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Welcome to Park Boulevard, the Record Store Betting You'll Buy Overlooked Rap Tapes in the Internet Era

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Welcome to Park Boulevard, the Record Store Betting You'll Buy Overlooked Rap Tapes in the Internet Era

The VICE Guide to Right Now: The FDA Won't Let Bullshit Vegan Mayonnaise Sully Mayonnaise's Good Name

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A jar of the real stuff via Wikipedia

Read: I Worked at Golden Corral and It Was Disgusting

Mayonnaise, in its traditional form of white gunk containing eggs, oil, vinegar, and lemon, has been lubricating American breads and meats for over a century. As with any good product, it was only a matter of time before someone came along and tried to rip it off. Luckily, the Food and Drug Administration is coming to mayonnaise's defense and fighting off the manufacturers of a vegan spread calling itself Just Mayo, despite the absence of eggs in its recipe.

On August 13, the FDA sent Hampton Creek, manufacturer of Just Mayo, a letter accusing the company of creating a spread of lies. In addition to having "Mayo" in its name, the company's jars have a picture of an egg on the label, but none inside.

The US government, it turns out, has very clear and strangely detailed rules about what is mayonnaise and what is not mayonnaise. "The use of the term 'mayo' in the product names and the image of an egg may be misleading to consumers," the FDA's William A. Cornell, Jr. wrote in the letter to Hampton Creek. "It may lead them to believe that the products are the standardized food, mayonnaise, which must contain eggs."

The FDA also requires that all mayonnaise contain at least 65 percent vegetable oil, and weirdly can't include turmeric or saffron. God knows what kind of condiment you get when you mix a pinch of saffron into a jar of mayonnaise, but it sure as fuck isn't mayonnaise.

In their letter, FDA gave Hampton Creek 15 days to "take prompt action to correct the violations," and those 15 days are almost up. Hampton Creek has yet to take any real action, but the company's CEO told Fox News on Tuesday that he doesn't expect to have to change Just Mayo's name.

The VICE Guide to Right Now: Catching Up With the Guy Who’s Fighting for His Right to Fly A ‘Fuck Harper’ Sign

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Photo via Facebook/Rob Wells

Read: If We Want to Ask Stephen Harper Questions, We Have to Give Him $78,000

There are many ways to protest. You can start a petition, host a sit-in, or, if you're a disgruntled Canadian, hang a neon pink "Fuck Harper" sign on the inside of your hatchback.

The latter is what Edmonton activist Rob Wells chose to do when he embarked on a recent road trip, a stunt that made national headlines and landed him a $543 fine for, well, "stunting."

Wells received widespread support in the aftermath of the incident, even inspiring a (failed) crowdfunding campaign to cover the costs of the penalty he incurred.

But that's OK because he has no intention of paying the ticket; his plan is to fight it using a Charter of Rights and Freedoms defence.

VICE caught up with the "mature" (he won't tell us his age) Edmontonian to talk politics, signage, and human rights.

VICE: You describe yourself as an activist. What issues are you interested in?
Rob Wells:Gay-straight alliances in schools. Equal marriage. I don't really have a list offhand. I'm really concerned about the Harper government denying basic human rights and medical care to refugees, which is disgusting.

Can you go into more detail about your beefs with the Harper government?
It would take all day to list them all. To summarize, it's the complete contempt that this prime minister has shown the constitution, to the Charter of Rights, and to the courts. I believe that it's the hallmark of fascism.

Why did you choose hot pink poster board for the Fuck Harper sign?
I had some orange, but that would be associated with a political party, and if I had red, that would be another political party, and I sure as hell wasn't going to use blue.

How did you end up getting ticketed?
A lady who rudely gave me the middle finger accused me of being distracting. She looked over and gave me the middle finger, and not subtly, it was a violent finger up and she started mouthing some words at me. She posted on Facebook that she's the one that called the police.

So what happened when the cops caught up to you?
First thing the [officer] said was "What's up with the sign?" Then he accused me of distracting people with my sign and I told him it's not illegal, it's been thoroughly reviewed by the top lawyers in the province, including the current deputy attorney general in Alberta.

You had all these people review the sign?
No. Many years ago when [Alberta] Premier Ralph Klein brought in Bill 11 to enable private hospitals in Alberta, I made a similar sign. It said "Fuck Ralph," and the other side said "No private hospitals." And I got harassed by the police and ticketed. When it was finally reviewed by the legal experts, it was determined that it wasn't stunting and it wasn't a criminal act. Finally the Edmonton Police Service had to issue a directive to leave people with offensive political bumper stickers alone.

How are you planning on fighting the ticket?
I've given notice [to the crown prosecutor] that I'll be raising a Charter of Rights defence, that's just in starting the process with the hearing for the ticket. The other thing is, I've filed a complaint of misconduct against the officer for political harassment and extortion. It's simply a matter of free expression. If we can't criticize our political leaders in this country, we're no better than North Korea.

How will you be voting in the upcoming election?
It's as simple as ABC. Anybody but the Conservatives.

This interview has been edited for style and clarity.

Follow Manisha Krishnan on Twitter.

Here’s What It’s Like Spending the Summer Paving Highways in Northern Alberta

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All photos by the author.

I found a summer job working construction, paving endless road beyond Alberta's northern rural municipalities. I watched every sunrise and sunset over fields of canola flowers and noxious (rumoured to be psychedelic) spring wheat. Our work was under contract to a provincial project called "Building a Better Alberta." This is a story about the misadventures that come with paving highway in the land of black gold.

In the 31-degree heat of my first afternoon, I started my job on a 31-ton packer, climbing a six foot ladder onto the gripped, anti-skid plate platform of an enormous hull. Big push buttons, long shifters, pedals, wheels. The biggest thing I'd driven up to this point was a pickup truck. "Get on," was what they told me.

They called the machine "the wobbly." It rubs bumps out, packs soft asphalt dense, and finishes it. The wob's ability to maneuver any way other than straightforward and straight back was, at best, unwieldy as fuck. Half the time you're driving it backwards where everything becomes opposite, so you end up weaving into oncoming traffic, back over into the ditch, carving huge meandering lines all over pristine asphalt, and everyone is watching wide eyed wondering where the hell they found you. The thing operates 26 km/h (which is fast for something that size), so it's natural to be all over the place at first.

The cockpit has two giant seats on the left and right side that the driver alternates between, depending on which side of the mat is being focused on. I rolled along each specific stretch of highway on that dinosaur sized machine so many times a day, my eyes went googly: Forward, back, forward, back, forward, back. All. Day. Long.

Paving a highway works like this:

Set-up starts before first light. Trucks filled with 20 or 30 tons of molten asphalt dump the mix onto the highway in front of the giant picker-paver combo.

The picker draws asphalt from the ground into the paver which pulls the mix through itself using a big auger to evenly spread it back onto the ground according to the desired thickness.

It all has to go fast before the mix cools because if that happens, so do nightmares. There is little room for error and shit is high pressure. It only took two weeks to get used to that stifling, weighty diesel, tar, oil smell.

The kid "training" me spent most of our time coercing the lady who drove the oil truck to yank her shirt up every time she wailed by. They called her Large Marge (though I changed it to Sweaty Betty). I'll never lose the image of those enormous, lumpy, misshapen angel cakes, plastered up against the driver's side window, dusty gravel rooster-fanning in tow.

That kid then left me to figure things out for myself, which lead to my first interaction with my boss, Mickey*. Mick was small, intense, and at times, terrifying. He barked more than he spoke or laughed. He ran the show and he also knew everything.

Before I started that job, I heard about the legend of Mickey. In season, the days gave us more light and the weather was more predictable, so Mick was able to drive his crew harder than anyone else, longest hours, zero regard for conditions. He didn't sleep, and he didn't stop the work machine unless something forced him, and he didn't let many things do that.

There were nine construction crew members, and usually five flaggers. Shit tended to go sideways daily. Once, one of the flag girls didn't shoulder-check, pulled the company truck out onto the highway off a side road, and had the front end torn clean off by another speeding truck. One of the truckers had a deer leap right through his enormous windshield. And the ex-Mormon (who brought his cat with him on the road) was near maimed by a mother Lynx when he tried to pick her kitten up running down the side of the highway. There were countless times someone left something—their smartphone, or a brand new pair of sneakers—on the front of the paver, the rumbling motion causing said object to slide into the mix and get buried under the highway forever.

For the wob operator, there were no set times to rest your head, to eat lunch, or even to use the can. The mat can't cool before it's packed. If it does, it's gotta be done again. The supervising engineers watched like goats, literally going over every square inch of every 25-km run to make sure every detail was perfect. Our contracts were in the millions.

Our crew of 13 worked from sun up to sun down two weeks on, two days off, three weeks on three days off. Previously, I worked the rigs, outdoors in -50 degrees, and it was a four-pack of crayons in comparison. Some had worked for the company over 20 years, some 30. Their strategy was, essentially: work insane hours making juicy bank six months of the year, spend winters somewhere warm and/or collect the dole.

Our social lives were railroaded by spending endless shifts in remote places for weeks at a time. The younger crew hung together and drank in hotel parking lots, downing hard lemonades on tailgates, bouncing across the highway to the peelers where the bartender dealt powders and sauces over the counter. Piles of booger sugar on a Tuesday (or "tits" as they called it), wide-eyed for work Wednesday at 4:45 AM. It's chill.

It was company policy that no personal relations were tolerated amongst staff, but despite being grounds for dismissal, everybody was banging everybody anyway. The flag girls, directing traffic out on the highways, were responsible for wearing head-to-toe neon and remaining lewd around the clock. They were a hot item out on the shoulder. Most were young, and single, others married, divorced, widowed, or whatever—but always horny. Titty flashes and the middle finger were very popular. So were blow-jays and sex in crew trucks, and partner swaps in hotel rooms. Crew girls would show up to our room, get blind drunk, pass out sideways at the foot of the bed, and I'd wake up to a sweaty pile of naked co-worker, rails cut out beside the beef jerky and blue Gatorade. I was invited to join a few times, but I stuffed in my earplugs and hoped the action wouldn't penetrate my dreams. We had to be up too fucking early.

Sometimes when I had distance from the paver and the other rollers, I'd pull my wob to the shoulder and explore abandoned buildings. There were stretches along the highway where seven out of ten of the farms were uninhabited. It seemed like the old houses were ditched in an eerie hurry. Some places had big old fishbowl television sets on brown shag carpeting, clothes still in the closets, dishes in sinks.

These farms were full-sized operations with layout for livestock, pigs, sheep, chickens. I pictured a government man tapping on the screen door one afternoon, offering a small roll of cash and, out of fear and intimidation or visions of the city, the fam took it and split.

We're all familiar with the story: Farming got corporate, and family-run operations couldn't keep up. But to see 20 abandoned farms along one old road wasn't only haunting, it hurt. And not just because my grandparents had to sell the farm I played at as a kid, just as these people likely did.

We paved past an old grain elevator built of wood with enormous baby blue writing that was faded to the point that you could barely read " United Grain Growers of Alberta." And I couldn't help but think about a day when that meant something.

There's nothing less sexy than sweaty geezers, ugly metal machines, fetid smells of tar and grease amalgamating, noise, jacked-up profanity and aggression. But through all that, somehow I managed a hard-on all day from the vibrations of my machine. The girl who ran the roller in front of me could be a hassle, but with all that masculinity around, I needed her.

Chirpy was small town and foxy. One of the hotels we stayed in had a waterslide pool with a hot tub. She came down to swim with me in a tiny, curvy, black bikini one night. Generally my only contact with another human all day was her tight jeans from behind.

But over the summer, Chirpy became like my little sis. She was young and outnumbered, and everyone hassled her because she wasn't interested in their advances.

One night I went to her hotel room to watch TV and we made out like high school. After, we just looked out for each other. She was too young for beards.

But strictly out of function, I sometimes jerked off on my machine, out on a highway in the middle of nowhere, huge empty skies, shimmering poplar tree line, imagining my hands all over anything other than my own pecker. One day on a summer long weekend, cars were backed up, stopped alongside us for miles. I stood at the back of the wobbly, its hot exhaust bursting at me in 35 degree heat, leaning against it like I was taking a piss, diligent at keeping my motion to wrist only. I locked eyes with some mum. She had tinted tortoise shell frames, halfway down her nose bridge from sweat, a slightly unbuttoned blouse, and bare feet up on the dash. I popped fast, all over the black skirting of my machine. I looked down. Nothing to clean it up.

They bunked me with a heavy-duty mechanic we nicknamed Porky when he was listening, and meaner things when he wasn't. His hair looked like a honey loaf, he was a little too into classic rock, and he could not figure out why girls weren't into talking with him about dirt bikes. We got along at first, bonding over "Radar Love" on the radio one morning. He shared his beef jerky and helped me with a few repairs on my machine. I was grateful.

Unfortunately it didn't take long before he gave me the murder-heart. He was new level obnoxious and one day we had a pretty severe screaming match. He loomed over me, probably four times my size (I am small), with balled fists while we squared off. He claimed I tried to kill him by knocking him off the wob, steering into the opposite lane of oncoming traffic while he was hanging on the side, catching a ride with me down the mat. I just wish I'd even thought of it. So that night I scaled a huge old iron train bridge and spray painted "Kill Porky" in giant red letters. Our crew drove past it every morning and every night for two sweet weeks. I apologized to him up on the truck one hot day while we shovelled asphalt

One day I drove with Mickey in his red dodge, a vehicle I feared the sight of from the first day. We talked about the old days of paving. I'd guess he'd seen over 40 years of it by then.

"...They used to bring us cold, homemade lemonade on hot days, bake us cookies and pies, bring ice cream...when the paving crew showed up it was like the circus came to town, people were happy we were there to fix their roads..."

"And it's not like that anymore..."

"Naw, nowadays we're in everybody's way, people are in such a hurry. Nobody has any fuckin' manners. We get the horn, the finger all day..." He said.

"What do you think changed?" I asked him.

"The people" was all he said.

I thought back to the photos all over the office, of the men with big grins, standing behind a shovel or up on some tall machine, happy to be getting paid to be outside. Photos from decades ago, when workers wore nothing but daisy dukes and a moustache, in the sun all summer, getting exercise, working on a bitchin' tar tan.

Mickey reminded me of Napoleon or Rommel. He lead his troops from the front. He never sat in his truck delegating. When something needed dealing with, he climbed underneath or inside of some dangerous part of the machine and he fixed it. He was always covered in diesel, or grease or oil or whatever. There was something beautiful about it. The day I quit in miserable November, I walked up to him and said, "Mickey, I'm done." He screamed, "You gonna be an ignorant pussy?!" And because I didn't know how to answer that I didn't. "Fuck off then! He hollered. "Get lost! Go!" So I did.

And as I drove away from that site, I thought about one particular day working 15 hours of industrial noise, finishing, and taxiing that beast machine back to base while the dusk breeze tore tears out of my eyes. I think I understood why he called me a pussy.

*Names have been changed.

MUNCHIES Presents: Old-School Italian Cooking With Danny Smiles

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MUNCHIES Presents: Old-School Italian Cooking With Danny Smiles

Meet the Mom and Daughter Running An Erotic Publishing Empire

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Meet the Mom and Daughter Running An Erotic Publishing Empire

How the Feds Took Down Rentboy.com

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Photo via US Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) official website

Homeland Security agents came on Tuesday morning for the staff of Rentboy.com, one of the oldest escort websites on the internet. They came to their Manhattan offices, reportedly removing computers. They came, a defense attorney told me, to their homes. Initial news reports claimed Rentboy staff were suspected of money laundering, but when charges came down, they were for "conspiring to violate the Travel Act," a 1961 law that historically has been used against interstate business enterprises.

Seven staff members were arrested.

Homeland Security Investigations (HSI) agents were there with the Rentboy defendants Tuesday afternoon at federal court in Brooklyn. The agents sat shoulder to shoulder, filling two front benches. They outnumbered the attorneys. They wore T-shirts and jeans, badges on their hips, looking relaxed and confident against the murmur of suits and ties. One agent stood and turned to us, the press and families and advocates in the back benches, and we could read the slogan on his shirt: "Vindicated—Justice Will Be Done."

"You sure you brought enough guys?" one of the defense attorneys spoke into the air.

The charges against Rentboy.com are reminiscent of those against the California-based escort website MyRedbook.com, raided last June by the FBI. In both cases, the government used a law against interstate illegal activity to place federal charges for violation of lesser state laws against prostitution.

The Rentboy defendants, according to a press release from Kelly T. Currie, acting United States Attorney from the Eastern District of New York, each face "up to five years imprisonment and a fine of up to $250,000."

Rentboy was an "internet brothel," Currie states in the release. This ignores the government's own complaint and its detailed accounting of Rentboy's alleged activities. It is not possible to conduct prostitution on the internet; there's no such thing as an "internet brothel."

The government goes further. Rentboy.com "promotes prostitution," the criminal complaint and affidavit signed by HSI Special Agent Susan Ruiz alleges. As evidence, the government offers a close reading of the website's promotional copy:

RENTBOY.COM takes its name from a British slang term for a male prostitute...

RENTBOY.COM's slogan is "Money can't buy you love... but the rest is negotiable."

The government complaint also provides a crash course in the Rentboy.com user experience:

There is also a navigation button that allows a user to search for escorts. A user may search by a number of parameters including geographic location.

In the "Physical Attributes" category, the escorts are asked to select answers for the following attributes: "Foreskin," "Cock Size," and "Build."

The government complaint goes on to offer descriptions of watersports, spanking, and fetishes for sneakers. The document signed by Ruiz also details several escorts' advertisements.

"I am aware that 'top' is slang for a sexually dominant partner," Ruiz writes.

The Department of Justice (DOJ) says it has seized or is in the process of seizing "over $1.4 million of alleged criminal proceeds" from Rentboy.com.

By the close of court on Tuesday, six Rentboy.com defendants were released on bond, ranging from $50,000 to $350,000. I watched two of the men joined at the stand by their husbands to secure their bonds with a signature, as the judge asked them if they understood their spouses were accused of "conspiring" in the promotion of "unlawful activity, specifically prostitution."

Tuesday's raid on Rentboy came five days after the announcement by several major American LGBT legal advocacy organizations—Transgender Law Center, Gay & Lesbian Advocates & Defenders (GLAD), Lambda Legal, National Center for Lesbian Rights, and National Center for Transgender Equality—that they will join Amnesty International in calling for the decriminalization of sex work. Transgender Law Center has condemned the Rentboy raid, stating, "the US federal government is not only jeopardizing countless people's lives and only source of livelihood, but sending a clear and troubling message that the country is less invested in addressing systemic issues of racial, economic, and anti-LGBT injustice than in further criminalizing the individuals most marginalized by those systems."

Rentboy is marketed as a site for men seeking male escorts, though it employs and serves a broader queer community. This community remains targeted by law enforcement, even as gay marriage and military service go mainstream.

It's also true that queer sex workers are regarded as legitimate targets for exclusion even within LGBT communities. Advocate editor-at-large Diane Anderson-Minshall noted this July that her own magazine was "once a premium place for sex ads." And, she adds, "as LGBT media evolved, those sex ads blossomed, filling the pages and paying the bills until many—including this one—purged their pages of sexual content in a late-1980s bid for mainstream advertising."

This purge opened the way for a site like Rentboy.com to flourish online for nearly 20 years.

Rentboy.com CEO Jeffrey Hurant was arraigned last on Tuesday, along with former Rentboy employee Diana Mattos. She stood like the other defendants, her hands clasped behind her back. The judge described the charges against her, speaking slowly, seeming to lose steam over the word "prostitution" after having said it several times that day. Mattos's left hand, her nails painted dark red, gently circled her right wrist. When she turned to speak to Hurant, you could see a tattoo that wound close to her ear.

Jeffrey Hurant's father's voice was soft, too. His dark hair was combed neatly back, and he signed for his son's $350,000 bond.

The defendants each left the courtroom with their court-appointed lawyers, trailed by HSI agents. The reporters followed. In the hall, one of the defense attorneys asked if those just released had money to get home. There are two pits of seats set into the wall just outside the courtroom doors, and in the right-hand pit, the agents lingered as a group. The defendants, within earshot, didn't offer the assembled press comment.

Hurant's attorney, Charles Hochbaum, told reporters his client was "upset and confused that a legitimate business should be the target of a Homeland Security investigation."

It's not clear how long Rentboy.com was under federal scrutiny. According to the complaint, at least one undercover agent made contact with Hurant at Rentboy's annual Hookies award show in 2015.

"[Hurant] said that he went to Oxford University," DHI Special Agent Ruiz writes in the complaint, "and learned that 'rentboy' was 'the word for escorts'."

Additional public comments by staff are cited in the complaint. One of the Rentboy employees arrested was their social media coordinator. Another staff member's tweets are quoted.

"Escorts are not just sex objects," staffer Michael Belman is quoted as saying. "They are real people performing a valuable service." He was also arrested on Tuesday, released on a $200,000 bond.

There are no future court dates set. Local news have secured their gay escort headlines, their perp walks, and their government-commissioned account of explicit homosexual sex. One defendant, according to advocates in contact with him, remains in custody as of this publication, though it is not clear why. Those who advertised on Rentboy.com are now left potentially exposed, their listings in government custody, and for now are largely out of work. Rentboy was their hiring hall, a community center, one place where advertisers could manage their work and find one another.

Yet Rentboy.com, or parts of it, still appears online. Assistant US Attorney Tyler Smith—who represented the government at Tuesday's arraignment—told reporters they remain in the process of "seizing" the website. You might be able to visit Rentboy.com, for now, though under what kind of surveillance it is not known.

Rentboy.com was called to answer for something before the law on Tuesday, though prostitution was just one part of it. They are charged with providing a website where escorts can advertise, but more so: for doing this without hiding.

Follow Melissa Gira Grant on Twitter.

Comics: Nick Gazin's Comic Book Love-In #100

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Hello Young Lovers of Comics,

I'm Nick Gazin, VICE's art editor and comics expert. This is my weekly column in which I review and discuss comics, zines, art books, and anything nerdy or arty that gets sent to me to review.

This is my 100th comics column for VICE and although this is a weekly column, the week since my 99th has lasted 11 months. I kept trying to think of a way to make the 100th column special and psyched myself out. Like Dean Haspiel always says "When you think, you stink." Overthinking can ruin your productivity. Instead of trying to make the 100th column special, I just decided to get it done and get back to doing this column weekly again. Unless resentful cartoonists kill me, I'll be back with this column again next week.

From the first to the worst, from the best to the last, here are ten reviews of comics in order of quality.

Real Deal #7 (Limited Edition Comic-Con Version)
By Raw Dog

Real Deal IS the real deal. There is no realer, better comic out there. This is high, high, high comics art. Each issue is a constantly escalating explosion of violence, violent sex, and hostile violence, but made beautiful through the drawings of the self-taught Lawrence "Raw Dog" Hubbard.

Although the first issue came out in 1989, the seventh just came out this summer. When you look at Real Deal, it's clear that Raw Dog was about 20 years ahead of his time because modern cartoonists only started drawing stuff like Real Deal in the past five years. Raw Dog's drawings are crude and unorthodox, but really fucking good nonetheless. The abstract qualities of his drawings are beautiful. The lines and placement of fields of black, and especially his work with color, are genius-level good. His comics are also like the dirtiest, most offensive shit you ever saw.

With the help of the owner of Meltdown Comics, Raw Dog has received wider promotion and has even done a Snoop Dogg/Dam Funk album cover and a series of shirts for Stussy. He's also done one comic for this site, and we interviewed him a while back.

The story of Real Deal #7 is that G. C. and his friends are shooting craps in an apartment. After they notice one guy shooting loaded dice, an ex-boxer in the group beats him to death, and they toss his corpse in a closet and continue the game. Then some younger kids rush in and try to rob them at gunpoint, but they also get killed. The story climaxes with G. C. and his friends going to the home of a guy in a wheelchair who ratted them out. After tricking him into shooting his own mother, they stomp him and chuck him out the window and go to Slop Burger. And that's the end.

Here's a little Q and A I did with Raw Dog.

VICE: How did you learn how to draw?
Raw Dog: I just started drawing on my own when I was about three. I started drawing school bus crashes with kids hanging out of the windows and the bus on fire. I started drawing in perspective when I was five. I love trains, and I remember my kindergarten teacher hung it on the wall because she was excited that I drew it going away in perspective when everyone else was drawing flat. I also loved Saturday morning cartoons, Mad magazine, and most all comic books. I've taken various art classes in school, but basically I'm self taught because I love to draw.

Your stories in Real Deal are insane. Are any based in reality at all or are they just all fantasy?
Most all the Real Deal characters are based on real people me and my close friends have known throughout life. G. C. is based on a guy up in Oakland who my friends used to party with. One night he was drunk and high, and he threw a large potted plant through a picture window. Ace Brougham was based on a barber I knew, and the other characters are people we partied with and ran the streets with, just slightly exaggerated. Most of them were in and out of jail all the time and had lots of cool stories.

My favorite thing you make is the cover art. Your colors and patterns and lines are phenomenal. How'd you get such a great sense of color? I see dozens of people coming out of art school who don't get color like you do.
Funny you should mention that. An art teacher I had way back in high school said, "Lawrence, you have a good eye." I don't know—I just see it in my head and then put it down on paper, and I do it with art markers. Later on, I would like to get into oils and acrylics.

It seems like there's been a surge in awareness of you and your work in the last few years. Wilbert Cooper interviewed you for VICE, and Stussy did some clothing with you. Have you been getting attention from any other places lately?
Yes. There will be a companion hardcover book of all seven issues and other art I have done throughout the years that my manager Adam will be putting together. A while back I did four skateboard designs for Patsy's skateboards. I'm still waiting for those to come out. And we're working on a deal to have my art shown in a Tokyo Gallery. I've always wanted to get my work over in Japan.

Worst Behavior
By Simon Hanselmann, Pigeon Press

When I try to turn non-comics readers onto comics I show them Megg, Mogg, and Owl. Simon Hanselmann is a master at telling funny stories that move quickly and are beautiful. Seriously, if you don't like Megg, Mogg, and Owl, then I hope you fucking die an idiot's death.

Worst Behavior is a 60-page digest-sized book telling one long story that is easy to digest and never gets dull. We join Megg and Mogg ordering a complex pizza feast only to have their nebbish friend Owl walk in asking if they're ready to go eat at a fancy French restaurant with him for his birthday. Werewolf Jones shows up with a cape and a voice modulating toy and shit just snowballs from there. Owl's birthday gets destroyed, Megg has a shit fit, and there is a major revelation about Werewolf Jones that only raises more questions.

Some people I spoke to about this book claimed Simon is starting to repeat himself. They need to step the fuck off and just let the master work. You know who you are.

You can read more Megg, Mogg, and Owl on this very website.

Adventure Time: The Art of OOO
By Chris McDonnell, Abrams Books

Hooooooooooolyyyyyyy shhiiiiiitttttt! Yesssssssssssssss....

If you're an Adventure Time fan this is now the most essential piece of Adventure Time merchandise. There was an Adventure Time book that came out a year or two ago that just contained information you would glean from watching the show, and it was fine, but it wasn't really what I, an adult-ish man, wanted. This book is what I wanted.

This book is page after page of drawings you never saw before and information that you didn't know about how Adventure Time and its characters evolved from ideas to concepts to finished episodes. It basically explains how a bunch of geniuses exploit their imaginations and creativity to make one of the best things ever put on television.

This isn't just another diversion or piece of random information. This is a tool that can inform you on how to potentially make your own Adventure Time.

Also shout-outs to master book designer, animator, comics guy, and handsome man Chris McD for designing this thing so good.

Hip Hop Family Tree: Book 3 1983–1984
By Ed Piskor, Fantagraphics Books

Ed Piskor's Hip Hop Family Tree is back in another great big comic book that tells the history of hip-hop culture. The last two books were great, and this one is too. There are no major surprises or changes—just more goodness. HHFT is Ed Piskor's attempt at weaving together the history of hip-hop into one graphic narrative.

This book covers the events of 1983–84. Piskor shows the Beastie Boys go from punks to rappers. We see Rick Rubin join forces with Russell Simmons, the discovery of LL Cool J, KRS-One's rotten childhood, the Fat Boys' rising popularity, and the whole UTFO/Mr. Magic Roxanne beef.

If you love hip-hop culture or comics, you have to get these books immediately. If you hate hip-hip culture or comics, then these books will convert you into a lover of both.

I do have to mention, though, that I ran intoWild Style director Charlie Ahearn and when I brought up this book series the first thing he mentioned was how inaccurate a lot of the stuff in the books are, like teeny rooms are suddenly giant ballrooms in the comic. I wouldn't let that discourage you from reading and loving the book, though.


Sleepwalking
By Lauren Monger, Space Face Books

Lauren Monger makes comics that go up on this site every Monday. This book is like those comics, but longer. It's about a bunch of talking animal people who are punks. The main animal punk is a possum named Clementine. She and her mammal pals hang around the house and bust each other's chops before going to a music festival that leads them to a lame punk-house party. Despite so little actually happening, the comic is a totally satisfying read.

Lauren Monger draws each person as a different animal and paints them with watercolor. Monger is masterful at pacing and her comics are hyper-readable. It's my philosophy that a comic panel shouldn't take much longer to read than it should to absorb the image. She knows how to tell a story visually where the reader can perceive what's happening, and then the next thing you know the characters are chiming in with their reactions. It really feels like you're one of the gang.

Increasingly, the alt-comics world is being made up of people who can draw but can't really create characters or stories. If you like what Simon Hanselmann is doing, check out Lauren Monger.

Angry Youth Comix
By Johnny Ryan, Fantagraphics Books

Fantagraphics made me pay full price for this book, those cheapskate motherfuckers.

Anyway, this book collects all the great issues of Angry Youth Comics, from its hilarious first issue where Loady McGee creates a whorehouse of humanimals to the dark final issue where Boobs Pooter thoroughly ruins one man's life. All the memorable funny and hilarious and deeply upsetting stories like Hipler, Comic Book School, Blecky, Gags, and the Whorehouse of Dr. Moreau are bound up like a fancy man's book, and it only cost me $50.


VICE Meets Johnny Ryan


Haunter
By Sam Alden, Study Group Comic Books

Sam's a hot young talent.

We see a young hunter emerge from an increasingly defined forest, shoot at a fantasy animal, chase it after missing, and then discover a temple where there is treasure and an evil version of him, which hunts him. It's very pretty and reminds me of the water-temple level in Ocarina of Time.

Control Room
By Jed McGowan, The Secret Headquarters

Control Room is a digest-sized science-fiction comic without any dialogue, and we never see the characters' faces. The drawings and style feel borrowed from the late 70s, and it's done beautifully.

The story itself is pretty basic sci-fi fare: Two sisters are on an alien planet, some alien entity kills one then takes over the body of another before returning to Earth, presumably to devastate humanity.

Jed McGowan's handling of the story is really great, though, and all the art is very neat.

The Eltingville Club
by Evan Dorkin, Dark Horse Comics

The Eltingville Club was a comic that appeared in Evan Dorkins's comic, Dork, and was about four awful high-school-aged nerds who were obsessed with sci-fi, fantasy, comics, cartoons, and toys. Each story about them would involve them all being mean to each other, swearing a lot, and inevitably ending up in the hospital or burning down a comic store or something. Looking back, it felt very Kevin Smith-inspired. It eventually got turned into an animated pilot for Adult Swim but sadly didn't get green-lit.

This is a full 24-page comic about the characters who haven't spoken in about ten years and are all running into each other at San Diego Comic-Con. Except for one of the group, all of the main characters have become disgusting misogynistic adults. Things start bad, and turn darker than any previous Eltingville story. This isn't the place to start with Evan Dorkin, but if you remember liking Dork, this will certainly be a depressing little check-in with characters you may remember from 17 years ago.

The Sculptor
By Scott McCloud, First Second Books

I hated, hated, hated this book. I hate this book so much I'm shaking and frothing at the mouth. I don't know if I've ever hated a comic as much as I hate The Sculptor by Scott McCloud. But I couldn't stop reading it—it's like a car wreck, but even more tragic.

The Sculptor is a 500-page garbage opus that tells a ridiculous and overlong story about unlikable people. The book starts with the main character, a 25-year-old sculptor named David Smith sitting in a diner. He's soon joined by his uncle and through their conversation we learn that David is broke and all his family members are dead and that he also has no career prospects, and then he yells at the waitress. Throughout the book, the main character is constantly having temper tantrums and yelling at people. You find yourself rooting against him almost immediately.

After David abuses the waitress, we learn that his uncle is actually dead and the person he's sitting with is Death masquerading as his dead relative. Dead Uncle gives David a really lame Faustian deal of having super-sculptor powers in exchange for only getting to live for another 200 days and David takes him up on it. He then makes terrible, corny sculpture pieces. When we see the terrible art the hero of the book makes, I found myself thinking, They should give this to terrorist training camps to inspire them to hate Americans more.

David is then pranked in a wholly implausible way and throws a temper tantrum and then falls in love with a lady who was part of the group that pranked him. Even though she has a boyfriend, she goes on many dates with David because like David, she is also a terrible and immature, awful shithead. The most memorable part of the book is this cringe-inducingly corny point when the female lead points at her own tits with both hands and says, "Men are only interested in two details." Then she dumps her boyfriend, and David reveals he is a 25-year-old virgin. I think in the context of the book it's supposed to make him seem sensitive, but being a 25-year-old-virgin might actually be a sign that someone is a creep and might kill you.

All while this is happening, David has superpowers to manipulate solid matter as if it were soft clay, powers he uses to make corny, sub-Banksy-style street-art sculptures. Somehow he doesn't figure out how to make any money. Anyway, the comic ends with the main character and his terrible girlfriend dying and some pretentious stuff happens.

I'm an artist in New York and I meet people like the character in this book all the time. New York is full of no-talent artists who don't get to have careers and that's just the reality of being a bad artist. A lot of good artists don't make it, too, so it's hard to care about a bad one who is also unlikable.


Scott McCloud is best known as the cartoonist behind the important and valuable Understanding Comics, a book that is used as a college textbook all over the world, has been translated into dozens of languages, and has never been out of print. Understanding Comics defines comics as a medium and explains how the medium works. How could the preeminent expert on comics make such a piece of shit? I think the answer is that Scott McCloud understands comics, but doesn't understand people. In a lot of ways, this comic is reminiscent of the horrible and shitty Strangers in Paradise comic series by Terry Moore. I read Strangers in Paradise through middle school, but by the time I was 14, I recognized that the characters were actually terrible, immature, and codependent. There was nothing cute or sympathetic about them. My mother would worry that if I looked at Playboy magazines as a kid it would warp my brain and make me objectify women, but I think that something like the The Sculptor or Strangers in Paradise is far worse than any pornography because it teaches kids that sick, obnoxious people and codependence are normal and cool.

That's it for this week. See you all next week! Follow me on Instagram.


VICE Vs Video Games: The Schlocky Slasher Game ‘Until Dawn’ Is Actually a New Horror Classic

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A screenshot from 'Until Dawn'

You might not have heard of Until Dawn, a game that casts you as one of a group of horny teenagers spending a winter night on a mountain lodge inhabited by something stalking them, until this past week. Nobody would blame you.

The game was originally being developed by Guildford, UK-based studio Supermassive Games for the PlayStation 3 as a Move title and was expected to release in 2014. It ultimately switched to PS4 mid-development and has been released a year later with almost no fanfare from publisher Sony. It's a game that by all accounts seems like it was expected be lost in the great whirlpool that is the autumn release schedule, doomed to mediocre reviews, and a quick dump into bargain bins worldwide a few months into the New Year. And that's a shame. Because Until Dawn isn't just one of the most delightful, ghoulish surprises of this year—it's one of the best horror games ever made.

A screenshot from 'Until Dawn'

The game apes the design of another PlayStation exclusive, Quantic Dream's 2010 thriller Heavy Rain, letting you control a number of characters and make choices that will determine how the story takes shape and ultimately how many of these people make it through the game alive. If a character dies, they're lost forever, and the game continues on without them.

In Heavy Rain, this design was interesting enough to get people to play multiple times, but the game's plot was a flaming garbage heap, and there weren't "branching paths" as much as there were a lot of endings you could get depending on what choices you made. Heavy Rain's real problem though is that its characters didn't just didn't grow in interesting ways throughout the story. Ethan Mars is a father seeking redemption who either succeeds or fails in his journey to save his son from a serial killer and that's it. Norman Jayden remains a drug-addled detective who hates his partner even in the best outcome; Madison Paige goes from being a sexualized, courageous reporter... to being a sexualized, courageous reporter. There was just no character development for almost anyone. You played as stereotypes from thrillers: the desperate and the vengeful, the grieving, the crusaders—and there's nothing inherently wrong with using stereotypes, except that Heavy Rain didn't know what to do with them.

If Until Dawn had forced players to live out the stereotypes of its slasher film-inspired characters, it still would have been an enjoyable, gory romp through the woods at night. However, it does something far more interesting with its interactivity.

Article continues after the video below


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The first part of Until Dawn spends a lot of time establishing who the cast is and basically offering you a superficial snapshot of each character. Here's jock Mike, he's a handsome hunk of meat. Here's Emily, she's a super bitchy prima donna and is maybe cheating on her boyfriend. Here's Josh, he's rich and sensitive and nursing deep emotional wounds from a traumatic experience. And so on and so forth until you've played as nearly every character and have come to understand their stereotypes.

And Until Dawn ultimately shines because it allows you to let these characters embrace their stereotypes and get slashed to ribbons for being dumb, horny morons; or you can make them live beyond the confinement of the roles that the game has sentenced them to.

I played nearly all of Until Dawn's seven hours in a single sitting, sipping coffee from my cup in one hand while mashing donuts in my mouth with the other, and it was like being stuck in a room with a group of people I didn't like (to the extent that I wanted them DEAD, mind you) and slowly but surely coming to appreciate them as the time we spent with one another revealed layers to their personalities. Mike turned out not to be the self-centered asshole I pegged him to be but instead a genuinely kind man who would risk his life to save his friends. I even came to have a begrudging respect for Emily, who just couldn't and wouldn't die, even in those few instances where I felt compelled to let her slip into the abyss. Likewise, a character I thought was brave and friendly at the start turned out, because of my choices, to be a coward.

'Until Dawn,' launch trailer

It's shocking how both natural and complex the character development is here. Part of this is because Until Dawn is cleverly written and structured, taking time to introduce us to these people and show us who they are before getting down to the nasty business, but more importantly it's because the game gives us the tools to change who they are, to allow us to shape them as human beings.

I can't count how many times I've watched a horror movie with some pals and we'd just scream obscenities at the screen as some dumb shits stood around in the dark while a killer crept up behind them. Actually being those dumb shits in Until Dawn is fascinating because it allows us to experience the terror of these characters in a way that just isn't possible with film or television, engendering a unique sort of empathy toward them.

Whatever ill will I held against Emily or Jess faded as they explored a deep cavern filled with unspeakable horrors, the absolutely awful and inexcusable stuff they had said in the game's opening was flung from my mind because I was them, fumbling around in the dark, trying my best to stay alive and away from whatever was hiding in the shadows, watching me.

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A screenshot from 'Until Dawn'

Most horror games attempt to be personal and intimate in an almost abusive way, with us playing from a first-person perspective as a monster sniffs our scent outside of the locker we're cowering inside, or we're being treated to our own gruesome death scene for failing some bit of gameplay. And make no mistake: failure is punished harshly here. Heads pop off, there's burning flesh, dismemberment—the whole bloody shebang. However, Until Dawn's attempts to be personal in a way that makes us care for the people on the screen, instead of wanting to see them gutted, is genuinely more exciting than any number of jump scares or weak attempts at psychological horror could ever be.

By focusing on fleshing out its characters and letting us control their development, the game reveals an unexpectedly powerful weapon to be used against the player that the majority of its genre cohorts have overlooked for decades: empathy by way of subtle, persuasive design. There's a lot of schlock and gore in Until Dawn, sure, but it's the game's bloody heart—one that beats with earnest love for both its genre and its own characters—that will stay with me for the years to come and guarantee many a Halloween night spent revisiting these lovely fucking idiots of mine.

Until Dawn is out now for PlayStation 4.

Follow Javy on Twitter.

Wine That’s Aged Underwater Is the Buried Treasure of the Sea

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Wine That’s Aged Underwater Is the Buried Treasure of the Sea

The Nations That Will Be Hardest Hit by Water Shortages by 2040

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The Nations That Will Be Hardest Hit by Water Shortages by 2040

Yazidi Leaders Want Proof ‘Jewish Schindler’ Saved 128 Women and Children From the Islamic State

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Yazidi Leaders Want Proof ‘Jewish Schindler’ Saved 128 Women and Children From the Islamic State

Mexican Drug Gang Leader Arrested in Mexico for Dismembering New York Blogger

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Mexican Drug Gang Leader Arrested in Mexico for Dismembering New York Blogger

Sebastian Bach Charged People $175 to Attend His Wedding Reception, and It Was Worth Every Penny

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Event flier via Rockbar

When news broke last month that ex-Skid Row howler Sebastian Bach would be offering fans an opportunity to attend his San Jose wedding to model Suzanne Le for the shocking price of $300 a head, the press had a field day. How could they not? Aside from the fact that it's generally fun to kick an aging hair metal guy around, the event danced on the knife's edge between kinda sad (fluffing the attendance of a traditionally friends-and-family event with paying rubes) and wildly egotistical (expecting those seat-fillers to pay handsomely for the honor). The whole thing had an air of "pay $250 to go to Corey Feldman's birthday party."

To be fair, the initial coverage was misleading. The couple wasn't selling tickets to their wedding, but to the reception party, which seems marginally less gauche. Tickets didn't actually cost $300; that was the rate for couples, a bargain compared to $175 for a single admission. And maybe it wasn't a money-grab after all—when a woman on Twitter criticized Suzanne Le, Bach's bride-to-be, for charging fans to attend a wedding reception, Le responded with this odd justification:

Though national interest in the event petered out after the initial round of chuckles, I had to know more. The venue's website contained only a vague outline of the event:

Rockbar will be hosting the wedding of Sebastian Bach to Suzanne Le and would like to cordially invite you to attend the reception of this exciting event. Sebastian will be bringing friends along from the film and music world.

Stay tuned for more details as they unravel.

Tickets for Reception Party ONLY!

Dress Code: Rockstar Chic

What would this extravaganza actually entail? Who were these famous friends? What kind of entertainment does $175 buy at a celebrity wedding reception? My attempts to get free press tickets from the venue fizzled. On the night before the event—miraculously, still not sold out—I decided to spring for the cover price.

Paying out of pocket was the right call. I'm not a monster; I'd never waltz into a couple's wedding reception as an invited guest and start reviewing the joint. But as a guy who bought a ticket for a night of entertainment, I think I'm entitled to an opinion.

And my opinion is this: Sebastian Bach's $175 wedding reception certainly did not rise to the level of "extravaganza." At best, it was an adequaganza, until it veered sharply into the territory of "beautiful shitshow-aganza."

THE CORRAL

Rockbar Theater seems like an inauspicious venue for a celebration of romance. It's nestled in the crook of Saratoga Avenue and Stevens Creek Boulevard, which could charitably be called the armpit of San Jose. The building used to house the legendarily seedy Garden City Casino; I'd popped in once in those days and immediately Grandpa Simpsoned the hell outta there, since it was clearly not for dilettantes. (From the Garden City Yelp reviews, which have been preserved for posterity: "This is a place for addicts and professional gamblers, not for someone looking to have a good time." "One time I saw a customer peeing in their pants while they are playing card games.")

Rockbar exterior. Photo by the author

Luckily, the place was much improved from its Garden City days, the interior finely dolled up in that red-and-black Dave Navarro's Ink Master style that's come to signify, uh, "Rockstar Chic." The most striking bit of decoration was the long red carpet leading into the venue, which was actually the long train of a dress. It was worn by a model standing on a footstool with her face to the wall. After all, nothing captures the metal aesthetic better than a woman used as a prop.

The woman at the reception desk asked whose guest list I was on. When I told her I'd bought a ticket, I was sure I picked up a hint of surprise. Maybe I didn't fit the paying Sebastian Bach customer demographic, or maybe paying customers were just in the small minority of guests. For a moment, I wondered if I was the only one.

My first stop was the bar. As I ordered, I overheard two women lamenting the plight of the Human Red Carpet: "It sucks to be pretty. She's gonna be stuck to the floor all night."

Photo by the author

The beer was $6—reasonable in a vacuum, but sort of frustrating given the fact that I'd paid $175 to get in. I'd have to look for the value of my extravaganza dollar elsewhere.

I headed to the stage area, but was stopped by a bouncer who asked to see my wristband. Figuring he'd misspoken, I showed him my wrist stamp. Nope: the area near the stage was for invited guests only, not the lowly steerage classes. I was directed to a large area abutting the stage section, blocked off with velvet rope and metal cattle-corral barriers. The view was blocked by a few large pillars.

Ignominy and shitty view aside, the Rube Corral was nicely appointed, with leather couches and its own little bar. Maybe 20 people were lounging around, with plenty of couch seating to spare. The general turnout was comfortably sparse, mixed in age and style but defaulting toward approximately what you'd expect: metal dudes, rocker chicks, central casting roadie types, and well-groomed normals.

I scanned the room for the advertised "friends from the world of film and music," but no familiar faces stuck out. Some of the rocker types looked so rocker-y that they must have been famous to someone, and I got the sense that maybe I'd know who they were if I was really into hair metal. One guy was a true Rockstar Chic specimen: huge blonde mane, shirtless, snakeskin jacket. He ordered a Heineken at the bar; I immediately ordered a Heineken too, and I don't even like Heineken. Heineken should hire that guy.

There were TVs everywhere, alternating between ads for appetizing foodstuffs ("wild boar jalapeño cheddar dog") and upcoming live acts: George Lynch; Europe; Kamelot with Dragonforce; Alien Ant Farm; the revered axe mercenary Michael Angelo Batio, posing with his horrid double guitar that looks like a man flayed at the groin.

Most troublesome was an event called Rock-a-Roke, which left me in a lingering huff over the gruesome torture of the word "karaoke." I labored over my Heineken and waited for something to happen.

DESTROYER

And then He spoke. Sebastian Bach was on the distant stage with his bride, beckoning the women for a bouquet toss with an impromptu rendition of "All the Single Ladies." Even from some distance back, behind pillars and metal barriers, I could see that his hair was amazing. This isn't some Bret Michaels horseshit, stuck together with bandanas and bubblegum: this was some hair-ass hair.

The new Ms. Bach tossed the bouquet, which was caught by a woman who introduced herself as the guest of someone named "Black Label Dave." Sebastian, highly amused that ol' Black Label Dave might settle down, offered some relationship advice: "You ready to put some peanut butter on that jam? Just don't leave any on the knife!" I felt like I knew what he meant at the time, though in retrospect it occurs to me that it didn't make sense.

A picture of the night began to emerge: on the main stage, Sebastian told us, a Kiss tribute band called Destroyer would be rock-and rolling all night. Back in the Rockbar's side-lounge, a duo called Jeff Young & Sherri would be playing a gentler set. A Google search revealed that Jeff Young & Sherri consists of Jeff Young (one of Megadeth's ten former non-Dave-Mustaine guitarists) and Sherri (Sherri).

Destroyer looked the part, at least. I'm not discerning a Kiss fan, so seeing a reasonably done-up Kiss facsimile should be more than good enough for me. But at the start, Destroyer couldn't quite get in the pocket. Maybe Fake Gene was having an off night on the bass, but they somehow created the aural illusion of constantly slowing down. A few tracks in, Sebastian Bach took the stage to handle vocals on "I Was Made for Lovin' You." Suddenly, the group found whatever the Kiss cover band equivalent of a groove is and surged into competence.

Bach continued to handle vocal duties off and on, occasionally stepping into the corral to snap selfies with the taxpayers. A helpful, perhaps slightly confused bartender nudged me as I was hanging in the back: "You wanna take a picture with Mister Botch?" (I was OK, thanks).

Whenever Destroyer started flagging, Sebastian would return to the stage for another number, bringing them back into line. "I got something to say," Fake Paul Stanley told Bach between songs. "My Ace Frehley's been married to his wife 28 years tonight. You gotta lot of catching up to do!"

Sebastian was having a hell of a time, regardless of whether or not Destroyer was operating at Peak Kiss. His one frustration was his inability to lure his friend Brent Woods to the stage. Throughout the night, about 60 percent of Bach's total dialogue consisted of pleas for his friend Brent Woods—always called by his full name—to get the hell up there. "Can we get Brent Woods up here? Brent Woods, get up here! Where's Brent Woods? Has anyone seen Brent Woods? Brent Woods is at the bar? Brent Woods, you piece of crap, get up here!" A reluctant Brent Woods eventually took the stage for a very brief, incredibly grumpy Kiss impression.


Related: True Norwegian Black Metal


CUSTOMER SATISFACTION

As Destroyer played seemingly for-god-damn-ever, acute awareness of the cover price began to nag me. Does $175 add up to the going rate for an adequate Kiss cover band, a Mister Botch meet-and-greet, and admission to a San Jose rock club on an off Saturday night? I'm not sure, but I'll tell you what it does get you: a front row ticket to history, from behind the metal cattle barriers that divide the fun part of history from the kinda shitty part.

I decided to check out Vodka Bar, Rockbar's side-lounge.

Light soundproofing muffled Destroyer, and Jeff & Sherri were midway through a fine acoustic Ziggy Stardust. They moved to an original, which they were attempting acoustically for the first time; Jeff prefaced the song with a paraphrase by Paul Stanley (the real one), who maybe once said that if you can't strip away the electric guitars and play coherent song with just vocals and acoustic instruments, you don't have a song. In this case, Paul Stanley was right.

Back in the main room, Destroyer was wrapping up. The doting couple headed to the far side of the room, where photographers had set up a backdrop for fan photo ops. Guests and rubes crowded around for pics, and Bach gamely indulged all comers for nearly an hour.

I figured it was a treat for the fans, but not everyone was into it. In the corral, a couple sat on a couch chatting, ignoring the meet-and-greet. The man—who told me he attends shows at Rockbar regularly, and asked to remain nameless—expressed buyer's remorse.

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Like many other payers, he was a live rock die-hard. He wasn't there for a souvenir photo; he'd sprung for the tickets on the promise of one-of-a-kind night of celebrity entertainment. Instead, he watched Sebastian Bach occasionally front a cover band at 50 paces. The barricade was especially galling: "Why are we secluded from him? We should've been entitled to be right up there against the stage. He's a great frontman. He rocks. What are you gonna do?"

He said he'd talked to some pretty annoyed ticket holders. "Nobody knew what they were getting. No dinner, no drinks. People flew out for this. People paid $800, $1,000. What did we really get for our money? It's upsetting when you don't get what you pay for."

They left a short time later. It was past midnight, and the crowd, such as it was, had thinned to a few dozen. On the stage, a few Marshall stacks were getting fiddled with, so I figured I'd stick around to watch things peter out.

That's when things got pretty good.

OUT ALL DAY, SLEEP ALL NIGHT

Sebastian Bach and Suzanne Le Bach. Photo by the author

At around 1 AM, a new band took the stage, which included Sherri on vocals, Jeff Young on guitar and Chip Z'Nuff (of Enuff Z'Nuff, in case you hadn't pieced that together) on bass. They initially kicked things off with "Whole Lotta Love," and I got the sense that a Zeppelin cover set was planned. Sebastian Bach, always the rebel, hit the stage with other ideas.

The bouncers ushered the half-dozen remaining rubes past the metal barricades. At last, the promised land.

Things deteriorated into a semi-impromptu jam—practiced numbers alternating with Sebastian Bach's demands for songs he wanted to sing at the moment—and it was, if I'm being totally honest, amazing.

Jeff Young, having switched from the acoustic that bogged him down in the Vodka Lounge to a Gibson Flying V, suddenly became a lot more fun to watch. Sebastian Bach, in his high spirits, was a hilarious frontman. Things began to collapse in the best possible way. Sebastian demanded Cheap Trick's "Surrender." Jeff Young didn't know it well; while the second guitarist quietly gave him a rundown of the chords, Sebastian Bach gleefully stalked the stage, goading the band through their false starts and joking that this was the final straw. "I swear, I'm going it end it all. I've had a good run." Within a few minutes, Jeff had it down, and "Surrender" was a glorious mess.

Sebastian requested "TNT" by AC/DC. The band ripped into it, but Sebastian ground it to a halt: "Stop! Stop! You're playing 'Dirty Deeds!' 'TNT' is a different song!" Huge respect to Bach: it takes a finely honed musical mind to tell AC/DC songs apart at 1 AM. Jeff Young was temporarily booted, and Sebastian Bach demanded that—surprise—Brent Woods take the stage to play "TNT" instead. Amazingly, Brent "Brent Woods" Woods got through the song without complaint.

At some point between songs, Sebastian Bach said to his bride, "Let's leave, right now. Let's get out of here and have sex right now." Fortunately, they were having too much fun to follow through on Sea Bass's threat of immediate coitus.

As the staff cleared empty bottles from the tables, the band ended the set with "Funk 49" by the James Gang, which descended into utter chaos. Sherri kicked off the vocals, opting for a tamer set of lyrics than usual: "out all day, sleep all night." Bach grabbed the mic and finished the track, despite the fact that the only words he knew were, "I know what you're doing." But that's really all the song needs, right?

I felt a pang of sorrow for the disappointed couple that had left earlier. They were missing exactly what they paid for.

Follow David on Twitter.

This Is What It's Like to Take Your Little Kids to a Music Festival

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This Is What It's Like to Take Your Little Kids to a Music Festival

The VICE Guide to Right Now: Hillary Clinton Talks Gun Control After the Virginia Shooting

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Read: The Man Who Killed Two Journalists on Live TV This Morning Is Now Dead

Hours after two TV journalists were shot and killed in Virginia by a disgruntled colleague during a broadcast Wednesday morning, Hillary Clinton addressed the incident at an Iowa press conference and reiterated her support of gun control.

"First of all, I was so just stricken to think that these two young people... would be murdered on live television," she said. "And I will extend my condolences and sympathies to their families and to their coworkers and pray for the woman who last I checked was still in critical condition. But I will also reiterate: We have got to do something about gun violence in America. And I will take it on."

Clinton went on to say that some politicians "turn away" from trying to pass gun control legislation due to it being a "very political, difficult issue in America." She also added this on Twitter:

Other candidates, including Vermont Senator Bernie Sanders, a self-declared socialist who is Clinton's main competition for the Democratic Party nomination, stuck to issuing apolitical statements expressing sorrow and shock.

Clinton is unique among 2016 hopefuls for voicing opposition to the politically powerful gun lobby, which reflects her long-held views. In 1999, as First Lady, she lent her support to a campaign to defeat a pro-gun measure in Missouri; since the Charleston, South Carolina, church shooting she has been critical of gun violence in America on her campaign—a message that seems increasingly relevant as more and more mass shootings make the news.

"I want to reiterate how important it is we not let another terrible instance go by without trying to do something more to prevent this incredible killing that is stalking our country" said in Iowa. "I hope that in addition to expressing sympathy for those directly affected, that this is maybe—for the media, for the public, for elected officials, for every American—what it hopefully will finally take for us to act."

We Asked an Expert What Would Happen if America Actually Banned 'Anchor Babies'

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Maintaining his xenophobic immigration rhetoric more steadfastly than an Olympian's exercise routine, Señor Donald Trump drove last week's GOP crusade around his latest tirade: stop letting just any US-born baby get legal papers. Appearing on NBC's Meet the Press last Sunday, Trump advocated denying American citizenship to children of undocumented immigrants. Those kids, he argued, are the next worst drain on our economy, after their parents.

"They've got to go...What they're doing: they're having a baby. And then all of a sudden nobody knows—the baby's here," Trump told host Chuck Todd of undocumented migrants. "They have to go. Chuck, we either have a country, or we don't have a country."

After sparking a media frenzy, trending on Twitter all week, and eliciting a range of responses from the other presidential candidates, Trump defended his stance later on CNN.

"You have people on the border and in one day they walk over have a baby and now all of the sudden we're supposed to pay the baby medical and social security?" he lamented.

Can't get enough Trump? Check out these stories from VICE:
VICE: Explaining Donald Trump to the Rest of the World
Motherboard: Why Silicon Valley Is Fuming at Donald Trump's Immigration Policies
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Most media outlets, including this one, noted that Trump's incendiary proposal was basically impossible, since it would require repealing the 14th Amendment, which has been in place since 1868. But I was curious: What if the next president could just swish his star-spangled magic wand and end birthright citizenship once and for all? So I asked Marc Rosenblum, deputy director of US immigration policy at the Migration Policy Institute, to illuminate what would happen in that scenario.

VICE: Trump and some of the other GOP candidates have suggested that the US should stop guaranteeing birthright citizenship for kids of undocumented immigrants. How would that actually be enforced?
Marc Rosenblum: Right now anybody born in a US hospital gets a U.S. birth certificate, which by definition makes [him or her] a US citizen. So if you required parents to be legally in the country for their children to be citizens, hospitals would have to check people's immigration status. Hospitals might use the SAVE system system, an electronic system federal welfare programs use to check if people are documented. Presumably a child with undocumented parents would still get a birth certificate—it would just be marked as ineligible for citizenship.

Would one or both parents have to be documented?
Trump hasn't made that clear. The law could be modified to say a citizen must be born in the US with one lawfully present parent, or with both.

How many people would this affect?
The undocumented population could more than double by the year 2050. Right now we have 11 million undocumented people—and we found in a 2010 report that the number would grow by 13 million to 24 million by 2050, if you required both parents to be legally in the US for a child to have citizenship. If you required one parent to be legally here, it would grow by about 6 million. These would be people born in the US—some [would] even [be] the grandchildren of undocumented immigrants.

Could the policy change encourage undocumented immigrants to leave the US?
We have no evidence of people self-deporting because they're ineligible for citizenship. Apart from being deported, you don't see immigrants leaving the US. It doesn't make sense to think that more people would leave.

So what would happen to all these undocumented, US-born kids?
Well we do know unauthorized immigrants face structural disadvantages, as far as access to education and jobs. They're systematically poorer and less economically mobile than authorized immigrants. One of the [things the] US struggles [with] is its large undocumented population, but there has been a limit to that because the children of undocumented immigrants are able to access more advantages, so they're more mobile. Without birthright citizenship, you'd see a more permanent underclass. That has ripple effects for all Americans because this class would be paying fewer taxes and contributing less to the US economy.


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If undocumented people know their kids can't be citizens, might they decide to have fewer children?
I'm skeptical that fertility rates would change much, but they could. But that could actually hurt our demographics. Because we've attracted a large number of migrants, we don't have an aging population in comparison with some other developed countries [like Japan] that now have too many old people relative to young people.

Can you tell me a little about how birthright citizenship got started in the US
The Constitution originally did not define rules for citizenship, but the 14th Amendment, which passed in 1868, has very direct language that [says] any child born in the US is a citizen. It was originally passed primarily to clarify that the children of slaves were citizens, but in 1898 the Supreme Court clarified in the case of Wong Kim Ark that the amendment applied to children born in the US to non-citizens.

The US is far from the only nation with birthright citizenship, right?
Almost all countries in the Western Hemisphere have jus solis citizenship, meaning citizenship is based on the soil where you're born. These are countries that wrote their rules for citizenship in a period [when there were] a lot of immigrants. But some countries, like Germany and France, base citizenship off of blood. These countries really struggle to integrate foreign populations over time. This is famously a problem in Germany—there was an influx of Turkish guest workers in the 1950s and 60s, and their children and grandchildren still don't identify as German.

Trump and the other Republicans, including Jeb Bush, have been reviving the "anchor baby" argument—that migrants are coming to have babies in the country, so the parents can have a better chance at gaining legal status. How much is that an actual motivator for immigration?
There's literally no social science research that documents unauthorized immigrants coming and giving birth here to benefit their own immigration plans. And even if an immigrant gives birth to a US citizen, that child can't sponsor the parent to legally be here until the child is 21 years old. A baby or a teenager can't sponsor his or her parents.

Trump admitted last week that passing a constitutional amendment ending birthright citizenship would be nearly impossible. But there's currently a fight to deprive undocumented mothers of rights at the local level. Can you talk about that?
There are currently jurisdictions in Texas seeking to deny birth certificates to people whose parents can't prove their citizenship. A group of parents is suing Texas' Department of State Health Services against this in a federal court in Austin. Texas is creating a real problem for these kids because the kids are entitled to citizenship but they need to prove their identity to get a passport and a social security card, which are ways to prove citizenship. In theory the court could use this case as an opportunity to open up a broader review of birthright citizenship, but it's not likely.

Follow Meredith Hoffman on Twitter.

Three People Were Just Wounded in Another Shooting in Louisiana

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Updated at 4:51 PDT: Police are reporting that a suspect is now in custody after a two hour standoff.

According to the Huffington Post, State Police in Louisiana are reporting that three people have just been wounded during a shooting and possible stabbing in Sunset, Louisiana, a city about 60 miles west of Baton Rouge. Reports of the incident came in around 4:45 local time. Someone has reportedly taken eight hostages.

Local news is reporting that a convenience store on Highway 93 is an active crime scene, with an ongoing standoff.

According to CBC news' breaking news story, at press time a SWAT team was planning to enter a home where a suspect is reportedly hiding. A photo posted on Instagram by a user named 1bold_beauty reportedly shows the scene at the convenience store. It depicts a car smashed through one wall of the store, and what appears to be a body on the sidewalk.

St. Landry Parish Sheriff, Bobby Guidroz told the local CBS affiliate that law enforcement officers had entered the convenience store, and found a suspect barricaded in the office. The stabbings, according to Guidroz, occurred in "another location." The wounded law enforcement officer is reportedly "responsive."


We Spent a Night with One of the UK's Urban Fox Assassins

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Tom Keightly, fox culler

(WARNING: This article contains images of dead animals that some readers may find upsetting)

It's a quiet night in a Croydon cul-de-sac. Warm and windless, a few leaves are starting to fall around the wide gravel drives and hulking Victorian houses. In the suburbs, Saturday night's winding down.

I've come here to meet pest controller Tom Keightly. His job is one many view as antiquated, inhumane, and highly controversial. He eradicates foxes from urban areas, receiving around three requests per week from private clients, businesses, and residential addresses, from central London to the South Coast.

But for Tom, a countryman with a countryman's skills and a countryman's matter-of-factness, the role is one he views simply as the evolution of his upbringing in the Lincolnshire countryside.

"I've been shooting for around 35 years now," he explains as we sit talking inside the client's home. Tom shifts around as we speak, unpacking his .22 rimfire rifle, fitted with a telescopic site and loaded with hollow-point rounds that mushroom out and expand on impact.

"I kind of cut my teeth on an air rifle," he continues. "Shooting rats, squirrels, pigeons. And then I moved onto bigger and faster and stronger things. So I applied for my firearms certificate and started shooting foxes. You do it because someone's asked you to —casually. And then more people ask. And then more. I bought the pest control company some 15 years ago, but I've been shooting them in towns for about 20 years now."

I'm curious to find out why he's hired so frequently, and what must go through people's minds when they call in a fox culler.

"Nobody sees it as half and half," he says sharply. "When a client calls me I look at the property, I discuss what's going on, listen to them and their concerns. Usually there's too much [fox] defecation, they've got children, and they're concerned or they keep them awake at night. All kinds of stuff, plus the damage that they do. By the time people call me they've already made their mind up that they want them culled—they don't ask me, 'What are my options?' They say: 'When can you do it?'"

"But what about just releasing them somewhere else?" I ask.

"If you catch an animal in one area and release it in another, you abandon the animal, because it can't necessarily defend itself, and it probably can't feed. If you can prove it can do all of these things, it's a different matter. This is all part of the Wildlife and Countryside Act 1981, which prevents the relocation of animals from one site to another. At least this way it's quick."

As we wander around his client's house, with its sprawling hedges, manicured rockery and towering conker trees, Tom explains the culling process a little more.

"Foxes are creatures of habit. They're not stupid. They know where the food is. So if Mrs. Smith is feeding at 8 PM, that's where they'll be, regardless of anything else. So I utilize that to my own ends. I get my customer to bait a particular area on the lawn as close to the house as possible, same place, same time, every night without fail. I get them to make a sound—like a dinner gong, really—so they get used to that and associate it with food. I habituate them to my timescale: on that lawn, at that time."

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As we talk about Tom's Pavlovian techniques, he cleaves open a few tins of dog food and scatters them on the ground in an area near the center of the lawn. He turns, pointing up to the window he'll be shooting from, running his finger down and along the imaginary arc of the bullet.

As it approaches 8:30 PM, the time Tom's client has been baiting the lawn, we take our places at the window, watching the garden and its lengthening shadows.

Around 15 minutes later, the first fox appears. It's small, wiry, the rusty red coat a little ragged. It sniffs the air gingerly, making its way across the grass to the food. We shuffle back and forth, and although it looks up, it ignores us, turns back, and begins to eat.

In the next second, with a muffled little whomp from Tom's suppressed rifle, it's down. Just like that. From an is to a was in under a second, flat on its side and outstretched on the lawn. I'm taken aback at how quick it was. One moment, alive and full of early-evening energy. The next: down, extinguished.

We clamber downstairs and out into the garden to inspect it. Tom rolls the creature over. It's a small vixen, about three quarters of a meter nose-to-tail. A little oil slick of blood pooled under its cheek and its paws limp and curled in resignation.

"See that? Fast, wasn't it?" sparks in Tom.

"Yes," I reply, still a little stunned.

A dead fox next to the dog food Tom left out as bait

"First thing to remember is that I'm shooting downward. It makes for a clean shot. I shoot for the cranium. The object is to destroy the medulla oblongata, the brainstem that cuts their motor, and they hit the ground immediately. It doesn't even feel it," he says as he hauls it by the tail away from the food and to a little stony nook near the garden path. We climb the stairs back to Tom's post and I ask him about fox numbers in the UK.

"There's not a definite answer, but they think there's something like 450,000 in total. Something like 10 to 20,000 in urban areas. I've got nothing against them. Some people think I do. I wouldn't be the guy that shot the last one. No way. And if someone says to me they're going extinct, I'd stop shooting them. But they're not. Particularly not in urban areas."

Tom's certainly not light on work. From Camden to Croydon via Central London to Sussex, Brighton and the little farms stretched out over the South Downs, he's in high demand. I ask him which areas tend to be the most populated and why. And if, for people like me, who simply regard them as a creature of the environment to be respected and given space, killing foxes is something that can be avoided.

"I don't think people realize how many foxes there are in an urban situation," he replies. "They go out at night and they see a fox and think, 'Oh, how lovely.' They go out another night and maybe see another one—to them it's the same fox. And then they humanize them: 'Mr. Fox, Mrs. Fox' and all that.

"Every job I've ever been to—this one included – a neighbor close by, maybe an immediate neighbor or maybe seven doors down, is feeding them. They get regular food, so that becomes the habitual thing. They're used to being fed by people. That, and all the takeaways round here... I've found them with three legs professionally stitched up by a vet or somebody, carrying vol-au-vents in their mouths."

But seeing a dead animal, especially one as majestic and semi-mythical as a fox, will always exact reaction. I ask him some more about the attention he's attracted.

"There are three phone numbers on my mobile phone. I allow them to ring me, because I've found if I block them they try harder," says Tom. "If they want to ring me and present an argument for and against, I'll listen. But they've never got that far. All I get is expletives—F-ing and blinding, and then they hang up the phone."

As we continue talking, huddled by the window, he cuts me off with a hand gesture. The next fox appears, sniffing over the food.

He fires again. Silence. I ask him how it feels.

"I feel satisfaction that I've done the job right and quickly," he says, blinking slowly and looking over the fox's body. "I'm not a mechanic; I don't fix cars. This is what I do."

Listening to him talk, it's clear that—morals or matters of the heart aside, and having spent over three decades shooting them—Tom has an oddly-placed affinity with the creature. Almost like a comic book rival that his respect allows him to outsmart.

"Strange, isn't it. If I were sat on my own, in my own conservatory, I'd be happy to watch them. I love the sound, too," he says. "A lot of people describe it as 'a beautiful howl.' To me, it's like rain on the windows. I could listen to it all night."

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Soon, it's night. The long shadows have disappeared and everything's dipped in dark blue. In the distance, the lights are on in a high rise and the silhouettes of people drift through the rooms. The air is soundless apart from a few planes drifting overhead and the occasional sound of footsteps through one of the little alleys or streets surrounding the property. Then, the third appears.

It's larger than the others—skittish and light-legged, maybe because of the blood sitting on the lawn. It pricks up and sniffs the air, glances around and bolts away. I stop watching and turn to watch Tom. He's hung in the shadows, away from the window, watching, his rifle leaning against the window frame.

Whatever feelings I had about writing this, it's at least comforting to see that Tom's not gung ho, impatient, or into taking pot-shots. Eventually, he lines up the angle and it's down. The bullet passing through the top of its left ear, and boring down into the skull. He hauls it off to sit with the others.

After the third, no more approach. We sit for another hour. The garden's empty now, its mounted security lights blasting the lawn in light. And given their punctuality, Tom calls time on the night and begins to pack up.

But as my photographer and I make our way downstairs, we swing open the back door to see another. It's standing right in front of the food. Right there: frozen, looking at us with its eyes lit by the lamp-glare above. We try to level our cameras for a picture but it vanishes. Gone. Back into the shadows to live another day.

And as he gives us a lift to the station, we chat a little more about the future of Tom's business and the future of the urban fox.

"I don't envisage a time I'll be unemployed shooting foxes," he says, shrugging. "But if I had to say one thing: Stop bloody feeding them. They're there because there's food. If they can't get in the bins or the waste bags and you're not feeding them, there's no reason for them to be there. And then there's no reason for me. They respond to the amount of food that's available. and that's it.

"In the pest control journals they're beginning to put out courses for urban fox culling. Because of the uproar, because of the causes, a lightbulb's come on in the head of a lot of pest controllers who haven't got firearms and who want to make money without training. And that scares me."

Follow James and Jake on Twitter.

The VICE Guide to Right Now: A College in Virginia Wants Merriam-Webster to Change Their Definition of "Success"

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Photo via Got Credit

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"Success is what you make it / Take it how it come,
A half a mil in twenties like a billion where I'm from."

This lyric—taken from "So Appalled" off of Kanye West's seminal My Beautiful Dark Twisted Fantasy album—finds rapper Pusha T musing on the subjectivity of what really defines success. For him, it might be "half a mil in twenties," but his insistence that "success is what you make it" stresses the idea that it's extremely relative.

However, according to the Merriam-Webster definition, success is not so relative, describing it as "the fact of getting or achieving wealth, respect, or fame."

Turns out that Merriam-Webster's definition has been a primary topic of concern at the Herndon, Virginia-based Strayer University, where a 2014 study from its national "Success Project Survey" revealed that more than 90 percent of Americans believe that success is more about happiness than "money, power, and fame."

According to Brian W. Jones, president of Strayer University, "Today's official definition of success doesn't reflect the reality of how Americans think about, discuss, and ultimately pursue success." To highlight the detrimental aspect of this definition, he said, "This is a dangerous notion because it can lead people to believe they are unsuccessful because they haven't amassed a certain amount of wealth and success."

Now, Strayer University has instituted the next step by launching a new initiative called "Readdress Success" in an effort to officially get Merriam-Webster to change their outdated definition. Through the initiative's website, you can sign their Change.org petition, and, as an added incentive, Strayer University has agreed to donate $0.50 per signature to Dress for Success—a nonprofit organization that provides professional attire to disadvantaged women.

A press release for the initiative given to BusinessWire states that Strayer University has the "support of business executives, social influencers, athletes, and journalists," and that they will "also be releasing exclusive content over the next few months to inspire national and potentially global conversations about success through guest written articles and inspirational online videos featuring well-known influencers."

Follow Michael Cuby on Twitter.

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