrs—Karen plays into the readers' wives market, perhaps proving that being pretty and having a gung-ho, end-of-the-pier attitude towards your tits is absolutely enough to capture people's sort-of interest. Either way, if you've got enough cleavage to keep £2 in 20 pence pieces [$3 in quarters] in your bra without noticing, you've got a shot at making the Express. You've got a shot at being given eight-and-a-half minutes of airtime on Channel 5 News with Matt Barbet squinting at you in bafflement about what you're even doing on his show.

If politics are really about people and personality, then surely it's kind of brilliant to have people who—unlike, say, Jeremy Corbyn—are so like the people you're stuck in an office with for eight hours a day. Or who resemble your cousins that have gone a bit off the rails but you see once every few years at reunions. If the Danczuks can remind anybody that politicians are just as vainglorious and absurd as anybody else, if not more so, the sooner we can turn Westminster coverage into OK! Magazine.

As for Karen, she embodies our insecurities and shortcomings in a way that is utterly compelling. Any woman who has ever sent a nude Snapchat at 3AM can relate to Karen. Anybody who has ever tried, and failed, to use their breasts to get a free drink. Anybody who wasn't quite sure what might make them stand out a bit. Anyone who secretly wants to be a little bit famous.

And, you know, at least she's not Katie Hopkins.

Photo by Mike Pearl

Minions are the latest in a long line of pop culture creatures designed to delight children and annoy young adults. But unlike, say, Furby, their creators don't shy away from explaining their existence with somewhat real biology.

Thanks to a marketing campaign apparently eight times the actual budget of the film, if you're currently in the developed world, an ad for Minions is not far away. And considering the huge opening weekend box-office numbers, we're stuck with them for the foreseeable future, which might make them worth looking at under a microscope.

From a creative standpoint, the recipe from Minions inventor Pierre Coffin is painfully obvious: Take one part alien from the Toy Story films and one part Ewok from Return of the Jedi, and that's it. You've got yourself a Minion.

But what is one of these things, really?

The question "What's a minion made of?" could be as silly as asking what continent the Kingdom of Equestria is on. But instead of waving a wand and saying they were magical, the screenwriters present them as cellular blobs in the ocean, then as terrestrial creatures. In other words, they're not fantasy; they're soft science fiction.

That creation myth is rapidly solidifying. The official synopsis tells us: "They have evolved from single (yellow) cell organisms into the familiar beings we know, and they live for a collective purpose: to seek out and serve the most despicable master they can find." This contradicts an older official short film that claims, "We are engineered from the same strand of mutated DNA," so presumably that is no longer canonical. In either case, things like DNA and cells are clearly involved.

Then last week, Pierre Coffin acknowledged the unanswered questions when he elaborated a little bit about their origins: They're all male, non-reproducing, and immortal. To find out more, we got in touch with DNA expert and evolutionary biologist T. Ryan Gregory of the University of Guelph in Canada. Dr. Gregory was more than willing to help us flesh out a surprisingly plausible evolutionary explanation for these brightly colored little guys.

For the answers to other pressing science questions, check out 'When Will Humans Live on Mars?'

VICE: So, Dr. Gregory, I've noticed that minions have pronounced butts.
T. Ryan Gregory: They do have pronounced butts—I'll give them that.

I'm bringing it up for a reason. It means even though minions are immortal, they have anuses. They have digestive tracts.
And they have butts and mouths at separate ends, so they're not like sea anemones.

Sea anemones poop out of their mouths?
Yeah. Or they eat with their anuses. Whichever you prefer.

OK, I'm glad we're talking about invertebrates. Are minions vertebrates?
They're almost certainly not vertebrates.

Image via Wikimedia Commons

That's a bold claim. How do we know?
From the little bit at the beginning of the new film, they seem to evolve independently from what looks to be a single-celled thing. And then they're sort of floating around in that state while you see some fishes and things that are sort of early vertebrates. It looks like they were still kind of their little blobby selves while vertebrates had already evolved, so they don't seem to be descended from early vertebrates.

How do you explain how human they are if they're invertebrates?
They have teeth that look like human teeth and eyes that look like human eyes. But we know of features like those evolving independently in different lineages. Cephalopod mollusks also have complex, camera-type eyes, like we have, but they evolved independently of vertebrates. There's a fish with eerily human-like teeth. Fish are vertebrates, but those teeth evolved independently from ours. You can get some of those traits occurring independently in different lineages, and that is probably the situation with Minions

Don't they move like they have backbones, though?
Some kind of internal support structure that looks an awful lot like bones would not be that crazy. They don't have to have bones though. You can have a fairly rigid body with appendages that can grab things without having bones. Think of an octopus, for example.

Another three-fingered animal. Via Wikimedia Commons

I guess that could explain why they only have three fingers. It's really unusual to see a number other than five, right?
You get horses that run around on one toe—they've lost the others. You get three-toed sloths and various other things that have had reductions from the ancestral complement of five digits. But in this case, it looks like they have had three the whole time. So again, it was just not descended from the same group as the terrestrial vertebrates; it looks like they've independently evolved digit-like things.

So it's safe to say what look like fingers are actually tentacles or something?
Yeah. I think that's a reasonable possibility. We don't have any evidence to suggest that these aren't just really big bags of jelly as opposed to very complicated skeletal structures with muscles. That doesn't mean that you couldn't have quite capable and dexterous appendages. An octopus can open a jar from the inside and do all kinds of things, and they don't have bones.

Then again, Minions have hair. Does that shake your certainty?
There are other examples where things have—quote—"hair." There's a very interesting hairy crab, and some caterpillars look really furry. Various insects have hairs. Spiders have hairs. So I don't think it follows that just because they have a little bit of hair on their head they're necessarily a mammal. Maybe it's not hair in the mammalian sense at all, but what are called setae.

We don't have any evidence to suggest that these aren't just really big bags of jelly as opposed to very complicated skeletal structures with muscles.

There's nothing else about them that seems remotely mammalian, right?
I did check, and they don't appear to have nipples or a belly button. They usually have their overalls on but there's a case where you can see them shirtless and it does not look like they have actual nipples, even though they do cover up that region for whatever reason. So, again, there doesn't seem to be any evidence that they are mammals at all.

So they're an aquatic invertebrate species that started walking around and breathing air. Does that present logical problems?
It looks like they emerged from the water, and moved onto land essentially in the current form. There are some implications from that. One question is: How can they breathe air?

Right. How can they breathe air as soon as they step out of the ocean like that?
Maybe they had much more experience on land, or at the surface, or something other than what's been portrayed so far. Maybe they were gulping air like lungfish. I wouldn't be surprised if they weren't sort of amphibious, although they seem to be in awe of the new land environment that they've found. Maybe if they've only ever spent time on little islands, then the mainland would be something that would be remarkable to them.

Would the eyes of other aquatic animals work on land?
If you took a fish, and put it on land, it wouldn't be able to see particularly well. That has to do with the refractive properties of the medium. If you're in water, it essentially has the same refractive index as the goop inside your eye, so you can't just get a sharpening of the image via the cornea and you have to use the lens. In our case, the difference in refractive index between air and eye goop means that we can focus most of the incoming light with the cornea and use the lens for focusing at different distances.

Might that be what the goggles are for, though?
I was wondering if the goggles might be full of water. One possibility is they're just safety goggles. They do tend to be doing a lot of industrial work, but they have them on when they first come out of the water. So it's entirely possible that it's a visual aid because of the problems of having different visual requirements underwater versus on land. That's entirely possible.

Have you noticed how physically diverse Minions can be?
There's one eye and two eyes. There are differences in body shape and height. Some are pretty short and rotund, and some of them are quite long and thin. There are differences in the amounts of hair that they have. What some people online have noticed is that Minions tend to have certain features that co-occur. So they're not randomly distributed. One-eyed minions tend to almost always be the shorter variety. And generally speaking, you get similarities in the hairstyles of the tall ones. So it looks like those traits are correlated, or what we might call "linked."

A tardigrade, another immortal species. Via Wikimedia Commons

So now that we're talking about their genes, their creator has said they're all immortal and male. Does that present problems for a biologist?
To even say "male," it only really makes sense in contexts where at least historically, there's been sexual reproduction in that lineage. You only see sexes in species that, at least ancestrally, had sexual reproduction. So there's male gametes and female gametes. There's sperm and eggs, at least of some variety. There are lineages that have lost sexual reproduction and only reproduce asexually, but they are females having female offspring, without males.

And does immortality put hurdles in front of a biological explanation?
They're going to be accumulating a lot of mutations. Their DNA is going to be damaged, and there'd have to be some way to repair it.

Just to be clear, what would damage a Minion's DNA?
You're damaged all the time. It can just be UV radiation, or just errors in cell division. Those occur anyway. Minions are just around for a really long time, and they're exposed to mutagenic factors, so even mild damage would accumulate. With sexual reproduction, you mix around bad copies and good copies of genes. So Minions must have really good repair enzymes that repair these errors as they occur because there's no such recombination in their case.

Minions are just around for a really long time, and they're exposed to mutagenic factors, so even mild damage would accumulate.

Does that superpower occur in nature?
The Guinness World Record holder for "Most radiation-resistant lifeform" is this species called Deinococcus radiodurans. It's particularly good at surviving things that would normally do a lot of damage to the DNA of an organism, like intense radiation. It has a really good DNA repair system, so if something is damaged, it can actually fix the error, whereas in most things, if they were exposed to intense radiation, it would just be fatal.

Is there any other way to get around that DNA damage?
They could be somehow buffered against all of those things, but they're not darkly-colored, which is something we see in high-UV environments. Or they're just taking up DNA all over the place from other sources like we see in some neat little animals called rotifers. That allows them to have functional genomes even when they're living for a really, really long time and not recombining any of their genes. It could be some cool system like that, you know?

Do we really see lifespans like that in animals?
[There are] immortal jellyfish. What they do is they kind of revert back to the juvenile state and then carry on from there.

But Minions don't look like they "revert." Is there another way?
If you've ever had tadpole shrimp or triops—sea monkeys do this too—you can get these resting eggs. These are similar kinds of things. Resting eggs can be incredibly resilient, and survive droughts for example.

And Minions can also survive in space. That's some serious durability.
You've got resting stages in water bears or tardigrades—those are things that can survive in space—very durable. I don't think we have any evidence of Minions doing that but we haven't seen everything about them, so who knows? Maybe they do.

So in terms of general plausibility, how do Minions rate?
In the end, I think there would be some very interesting biology behind Minions if they existed. Do I think they'd be likely to actually evolve? No, not really. But humans weren't particularly likely, either.

Follow Mike Pearl on Twitter.

Some National Lottery tickets used as drugs wraps

This article originally appeared on VICE UK

A couple of years after the National Lottery started, I put a ticket in my Granddad's birthday card. Like most tickets it didn't win anything, but the old man didn't want to give up on the numbers. What if they won the following week? He'd be mortified. So he kept on playing them. The same ones. For about a decade. At a rough guess, that afterthought I stuffed in his card cost my Granddad about five hundred quid, only slightly offset by the odd tenner he won over the years. Still, it's the thought that counts.

Like any form of gambling, virtually everyone who plays the National Lottery loses. "It could be you," was its famous slogan, but really that's bollocks. It could be you in the same way that I could technically marry Jennifer Lawrence, but almost certainly won't. You might get the odd token payout for matching three or four numbers, but when it comes to the big prizes you're more likely to die carrying your ticket home than you are to win anything with it. You'd be better off investing your money in a Greek bank.

Read: Gibraltar's Online Gambling Boom Has Made It a Boozy Haven for British Expats

The figures involved aren't exactly small, either. People spent a record £7.28 billion [$11.33 billion] on lottery and scratch cards last year. That's more revenue than the entire British commercial gambling industry made the year before. By creating the National Lottery, John Major's "family values"–obsessed Conservative government managed to double the scale of gambling in Britain while unwittingly providing drug dealers with an endless amount of perfect coke wrap material. It's hard to think of another recent government that's had more success in promoting vice.

Of course the Lottery raises a lot of money for good causes (and the Millennium Dome, but we all have bad days) but it's kind of an odd way to do it. Take last year's sales. Of the seven billion quid people spent, four billion was randomly spunked back out in prize money, £1.8 billion [$2.8 billion] went to good causes and about £0.87 billion [$1.35 billion] went to the government in tax.

Read at VICE Sports: Does Tennis Have a Race Problem?

The projects being funded range across health, education, sport, culture, charity, the environment, and heritage. The people who hand out the cash are technically independent, "at arm's length" from the government, but follow "strict guidelines." Strip away the bullshit, and the point of the Lottery is to raise money for the kind of stuff the government would like to fund, but doesn't want to from the main budget.

The National Lottery is basically a stealth tax. And once you think about it that way, you begin to realize just how weird, big and downright evil it actually is.

Let's talk size. You may have heard some talk in the news recently about inheritance tax, which was tweaked in George Osborne's budget. That change was apparently a pretty big deal—people have been writing comment pieces about it all week—but according to HMRC, inheritance tax raised a total of just over £3.5 billion [$5.45 billion] last year. That's about half what people are handing over for the National Lottery. Not such a big deal now, is it? Even if you take off the money that the lottery pays out—which is a bit dodgy, since it would basically be like a completely random tax rebate—it's still about the same size.

Watch our film Beasts of Burden, about illicit quail fight gambling rings in Afghanistan:

Then there's the issue of who actually pays it. A report on the National Lottery by the Theos think tank in 2009 makes for pretty grim reading. People on benefits were more likely to play scratch cards than anyone else. Manual workers spent an average of £70.60 [$110] per year on cards, whereas professionals only spent £40.64 [$63.28]. When it came to the main draw, the poorest people were the most committed to playing, and spent a far greater proportion of their income on the Lottery, with people on £15k–20k [$24–30k] per year coughing up almost a week's earnings.

The National Lottery is basically a stealth tax on poor people. And where does this money actually go? Billions were poured into the 2012 Olympics, and millions more into Britain's sports teams. Hundreds of millions have been invested in stately homes, arts funding and other things that middle-class people like to watch or visit. Meanwhile, the poorest regions in Britain had, as of 2009 at least, received precious little cash.

As Theos summed it up, "The old argument that the National Lottery is a 'tax' on the poor for the benefit of the middle classes may have some justification." National Lottery projects are all pretty deserving, but the way they've been funded is so cynical it's unbelievable. They should carry stickers saying "funded by the working class" and then maybe the sheer cheek of the situation would be obvious.

Theos's report contains a fantastic quote from an 1808 House of Commons report on lotteries that could have been written about the National Lottery today: "No mode of raising Money appears to Your Committee so burdensome, so pernicious, and so unproductive; no species of adventure is known, where the chances are so great against the adventurer, none where the infatuation is more powerful, lasting, and destructive."

If the government want to spend an extra £2 billion [$3 billion] on good causes, then how about taxing rich people to pay for them? Why should people on benefits fund the Millennium Dome, or the 2012 Olympics, or other events they can't even afford tickets to? Why should manual workers have to stump up the cash to restore Britain's stately homes, or to fund Britain's Olympians in Rio?

Follow Martin on Twitter.

Photo courtesy Eazy Dolly

When you're a skateboard director you wear many hats: driver of the stars, babysitter, confidant, motivational coach, fedora... Jason Hernandez wears all of these. And he wasn't always just behind the camera either—he once rolled amongst the wild creatures he now chooses to capture. One might say the Los Angeles native has seen it all. And while not only does he make pretty little motion pictures of skateboarding for all of us to enjoy, he's also helping the rest of the world do so with his family-run camera tools and accessories company, Eazy Handle.

But how good is a director, really, without his best subject? And what's it like when that subject has three kids and a business to run? Vice caught up with Jason Hernandez between filming missions with Eric Koston for the upcoming Nike SB Chronicles 3 project to find out.

VICE: Okay a little bit of background on where you come from and how you got into doing what you're doing today.
Hernandez: I grew up in Rosemead, ten miles east of Los Angeles—grew up here my whole life. Wanted to be a pro skater I guess and was trying and got hurt, and then a buddy of mine had a camera. I took his camera and started filming one of my best friends, Daniel Shimizu. I worked at World Industries for a little bit and that didn't go so well, and then somehow from there I went to Transworld [Skateboarding Magazine] and from Transworld I went to Adio [Shoes]. After Adio went out of business, I think knowing Daniel and Stefan [Janoski] and Omar [Salazar] kinda like got me an in at Nike and that's just been it ever since.

What kind of camera was it back then—your buddy's camera?
He had a VX1000 and I just stole it basically. I just took it from him 'cause he was really good friends with Daniel as well. I mean, he let me borrow it of course, I didn't really steal it but I literally just hung onto it for a long time... I actually never gave it back.

Epicly Later'd with Eric Koston - part three

Nice, so you still have it?
No, i'm not very nostalgic about that camera at all. I see why it's good and everything but I was really eager to move on and learn something else and try something else. I miss how easy it is. It basically has a look built right into it that every skateboarder loves. So I miss the fact that it's so readily available and light and easy. But I don't miss the quality of it by any means.

You mentioned a time in your life when you might have pursued professional skateboarding. Could you talk about that a bit?
Pursuing professional skating—to be honest I am glad I didn't, and that what happened happened. There is no way I would have been good enough to keep up with what it's like nowadays. I am glad to be in the position I am in, well most the time.

With your work, how much of it for you is being out there and filming versus behind the editing desk, sound design, music selection, and stuff like that?
I don't know, I think I'm just now realizing it, but i'm super hands-on. I wanna be there. I want to shoot everything. I wanna be in the streets as much as possible even though a lot of times the streets is what makes me crazy. I like watching a finished project—being, like, OK, I shot about 95 percent of that film. I think that's definitely huge in the way I edit. I've learned to start thinking of every day like a scene—every day I shoot. Maybe it's just one trick and it's in that folder and its fine. But typically I like to have 10-15 files in that folder that associate that scene with that trick, so when I go back and edit I have that cool sign in the background that was glowing because it was a sunset. And whether or not I end up using it in the edit or it's really just trick after trick after trick in the part—I don't know, if i didn't have that stuff and I needed to use it at any point I'd be kicking myself, you know?

So it's more shooting versus directing?
Yeah, skating is so on the fly... that's the great and horrible part about it, is that sometimes you don't even know where you're going. Or you do know where you're going and you only have ten minutes there. Or you don't know how long you have and you're always rushing. I like it because its fun and exciting, but I don't like it because if I have a shot list in my head when I go somewhere, I can't always get it because were getting kicked out or the guy doesn't wanna skate by this obstacle or throw down his board one more time or ride away—or whatever, you know what I mean. So it's a good thing and a bad thing. I think on a typical skate day, I'm horrible at directing, but if it came into a commercial or an actual shoot, I would enjoy both directing and being behind the camera. But I definitely love being behind the camera the most.

Where is your favourite place to shoot? Or if there isn't one significant location—what inspires you and when do you enjoy shooting most of all?
I like shooting in places that have busy backdrops. I kinda like a lot of things going on: If you're just sitting there, then get out of the shot—but please, bus, train, car, please get in the background right when the action starts. I like architecture, lines, bricks, beams, glass. Location-wise, I like Chile, Japan, China, Europe.

What are some of the changes you've noticed in the world of skateboard videos?
I think the way I look at any video, a full length, a web video, or a 15 second Instagram clip, has completely made me numb. It takes a lot for me to remember what I watch. I mean, think about it, you can wake up, watch a clip on Insta, someone could send you a skate clip real quick in a text, then you take a crap and watch a tour edit, then go skating and someone asks, "Have you seen this guy's part?" Boom—you're watching some random guy's part, all before 12 PM. There is no stop to it, companies, sites, [they] want more, more, more...

Have you noticed mainstream media incorporating more elements you can relate back to the pioneered style of skateboard videos?
Maybe a little in the editing—ramped slow-motion perhaps—but nothing I can think of right now.

I think we do it our way, there are a lot of "no nos" that we do as skate videographers. I mean we zoom when we shoot long lens, we use fisheyes all the time, we shoot in any light condition, etc... I think of filming skateboarding like making a documentary film. As a filmer, we rarely get to tell the skater, "Let's skate this at dusk, or 7 AM, when the light is amazing. Also, please make the trick in 30 minutes so light is still even and nice." We have to take whatever we can get—the spot's half lit, or we have two tries, or there is only one angle, and it's shooting directly into the light. You get to the location, you set up, and deal with whatever is thrown at you.

Whereabouts do you live now in California?
I live in Glendale actually, maybe a couple miles from Eric [Koston].

What was your first introduction to Koston and when did you get to know him personally?
That's an interesting question. I'm pretty sure it was the day he needed to shoot his first ad [for Nike SB]. So I took him to a spot in Sunland, California—him and Atiba. I think that was the first time I ever met [Eric], and I was a little scared. Like, I'm about to film this guy I've been looking up to for a long time. I think I was super nervous, I'm pretty sure he actually got the trick that day—it was pretty rad.

Cool, so obviously you kinda followed his skating for years before that. What was your impression of him then, and did that change at all once you got to know him better, once you started working on some videos with him and stuff?
Oh my god, yeah. I've seen Chomp [on This], I've seen him in videos—I know that he's like, you know... I call him the ham. He's a big ham on a skateboard. I think he's even more of a ham than I thought he would be. He's just super easy to get along with. He's very rarely serious, but at the same time, he's probably the most serious person I know [laughs]. Kind of an oxymoron ya know?

That kind of describes his skating too like with that Chomp part people got to see a different side of his skating because he's known for having perfect style but also he's one guy who can get away with tick-tacking out of tricks and stuff like that too.
I think he needs that too, actually. I don't know it's almost like his warmup. His warmup is like just what we all would love to be able to do. That's how he figures the spot out. It happens a lot where we'll be at a spot where he needs more time than the average person—that's what I've noticed lately about him. He's always talking to himself; to me, to anyone who will listen. He's always talking the trick out. He kinda has to go through all the steps to get there. By the time everyone's ready to go he's kinda like, "Oh, okay, i'm gonna try this now. I'm gonna do this."

So he's got a little bit of the madness that people talk about with skating?
Oh yeah, madness one hundred percent. I don't even know if you would notice it per say... But since I've been out with him a lot lately it's definitely there. It's constantly talking, constantly asking questions. "If I do this/ if I look this way..." you know, he's always just talking.

Is it a struggle then to find skaters that can kinda see the bigger vision of what you're working on?
Yes, one hundred percent.

Hows Eric with that?
Oh, he's good, He's super good with that actually. I mean, he's probably around cameras more than I am to tell you the truth. it's kind of weird to think about it but he's [been] in front of a camera probably half of his life, it's pretty crazy. Sometimes I feel like if a person isn't down I get the same feeling. If i'm asking someone to do something and I notice they don't want to i'm just literally kind of like, "Okay, fuck it. We don't need to do it anyways it's gonna be stupid." But if the person's into it—Eric most of the time is super into it. He'll ask me the idea and he's like, "OK, what's it for, why do we need to do this?" And then he's down to do it. It motivates me more and gets me more excited. Most people, i'll give them an idea and they're down, but they won't even ask why. But with Eric, he's super hands on, he wants to know why.

He's a little more methodical...
One hundred percent, just like the skating. Like I was talking about how he's always thinking—oh my god, with him driving, he's like a map! He's seriously like a map of Los Angeles—anywhere in the world, actually. He's super good. Wherever he's at, he knows where he is, he can tell you how to get anywhere. We're in Texas, he's like, "Oh yeah, there's a Whole Foods around the corner from here I remember going there and there's a skate spot behind that", and he's right, there is! [laughs]

So right now you're working on Volume 3 of the SB Chronicles, is Koston gonna have a part in that?
Yes he will have a part. When I got hired [at Nike] and he was part of the team, I was like okay, "I'd really like to have a Koston part." So yeah, he will have a full part. It's not gonna be like a Yeah Right! type of part or something, I dunno. It's definitely gonna show Koston in a different light. I think it will be more of him like literally skating if that makes sense.

Totally... actually, not really when I think of some of his past parts though. That's really interesting...
Yeah, you know you have [a film like] Menikmati, where your mind's blown at every second. When I look at the footage now, to me it looks really rad. It looks like Eric skating. That's the only way I can put it. It's good, like he has some really good stuff! The really good things are really going to be highlighted and his skating is gonna take you through his part. It's gonna be a little journey through the streets.

Check back in the coming weeks for interviews with more of Eric Koston's collaborators.

This article appears in the 2015 Photo Issue

All photos by Curran Hatleberg