A man fires into a crowd of people in New Orleans in March. Photo via New Orleans police department.

This year I joined the ranks of New Orleanians who have seen a dead body in the street. It was in February, outside a car parts store in the section of town that real estate agents these days pass off as “New Marigny”—a bloody man lay shot dead beneath the SUV he’d been trying to fix. Weeks later, a thug robbed the dollar store at the end of our supposedly gentrified street (which also features a sweets shop and a wine bar with live jazz), shot the police officer who showed up on the scene, then fled. For the next three days, helicopters hung low over our corner of Bywater. My friends posted photos on Facebook of SWAT teams trampling through their backyards in the early-morning dew. These days the show The First 48 is camped out here, documenting New Orleans’s authentic and still horrifically robust murder culture.

The city has never been truly safe, but things are changing, says Mayor Mitch Landrieu, who this month publicly claimed New Orleans is headed toward a 40-year record low: 153 murders at the time of his December 17 announcement. That works out to a homicide rate that’s nearly ten times the national average, but still an improvement compared with 181 murders by December of last year, according to Landrieu.

Crime statistics are political battlegrounds and, feeling overwhelmed by the topic, I got in touch with database builder Alexa Surinck, whose unsuccessful hunt for 2008 murder totals prompted her to start keeping minute track of the city’s slayings in 2009. Scouring the obits is both her compulsion and hobby. She met me armed with spreadsheets from the murder database she keeps.

Surinck agrees the homicide rate is falling, but disputes aspects of Landrieu’s narrative. First off, she said, 1985 had only 152 murders by this time, so the notion of murders being at a 40-year low is incorrect. “Mitch Landrieu says the murder rate is improving, and it is, compared to the recent high of 200 in 2011, [Ronal] Serpas’s first full year as police chief,” Surinck schooled me. “But examined in the light of the murder totals at the time Landrieu took office, the reduction looks much smaller: A 2013 total of 154 would be only 12 percent less than the 174 murders New Orleans saw under [Mayor Ray] Nagin and [Police Superintendent Warren] Riley in 2009.”

Landrieu gives credit for the supposed drop in homicides to his NOLA for Life anti–gang violence initiative, a program where cops make contact with gang members citywide and offer them the carrot of job-training programs, midnight basketball games, and the like—while also threatening them with prosecution should any of their cohorts act violent. The program has reportedly helped indict almost 80 members of various street gangs on racketeering charges.

Landrieu will surely continue taking credit for the murder rate’s slight improvement as February’s election approaches. But New Orleans Police Department Captain Mike Glasser, the president of the Police Association of New Orleans, told the Times-Picayune that the credit goes to improved emergency medical services and fantastic trauma surgeons: “It’s not crime reduction, it’s the medical community that has improved.”

The New Orleans Advocate backed this theory up in a recent piece headlined “Murders Down in New Orleans, Not Shootings.” The article reported that 2013 will likely close with around 742 non-lethal shootings, just ten less than last year, and that the same number of shooting victims entering the trauma center at Interim LSU Hospital this year, but doctors saved 30 percent more lives.

“Murder is down this year," Surnick told me, "But [the rate of] gun violence is almost exactly the same.”

What has solidly plummeted over the years, however, is the amount of cops on hand to prevent crimes. “The number of police is down to a critical level,” said Surinck, “and there’s almost no patrolling as a result.” She pointed to a November 2012 WWLTV article titled “Number of NOPD Officers at 39-Year Low,” which showed that the city’s police force has lost hundreds of officers since a small post-Katrina hiring uptick. New Orleans employed only 1,260 cops in 2013. Not hiring more makes little sense to the average New Orleanian, given recent hikes on their property taxes, a Super Bowl that was supposed to be great for the local economy, and the millions in revenue the city now collects from traffic cameras.

One of the city's many small memorials to murder victims. Photo taken in 2009 by Flickr user Infrogmation of New Orleans

The raw numbers alone do not do justice to the tragedy of all the people—especially young people—murdered for nothing. Surinck’s 2013 spreadsheet is lousy with young people:

On March 24, 19-year-old Gregory Hills was shot dead blocks from where his stepfather was gunned down in his car. That same month, 16-year-old Keshawn Bell was discovered facedown in the grass near railroad tracks in Pontchartrain Park (he was suspected to have been shot by fellow teens), and 16-year-old Ralphmon Green was shot at an intersection and later died at the hospital. In December, 18-year-old Kenneth Young was found stuffed in the trunk of a blood-smeared car abandoned out in the woods of Slidell after being shot and killed in Gentilly.

Five teens at the NET Charter High School for at-risk students lost their lives to bullets over the course of 2013: Antwan Seaton (17) was shot dead in his Holly Grove home on October 26; the body of Terrence Roberts (15) was found in a vacant lot on November 11; Isaiah Johnston (19) was shot in the face in the parking lot of an apartment complex on June 18 and died the next day; Leonard George (18) was killed along with his mother and sister in their Gentilly home on September 11; and Tyrin Whitfield (19) was found dead in a bullet-riddled car on October 7.

In July, just after the Trayvon Martin case was decided in favor of shooter George Zimmerman, unarmed 14-year-old Marshall Coulter jumped a six-foot fence in the Marigny neighborhood and was shot in the head from a distance of 30 feet by homeowner Merritt Landry—another case of a white man firing at a black teen he found to be suspicious. Coulter survived but his mother Christiana Ford told me for an article in the Louisiana Weekly that “his mobility is severely limited and he drools a lot.” New Orleans’s DA is deliberating whether or not to indict Landry for attempted second-degree murder.

On Sunday, June 23, a five-year-old girl shot and killed herself with a .38 after her mother went out to the store then stopped on the way back to reportedly watch a street fight. The child had previously been documented as having suffered suicidal ideation brought about from sexual abuse, but still, her death was not considered a suicide and her mother was charged with second-degree murder—a charge a judge later tossed out.

In August, an 18-year-old nanny walking home from the park was struck in the back by a bullet that killed one-year-old Londyn Samuels in her arms—this just days before an 11-year-old New Orleans girl, Arabian Gayles, was shot and killed while holding her one-year-old cousin. The baby lived, but two adults were injured after gunmen unloaded a dozen bullets into the house. Then on November 13 in Algiers on the West Bank, the youngest victim of the year, seven-month-old Deshawn Kinard, was killed along with his 25-year-old father Deshawn Butler when their car was ambushed and fired upon crossing the Crescent City Connection bridge.

Possibly the most heartwrenching story of young violence this year belongs to ten-year-old Ka’Nard Allen. He shot in the face and leg at his tenth birthday party in May 2012, where his five-year-old cousin and a woman were killed, and two men were wounded when three perps sprayed the street with bullets. That October, Ka’Nard’s father was stabbed to death in a domestic dispute. Then at a Mother’s Day parade in May 2013, Ka’Nard was shot a second time during gun battle, along with 18 other victims.

Though miraculously no one died last Mother’s Day, the horror of that mass shooting still reverberates through New Orleans. Another victim of that shooting was writer Deborah Cotton, an outspoken anti-violence advocate who had blogged about the unfortunate trend of gun violence at second-line parades. This morbid coincidence, along with Ka’Nard’s horrific luck, compounded the feeling among New Orleans’s citizenry that we will all be directly touched by gun violence at some point, and nothing will ever change.

Among those killed were many struggling to make a difference: 18-year-old Americorps volunteer Joseph Massenburg, from Illinois, was gunned down on April 2; Zachary Carpenter, a 30-year-old who had been trying to build a New Orleans skateboarding community by teaching kids and building and improving skating facilities was found in his car with a single bullet through his head on May 10; and Ashley Qualls, a 25-year-old social worker, was shot and killed on July 9 while walking home through the Treme neighborhood from her job at the Odyssey House substance abuse treatment center.

New Orleans residents march in a rally against crime in February 2011. Photo via Flickr user Derek Bridges

As the New Year approaches, the notion that the city is less violent has been negated by more and more gruesome murders. Five days before Christmas, 45-year old armored car guard Hector Trochez was executed while bringing money into a bank. The same holiday week, French Quarter artist Tshepiso Matlapeng-Sani, who just after Thanksgiving had been beaten with a gun and kicked in front of her Central City home as her nine-year-old daughter looked on, died of brain swelling. Police maintain her death was brought on by other medical complications, and will not pursue a murder investigation.

As for how many of these violent offenders are being apprehended and indicted, Surinck and the public are at a bit of a loss. “That data results from sessions of the state grand juries held at the prompting of the DA’s office, and I don’t have access to it,” said Surinck, who chooses to focus just on the deaths. “But a very, very rough measure would be suspects I found in media reports as compared to murders. For instance, 2013 to date: 124 suspects attached to 73 murders out of 153, meaning 47.7 percent [of cases] with suspects, and 52.3 percent without. One number that’s often used to measure the attention paid to solving homicides is the ‘clearance rate,’ which one authority defined to me as: A case is ‘cleared’ when police have ‘identified a perpetrator, have sufficient evidence to charge him, and take him into custody, or he dies or is already in custody.’” In 2010, NOPD cleared only 25 percent of its murders, a rate comparable to Puerto Rico’s. By 2012, NOPD had brought that up to 39 percent.

Though it is always worth remembering the fallen, I realize my simply rounding up the year’s most heinous crimes doesn’t necessarily help anyone. I too am deficient in the solutions department. Consider this piece a simple S.O.S. from New Orleans to the world. And as we close out this year with supposed record-low murders—and with our city elections on the way—recall the names listed above and remember that very, very little has changed.

Michael Patrick Welch is a New Orleans musician, journalist, and author of books including The Donkey Show and New Orleans: the Underground Guide. His work has appeared at McSweeney's, Oxford American, Newsweek, Salon, and many other publications. Follow him on Twitter here.

Previously: Elementary School Kids Review Retro Jazz, Creole Punk, and Noise Music

This has been a landmark year for New York hip-hop. The huns who were at the gates last year basically ran the game in 2013. A$AP Rocky dropped one the most commercially successful projects (Live.Love.A$AP) and A$AP Ferg and Action Bronson released two of the most critically acclaimed (Trap Lord and Blue Chips 2, respectively). And although Beast Coasters Joey Bada$$, the Flatbush Zombies, and the Underachievers lost their friend Capital STEEZ in late 2012, they carried on his legacy with one of the decade's hypest nationwide hip-hop tours. Not to mention, older artists like the Wu-Tang Clan continued to hold it down for NYC, reminding the world what real hip-hop sounds like. Through all this insanity, photographer Verena Stefanie Grotto was there with her camera capturing all of the moments that speak to what hip-hop was, is, and will be in the city that never sleeps. Let the following pictures take you on that trip down memory lane. 

Photographer Verena Stefanie was born and bred in Bassano del Grappa, Italy. The small town is not known for hip-hop, but they do make a very tasty grape-based pomace brandy there called grappa. Stefanie left Bassano del Grappa at the age of 17 to go and live the wild skateboarding life in Barcelona, Spain, where she worked as the Fashion Coordinator for VICE Spain. Tired of guiding photographers to catch the best shots, she eventually grabbed the camera herself and is now devoted to documenting artists, rappers, style-heads, and more. She recently directed a renowned documentary about the Grime scene in UK and has had photo features in GQ, Cosmopolitan, VICE, and many more. 

Check out her website and follow her on Twitter and Instagram.

@VerenaStefanie

Photos by Nate Miller.

In her latest column, conservative pundit Ann Coulter drags out everyone's favorite whipping boy of a holiday, Kwanzaa, for her annual verbal lynching. Ann, like many on the right, claims that Kwanzaa was invented by the FBI to discredit black militant groups. Started in 1966 by Professor Maulana Ron Karenga, Kwanzaa was designed to celebrate the ancient heritage of the African diaspora, yet that doesn't stop people from trying to find fault.

Ann giggles at practically every aspect of the holiday, especially the idea of collective community action:

“Kwanzaa praises collectivism in every possible area of life—economics, work, personality, even litter removal. ('Kuumba: Everyone should strive to improve the community and make it more beautiful.') It takes a village to raise a police snitch.”

Helping to keep garbage off the street is a slippery slope toward communism, as we all know. Making light of Kwanzaa is like challenging a blind man to a scavenger hunt. Research by Keith A. Mayes, author of Kwanzaa: Black Power and the Making of the African-American Holiday Tradition, claims that only around two million people celebrate the holiday in America. That's half the population of Los Angeles. Kwanzaa is about as accepted in America as Ramadan is in Israel. I wanted to know who this dedicated minority of a minority that celebrates Kwanzaa really is.

I went to the Kwanzaa Heritage Festival in the Leimert Park neighborhood of LA. Los Angeles claims to be the birthplace of the holiday, because Professor Karenga taught at Cal State Long Beach when he invented Kwanzaa, so I hoped to get some insight as to why anyone would participate in something that a large subsection of the American population thinks is ridiculous. What I found was a small, but passionate group of people making an attempt to bring about positive change in the world.

Kwanzaa is celebrated for a week, from December 26 to January 1. Adherents light seven candles, one each night, which is a strange callout to the Jewish holiday of Hanukkah, which is also celebrated in December. Each candle represents one of the following Swahili virtues:

• Umoja (Unity): To strive for and to maintain unity in the family, community, nation, and race.
• Kujichagulia (Self-Determination): To define ourselves, name ourselves, create for ourselves, and speak for ourselves.
• Ujima (Collective Work and Responsibility): To build and maintain our community together and make our brothers' and sisters' problems our problems, and to solve them together.
• Ujamaa (Cooperative Economics): To build and maintain our own stores, shops, and other businesses and to profit from them together.
• Nia (Purpose): To make our collective vocation the building and developing of our community in order to restore our people to their traditional greatness.
• Kuumba (Creativity): To do always as much as we can, in the way we can, in order to leave our community more beautiful and beneficial than we inherited it.
• Imani (Faith): To believe with all our hearts in our people, our parents, our teachers, our leaders, and the righteousness and victory of our struggle.

Ngona, a merchant at the festival, tried his best to explain the importance of Kwanzaa to the African-American community. He said he'd been celebrating since the beginning, told me he knew Professor Karenga, and saw the holiday as a way to “bring people together.” According to him, “heroin, crack cocaine, all those things are destroying us. We need this.” With his son behind him, Ngona expressed hope that future generations of black kids would be proud of where they came from, which he said they're slowly forgetting.

Like any street festival, there were vendors like Ngona shilling their wares to passersby. Small-time entrepreneurs thrive on gatherings of this nature, because they are a cheap, easy way to expose their goods to neighbors and like-minded consumers. I'm not in the market for a bongo or a ceremonial tribal mask, but someone must be.

Other vendors were less obviously benign. Thomas Loftin, a man that purported to be a business expert, was hawking motivational DVDs and seminars. He said they would teach me how to purchase land on the suburban outskirts of Los Angeles County in order to build a home that I would then sell for a profit to the lower income residents of inner city areas like Leimert Park that are being forced out by gentrification. 

Where would I get the capital for an investment like this? A low-interest bank loan, of course. As everyone knows, it's very easy to get a bank loan. All you have to do is ask and they'll give you money! Also, buying land in the suburbs is super smart.

Selling get-rich-quick schemes in poor areas like Leimert Park is smart, and I bet it works more often than not. I asked Thomas if he lives in Leimert Park, and he said that he didn't. He lives in Rancho Palos Verdes, a wealthy black neighborhood near Inglewood. 

Commerce is one area in which Kwanzaa is similar to other winter holidays. Making money is also a major part of Christmas. 

The Christmas holiday formed around the existing Winter Solstice as a means to convert pagans to Christianity. December 25 might not even be Jesus's birthday. These dates were just useful to the early Christians. There's also that whole thing about Jesus being a deity who died for our sins and ascended to Heaven to sit next to his dad and help pass judgment on the human population of Earth.

All of these bizarre bits of history and theology aren't exactly considered when you're out buying an iPad for your sister, but Christmas is as much a man-made celebration as Kwanzaa. It only was created a few centuries earlier. Just because something is old doesn't make it more valid. If that were true, then we should all be Zoroastrians. 

The neighborhood of Leimert Park is almost 80 percent black. That sort of population homogeneity in a major city makes it one of the centers of black culture in America, and in that country, much resentment still exists toward blacks. The Polarized Public? Why American Government Is So Dysfunctional, a new book by Emory University political scientist Alan I. Abramowitz, publishes an analysis of exit polls from 2012 election voters by the American National Election Studies. Those voters who self-identified as conservative Republicans scored high marks in what the author refers to as “racial resentment,” which roughly translates to a feeling that black people are moochers who could be happier if they worked harder.

In an environment like this, Kwanzaa and other community activities seem highly advantageous for black Americans. Kwanzaa encourages responsibility, honesty, respect for others, charity, a strong work ethic, and other traditionally American values. What part of that is offensive to Ann Coulter is anyone's guess. The United States government isn't doing much for black communities other than distributing EBT and welfare, and even that's too much intervention for conservatives to stomach. Kwanzaa attempts to encourage positive change in the black community through not only collective action, but also individual responsibility. 

Also, at a time when pundits want to remind minorities that Santa and Jesus “were white male historical figures,” maybe black people would be more comfortable with their own holiday. 

The one thing that has to go from Kwanzaa if it's ever going to be even remotely popular is poetry. This lady, and a few others, interrupted the festivities to berate us with their ham-fisted rhyming about social justice and economic equality. I don't care if your poem is about free tacos and handjobs at the Senior Center near my apartment. I don't want to hear it.

Poetry is like line dancing. No one actually enjoys it, and everyone's already tried.

Yes, Kwanzaa seems pretty fucking ridiculous. I'm still not sure why this lady is dressed up like a clown. I was scared of her, and I'm sure I wasn't the only one. Yet, how is this any more absurd than a morbidly obese white man piloting a flying sled to drop presents down a chimney in celebration of the birth of the half-human son of God? Really, every holiday is horseshit. They're all constructs of the cultural circumstances of the era they were invented in.

Maybe it's finally time for the war on Kwanzaa to end. It's a harmless event that might actually help a few people. Plus, at least Kwanzaa's main purpose isn't to sell toys... yet.

@dave_schilling

Image via.

From Girls to “Grown Woman” (and more important stuff, too, but I’m here for the peppermint gum and sparkly pencils of girl stuff, OK?), 2013 was a big year for girls. Here is the girl year in review, along with some non-committal predictions for 2014.

SELFIES

Listen, girls were on it from day zero, but in 2013 “Word of the Year” deciders, the think-piece community, and every mom discovered (but maybe didn’t understand? I don’t know) the significance of what has always been a fundament of self-representation and self-expression in girl world. So cute!

EYEBROWS

Big eyebrows are always the answer. If that “eyebrow thickness as economic indicator” theory holds, that means that Cara Delevingne’s nu-Moss influence could be responsible for more than making it just fine-fine to wear a onesie to the airport. In 2013, thick, mega, for-real eyebrows—to be clear, not the “more” version of a clean arch; I mean face-dominating aesthetic pillars—moved from a niche idea to a regular thing.

Related: Kim Kardashian’s baby, North West—who I found out late was a girl; didn’t anyone else see North, the 1994 Elijah Wood fantastamaboringa?—has some legit eyebrows, which meant Kim was accused of waxing them, which is both absurd and mean. Also, I guess Kim is another aspect of the year in girls, so I’ll just wedge her in here.

BEING UNLIKABLE

The ways in which real and fictional women are and are not likeable was a question both asked and sort-of answered in pop culture this year, liiiiike when some Breaking Bad watchers decided that Skyler White was unfairly wife-ing up Walter’s final-season menace parade (Anna Gunn, the actress who plays Skyler, wrote a solid op-ed about it), and in “you in danger, girl” movies liiiiike The Bling Ring and Spring Breakers, and in Claire Messud’s book The Woman Upstairs and its “would you be her friend tho” review cycle, aaaaand liiiiike the likability battle between a Jennifer Lawrence and an Anne Hathaway. I just want everyone to be safe and happy, so I think I have pirouetted myself out of this discussion, but it seemed interesting for the rest of you this year.

MONOGRAMS

I guess it was those Clare Vivier bags that really did it? My ancient and beloved ID bracelet precludes me from wearing too many initialized accessories, but this variety of explicit and Instagramable personalization was a rager in 2013. As a sub-head here, I guess I should mention those designer logo riffs on tees and hats, buuuut they seem a lot more cynical and less on-zeitgeist than “THESE ARE MY LETTERS! THIS IS ME!” so let’s leave it at that.

CHELSEA PERETTI

This is my list, and I will do whatever I want, and I choose Chelmillionaire as my personal Nike Sky Hi-light of the year in girl. Chelsea’s stupid-sounding but deeply funny and perfectly self-indulgent podcast Call Chelsea Peretti started in 2012, but I didn’t get into it until earlier this year, so it counts—plus girl is on Brooklyn Nine-Nine doing more comedy with her iPhone case in the background than exists in total on other shows, plus-plus she has reached the all-caps-y zenith of Twitter. Year of Chelsea.

JUICE

Juicing was correctly identified this year as the quintessential girl food trend, beating out gluten-free everything because gluten-free is still food. Juicing is cute because it’s tasty, expensive, and ostensibly healthy but often very, very, very sugary—thus owning all four food-related Girl Quadrants.

STYLE

Cracking open the style piñata of 2013 girldom reveals a few weird 2012 repeats. We’re still with the “who, me?” ripped jean-knees, the ubiqui arm parties (that’s Man Repeller for a few inches of multi-media bracelets), and the embellished, bejeweled, printed, cropped, and cut-up sweatshirt, which held its post-Kenzo heat steady this year. This was a nice outcome because nothing is more ideally wearable and appealing than a sweatshirt, but it was also a little sad because I want sweatshirts with puffy arms and awkward cuts to be available to me as a visiting-my-parents closet choice, and not a replayed, overdone fashion thing.

Anyways, this year was really about THE POINT: pointy nails, pointy rings, and pointy bracelets, necklaces, and earrings, in zigzag, lightning, diamond, and spike formations—delicate and gold and tiny in scope but jutting every which way. I guess pointy-toed pumps were also back, but D’Orsay flats easily overwhelmed them, at least in my vision. Also, on the issue of 2013 rings, I’m not so sure about the ones that ride way up above the knuckle. What do you think? They’re weird, right?

LORDE, MILEY, TAYLOR

And HAIM too, but they fit in my subtitle less neatly. Much of the serious music and music-industry discussion in 2013 swung around those three girls like ribbons on a maypole, between “Royals” (actually 2012 but you know what I mean), the Sinead stuff, the beige latex panties, “Wrecking Ball,” and the kitty-cat and birthday party Instagrams, and even considering the concern-trolling, beauty standards, pop wars, something, something, something, they seemed to just… handle it.

BEYONCÉ

If I had written this last week when I was really supposed to (my schedule is on a three-to-seven day delay because I got so, so sick), Queen B would have been the pink-on-black flag planted firmly on Girl Mountain. But now it feels weird to end on something so obviously the pinnacle of the year in girl, so how about I put Bey second to last? Sure.

Related: WASN’T THAT CRAZY THOUGH?

COZY

This month sometime Hello Giggles boss @sofifii tweeted, “I think a 2014 trend is going be grown women sleeping with teddy bears and childhood blankets.” This is also my prediction for 2014. I recently discovered that I have a blankie that I not only sleep with but also bring with me to my desk in the morning to make my 5 AM wake-up feel a lot better. I’m pretty sure that a renewed (or new, I guess, either way) sense of self-care and self-reliance—which includes a commitment to basic tactile comfort in order to generate the mind and body energies required of a 2014-style, self-sufficient, independent, cool-customer “Grown Woman” (callback!)—will be important. I mean maybe not with actual teddy bears, but let’s take an opportunity to be alone with ourselves and our soft things once in a while (I recommend Friday nights), so next year’s girl in review will be about how we all did amazing stuff at work, were kind to each other, had fun, and went to bed all exhausted but done.

@KateCarraway

I wasn’t a big fan of most of the movies I saw last year but that didn’t stop me from spending my hard earned money to sit a dark room and watch glorified TV with a bunch of strangers in 2013. I wouldn’t say that this year was lot better than last and in retrospect there were several movies I did enjoy—even if in some cases it was just because they were so bad, how could you not love it? And then there were the ones that were just so bad they were actually just bad.

Stoker

I remember being confused as to what was going on when I was watching this movie and I feel confused trying to remember it now. Something about a guy killing his brother and fucking his brother’s wife and daughter. It seems like Park Chan-wook’s films love piling on perverse plot twists one after another, so that pretty soon what seemed like the original story is suddenly up to its neck in shit. All that stuff is great, and I love being confused, but I prefer to be confused by imagery and time rather than by what the ridiculous plot is doing. At least Chan-wook knows how to compose a shot, making this another film that might be better if you could never hear the dialogue.

Spring Breakers

I think always go into a Harmony Korine movie with a certain set of expectations, and a corresponding range of expectations as to how those original expectations will be totally thrown off. Spring Breakers is maybe the further afield of all of movies. So much so, it left a strange taste in my mouth. So many scenes here felt manipulated into ridiculousness beyond the point of what could even seem unsettling as art. Everyone seemed to think that the Britney Spears bit was funny, but I was just like, “Nah.” Long after, I still keep thinking about so many of the film’s images (specifically Gucci Mane's cameo) and the fact that I can still remember how weird it felt sitting in a room full of people watching what often felt like a mix between a thug mafia epic and a college bro’s wet dream means that there'll never really be anything quite like this playing at mainstream box offices for a long time.

Evil Dead

It’s no secret most remakes are total shit. I think I went into this expecting to either fall asleep or laugh my ass off, not with it, but at it. And yet, it wasn’t all that bad. For once, the director framed the remake not as an update or a recreation of the original, but more so a totally different story told using only the framework of the original set up. I imagine you could remake anything in that way: playing out the story using any one of the hundred nearly arbitrary plotlines that could unfold at any point during a film. Welcome to having somewhat of an imagination.

Upstream Color

Wow, an actual American film featuring an onslaught of cryptic imagery, mazey plotlines, ambient noise, beautiful shots, continuously unfolding repercussions, and more importantly, setting out to make a film that’s more a puzzle than a picture. For me, this was easily the best film of the year, with a lingering impact somewhat like what I imagine seeing 2001: A Space Odyssey in theaters might have felt like. In an ideal world, there would dozens of films of this breadth coming out every year, but for now it remains a beacon of hope amidst mediocrity.

Frances Ha

I mean, I guess I wanted to like this. It's clearly well directed and Greta Gerwig is charming enough that you can easily spend 90 minutes watching her doing whatever it was that she was doing. I don’t know, I felt like I was reading someone’s blog played out onscreen. I know the “contemporary young person trying to find his or her place among the rich kids in New York” genre is really popular these days, but I’d probably rather watch Days of Our Lives.

The Bling Ring

What is the song in this movie that they used that goes, 'Duh / duh duh duh / duh duh duh... Wee / wee wee wee / wee wee wee'? That song is catchy in the “I fucking hate that song, I’m going to listen to it so I can feel angry about life” sort of way, which is also pretty much how I feel about this movie. I pulled up the trailer from YouTube for this movie to give myself a quick refresher on it, and honestly mistook the advertisement before the trailer as part of what I remembered of the film itself. I don’t think idolizing douchebag celebrity culture is cute, even if you end up robbing them.

Jobs

Dude. This movie. I don’t really know where to begin. Mostly when I told people I went to see the Steve Jobs movie starring Ashton Kutcher they were like, "Why the fuck would you do that?" I don’t know, but this movie was so far beyond bad, it went beyond bad back to good, through bad again, and into totally transcendently brain damagedly awkward and unforgettable. I kind of wonder if whoever directed this had ever seen a movie before he tried to make a movie, and for some reason he decided to start with a fucking Steve Jobs biopic. There are so many inexplicable elements of what went on here, I don’t even know where to begin. Ashton Kutcher is, well, Ashton Kutcher, so he cancels himself out even if he’s trying to put on his “serious actor” pants. It’s sad, and it’s amazing. The plotline jumps like a song written by The Shaggs, leading even the clear story of a boring man’s life through Wizard of Oz-like timeline leaps. There’s a five-minute hallucination scene where Steve Jobs takes acid at college and we follow Ashton around frolicking in fields seeing colors for no real reason. There’s also that feeling of manufactured importance to every moment, as if Jobs invented the cure for cancer or walked on Mars, instead of just, you know, being the guy who invented the iPod. Moreover, and I don’t know if the filmmakers realized this, but it makes Steve look like a total dick—he never really does anything of genius, just steals ideas from others, all while being a fuckface to his wife, and denying his only child. I could see this movie becoming, one sad day not too far in our future, the new Rocky Horror. 

The Conjuring / You're Next

I wish I could just give up on trying to believe that there will ever be another truly terrifying, haunting, beautiful popular horror movie. No matter how much money they have to spend or what weird premise that seems compelling and fucked at first, it always seems like by halfway through the film everything has already fallen apart, and you’re sitting there waiting for it to be over. Have half of the directors of movies like these two ever seen a horror movie? Did they ever imagine that what’s often most effective when trying to be unsettling has nothing to do with plot, and that if you’d just focus on fucked images and sound and disorientation and other elements besides why the ghost’s mad and what their past is or who the killer is and who survives, you’d already be miles ahead of these shitty dressed up melodramas? 

Runner Runner

I don’t know why any movie even remotely related to poker has to be so bro-ish. Oh wait, yes I do: almost everybody who plays poker is a bro. If you were looking for a movie that got into the gambling world like Rounders, don’t look here. Ben Affleck is looking a little chunky, and he hasn’t taken any acting classes. Justin Timberlake is still the main guy from N’Sync. This is another one I went into expecting to maybe fall asleep or get up in the middle and go buy some nachos at the concession stand and maybe never come back, but I made it to the end, which is saying something. Maybe it’s saying: here’s a sweet place to waste your time—which, I guess, is how a lot of people think about most movies.

The Counselor

I knew something didn’t add up when I kept hearing how awful this movie was, and yet it was written by the masterful Cormac McCarthy and directed by the sometimes masterful Ridley Scott. Truth is, this film got shit on because it’s not the fast paced Scorsese-like thriller that the trailer predicted. It’s mostly made up of long conversations about death, remorse, and culpability. At face value, it's a drug cartel heist movie, but instead of coming on with body counts and car crashes, that hopelessness is delivered in straight language, around action more conceptual than a regular old shoot ‘em up. And that's great. Immediately after this movie was over, ending not with a bang but with a whimper, one of the bros in the theater shouted, “WHAT THE FUCK?!” That should happen way more often.

12 Years a Slave

As if to counteract the poopfests of Lincoln and Django Unchained, this film went straight for the gut. We saw it on Thanksgiving, a good time to be reminded of what reams of hell provided the foundation for America. There were several times throughout this movie that it provided a feeling almost like it was daring you to turn away with long takes of misery that created a tension in the theater that could be cut with a butter knife—a rare trait among most contemporary films. I did think it was funny that Brad Pitt showed up as the sole abolitionist in the movie, and later was revealed as an executive producer, like, “Here’s some cash to make your film, as long as I get to be the good guy.” That’s cool, though. Brad Pitt’s just fine. 

Nebraska

I don’t usually get off on movies whose greatest asset is depicting a certain locale really perfectly, but by far the best thing about Nebraska was how Nebraska-y it is. Obese old white people sitting in their living rooms watching TV, getting drunk and losing their memories while waiting to die. The premise of an old man thinking he’s won a million dollars based on a Publishers Clearing House-like sweepstakes advertisement and the false hope that comes with it is more than just a placeholder for a tour through one Alzheimer’s-ridden old man’s nearly forgotten life. Overall, this movie was pretty fucking sad, despite how well it tried to drown out the sadness with humor. So, you know, buy popcorn and nachos and you can drown it out even more.

Photo via LiveJournal.

Imagine taking the SAT but instead of just the standard pressure of needing to succeed at this test or sacrifice your entire future, you now have video cameras and federal agents watching you too.

That's how Russia wants to do it. They're planning on installing video camera surveillance into nearly every classroom as early as this spring, according to a story in the Moscow Times.

It's the latest development in the ongoing saga of Mother Russia's efforts at educational reform, which had previously been dominated by rampant corruption and palm greasing, allowing only the wealthiest and most well-connected students to attend universities. It meant that about $520 million a year was being spent on bribery of college admissions officials, according to a report by the UN cultural agency UNESCO.

In 2009, the federal government admitted the problem needed to be fixed and implemented their version of the SAT, the Unified State Exam or the EGE.

It's been part of an overall modernization effort led by former President Dmitry Medvedev, Russia's current prime minister, who believes the test directly combats corruption and will lead to greater transparency.

Education and Science Minister Dmitry Livanov echoed this goal when speaking about the plans to add camera surveillance. “Increasing transparency, increasing public control over the unified exam is one of the major directions of our work. When everybody learns to take the exam honestly, there will be no need for these control measures," he said.

The SAT is no stranger to controversy in the US, and Russia is going through the same debate now with the EGE. Standardized tests may provide a unified rule of measurement, but is it the most accurate way to gauge a student's worth?

Sergei Komkov of the Russian Educational Fund, an organization that has challenged the legality of the EGE in court, doesn’t think so. “It’s a very simplistic way of testing knowledge,” he told RFERL. “It does not reflect the completeness, the range, of knowledge, and how it should be tested.”

Standardized tests are also criticized for focusing more on trivia than reasoning ability. Student Anna Florinskya told RFERL, “There are questions which aren't thought through. For example, there was a question about literature: ‘What color eyes does Anna Karenina have?’”

Additionally, educators are complaining that the students are less prepared for college since their education has become so focused on preparation for the test.

Professor Yevgenia Petrova of Saratov State University told the New York Times, “We see that students might do brilliantly on the EGE, but they come here and don’t know a lot.”

Tougher too is the notion that the EGE may not actually be fixing the problem of corruption, only redirecting it. The statistics from the Interior Ministry show that corruption has in fact doubled in 2009.

Sergei Mironov of the Federation Council, which is Russia's upper parliament, has said the EGE has only had a negative impact. In a story from the New York Times, he’s quoted as saying the EGE “experiment is playing a negative role.”

So will adding further pressure to the testing situation reduce cheating? Will adding cameras to the classroom fix everything?

I found a positive example of the usage in the case of the University of Central Florida’s testing centers, which implemented camera surveillance and reported a drop in cheating to 14 suspected incidents out of 64,000 tests taken.

Yet in the case of the EGE, cheating is generally not happening in the classroom so much as answers or copies of the test are being purchased ahead of time. So time will tell if the latest crackdown has a positive effect or is simply adding more pressure to an already pressurized situation.

According to the New York Times, Yevgeny Yamburg, the director of State Educational Institution Educational Center No. 109, where students prepare for the test, said, “It’s an old Russian tradition to take the worst from the West and try it here.”

“The idea is not bad,” said Maria Zamyatina, 15. “It just hasn’t been polished.”

@grantpa

While perusing the hellish online dating site that is OkCupid, I found on their homepage an invite for an event called the Ball. The Ball describes itself as “LA's leading Jewish singles event,” which is weird because I always considered the leading Jewish singles event to be going alone to a matinee showing of a Woody Allen film. Regardless, this “ball” is a big party for horny Jews that happens annually on Christmas Eve. I figured, Hey I'm Jewish and horny. Maybe I should go. I signed up for the event, which cost $25 (already a bad sign), and got a confirmation email giving me more details.

The moment I received the confirmation I felt an overwhelming sense of dread. My decision was far too hasty. I saw that this party was at a nightclub called Bootsy Bellows in West Hollywood, a place I had never heard of. When I asked a friend of mine if she knew about it, she told me that it's a club owned by David Arquette, and he performs puppet shows there sometimes. I was also told that Hollywood d-list celebs like to hang out there, including everyone's favorite bad boy, Corey Feldman.

However, the ticket was already purchased, and rather than demand a refund, I decided that I should go, drag a Jewish friend with me, and try to have fun. I had not been in a room with a bunch of Jews since my Bat Mitzvah, and my mom always complains that I don't socialize with my people enough. Maybe I’d even meet a handsome young doctor who could explain this rash I’ve had under my left boob for six months now. Maybe David Arquette would be there with some puppets who would wonderfully reenact Moses parting the Red Sea, or Jerry Seinfeld going on a rant about what the hell does an “everything bagel” even mean? How can everything be on a bagel?

I arrived at Bootsy Bellows around 10:15. There was a small line outside the door, and a bunch of scenes from various movies where people attempt to go clubbing came to mind. Are we going to have to go through a bouncer who will tell us we can't get in, because we don't look hot enough? Or do only men get that sort of treatment? No wait, I'm on a list. I can't be told no. I paid to be here. Oh god, I paid to be here. What the hell is wrong with me? Who Am I? Am I human, or am I a dancer?

The line moved quickly and before I could sink further into existential dread, I was let inside Bootsy Bellows where the stench of man-sweat and liquor hit me quickly. Luckily, those are two scents I can get behind. However, the further I ventured inside, the stronger the place smelled of cologne and more cologne. I headed straight to the bar and offered to buy my friend a drink. The total for two whiskey drinks was $28, which made me cry a little. I quickly realized that I could only afford one more drink for myself the whole night and proceeded to cry some more.

Looking around me, I noticed that nearly every woman in the room was short like me. This really made me feel like I belonged. I am an even five feet tall, and to be in a room full of fellow vertically-challenged Jewish women made me want to start a girl gang. Then again, everything makes me want to start a girl gang. I really just want an excuse to wear a leather jacket and have the nickname “Crusher.” 

Almost every man was wearing a button-up shirt, had curly hair, and looked like his name could be Joshua, Benjamin, or Jacob (except for the chill black DJ), but Bootsy Bellows still had the audacity to leave their Christmas trees around the place. That really put a damper on the whole “Jewish singles night” thing.

The night started off feeling like a middle school dance. Everyone was standing around talking and trying to flirt. The DJ looked like he hated his life as he played top 40 jams from three years ago. Fast forward to around 11:30 PM, and the dance floor was jam-packed with horny, sweaty men and women. The highlight of the dance floor was seeing a group of five young guys convulsing in a circle, handing each other a fedora every time one of them went into the center of the circle to dance. Some sort of “you're the king now, wear your prohibition-chic crown, and dance your kingly dance.”

What's both beautiful and horrifying about nightclubs is the men there are on the prowl. They make it clear that they're on the prowl and will make sure you have been spoken to by someone of their gender at least once throughout the night. A guy named Ben (surprise, surprise) came up to me and immediately complimented my glasses. He acted as if I was being extremely brave for wearing glasses and later assured me that I hit a “sweet spot” for certain kinds of Jewish guys. I let Ben know that none of the men at this place were hitting my sweet spot, so I could care less if I hit any of their sweet spots. I then admitted that I'm not entirely sure what a sweet spot even is.

Ben (who is married) was genuinely inquisitive as to why I didn't find any of the men there attractive. I explained that my preferred brand of Jew is more the “self-loathing atheist” kind of Jew and not so much the “make my parents proud and wisely invest money in business things” type of Jew. I wanted a Coen brother in a room full of Ari Golds. Ben understood and left my friend and me, because he promised to help get his recently divorced friend laid. I envy such beautiful friendships.

Around 20 minutes later, I had gotten myself another drink and was kind of tipsy. (Those drinks were expensive, but strong.) Another guy sat next to us. He was extremely drunk, but actually sweet. I can't remember for the life of me what his name was. I decided to pretend his name was Josh. Josh was trying to get us to dance, which is something I don't do unless I am legit drunk. I  made it my mission to become more inebriated, and as luck would have it, managed to score a free drink. 

Cut to around 1:00 AM. Nearly everyone is dancing. Some are shaking their tuchus (is there a plural to tuchus? Tuchuses? Tuchusi?) on tables and chairs. At this point, I am also pretty drunk but could only muster up enough fake enthusiasm to dance to two songs. It was nearing the end of the night, so people were pairing up on the dance floor desperately trying to find their Mr. or Mrs. Right. In every direction I looked, someone was making out with someone. Sadly, my libido checked out for the night after a middle-aged man grabbed me and twirled me in several circles while calling me “doll."

I was amazed at how much kissing and groping was going on all around me, which really shouldn't have been so shocking considering I was at a party for young, single people who have been drinking copious amounts of overpriced liquor. Not only that, but these weren't just a bunch of single 20-somethings. These were a bunch of single, Jewish 20-somethings. That means there was an added pressure from their unseen but ever-present guilt-inducing mothers to make babies before grandma Ruth dies. She isn't getting any younger. Oh, but don't worry too much she still has a lot of life in her (knock on wood). Then again, you never know!

In other words, Jewish years work a lot like dog years. For instance, a woman who is 26 years old is actually 36 years old in Jewish years. That means she only has four years left to get married and give birth before she is branded a spinster and only seen by the rest of the family on holidays drinking all the wine and talking about her extensive candle collection.

With no man to desperately cling to 30 minutes before closing time, I gave up and left. Did I have an amazing time? No. Did I have a great time? Not at all. Did I have a decent time? Close but no cigar. Would I do it again? Probably not. Let's leave it at that. I will say, for the record, that it was not the worst Christmas Eve I've ever had.

@JustAboutGlad

Marijuana plant via.

Today is the historical marker for weeds first legal retail holiday. For the first time in U.S. history, anyone over the age of 21 in Washington state and Colorado can legally purchase up to an ounce of recreational pot and weed-laced substances from marijuana retailers without a medical marijuana card. Ganja lovers can openly share an ounce of cannabis with friends, so long as no money is exchanged, and re-selling the legally purchased product is illegal. Colorado has 500 medical dispensaries, but only 160 of those have applied for recreational licenses for 2014. The impressive rows of plump bud at any top-of-the-line Colorado dispensary—now known simply as "stores"—give rise to a whole line of products that wouldn't look out of place on a Whole Foods shelf. 

But beyond the basic labyrinth of weed strains, marijuana edibles are part of a rising culinary trend that cannot rely on body highs and THC levels alone. Many of these edibles are transforming into sophisticated creations that could compete with pastries, candies, and sodas found in artisanal food markets and supermarkets even if marijuana was left out of the recipe. 

Elise McDonough, event designer at High Times, runs the Denver-based Cannabis Cup, the nation's largest annual weekend weed festival. She is also author of the High Times cookbook, and believes that, "Compared to other markets in California and Washington, I think Colorado edibles makers are on another level." Many brands of Colorado edibles, or MIPs, marijuana-infused products, include the kind of nutritional information you'd find on a supermarket box of cookies, and are required to state the quantity of active THC in the mix. The state considers 10 mg to be a "dose," while retail products are capped at 100 mg per unit, whether it’s a single slice of cheesecake, or an entire bar of chocolate.

This professionalism is a relatively new development. Medical marijuana has been legal in Colorado since 2000, but since the passing of House Bill 1284, licensing has tightened up, requiring that all dispensaries grow 70 percent of their own product, but only sell 30 percent of what they grow.

Making cannabutter and THC tinctures requires a huge volume of trim—the leaves, stalks, and other THC-active parts of the plant that are left over when the eminently smokeable buds are snipped. According to Bob Eschino, one of the partners behind the booming MIP’s company, Medically Correct, people were thoughtlessly throwing away trim in 2010, a wasteful action that any edibles chef could rescue for prime usage in the kitchen. Dispensaries have begun to use 70 percent of their total product by getting creative, and the extract market started picking up steam. Dabs, vape-ready hash oil, and other assorted byproducts all used up the trim supply that, back in the day, went straight into edibles. 

The edibles scene has dropped from more than 300 MIP makers to the approximate 20 that still exist on today's market. The resilient companies that continue to flourish were the ones with organizational acumen and cash flow to survive the changing landscape, and the cash to handle re-ups on newly squeezed trim supply. In honor of the first legal munchies holiday, here’s an overview of some of top contenders in the Colorado edibles landscape that actually taste delicious, with or without the green. 

Dixie Elixirs 

The elixirs via Dixie Elixirs

Dixie Elixirs has been getting medical marijuana card patrons and dudes with bong-water stained shirts buzzed with their effervescent elixirs, a variety of carbonated re-cappable sodas—intended for sharing—with flavors like grapefruit, peach, red currant, and sarsaparilla. The fizzy beverages are dosed between 40 and 75 mg per bottle. But like many of their competitors, Dixie Elixirs began lab testing and labeling its products before it was officially required, which has made transition to the retail market relatively smooth. 

Cheeba Chews

Cheeba Chews in the making via Cheeba Chews.

Cheeba Chews is the zen master of the edibles market, dedicated to crafting chewy, bite-sized chocolate taffies dosed with 70 mg of weed per piece. 

Medically Correct 

Almond Joy bars via Medically Correct.

Medically Correct started small with its Incredibles line of chocolates, from peanut butter Buddha and the monkey bar, filled with bananas and walnuts in a coconut chocolate bar. They also offer “Top Shelf Extracts”—hash oil, shatter, which is any kind of concentrated weed product, and Sweetstone candy, a THC candy company that features medicated gummy bears under its operational umbrella.

Mountain Medicine

Blueberry pie bar via Mountain Medicine.

This company pumps out pastry counter quality goods, like their High Times Cannabis Cup award-winning blueberry pie bar, and the walnut joy coconut chocolate that serves up a potent 300 mg dosage. 

Dispensary budtenders—weed counter clerks—can recommend what tastes and “feels” good for a delicious experience, like proper sommeliers. Colorado tourists are limited to purchase a quarter-ounce at retail stores, but MIP makers and dispensary owners are unclear as to how this will apply to buying edibles in 2014. If you’re standing in a long line at a weed shop in Denver today, you can’t smoke inside the shop, toque in the great outdoors, or vaporize at your local bar. And although no big plumes of the kush will be seen out on the streets in honor of this historical moment, edibles wrapped up in the form of candy bars, soda bottles, and puff-pastry are harder to spot from the view of a cop car. Just remember to recycle the wrapper.

Photo by Tobin Yelland.

Whenever I'm asked for advice on opening or running a successful skate shop, I always tell people, “Don’t do it if you want to get rich. Make sure you love skateboarding as much as your first-born, because owning a skate shop is more community service than anything else.”

I know this from experience, because this year my partner and I celebrated ten years in business with New Jersey’s premiere skate shop, NJ Skateshop. To an outsider, ten years might not seem like much of an accomplishment but when you factor in the 20 or so shops that have came and went during that time because of how many of our peers are too stoned or stupid to balance their books or pay their bills—and when you factor in meager profit margins—ten years should be counted in dog years. Here’s a disgusting and little known fact about skateboard retail:

Average retail cost of a skateboard deck is $50 and the average wholesale cost of a skateboard is $35. After you factor in shipping and griptape at $3 a piece, the net profit on one deck is $9. Now, split that $9 with a partner and reinvest $3 back into the business and you barely have enough to buy a beer. But, on the other hand, selling a kid his first board is pretty priceless…

Photo by Dennis McGrath.

Today, even with online skate retailers and skate kiosks at the mall, it’s still very possible to stretch those $9 and make something meaningful. The key is localism. Ten years ago when we were first starting out, I looked to shops that were cultivating rad skate scenes in their area as an example of what I wanted our establishment to be. Shops like Pit Crew in DC, Supreme in NYC, Stratosphere in Atlanta, Nocturnal in Philly, Cowtown in Arizona, and FTC in San Francisco. All the aforementioned shops had the sickest skate teams, and when you visited these places, the shops acted as a central meeting place for skaters. Out of all these, FTC had put in the most time and arguably had the biggest impact of any skate shop.

Originally started as Free Trade Center, FTC began as a ski and tennis shop in 1966, but it wasn’t until 1986 when the owner's son, Kent Uyehara, began placing orders for skateboards using his dad’s retail license that history was made. And for 27 years, Kent has kept the SF skate scene thriving and has sponsored some of the big names who came out of the Bay Area, like Chico Brenes, Jovontae Turner, Jim Thiebaud, and Mike Carroll.

In 1993, at the height of the SF and Embarcadero movement, FTC released its seminal skate video Finally… which would take FTC’s notoriety out of the hills of San Francisco and thrust it to international fame. And three years later, they would release their second video, Penal Code 100A, another certified classic skateboard film. Since then FTC has grown to five locations and has recently released a 200-plus page hardcover book by Seb Carayol that documents the store's contributions to skateboarding over the past couple decades.

I decided to hit up one of my all-time favorite FTC team riders, James Kelch. James has always been very blunt and unapologetic about his opinions, a sentiment that is sadly lacking in modern skateboarding. He was also known as the enforcer during that EMB era, so naturally I tried to get him to tell me some fight stories.

Photo by Patrick O'Dell.

VICE: What is FTC, and what does it mean to you?
James Kelch: FTC is the best skate shop ever. Owned by one of my best friends, Kent. The letters to me sat and stand for “FOR THE CITY.” FTC to me is a place where you could always find a friend.  

Tell me about the fight that landed you on the team.
I left a house party from downtown SF.  On the bus were some Japanese dudes talking really loudly. Eventually, I told them to shut that shit up. They didn't like that much and jumped me—kicking, spinning, all that shit. They beat me silly in the back of the bus. I eventually hulked up on ‘em and finished them off. They got my board in the ruckus. Next day I went to FTC to buy a board all beat up, with black eyes and a bloody nose, and Kent asked what happened, and I told him my skateboard was stolen. Kent gave me a free setup, a Jeremy Klein. I’ve never left his side since. 

Back then you were a bit of a brawler. What’s your best fight story?
I was walking by a bar on lower Haight with some heads from DC. Them heads were talking shit to some bikers who came out of the bar. Both of them got beat down real quick. Screaming my name for help. With board in hand, I ended up leaving about eight of those biker fools laying on the sidewalk bleeding from the skull. Next morning a paddy wagon pulled me over on my skateboard and asked my why my clothes were so bloody. I told them I smacked my head skating down a hill. They let me go. 

What’s the best crazy story from EMB?
The crazy stories about EMB to me were the ones about people getting boards stolen and shit. Barely ever happened but a few times. Shit just got exaggerated. 

You went through a period of drug use and abuse. I assume you found yourself in some sticky situations as a result.
I was too g for that. I was never in any sticky situations. But the funniest situation would have been owing the dope men money, seeing them on the block asking for said money, and punking their asses out of my face. 

Photo by Lance Dawes.

You relocated to Cincinnati. I lived in Cincy for almost a year, and it’s like a racial powder keg. I remember the Klu Klux Klan having marches in broad daylight near the hood. Does the KKK still have those rallies downtown? What’s the deal with that, and how do you not get killed with the projects being right there?
No KKK rallies, man. I never even seen one. That's some crazy shit. But yeah. The rednecks and the homies don't like each other out here. Crazy racist. But when I hear the racist pigs talking shit I clown ‘em real quick. They usually stop for the time being. Horrible. 

What’s a tougher city, Cincy or SF?
It's hard to tell what city is tougher. Different situations. Cincy is desperately poor. That fact alone might make it a crazier place.  

I always liked how unapologetically opinionated you were. It’s a lost sentiment in skateboarding due to all the money involved and people afraid to lose their paycheck. But living in Cincy and being removed from the direct skate industry, I’m curious about what is your take on the current state of skateboarding?
The mainstream aspect of skating is real wack right now. Most kids I meet don't care about the enjoyment of skateboarding. They only care about who will sponsor them. Who will pay them. And how famous they might get. It's stupid. I can't stand it. I'm constantly being bombarded with kids asking me to send in their clips to companies that are owned by people I know; it’s horrible. I always lie and never send it. It's funny how they have made fun of how 90s skaters dressed. Have they seen anything after that? Dressing like a young lady and talking like a gangster? How the fuck does that go together? But my main pet peeve is Mountain Dew. What the fuck? A horrible drink that rots teeth and makes kids fat sponsors athletic events? Fuck off.

You recently started Hela Cool Skateboards. What’s the vision for the brand?
HELLA COOL SKATEBOARD CLUB is a little company I started on my front porch. It's a cartoon me and my girl Lee Ann were working on. It's about a princess who skates and has pets who skate. And a plant also. Each character is a version of a modern skater. Hella cat is the maniac rager skater. The princess is the skater who thinks they deserve everything. The bunny is the skater who can ollie but has no tricks. The squirrel is the skater who spins in circles running his mouth and won't shut up. The potted plant named Potty is the stoned skater who you drop off at the park, and when you come to pick him up, he is sitting in the same place. He has no feet. They all live in a haunted house. I started it in May 2013. The vision is to just maintain and sustain a positive attitude in such a weird high-profile business-owned skateboard world. No pros at the moment. Maybe never. I have no plan. I let the universe decide what happens. I just go with the flow.  Since I ain't trying to get rich—I'm a vagrant—I won't waste the money living like a movie star. It's all for the club! And you're all invited to join #HELLACOOLSKATEBOARDCLUB. And one more thing—the club isn’t about me or my past. It's about enjoying skateboarding for what it's worth. And the only thing it's really worth is your own peace of mind.

Follow James on Twitter @JamesKelch and HELLA COOL SKATEBOARD CLUB @hellacoolsbc.

Follow FTC at @FTCSF and purchase the book on their website.

More stupid can be found at Chrisnieratko.com or @Nieratko.

There is nothing more depressing than year-end lists. They represent everything that is terrible about the human race. I say “by accident” because it’s my job, my ongoing mission, to find the absolute worst ads in the world.

You will not find any of these commercials in the predictable page-view grubbing listicles you're used to seeing on other sites. So enjoy these gems (which are in no particular order), because next week, it’s back to the same old manufactured vitriol. 

CHOCOLATE-DIPPED ALTOIDS - “BLOWHOLE BOB”

This is the strangest ad from a series of strange ads for chocolate-dipped Altoids by the ad agency Leo Burnett in Chicago. The concept owes much to the insane Skittles commercials (my favorite: the amazingly dark “Touch”), but this is fucking advertising, not art. So if you “borrow” to make something good, something that works, good for you.

CRISTAL BEER - "STREET FOOTBALL”

Y&R Peru recently produced a wonderful series of short commercials for Cristal, a beer brand of União Cervejeira SA popular in Chile. The ads all bring a smile while establishing Cristal as the unofficial sponsor of street football—a really smart strategy ahead of the World Cup in Brazil next summer. The above spot, “Goal Width,” and “Sky Boxes,” are my two favorites. See all nine of the ads here.

REPORTERS WITHOUT BORDERS -  “GREAT PEOPLE”

Ad agencies worldwide lineup for the chance to produce pro bono work for the freedom of the press nonprofit (of note: these great award-winning print ads). BETC, a Paris-based agency, obviously doesn’t have money to spend on marketing, which shows in their latest ad—essentially a bunch of print ads turned into a commercial. It is effective, though.

DEVONDALE FARMS - “SUNSHINE BUBBLE”

Devondale Farms is a co-op of more than 3,000 farmers in southern Australia. This spot would have been snappier as a 15-second commercial, but it’s still a funny, dark ad done by Marmalade in Melbourne. The second commercial, the “Man Child” campaign, will definitely make some husbands squirm.

VOLKSWAGEN - “TREEGUY”

After all these years, Doyle Dane Bernbach and its worldwide offshoots still retain the VW account. And for good reason. This spot, via DDB Tribal in Germany, is plain fucking bizarre yet still manages to deliver the main benefit clearly and memorably—just like the Mad Men era ads did.

NØRREGADE SWEETS - “GOTH”

“Less is more” is a trite and irritating phrase, but it’s one of the few absolute truths in advertising. And simple ads stand out even more these days, what with all the noisy over-produced “viral” video diarrhea flowing out of “tech-savvy” agencies in search of massive amounts of “eyeballs.” Bravo to Nørregade and Danish ad agency LoweFriends for keeping it fucking simple. Great casting, perfect voiceover.

JIFFI CONDOMS - “PARENTS”

Theo Delaney directed this classic British commercial from 1990. No, those aren’t the procreators of some of the biggest monsters of the 20th century—they’re patients at a London old people’s day center who unwittingly posed as the parents. A dirty trick for sure, but at the time, the general public actually thought this was genuine archival footage. The spot won a Silver Lion at Cannes that year.

THE INDEPENDENT - “LITANY”

Staying in the 1990s and in the UK, this 1999 commercial for the “Indy” is again (sorry I keep bashing the shit out of that poor dead horse) so simple because BIG ideas aren’t born in bullshit round-table meetings about “native” advertising or at a high tech production house. They’re created on a blank page/screen, usually by one person, two at the most.

Ad agency: Lowe, London.

POSTBANKEN - “POSTBANKEN”

Another classic commercial, from 1997, for Postbanken, a Norwegian bank that offers its services through the country’s post offices. The actor is Ernst-Hugo Järegård, a cult hero in Sweden. He was one of director Lars von Trier’s favorite actors, having worked with him on Europa. For me, this is the most honest financial ad ever created—which ain’t saying much, but there it is.

FREITAG - “BUSINESS BAGS”

In-house video for FREITAG business bags. Dilemma: you have a tough business bag and a lot of cool designs you want to show in your commercial, but you don’t want to be boring about showing them but you still want to show them in a business environment. I think this solves it perfectly. The boss casting and the nice quirky original music add polish to the execution. I’d buy one.

PECO INSURANCE - “DISAPPEARING OFFICE”

This Russian spot from 2009 shows our hero searching for the office of a fly-by-night insurance company, “Vigvam.” This is, basically, the same concept Geico is running right now with their asinine Maxwell the pig commercials, except this ad, from an unknown agency, is clever and entertaining. 

DETROIT INSTITUTE OF ART - “YOU GOTTA HAVE ART”

Unlike most of you, I grew up in the nearly ironic-free 1970s, when pure 100 percent cheese was accepted as is, without snark. Which is why I love this 1976 commercial, as is. It’s perfect. As you probably know, Detroit is fucked beyond belief at the moment, so much so that Christie’s is currently valuing the Institute’s 2,800-piece art collection for the city’s Emergency Manager. Preliminary estimates of the artworks’ value range between $452 million and $866 million. Private donors are trying to raise $500 million to help keep the art in city hands.

@copyranter

Violent clashes between anti-government protesters and police broke out in the heart of Istanbul this weekend, following a series of revelations about corruption within the Turkish government, months of demonstrations in streets across the country, and an all-round terrible year for Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan. Under the Christmas fairy lights on Istiklal, crowds of protesters set off fireworks and ripped up paving slabs to use as makeshift missiles. The police responded in the way that now seems customary for them: with tear gas, water cannons, and plastic bullets. Meanwhile, the festive tourists took shelter in the bars and cafes and wondered what the hell was going on.

Turkish citizens wondered what the hell is going on, too. Over the past week, three government ministers have resigned following the arrests of their sons in a large scale corruption case, dozens of high-ranking police officers have been removed from their posts in spurious circumstances, and a sex tape allegedly starring Numan Kurtulmuş, Erdogan’s deputy, has been leaked on YouTube. I asked Yanki, a veteran of the Gezi Park movement and a sharp observer of Turkish politics, to explain the whole sordid mess to me. “This has never happened before in Turkey,” he said. “There has always been a curtain that you couldn’t see through, but now it’s gone, for the first time. Over the past two days, Cemaat have exposed themselves.”

Cemaat is a loose and covert network within Turkey, which is also known as the Service or Gulen movement. Its members follow the teachings of Fethullah Gulen, a Turkish imam who has lived in self-imposed exile in Pennsylvania since the late 90s. Although it does not exist as an official organization, Cemaat runs hundreds of private schools across Turkey, raises millions of dollars from its followers each year and is believed to have members within the highest ranks of the police, the judiciary, and the government. Most people in Turkey believe that it is Cemaat members who instigated the corruption probe and leaked the sex tape. The police officers who were fired are all believed to be members of the movement. Perhaps the most damaging revelation of the week was the news that the state prosecution had also issued a warrant for the arrest of Erdogan’s son, and that the newly purged police force had refused to act on it.

“Imagine that the Turkish State is a Russian Babushka doll,” said Yanki. “There are groups within groups, and Cemaat is like the smallest doll.” Although Erdogan himself has avoided accusing Cemaat outright for his misfortunes over the past week, he has vowed to beat the opponents who, he claims, are trying to form a state within a state.

The reason why all this has come as a surprise is that Erdogan has always counted on Cemaat’s members as his allies. Like him, they want Turkey to move in a more Islamic direction, and they also oppose the long-running involvement of the army in Turkish politics. It was Erdogan himself who knowingly placed many Cemaat members in high-ranking positions within the apparatus of the state. But last month, the government announced plans to close down many Cemaat-run schools—one of the group's major sources of income.

Yanki says that the rift between the AKP and Cemaat actually dates back to 2008, when the government entered into secret talks with the PKK (Kurdistan Workers’ Party), the militant group that has been fighting a separatist war in southeast Turkey since the 80s, talks that Cemaat vigorously opposed. Yanki claims they have waited till now to launch their coup, capitalizing on the Gezi Park body blow that Erdogan is still reeling from. “It [Gezi Park] made Erdogan seem weak,” said Yanki. “It made it seem like he can’t manage the state any more.”

This internal coup—if that's what it is—may just bring about what Turkey’s street protesters have not yet managed: the fall of the government and the end of Erdogan’s rule. Seeing the Prime Minister’s vulnerability, the protesters have been back on the streets in a series of small-scale demos since the 17th of December, when the first arrests were made. But Friday night's protests were billed as the big event. Initially, they had planned to protest in Taksim, the symbolic heart of the Gezi Park protest movement.

The police, though, had other ideas. From the evening until the early hours of the morning, the frontline of the protest and the cops moved back and forth along Istiklal. After several hours of to-and-froing, a large stretch of the street looked more like the back alley of one of Istanbul’s less desirable neighborhoods than the city’s premier shopping district.

“Thieves everywhere” read one piece of graffiti scrawled across the shop shutters. Last night’s protesters took the corruption scandal as their focal point. There have been allegations of huge illegal gold deals with Iran, which haven't exactly dissipated since police found $4 million stuffed in shoeboxes at the home of Suleyman Aslan, the CEO of Turkey’s state-owned Halk Bank. He is alleged to have paid bribes to scores of Erdogan’s political allies in order to smooth the way for the deals.

Although the protesters are ready to rally behind the allegations made by Cemaat, they are not, in any sense, their supporters. “We fear that we may be seen as acting with Cemaat,” said Nazli, a 27-year-old student who took part in last night’s protest. “Actually we want something different, we want the people of Turkey to have the power. The war between the AKP and Cemaat is just fighting between rulers.”

The events in Gezi Park had already left Turkey’s Prime Minister looking battered and weak. Now he also has to deal with a corruption scandal, what seems like a coup from within the state and a reinvigorated protest movement, packed with angry young people who won’t be happy until he’s gone.

"Khodr", a Syrian activist who spent six months in Lebanon's Roumieh prison

Roumieh, Lebanon's most notorious prison, is not somewhere you want to find yourself. The facility regularly holds up to 5,500 inmates, including some of the country's most high-profile criminals—among them, former Israeli agents and Salafists linked with insurrections against the Lebanese state. The prison is yet to meet the minimum standards stipulated by the UN. Those who officiate the prison have also faced numerous accusations of corruption; high-security prisoners have escaped, reportedly without authorities even realizing, and prison guards and doctors have been charged with trafficking drugs inside its walls.      

"Khodr" (a pseudonym) is a pro-Syrian revolution activist who fled to Lebanon in 2011 to avoid military conscription. Arriving in Beirut after bribing Syrian border authorities with 2,000 Syrian lira, he continued his activism, networking with members of the Free Syrian Army to facilitate the safe-passage of foreign journalists seeking to report from within Syria. 

In March of 2013 he was picked up by the intelligence branch of the Lebanese Internal Security Forces, who had been watching him for a while. Forced into the back of a 4x4 with a hood over his face, Khodr was interrogated for three days before standing trial at a military court. Accused of colluding with the Syrian opposition and thereby "assaulting" the security of the Lebanese state, he was sent to Roumieh and served six months of his sentence, before an Anglican priest helped him with his release.

Now, with a deportation order against him and with his passport still being held by authorities, Khodr remains in Lebanon illegally but is unable to leave. I sat down with him to talk about his experience of the prison.

A short film showing conditions inside Roumieh

VICE: Hi Khodr. What were the reasons for your detention?
Khodr: It was related to my activities and connections with members of the Free Syrian Army, particularly from al-Zabadani [a city in south-western Syria, close to the Lebanese border], who were probably under surveillance. They were buying weapons from Palestinian militias in Ain el-Hilweh [the Palestinian refugee camp in the southern city of Saida] and others, including Shia groups who supported Assad but wanted the money.

And they thought you were involved?
They suspected me of being part of Free Syrian Army logistics, not a fighter. I denied any connection to the people they mentioned in my interrogation, but they found their numbers and names in my phone, as well as on my Facebook and Skype. In the military court they accused me of obtaining a counterfeit visa and activities assaulting the security of the Lebanese state. At that moment, I realized the seriousness of the situation.

What were the first couple of weeks like inside Roumieh?
It was really hard to adapt. I suddenly found myself in this incredibly shady place, surrounded by hardened criminals and drug abuse. I’d never been in a place like that. I was very depressed and scared.

How rampant was the drug abuse?
I’d say 90 percent, or higher, of the inmates were using. It stretched from prescription drugs, like benzocaine and Tramol, to hashish, cocaine, and heroin. Everything is available: benzocaine being the cheapest, with heroin and cocaine the most expensive. There is no chance of rehabilitation. I remember one inmate saying to me, "The only thing they have imprisoned here is my dick."

Some people had [homosexual] relationships, but they wouldn’t show it. Late at night or early in the morning, when most people were asleep or high, they would go to the bathroom. Two guys would pay the janitor a couple grams of hashish in order not to let anyone in for ten to 15 minutes. They wouldn’t be abused or ostracised, but if the sharwishe found out then they would be beaten up. I wasn’t aware of rape.

What's a "sharwishe"?
In every hall of the prison there is a head sharwishe. He's a prisoner but also kind of like a mafia boss or strong man. In my hall the sharwishe was a former officer in the Lebanese police force who had been imprisoned for forming an armed group and exploiting his position to sell and distribute drugs. The sharwishe controlled the sale of everything: food and drinks, cleaning products, and drugs. He—not the prison officers—was in charge of maintaining order in the hall. The prison authorities were involved in the trade through the sharwishe. Whenever drugs were brought into the prison they would tell all the prisoners to remain in their respective halls.

The profits that the sharwishe got from the sale of drugs were divided between him, sharwishes in other halls and the prison director. Let’s say $1,000 of drugs were sold, then the prison director would take a cut of $300. Often the prison director would come and sit with the sharwishes in their rooms and drink coffee and talk before our eyes. The entire system is deeply corrupt. It is in the interest of the prison authorities to have drugs in the prison because then the prisoners will be lazy and incapacitated. They won’t revolt for their rights and object to things they think are in bad condition that could be improved.

How did the economy of the prison work? For example, how did people buy drugs?
No material money is allowed in the prison. Everything worked through a system of transferring phone credit to the account of the sellers who worked for the sharwishe. People would contact friends and relatives on the outside, who would then send them credit to use inside the prison. For example, if you wanted to buy two pills of benzocaine, this would cost $10, Coca-Cola would cost $3 and two small “capsules” of hashish would cost $10. Anyone can get a phone if they have the money; it costs around $120 for a simple Nokia with a sim card. After a month inside I asked my cousin to transfer the amount to a seller so I could get a phone and sim card. In block Mahkumeen of the prison, where members of Fatah al-Islam [linked to the 2007 Nahr el-Bared conflict] and other Islamist groups like Jund al-Islam are held, they have computers. Not just any computers, but Macs. They have powerful backers outside the prison and the government fears retribution if their demands aren't met.

There was a system of real estate in the hall that worked in the same way. In my hall there were between 80 to 90 of us. Those with money would buy desirable "property" at the edges of the hall because it was cleaner there and there was more opportunity for privacy. They would construct cardboard partitions so they would have their own little rooms. Five people would pay together, between $300 to $400, and they would pay other inmates as servants to clean the room. The people without money, mainly Syrians and Palestinians, would sleep together in the middle of the hall. It was very cramped.

Where did the sharwishe live?
The sharwishe had his own room, which is separate from the rest. He had his own TV, fridge, a proper bed with a mattress and clean sheets. His room was shining. He had at least five bodyguards who were always with him or standing outside his room making sure everything was under control.

How did you adapt and cope with prison life?
The law in the prison hall was based around paying a weekly fee of one pack of cigarettes to the sharwishe in order to avoid having to work for him, say, for example, as a cleaner. These packets were distributed between the sharwishe, the head janitor, the doorman, and the guy in charge of food. Sometimes, even if the Syrians and Palestinians paid a pack of cigarettes, they would be forced to work anyway. This happened to me at the beginning.

After a while, I started working with a charity association in the prison, teaching computer lessons and English and [reading and writing in] Arabic, and I worked in their library. I talked with the head of the association and said I could help manage some of their programs on the condition they gave me shampoo, cleaning products, coffee, and cigarettes, both for myself and which I could sell on. Through working with the association I also made connections with powerful prisoners and the priest who helped me get out of the prison.

Who did you socialize with?
Relationships in the prison are mostly based on mutual interest, for example between people taking drugs and those selling drugs. If it goes wrong it can easily lead to violence. People would make knives from everything, from bits of wood to door handles that they would sharpen against the wall into shanks. Small fights often broke out; bigger fights between rival groups were less common. The sharwishe was in charge of trying to restore order. The prison authorities did not intervene.

I socialised with some people I met through my work with the association. These included people who had spied for Israel. They were educated and intelligent and also quite powerful. At the beginning I didn’t take any drugs, but after three months I became really depressed and desperate. I started to smoke hash sometimes with the Israeli agents and sometimes take benzedrine or Tramol.

Were there any times you felt particularly threatened?
I was in a block composed of Shia and Maronite Christians. Nearly all of the Shia inmates supported Hezbollah and the Amal movement [a political party associated with Hezbollah and Lebanon's Shia community]. When Hezbollah became strongly involved militarily in Syria over the summer, particularly during the battle for al-Qusayr, they would threaten and taunt the Syrian inmates. I would just say, "Bashar al-Assad is our president. We support him." I couldn’t say I supported the revolution; there would have been trouble if I had. I was careful not to criticise the system itself. The sharwishe had his feelers. You can’t speak against the system.

How did you feel when you were released?
When they interrogated me they made me feel I was a criminal. I thought I would be inside for years. I had tried so many types of wasta [Arabic term for "connections"] through Hezbollah and other political parties and politicians in Lebanon, activists with powerful connections and lawyers, but nothing worked out. Somehow this Anglican priest was able to facilitate my release through the payment of a one million Lebanese lira fine. When they were releasing me, I didn’t believe it at first. I said to myself that, when I pass through this final gate, I will believe. I felt like I had wings and I could fly.

But now I cannot do anything. I have an obligatory deportation against me, but all my documents—in particular my passport—remain confiscated. If I am stopped at any time at a checkpoint I'm scared they could put me back in prison for being in the country illegally. I try not to walk around; I always take taxis. I am literally stuck.

The author and leading legalization proponent Mason Tvert smell victory in the air.

“The media keeps describing what's starting today as an experiment,” Mason Tvert, co-director of the campaign to legalize marijuana in Colorado, explained Wednesday morning, at a 7:30 AM press conference held just prior to the state's first-ever legal recreational pot sale. “When the real experiment was actually marijuana prohibition, an experiment that failed terribly, just like the so-called 'great experiment' known as alcohol prohibition.”

Mason's comparison is so apt it actually served as the theme of Tuesday night's New Year's Eve cannabis industry fundraiser for the Rocky Mountain Hemp Association, a high-class affair that featured elaborately costumed flappers and bootleggers, plus oversized newspaper clippings from the day Denver's taverns finally re-opened to the public. Including one anti-prohibition Denver Post editorial of that era calling on status-quo lawmakers to “turn over a new leaf.”

Susan Squibb, the Denver Post's new marijuana advice columnist, celebrates the end of Prohibition in high style.

Just before midnight struck, I caught up with Susan Squibb, newly hired as the Post's first-ever marijuana advice columnist. Previously author of the “Ask Lady Cannabis” column in a local pot-culture newspaper, Squibb actually first started dispensing marijuana advice during a six-year run selling hemp ice cream sandwiches from an officially licensed stand inside Red Rock's Amphitheater in Golden, Colorado.

From the very beginning, her humble little concession served as “a confession booth for those who wanted to talk discreetly with someone in the know about cannabis,” including growers, medical marijuana patients, longtime enthusiasts, total newbies, and the wholly uninitiated.

“Because we all felt so much fear while still living in the underground, they couldn't ask their family or friends about these issues,” Squibb explained. “But they could talk to a friendly stranger. And so I quickly realized just how great the need is to educate the public about this amazing plant. Hopefully my new column will provide a similar opportunity to talk about what appropriate use means in terms of marijuana.”

When I asked Susan for advice on how to approach my own impending first legal purchase of recreational cannabis, she recommended trying to savor the moment.    

A light snowfall didn't deter these marijuana enthusiasts from lining up to make history.

Hempy New Year!

Not long after belting out "Auld Lang Syne," I decided to head over to 3D Cannabis Center—one of the new retail pot stores I profiled Tuesday—to see if eager herbal enthusiasts had already started gathering in the parking lot, despite rapidly dropping temperatures and a chance of snow. Arriving around 12:45 AM, I found about a dozen cars scattered around the parking lot, but quickly learned they almost all belonged to the staff, who were inside pulling an all-nighter, which mostly consisted of packaging pre-weighed eighths and grams of cannabis in child-resistant bags.

The author adds his name to the waiting list.

The sparse crowd did, however, mean no lines for the doughnuts and funnel cakes for sale from a local food vendor already on site. While I waited for those sweet treats, one of the kitchen crew (who I later ran into in line to buy pot) explained that two guys had actually shown up from Florida and pitched a tent, but then it got too cold for them so they decided to sleep in their car. My new best bud also pointed out the official sign up sheet, to which I added my name, securing the eighth spot in line.

A reassuringly low number, given the ongoing rumors of a possible statewide legal pot shortage.

Green Dawn

By 6:45 AM, dozens of media trucks had already moved into place.

Then, around sunrise, the general pot public started showing up in full force, to help make history. Keep in mind, I asked literally every single prospective cannabis consumer I met why they came, often from out-of-state, and absolutely nobody said “to buy pot.” The War on Weed being such an absolute failure, in fact, that the very idea of not being able to score herb on the black market in all 50 states didn't even register.

“We actually get really good bud at home,” two dudes who drove 20 hours from rural Texas confided. “But it's not about that. We really traveled here for the freedom of not having to look over our shoulders.”

They came to be treated like customers instead of criminals.

Including at least one organized tour group operated by L. Addison Morrison, who introduced herself to me as “your grandma's new pot connection.” Focused on upscale professionals seeking a discreet, 420-friendly experience, her Colorado Rocky Mountain High Tour company hopes to appeal to the high-end segment of what will surely be a booming cannabis tourism industry throughout the state. Already local hotels, restaurants and other ancillary businesses have benefited from the arrival of hundreds of journalists, all of whom were on hand for the big press conference.

In any other context, standing around with a bunch of lamestream media types while the cameras whirl and political flacks flap their gums ranks right up there with stubbing my toe real hard. But this was different. Other than the few openly hostile assholes I encountered among the media scrum, everyone seemed ready to actually learn a thing or two at this particular press event. Of course, since the media played such a huge role in making marijuana illegal, and keeping it illegal for so long, that seemed like the least they could do.

And Mason Tvert was certainly ready to drop some knowledge on them.

“Today, people all around the country will buy marijuana,” he said towards the conclusion of his prepared statement. “but only in Colorado will they do so in a legal, regulated retail store like this.”

At which point, I started to get a little choked up.

Sean Azzariti celebrates buying an eighth of Bubba Kush to treat his PTSD.

From the Frontlines to Front of the Line

The honor of making America's first legal recreational marijuana purchase went to Sean Azzariti, a Marine Corp veteran who served two tours of duty in Iraq and Afghanistan, and now suffers from Post Traumatic Stress Disorder. Sean told me nothing else helps his condition as effectively as cannabis, including the massive daily drug cocktail previously prescribed by his doctors, which included six milligrams of Xanax, six milligrams of Klonopin, and 50-60 milligrams of Adderall (to balance the downers), followed by some Trazodone to help him sleep at night.

Unfortunately, Colorado's existing medical marijuana program does not recognize PTSD as a qualifying condition, despite serious science showing clear benefits. Which basically means that serving in combat and swallowing shitloads of dangerous, addictive prescription drugs were considered safe enough activities for Sean to engage in by the government. Just don't try ingesting an all-natural herb with no lethal dose or serious side effects.

“Taking all those pharmaceuticals, I was going to either turn into a zombie or die.” Sean told me. “Cannabis saved my life.”

When the historic moment arrived, Sean chose to buy an eighth of Bubba Kush and a cannabis-infused truffle. Since he's a shy young man with serious anxiety issues, the assembled press naturally surrounded him like jackals. Pushing, shoving, flashing bulbs, and shouting questions.

The author has friends in high places.

End Game

I've visited Amsterdam many times, and frequented a few of California's medical cannabis dispensaries as well, so the whole retail reefer concept feels far from unprecedented.

But this really is different.

In Amsterdam, for example, the coffeeshops are officially only tolerated, not legal, and lately political pressure has been building to push them even further into the shadows. While back home in the Golden State, even the best-run medical marijuana dispensaries and collectives have no way to earn a license from the state, and therefore face a constant, real threat from law enforcement.

Of course, every cannabis sale in Colorado today—retail or medicinal—also remains technically federally illegal, but as today's festivities should make abundantly clear, the Feds have finally blinked in the face of a large and growing marijuana majority. When Amendment 64 officially legalized it in Colorado in November 2012, for example, the ballot initiative garnered far more votes than the President, who also carried the state handily.

Meanwhile, waiting in line with the first ten numbers on the waiting list, I start to feel butterflies. Thinking of all the people I wish were here to share this experience. When my number's called, I almost forget Susan Squibb's advice, about savoring the moment, in the mad rush of excitement.

When it comes to selecting fine cannabis, the nose knows.

At the sales counter, the budtender opens jars of herb to let me take a sniff. She says the Grape God (Grape x God Bud), a powerful indica, has the best flavor—so pleasantly fruity, in fact, that some people end up smoking too much just for the taste. They also offer a full line of edibles and tinctures. Even pre-rolled joints for the novice toker.

Wanting to try as many varieties as possible while I'm town, I opt for a gram each of Sour Diesel, Bubba Kush, Grape God and Blue Dream. The budtender gathers up my merchandise and puts it into an opaque child-resistant bag, as required by law. Then I hand over $63 (tax included), and she hands me a receipt. I want to give her a hug, but it feels inappropriate.

So as I leave the dispensing area of the store, I hold up my newly acquired bag of legal weed in victory, for all to see. My friends in line cheer wholeheartedly, while waiting their turn.

As for the millions of herbalists, all over the world, still stuck living under this awful prohibition, all I can think is, “Your day will come too.” When I first got involved in marijuana legalization efforts, people used to shame me for wasting my time on something that was never going to happen. Now they ask why worry over something that's all but inevitable.

Cheers to that!

Tune in tomorrow for the final installment of VICE's Legal Weed Trilogy: 'I Just Smoked Some Legal Weed'

The trolleybus that was bombed in Volgograd on Monday (Photo by Nikita Baryshev / Demotix)

On Sunday, December 29, a bomb exploded in the entrance of the main train station in Volgograd, Russia, where people were lining up to enter the building. Early the next morning, a bomb exploded on a packed trolleybus during rush hour. The two attacks killed a total of 34 people, with many more wounded.

The suicide bombings came just before New Year’s Eve, which is a particularly big holiday in Russia and comes just weeks away from the start of the Winter Olympics in Sochi, a popular resort town on the Black Sea coast.

No one has claimed responsibility, but fingers were immediately pointed toward Russia’s North Caucasus. Doku Umarov, the leader of an umbrella Islamist organization known as the Caucasus Emirate, had previously called on his followers to use “maximum force” to prevent the Winter Olympics from taking place.

Since the attacks, security has been boosted in the city of about 1 million people, which is a major transport hub for southern Russia. There was confusion as officials tried to identify the attackers—or even whether they were male or female. Thousands of buildings have been searched, with 5,200 police and Interior Ministry troops patrolling the streets and on public transportation. Eighty-seven people were detained, but apparently no one linked to the bombings.

Why Volgograd? There is no obvious answer. The city is some 400 miles northeast of Sochi, and not part of the North Caucasus, where suicide bombings often take place. Volgograd also has a symbolic place in Russian history: in 1942, Stalingrad, as the city was called during the Soviet period, was the site of a pivotal World War II battle.

The reason may be practical. Sochi is heavily guarded ahead of the Olympics, and a security zone stretching about 60 miles along the coast and 25 miles inland has been set up. But the whole of Russia cannot be made so safe. “What the secret services should now presume is that the Volgograd bombings were intended as a diversion, to distract their attention from Sochi,” wrote Andrei Soldatov, a Russian security services expert who edits the website Agentura.ru, in a piece published in the Telegraph.

For Oliver Bullough, Caucasus editor at the Institute for War and Peace Reporting, what's particularly striking is that the bombers have kept coming back to the same place. In October, a female suicide bomber blew herself up on a bus in Volgograd, killing seven people. The bombers "clearly feel completely confident that the police won't stop them, which is very worrying for Russia in general and Volgograd in particular,” he told me.

Russian President Vladimir Putin has visited victims in hospital and mentioned them in his New Year's Address: “Dear friends, we bow our heads before the victims of the terrible terrorist attacks,” he said. “I am confident that we will fiercely and consistently continue the fight against terrorists until their total destruction.”

The problem is, he has been saying this for a long time. Russia has seen a lot of terrorist attacks; 1,896 since 1991, as mapped by the Guardian. Back in 1999, shortly before he first became president, he said that he would hunt down terrorists and memorably promised to “waste them in the outhouse.” In Russia’s North Caucasus, bombings and shootings are regular fare. But up until the first explosion in Volgograd in October, the situation outside the North Caucasus had calmed in the wake of the suicide bombing at Moscow’s Domodedovo airport in January 2011, which killed 37 people. This was attributed to Russian Islamists’ moratorium on attacks in Russia, supposedly in response to the anti-Putin protests in Moscow. But in June, Umarov (who has claimed responsibility for the Domodedovo airport attack) lifted the moratorium, in the video where he called for attacks on the Sochi Olympics.

In the past, Putin has used terrorist attacks to strengthen his grip on Russia. The September 1999 “apartment bombings”—a series of explosions in Moscow and other cities—were important as Putin, then prime minister, succeeded Boris Yeltsin as president. Later, he used 2004's Beslan school massacre to further centralize power. But the Volgograd bombings this week “just make Putin look bad, or worse, incompetent,” argues Bullough. “He has been promising to end terrorism for 14 years and terrorism hasn't ended.”

For Moscow, the Sochi Winter Olympics are a matter of prestige; of showing the world what Russia can do. But the Games have been under fire from the start. Apart from their astronomical cost—at $51 billion, these are the most expensive Olympics in history—they have been criticized for corruption and damage to the environment. And as relations with Russia have cooled in recent months, a number of world leaders, including the presidents of Germany, France, and the United States, have announced that they will be skipping the Games. This is understood to be over human rights abuses.

Now, the Volgograd attacks have revived concerns about the security of the whole event. Sochi is worryingly close to the North Caucasus. Chechnya still bears the wounds of the two wars that the Kremlin waged against it in the 1990s; the second launched in 1999, when Putin was prime minister. Today, Chechnya is ruled by Ramzan Kadyrov, a former Chechen rebel who now backs Putin (and is famously active on Instagram). But despite Moscow’s efforts to tame the region by force, the situation remains volatile in Ingushetia and Kabardino-Balkaria, and in Dagestan, which Bullough called “a little corner of Afghanistan transplanted to Russia.”

Ultimately, Sochi has "brought attention to all the downsides of Russia that Putin hopes to hide,” says Bullough. The Games open on February 7. Shortly after the attacks this week, the president of the International Olympic Committee said he was confident that the Russian authorities would provide a “safe and secure” Games.

But it is difficult to feel safe now, in Volgograd and beyond. Some Russian internet users are comparing the situation to 1999, after the apartment bombings. “The atmosphere reminds me of that autumn when they were blowing up apartment buildings in Moscow," tweeted Russian writer Sergein Minaev. "It seems as if war has been declared again.” International athletes may also be having doubts about whether to travel to Sochi; Torah Bright, an Australian Winter Olympic gold medallist, told the Australian media this week that she would not take part in the Games if the terrorism situation worsened.

Many commentators fear that there will be another attack soon. The question is: where?

Follow Annabelle on Twitter: @AB_Chapman

Unmanned US drone strikes killed hundreds of people people in Pakistan, Yemen, and Somalia last year as part of the never-ending war on terror, a war that apparently necessitates the continuous bombing by the world's only superpower of malcontents in faraway countries. Western governments cite the assassinations of such big bad guys as Hakimullah Mehsud, the leader of the Pakistani Taliban, and Abu Yahya al-Libi, al Qaeda’s deputy leader, as success stories. While attacks like these are in theory weakening global Islamist terrorism, it’s been reported that less than 2 percent of drone strikes in Pakistan hit high-profile terrorist targets. Many more attacks have been known to kill children, civilians and suspected combatants.

With this hit-and-miss campaign in mind, Ruben Pater, a designer from the Netherlands, recently put together the Drone Survival Guide, which can be downloaded in 27 different languages and includes silhouettes of the most commonly used drones—from the Reaper to the Killer Bee—along with information on how to hijack, hack, and dazzle them.

“Many people are mystified and intrigued by drones," Ruben told me, "but don’t really know what the capabilities and weaknesses of such a technology are. Once we understand what a drone can do, we stop being afraid and instead come up with ways to protect ourselves.”

The Drone Survival Guide has two main sections: Hacking Drones and Hiding from Drones. “Spreading reflective pieces of glass or mirrored material on a roof will confuse the drone’s camera," it advises. “By broadcasting on different frequencies... the link between the drone pilot and the drone can be disconnected.” While Ruben insists that the Drone Survival Guide is more an art project aimed at educating people than a practical guide for taking down Predator drones, he was careful when constructing it for fear it could be used maliciously. “I was very deliberate in [only] collecting information that has been publicly available on news websites,” he said. “The [techniques] I chose for the guide are about dodging surveillance and tampering with their sensors—it's not about shooting them down.”

Which is good to know, as Ruben tells me he’s seen jihadists sharing the Drone Survival Guide on social media. It’s unlikely they will learn anything new from it though, as some of the instructions in it were taken directly from documents found inside an al Qaeda building in Mali, which detailed a lot more technical information than what is found in the Drone Survival Guide. I did mention to Ruben, however, that the guide does say that some of the techniques “can be used... to steer drones into self-destruction flight paths or even hijack them.”

“Good point,” he laughs. “The technique in question is GPS spoofing, which is a very difficult tactic you could use to hijack a drone. Some say the Iranian government used it to hijack the American drone they captured [in 2011], but it’s more likely nobody has ever been able to do it. That’s why I left it in: because it’s next to impossible. But the idea is very interesting—that by just fooling the drone's GPS system you could take control over it.”

The Federal Aviation Administration has predicted that there could be over 30,000 domestic drones operating in US airspace by 2020. By then, rather than being exotic weapons of war, drones will be mundane flying robots. Thus the Drone Survival Guide is marketed as an aide to “21st-century bird-watching,” though, yes, some of these “birds” can blow people to bits from 50,000 feet using laser-guided bombs.

Ruben told me that only after giving the Drone Survival Guide to a friend did he realize how dangerous the European-built Barracuda drone was. “[My friend] used to work at the company who makes brake systems for the Barracuda,” he said. “[He told me] it’s designed to do everything independently, from taking off, to striking targets—all without human intervention. You just tell it what to kill, and it will go out and do it for you. Pretty scary.” According to the company that makes the Barracuda drone, new missions can be uploaded to its system from the ground—giving instructions that it “immediately responded to” during a 2012 test flight.

One issue with the Drone Survival Guide is that the drone industry is advancing so rapidly that it makes Ruben's work instantly out of date. “The US defense giant Lockheed Martin recently announced a new model,” not listed in the book, Ruben said. “The SR-72 is a hypersonic drone that would be the fastest thing in the sky at six times the speed of sound.” On their website, Lockheed notes that “at this speed, the aircraft would be so fast, an adversary would have no time to react or hide.”

“Imagine losing control of a drone when flying at mach six,” Ruben said. “A robot so fast we cannot even catch it if it goes rogue. Great idea.” (This is pretty much the plot of 2005 action movie bomb Stealth.)

Ruben hopes his Drone Survival Guide will at least start a conversation. “The goal is to create awareness of what drones are capable of,” he said, “and hopefully spawn discussion about whether or not we should allow the use of drones for surveillance and military purposes. Most of us have governments that already use drones for these purposes, paid for by our tax money. We have a right to know what this technology is capable of so we can judge whether it is [used] correctly or not.”

Find the Drone Survival Guide here in full.

Follow Jake on Twitter: @Jake_Hanrahan

After a few decades of performing—and living a life packed with more legitimately hardcore outsider experiences than any single person has a right to—a good amount of well-earned attention is finally being showered on Susan Dietrich Schneider, a.k.a. Suzy Sounds, a.k.a. the Space Lady. We even gave Night School’s recent reissue of her discography the coveted #45 slot on our best albums of 2013 list, a position known in the industry as “the power slot.”

Susan was born in 1948 in Colorado’s tiny town of Las Animas, whose name is shortened from La Ciudad de Las Animas Perdidos en Purgatorio (which translates to “the city of lost souls in purgatory”). After attending the University of Colorado in the 60s, she drifted into San Francisco and met her future husband, Joel. To dodge the draft, Susan and Joel dropped off the grid entirely, destroying their IDs and moving into a cave on top of Mt. Shasta. They had three children and ended up floating between Boston and San Francisco, supporting themselves through Susan’s street performances.

The Space Lady first came to the attention of record-obsessives through her inclusion on the outsider music compilation Songs In The Key Of Z. She specializes in Casio-driven tunes distorted and amplified through phase-shifters and echo units. Her original songs, most of which were composed by her ex-husband, the late Joel Dunsany, are upbeat and bouncy and altogether pretty damn life affirming. It’s her choice of covers (and her no-fidelity execution of them) that makes me like her: Peter Schilling's “Major Tom” becomes a somber ode as opposed to the original’s cathartic plea; Sweet’s “Ballroom Blitz” is jittery and anxious and utterly stripped of it's teenage swagger; the crown jewel version of Steppenwolf’s “Born To Be Wild” strips every shred of its scruffy leather associations and baptizes itself in digital dissolves, whoops, and yelps. Schneider retired from music in 2000 and left her marriage. She moved back to Colorado, became a nurse—a job she's since left—and met her current husband, Eric, in 2009. She began performing again in 2012. Next spring, at 66 years old, she'll undertake her first-ever club tour.

I got to talk to her recently and it was seriously the best interview I've ever done.

VICE: You've mentioned before that you believe you experienced an alien abduction as a child.
The Space Lady: I wasn't a child, I was a young woman of 20 undergoing surgery. The anesthesia lifted me out of my body, but I remained conscious as I floated up and out of Earth's atmosphere, where I was joined by a number of beings who showed me around what I believe was a space ship. More astoundingly, they gave me many answers and secrets to life, and the universe in general, saying things that were so profound I couldn't believe what was happening to me, but I felt no fear. They also took me on a very circuitous ride on that ship, going all over the solar system, as near as I could tell. Then suddenly I felt myself descending back into my body, and with sheer desperation I kept telling myself, "Don’t forget! Don’t forget! Don't forget what you've learned here!" But as soon as I was back in my body, to my bitter disappointment, I couldn't remember any details, except what I've told you here. At any rate, I know that information is still buried deep in my sub-conscious. And ever since, I’ve had an avid interest in UFOs, abduction stories, and out-of-body and near-death experiences.

There seems to be an implicit spirituality in your music. That is, much of it feels received and inspired. Do you believe in God, or hold any religious beliefs?
I was raised in the Methodist church by non-religious parents who liked the music and the socialization of the services. They were musicians, and church was one of the few venues in our small Colorado town. By age 13, I became fervently religious because of the confusion and guilt of my developing sexuality. Then, at age 16, my first boyfriend, Kenny, died as a result of a blow to the head on the football field. I became a devout and angry atheist as a result of that emotional trauma. I held to that mind-set until my first psychedelic experience in college, when I realized I was much more than just my body, and worst of all, there would be no escape in death.

What were some of your influences at this time?
During the early years with Joel, who read voraciously, I became aware of the spiritualism of people like Edgar Cayce, the Theosophists, the “I Am” Society, and various other new age thinkers and groups. This further opened my mind to the possibility that there was more to the universe than the eye could see. But what I was most drawn to was Native American spirituality, and [Carlos Castaneda's] Journey to Ixtlan, a non-fiction book describing the teachings of a Yaqui Indian sorcerer. That really knocked my socks off. Now I’ve come full-circle back to Zen Buddhism as taught by Thich Nhat Hanh, that is “engaged Buddhism,” which works in communities to actively help people and animals in need.

Cool. Does this spirituality help your performances?
I don’t believe in what people generally call “God,” but to hear me play you might think I do. I definitely enter a rhapsodic state with my music, especially at Christmastime, because I love the old carols I was brought up on. And that trance-like state is one where creative energy flows through me, seemingly from elsewhere, and I get musical ideas way beyond what I believe my own brain is capable of. In that state, I’m given a gift for reaching people I couldn’t otherwise reach. It’s awesome and humbling.

Is there a common theme running through the songs you choose to cover other than the fact that you like them?
I’ve always meant to project a life-affirming message, but without becoming saccharine. The greatest bands, like the Beatles, Led Zeppelin, Pink Floyd, Yes, ELO, Fleetwood Mac, etc., succeeded in doing that. Their music has moved the world, and contributed toward peace in the most powerful way. One of my favorite covers is Melanie Safka’s song “I Don’t Eat Animals,” because our compassion as humans must extend to all sentient beings. For that matter, Thich Nhat Hanh includes compassion for minerals, which makes sense if you think about the earth as a giant living being. I’ve also covered lots of songs that I just plain love, like “Walkin’ on Sunshine,” “Low Spark of High Heeled Boys,” “Sultans of Swing,” “Still Rock ‘n’ Roll to Me,” and “Stray Cat Strut,” simply because I get high singing them.

You're about to go on your very first tour of clubs this coming spring. Clubs tend to be relatively controlled environments whereas performing on the street has its own set of hazards. Is this something you're looking forward to, or does the controlled setting make you apprehensive?
I’m looking forward to playing for people who already love my music, instead of spending hours on end playing to deaf ears on the street. I’m also a little apprehensive about how to structure a set in an impressively building way, and having meaningful and entertaining things to say in between songs. I’ve never really had to do that before!

Recordings exist in a fixed state but it seems that there would be a lot of room for improvisation during a live performance by the Space Lady, especially with regard to your sound effects, vocals, etc. Do you do much improvisation or do you keep things pretty well regulated?
I do arrange my songs in a relatively fixed way, at least until I come to one of those sound-effects passages. On the street I feel I have to keep those parts somewhat brief, or passersby will have no idea of the context of what I’m doing with all those shrieks and screeches. With an audience of open-minded fans I’m sure it will be great fun to expand on those passages for people who totally grok what I’m doing!

Are there any contemporary artists you enjoy? Further, are there any recent songs you're currently covering or plan to cover?
Is KT Tunstall still contemporary? To me she is, and I’m her biggest fan. I’d love to cover contemporary stuff, but I’ve been out of touch over the past decade, and now there is so much out there I don’t know where to begin to look/listen. I need my fans to come to my rescue with their suggestions!

What does the Space Lady do when she's not working as a nurse or playing music?
I don’t work as a nurse at all anymore and may never again. It hasn’t been a good fit for me, because I know too much about having a good nutritional foundation of a plant-based, whole food diet, which most of the medical field turns a blind eye to. For me, futilely treating the symptoms caused by eating a deadly diet was frustrating and disheartening. Thankfully, the Space Lady swooped down to rescue me a year ago this month, and I’ve devoted myself to music exclusively ever since. My main other passion is nature photography, especially of birds, who not only can sing, but also fly!

Would you consider yourself a political person?
For 20 years, Joel and I lived like refugees in our own country, and as a result we learned how to take a quiet stand against the establishment. We never took direct political action, and in fact, shunned politics as a form of insanity. But your question is very astute. Our lifestyle was a political statement of sorts. More recently, in fact shortly after 9/11, I became painfully aware of the deceit we were fed about what really happened that day, and I was outraged! So I got very active in the 9/11 Truth Movement. But the more I read about previous false flag operations, the more I realized that nothing has ever changed, and nothing will ever change as a result of political action. I also realized that I could never be a stand for peace and be as angry as I was.

I was sorry to hear about Joel passing last month. You'd mentioned that he was very excited about the new wave of attention the Space Lady was receiving. Of the compositions of his included on "Greatest Hits," is there one in particular that you're fondest of?
Yes, Joel was thrilled with all the attention the Space Lady has been getting. He was also desperate to record some of the stuff he was creating on guitar through the many effects pedals he had amassed, well knowing his health was failing… but he never pulled it off. I think “Synthesize Me” would have to be his signature song, with all the outer-space references, alliterations, and rhymes. He wrote that song specifically for me shortly after I graduated to the Casio from accordion, and he loved what I did with it. I only wish he had lived to hear that there is a nightclub in Brighton, England named after that song! Then “Slapback Boomerang” would certainly be a close second. Joel was crazy about echo, and used to play his Les Paul copy through an old reel-to-reel Echoplex, even during our “cave days” on Mt. Shasta. He had a Mike Matthews Freedom amp that ran on 40 D-cell batteries lining the entire inner wall of the cabinet, and he would rock out until the wee hours of the night, with coyotes howling along with him in the distance. He called what he was doing “playing cascades of notes,” and it really sounded amazing. Joel attracted people to him like planets around a sun, with his gregarious personality, his intelligence, his great sense of humor, and especially with his futuristic, otherworldly music.

The liner notes of the album mention that you started playing again at the urging of your husband Eric and that you've branched out from Colorado into New Mexico, at least occasionally. Are these street-level gigs like the old days?
No, not really. The cities out here in the Southwest are much smaller and more conservative than Boston/Cambridge or San Francisco/Berkeley. Santa Fe [a.k.a. “The City Different”] is the exception, but there is no place to play outdoors except in the Plaza for tourists, and once a month at the Farmers Market for the locals. Now it’s winter, and I’ve found prospects on the street are even slimmer, but I keep trying. If nothing else, it’s helped me get my chops back. And I got a radio interview and performance with the legendary Travis Parkin at KUNM out of it, which was a triumph. It will be so great to tour the West Coast and then the UK and Europe, all of which are in the works!

@gordonlamb

Will Al "Captain Planet" Gore be Rob Ford's newest adversary?

Rob Ford rumbled into 2014 today by arrogantly filing his papers for re-election in October, adding that he is the “best mayor” Toronto has “ever had.” The big question now is will our allegedly racist and admittedly crack-smoking mayor regain his throne and stick around for another four years? At this point, it wouldn’t surprise me if Robbie pulled it off—as sad as that is, given the litany of recent catastrophes that have marred his deeply troubled political career as of late.

The major factor that will make or break Robbie’s re-election campaign is, of course, his opponents. While the rumours for potential competitors include presumably crack-free politicians like Olivia Chow, John Tory, and Denzil Minnan-Wong, these people have never been joked about on American talk shows, nor have they ever bragged about their proverbial pussy buffets that keep them from committing adultery.  Not like our boy Robbie.

In simple terms, Rob Ford has an edge over all of his adversaries thanks to his powerful infamy, given that his hideous saga is the “biggest Canadian story in the U.S. this century.” How could any run-of-the-mill, municipal Canadian politician (no matter how well-intentioned or capable they may be) compete with such a media juggernaut? Obviously none of these opponents have the drug-addled panache that keeps Rob Ford in the headlines. But, just as Dr. Ian Malcom said in Jurassic Park while musing about chaos theory: “Life will find a way.” So, in true pro wrestling fashion, it seems as if a surprise guest has just interfered with the competition: a guy named Al Gore.

The Ford story is already straight out of the squared circle, as it already has several, literal tie-ins with sports entertainment. The Iron Sheik challenged Rob Ford to an arm wrestling match after Rob Ford literally arm-wrestled Hulk Hogan, which then led to Brutus the Beefcake being thrown out of City Hall for wanting to be “Rob Ford’s ‘Angel of Mercy.’” Now it appears that a man who shares the same name as everyone’s favourite inconvenient truther, or perhaps, the famous Al Gore himself, is setting himself up to challenge Rob Ford: Toronto’s #1 supervillain.

What are the potential ramifications of Bill Clinton’s former wingman (who has not responded to my request for comment) running for mayor in the City of Toronto? Robbie would certainly be attacked on his gas-guzzling SUV and the carbon impact of his presumably awful, Russian Vodka and cheeseburger-laced farts. Has Rob Ford somehow made being Mayor of Toronto the hot political job for 2014, thanks to the 14,385 American news stories that ran about him last year? Perhaps we will see a cavalry of semi-retired American political dynamos parachute into Toronto to take on the Ford dynasty; Herman Cain, the man who quoted Pokemon in the last presidential election, comes to mind. At the very least, he would be able to work on expanding his pizza empire into the Canadian market.

Clearly, the political landscape in Toronto has surpassed realism (that happened sometime between the video of Rob Ford threatening to murder someone and the satanic bus tour debacle), so why shouldn’t we also have foreign dignitaries trying to take over Toronto? It’s only fair. And, at the very least, if this Al Gore application is just some out-of-left-field troll, directed at Toronto’s electoral system at large, it is far from the last punchline we’ll hear in the election campaigns to come.

Basically, it’s time to get used to the weirdness. Rob Ford may be a master of surprise, but it’s one of the only tools he has at his disposal (along with handing out Rob Ford fridge magnets to aggravated ice storm victims in public housing). Maybe if we embrace the crack, the pro wrestlers, and the Satanists, everyone can stop freaking out about Robbie and allow someone with a bit more sense and prestige to step in. At this point, Al Gore sounds like a pretty good fit. He did invent the internet, after all.
 

@patrickmcguire