Kanye West performing during his 2013 Yeezus tour. Photo via Flickr user U2Soul

Last night Kanye West closed out the 2015 VMAs by delivering a ten-minute speech that began with West saying the word "Bro" twice, touched upon juice, fatherhood, artistry, capitalism, weed, and the fallacy of awards shows, and ended with West announcing he was going to be running for President in 2020. It was, to borrow a phrase from West himself, one of the best awards show moments of all time. I, personally, screamed at least three times while watching it.

Perhaps the most poignant moment that didn't garner headlines occurred when West pointed out that the network had engineered a way to exploit his truce with Taylor Swift, who West famously interrupted in 2009. "You know how many times MTV ran that footage again? Because it got them more ratings. You know how many times they announced Taylor was going to give me the award? Because it got them more ratings."

When Kanye goes off like this, it feels a little bit like an episode of the show Black Mirror, in which characters often find themselves trapped in a system designed to exploit them even when they do succeed in speaking truth to power. Indeed, TMZ reports that MTV executives loved West's speech so much that they're considering West as a potential host for the 2016 VMAs.

It's fairly obvious that Kanye West will not actually be running for president in 2020. The presidency is a thankless job, one that requires whoever takes up its mantle to constantly be compromising: with other nations, with politicians on both sides of the aisle, with industries trying to stay afloat, with other branches of the government. This does not seem like something that Kanye West, an uncompromising auteur who once famously made Pusha T rewrite a verse over and over while screaming "MORE DOUCHEBAG!" in his ear, would particularly enjoy. Still, the sheer audacity of the moment—taking the stage at one of the most-watched nights in music to decry the very concept of that night, only to then announce that you've decided to apply for the most difficult, least fun, and most prominent job in the free world is, without a doubt, a quintessentially Kanye move.

It goes without saying that Kanye West is a guy who thinks incredibly highly of himself. On the flip side, as evidenced by his February interview with Zane Lowe, he thinks equally highly of human potential. It's like he sees himself as an avatar of what humanity should be; he wants everyone in the universe to have as large an ego as he does. "I didn't come here to be liked," he said to Lowe, "I came here to make a difference." In that same interview, he says that he wants Miucca Prada to design uniforms for America's youth. He says he wants to get Elon Musk and Obama together and send them to China. He says he wants to eliminate the class system in America. He says a lot of things, many of them well-meaning, many of them more than a little outlandish and much easier said than done. "And I'm not saying I have answers," he told Lowe later on, "I'm just saying these are my current opinions."

On Noisey: The Kanye West Guide to Life

The unifying theme of Kanye West's career might be expressing these big, populist ideas that resonate with people. In this way, he's sort of the left-wing, non-evil version of Donald Trump. As UVA historian Brian Balogh told our own Mike Pearl when discussing the possibility of Trump becoming President, "I think Donald Trump... reminds us that there is a solid percentage of Americans out there who feel utterly ignored and neglected by the candidates that both parties have put forward." Given that Donald Trump is currently leading the Republican Presidential candidate and a teen running as Deez Nuts was polling at nine percent in North Carolina, the idea of Kanye West very quickly morphing from a novelty candidate to serious Presidential contender in 2020 isn't totally out of the question.

The fan-fiction-esque possibilities of a Kanye West Presidency are numerous. His first order of business would probably be to pump several trillion dollars into NASA, contract Balmain to design a set of all-new space suits, and then work towards establishing an artist colony on Mars. He would knock down Mount Rushmore and erect a new one featuring busts of Steve Jobs, Riccardo Tisci, Martin Luther King Jr., Pimp C, and himself. He would appoint noted non-prescription drug salesman Pusha T as head of the FDA, put noted horndog Big Sean in charge of America's sex education program, and, much like on his albums, put Houston production legend Mike Dean in charge of all of the complicated stuff that makes the proverbial trains run on time. His wife Kim Kardashian, with her preternatural poise and newfound sense of political agency, would be a conventionally exceptional First Lady. President Kanye's speeches would be soaring and brash and powerful and fun, just like they are now.

Image via the VMAs

On top of that, Kanye West seems perfectly comfortable with being the object of hatred. He invites it; he revels in it. Invariably, almost every decision the President makes is polarizing, and when something goes wrong, the President is the first guy who catches flak. Economy shits the bed? Blame the President. Drone misses an ISIS stronghold and accidentally hits a school? Blame the President. Global warming? Blame the President. Alien invasion? President's fault. President Kanye would probably be fine with being blamed for everything; he might actually sort of enjoy it and use it as motivation to solve all of society's problems through some audacious plan that would somehow involve Justin Bieber, sped-up atoms, a school of dolphins, and Albert Einstein's reanimated corpse.

One of the reasons Kanye West is so great is that though he started his career out by positioning himself as a big-dreaming everyman, he's slowly ascended to a point where he's one of the few larger than life artists. Musicians such as Drake, Taylor Swift, and Nicki Minaj, even guys like A$AP Rocky or Miguel, are all artists whose public image is structured around this idea that they're normal people whose job is that of "Pop Star." They might do extraordinary things onstage and in the studio, but at the end of the day we're meant to understand that they're just like us.

The basic idea of "Kanye West" rejects that premise. Though in his music he often compares himself to Michael Jackson, Kanye West in 2015 is more akin to Prince: an enigmatic figure whose charisma, artistry, and flamboyant weirdness are all equally self-evident. When he articulates his worldview, he does so in a way that can seem both a little goofy and deeply profound, to the point where the actual gist of his message can be lost in the soaring rhetoric.

When Kanye West says he wants to run for President in 2020, he doesn't actually mean he's going to run for President in 2020. Instead, this seems like is his way of expressing a fairly basic idea: that hip-hop is still one of the primary venues in which society as a whole expects to hear black voices. If those black voices aren't given legitimacy as artists and thinkers beyond that realm, then their voices are still being marginalized—just on a larger scale. And sometimes, it takes a someone brave enough to hop up onstage at the VMAs and make himself look silly by announcing he's going to run for President in an attempt to get that message across.

Follow Drew Millard on Twitter.

The author in great pain. Photo by Dominik Pichler

I love saying no to things. It's what I do. A friend asked me recently, "Hey Michael, I'm hosting a spontaneous, crazy night of board games at my place with some friends later. Do you wanna come?" I felt like hissing at her. Genital herpes sounded more appealing than a "spontaneous, crazy night of board games."

"You're always so negative," she fumed. "Give it a chance."

Honestly, I don't think very highly of folks who consider a round of board games entertaining. But on some level, she had a point. Maybe I do need to be more positive? Maybe I ought to try new things? So, in the spirit of adventure, I decided that I'd spend a week saying "Yes" to every question I was asked.

Photo by Dominik Pichler

Day 1

From the get-go, it was difficult to find things to say "Yes" to. Probably because I didn't really leave my apartment. Luckily, Facebook was full of glorious clickbait for me to agree to. Yes internet, I would like to know what Kendall Jenner's worst outfit looks like but unfortunately it's not really the point of this project.

Related: My Attempt to Become a Better Person Through CrossFit

Things escalated rather quickly when I visited a restaurant with my friends. "Would you like another glass of wine, sir?" Yep. "Coffee?" Sure. "Would you like to try our creme brûlée?" Of course.

"Wow Michael, you aren't holding back tonight," me friend said. As delicious as the experience was, wine and desserts weren't going to broaden my horizons either. I needed to put more effort into gathering new experiences.

It didn't take long before opportunity came knocking. As soon as I arrived home, an email rattled in from a radio station that had seen my YouTube channel and wanted me to do a one-hour impromptu live show. As a person who gets anxious easily, the idea of live radio scared the life out of me. What if I snort while laughing and the entire country hears it? What if I have a panic attack and pass out? Lying through my teeth, I replied, "Sure, I'd love to."

Photo by Alexander Wagner

Day 2

On the way to the radio station, I felt as if I was going on a Tinder date: Excited, more than a little skeptical, and full of possible excuses to escape if necessary.

After arriving and greeting the staff, I was politely handed a glass of water—which I then proceeded to spill absolutely everywhere. Thankfully, the liquid narrowly avoided the control board. I wouldn't call myself a body language specialist, but it was pretty obvious that at that point a fair few people wanted to kill me.

Aside from that little cock-up, the performance went surprisingly smoothly. I dropped a few wisecracks and juggled calls from enthusiastic listeners. "Haha Tamara, you're really one of a kind!" Though, to be fair, she wasn't.

It was actually a great success.

Watch our documentary, 'Searching for Spitman':

Day 3

The next day, while swanning through the streets, still high from my not entirely shit radio debut, I got stopped by one of those charity clipboard ladies. "Do you have a moment to talk about the rainforest?" FFS.

"Yes, I have plenty of time," I told her. She began reciting her script and I nodded along like some robot programmed to mimic humans. I actually found the whole thing pretty interesting. "So, would you like to adopt a tree?" my new friend asked. Luckily, just then, a text ticked in from my mate. "Do you want to work out together tomorrow?"

My friend—who is ludicrously athletic and gets up at 7 AM to do CrossFit at least three times a week—had been asking me to come check it out for months. As little tears of laziness trickled down my face, I told him I'd love to.

Ready for CrossFit. Photo by Dominik Pichler

Day 4

I'm not athletic at all. Like, at all. If I bought something in Sports Direct, my bank would probably call me to ask if my card had been stolen.

"You know what? I'm not feeling that good! Maybe it's that creme brûlée from a few days ago," I lied. My friend quickly realized that I was dreading the exercise and began trying to placate me. "Don't worry, it's really chill. It's usually just four of us with the trainer and if someone starts burning out, the others will cheer them on."

How did he expect me to relax when he was describing my worst nightmare?

Day 5

I got to the gym at 8 AM. Apparently that was the late lesson. Worryingly, the first thing the trainer said was, "You came on a bad day."

"Yeah. No shit. Any day that starts with CrossFit is a bad day."

"Today, instead of doing all sorts of stuff, we're all just going to do 1,000 kettle bell swings." Oh God.

"You think you can manage?"

"Yes." Again, I was lying.

After just 100 swings, I started sweating profusely. The friction of the iron handles made everyone's hands bleed. By the end of it, my fingers looked as if I'd been high-fiving a blender.

"How many swings have you done, Michael?" the trainer asked me after 30 minutes.

"600," I groaned.

"OK, that's enough. You're already sweating more than you should be." He didn't have to tell me twice.

CrossFit session. Photo by Dominik Pichler

Day 6

After the training session, I was in so much pain that I could barely stand up. Even the clipboard lady who'd harassed me a few days ago looked at me with pity as I limped past her. She could definitely tell that it took me three minutes to clamber into my boxers that morning.

I stumbled into a restaurant bathroom. A short trip that felt like the final hundred feet of a marathon. As soon as I began to piss, I noticed that my urine was a very strange color. I immediately hobbled towards my doctor to find out if I was falling apart.

"You have rhabdomyolysis," she explained. "That means your muscle tissue is breaking down. What did you do to yourself?"

"I did a trial CrossFit session."

She must have been in pain holding the tears of laughter back. I checked into the hospital immediately and was told I'd need to stay there overnight so I could get injections to counteract my heightened "CK count."

"Yes," I replied enthusiastically. That time I actually meant it.

As I lay alone in that hospital room, unable to sleep because of the dripping of my IV, I wondered if this was the "new experience" I'd been looking for. Sure, I wanted to get out of my comfort zone, but I thought that meant eating curiously moldy cheeses or trying Zumba.

Photo by author

Day 7

The following morning, I was told that my blood levels were improving and I was safe to go home. Because of yesterday's turbulence, I had completely forgot to check my messages. Aside from the usual spam, I had a text from my board game obsessed friend. This time she wanted to know if I'd be interested in checking out a ukulele concert. I couldn't help but wonder why I associated with this woman.

Instead of immediately agreeing, I took a moment to reflect on my week. I remembered my intimate conversation with the rainforest lady, the hellish kettle bell swings and, last but not least, my catastrophic hospital stay.

As I typed "no," I felt as if I could breathe again. I pressed send with a satisfied smile and limped out of there, leaving my positive outlook by the hospital bed.

Image via Pixabay

Read: What Inmates Are Saying About Colorado Shooter James Holmes Getting Life in Prison

It's important to give yourself a pat on the back sometimes, especially if that pat on the back comes in the form of a cool $84,000 in cash.

Earlier this month, a bomb in Bangkok killed 20 people and injured another 120 at the site of the Erawan Shrine. Thai police offered up that robust sum as a reward to anyone who might lead them to the person responsible. When no one stepped up to help, the cops went ahead and arrested at least one suspect on their own. Now, they're pocketing the reward themselves, the Associated Press reports.

Cops arrested a bombing suspect on Saturday and, although the man has yet to be charged or convicted with the crime, Thai police feel confident enough in his guilt to divvy up the cash among themselves.

Police found bomb-making materials in the suspect's apartment on the edge of Bangkok, including detonators, ball bearings, and a metal pipe.

Somyot Poompanmoung, Thailand's National Police Chief, made the announcement at a press conference on Monday, showing off stacks of 1,000-baht notes that will apparently soon line the pockets of police officers.

"This arrest, I confirm, is due purely to the work of police," Poompanmoung said. "This money should be given to officials who did their job."

Meanwhile, local cops reportedly issued two more arrest warrants on Monday after finding additional bomb-making materials at a second apartment over the weekend. Whether those arrests will also result in a cash payout for Bangkok's finest remains to be seen.

I remember when I realized you could legally advertise escorting.

I was 19 years old and thumbing through the yellow pages, sitting on the bed of a man who was generously offering to let me stay the night at his place, under certain conditions. After auto but before plumbing was a sheaf of full-page ads with stylized T&A smudgily reproduced. The phone numbers were in huge type. There was very little other information. "It's legal to charge for your time, so it's legal to advertise," he explained, edging closer.

There were so many pages that the section made a dark stripe in the spine. I noted the thickness, the percentage of the book it constituted. So many ads, multiplied by so many men calling, multiplied by so much money. Economies—of scale and otherwise—became clear to me.

For years, my sketchy friend was correct: The websites and magazines used by independent escorts to set up their bookings have been protected by the First Amendment. But the internet's clickable red-light district has come under fire lately, most recently with the arrest of male escort site Rentboy.com's CEO and six employees last week. If they're convicted, the precedent could spell the end of certain types of advertising, which has depended on the use of particular euphemisms and specific practices. It will not stop people paying for sex, nor people selling it—sex workers and clients have been finding each other for a very long time, and there are always the same old shadows to duck back into.

What is it like to belong to an industry where one of the benchmarks for success is not getting arrested, where you know that you can never call the police?

Rentboy was operating not with impunity, but with a seeming lack of shame. With men assumed to be exempt from the specter of trafficking, it seemed that law enforcement would let sex-positive adults make their own choices. I envied that openness at the Hookies—international escort awards—in March, when I didn't know Rentboy was under investigation. My work as an escort and an agency partner has been more consciously covert. But despite my current legal status (fingers crossed!), I can report that hiding in plain sight brings you down.

What is it like to belong to an industry where one of the benchmarks for success is not getting arrested, where you know that you can never call the police? I've had illegal jobs for so long that I take concealment as a given. In uncertain situations, I go mute. I can attribute any investigative skills I possess to years of verifying potential clients' identities. I drive two miles over the speed limit, in an un-flashy car, with working brake lights. Those precautions have become part of who I am: guarded and fundamentally skeptical, with a strict hygiene of trust. I don't mind having picked up those traits. Anyone's life is easier to navigate if you watch your ass and your spidey sense goes to 11. But precautions, while essential, don't cover all the bases, and they don't mitigate the negative effects of having to work below the law.

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A week after my Yellow Pages epiphany, I got an interview with the third agency I called. It was the first that didn't hang up on me for having a young voice and asking dumb questions. My appointment was a day later, and would, I assumed, consist of the third-degree about which sex acts I would and would not perform, how best to perform them, and if I could magically get better hair.

The interview took three minutes and was as G-rated as a kindergarten bus ride. We covered transportation, credit card payments, and schedule. My interviewer was a dramatically thin woman, monochrome, a wood-colored tan the same shade as her hair. She smoked clove cigarettes and projected immense self-possession and anxiety, which I had previously thought were mutually exclusive traits. As the interview wound up and I didn't arrest her, she relaxed. Her final question to me was, "You know what this is, right?" I did. Sort of.

That night I had my first booking.

Many sex workers start with as little information as I did, and pick up their knowledge piecemeal. The learning curve is steep, but sometimes not steep enough. Younger sex workers are frequently not skilled at setting boundaries and enforcing them. Learning on the job is tricky. The only other person in the room may have goals in opposition to fostering their partner's own personal riot grrrl. Most clients are not consent violators, but they are about as crappy at sexual communication and reading body language as most people. The legal prohibitions that led to me meeting my first client green, with no information, are still in place today. They prevent sex workers from knowing what to expect, getting the training they need, and from speaking freely about what they do and don't want to do. This necessarily leads to unpleasant experiences.

The stakes are high when you're openly operating a business where it's a crime to sell something but legal to give it away.

Having been on the other side of that scratched laminate table, I know that my first madam didn't have much of a choice when she let me sink or swim. Two years after that interview, newly moved to New York, I got a job answering an agency's phone. One of the first things I learned was to never discuss specifics. Payment for time is legal. Payment with even a vague promise of sexual behavior is not. The way my new boss put it was, "These girls aren't prostitutes. They're just women who get paid to hang out, because they're beautiful—and they all happen to be giant sluts, but that's their business." Vocal temperance is rule number one, and two, and three. There are very few other rules. The stakes are high when you're openly operating a business where it's a crime to sell something but legal to give it away. My first and second days, I worked under the watchful eye of the agency owner, who gave me a list of words and phrases I was forbidden to utter: sex, full service, pimp, and any mention of specific activities (even as acronyms) were not permitted. If those words were used, I was to hang up.

When women had issues, they tried to communicate what was wrong in code. This was hair-raising: picking up the phone to a crying, inarticulate woman whom you last sent into an enclosed space with an unknown man tests the iciest cool. Fortunately, no one I worked with was ever hurt. One time my friend Hanna called me from the street, very upset, but resigned. After an abbreviated performance on his part, her client had turned surly and said that he wanted half of his hourly fee back. She explained that that wasn't how it worked. Upon reaching the street, she checked her bag and found that he had corrected the alleged financial injustice himself. I called the client repeatedly. When he picked up, he chose a good offense as his defense, screaming into the phone, and I let him go off. But when he asked if I knew who he was, I found my leverage. I don't remember what I said, but two minutes later, Hanna called back, incredulous, to report that the client had come to the street in his boxers to give her the balance.

Intimidation worked. It was our only tool, so it had to.

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A year or so later, the business restructured, and I was a partner, which meant interviewing dozens of women who wanted work. Taking on new talent is historically how agencies get busted, as the madam doesn't come into contact with clients directly, and in a properly-run business the women don't know the location of the office. The women I interviewed were all taciturn and wary, as was I, with one exception: a beautiful brunette I met at a coffee shop. Her questions immediately made her as an undercover. I told her that she must have gotten the wrong idea, and left terrified and shaky, looking over my shoulder for a week.

By the time the agency collapsed, all that looking over my shoulder had changed me. There was a focus to illegal work that justified all my bad behavior. My unequivocal first priority was not getting busted. Everything else was secondary: making money, relationships with partners, politeness, health. I was most afraid of the swiftness with which I knew the worst would come. There's no do-over to fucking up and suddenly being cuffed, and for most people, there's no warning. You think you're annoyed that your lunch delivery is taking so long or your boyfriend didn't take out the trash, and five minutes later nothing will be the same. With disaster as the worst case scenario, putting things into perspective was easy, and that gave me leave to be a dick. When challenged, I would point to one of my three cell phones and ask if I could get some space to concentrate.

Even now, setting this information into black and white alarms me, even though I just googled "statute of limitations." I filter everything through an apocryphal flow chart of legal assumptions, the same as most sex workers. I buy advertising with my credit card, I have a domain registered to my name, and I feel safe because it's common to do so, but not because I have certainty. It's an insecure position on which to base one's finances and freedom.

Rentboy's employees were not following my agency boss's protocol. But we were an escort service, not an ad site. Setting up appointments could get you arrested, but providing a platform for independent contractors to advertise themselves has been, for the most part, fair play. Rentboy has been around since 1997. When I read that it went down, my first three emails had the subject line, "What the hell is going on?" Clearly, what can be safely said and done has shifted in a way no one could have predicted—how else do you explain a 20-year-old site being the focus of the anti-terrorist arm of the federal government?

It was a strange feeling, walking out of society, away from law and accountability, away from being able to call 9-1-1.

Most escorts I know are most concerned with legal safety, but there are other, more serious, dangers. When I walked into that first house, I was aware that if something happened to me, I was on my own. It was a strange feeling, walking out of society, away from law and accountability, away from being able to call 9-1-1. I would be lying if I didn't say there was something exhilarating about it, but I was a dumb 19-year-old kid.

Years later, I found myself in a room with a very large man with not great intentions. I remember looking him in the face and realizing that beating up women like me was his kink. He was prepared in a way that I was not; he had a script in his head, one that ended in me hurt, him leaving quietly, and it ending there, no repercussions.

You never know how you're going to feel in advance. In this case, I decided to eat his face. My bloodstream chimed in with high-intensity chemicals, and suddenly I felt very positive about the situation. I would likely get badly damaged, but he was going to get rocked in the process. There would be no calmly putting on his jacket and walking through the soft falling snow to the train. I was not a supporting actor, whore or no.

He left at that point. When the adrenaline drained, I was shaky but numb. There was nothing to think about. I was hungry. I knew that I was lucky, and I didn't want to be lucky.

I wanted to be a person who could call the cops.

The Rentboy arrests are an interesting contrast to the recent Amnesty International sex work decriminalization report, which recommended the full removal of penalties for all people involved in the sex trade. It was written because of stories far, far worse than mine, consequences far more severe seen by people with far less power and choice. It was written because there is sex work all over the world, and it's dangerous. Despite the fact that the report also urged continued and redoubled prosecution of trafficking, it has been challenged on the grounds that legalization would lead to increased coercive sex.

My experience runs counter to that. It helps the most vulnerable to be able to call the police, to be able to get out of the shadows. I break the law because I profit from doing so. I'm paid combat wages for risk, and would probably lose money if sex work was legal. But somewhere, right now, there is a man with a script, and there is a woman who knows she can't call the police. Not everyone is lucky.

Follow April Adams on Twitter.

You are in the Hamptons, except you are not really in the Hamptons. The Hamptons is the white aristocracy taking a shit on your dreams from a helicopter. Men tan in their armpits, tan behind their earlobes, receding hairlines and Peroni and SLKs, the kind of accomplished malaise of a people who have never had to mow a lawn.

You are not there. You are in Hampton Bays. Hampton Bays is for the proletariat wading through traffic. Share houses and 30-racks on the train from Penn Station. People eating 7-11 egg salad sandwiches off the dashboard at two in the morning, driving Route 27 home with the windows down and someone asleep in the passenger seat. People who mow their own lawns; people who look like they just came from mowing the Hamptons lawns.

If you could somehow inhabit an ant farm made of bicep and stale pizza crust, here you are, open Sundays only, from 4-8 PM, Memorial Day to Labor Day.

More specifically, you are at the Boardy Barn—bar, circus, human petting zoo, throbbing wet orifice of recklessness and our basest human impulses, dense and swampy, dirt and spilt beer on your ankles, half a thousand people packed against railings and elbows. If you could somehow inhabit an ant farm made of bicep and stale pizza crust, here you are, open Sundays only, from 4-8 PM, Memorial Day to Labor Day.

It has been in operation since 1970—not quite a bar, not quite a club; functionally it is a shaded patch of land. There is an indoor bar and, beneath a red and white striped tent outside, another bar. Everyone moves with the kind of limitless, sunglasses-emoji invincibility of someone peeing in a sink at a house party. It is as utilitarian as a Civil War encampment. Every amenity necessary to preserve this day; nothing more. Plywood and port-a-potties, one-dollar hot dogs, Bud Light pouring unremittingly from every tap in the place, a DJ working through a playlist that is some mix of Uncle's Second Marriage and Minor League Baseball Game, Neil Diamond and Journey and Rick Springfield and every other inescapable 80s hit that sticks in your mouth like a canker sore.

Every girl is named Ashley or Jordan or Morgan. They're all 23 or 24 and roam with a look that is somewhere between "never, in a million years" and "fuck it, whaddaya got?" And to men this is exhilarating. To them, pussy is a low-flying plane, and they're waving their arms on the shores of a lonely island. They'll fuck the mirage, they'll fuck the faintest hope, they'll fuck the drop of sweat on her shoulder blade. This ambiguity, the complete transience of a every interaction, from rejections to comebacks to microscopic conquests, her putting her hand on his chest, telling her friends she'll be right there, this is sustenance. To be perpetually on the brink of everything and nothing. Drunk, hungover, make-outs, standing in the parking lot alone, none of it matters. These are a people indifferent to larger conversations about Hamptons nobility, about noise ordinances, about the plague of new-money audaciousness in Montauk. They are people who don't really have conversations about anything.

If you tip well enough or know the right people, you'll end up with a roll of smiley face stickers, like Mardi Gras beads in their arbitrary regional value as currency. The Miami New Times describes it this way: "Placing stickers on strangers is completely acceptable. Nay, it's encouraged. Feel free to place them anywhere your little heart (or groin) desires. You might make a new friend. Orrrrrr more."

The whole place is an "Orrrrrr more." Men with their hand on AshleyJordanMorgan's ribcage, breathing in her ear, telling her something that is essential in her ear, waiting for the chorus with her like it's lotto numbers, their mother's turn on the transplant list, paternity test results. He's waiting for her to get out of the bathroom now, looking for someone else in the meantime, looking for AshleyJordanMorgans like an archaeologist and a whack-a-moler simultaneously. Making eye contact with her as she walks back from the bathroom, making her retinas seek counseling; looking at her like she was the only girl who ever lived, like he'd been living alone on a distant planet for 18 years after his spaceship crash landed, but now here she is, and she's going to save him. He spills half his beer on her as they weave through the crowd. He wipes his forehead on every absorbent surface in a three mile radius. She is not in love with him but for these seconds he sort of believes that she is. She is smarter than him, more advanced than him, but she lets him pretend.

In a way, every attraction in the Boardy Barn is driven by a mix of curiosity, disgust, and begrudging admiration.

And then he's drifting somewhere else, showing everyone his sunburn, lifting up his shirt in the middle of the crowd, shrugging his shoulders, flexing when AshleyJordanMorgan bumps into him, because maybe she noticed, maybe she's wet now, maybe she can call out of work tomorrow. He's leaning, sipping, waiting, a monument, a shrine to himself, this infinite life of his; pointing at some guy across the room who he sort of knows but doesn't really know. He's chewing gum like the gum stole his mother's purse. AshleyJordanMorgan is omging to her friends about him, she is wondering where he is going, who he is, if he always does this, chewing gum and fucking and sweating, never wearing undershirts, glistening and putting stickers on the bare nipples of strangers without solicitation. In a way, every attraction in the Boardy Barn is driven by a mix of curiosity, disgust, and begrudging admiration.

There is arrogance, but no aggression; every single person simply believes they are the greatest person who has ever lived, tan for the same 10 weeks every year. Feeling the vibrations of hundreds of people who are celebrating their own eminent greatness, colliding with things, physical and metaphoric, feeling the resistance of something against them, liquids and humans and that last flake of apprehension fall away before she lets you suck beer foam off her bottom lip. In the Boardy Barn people don't have a philosophy or a method, they have an appetite. Hungry for the now-ness of this moment, a Sunday in August, the year two-thousand-and-whogivesashit. People relentlessly committed to excitement and this Neverland ride of nonsense that feels absolutely essential when you are immersed in it, and then, four days later, so small it's as if it never happened. Here is an incubator for a people whose every objective, every desire is ephemeral. People living in the in-between. A life in transit. No stakes, no context, no investment. This is your 20s, after all; mistakes and compulsions you hope don't become identities.

You are almost 29, and yet, approaching 8 PM, you are feeling this, too. All of it. The heat, the booze, the sloppy, claustrophobic sincerity of every single person feeling the same exact way at the same exact second. To resist this is to resist the urge to communicate in the big dumb wonderfully primal way you would if you survived the apocalypse, an alien invasion. A campfire dance, kind-of-maybe-not-hating this stranger, because he is in love with the total nothingness of this too. How little it has to do with him, where he's going, where he came from. You don't negotiate with euphoria, you don't communicate with it. It's noise. Josie's on a vacation far away. There's no turning back. Eventually, we all give up and sing the words we know.

Follow John Saward on Twitter.

Screengrab via a now-deleted post on 4chan.org

Over the weekend, a post on 4chan became one for the ages when one of the anonymous users of the legendarily shocking image board apparently chopped a fair amount of his or her own toe off (Warning: link is to an uncensored version of the photo above). The post was insanely popular, leading other users to refer to it a day later in a thread about the all-time best cases of the rare phenomenon known as "OP has delivered."

It might not be immediately clear why a little self-mutilation would be something worth delivering—You can just Google "toe cut off" if you want to see that kind of thing—but there's a reason this OP (which stands for "original poster") is a unicorn of sorts.

Alongside the initial photo of a toe with a small scab, the OP offered someone in the thread the chance to decide how to respond to such a predicament. "Use neosporin" maybe, or "Get a nice pedicure".

When another user suggested "chop off the toe," the eventual amputation of the toe was a victory for the site, and maybe a permanent piece of 4chan history.

The original post is gone, and 4chan doesn't archive. If you aren't familiar, think of 4chan as a big roll of butcher paper on a conveyor belt that users scrawl things on as fast as they can before it goes into an incinerator. Most content isn't worth saving. Someone posts an image, typically with a comment, and others can add comments and images to the thread. If it doesn't attract much attention, it disappears unceremoniously. If it's funny, or salient, or just interesting for some reason, there'll be a longer thread.

When things are really cooking in one particular 4chan thread, it's a magic moment. In the aftermath, there are just screengrabs and memories. To the uninitiated browsing 4chan, a gory image, a dick pic, or maybe some racist comments might not seem like they're worth much in context, but divorced from context, they're worth even less.

What originally made this particular thread catch fire was that it was a "Dubs Get," a tantalizing style of post, in which an anonymous commenter is offered the chance to get his or her way based on what's essentially a dice roll. If the numeric code on your anonymous comment happens to have two instances of a digit in a row, you decide the outcome. As comments pile up, interest in the thread grows. A more normal "Dubs Get," might start with a photo of a lady, and offer topless photos to the user who rolled dubs.

In the case of the toe, the commenter who wrote "chop off the toe" won dubs. They actually didn't at first, but a controversial re-roll produced two 5s in a row. OP chose to honor the re-roll, and had to either deliver, or admit he or she had wasted everyone's very precious time.

OPs, as a rule, do not often keep their promises in this circumstance, or really any circumstance on 4chan. "Waiting for OP" is such a familiar phenomenon, it has its own Knowyourmeme article. In image macros, one who would wait for an OP's illusive delivery is portrayed as a skeleton posed as if waiting by a laptop for centuries in the hopes that the awesome pics will finally arrive. The message: Patience won't pay off. No sense risking boredom by waiting around. Find entertainment elsewhere.

This trend of disappointment extends well beyond Dubs Gets. Unlike on 4chan's slightly more gullible cousin Reddit, trust in any claim is practically nonexistent, thus the prevalence of the phrase "Pics or it didn't happen." On any given day, 4chan users will scroll past dozens of outrageous boasts or challenges, assuming nothing will come of them—nothing that can be documented anyway.

That's not a bad thing. Two years ago for instance, a post materialized promising to 4chan that the OP was a suicidal American Airlines pilot who was preparing to deliberately crash a plane full of passengers. That thankfully didn't really happen.

But occasionally something does.

Perhaps no example is more famous than the time in 2007 when a 4chan user posted a photo apparently from the Catacombs of Paris, asking the rest of 4chan if they thought he might successfully be able to smuggle a stolen Parisian skull back to the US. Shortly afterwards, the OP posted a photo of a skull in what appeared to be the comfort of his own home.

But although 4chan was pleased with the stolen skull, it was not content. "Anon demands to see penis in eye socket," wrote one user. And on that day, OP delivered (link is about as NSFW as it gets). Yes, the remains of an 18th century Parisian were desecrated for internet points.

But OPs of the past have supposedly delivered on much uglier promises. In one famous case (which must be relegated to the bin marked "pure legend" for obvious legal reasons) a 4chan user claimed to know where a missing girl named Emily Sander was buried. The winning commenter would be one who was able to guess the entire numerical code of their comment. When one user guessed correctly, coordinates were supplied, and they supposedly matched the location of the body when it was eventually found—although documenting the actual chronology in this sequence of events is impossible. Shenanigans were probably afoot, but that hasn't stopped the case from permeating the culture of 4chan.

That culture has also included a penchant for gawking at self-mutilation since long before this weekend's phalangeal severance.

Perhaps the most legendary internet-administered surgical procedure was the 2013 incident in which a female 4chan user put 4chan in control of a cyst or tumor that had grown on her breast. OP certainly delivered (Warning: Don't click that. What are you thinking?), and the revolting outcome was met with that rarest of 4chan responses: concern for the OP's health, in the form of pleas for her to hurry and disinfect the wound or seek medical attention. Cases like this are the the logical extreme of a place where everything is taken to its logical extreme. As another user put it, "I think this might be my cutoff."

It's as though deep down, 4chan wants to be called on its bluff. The real mind of 4chan and its evil twin 8chan isn't just what New York Magazine called "the dankest mumurations of the male id." There's a superego in there there too somewhere. It finally peeks its head out when the id has had its fun, and the game is over.

Note: Don't cut off your own body parts because someone on the internet told you to. Research suggests even if you actively want to cut parts of your body off, it's probably still a neurological problem.

Follow Mike Pearl on Twitter.

Mugshots in thumbnail via Sacramento Police Department

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On Patrol with the Copwatchers Who Film the NYPD

Everything from Mortal Kombat, to planking, to selfies has received a boost from news coverage telling parents it's a new trend that's going to kill their kids. That kind of thing might not have seemed possible for Periscope, since it's just a live streaming app that allows you to broadcast events to your social media followers, but, on Wednesday night of last week, two guys drove around Sacramento brandishing a gun on Periscope, possibly giving the service some street cred at long last.

The two guys, Damon Batson, and Carlos Gonzalez, said they were on their way to rough someone up when they switched on the app and started broadcasting. Gonzalez explained into the camera that one of their girlfriends was "supposedly gonna do it in the crib"—referring to some guy across town they thought she was fucking. So they decided to "ride over there and see what we can do."

They developed a following. Occasionally, as they drove around talking vaguely about hurting someone, viewers hit "fav," on the app, and little purple and pink hearts materialized.

They were carrying a handgun, but if there'd been a murder, it apparently wouldn't have been shown. Gonzalez explained to his viewers that he unfortunately couldn't periscope everything. However, If I didn't think I would get in trouble with the law, fuck it," he said.

In the end, they don't seem to be the 2015 version of the bad guys in the movie 15 Minutes, because no one got hurt. In the video, there is footage of the pair knocking on the guy's front door and saying, "Stop being a scaredy. Open that door. Tell that fucking whore to come out," but after they climb onto his balcony, they see that, to the disappointment of the viewers at home, either no one's inside the house, or the lovebirds are hiding under the bed.

Either way, they left, and someone asked them to prove their gun was real. So Gonzalez can be heard firing the gun in the air.

Later that night when the police found out about the footage and arrested them, Gonzalez got booked for alleged negligent discharge of a firearm, and for being in public with a loaded firearm. The charges against Batson mostly stemmed from some weed plants he showed off in the video. He was also charged with knowingly receiving stolen property, and for having a gun while in possession of weed.

Follow Mike Pearl on Twitter.

Image via KTIV

Read: Why White Supremacists Love Donald Trump

Brady Olsen—the 15-year-old who entered the presidential race as "Deez Nuts" and created a media phenomenon—has finally given an interview to local TV to explain what the hell is going on with him.

For starting as a joke, Deez Nuts has been doing pretty well—in mid August he was polling at 9 percent in North Carolina—he was third behind Donald Trump at 40 percent and Hillary Clinton at only 38 percent. Later in the month, Google Trends found that more people were searching for "Deez Nuts" than for "Hillary Clinton." (Though it's obviously possible not all of the searches were related to politics.)

Brady's dad Mark told Iowa's KTIV that he was amazed at the buzz Deez Nuts was creating. "I had to talk with Brady to see what the heck he had going on," said Mark.

Brady writes out all of his goals for the 2016 election on a whiteboard in his room and keeps his official campaign website well stocked with his take on issues ranging from immigration to abortion to same-sex marriage.

Ultimately, Olsen told KTIV, he wants his "Deez Nuts" alter ego to pave the way for a multi-party system.

"Canada had a debate for their Prime Minister elections and they had a four-party debate," he says.

Much to the chagrin of his adoring fans, Deez Nuts is ineligible to become president, at least for a while. In order to seriously run, Olsen will have to wait another 20 years, since the Constitution says one must be at least 35 years old in order to be elected.

VICE's Amsterdam office co-produced Prince, the debut feature film by Dutch writer and director Sam de Jong. This stylish, coming-of-age tale follows a Dutch-Moroccan teen as he cares for his junkie father and falls in with criminals in order to impress the neighborhood girl.

The movie is equal parts authentic and surreal, and uses a cast of non-professional actors to portray life in the streets in contemporary Amsterdam. There's also a killer 80s-style soundtrack. For this five-part VICE Special, we take a behind-the-scenes look at the film's production.

Prince is now in theaters and available to watch now on iTunes and OnDemand.

Screenshot via financial icon Rihanna's "Pour It Up" music video

If you type "will millennials..." into Google, the first suggestion is "will millennials ever be able to retire?" It's a question that trumps almost any other conversation about millennial life. We're the generation least likely to be on track for retirement and most likely to deal with unemployment. A study from the investing site Nerd Wallet projected most millennials won't be able to retire before they're 73.

Like most young people, I'm freaked out by this. I want to be playing croquet in Florida when I'm 73, not blogging on the internet. But I also know very little about what to actually do with my money. I'm slightly embarrassed to admit it, but I also know I'm not alone. A few years ago, the US Department of Treasury and the Department of Education gave high schoolers a test on financial literacy. The average score was a 69 percent.

Young people aren't getting a whole lot of financial advice, either. (I remember a six-week "financial literacy" course in high school, where we learned things like how to balance a checkbook—a skill that became all but obsolete with the invention of Venmo.) Financial planners haven't traditionally courted young people, probably because young people tend to be poor. (According to a survey from earlier this year, less than 30 percent of financial planners target people under 40). That may be starting to change, though, as millennials take up a larger portion of the workforce.

One adviser courting millenials is Sophia Bera, founder of Gen Y Planning, who Money Under 30 named one of the "top financial advisors for millennials" and who is a millennial herself. I reached out to Bera to find out what 20-somethings like myself should do to beat the odds and retire at 65. To my dismay, she paused, and then gingerly delivered this bad news:

"So, here's the thing," she said, "Why do you want to retire at age 65? You're probably going to live until you're 100—what are you going to do for 35 years?"

My conception of retirement was all wrong, she said. The age 65—what many people consider the "standard" age of retirement, comes from the Social Security Administration's age at which full benefits are paid out. The thing is, Social Security was never meant to pay for decades of Bingo games in cushy Florida retirement homes. It was designed to provide a safety net for people who were living out the last few years of their lives. When the Social Security program was first introduced in 1935, life expectancy for Americans was in the low 60s. Today, the life expectancy is 78 years for men and 81 years for women. And that number is only getting higher.

So, as Bera gently explained, we're probably not going to retire at age 65. With that illusion shattered, I asked Bera and other financial advisers what I could do to put myself in the best position for when I can eventually retire. Consider this the syllabus for Retirement Planning 101.

Forget Everything Your Parents Told You

First, some good news: You are not turning into your parents. (In the retirement landscape, at least. I can't make any promises about your personal life.)

The way millennials approach work is really different from previous generations. For one thing, we see ourselves working longer in a field we enjoy, contributing to something we actually care about rather than just collecting a paycheck. In a survey from TransAmerica Center for Retirement Studies, half of millennials said they planned to continue working even after they'd "retired"—which is insane, but also says something about how our generation feels about our jobs. We're also more likely to be entrepreneurs or have flexible jobs within the "gig economy."

The same survey also found that 70 percent of millennials are already saving for retirement, which is another big difference between young people and our parents (the median age for starting contributions to retirement account was 22 for millennials, compared to 27 for Gen X and 35 for Boomers). That's in part because, unlike our parents, we expect to have fewer resources like Social Security to fall back on, and are more focused on independently generating retirement savings.

In the past, you could map out your retirement to some degree of accuracy by tabulating your income, your living expenses, your pension, your Social Security benefits, and so on. Add two kids, subtract a mortgage, collect some investment returns, add water, stir, and enjoy. Bera says there isn't a formula like this for millennials—even metrics like AARP's Retirement Calculator aren't very helpful—because the way millennials work is so different.

"I think that unconventional retirements are going to [become] more common, where you work really hard for five years and then you decide to switch jobs—but before you do, you backpack around Europe for a while. You'll see more and more people taking breaks," Bera said. And it's more likely to see people reentering the workforce after a break or transitioning into part-time work after they've "retired."

With Baby Boomers, it's like, you do your career for 40 years, and you get your pension, and that's why you need to stay there," said Bera. "But that's just not the case anymore. Millennials really want meaningful careers because we know we're going to be working for the next 50 years."

If your retirement fund was saved in quarters. Photo via Flickr userMorgan

Start Saving Money, Even If It's Just a Little

I know, I know, saving is easier said than done. Especially when you've just started working and are suddenly flush with cash (not really), it can feel like you've got stacks on stacks of Monopoly money to throw around. Resist that urge. Take your Monopoly money and plant it somewhere safe and let it grow.

Have you ever heard those financial parables where it's like, Arielle starts saving $1,000 a year when she's 20. Mike doesn't start saving until he's 35, but he puts away $5,000 a year. When they're both 70, who will have more money saved? It's me, obviously, because I started saving earlier.

This is what financial people call the "magic of compounding"—or, as certified financial planner Karen Carr explained, "the idea that a dollar you put into your retirement today actually earns money over time, and then beyond that, those earnings then grow on themselves." Carr works with the Society of Grownups, an organization that aims to make millennials financially literate.

"As millennials, we really have time on our side, so we should take advantage of that," Carr said. "When you're in your 20s and have at least 30 more years to work, that's a long time for those earnings to grow."

The maximum growth depends on where you stash your savings. Most advisers recommend putting away part of your income in a 401(k) or a Roth IRA, which are retirement-specific investment accounts (more on those later). If you put your money into an investment fund with tax deferral, like a traditional IRA, then you can actually make even more money by delaying the taxes you pay on your retirement savings. It's also not a bad idea to put some money into a high-yield bank account, where you can get as much as 1 percent returns on the money you leave sitting in there.

Deal with Debt, But Save a Little Cash First

The problem with saving money, of course, is that it means you can't spend that money. I'm not just talking about buying a round of tequila shots or paying your Netflix subscription, but also real stuff, like paying off student loans.

Debt is a real bitch, and unfortunately it's also a financial reality for most young people. According to a Wells Fargo study conducted last year, 47 percent of millennials put more than half of their monthly income toward paying off their debt, making it their primary financial concern after day-to-day bills. That means a whole lot of young people are struggling to pay both their massive debts and everyday expenses, let alone find extra money to save.

If you're drowning in debt, Carr says you can't just ignore it. (Sorry. I don't make the rules.) "First, pay the minimum on all the debt you have. You want to keep your credit history clean, keep up with that debt, and hopefully get you at a good starting place to be fully paying it down," said Carr.

Read: I Asked an Expert What Would Happen if I Just Stopped Paying My Student Loans

But before you start aggressively paying off all that you owe, you should first create a buffer in your bank account, which financial advisers call an "emergency fund." The purpose of this fund is to have a cushion for unexpected expenses—your car breaks down, you get laid off, you get viral meningitis and rack up an expensive hospital bill, etc.—so that you don't end up with even more debt.

"We don't want to have absolutely zero cash in the bank in case something happens and then you have to rely on a credit card," explains Carr. The fund should ideally have three to six months of your salary stashed away, but even $1,000 is better than nothing.

Once you have your emergency fund in place, you can start paying off your debt more aggressively. But Carr doesn't agree with the idea having debt should dictate your financial decisions. "If you sit in the dark and live in a tiny house, you'll pay off your student debt, sure. But what if you still want to go to happy hour in the meantime?" said Carr.

"I've met with people who have hundreds of thousands of dollars of student debt and are really focused on paying that off as quickly as possible—they're being incredibly aggressive—but other people say, 'Actually, I want to buy a home, and I want to be saving for that while paying off the debt.' It's really about thinking about what you want and creating a plan to get there."

Photo via Flickr user Davey Nin

Sign Up for a Retirement Savings Program

If you're a young person with a job, good for you. This means you probably have a retirement program set up through your employer. In most cases, this will be a 401(k) plan, an employer-sponsored investment fund for which you can put in a chunk of your income tax-free. Sometimes employers will match your contributions—say, a dollar for every dollar you put in up to 5 percent of your gross pay—which is basically free money. The money you put in there sits and grows until you're 59-and-a-half, at which point you're allowed to take it out (there are penalties for taking it out sooner) and reap the rewards of doing absolutely nothing.

Depending on your salary and your expenses (including debt payments), it might not be feasible to put in a huge percentage of your income into your 401(k). Carr recommends contributing at least as much as the company will match, since "not taking advantage of it is like your employer giving you a bonus check and you telling them to keep it."

Mary Beth Storjohann, creator of the Gen Y financial planning firm Workable Wealth, says that her number one piece of advice to young clients is to start saving money in a 401(k). "Retirement is a long way off for many millennials, so it can be easy to put saving on the back burner." Still, she says, starting a retirement account—and contributing to it each month—is the best thing you can do for your financial future.

If you don't have a traditional job—like if you're freelancing or working for yourself—you can set up a Roth IRA account in lieu of a 401(k). Unlike 401(k) plans, you have to pay taxes on the money you put into a Roth IRA, it's not automatically deducted from your paycheck, and there's a limit on how much money you can put in ($5,500 each year in a Roth IRA, rather than a percentage of your salary in a 401 (k)). Roth IRAs also let you access your principal (the amount of money you deposited in the first place, but not the interest) whenever you want, which makes them a more flexible option. If you wanted, you could open both a Roth IRA and 401(k) plan to maximize your retirement savings. Either way, Storjohann says to "follow a 'set it and forget it' mentality and you'll get into the habit of paying yourself first."

If Your Income Is Too Low, Increase It

One of the common things financial planners hear from younger clients is that they aren't making enough money to service their rent, their student loans, and their weekly binge-drinking habit, while also saving a meaningful amount. Bera said that while the common advice is to tell clients to cut back and readjust their budget, "the other thing you can be doing is earning more money."

Bera is a big advocate of the side hustle: Instead of making big compromises to your spending habits—by, say, cutting $500 out of your monthly budget (goodbye, SoulCycle)—she suggests making some extra cash on the side. I balked when she suggested I add additional work hours into my already-intense workweek, but Bera explained the side hustle can be as low-key as babysitting, dog walking, Uber driving, tutoring, selling your weird shit on Etsy, and so on.

Trying to increase your income? Take a lesson from Noisey editor Dan Ozzi, who sold Brooklyn air on eBay for $20,000.

This kind of multi-job lifestyle is becoming increasingly common among millennials—by some estimates, 35 percent of millennials have a "side business" in addition to their main job. That either says something about how our generation views earning potential or how poorly our generation is getting paid.

Either way, you shouldn't be living paycheck-to-paycheck, and if you are, then it's worth thinking about how you can change it. Like starting an adult preschool. Or writing other people's college admissions essays ($2,000 in two weeks, people!). Whatever works for you.

Photo via Flickr user Refracted Moments

While You Save for Retirement, Remember Retirement Isn't the Only Goal

No one wants to eat cat food when they're 80 because they didn't have enough money saved up for retirement. But nor should we have to eat cat food in our 20s for the sake of saving for our retirement.

"If your biggest priority is to be able to have savings for the purpose of retiring as soon as possible, can that be realistic? I suppose so," said Carr. "But more people like the idea that they want to enjoy their life now—to take a trip and have kids and buy a house, or whatever. I want retirement to be a piece of that, but it doesn't have to be the only priority."

If you're not convinced yet, consider this paper, published last year in the Journal of Mathematical Economics. The team of economists pointed out that a lot of people die earlier than they expect, making their savings moot. "Suppose you spend your whole life saving and saving for retirement, but you die the year before you retire," the study's author, Marc Fleurbaey, said in a press release that accompanied the study. "On an individual level, you might have been better off if you consumed more, earlier in life."

Grim, I know, but it adds some credibility to the idea that planning for your retirement should be secondary to enjoying your life right here and now. You don't have to feel too guilty about dropping dollars on things that mean something to you. Your 80-year-old self will forgive you.

Follow Arielle Pardes on Twitter.

This article originally appeared on VICE UK.

This weekend, hundreds of thousands of people flocked to Notting Hill to drink far too much rum, roll around to bashment, and pay a couple bucks to use a stranger's loo. We sent London photographer Charlie Kwai along to document the carnage.

Follow Charlie on Instagram here.

All images via Rick Baker

This week the Southern Hemisphere will emerge from a bleak, seemingly bottomless winter. Well at least according to the calendar—if you're in the southern states of Australia, you'll still be considering peeing yourself for warmth for the next week or so. But for Australian expat Rick Baker, the past five years have been a chilblain-free fantasy of endless summer days. Splitting his time between Australia and Los Angeles, with the occasional Hawaiian break to mix it up, he hasn't had a winter since 2010.

But before he became a perma-tanned member of the sunshine cult, Rick spent the better part of a decade without it. Growing up snowboarding he regularly skipped town as soon as it was warming up and endured almost ten years of cold.

Rick and his friends, enjoying one of many ocean breaks.

I called Rick because I'm in Melbourne, which is about to transition into a magical few months of beers and shark attacks. Given this change is pretty much the only thing people are talking about right now, I wanted to ask him what life is like when seasons don't change at all. I also wondered if there was a downside to his sunbaked existence—then maybe I could stop feeling like my whole life was a pile of waterlogged garbage.

VICE: Hey Rick, how have you avoided winter for five years?
Rick Baker: I'm in Los Angeles for most of the year, back to Australia in December, I'll stay in Australia until it starts getting cold again, then get back to the US. Also, for the last three years, a good friend of mine has done a paddle-board race in Hawaii in August. So I ended up there for three to four weeks as well.

Isn't that crazy expensive?
Yeah, but I'd rather be putting my money into experiences. That's what I've been telling myself.

Rick lives in LA, returning to Melbourne for the Australian summer.

Is it disruptive to work and the ability to have relationships?
I work for myself—I'm a designer, I build websites, and run a little snowboard magazine in Australia called Pop. When I'm working here [in LA]... I keep up with work via Skype. Other than my two brothers that live here, I could easily go a week without talking to another human face to face.

As far as being disruptive to my life—on the one hand you've got a lot more freedom to do whatever you want whenever. I'll take a laptop and sit poolside in Hawaii doing work, it's great. But you don't get the same grounding of a normal life and having a specific place to be.

Do you ever feel lonely? It's a very solo existence.
I grew up snowboarding and traveling a lot for that. People in that world are very seasonal. One of my best friends from school is sailing around the world. I'll spend a couple of weeks with him, or down in Mexico when he's there, you can tack onto other people's adventures.

I've just got to remember to be going in a direction and not just ambling about, if you're just working to pay for the next plane trip that's a little different. I'm programming and designing for pretty creative projects, so I can justify it a little easier.

Before his endless summer, Rick spend ten years chasing winter.

Is this eternal summer a reaction to snowboarding and spending so much time in endless winter?
It is funny. I remember looking through my visa applications and noticing every Australian summer I spent snowboarding. A lot of people who come from that world end up loving the beach and surf, especially as you get older.

You must miss snow.
I miss it more and more every day.

Comparing ten years skipping summer to five without a winter, what kind of impact have those experiences had on your body?
Honestly the smog in California has had more of an effect on my health than anything. I don't think it being sunny all the time is good for you. LA is in such a drought, it's sunny every day, but the city's filthy now. Everyone in LA wants it to rain because you've got dog shit smeared on every pavement and it smells like piss everywhere you go, you need some rain to wash it all away.

Understandably, it's hard to get work done when it's always sunny.

When was the last time you just had a cold?
Right now! I'm genetically susceptible to the flu, I get it every year. When it's 35 degrees [95 degrees fahrenheit] outside and you have the flu, it's the worst.

If you get sick a lot, weren't you screwed in the cold for so long?
I don't think it's related, to be honest. When you're in the mountains that much, the air's clean and you're outdoors. It's not like you're not soaked-to-the-bone wet, it doesn't rain in the mountains like it does in Australia, it's very dry. It's probably actually better for you.

What about emotionally? Are you happier or sadder depending on the endless season?
Actually I went to Oregon a few times and Portland's sort of famous for its foggy weather and it's amazing when it's raining and you see the seasons change, I love it. I think seeing things like that are better for you. Part of me does miss Melbourne winters. I find I relate more to people from places like Portland and New York than the sunbaked weirdos in California. I don't know if it's my mental health, but I miss interacting with people like that. I think the cold weather is good for us.

Constant summer involves a lot of jumping off things

That's the opposite of what I thought you'd say.
People from New York or Melbourne are harder and more snobby—but I like that.

Does sunshine get monotonous?
Actually the worst is when you're working on computers all day. It'll be brilliant sunshine and 35 degree, but you're just like, "Fuck, I want to be outside so bad." Crappy weather is a good motivator to stay indoors and get stuff done.

Is that the shittiest part of having an endless summer? Because frankly it doesn't sound so bad.
I think waking up every morning to sunshine when you're in an office job is why you end up taking time off a lot. You're looking for an excuse to get outside and enjoy it. I don't know if that really sucks, but it's tough when you've got a deadline. Also, it can get suffocating, always being in heat or air conditioning.

Endless winter actually sounds pretty sweet too

Honestly it sounds like you enjoy winter more, but parts of it must suck or you wouldn't be on this summer bender, right?
Anybody from Australia or New Zealand that's grown up in the snow industry knows that you end up spending a lot of Christmases away from your friends and family, because that's when North American winters kick in. That does get tired when you're saying goodbye to your mum at the airport every Christmas day because that's when flights are cheaper.

OK, so after spending so much time with each extreme, what's been the biggest takeaway?
All the traveling has really opened my eyes to how great of a place Melbourne is; growing up on the Mornington Peninsula you can walk down to a beach with no one on it, and very little trash. That's fantastic, I miss that. But I don't know if I can go back to those soggy, freezing cold, somehow-14-degrees-but-it-feels-like-five days in Melbourne. They were brutal.

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Photo courtesy Concordia University

A group of doctors, scientists, and human rights activists say a report on the asbestos industry, commissioned and published by Concordia University, shows big business has made its way into the classroom.

In July 2015, a report on public relations lessons learned from efforts to expand Quebec's asbestos industry—commissioned by Concordia's Luc-Beauregard Centre of Excellence in Communications Research—was posted on the university's website.

Written by Concordia lecturer and long-time communications professional John Aylen, the 102-page report outlined what went "wrong" when a consortium of Quebec developers tried to resurrect the contentious Jeffrey Mine in the town of Asbestos, QC. Aylen wrote that the project, which was ultimately unsuccessful, had failed because the project's opponents had, among other things, "traded freely on the emotional value of showcasing individuals and families who were apparent victims of asbestos disease."

"Facts cannot trump feelings in controlling public opinion," he concluded, in advice written for public relations students and professionals working with controversial industries.

However, critics of the report say the document is deeply flawed, filled with erroneous scientific claims and personal attacks. But the most egregious issue, they point out, is that Aylen fails to mention his close ties to the asbestos industry.

Aylen, Lessons From the Quebec Asbestos Industry, 2015 (1) by TannaraYelland

"Aylen does not disclose that he was a paid PR consultant for this exact project he is writing about," says Kathleen Ruff, founder of human rights group RightOnCanada.ca and one of the report's lead critics.

"He was an alter ego for them, paid to lobby on their behalf," she told VICE. "This is not disclosed."

The amphitheatre at Concordia named for asbestos entrepreneur and Concordia donor Baljit Chadha. Photo by Brigitte Noël

Also missing from the report is the fact that Aylen's former employer, Montreal businessman-cum-asbestos entrepreneur Baljit Chadha, has donated thousands of dollars to Concordia University, where he is also an emeritus member of the board of governors.

Officials confirm the document has since been taken off Concordia's website, pending a review.

The Jeffrey Mine, located in southeastern Quebec, had been operating since the 1800s and was at one point been considered one of the world biggest asbestos mines. But by the 1990s, as concerns about the mineral's safety became increasingly substantiated—linking the fibrous substance to lung disease and cancers like mesothelioma—countries rushed to limit its use and importation. Canada, while having a de facto ban at home, continued to market the substance overseas.

In a 2011 Financial Post profile, Baljit Chadha was dubbed "the new face of the asbestos industry in Canada." Chadha's trading company, Balcorp Ltd., sold the substance to India for years before spearheading the Jeffrey Mine expansion.

As Jeffrey Mine open-pit structure started to run dry, a consortium led by Balcorp Ltd. (for which Aylen acted as a spokesperson) sought funding to take the work underground in order to seek more of the mineral, a venture that required a $58-million loan. The project was unpopular and failed to secure private financing, so the provincial Liberals agreed to foot the bill in the summer of 2012. When the Parti Québecois came to power later that fall, they promptly cancelled the mine expansion.

For many, this change of heart was unsurprising: Canada had been facing massive international pressure to stop extracting and selling asbestos, and had been vehemently criticized for opposing the United Nations' efforts to list chrysotile asbestos (the specific kind of mineral extracted in Quebec) as a dangerous substance. After the failure to relaunch Jeffrey Mine, the government finally scaled down its opposition, though Canada remains far from supportive of the Rotterdam Convention list of hazardous materials.

Ruff points to a plethora of research that highlights the danger of asbestos, including the World Health Organization's outright condemnation of the mineral. "(It) causes deadly diseases, and the only way to stop people from harm is to stop using it," she says. "Canada has been playing a lead and very destructive role."

Yet in his report, Aylen writes that "numerous scientific studies have been published in recent years that support the assertion that exposure to chrysotile that respects the current occupational standard in Quebec (1 fibre/cc) is safe; the risk to health at this level of exposure is so low as to not be measurable."

Among the reasons for the mining project's failures, Aylen writes that the opponents were wrong on their interpretation of the science. "They invoked (inaccurately) the positions of the WHO and the UN," he writes, adding that the project's defeat was caused by the opponent's "highly emotional campaign," a tactic he says gave no consideration to the "facts."

The WHO report, however, states that since "there is no evidence for a threshold for the carcinogenic effect of asbestos, including chrysotile, and that increased cancer risks have been observed in populations exposed to very low levels (5, 7), the most efficient way to eliminate asbestos-related diseases is to stop using all types of asbestos."

Ruff, who has spoken out against the effects of asbestos for nearly a decade, is personally named in the report as the "principal activist opposing the venture."

"Her tactics included unsubstantiated opinions masquerading as fact, efforts discrediting science supporting safe use, personal attacks by email and in the media pre-emptively holding the moral high ground in the public debate," Aylen writes of Ruff.

Ruff questions Aylen's motives. She points to the acknowledgement section of the report, where the author thanks a man named Barry Smith.

"I would like to acknowledge the gracious and generous contributions of Mr. Barry Smith (not his real name) who wholeheartedly endorsed and supported this exercise in a true spirit of constructive analysis and forward sightedness," Aylen wrote. A few pages later, "Smith" is described as the leader of the consortium trying to purchase the mine, undeniable proof of his identity as Baljit Chadha.

"It seemed extremely odd," Ruff says of the fake name. "What did he have to hide? He didn't put fake names for us, he named us. Why would he play games like that?"

Aylen also thanked Guy Versailles, a former Balcorp spokesperson who is now a member of the Luc-Beauregard Centre's advisory board. "I am also grateful for the dedicated assistance of Mr.Guy Versailles, who reviewed the document and provided constructive input," Aylen wrote.

Ruff speculates that donations made by Chadha could have played a role in shaping the report. Chadha's Wikipedia page states that he has "sat on the Board of Governors of Concordia University since 2002 having donated thousands of dollars to the institution."

She points out that one of the university's amphitheatres is named after the businessman. "Normally that means someone has made a big donation. He clearly has a lot of influence there."

Chris Mota, Concordia's director of media relations, told VICE the university does not disclose donor information, adding that "donations to the university have no impact on academic freedom, course content, etc." He added that the university even declines donations "if we feel the donor's wishes don't coincide with our academic mission or needs."

While Mota indicates the university will soon be conducting a review of the report, Ruff and the group say they have concerns over who will be conducting it and would like to be included.

"The investigation should be independent, transparent and carried out by people who have no conflict of interest," she says. "They have not answered our request."

Robin Vose, the president of the Canadian Association of University Teachers, says the organization supports Aylen's "academic freedom to research and publish whatever he wants and making whatever collaborations he wants," he says, but with a caveat. "As a rule, the universities have to make sure that those collaborations never inappropriately influence researchers."

"The project itself sounds like a perfectly legitimate project to understand how PR works, and how it works in the field of controversial projects," he says. However, he adds that the perceived conflict of interest is symptomatic of a broader issue.

Vose further explains that federal funding for universities has gone down more than six percent in the past seven years, leaving institutions more reliant on private donations and consequently more exposed to allegations of bias or corporate interference. Avoid this, he says, would be a lot easier if universities had public funding. "That's the root of the problem."

When contacted, Aylen directed VICE's inquiries to the university's communications department. Concordia did not confirm whether he would be returning to the classroom this fall.

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