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The 'Less Than Zero' Kids Knew How to Dress

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Shirt customised by Kylie Griffiths, Beyond Retro jeans, Office shoes, socks model's own

PHOTOGRAPHY: STEPHANIE SIAN SMITH
STYLIST: KYLIE GRIFFITHS
Layout and design: Studio Moross
Producer: Tabitha Martin
Hair and make-up: Lydia Warhurst using MAC and Bumble and bumble
Photo assistants: Tommy Cattanach, Bradley Lloyd Barnes, Cleo Glover
Stylist's assistant: Thomas Ramshaw
Hair and make-up assistants: Anna Warhurst, Charlotte Kratman
Models: Lottie at FM, Mimi at Models 1, Zana at Nevs
Set Design: Morning
Location: JJ Locations

Tommy Hilfiger blazer, American Apparel shirt, Rokit blazer

TOP: YrStore T-shirts BOTTOM: Vintage vest; vintage Ralph Lauren Shirt; vintage shirt, Topshop T-shirt, Ray-Ban sunglasses

TOP: Vintage Versace trousers BOTTOM: Vintage pyjamas; vintage shirt and trousers

Eleven Paris jacket, vintage shirt, Absolute Vintage sunglasses

LEFT TO RIGHT FROM TOP: Beyond Retro shirt, Absolute Vintage sunglasses; Beyond Retro blazer; Topshop T-shirt; vintage shirt; vintage jacket; Topshop T-shirt; vintage shirt

TOP: Topshop T-shirt BOTTOM: Topshop T-shirt, Tommy Hilfiger trousers; Rokit blazer; River Island jacket, Tommy Hilfiger shirt

Forever 21 jacket, vintage jumper, American Apparel skirt; Cacharel suit, American Apparel shirt

Rokit blazer, Gogo Philip earrings; Tommy Hilfiger suit jacket, American Apparel shirt; Rokit blazer, vintage jeans; American Apparel skirt, Absolute Vintage shoes

TOP TO BOTTOM: Uniqlo shirt; Forever 21 jacket, vintage jumper; American Apparel shirt; vintage shirt; Tommy Hilfiger blazer and shirt

A Box of Forgotten Smallpox Vials Was Just Found in an FDA Closet

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A Box of Forgotten Smallpox Vials Was Just Found in an FDA Closet

A Dozen Roses: Robert Melee on Photographing His Mother

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Robert Melee often embeds an element of the everyday or personal even in his most purely formal pieces. For instance, his paintings on beer-bottle caps set in plaster, which are serious explorations of color, still prompt one to wonder, in the midst of aesthetic admiration, Did he drink all those beers himself? In his multimedia body of work, Melee has used fake wood paneling, silver platters, tinsel, footage of sexual intercourse, footage of an unsuspecting drunk stranger shot through a peephole, liquid cheese food, party hats, his friends, himself, and, in what may be his best-known works, his mother.
 
As the exhibition title suggests, a dozen Roses, on view at Higher Pictures through August 1st, features twelve images of Melee’s mother, Rose. In these photographs, chosen from an extensive series the artist completed between 1993 and 2004, we encounter the subject engaged in an array of peculiar scenes. In one arresting photograph, she stands naked in a snowy forest wearing thick eyeliner, with her lips blackened and face powdered white. In another, she is dolled up like a drag queen, whooping it up in the passenger seat of a convertible, on a joyride through the cemetery. We also witness her posing on all fours, stationed atop a kitchen table in a slutty negligee with some pots, pans, and a teakettle piled on her back.
 
I spoke with Robert about the genesis of this work, what it’s like to return to it, and how he got his mother to cooperate in the first place.
 
 
VICE: I guess we met at a salon of Matthu Placek's in 2011 and then later that year you invited me to perform at your opening at Andrew Kreps, and I gradually got to know you more after that. I missed the original shows involving your mother, so it's exciting to see this one.
Robert Melee: Yes, we met at one of Matthu’s salons.
 
In the past, these works were shown among installations, videos, and sometimes even your mother herself, in the flesh. How does it feel to revisit these images at this point and view them purely as photographs?
When I was experimenting with photographs and videos in the very early 90s, I knew they were going to be one of many elements in my sculptures. I haven’t taken any photos of my mother in more than a decade, but I have been putting together a monograph of this work over the past year. I’ve never had an exhibition of individually framed photos. But it seemed only natural to show these after finishing the book, so I approached Higher Pictures to see if they might be interested in showing the work, and I’m grateful that they were. I’m very excited about giving them a new life.
 
 
How did you first approach your mother about participating? Did you just say, "Slap some makeup on that face and take off your clothes, Mom; we're going to the woods," or what? And was she gung ho from the get-­go, or resistant?
After my first installation, Baloneyism, which consisted of plastic-slip-covered painted furniture, refrigerator doors, a shag carpet soaked with 20 gallons of latex enamel paint, and walls lined with painted imitation wood, I didn’t want to repeat the process, but I did want to continue with the context.
 
Of the suburban domestic interior?
Yes. So I abandoned the solitude of object-making in the studio, and for more than two years I shot "snapshots" and "home movies" of close friends, acquaintances, strangers, and my mother. I first approached my mother during a visit to her home. I asked if I could take some pics for a project, and she agreed. This first shoot took 15 minutes. The results were so strong, and we were both so relaxed, that I shot more—she would visit or I would visit her, we’d have some drinks, and I would apply makeup and dress her and see what would happen. It was the second shoot, when she visited me in New York, that she decided it would be more interesting if she took her clothes off. How could I argue?
 
 
Did she have a good time? Did you?
Her entire personality would change once I finished hair and makeup. She became very flamboyant. I think she really loved the attention and the glam of the photo shoot. To this day she thanks me for all the great and interesting situations we have gotten into.
 
The shoots were never discussed beforehand, and we never brainstormed. These shoots were very intimate—no one else on set. I did all makeup and costume and juggled still and video cameras, and used a tripod when called for.
 
When I showed her the results, she would critique the work like a producer: “The legs are great in this one,” or “The wig is crazy in this one.” Even of the most unflattering and disturbing image, she would say, “They’re going to love this one. This one will sell.”
 
 
The press release indicates she was drunk in all the photos. Was that a restriction of the series, or did it just happen that way? Were you drunk too?
My mother, now 79, rarely drinks these days. The shoots were always scheduled around visits, and we both liked to drink at the time. It always helped relax my mother before she’d hear me say, for example,  “I would like to film me giving you a bath."
 
When I had my Talent Show at the Kitchen, I met my mother at Penn two hours before curtain call. We had a few drinks at the station and hopped in a taxi directly to the venue. I told her I wanted to show her something. Then I showed her the stage I had designed and told her that we were the first performance—that she would have to take off her clothing and I was going to pour paint on her, to match the set design, in front of a live audience. She was like, "What?" But within seconds she agreed to do it, two nights in a row. The first night I walked her backstage to clean up. The second night, at her request, I put a robe on her and we sat in the audience and watched all the other performances with leftover latex paint on her body. She had a ball!
 
 
These photos were taken over the course of more than a decade. How did you know when the series was over? And did you know where you would go next?
The series was over when I had nothing else to say. At that time, I had exhausted most of my ideas with photo and video and not only stopped taking photos and videos of my mother but stopped entirely for about a decade. I started shooting again for my show in 2011. It was then that I started experimenting with green screen. I presented 11 new videos and many new photos for that show. I wanted to make work just as psychologically charged, but less obvious than photo and video. That’s when I began exploring figurative sculpture, first shown in my solo show In Between False Comforts, in 2005.
 
 
There are a dozen images featured in this show, but there are many others. How did you select this particular set of twelve?
There are over 300 images from this body of work, so it wasn't easy choosing. Higher Pictures and I decided to present a variety of the images from twelve different shoots, instead of forming a narrative.
 
To make a parent a subject of your work is to put them into a world where you can control them, on one level. You might be looking for connection, reconciliation, revenge, catharsis... Or maybe a psychological reading like this is reductive or somehow inappropriate to the work. Do you have anything to say about what compelled you to do work around, and with, your mother?
Let's just say it was very interesting being raised by such a woman. There were some serious difficulties, and by the time I was a late teen, we weren’t really talking much. It was through this work that we became close again. The shoots were like therapy sessions. Makeup that normally took me 20 minutes to apply took me two hours because Mommy could talk! This became routine. She would tell me some of her childhood experiences that were very personal, which explained her method of raising children. She would ask for forgiveness, so I forgave her, to the best of my abilities.
 
 
These photos are exaggerations of her, caricatures. They are my memory of her when she was extremely restless, not afraid to make up—with the courage to wear micro miniskirts and boots to the local strip mall, with baby me in tow.  Her hair color changed monthly, and our home furnishing was rearranged endlessly.
 
Now this is not so relevant to the current show, but I am just so curious if anyone hired her the time she was made "available" at a past exhibition?
At the opening of my exhibition You Me and Her, in 2002 in New York, she was placed behind safety glass. She greeted people smoking, drinking, and wearing only a feather boa and heels. This was documented and a video monitor replaced her in that space. I think the price list said she was available for $6,000 an hour. No one purchased time with her.
 
 
What a shame. So a coffee table book is in the works?
Yes, it is basically all laid out, with two essays already written on this work, one by my brother Ed and one by the artist Michael Bilsborough.  The working title is Unavailability. I am currently looking for a publisher.
 
What is next?
I have started combining my photographs with my plaster and fiberglass works. I have solo shows at David Castillo in Miami and at Andrew Kreps in New York in 2015. We shall see.

 

Joseph Keckler is an interdisciplinary artist, writer, and operatic bass-baritone whom the Village Voice named “Best Downtown Performance Artist" in 2013. Follow him on Twitter.

Aaron Swartz and 21st-Century Martyrdom

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Aaron Swartz at a rally against the Stop Online Piracy Act (SOPA) in 2012. Photo via Flickr user Daniel J. Sieradski

In early 2013, David Karp, the co-founder of Tumblr, graced the cover of Forbes magazine with a headline blaring: "A $200 million fortune by 26.” The same month, another 26-year-old genius who started and sold a tech company, Aaron Swartz, was effectively killed by the United States government for engaging in political advocacy. Swartz's death was not that different from the deaths of many others in our culture. A federal prosecutor named Stephen Heymann was 'overzealous,' in the words of one writer working on a book about Swartz, which is a passive aggressive way of saying he used the power of the state to damage someone for careerist, vindictive, or bureaucratic reasons having nothing to do with an application of justice. Thousands have had that done to them in, say, the name of the war on drugs. This time it was because a guy who ran a computer crime division needed something to do.

The key difference from most other federal cases is that the victim was smart, rich, white, and deeply connected to the technology world’s elite. At the age of 13, Swartz helped create an important technical standard known as RSS, and while still a teenager, he helped sell a company called Reddit after it merged with his own project, Infogami. He began working in progressive politics, wherein we became friends. As a congressional intern, he helped advocate for reform of the health care system and the Federal Reserve. In 2012, Swartz used the knowledge he gained to lead an unprecedented political campaign to defeat the Stop Online Piracy Act (SOPA), a bill that would have undermined free speech on the internet.

In death, Swartz became far more famous than he was in life. I saw this firsthand. I was working with him on a project about narcotics reform, and he sent me an email that he had the flu and would be a bit late with a draft of a report. A month later, hundreds of journalists were writing about his death, and he had become a martyr. Multiple US Senators attended his funeral, and one Congresswoman introduced something to the House of Representatives called Aaron's Law, which would have reformed the Computer Fraud and Abuse Act (CFAA) used to terrorize him. A therapist friend of mine told me that young male clients of hers were bringing up his name spontaneously. And last week, Brian Knappenberger released a wonderful documentary called The Internet's Own Boy about Swartz. It's worth seeing, because it speaks to the martyrdom of Swartz, and to a deep strain of malevolence in modern American culture.

But why is Swartz considered a martyr? Why did this sweet, intelligent, and highly capable individual die, and why did his death spark so much interest beyond the circle of people who knew him?

I think it has to do with the fact that Swartz was a moral outlier in American culture. He was an economic and political winner, and yet he took ethics more seriously than he did money. He was a millionaire, yet interned in Congress to learn the process of legislating—a tech genius who did not try to climb the greasy poll of Silicon Valley success. Swartz won the rat race and then decided he didn't want to be a rat. America frowns on this archetype, celebrating only a narrow form of success for men. Take Tumblr’s Karp, and compare him to Aaron. Karp and Aaron both grew up privileged, and both showed remarkable skill at organizing large numbers of people on the internet. But while Karp used his expertise to spy on people so that Yahoo could sell them things, Swartz used his expertise to make the world a better place. Karp was rewarded with money and fame while Swartz was rewarded with arrest.

Here's what happened, and the facts aren't really in dispute.

In 2011, Swartz hooked a laptop up to the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) network and downloaded a bunch of documents from an academic database named JSTOR. Swartz had a history of analyzing large batches of academic data and little or no history of breaking the law. But prosecutor Stephen Heymann, the man in charge of a computer crime division in the US Attorney's office in Boston, saw the situation differently. When Swartz attached a computer to MIT's famously open network, Heymann saw a nefarious 'hacker' breaking into MIT. And while Swartz thought he was just doing a bulk download of published academic research, Heymann decided that what was happening was computer fraud.

JSTOR did not ultimately press charges, and there was no lasting damage or illegal activity. Still, Heymann charged Swartz with multiple counts of computer fraud, and threatened to put him in jail for more than 30 years. Activists thought this was absurd, and began petitioning for Swartz's release. The prosecutor decided that activists should be taught a lesson and their hero put away—Heymann brought a new indictment with many more charges. It had moved, in Heymann's words, from an individual case to an “institutional” one. MIT, despite a history of encouraging hacking, stayed quiet, essentially giving the prosecutor license to go ahead.

After several years of being threatened and deceived, and after having spent his entire fortune on legal fees, Swartz hung himself on January 11, 2013. After he died, Heymann retreated from public comment. Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) requests for files on Swartz's case have been denied or heavily redacted. No one, not Heymann or anyone else in the Justice Department, has been disciplined. A few months after Aaron's death, Heymann's boss Carmen Ortiz held a press conference on the Boston Marathon bombing, apparently intent on getting her political career back on track. MIT had its village elders, like computer scientist Hal Abelson, put out a disgraceful report concluding that the school had done nothing wrong. The White House, despite 50,000 signatures on its petition page seeking justice for Aaron, hasn't deigned to do anything. The absurd law used by Heymann to prosecute Swartz was never changed, the tweak apparently having been blocked by tech giants, who want to use it as a potential cudgel against ex-employees. Swartz's death, in other words, was followed by a mass campaign of CYA.

In an age of dramatic economic and political inequality, Swartz's death is proof that it does not matter how talented you are or how hard you work—American meritocracy is a sham. If Swartz, a rich tech genius with an unparalleled network of powerful friends and a remarkable track record of success, couldn't live an ethical, dignified life, then who can? Our contemporary culture is crippled by increasingly Soviet-style barriers against all who challenge the status quo. It has criminal statutes so broad that basically everyone is a lawbreaker, and selective prosecution has become a mechanism for ordering our politics. It demands deep moral compromise just to live with minimal interference from authority. It requires that, to be a 'success' like Karp, you must have not only the talent to build appealing social systems, but also the lack of a moral compass involved in using those social systems to manipulate others. The ethic of this approach is designed by those who fear only those risks associated with human freedom.

Those who dislike this culture, who think that success is the opposite of killing or spying or greed or ass-kissing, saw virtue in Swartz. Swartz had character, and he was killed for it.

If Swartz could comment on his own death, he would probably point out that it was noticed only because people like him don’t go through the criminal justice system. Millions, mostly poor, black and/or brown, he would say, are killed and punished, grieved only by their friends and family. Swartz was supposed to be in a protected class, a class of liberal elites. His death showed that injustice is coming for all of us, because the same leaders who killed Swartz, covered up the reasons for his death, and then cleared the institution—MIT—that allowed him to die, are still in charge.

Swartz's death matters because it illustrates a fundamental truth about modern American politics. He wanted nothing more than to build, to make our society better, to heal the sick and turn swords into ploughshares. He did what all great activists and dissidents do, which is to show where our own rhetoric falls short, and point us towards a brighter path. At other moments in history, we would have protected our young, and recognized that they seek to build a better world. But our institutions—corporate, academic, and political—are, by and large, run by careerist sociopaths, and these people decided it's more important to take out the Aaron Swartzs of the world than to admit their own error.

Facing up to this evil is not easy. It requires dropping many of the illusions we hold about our world, our friends, and our laws. But the people that did this aren't going to stop with Swartz. Heymann, I'm sure, didn't actually intend to kill him. He simply meant to destroy his reputation, confiscate his money, and make him a felon. But while Swartz's death was a mistake, destroying him as a lesson to all of us wasn't a mistake. It was policy.

Follow Matt Stoller on Twitter.

Last Night in Rio Was Massively Depressing

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These guys consoled each other the only way they know how.

Yesterday, the biggest game of the biggest sporting tournament on the planet was played in Brazil. Fought between the hosts and Germany in Belo Horizonte, the World Cup semi-final will inevitably cast a bigger shadow than anything that preceded it and the final itself, and it did not go as coach Luiz Felipe Scolari—or anyone—had planned. Had Brazil won, this morning we'd probably be lauding a team that had built up an unstoppable momentum on its way to a sixth World Cup victory. Instead, this latest incarnation of Seleção ended up battered by their opponents, mocked by their fans, and eviscerated by their journalists.

The German performance was one of brilliant cruelty; four goals in six hallucinogenic first-half minutes put them one goal shy of what the United States scored in the entire tournament. But while Americans have already largely forgotten that we had a World Cup team, what happened to the Brazilians will be etched into the psyche of the nation for decades. Before last night, this was a nation still haunted by a World Cup final lost to Uruguay on home turf in 1950. Now, a new generation of Brazilians have their own ghosts to exorcize.

Aside from the absent Thiago Silva and Neymar, the only Brazilian players to come out of the game with even a slither of credit were the stranded goalkeeper, Julio Cesar, the scorer, Oscar, and the center-half Dante. The latter deserves a sympathy pass only because his partner was so totally inept. After this summer's $85.5 million move to Paris St. German, David Luiz is the most expensive defender of all time, and last night he cost his national side dearly, putting in a performance that will deservedly be held up for decades as a disasterclass of decapitated anti-defense.

Anyway, as the Brazilian squad and their management wept and weighed up the relative merits of different hideouts, we asked photographer Mattias Maxx to go out onto the streets of Rio to capture the mood of the city. There'd been reports of violence earlier in the day, of gunfire, robbery, and brawling at the official FIFA fan park on Copacabana beach, but in the end the social discontent that has rumbled away throughout this tournament did not rear its head.

This morning, many Brazilians woke up still feeling angry at FIFA for robbing their country blind. But last night, as the planet wondered whether or not the country would catch fire, the locals were mostly just sad and drunk in the rain. So long, jogo bonito.

—VICE Staff

Click through for more photos.

A fan tries to evade the downpour outside a fast-food shop.

A Brazil fan tries to flee the scene outside the Copacabana Palace hotel.

A Brazil fan dances in the rain.

Reports indicate that the police had a surprisingly quiet night.

Pissed-off fans piss against a World Cup boarding.

Brazil fans staring into space

Brazil fans console each other.

Smug German fans in Rio.

There were a lot of empty bottles as Germans toasted their success and Brazilians drowned their sorrows.

Some Germans thrusting their victory in the face of a Brazilian, who didn't seem too impressed.

Argentines were happy too. They celebrated the Germans' success—or, rather, Brazil's failure—with pizza.

This guy was pretty confused as to how his heroes failed so badly.

Workers clearing trash off Copacabana beach

Brazilian left-back Marcelo in an "All or Nothing" Adidas ad

A Brazilian fan stranded in the rain

Guns were reportedly fired by a gang carrying out a "mass robbery" on a bar at a fan park

VICE News: Russian Roulette: The Invasion of Ukraine - Part 54

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On July 5, the eastern Ukrainian town of Sloviansk was recaptured by the Ukrainian military, driving the rebels out of town after a three-month occupation. VICE News correspondent Simon Ostrovsky travels back to Sloviansk—where he hasn't been since he was kidnapped—and visits the cell he was held in back in April. The entire town is in shambles and the residents are struggling to find food and water despite a considerable humanitarian effort. The rebels have retreated to Donetsk, but the Ukrainian government is determined to continue the anti-terror operation until there are none left.

Should Mussels Be the Meat of the 21st Century?

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Should Mussels Be the Meat of the 21st Century?

Hey, Young Person—in Case You Plan on Dying, Here's How to Write a Will

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Photo via Flickr user Nicki Varkevisser

Being in the 15–24 year old demographic is pretty freakin’ sweet. Nobody expects you to be responsible or employed, and you're still living at home, playing Angry Birds: Star Wars on the phone your parents bought you. This frees up a lot of time for unbridled drug use, alcohol poisoning, reckless driving, climbing structures that would best be left unclimbed, moshing, punching people in the head, and other stupid shit that is liable to get you killed. As a generation we’ve got the highest number of accidental deaths, by far. Mostly thanks to car accidents. Thanks.

The fact is, you’re going to die. Probably sooner rather than later. And when that happens, who do you think will get all of your wacky, vintage junk? That’s right, your lame parents. And what are they going to do with it the moment they’re done grieving? That’s right, it's going straight in the fucking trash where it belongs, now that you’re dead. 

For your pre-mortal benefit, we called up Florida estate attorney Grady H. Williams Jr., LLM, of FloridaElder.com (whose hold music was Bobby Fuller’s “I Fought the Law”) for some info about getting a will and testament set up so you’ll have one less thing to worry about while texting Aaron the story of you getting sucked while off going 90 in the Civic.


via Wikipedia

VICE: Mr. Williams, what happens to my stuff if I don’t have a will and I drive into the ocean on my scooter because I’m distracted by a Google Glass update?
Grady H. Williams Jr.: Here’s the deal: If you don’t have a will that is legally enforceable upon your death, then your state or jurisdiction has a default will for you called an intestate succession. That’s legal talk for how the state legislature thinks your property, your stuff, your legal rights should be passed upon your death, based on your marital status. If you’ve got someone like my son, for example—who as far as I know is single with no kids—if he deceases tomorrow, then his mother and I are his heirs. Whereas if he had a one-year-old child we didn’t know about, that child would become his heir.

So it’s probably important to set up a will if you don’t want your mama, baby mama, or baby baby to inherit your collection of female-bodybuilder VHS porn, or whatever.
Depending on what you’re trying to accomplish versus what your default position is, yes, it may be very important to you. On the other hand, if you don’t have anything, or if you’re perfectly happy with your parents or children or wife getting everything, that may be OK.

Is it enough to sit down at my computer and type out a bare-bones list of who gets what and save it as My Chill Will.docx?
No. In most states, to do a valid will, first of all, it’s gotta be handwritten. Number two, it’s gotta have testamentary intent—that is, it’s the document you meant to serve as your last will and testament. Typically it will have to be signed by you in the presence of two witnesses who must sign it contemporaneously in your presence and each other’s presence.

To take it a step further, in most jurisdictions—by statute—you also have the highly recommended option of doing what’s called an affidavit. A self-proving affidavit, where you and the two witnesses sign again, saying, “This is the will, we’ve signed it in each other’s presences, the witnesses have signed it, and we all signed it in front of the notary who is taking this affidavit." 

The notary then signs the affidavit certificate and seals it. And now, under statute, that can be admitted to probate, which is the court procedure after you’re gone—without having to get a separate testimony or oath sworn to by the witness. It authenticates the will. [Note: Some states, including California, will accept a witness-less will, called a "holographic will," which must be entirely handwritten and is usually reserved for cases of death in isolation.]


Photo via Flickr user Stephen Harlow

So how would I leave my 2010 Coachella wristband to my 2010 girlfriend?
You could provide in the will itself that you’re leaving your wristband to your girlfriend, or you can do a separate written statement that identifies the beneficiaries of specific items of tangible, personal property.

Why have a separate statement?
The advantage is that you don’t have to do a bunch of things at once. You can make the will one day, and then later go through the laundry list, like, "The baseball card collection goes to my best friend from 8th grade," etc. Keep in mind, that will is going to remain open to any future legal entitlements that would otherwise be payable in your name after you die.

What if in 2005 I texted my best friend that he could have my Nintendo DS when I died, but in 2009 he fucked my girlfriend and now I think he’s a piece of shit. After I die, could he use that text to steal my DS too?
He certainly could bring that to probate, but that type of case is going to be dealt with under the law of contracts. So the question is usually going to be framed in terms of whether or not that’s a legally enforceable contract between you and your… friend. Normally—and I would call this the majority rule—the court would say that no, it’s not legally enforceable because your friend didn’t give you anything for that promise. It’s what we would call a gratuitous promise—a statement of intent to make a gift, and in most jurisdictions that would be unenforceable as you stated it.


Photo via Flickr user Jason Lei

Are there any guidelines to writing the actual document? Any necessary language?
To keep it as simple as possible: Identify yourself, identify who will be acting on your behalf after your death. That person is normally called either a personal representative or an executor. Optionally, you can identify your family or next of kin; some people like to do that.

Also, it’s optional to even identify your stuff. You can make it all-encompassing. A very simple will could read, “I’m John Doe. If I die, my brother James Doe is going to be my personal representative. I’m leaving the residue of my estate to my brother James Doe.” You can even go further and say, “If my brother, James Doe, doesn’t survive me, then I’m leaving the residue of my estate instead to my parents.” Or something like that. And then, usually what is recommended is, you authorize your representative to serve without bond, with all statutory powers granted in that jurisdiction.

Sorry, why would there be a bond?
A bond is simply a form of collateral that’s given to the court to make sure you do your job correctly, and if you default on it, then in theory, the estate can recover it from the company that issued the bond. But normally you’ll waive the bond in the will and the court will respect that, and that will usually save you money.

So if you write it in some bare-bones vernacular like “I’m leavin’ everything to Pa," and you’ve got the two witnesses and everything, could you run into any problems?
You should be able to. You gotta show the testamentary intent, though. I’ve occasionally seen a person’s will that couldn’t be fulfilled, practically speaking, and then they had some levity in it as well, so it was sort of like, Did they really intend this to be a will or not? I think as long as that part is clear, it should work.

Most experienced attorneys go into more detail because the devil is in the details, and the issue is always, What if this happens, what if that happens? I mean, what you’re trying to do is deal with a document that’s going to survive you, and leave your beneficiaries better off for having received something, so normally you’d have to think about them, think about what you’re trying to accomplish, and build in some contingencies for the future. That’s where you get into a little bit more complexity. Certainly for a starter-type person who's got maybe a limited amount of wealth, it could be that simple and legally effective.

Would this also be a good opportunity to say what you would like done with your body? Like, I’d really like to be fired out of a canon, over a fence, into Jack White’s backyard.
You can certainly do so, although that would almost certainly be unenforceable.

Bummer.
Keep in mind, a lot of times the will may not be recovered by the time of the disposal of the body, so if you are doing that, I think it’s good to also have a separate, non-will, letter of instruction provided to whoever is going to be in charge. But remember, in most jurisdictions your next of kin will have legal custody over your remains. If you have parents living, likely they’re the next of kin who would be consulted by a funeral director before anything was done with your remains. If you don’t have parents living, then they’d typically look for siblings. I say that to let you know; it’s good to give that letter of instruction to someone who is actually going to matter.


Photo via Flickr user Dan Foy

Sounds like a lot of work, to be honest. 
Well, there are also will substitutes. What many young people can do is simply take advantage of “beneficiary designations” for bank accounts, or any investments or retirement funds. Most institutions will allow you to name a beneficiary who doesn’t have any current legal ownership of the account, but would legally pick it up if you died, and you don’t need a will or probate for that.

Lastly, what about all of this credit-card and student-loan debt? Does it just die along with me in the explosion?
In most jurisdictions, the debt is paid through the probate estate process, and in some jurisdictions that’s essentially the only way it is paid. So for example, in Florida, if I get a Sears credit card, and I buy a lot of tools, if my wife doesn’t do a probate then she’s not totally liable for it, and that debt effectively dies with me. Now, if my estate is probated, then they have an opportunity to make a claim against my estate, and there’s a procedure where my estate is supposed to let them know what’s going on so that they’re not defrauded. But some jurisdictions have case law or statues that allow recovery against contract beneficiaries or in some instances, family members. But that’s by specific laws.

And I’m guessing you can’t leave your debt to someone you don’t like.
No… not really. I mean, you can do it, but I don’t think they would want it.

Follow Jules Suzdaltsev on Twitter.

The Del Amo Fashion Center Is America in Mall Form, Which Explains Why It’s Falling Apart

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All photos by the author

Torrance, California’s Del Amo Fashion Center in is my favorite mall on Earth. I don’t love it because it was practically a character in Jackie Brown, Quentin Tarantino’s lone masterpiece, or because it (delightfully and inexplicably) houses three Macy’s stores, or because, for almost the entirety of the 1980s, it was the largest mall in America, or because it proudly lauds its “International Food Court.” I love Del Amo, rather, because it is a metaphor for the country that used to consider it its largest mall, and a symbol for the declining middle class that put it on the map.

Walking through the sprawl that is Del Amo is a journey through American class stratification. A fairly new “lifestyle center,” replete with stores catering to the upper middle class, welcomes you upon arrival. Once you enter the actual mall, middle class retailers abound. After passing through the second Macy’s, however, things change. The lighting becomes dimmer, the shops less well kempt. You notice a trade school. An Armed Services recruitment office. Go down the escalator, below street level, and there they are—the shops for the lower classes. Below them, at sub-sub street level, is the Burlington Coat Factory. You have now reached the bottom of the barrel, the basement below the basement. If you were any further underground, you would literally be in Hell. That, in a nutshell, is why I love Del Amo. It’s also why Del Amo is not long for this world.

At 2.2 million square feet, Del Amo is now the fifth largest mall in the US. Its decade of dominance, from 1981 to 1992, may as well be ancient history. In the years since, megamalls like Del Amo have only gotten bigger and more powerful, crumbling the concrete of lesser malls under their Foot Locker-clad feet. Small, regional, midmarket shopping centers catering to poor folks are no longer being built; many shuttered ones, pushed out of existence by megamalls, haven fallen into decay, inspiring countless youths to desecrate their corpses with graffiti and petty vandalism.  

The anchor stores that used to weigh down Del Amo, former staples of American commerce—The Broadway, Bullocks, I. Magnin, Montgomery Ward, Ohrbach’s, J.W. Robinson’s—haven’t existed since Reagan was actively in office, ruining the nation for everyone who wasn’t a corporation. They have been swallowed by the same enormous beast that swallowed midmarket malls. 

Despite its size, Del Amo experienced a steady decline in the late 90s. Its 2003 purchase by the Mills Corporation, owner and operator of superregional (a.k.a. fucking huge) malls, reinvigorated it slightly. They sold it shortly thereafter, because they are a corporation, and that is what corporations do with their acquisitions. The corporation’s motto: Always for Money, Never for Love.  

In the new world, if a mall isn’t owned by Mills, or Westfield (an Australia-based group with over $63 billion in assets), it is owned by Simon Property Group, the largest real estate investment trust in America, and the twelfth largest hedge fund in the world. Simon is now the lucky owner of Del Amo. They’re also lucky, period. They possess, as of 2011, $26 billion in assets, generate over $60 billion in sales annually, and own over 240 million square feet of leasable space in the USA and Asia. They are a big fucking deal.  

During its administration as Del Amo’s ownership, Mills underwent a $160 million remodel, demolishing the mall’s former Montgomery Ward location and constructing the aforementioned “lifestyle center” in its place. For the unfamiliar, “lifestyle centers” are open-air malls built to appropriate the look and feel of small towns­—the exact kinds of towns malls of this ilk have destroyed. 

In 2010, Simon declared they would, in the coming years, spend an additional $200 million remodeling the mall. Plans include a 140,000 square foot Nordstrom and an emphasis on “high end” goods. They even plan on remodeling the “lifestyle center,” in spite of the fact that it’s only seven years old and cost $300 million. The underground part of the mall where the lower classes shop, however? Yeah, not so much.  

Underground, the infinitesimal number of private, non-corporate businesses that exist in Del Amo make their home. There’s the watch store, the jewelers, the eyebrow threaders. Simon has no plans to renovate the area surrounding these stores, even though they’re throwing money everywhere the fuck else, up to and including that infernal “lifestyle center.” 

They’re clearly planning on letting the underground section of the mall fall further into decay—once the leases expire, they’ll demolish the structure, salt the Earth and high-five one another. They will probably celebrate with expensive scotch and “high end" goods. 

A YouTube video of the planned renovation, with menacing orchestral music, makes the remodel look like a generic, white and glass, polished shopping center of what, in the past, we thought the future would look like. The video’s modern, multi-level monstrosity is characterless. The underground part of the mall is not shown at all. Because, in the future, it no longer exists. Its ownership would prefer, in the future, for the demographic that patronizes that portion of the mall to not exist. Because they cannot afford to shop at Nordstrom, which means they don’t deserve dignity.

Del Amo is, in spite of its plebian demographic, the second most profitable mall in the country. The argument could be made, then, why fix what ain’t broke? What’s the use in courting high-end shoppers when the shoppers that already exist are paying the bills?  

The answer’s simple: the fact that Del Amo isn’t the most profitable mall in the country, in the eyes of Simon, is what’s broken about it. After all, this is America, motherfuckers! This is capitalism! We’re the first world for a fucking reason! Second best is never good enough! Put up or shut up, baby!  

Torrance, home of Del Amo, is fairly working class. It’s basically an incorporated city of fast food restaurants and strip malls. It is not a “high-end” kind of place. On a hill above it, however, sits the community of Ranchos Palos Verdes. The median income there (nearly $120,000) is almost double that of Torrance ($76,000). The residents of Ranchos Palos Verdes look down at the city from atop their privileged perch—at the soon to be shuttered Toyota manufacturing plant, the ExxonMobile refinery emitting greenhouse gas emissions day in, day out. Soon they’ll trickle down, and throw their cash into Del Amo’s gleaming, brand-new “Nordstrom Court.” Where, however, will the people of Torrance go? To this question, America collectively answers, “Who cares?”

Follow Megan Koester on Twitter.

Why Do So Many Soft Drinks Taste Like Teletubby Blood?

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I don’t drink soda very often. It’s not that I don’t like it; it’s just that after age 12 I never felt like having more than a shot of it every now and then. Soft drinks are designed for children with tiny, discerning pallets, unimpressed with the flavors provided by actual food. That said, some of the tastes in these beverages exist only inside of their cans and cannot be found anywhere else in the whole world. It’s like a Willy Wonka land of weird water, and who would be such a fool as to not sometimes dunk their tongue in the chemical concoctions and see what’s good?

I decided to veer away from the recognizable labels and see what life is like on the wild side of the soda pop biz.

Kill Cliff

15 calories per 12 fl oz/12 g sugar

Kill Cliff calls itself a “Recovery Drink,” or, rather, “THE Recovery Drink,” being conceptually healthy in that it is “naturally sweetened” and only 15 calories a can. I found it over with the Boar’s Head meats and cheeses, like maybe it's strategically placed next to the high-end shit to make you think it's good, a can of cola all on its own. The text on the side of the can claims that the drink was “developed by a former US Navy Seal” to “improve endurance and speed recovery.” It’s unclear who the Seal was, and why he thought “Kill Cliff” would be a good name for a revitalization beverage. They also employ the tagline “Test Positive for Awesome,” which is maybe closer to an AIDS joke than should be on a can of soda.

The first sip reminds me of if Sweet Tarts were a liquid and strained through a pair of men’s briefs after a short doubles’ tennis match in a domed arena. It’s all puckery and buzzing around the edges, and when it hits the back of the throat it immediately provides the feeling of having recently barfed. This post-barf expression kind of kneads its way back and forth across the tongue and palate like electricity. I take a second sip to cover up the first, and the buzzing strain appears again, redoubled. I kind of already have a headache.

As I get deeper into the can, my brain becomes warm. It feels like my head is flooding with acid, and I can only tolerate the sensation by drinking so fast I can’t taste anything. When I stop my head is spinning, and I feel full of gasoline.

I might recommend Kill Cliff to remove paint or to dissolve the bars on a prison cell, but as far as liquid designed to go inside my body is concerned, no. 

Marley’s Mellow Mood (Berry Flavor)

165 calories per 12 fl oz/29 g sugar

Sniffing the edge of the can’s mouth before I take a swig, I get the full bouquet of chemical fruit fun, suggesting what I’m about to drink is again going to come from the “Sick Fake Candy” food group. So I’m shocked when the liquid hits my lips and the first thing I think is actually, Hey, this IS smooth! Maybe it’s the dead rock icon on the can with the marijuana colors that brainwashed me into this feeling, though more likely it’s how, compared to Kill Cliff, this shit is like white sturgeon caviar. More watered-down Hawaiian Punch than actual soda, there is also a delicate flavor similar to the air in a bong shop lurking just behind the first curve of berry. The mixture is confusing, hairy, seemingly as unsure of itself as I am of it, but at least I don’t want to do an immediate spit-take.

In vast contrast to Kill Cliff’s on-can text, Marley’s Mellow Mood warns the drinker that it might make him fall asleep. The ingredients include extracts of chamomile, lemon balm, valerian root, hops, and passionflower, all of which together provide this soothing beverage its strange tone. Swishing it around in my mouth reminds me of swimming in a backyard pool that you know has piss in it but the sun is out and the water is warm, so fuck it.

I guess I’d drink this eventually if I were locked in a room with it and only it.

Dry Cucumber Soda

45 calories per 12 fl oz/11 g sugar

I like this can better than the others. Its marketing is sparse enough to let me breathe and hear my own thoughts. I’m actually not afraid to drink this.

I’m so used to fruit flavors in beverages that I’m a bit taken aback when the liquid tastes just like water, and then up from the water emerges the smell and taste of grass, fresh-cut grass rolling with bubbles that hiss around my teeth. The “cucumber” in this drink is shockingly close to actual cucumber, which is unpleasant. I like my soda and candy flavors to taste nothing at all like the fruits they represent. I don’t drink grape and orange soft drinks for their authentic grape and orange tastes, and I wouldn’t imagine people buy Dry Cucumber Soda because they want to drink a cucumber.

At least, unlike the others so far, I don’t feel like seconds are being shaved off my life every time I swallow a gulp of this.

Zevia (Dr. Zevia Flavor)

0 calories per 12 fl oz/4 g carbs

Zevia is a really weird name for something to drink, despite the fact that it’s derived from Stevia, the natural sweetener the beverage uses and something that sounds like pool chemicals to me. Also weird is that the flavor I picked out, among 15 total options, is not grape or lime or something recognizable but the flavor Dr. Zevia. If you are healthy enough to care about Zevia’s natural sweetener, or the fact that it’s vegan, kosher, and gluten-free, are you really buying fake corporate soda for a fun time?

It’s good that they let the consumer know the drink will have some similarity to Dr. Pepper, though, because that’s the only part making this soda remotely palatable. There are like 35 different flavors crammed in here at once: a splash of Dr. Pepper, sure, alongside what seems to be chalk, hairnets, disinfectant, children’s bathwater, a baseball glove, some raisins, Windex, Evian, pee. I’ve honestly never experienced so many bad tastes at the same time in the same space. If you drank this long enough, I think, you could grow into one of the X-Men, one whose power is to push feces out through his pores and scare away the enemy.

This beverage requires me, at this late stage in the experiment, to switch over to spitting the soda out into a bucket after tasting, like wine, though this is very far from wine, and even with it out of my mouth I’m thinking about 9/11 and that dead baby in the car in Georgia. Sometimes I’m just flabbergasted how products get through the creation stage and the taste-testing stage and the customer feedback stage and the marketing stage and the shipping stage and the sales stage without anybody ever being like, “Dude, the fuck is this?”

Tropical 7UP

190 calories per can/51 g sugar

When I crack the can and get a sniff of the 7UP it smells like real-ass fake fruit is supposed to smell, activating chemical memories in me way back to Sprite Remix, which always makes me think of R. Kelly for some reason, and Crystal Clear Pepsi, the god of all drinks.

The 7UP has real sugar, a gift after all these other brands trying to sell me into believing I’m drinking something healthy when everyone knows “healthy” soft drinks are just placebo water against the fantasy drink you remember as a kid. I don’t feel like puking when I drink this, which is maybe bad, because you’re not supposed to not want to puke when you put acid and color dye and high-fructose corn syrup in your flesh.

I can’t believe this can is as big as it is, because it feels like one swig of this stuff provides a lifetime of it, echoing back through ghosts of my throat and pounding through my flesh walls. I have never not been drinking this one drink, it wants me to believe, and it has a team of scientists who are hellishly good at concocting the Jim Jones–style mixture to make me believe.

But already I can feel my teeth are changing. It’s like they’re all wearing little coats. After more than an hour sipping these drinks, my throat feels sore, and my brain is throbbing at the front and somewhere near the center it feels like I might have a tumor.

These liquids have taken over my whole day, in a way that only sweat and sleep can clear out. Drink any or all of the hundreds of kinds of bizarre soda options in any aisle and you’ll be a different person through and through, I’m sure. You might be bulletproof. You might have no marrow but candy-colored carbonation. 

Follow Blake on Twitter.

An earlier version of this article referred to cucumbers as vegetables. As a commenter pointed out, cucumbers are fruits, not vegetables. We are humiliated and regret the error.

VICE News: Afghan Interpreters - Part 3

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The interpreters who worked alongside American and NATO forces in Afghanistan are among our bravest and most loyal allies. They played an essential role in sourcing intelligence and educating Western troops about the local culture. Now they’re being abandoned.

In part three, VICE News correspondent Ben Anderson travels to Athens, where many Afghan interpreters find themselves stranded with no money or home. In their desperate attempts to escape persecution and death at the hands of the Taliban, they turned to illegal smugglers selling fake visas in Afghanistan that never got them where they meant to go.

After years of loyal service alongside American and NATO forces, some interpreters barely surviving on Athens streets have come to wish they never took the job.

Download the full eBook from Ben Anderson's The Interpreters on PDF Download (Free), Google Play (Free), Kindle, and Kobo

This Woman Claims She Can Give Blowjobs That Are So Good, They're Fatal

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If you haven’t seen Auntie Angel’s grapefruit video, you haven’t been keeping up on your internet. Bad millennial, very bad. No treats for you. Please watch the video above to catch up.

OK, so to start with the obvious: This video is perfect. The technique, which I tried, is messy, and according to my boyfriend, “squelchy, but nice.” But the grapefruit is only one of 50 fellatio techniques taught via Angel’s DVD series or, for the truly lucky, in her classes, which she estimates have reached more than 50,000 people in the ten years she’s been teaching.

Her first viral hit, the 20-minute "Angel’s Fellatio Secrets"—which guarantees male orgasm in five minutes or less—debuted on World Star Hip Hop in February 2013, and has since amassed more than six million views. Angel’s videos achieve a delicate tonal balance—frank and straightforward, her emphasis on the proper terminology and safe sexual practice is reminiscent of school-based proper sex ed, while her sense of humor and outlandish demonstrations have a bachelorette-party vibe. It’s hard to tell if she’d be better followed by a male stripper ready to give you a lap dance or your sixth-grade teacher, there to explain your changing body. The genius of Angel is that she embodies the spirit of both, making sex something to take seriously now so you can take it lightly (or as hard as you want) later.

Auntie Angel, a.k.a. Denise Walker, is 43 years old and based in Chicago, where she works as a sexpert and nail technician. We caught up with her to ask about her blowjob techniques, eight years of army service, and what the deal is with that angry wolverine sound.

All photos courtesy of Auntie Angel

VICE: So where did the grapefruit idea come from? 
Auntie Angel:
Years and years ago, before I even started teaching classes—true story. When I first started doing fellatio, I had no clue what to do, not at all. The guy I was dating wanted it, so I was pretty much learning, like a lot of people learn, from porn. So I was watching these porns trying to figure out what these ladies were doing, and one particular lady had a handful of fruits, and she was just doin’ her thing, and the man seemed to be in heaven. So I ran to the refrigerator to see what we had. There was a lemon, orange, and a grapefruit—true story. I grabbed the orange first. You think of it as sweet, manageable, right? But he was so well-endowed that the orange just exploded. So I cut up the grapefruit, and the way I started stroking it with the grapefruit and sucking it, he was like, “Oh my god, it seems like you’re giving me fellatio and sex at the same time.” He loved it.

I read in a blowjob-tips piece you did with Cosmo that you didn’t give your first blow job until 27. That seems late—what happened there?

To be honest with you, no one had ever asked me to do it, so I thought that was just not a requirement. Either it was something you were into like a fetish or you were married or something. [Laughter] I really was such a square. And then when the guy I was seeing asked me, I was like, “You want me to do what?! That’s what ugly girls do!” I was really in the dark. Then, when I did do it, I really wanted to please him, so I got more in depth with it—more than just the techniques themselves. I wanted to understand it, exactly what he was feeling, what I was doing. I knew there was a method to the art of fellatio.

So you took a kind of academic approach to sucking dick.
Absolutely. And it actually opened up the communication between myself and my man, which I came to realize is the most important thing, because every man and every woman is different. I had to start talking to him and find out what he was into, specifically. And of course men are horrible communicators. They don’t want to articulate anything. They want you to just go down there and figure it out. But eventually he started telling me what he liked or didn’t, and that’s kinda how I structured all the 50 different techniques. 

You make quite a specific sound when you’re doing it. What’s that about?
The sound effect is over-the-top, I know. Me watching porn and talking to ladies, I realized that everyone’s making pretty much the same standard oohs and ahs. I wanted to do something that was so out-of-the-box that he would never forget you until the day he died. He would just keel over and in his last breaths he’d still remember that sound. If he doesn’t like it, you can communicate about it. If he’s not feeling the sound effects, sure, scale it back to the norm or somewhere in between. But don’t start by giving him the same thing he’s always had.


You’ve had a lot of careers in your life. You’re a nail technician still, and I read that you were in the Army?
I was a mechanic for eight years [laughter, shows off elaborate nail art]. One time, in the early 90s, we were having a presentation about sexual health, and the things they were saying, I was sitting there saying like, “OK, I know more than that.” And Angel hadn’t even been born yet, but I took it over, even in the Army. I was teaching the class about safe sex. A lot of the men were saying they hated to use condoms. But I really promote safe sex, especially in the African American community, because HIV rates are really high in our community. Well, I put a condom on my foot in front of the class. I showed them how to roll it on over my foot, and I stuck my foot up in the air and told the men, “Look, if your penis is bigger than my foot, you don’t have to use a condom, but I feel like that’s not the case.” Everyone was like, DID SHE JUST DO THAT? But I wasn't ashamed. I just love sex. It’s a common denominator for everyone. It shouldn’t be a taboo that people are scared to talk about.

So when was Angel “born”?
Ten years ago. I was with a particular guy. I was so excited about things I was doing with him, I started telling my girlfriends, and they were dumbfounded. They were like, “You have to show us.” They started telling their friends, and they told their friends. That’s how Angel was born, out of helping my girlfriends, but it spread like fire. It just went everywhere.

So you’re dating your manager, Jay, yes?
That’s right. It makes it really great because he actually understands, of course, what it is that I’m doing. He’s not just coming in and managing me—he knows it firsthand. His passion for it is like, he wants every man to experience what he’s experiencing.


And I guess you guys try out new techniques together? Is there some kind of sex lab?
The bedroom is the lab, girl. But one of my DVDs—Home Is Where the Heart Is—it’s about not just keeping everything in the bedroom. The bedroom is a sacred place to have fun, but if you live alone or the kids are out, you have the living room, dining room, kitchen, bathroom, hallway, the car, the backyard… there are so many different places that you can have a great sexual relationship. I also have a technique called the Death Technique. And, to be honest, I have had women who have given their men my blowjobs, and the men have passed away.

…mid-blowjob?
Yes. Massive heart attacks. So I do tell women, I am not responsible for the death of your mate. You suck at your own risk!

I have to ask what that technique involves.
It’s basically you add in a vibrator bullet with the perfect blowjob technique, so you’re going down and twisting your whole body, up and down, and then you manipulate the perineum with a vibrator—it takes the technique to a whole new level.

In the Cosmo piece, you also mentioned that you have a history of sexual assault. Do you feel comfortable talking about that?
I’ve been raped twice, by family members. In my book, Angel’s Secrets, I talk about those experiences because I’ve talked to so many women—a lot of women have been molested or raped, and when it comes from your family member, especially, you feel like a victim. And eventually you feel you’ve survived, you’re a survivor, but when it’s in your home you can’t escape it, and you feel isolated. When you do tell someone, they might not want to believe it, you know, your mother doesn’t wanna put your brother in jail, or their husband or whoever, and you feel trapped by that. So I wanted to tell women that you’re not a victim, it’s not your fault, and there are ways of surviving it. You have to forgive the person, and you have to confront the person if they’re still alive. You have to confront them because they live off of your fear. When you’re fearless, they have no more power. And then you need some counseling. There’s nothing wrong with talking to someone to figure out the tools you need to survive and thrive. I tell people to write their story and burn it, because you’ll realize that you are who you are because of your past, and you suppress so many things, but you need to let them out and stop being scared of letting people see who you are. Look: I was raped, and I survived. I still have a good life; I have children; I can find love and a great career. It does not define me. It doesn't have to define anyone.

Did you find it hard to work through those early experiences with assault while sex education and demonstration became such a big part of your life?
After what happened, I was made very aware of my own sexuality, and I reacted by ho-ing around. A lot of times, when people are sexually assaulted they become extremely promiscuous, because then they can control what’s happening to them, sexually. I found that I loved sex when I was in control of it, doing what I wanted to do. I eventually branched out of the promiscuity. I got God in my life, and I turned my love of sex—especially positive, empowered sex—into something I use to help other people. So I flipped what happened to me into something positive, and that’s where Angel came in.

So what’s on the horizon for Angel?
So many things! Me and Jay just interviewed for a TV show Sex Sent Me to the ER. I can’t tell you what happened, but sex did send me there once. We’ve also had a lot of interest from reality shows. It’s very exciting. I never thought what I did would lead to fame or fortune; that was never my intent. I just wanted to help women of every background to be empowered in their sexuality.

Of all your tips and techniques, what would you say is the most important piece of sex advice?
Your mouth can do things your vagina cannot do. Your vagina is amazing, she is so amazing that nine times out of ten, a man you’re having sex with will have an orgasm. That’s how great she is. God made her perfect. Your mouth is different: You have to work at it a bit. But once you have a great vagina—which is already taken care of—as well as great head, that’s when you become a beast. My advice for women is to become a beast.

Thanks for chatting with me!
Suck, suck, suck, girl!

God bless you, Angel.

Follow Monica Heisey on Twitter.

Watch Interpol's New Video for 'All the Rage Back Home' and Remember Why Interpol Rules

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It's the first track from their upcoming record 'El Pintor,' their first album in four years.

VICE News: Israeli Urban Warfare

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The city has become a battlefield. As modern militaries must adapt to a landscape that often gives the upper hand to insurgents, proper training becomes more essential than ever.

VICE News correspondent Alex Miller travels to Israel, home to one of the largest and most advanced urban warfare training centers in the world, to embed with a unit practicing effective urban combat tactics before employing them in the streets.


The Australian Who's Made It His Mission to Bring Social Media to Prison Inmates

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The divide between prisoners and the outside world is slowly breaking down, and not just because of the legions of Jeremy Meeks fans trying to smash through prison walls to get their hands on him. Though they are supposed to be isolated from society, increasingly inmates are entering cyberspace: Contraband smartphones are prevalent in many prison, and the resulting glimpses of life behind bars suggest that jail isn’t always as ruthless as Oz& made it look. Even Wiz Khalifa is getting in on the act.

There are now even a few incarceration facilities where prisoners are allowed access to the internet. These are mostly in Europe, but the phenomenon has spread, as indicated by by the Alexander Maconochie Centre, Australia's first "human rights prison." The argument for putting information technology inside penitentiaries is sound: Studies indicate that doing so helps facilitate a prisoner’s smooth transition back into society. Moreover, it prevents those who were incarcerated before social media blew up from getting hostile when they see people instagramming their breakfasts.

But most prisons don't give internet access to inmates, which presents some problems for iExpress, purportedly the world’s first social media site for the incarcerated, which was recently started by an Australian named Brett Collins. The site will depend on a system of old-fashioned letter writing that will allow iExpress users to maintain online profiles and communicate with others around the world, even if they can't touch a laptop.

I caught up with Collins to find out more about helping inmates enter the digital age.

VICE: What are the goals of iExpress?
Brett Collins: We wanted to make a new area of cyberspace that contributes to society. The psychological toll of prison life can be markedly improved by utilizing the dead time in cells. By giving inmates an outlet to test their ideas and get feedback, they are more likely to assimilate after being released.

I feel like it should have initially come from the government, but corrective services are primarily concerned with preventing breakouts. This stuff is is never considered.

I understand it’s mostly illegal for inmates to use the internet in Australia?
Internet access is provided in prisons in the Australian Capital Territory. Outside of that, Australian prisons do not allow computers or smartphones. We ask inmates to map out their profiles and then we upload them for them. We then print out any messages on their pages and provide this back to them.

But isn’t social media kind of trivial? Why is it so important for prisoners?
To add some necessary depth to how they are perceived. At present, people define prisoners by their crimes, i.e., “he’s the thief, he’s the murderer.” It’s a one-dimensional assessment based entirely on the judge’s verdict. Their skills and aspirations are never considered. People can now see there’s more to these people and, indeed, that some of them are making an effort to redeem themselves.

Secondly, it’s been argued that the internet is a fundamental human right. Jail is a restrictive environment—in Australia inmates spend 18 hours a day in their cells. That’s time that should be applied to something more productive, both for their well-being and their impending release.

What was it that inspired you personally to pursue this?
I spent ten years in prison in the 70s and have been working for this community since then.

I hear iExpress is being investigated by corrective services?
They are concerned that victims might feel resentment from the prisoners having their voices heard. We have assured them that this is not the case. We actually offer victim organizational support.

Victims predominantly want to feel safe, but they also to understand why the inmate has wronged them in the first place. The expressions from inmates on iExpress have actually been helpful for many victims. Oftentimes the inmates are expressing guilt or remorse, which can help to alleviate the victim’s trauma.

Have there been any other hurdles?
There’s one recent challenge that has surfaced. Initially, we wanted to run things like incoming prison mail: Complete freedom of speech outside of anything illegal. Recently though, we’ve received some very aggressive emails. By letting those through, we were vilifying the inmates.

We decided to introduce the same censorship [standards] as Facebook, i.e., no abuse, threats, or defamation. iExpress is intended to be a positive platform.

Do the inmates themselves have to be censored in similar ways?
Some inmates were going into too much detail about the nature of their crimes, or speaking about themselves in a derogatory manner. We tell them to cut back if we feel it’s promoting a harmful image. We otherwise give them complete freedom with their profiles.

How do you prevent potential communication between gangs or criminal associates?
Nothing illegal is permitted, the same as with prison letters. There’s no more potential for this in iExpress than in standard mail. If inmates breach this, we give them a warning. If they repeat the offencse they’re banned.

Are there any trends with the demographics of users?
There’s certainly more interest from the educated inmates. They’re the ones who have grasped it and understood the potential.

Val Chalker, the sister of murdered Sydney woman Yvette Rathbone, came out against the idea. She said that her sister’s killer, John Meyn, “needs to face up to what he's done rather than have a public forum to express these views." What’s your take on this?
John Meyn he has two children and he’s serving a life sentence. He made a fatal mistake, though I feel his profile promotes a positive message. At the end of the day, the community wants to know that after the sentence, this person isn’t going to repeat their mistakes. I think profiles like his can encourage this belief.

Some victims would prefer the perpetrator was dead. That’s an understandable feeling. The reality is that a victim’s pain is something they have to personally overcome. The sooner they can come to terms with this, the sooner they can get on with their lives. The offenders still have certain rights that cannot be undermined by those of the victims.

There’s a mounting number of studies showing that the positive effects of inmates getting internet access. Do you think they will be given unabridged internet access in prisons anytime soon?
Absolutely. We’re sure this will be brought in across Australia and the rest of the world in near future. The studies indicate a very positive result from information technology in prisons. Until it is introduced, though, iExpress is a bridge between the digital world and that of reformatories.

You can check out iExpress here.

The VICE Guide to Europe 2014: The VICE Guide to Amsterdam 2014

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(All photos by Raymond van Mil unless otherwise stated)

The Dutch capital is a compact museum city being sunk into its canals by rich Americans staring at Rembrandts and the revolving cast of perverts and drug addicts who infest the red light district. Here’s how to not be awful in Amsterdam.

Jump to sections by using the index below:

WHERE TO PARTY
WHAT'S THE DEAL WITH DRUGS?
POLITICS, PROTESTS, AND JUST HOW RACIST IS EVERYONE HERE?
   Screw in the Park but Don't Wear Soccer Cleats | Protests? What Protests? | Immigration
WHERE TO EAT
WHAT DO LOCALS EAT?
LGBT AMSTERDAM
WHERE TO DRINK
WHERE TO STAY
WHERE TO HANG OUT WHEN YOU'RE SOBER
HOW TO AVOID GETTING RIPPED OFF AND BEATEN UP
HOW NOT TO BE A SHITTY TOURIST
PEOPLE AND PLACES TO AVOID
TIPPING AND HANDY PHRASES
A YOUTUBE PLAYLIST OF QUESTIONABLE LOCAL MUSIC
VICE CITY MAP

WHERE TO PARTY

De Soos

Leidseplein 12 1017 PT

One of the very few reasons to go to Leidseplein is for the Chicago Social Club, which everyone just calls "De Soos." It’s a former theater that’s been converted into a laidback club with a big dancefloor and it attracts every Dutch person who dresses a bit like you.
LINK

Trouw
Wibautstraat
127-131, 1091 GL

This is hands-down the best club in Amsterdam, and the atmosphere on the dancefloor is as good as in any club we’ve been to in Europe. They somehow manage to book great DJs every single night (apparently great DJs love coming to play in Amsterdam, who’d have guessed?) but if you’re planning on going, make sure you’re in the know with who’s on that night because the doormen can be dickheads. Name the DJs who are performing, and they’re more likely to let you in. Be quick, because 2014 looks set to be the last year Trouw (that's what we call it for short, let's face it, it's got a fucking stupid name) is open. They haven’t announced why they’re closing yet, but they have just banned cameras, so maybe they’re really, really paranoid about their appearance or something.
LINK

Studio 80

Rembrandtplein 17, 1017 CT

Rembrandt Square is the fucking pits, but tucked away between all kinds of horribleness is Studio 80, which for almost a decade has been one of the city’s most important clubs on the house and techno scene. It’s almost exactly 50 percent better than Studio 54. That’s just maths.
LINK

Canvas
Volkshotel, Wibautstraat 150 1091 GR
The Western world's current sad lust for putting clubs in hotels hasn't spared Amsterdam, the difference being that ours isn't a waiting room peopled by new media dads, mediocre laptop DJs, and bemused foreign exchange students. Canvas is actually on top of Volkshotel, an old newspaper factory in the east of the city, which means it's now the only club in Amsterdam with a view worth opening your eyes for. Get a bottle of something fizzy and take your loved one up to a hot tub on the roof to experience just how glamorous the death of print media can be.
LINK

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(Photo by Ewout Lowie)

WHAT'S THE DEAL WITH DRUGS?

Contrary to stereotype, Amsterdam isn’t a lawless free-for-all. There are plenty of rules but, despite talk of changing the law, it remains legal for anyone over 18—tourists included—to buy weed in Amsterdam.

However, the national government is now relatively anti­-marijuana, and Amsterdam is closing dozens of coffee shops because they can’t be close to schools any more. Our best guess is that weed will be here to stay, but the "anything goes" attitude is long gone.

There are areas that display "no smoking weed" signs, but they aren’t actually enforceable. Still, if you see one you’re probably not in the best spot. As a general rule, if a bar is clean and tidy, sparking up a joint in the smoking area will be frowned upon, even if it’s technically legal. So if you want to keep smoking you’re better off sticking to dark and dingy dive bars. Such is the stoner's lot.

The tobacco laws are just as random. Officially, a smoking ban in all bars and restaurants was passed a few years ago, but after a while an exception was made for small bars. There are smoking areas in most clubs, and in some it’s sort of accepted that people light up after a certain time of night. Follow the lead of the locals if you don't want to look like a prick.

Mushrooms are effectively still legal. They now don’t come in their OG mushroom format, but as a sort of nutty root called "Philosopher’s Stone Truffles." They have the exact same psychoactive substance in them and are derived from the actual mushrooms. You can buy them over ­the ­counter at any smartshop, most of which have an orange mushroom logo out front.

Holland is one of the largest producers of MDMA in the world, and in classic Dutch style we can send our pills to a government test lab who will tell us if they're good quality. The government would rather have us rolling hard than dead. They used to have these services at large raves, but sadly Christian political parties had them closed down because they felt “it sent the wrong signal.” The wrong signal being “safety first,” apparently.

Cocaine is relatively popular but the quality varies, as do the attitudes of those selling it. Locals know that the street coke dealers are kind of sketchy, and no one wants to get mugged by some scumbag.

Just because cops are relatively easy-going, doesn’t mean people don't get into trouble. People who are caught by a bouncer carrying one or two pills probably won’t get in and will definitely lose their drugs. Anyone using openly is chucked out once a bouncer sees them. Anyone with enough on them that they could feasibly be dealing will end up meeting the cops, though the police have been known to be lenient to people carrying small amounts, provided those people aren’t dicks about it. Anyone who goes all hippie badman and calls them narcs or fascists are probably going to end up in a cell.

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POLITICS, PROTESTS, AND JUST HOW RACIST IS EVERYONE HERE?

SCREW IN THE PARK BUT DON'T WEAR SOCCER CLEATS

The Vondelpark—the best park in town—has its own set of rules. It's the only place in the Netherlands, and maybe the world, where you can legally fuck and smoke weed outdoors. There’s a certain etiquette to it: Go in the evening or night time. Avoid the children's playgrounds. Be a good human being and pick up your condoms. Also, you can’t go to the park while wearing studded soccer cleats, although admittedly that’s quite a specific fetish.

Squatting has been illegal in Amsterdam since 2010, and while the few squats that remain are still tolerated, they're quickly becoming relics of an already lost struggle.

Geert Wilders and his Party for Freedom are pretty far right, but they've become more and more mainstream as they've gained popularity over the years. Although Wilders is anti-EU, he currently wants to remain a member of Parliament in the Netherlands AND be granted the opportunity to become a member of the European Parliament, which is currently a legal impossibility.

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(Photo by Alejandro Tauber)

POLITICS, PROTESTS, AND JUST HOW RACIST IS EVERYONE HERE?

PROTESTS? WHAT PROTESTS?

The Dutch aren’t known for taking to the streets in anger. Our country’s unofficial motto is: “Act normal, that's crazy enough.” We tend to think of street fighting as the sort of thing that happens in other countries.

Amsterdam's last major riots were more than 30 years ago. On April 30, 1980, squatters took to the streets to protest the national housing shortage. This was the date that our former queen Beatrix was set to be crowned and grand festivities were scheduled in her honor. Instead, tear gas filled the air and shops were looted as police and rioters went head-to-head. 

Protests since then have been very small and are more likely to come from the extreme left than the extreme right. Having said that, Occupy Amsterdam hardly made a political dent here. The populist right sometimes have their moment in the sun, like when they demonstrated in defence of Santa’s helper "Black Pete," enthusiastically reminding the planet that there’s nothing remotely racist about Father Christmas having an assistant (slave if you will) in blackface.

Act normal, that's crazy enough. Remember that and you'll understand how Amsterdam was built on pragmatism rather than passion. It also makes the city and the Netherlands as a whole more boring than it probably wants to be.

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POLITICS, PROTESTS, AND JUST HOW RACIST IS EVERYONE HERE?

IMMIGRATION

Despite the country itself being a product of late medieval immigration, immigrants have been a source of stupid debate in the Netherlands for decades. 9/11 didn't do a great deal to quiet the issue. Back then, immigration’s harshest critic was the right-wing politician Pim Fortuyn, who was assassinated by an animal welfare activist turned immigrant activist in 2002. Which did not help anyone, least of all Pim, better understand the benefits of an open, free and multicultural society. 

Although the worst of the storm seems to have passed, the fight over what it means to be Nederlands continues. This is mostly fuelled by Geert Wilders, the leader of the Party for Freedom, who rails against Muslims and workers coming in from Poland, Bulgaria, and Romania.

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WHERE TO EAT

Rijsel

Marcusstraat 52, 1091 TK

A small, well-lit rotisserie with a 60s vibe where they serve no-­nonsense food. This is a good place to chill out and not spend too much money. It's not a good place to come if you’ve just eaten a load of mushrooms and need to hide in a darkened room until the walls start behaving themselves.
LINK

SLA

Westerstraat 34
These days, coming back from Amsterdam healthier than when you arrived is the real act of rebellion, kids. Go to this salad bar for all the organic ingredients you can shovel into your mouth, then stick around for the workshops on healthy cooking so you can learn how to stop living on microwavable cheese meals made from sodium and donkey curd.
LINK

Brouw
Ten
Katestraat 16, 1053 CE
Everywhere on earth does beer and burgers these days, but Brouw’s are actually good. They’re famous for their slow-cooked and smoked meats, so try their brisket, pork belly, and ribs and forget everything you learned about healthy eating. Meat is murder, sure, but it’s also suicide.
LINK

Koevoet

Lindenstraat 17, 1015 KV
This Amsterdam institution has been here since 1889, so it doesn’t get much more authentic. It’s an Italian place located in the middle of the Jordaan, and as far as we can tell they’ve barely changed the menu since it opened. Seeing as people have been eating here since your grandparents were doing whatever the Greatest Generation's version of snapchatting dick pics was, they must be doing something right.
LINK

Le Fou Fow

Stormsteeg 9, 1012 BD
This is the best place to get Japanese food in Amsterdam. You’ll find it on the second floor, right above an Asian food shop that’s been giving it the big one here since 1957.
LINK

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WHAT DO LOCALS EAT?

Stroopwafels
What you need when you’ve hit rock bottom after a long, hard day of smoking stupid-strength weed is a hit of sugar, and Dutch people are always jonesing hard for a stroopwafel. It’s basically a cookie made from two thin waffles sandwiching a layer of syrup. It's really stupid stoner food, basically. 

Kroketten and Frikandellen

Imagine putting a cow, a pig, and a horse in a blender, then rolling the resulting mess into a sausage shape, covering it in breadcrumbs and deep-frying it. Voila! Kroketten and frikandellen are to Dutch cuisine what doughnuts and burgers are to American diners: disgusting, supposedly irregular treats that have slowly worked their way into our daily diet.

Roti

The former Dutch colony of Suriname blessed us with some great food traditions. One of the tastiest dishes is called roti and contains curry chicken, potatoes, beans, and the most important element: a sort of salty pancake. Sadly, it seems unlikely that the Surinamese are currently going nuts for stroopwafels. I guess imperialism is a one-way street.

Stamppot

There are a few different varieties of stamppot, but the gist of it is that you mash up a bed of potatoes and boiled vegetables, and then lay a nice fat smoked sausage across the top of it. One of the most popular versions is made with kale, which is funny because this weird, filling traditional dish is just about the least likely thing to ever be eaten by San Francisco yoga moms.

Drop
Dutch people fucking love liquorice; as a nation we eat more of it per person than any other country in the world. But be warned: our liquorice is not like your liquorice. The little black sweets we eat, known as drop, have such a distinctive ammonia taste that unsuspecting tourists usually hack them back up as soon as they taste them. Only the deeply Dutch can manage one without pulling a face like they’ve just bitten into a dog turd.

Gouda Cheese

You really should taste Gouda from a cheese shop while you’re here in Amsterdam, but be aware that from then on you’ll never be able to buy it at home again. This is the cheese equivalent of drinking a pint of Guinness in Dublin or doing crystal meth in Fresno.

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LGBT AMSTERDAM

Amsterdam has a long history of being a great and tolerant city for gay, bisexual, and transgender people. Homosexuality was decriminalized in 1811, the first gay bar was opened in 1927 and in 1946 the COC—one of the world’s first gay rights organizations—was founded here. The Netherlands prides itself on being the first country to legalize same-sex marriage, and the first legal gay and lesbian marriages in the world were officiated in 2001 by the Mayor of Amsterdam. 

In recent years, though, a handful of incidents have stained the tolerant image Amsterdam has built. Unfortunately, it’s still not unheard of for gay couples kissing or holding hands in public to receive abuse. In another setback, a series of prominent gay bars and clubs have closed, all for different reasons and none for lack of business. However, some argue this is just a sign of greater integration. Practically all bars are gay-friendly, so nightlife needn’t be segregated.

That said, if you're looking for specific gay bars there are still plenty left. The main gay street is the Reguliersdwarsstraat. Search a bit further and you'll find bars and events like De Trut, Spellbound, Fucking Pop Queers, GOD, Dolly, Yarr, and Nyx. If you’re looking for a transgender bar you should go to De Lellebel at Rembrandtsquare.

If it's your style, there are also plenty of dark rooms. Like the Spijkerbar. Downstairs you can drink as if you were in any other folksy bar, but if you go upstairs you’ll find yourself in pitch darkness where you can do pretty much whatever wild shit you feel like doing. Alternatively, Thermos is the place to go if you want a dirty quickie in a jacuzzi, hot tub, or sauna on the way home from the club.

One other highlight is Canal Pride. Every year on the first Saturday of August, dozens of boats glide down the canals of Amsterdam. It’s more of a politically correct endorsement of tolerance than a wild party, but it’s still good fun. The Milkshake Festival (for all who love) is in late July and is another festival for "boys who love girls who love girls who love boys who love boys," which is just about as inclusive as you can get.

Amsterdam has an official gay and lesbian information kiosk, Pink Point. It’s next to the Homomonument (gay monument) at the Westermarkt. Pink Point provides information about the Homomonument, and general information about Amsterdam, specifically for gay tourists. 

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WHERE TO DRINK

The best places for a quiet drink before you head on for a night out are the bars clustered around Noordermarkt, the flea market in De Jordaan. There are only two real dangers: a) vomiting teenage tourists who can't stomach three beers and b) falling in the canal. My favourite bar is probably Paepeneiland, which is also where Bill Clinton came for a beer a few years ago. You should have seen the amount of Secret Service they were employing to keep him out of the red light district.

Further afield, we’d recommend checking out Joe’s Garage, Brouwerij de Prael, and Brouwerij ‘t IJ. Roest is good as well—it’s in the east of the city away from the crowds, with a pool and a terrace covered in sand to create an ersatz beach bar, despite the industrial surroundings. You won’t find many other tourists here, which—if the International Holiday Code still applies—makes you cool, or something.

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WHERE TO STAY

If you’re watching your money, the Hans Brinker Budget Hotel (€25 [$34] per night in a dorm) isn’t a bad choice. It’s the rowdiest party hostel there is: come for the price, stay for the location, leave when you can’t stand the noise a second longer.

A quieter option is Stayokay Zeeburg (€30 [$40] per night in a dorm). It’s your average big clean hostel, but it’s really good value and it’s smack in the heart of a fancy-ish neighborhood in the east of the city, so you won’t get freaked out by sex tourists jerking off on the doorstep before breakfast. An alternative is the sleek boutique CitizenM (€85 [$116] per night for a room), which is pretty great for the price and has all the ultra-modern fixtures and fittings that interior designers jerk off over—it's not really in the heart of anything, which in a city with an international clique of drug zombies looming about, can be a blessing.

If you’ve come into a large inheritance, Hotel Américain (€150 [$205] per night for a room) is a gorgeous hotel in the Jugendstil style, with bags of old school class. And if you’re involved in some sort of Brewster’s Millions scheme to dispose of a vast amount of money, the most ridiculous option is the Faralda NDSM Crane Hotel (€435 [$595] per night for a suite), which is a good place to take someone if your fetish is getting laid in a box suspended in the air. Because that’s exactly what it is—a box suspended in the air. Obviously there's also a jacuzzi on top of the crane.

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WHERE TO HANG OUT WHEN YOU'RE SOBER

Look: you’re going to have to try pretty damn hard not to have an amazing time in Amsterdam. It’s one of the world’s great party cities, so for fuck’s sake don’t come all the way here and then spend your trip hanging around Rembrandt­square or Leidsesquare. Those places are just shitty honey traps for shitty tourists. The city has loads more to offer, and it’s small enough that you’ll probably stumble across the best bits just by getting out there and exploring.

Having said that, if you’re looking for some direction and some cool crowds to hang with, it’s worth looking into both Rush Hour Records and Red Light Records, where you’ll find flyers for all the best underground parties. If there’s nothing here that excites you, then chances are you’re just not cut out for "fun," you miserable loser. 

Rent a Canal Boat
Okay, so maybe we didn’t push the idea quite as far as those ridiculous Venetians, but Amsterdam is still a city that’s best experienced from our canals. Drinking, smoking, and eating while on a boat is basically our life, and there’s plenty of them to rent, so get yourself on the water as soon as you can. Chances are, back home, you live in between a bunch of highways, so this is the open sea to you—your Master and Commander moment. Avoid the shitty "canal bikes," though—there’s a reason the Armada didn’t run on peddle power.

Electric Ladylight Museum
Run by an eccentric New Yorker with a Father Christmas beard, this museum of fluorescent art is the only one of its kind in the world. It has sections called things like "The Magic Land of Lights, Sounds, and Dimensions" and "The Sister Mary Bernadeth Grotto," so yes, obviously it’s absolutely the best place to go when you’re tripping balls.
LINK

Savoy Bar
This is a super shabby café where everyone winds up after all the other bars and clubs have closed. In the early hours, prepare to encounter a fascinating hotchpotch of prostitutes, drug dealers, frat boys, cokeheads, students, tourists, and old sailors. There's a women there who sits outside the toilets called Wilma who’ll sell you five different sorts of candy and cigarettes straight from a garbage bag. Which sounds bleak, but when you think about it, is more wholesome than most deals you make in a bathroom.
LINK

Broek in Waterland/Durgerdam
The most scenic places to burn a joint in Amsterdam, far from the basement coffee shops, are towns to the north of the city, like Broek in Waterland and Durgerdam. They’re absolutely beautiful, and frankly, getting really high in a horrible basement is about the single biggest contributor to mental ill health in the Western world. Here, in the hills, it’s a different drug.

The Docks in the North
For some reason the north of the city gets neglected by most tourists, which is stupid as all the ferries there are free and it’s a great place to hang. The new EYE Film Museum has some cool exhibits and there’s a nice spot by the water where you can eat, drink, and take in the views of the low-rise city. It’s just across the river from Centraal Station, and you can’t miss it because it’s the only building round there that looks like a bad CGI spaceship from an early-90s computer game.

Hanneke’s Boom
This place is Amsterdam’s chameleon. Smack in the heart of the old harbor, by day people come here to study, but by night it becomes a romantic bar and the terrace becomes an outdoor party.
LINK

Special Collections at the Rijksmuseum
So, you’re done with all the Rembrandts and Vermeers? Good—the best shit is yet to come. Head down into the Rijksmuseum basement, where you’ll find piles of gold and jewellery and the realest treasure in history: 17th century magic lantern porn.
LINK

Coffeeshop Bluebird
Most coffee shops in Amsterdam will sell you weed or hash just to turn a profit, but not Bluebird. This place is run by experienced old stoners whose life’s work is getting you as high as God. Normally there’s nothing duller than listening to potheads bang on about why you have to try their new strain, but if you’re going to smoke weed it may as well be the good stuff.
LINK

Sarphatipark
Away from the sleaze and grime of downtown Amsterdam, this cute little neighborhood park that’s surrounded by bars is where locals actually hang out. No one there will be too hyped to see hundreds of VICE readers show up, so try not to act like a jerk.

Kattenkabinet

A museum entirely devoted to cats in art. It’s like imgur IRL.
LINK

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(Photo by Ewout Lowie)

HOW TO AVOID GETTING RIPPED OFF AND BEATEN UP

Taxi drivers in Amsterdam are notorious for overcharging tourists. At any obvious tourist location—like Centraal Station, Dam, Leidseplein, and Rembrandtplein—drivers will compete for your attention and then drive you in rings around the city while the meter ticks up.

The city has started using mystery customers to try to catch taxi hustlers, but the chances are you’ll encounter some type of bullshit if you take a cab. The best thing to do to avoid hustlers is to walk away from the tourist hangouts and try to catch one on the side of the street. Obviously you should never get into cabs that don’t have an official sign.

As lovely as Amsterdam is, it's also a place with a reputation that screams SEX and DRUGS, two fun things that dickheads have been managing to make money out of by abusing other people for centuries. And the red light district is where they come together to swap tips on how to be a dick to women. Anyway, the vibe round there can be nasty and buying drugs on those streets, late at night when you're fucked up, is probably the best way to get yourself rolled by some bastard or other. 

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HOW NOT TO BE A SHITTY TOURIST

We like it when tourists on bikes take an interest in local culture, but why the fuck do you all clog up the city center? There’s a whole city to explore, but most of you end up getting fucked after a couple of blunts and then wobbling a bike down the uneven streets of the tiny 17th century downtown area. Stoned tourists, busy streets, and canals are a recipe for the most repetitive slapstick performance of all time. Get out of downtown, spin your wheels, and see some more of the city.

Another terrible tourist trait is taking photographs in the red light district. The women who work there don’t appreciate it, and chances are they’ll let you know by hurling your camera in the canal.

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PEOPLE AND PLACES TO AVOID

Frat Boys in the Pijp
The Pijp is the stomping ground of Amsterdam’s frat boys—you’ll know it from the mingled stench of sweat and sexual desperation. They’re like all frat boys—violent, sexist, privileged, stupid, thuggish, unattractive shitheads. If you walk through a pile of them they’ll smell the decency on you and start lobbing bottles at your face.

Bike Taxis
Amsterdam’s taxi drivers are pretty bad, but the bike taxis are even worse. On the plus side you do get to spend the whole journey staring at their lycra-clad ass. On the minus, they’re slow, expensive, and they’d drag a baby through deserts of blood just to get a tourist fare.

De Wallen

This is Amsterdam’s largest and best-known red light district (or blue light, for the transvestites). We know the area gives the city part of its identity, but the truth is it’s home to a staggering number of abused and trafficked women from all over the world. It’s grim as hell and fucking prostitutes just isn’t cool.

Street Dealers
Amsterdam is one of the easiest countries in the world to buy drugs in, so don’t pick them up from guys in the street unless you’re really into handing over loads of cash for Pro Plus and rat poison.

Leidseplein

It might be great as a subway hub, but why is this terrible square still in all the tourist guides? It’s the place you end up when you don’t know where you’re going. If you do find yourself here, leave.

Kebab shops
Strangely, for a city with so many people wandering around fucked after dark, late-night food here is fucking abysmal, especially near the RLD. Kebab and shawarma are sometimes reheated by plunging them in boiling water. It’s overpriced and it will kill you slowly. We know you won’t listen to us when you’re drunk, but we’re telling you anyway: You’re better off going home hungry.

Amsterdam Dungeon

This place has hardly anything to do with the real history of Amsterdam. It’s a classic tourist trap. You’d learn more about Amsterdam if you stayed at home smoking a tea bag and googling pictures of canals.

Escape

Regularly named as a beacon of Amsterdam nightlife, but in essence just a really shitty club, it boasts the unholy trinity: shitty music, shitty drinks, and shitty people. Go next door to Studio 80.

Kalverstraat
Amsterdam’s main shopping street. The shops suck and it’s full of tourists who are just as lost as you are. How much interest do you really have in generic high streets in the Netherlands? Fucking none, that’s how much.

Het Damrak

This is the street right in front of Centraal Station, so for most tourists it’s their first sight of Amsterdam. The beautiful old buildings are hidden from view by fences and garish neon signs directing you to the endless shops selling T-shirts with slogans like: "Good girls go to heaven, bad girls go to Amsterdam." You have no business here.

The Sex Museum
We’re all for taking a liberated and open-minded attitude to sex, but Amsterdam’s Sex Museum is not the place to go for a nuanced discussion of interpersonal gendered power relations as they relate to consensual BDSM. It’s the place where stoned teenagers go to point at boobs and dicks. Your Auntie Margaret doesn’t want to see a picture of you on Facebook posing with a seven-foot cock, and neither does anybody else.

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(Photo by Sabine Rovers)

TIPPING AND HANDY PHRASES

Tipping
Dutch waiters and bartenders are used to dealing with miserly people, so tips in restaurants and bars usually aren't that high. Ideally, waiters and bar staff would expect about 10 percent, but they tell us it's often more like five. For taxis, just round up the bill, and don't tip in nail salons or hairdressers.

Handy Phrases
Hello: Hallo
Goodbye: Tot ziens
Please: Alsjeblieft
Thank you: Dank u
Where do I get cocaine, motherfucker?: Hoe kom ik aan coke, kankerlijer?
You're hot: Je bent lekker
Beer?: Biertje?
Is sex with a fist acceptable in this dark room?: Is seks met een vuist aanvaardbaar in deze donkere kamer?

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A YOUTUBE PLAYLIST OF QUESTIONABLE LOCAL MUSIC

Here is some Dutch music. It's pretty good right? You'd be singing along if your clumsy foreign tongue could handle our language.

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VICE CITY MAP

That's all I think. You'll thank me when you're not tweaking out, wandering lost through the red light district on 'shrooms.

Love,

– VICE Netherlands

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Even After His Sentencing, Ray Nagin's Ego Is So Big He Can't Comprehend His Own Guilt

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Photo via Flickr user Tulane Public Relations

When Ray Nagin first ran for mayor of New Orleans in 2002, the centerpiece of his campaign was about getting tough on crime. Recently, it’s been Nagin hoping the law would cut him some slack. For 20 felony counts of bribery, wire fraud, money laundering, and tax evasion, the disgraced former mayor just got sentenced to 10 years in minimum-security prison—five years less than guidelines suggested. But so far, he steadfastly refuses to believe he might have done anything wrong.

From the beginning, Nagin maintained his innocence in the face of overwhelming evidence to the contrary. The vendors who plied him with bribes pled guilty long ago. His own City Hall deputy, Greg Meffert, broke down in tears as he apologized from the witness stand. In February, Nagin pleaded “not guilty” to each of the charges against him, his voice remaining absolutely calm as every muscle in his body became more rigid.

Photo by Anna Gaca

“It looked like if he could have, he would have levitated,” said Kalen Wright, a local forensics analyst who watched Nagin’s indictment close-up. “He looked like he was sort of vibrating towards the end. That was when I got the sense that he really believed that he had committed no wrong. It was surreal.”

The prospect of a decade in jail hasn’t budged Nagin’s incredulity, either. “In my opinion, I’ve been targeted, smeared, tarnished,” he told local TV news on Wednesday morning. “The prosecutors were fairly magical in their ability to take something that supposedly happened and paint it as reality when it didn't really happen.” There was nothing magical about it, so the ex-mayor fooled no one—except, apparently, himself.

These days, Nagin is ridiculed by the city where he was born. Someone snapped up his domain name and turned it into a satirical Tumblr describing him as a “jive talker, bribe taker, convicted felon, and soon-to-be jailbird.” But Ray Nagin’s real crime wasn’t accepting trips to New York and Hawaii, taking truckloads of free granite, or killing a plan to pay local Home Depot employees a living wage in exchange for a contract with his family’s stone countertop business. By the standards of Louisiana corruption, Ray Nagin is small fry. The bribes he accepted pale in comparison to the ones former Governor Edwin Edwards took in the 90s. His schemes aren't even in the same league as those of Governor Huey Long, whose legendary rackets were canonized in All the King's Men.

The real wrongdoing, the one that hangs over Nagin’s head like a cartoon anvil, comes from the same source as nearly every other problem plaguing the city: Hurricane Katrina. The ex-mayor is reviled for failed leadership, for the countless mistakes and missteps his administration made during the recovery, and for the endless bloviating he undertook throughout it all. The spectacle of his corruption trial was an insult added to an injury New Orleans badly wishes to put behind it.

Photo by Anna Gaca

Once a symbol of city unity, Nagin became the icon of its darkest hour. For a while, he was as much a disaster capitalism entrepreneur as he was the mayor. His response to one of the most costly and poorly managed catastrophes in American history was to reposition himself as an expert in disaster response. His path to national fame was paved with self-congratulation and a speaking tour. In 2008, while swaths of the city were still fighting for recovery resources, a group of Nagin’s loyal acolytes bestowed him with a dubious “Award of Distinction for Recovery, Courage and Leadership.” 

Then they celebrated their newly created honor with a swanky party at the Ritz-Carlton. Nagin went on to self-publish a memoir extolling his management prowess, exercising his characteristically loose grasp on the facts while claiming that God chose him for the task of hurricane recovery.

Nearly ten years on from the storm, the flood, and the aftermath, New Orleans is finished with Nagin. Outside the federal courthouse where he received his sentence, a crudely lettered paper sign was taped to back of a bus stop. “Keep in Mind Martha Stewart When Sentencing Our Former Mayor Ray Nagin! They Are Both Human,” it read. It was as pathetic and nonsensical as Nagin’s own denial-ridden defense, and received with about as much authority.

By the time he’s released from prison, Nagin will be 68 years old. His political career is dead. Despite the declarations of innocence, his public persona is that of a man with his tail between his legs. For all his graft, he’s practically broke. It’s not clear how he’ll repay the $500,000 worth of bribes he received, or the $84,000 in restitution he owes to the IRS. He doesn’t have the virility or the personality of former Governor Edwards, who at age 68 is looking forward to the first birthday of his fifth child with his third wife. Even granite countertops aren’t in style anymore. If Nagin has a future, it’s probably in trading faded name recognition for the opportunity to peddle questionable disaster recovery advice. God help anyone who takes him seriously.

Follow Anna Gaca on Twitter.

Japan Is Not Happy About a Chinese Newspaper Mocking Hiroshima and Nagasaki

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Japan Is Not Happy About a Chinese Newspaper Mocking Hiroshima and Nagasaki

Why the Fuck Is This LA Fountain Still Gushing During the Drought?

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Photos by Mike Pearl

The William Mulholland Memorial Fountain is among the most neglected monuments in Los Angeles, along with our badass statue of Bruce Lee that we once put in a warehouse, and that War of 1812 cannon that we inexplicably keep tucked away in a corner of Pershing Square. The fountain memorializes the water-stealing asshole William Mulholland in a very appropriate way, but it's not a tourist destination, and most Los Angeles residents aren't even sure where it is.

To make matters worse, right now, those 50,000 gallons of water look like a big, wet middle finger to all the drought-conscious people letting their lawns die for the greater good. And it's also a middle finger to the law.

On April 25, Governor Jerry Brown issued an executive order, outlining how we're supposed to conserve water. One of the items on the list is "Turn off fountains and other decorative water features unless recycled or grey water is available." While the order was crystal clear, it wasn't initially obvious that the governor planned to enforce it. It wasn't even clear at the time that the state had the authority to dish out penalties, and the fountain has just continued gushing away.

A huge fountain shooting water 50 feet into the air was enough to just barely attract my attention whenever I drove past. Oh, look, that's still on during this drought, I would think to myself. I'm sure they have their reasons

But on July 2, the Los Feliz Ledger, a neighborhood newsletter, wrote a piece called "Against the Governor's Wishes," in which they explained that in fact there was no justification for the fountain still being on. It just was.

Then yesterday, it was announced that the state's Water Resources Control Board is hatching a plan to hand out $500 fines for violating the order. 

I asked the Los Angeles Department of Water and Power to comment on the fountain's status. LADWP's media relations representative who relayed the following to me in an email:

"Mulholland Fountain, like other recirculating public fountains, splash parks, and water features, provides a public benefit that must be considered before any decisions are made. However, there may be options to reduce the amount of incidental water use without significant impact to the public benefit. Any proposed changes will certainly be discussed beforehand with the affected community."

To find out what public benefit they were referring to, I paid the fountain a visit.

It sits in its own little dedicated park that juts out into a major intersection, but the area sees little to no pedestrian traffic. It was a Tuesday afternoon, but it was the middle of summer, so I thought there might be kids playing in it.

There weren't. In the hour I spent there, I ran only into one person, and she jogged by without stopping. It turns out the fountain's not a splash park at all. In fact, you're not supposed to go in it.

I did anyway. It was dirty. 

Recirculating water, by the way, is not recycled water. When the water evaporates, new, potable water is pumped in. Grey or recycled water would be even riskier to wade around in. If they started pumping in grey water, I suppose that would necessitate a scarier sign to put people off doing exactly what I did. But if you're already not supposed to swim in it, why use the good water to begin with?

LADWP had provided me with a little more information about my surroundings as well: "The Mulholland Fountain and the surrounding L.A. Aqueduct Centennial Garden set the stage for the ideal standards for public spaces with water features. While we maintain the fountain, the space subscribes to water conservation through the implementation of the California Friendly landscaping around the fountain."

This part is legit. It doesn't take much water to support a garden made up of desert plants. But is a massive fountain offset by an adjacent patch of drought-friendly landscaping?

I'm not going to pretend this fountain matters in any literal sense. The fountain's 50,000 gallons are about one seventh of an acre foot, and an acre foot (enough water to cover one acre with a foot of liquid) is the smallest unit farmers use to purchase water. 34 million acre-feet of California's water are used every year just to grow almonds. Agribusiness uses 80 percent of our state's water supply, and they want more. In other words, when you put it in perspective, it's an exaggeration to even call the fountain a drop in the bucket.

It's also not the only public fountain in Los Angeles. Among others, there's the one in Grand Park, which just opened. While that one should probably be shut off too, shutting off the Mulholland Memorial Fountain is more urgent. 

The gesture would be rich in symbolism. Turning off the fountain that memorializes the guy who originally channeled water into Los Angeles would be a sign that there's something wrong in this city. The only thing that would make the irony more potent would be if anyone ever visited the thing.

Mike Pearl is our night editor. Follow him on Twitter.

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