On this episode of Daily VICE, Thomas Morton shares what it's like to dive head first into the world's strangest subcultures on his new VICELAND series, BALLS DEEP. Then Noisey explains why Lil Yachty is the new rapper to watch, and VICE Sports introduces us to the Mandarin sports commentators at the University of Illinois.

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This article originally appeared on VICE Canada.

Students, by nature, are enabled to live like slobs. After 18 or so years of leaching off our parents, many of us venture out into the world with little to no living skills. We get our own place, we have no one to boss us around, and, because of that, things go to shit: our cleanliness, our dignity, and, most importantly, our diets. Because, let's face it—takeout food, cheap beer, and pre-packaged meals are pretty standard ways for helping work through the trash fire that is attempted adulthood, especially when you're on a budget.

But depending on who you are, who you live with, and how much of a disaster you are as a human being, eating habits will probably differ from person to person and house to house. To get a peek inside the disappointing (and sometimes surprising) food choices of today's struggling students, I scoured Toronto student's fridges. Here's what I found.

Jessica and Josh's Place (Little Portugal)

Notable items: a jug of orange juice, a small tub of LUSH face mask, two jugs of almond milk, and a pair of depressingly empty drawers

VICE: Your fridge is empty. What's with all the juice?
Jessica: Well, I always like drinking OJ in the morning, but, to be honest, I just don't like water. I don't tell people that though, because that sounds sus.

You DJ under the name Juicy Jess—is this a play on your juice fetish?
Basically. I also just am, like, a juicy person.

OK. Why do you keep makeup in your fridge? Is this a new thing?
No! It's a face mask that goes bad, so you have to keep it cooled. I once left some food in here that went bad, and that's why I had to get that baking soda freshener. The smell was horrible.

Wait, that's a filter? I thought that was just baking soda.
Nah dude, it literally cleans the air.

Final question: You aren't vegan or vegetarian, but you have almond milk on deck. Why?
What we do to cows is fucked up! Humans really shouldn't be drinking cow milk, and I just like almond milk better because of that.

Sierra, Nicole, Lauren, and Cassie's Apartment (Pitman Hall, Ryerson University)

Notable items: two cans of Red Bull, two-month-old takeout, a chilled chocolate cake, a half-empty jar of zesty garlic pickles, pomegranate juice, two dozen empty booze bottles, and a handful of oranges

VICE: What do you guys generally eat here?
Sierra: We all like different things. Like, we have different diets and stuff, but we eat a lot of cheese and takeout food. The Red Bulls and juice are all for chase, because we all like Jäger. That's our go-to. Margarine is also always around.

So, the LCBO lists, liquor on top of your fridge, an abundance of chase—this a house built on booze. What do you like to eat when you're drunk?
I like to eat these zesty garlic pickles. Oh, and the stuffed olives.

How many do you eat generally?
Probably like five, and I'm done. I don't like eating a ton, because I'd get sick.

This isn't a healthy diet, is it?
Oh no, it's not healthy at all.

Lisa, Sydney, Clare, and Katie's Flat (Downtown)

Notable items: a slowly rotting avocado, two tubs of natural peanut butter, Frank's Red Hot, Lisa's dual tubs of disgusting pasta, and a tupperware full of frozen lasagna

VICE: What's the worst thing I'm going to find in here?
Lisa: I'm so ashamed, but there are two tubs of pasta I made that are just absolutely disgusting and have been sitting in there for weeks. I really don't want to open them up and clean them out, so they're just there, and they probably will be for a while.

Why did you make such shitty pasta, and what did you put in it?
Well, I took basically everything I had and put it in there to make a sauce. Tomato paste, a can of tomatoes, chickpeas, garlic, six cubes of spinach, and some really shitty frozen vegetables. You know in Elf when Will Ferrell makes that gross spaghetti with maple syrup? It was basically that. Imagine soft carrots and bad tomatoes.

This kitchen has seen some shit, clearly. Do you ever get into fights with your roommates about food habits?
Not really. We actually all get along really well and cook together. We even share food. Like, a lot of hummus goes through this kitchen. We're basically running on hummus and wine.

Is there something you can't go without?
Montreal steak spice. We put that shit on everything.

Beckie, Lorie, and Omos (Chinatown)

Noteable items: a bottle of white wine, two opened packs of pre-sliced mushrooms, Nesquik chocolate syrup, Classico pasta sauce, and a bottle of artisanal health juice

VICE: So, I once ate your vegan cereal, and you were fucking pissed. What is crucial to you in this fridge?
Beckie: I eat a lot of mushrooms and fruit. A few days ago, Omos ate a whole tub of blueberries and wanted some of mine, and I was like, "You just ate a whole tub." We ended up yelling at each other for a bit.

Do you guys like food or wine more? I see a good mix of healthy stuff and liquor here.
We're a mix of both, but we definitely like our wine. I told them we should clean the counter off and get rid of all the empty bottles, but I'm kind of glad we didn't so you could see it. Really, it's just me and Lorie eating food. Omos hardly buys anything.

What is something you and your roommates all agree on?
We eat a lot of Asian food. Lorie is Asian, and we just kind of follow her lead on that.

Kevin (Waterfront)

Notable items: a frozen package of chicken, a few bottles of Steam Whistle, Sriracha, soy sauce, and lettuce

VICE: Your house is beautiful, dude. You're really living the bachelor dream here.
Kevin: Thanks man. I like my privacy.

Why is your fridge so clean?
I'm almost never home and always out working, so it only makes sense to buy what I'm going to eat. Less clutter helps me focus.

You used to live with four other roommates before you moved to this condo. How shitty was the fridge situation before?
Honestly man, it was horrible, but you think it's going to be so cool at first. Living with other people is overrated in my opinion. People leave things in there forever, and you start having to ask, "Are you gonna clean that out or am I?" I don't like the stress of it.

Sriracha or soy sauce?
I imagine you'd think soy sauce because I'm Asian, and for a while it was that, but definitely sriracha now. It used to be soy sauce.

Salmaan, Steven, and the author (Kensington Market)

Notable items: numerous tupperware containers of Indian and Pakistani food, some cans of Heineken, orange juice, spaghetti with tomato sauce, and an empty bottle of chipotle mayo

VICE: Dude, our fridge is a shitshow.
Salmaan: Oh yeah. We've had our trouble.

So, for some context, I have a problem with eating my roommates' food. How fucking annoying is that to you?
It's really bad, but I think we've come to a compromise.

You're all about the beer and Pakistani food, I've got veggies and tofu, and Steven is the king of leaving pasta sauce on everything. How do you feel about your food choices?
I live my life, dude. Straight up.

Logan and Lex (Uptown)

Notable items: whiskey, spinach, oranges, beans, bananas, a container of tofu, and two boxes of strawberries

Your fridge is so healthy, it makes me feel guilty. What's the dynamic like between you and Lex in terms of food choice?
Logan: Well, I'm vegan, so I have a lot of that kind of stuff, but Lex is really nice in that she doesn't bring home meat. We cook a lot and share dinner, so I never have to worry about accidentally ingesting meat.

That sounds like a pretty sweet deal. Do you and Lex get along in terms of cooking and such?
Yeah, we cook together three times a day.

What do you guys eat when you're drunk?
I usually don't! But Lex will get poutine or takeout or something like that. We keep it pretty separate.

You are two different beasts, it seems. You guys must fight occasionally, no?
One time I threw a sweet potato at her while she was on the coach, and it hit her in the face really hard. She was so pissed.

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On Monday afternoon, I was riding a train to Boston from Cambridge, Massachusetts, when I bumped into one of the more infamous convicted statutory rapists in America.

Owen Labrie, who made national headlines as the defendant in a lengthy New Hampshire prep school rape trial last year, was wearing a beige LL Bean fleece.

At the end of his senior year at St. Paul's, Labrie—who was a prefect and once awarded the school's highest honor for "selfless devotion to school activities"—partook in a campus hookup game called, the "Senior Salute." He was subsequently convicted for three misdemeanor statutory rape charges, a charge of endangering a child, and a felony computer charge—for seducing and fornicating with a 15-year-old girl. Labrie has since been sentenced to a year in county jail and made to register as a sex offender.

But there he was Monday afternoon, free—albeit under a strict curfew as he appeals his conviction. I recognized him instantly, as I was one of dozens of journalists who flocked to the cramped New Hampshire courthouse to cover the trial for VICE.

Media interest in the scandal at a prestigious prep school has been criticized by some, most notably Labrie's then attorney, J. W. Carney. The lawyer nonetheless saw fit to provide reporters with lengthy daily press conferences, and took to having his client shake hands with him in front of the camera.

What sparked my own interest in the case was that a familiar phenomenon—the objectification of young women—was, at St. Paul's, said to be ritualized. The "Senior Salute" was basically a game where graduating seniors asked underclass students to meet for a romantic encounter, anything from a walk to sex. They would then tally their conquests, with victors in the conquest passing around a ceremonial mask, according to prosecutors. But elaborate rich kid sex games aside, it was also a case that highlighted the basic difficulties of proving or disproving acquaintance rape, and came at a time when sexual assault on school campuses was receiving increased attention.

This was one of the rare cases that actually went to a public trial.

Adding to the drama on Monday, seconds after I stepped onto the train, a man got his arm stuck in the door. The whole train car screamed while a woman pulled him loose. As the poor guy quietly walked on board, rubbing his arm, another man pulled out a Rubix cube and began to curse the Massachusetts Bay Transportation Authority (MBTA) at the top of his lungs.

That's when I walked over to Labrie.

I introduced myself as a reporter who covered his trial, and I sat down. To my surprise, Labrie greeted me warmly. He said he liked VICE's coverage, but since I had compared him to a contemporary of the protagonist in The Talented Mr. Ripley, I am skeptical he actually read it.

He was visiting his girlfriend, a Harvard student, and had taken her out to brunch, Labrie told me. They met at the end of his senior year, around the same time as the incident for which he was later convicted. She quietly supported him in the courtroom, he maintained. After many months at his home in Vermont, Labrie said he was just beginning to reenter society. It was a process that was at times rewarding, with strangers approaching him to offer their support.

Strangers have also come up to him and literally thrown blows, he told me, miming a punch to the face.

He talked about emotional "ups and downs" and having his life "torn apart" in the media. It was strange, perhaps, for him to be commiserating with me—arguably one of those responsible for tearing him apart. We only had five stops to go, but I was curious to learn what he made of all the attention.

Labrie's case continued to grab me after the trial itself, mostly because of the lingering media coverage. A professor at Harvard Law, writing for the New Yorker, suggested the case was about Americans criminalizing sex we don't like. A Newsweek feature and photoshoot focused, among other things, on the chapel he's been building since his conviction.

His attorneys made frequent note to that chapel in sentencing, too. As if a man's piety is evidence of his innocence. Hasn't anyone else watched Spotlight?

Labrie was miffed about a new Vanity Fair feature, "St. Paul's Before and After the Owen Labrie Rape Trial," that came out this week. I hadn't read it yet, but he warned it was a "hit piece." (Jezebel, for its part, argued the story didn't hit hard enough and claimed the magazine "doesn't know how to cover sexual assault.")

Varied public opinion is inevitable in instances of acquaintance rape, where the victim makes no claims of physically resisting the encounter. These cases involving consent inevitably rest on who the jury believes most—the alleged victim or the defendant. The jury essentially determined that Labrie was lying to the court when he claimed they didn't have sex, but the jurors did not find that the girl clearly expressed her lack of consent. He was acquitted of the more serious rape charges.

"That does not mean the victim consented to the sexual penetration," Judge Larry M. Smukler reminded the court during sentencing, countering Carney's assertion that this was a consensual act between teens.

Those sympathetic to Labrie point to the felony computer charge, arguing it was never meant to be applied to texting teenagers. Had Labrie reached out to the girl via phone, he would have been spared a lifetime on the sexual offender registry. Then again, these were no ordinary messages: Labrie and his peers shared email templates and strategies for scoring with younger girls; Labrie even had a list of potential targets, with the girl at the top, in capital letters.

Nancy Gertner, a professor at Harvard Law and a former federal judge, has said that in cases where there is some overlap—when online messages between teenagers cross the line from flirtations to calculated targeting—the felony law should be modified, just as Labrie's statutory rape charge was modified to a misdemeanor because of the closeness in age between him and the victim.

But Gertner believes the defense still had no business taking the case to trial.

"This was a fundamentally 'untriable' case," she tells me.

Before Labrie found Carney, he went through two other attorneys and refused multiple plea deals—including at least one in which he would have served only a month in jail and done no time on the sex offender's list.

While the terms of consent may have rested on only the word of two people in a dark room, the evidence that the two had sex was much more hefty. The prosecution presented evidence of semen and DNA, a vaginal tear, testimony, and documents of Labrie's written and spoken assertions to his peers that the two did in fact have sex. Even if Labrie's explanation—dry humping, premature ejaculation, boyish bragging—were true, it's difficult to imagine how he or his attorneys were convinced it would carry the day.

According to Vanity Fair, which cited a senior law enforcement source, if at any time during the investigation Labrie acknowledged wrongdoing or regret, he likely would have been sent to a sex-offender diversion program, and never been convicted at all. No jail time, no prolonged public scrutiny.

That's what ultimately makes Labrie come off as pathological: his own arrogance.

On the train this week, Labrie told me what he's said before: Pleading not guilty, instead of quietly settling, was a matter of his belief that he knew the truth. Something he did to sleep at night. Something for which he has no regrets.

He continued to praise me and inquire about my chosen profession as an independent writer. I had run into an acquaintance from high school just minutes prior, but somehow meeting Labrie was less awkward. I started to feel bad for him. What if this whole case really was an elaborate plot?

We got off at South Station in Boston. I took a few steps, and I realized he'd been charming people the same way he did me his entire life.

Follow Susan Zalkind on Twitter.

We've been wandering around a nondescript industrial lot in northern Berlin for about ten minutes when we finally spot them by a gate: Two men, built like bouncers—in leather cut-off jackets, their hair cropped very short. We approach them a tad uncomfortably, and they shake our hands without smiling. "Just go around the back to the little door. They'll give you a warm welcome there," one of them says, grinning. I start to wonder whether it was a mistake to arrange to meet the Osmanen Germania—the Germania Ottomans, in English. They're Germany's latest biker gang.

The group—whose name combines both the Ottoman and the German empires in allusion to its many members with Turkish background—was virtually unknown to the public until very recently. That changed when on the evening of January 25, around 80 members of the Germania Ottomans met in the city of Neuss and another 40 gathered in Duisburg two days later. The media went all out with it: "New Biker War Threatens Düsseldorf," one local newspaper's headline read. Other headlines included "Ottoman Bikers Expanding in Germany (Bild)" and "The Osmanen Germania Biker Gang Is Growing Rapidly (Die Welt)."

All articles seemed sure of one thing: the Germania Ottomans are an aggressively expanding biker gang claiming a cut from what are normally considered traditional ventures of the established biker gangs. "The new biker gang is advancing more and more into red-light districts, which increases the likelihood of a bloody territorial battle with established gangs like the Hells Angels and the Mongols," reported the Hannoversche Allgemeine, only to qualify in the next sentence: "Experts on biker culture warn that it is important not to overreact and spread an unnecessary panic."

The police in North Rhine-Westphalia are considerably more reserved: "We're still in a state of acquiring intelligence," says Klaus Zimmermann, spokesperson for the organized crime division of North Rhine-Westphalia's state police. The police might not be talking about "biker wars," but they are taking the new group seriously: "We can't eliminate the possibility of conflicts. We've seen that happen repeatedly when hostile gangs set up shop in another gang's territory with the intention of doing business."

But are the Germania Ottomans interested in that kind of business? According to Zimmermann, there's no concrete evidence supporting that yet. The group is still young and hasn't really made its mark yet. But at least on Facebook, members of the Germania Ottomans vehemently deny being a criminal biker gang. "We started the Germania Ottomans in order to give something back, not to take anything away from anyone," one of the group's founders, Selcuk S., writes on Facebook. Other members also emphasize that the Germania Ottomans are not a biker gang. In fact, the members like to point out that they're not an MC (motorcycle club) but a BC—a boxing club.

So is the German media panicking over nothing? Are the Germania Ottomans just a sports club with a wild name? If so, why the outfits? The Germania Ottomans haven't been quick to run to the press to answer these questions: The only interview given so far was to a relatively obscure insider website.

Which made it so surprising that the group not only responded to my email but also invited me to its clubhouse. Apparently, the Germania Ottomans now want to take control of its public image.

The little door opens, and we are led through a well-lit hallway, into a very tidy gym. There are about six men in leather cut-off jackets, most of them with the same build as the two guys we met outside. They all shake our hands, and one of them—who, according to his jacket, is the "road captain"—shows us around the brand new gym while we wait for the group's president.

Tiger, president of the Berlin chapter and world sergeant of the Germania Ottomans

The Berlin president, who's even bigger than the others, wants to be called "Tiger." He's also the Germania Ottomans' world sergeant—which means that he's one of the most important men in the club, after founders Selcuk S. and Mehmet B. We're sitting in some kind of rec room, when he explains to us how he sees the Germania Ottomans. "We're a boxing club. We're about sports, nothing more." Apparently, they all wear the jackets to be able to recognize each other. "The media only writes trash about us," he maintains. "It's all lies."

The tone of this video might be a bit aggressive, but I am told that's the whole point with hip-hop videos. As one member of the Germania Ottomans explains to me: "When Bushido sings that he's going to kill someone, he's not actually going to kill someone."

"The biker scene in Germany is shifting—which is partly why the rise of the Germania Ottomans are causing such a stir," explains Stephan Strehlow, the head of Berlin's police division fighting biker crime and crimes related to prostitution. "On the one hand, you have the old school bikers, mostly German, who are closely bound to the idea of biker code," he explains. "Emerging biker groups are made up primarily of people with immigrant backgrounds or of other nationalities, who have a different understanding of what it means to be a biker." For a lot of these new biker groups, membership is a way to get respect and to commit crimes under the protection of a larger group.

One example of this last kind of biker is career criminal Kadir P.—from Berlin's Hells Angels—who is currently facing a murder charge for having a rival killed with eight bullets. He was originally recruited by the Bandidos gang, but when he noticed that the Hells Angels were increasing in numbers in Berlin, he abruptly took all his followers and crossed over. He was accepted almost instantly, even though he had just led a brutal attack on the Hells Angels, in which one biker almost had a leg hacked off with a machete and the boss of Berlin's Hells Angels, André S., was stabbed in the back—literally.

Another important reason for the way the Germania Ottomans are being perceived is a recent escalation of the tension between old school bikers and bikers with immigrant backgrounds, in Hesse and North Rhine-Westphalia. In July 2014, the leader of Frankfurt's Hells Angels, Schnitzel Walter, forbade the ambitious member Aygün M. from venturing out on his own and starting his own chapter in Giessen. When Aygün M. stole some bouncer contracts to boot, Walter responded with a shoot out in front of Frankfurt's Katana Club, which left five bikers dead.

Things have since calmed down in Hesse, after an intervention from International Hells Angels. Aygün M. was allowed to keep his chapter in Giessen, which is now considered a hangout of the infamous, former "Godfather of Cologne"—"Neco" Arabaci, who was released in 2007 after a six year prison sentence in Turkey. Back in 2013, Der Spiegel reported that the Nomads Turkey—a Hells Angels sub-chapter run by Neco—was behind an attack on the Hells Angels in Krefeld, directed by Arabaci.

According to newspaper Der Westen, the Germania Ottomansoriginated from the Nomads Turkey. But members strongly deny that claim. "It's just speculation," says Tiger. Stephan Strehlow adds: "We don't have any indication that the founding was directed from the outside."

But from its Facebook page and other pictures one can find online, the Germania Ottomans seem to at least have a very friendly relationship with Aygün M. and the Hells Angels in Giessen. "The Germania Ottomans are very clear about sympathizing with the Hells Angels," clarifies Stephan Strehlow. "The group in Berlin has declared its support for Hells Angels MC Giessen."

But Tiger denies this claim: "We were privately involved with some of them—so we've had dinner together this one time. But other than that, we're not involved with anybody." The only photographs from that dinner show both bosses proudly standing side by side.

One of the founders of the Germania Ottomans is a former member of the Hells Angels, and the group has adopted the same ranks and a lot of the same imagery from the biker scene. Tiger has "13" tattooed on his hand, which is Hells Angels code for the letter "M" (for marijuana). Tiger claims that for the Germania Ottomans, 13 stands for its 13 secret laws—apparently, "all good ones—like loyalty."

He would rather talk about the group's successes with youth outreach work, which to the Germania Ottomans is a central element of its operation. "A lot of us used to be street kids, and some of us have been to jail. We want to give young people opportunities, so that doesn't happen to them." That's why the members came together to convert an old factory building into a training gym. The Germania Ottomans are also strictly against alcohol and drugs: "People selling drugs or poisoning others with drugs get kicked out." The same goes for members who are involved in prostitution rings.

But if a member would struggle with a drug problem, they can count on support from the group: "We're a socially-minded club," claims Tiger. That's supported by the fact that the club volunteered to handle the security at the funeral of Mohamed, the refugee boy who was kidnapped and murdered in Berlin-Moabit last year. "And we have regular barbecue evenings for our members with families, where only people with girlfriends, fiancés, or wives are invited."

However, the police in Berlin and in North Rhine-Westphalia aren't convinced that the Germania Ottomans are purely part of a social club. "These are people known to the police," says Klaus Zimmermann about the Germania Ottomans in North Rhine-Westphalia. "We know they are active in violent crime, and some have a record of offenses involving narcotics or weapons." But is it impossible that these people just came together and started a boxing club? "That's what they say," says Stephan Strehlow. "We can't confirm that."

The German authorities don't seem to know what exactly to make of the the Germania Ottomans—they don't even know how many of them are in Germany at the moment. Tiger and his followers claim they have over 2,500 members in Germany, and more across Europe. In North Rhine-Westphalia, the police only know of about a hundred members; in Berlin "30 to a maximum of 50 people"—which Tiger claims is 70.

While we're getting ready to go, Tiger emphasizes again that "everything I've said is the truth. We make an honest living here, our conscience is clear." Later, he sends me a message on WhatsApp, in which he insists I add this to the end of my article: "If something happens, we'll stand and fight to the last drop of blood."

Scroll down for portraits of all the guys we met that day:

OJ Simpson looks at a new pair of Aris extra-large gloves that the prosecutors had him put on for the jury on June 21, 1995, during his double murder trial in Los Angeles. (VINCE BUCCI/AFP/Getty Images)

The LAPD is testing a folding buck knife that was found buried on the perimeter of OJ Simpson's estate, according to a TMZ report.

The knife wasn't unearthed just in time for the popular FX Show The People v. OJ Simpson: American Crime Story, though. Instead, the blade was apparently discovered by a construction worker as many as 18 years ago, and turned over to an off-duty traffic cop. But instead of, you know, doing the right thing, the officer allegedly took it home with him and stashed it away as a memento of a crazy case.

According to TMZ, in January, the now-retired cop decided to use the knife to spruce up his home a bit. So he called up a buddy in the LAPD's Robbery Homicide Division and asked for the Departmental Record (DR) number of the murder case. The idea was to have the knife displayed on his wall with the number engraved on the frame.

But the guy's cop pal freaked out and told current police officials. The LAPD demanded the retiree turn over the blade, and it is now being tested for hair, fingerprints, and DNA. TMZ reports that a source who's seen the knife thinks it might even have blood residue on it.

Of course, OJ can't be tried again for the murder, thanks to America's double jeopardy rule. But technically the murder case remains open, since the only real suspect was found not guilty.

Not that Simpson is necessarily too concerned about new details in his case: The former football star is currently doing time in a Nevada prison for an unrelated kidnapping and armed robbery conviction.

Collage by Marta Parszeniew

When students begin to realize that everything bad in the world is capitalism's fault, the extent of their rebellion is usually limited to buying a copy of a socialist newspaper and tweeting about banker bonuses. Stephen Jackley took it a little further. While others at his college were joining left-wing student groups and painting placards, he was planning armed robberies on banks and building societies, with the intention of donating a portion of the takings to charity.

Jackley, who has Asperger's syndrome, was obsessed with Robin Hood. He viewed the man in the little felt hat as an icon of anti-capitalism, and thought he'd emulate his tactics as a way of righting capitalism's wrongs. At the peak of his crime spree, in fact, he went as far as writing a letter to local paper that read: "I will continue to take from the rich and give to the poor," signing it "RH."

Following his arrest and imprisonment, reports painted Jackley as everything from a violent psychopath who used anti-capitalism as an excuse, to an eccentric loner lost in a fantasy world. The reality was a little more complex.

Jackley grew up in southern England as the son of a painter and an engineer. His mother suffered from schizophrenia and was regularly being hauled away by either police or medics. Jackley blames his inability to trust or get particularly close to anyone as an adult on this part of his childhood.

As he was approaching late adolescence, he had the realization that a lot of teenagers tend to have: The world is a systematically unfair place. Traveling through Southeast Asia—a rare luxury in itself—this inequality was illustrated in front of him in the shape of all the four-star hotels built within a mile of shanty towns with no running water.

Back in the UK, and studying geography at the University of Worcester, Jackley got pretty into drugs and alcohol, specifically weed and cocaine. In 2007, living in student halls, the 21-year-old began devising his plan to make society more equal.

A number of studies have been done about the relationship between Asperger's syndrome and crime. Experts have failed to agree on whether or not people with the disorder are more likely to commit crimes than anyone else, but most suggest that it may affect how crimes they do commit are carried out.

When I asked this, Jackley says that his Asperger's played a role in his decision to go ahead with the robberies, "insofar as my inability to understand the effects of my actions upon others." However, it seems that a desire to be viewed in a heroic light had an equally significant part to play.

"I wanted to donate at least 60 percent to homeless people and charity," says Jackley. "I saw myself as a Robin Hood figure, which I used to justify what I did. Altogether, I donated around £2,000 to charity, which doesn't sound like a lot, but my intention was to donate more. I also gave to homeless people. This is going to sound crazy, but I marked the notes with an 'RH.'"

Unfortunately for Jackley, on one job he actually ended up doing the exact opposite of what he'd set out to achieve. "On one occasion, I burgled a premises, and it turned out to be a charity office, which I hadn't realized at the time. That was a nightmare. I gave the charity incremental sums, starting with £250 ."

Looking back on his actions, Jackley seems to comprehend the absurdity of it all. He's affable and relaxed, and it's easy, speaking to him, to forget that this is a man who used hammers, knives, and imitation guns to hold up bookies, building societies, and banks. But his remorse seems genuine. He says that while his intentions were, in part, altruistic, he regrets what he did and the terror he caused the people who witnessed his robberies.

CCTV images of Jackley in disguise

After a string of successful heists, Jackley decided he wanted to use a real gun for future crimes, so he set off to the US to buy one that he could smuggle back to the UK. This plan was foiled almost before it had begun: The owner of the shop he tried to buy a gun from was a former police officer who immediately recognized his ID as fake.

After the shop owner reported Jackley to the police, officers searched him and found his University of Worcester student card, before alerting the local force in the UK, and suggesting that officers search his student accommodation. There, the cops found items linking him to the robberies—weapons, disguises, notes about past and planned hold-ups—and, bizarrely, an imitation bomb (Jackley claims he doesn't know what his intentions for the fake bomb were because he was drunk and high when he decided to keep it in his room).

British papers pounced and dubbed Jackley the "Robin Hood armed robber." For the time being, a trial by media was all he'd get in the UK; a judge in Vermont sentenced him to ten months imprisonment for trying to buy a firearm with a fake ID, and he spent the next few months being shifted around several different prisons.

"I kept getting asked if I knew the Queen, and the only place the prisoners knew about was London," he says. "A lot of them were quite decent. I got most hassle from the guards."

Related: Watch our documentary 'Murder, Mayhem, and Meditation'

In 2009, at age 23, Jackley was deported to the UK and charged at Worcester Crown Court with 21 different offenses, including robbery, attempted robbery, and firearms possession. He pleaded guilty to 18 charges and was sentenced to 13 years in jail, a sentence that was appealed and later shortened to 12 years after judges at London's Criminal Appeal Court said his Asperger's syndrome may have caused his "awareness of the consequences of his actions—and therefore his culpability— been significantly impaired."

Jackley was released in 2014, and with the help of the Prince's Trust, has since set up the publishing company Arkbound and founded the magazine Boundless, which focuses on sustainable living and social inclusion.

Speaking to him now, it's clear he's neither the deluded menace the press made him out to be nor is he a man who still believes he's an anti-capitalist crusader who has to commit crimes to somehow tackle economic disparity. He says life since being released from prison has been "difficult and enlightening," but there's no doubt he's trying to make amends for what he's done in the past. The Robin Hood days are long behind him. Now, he's doing his best to address inequality with words, not hammers.

Jackley has released a book about his crimes entitled Just Sky, which is available via his publishing company, Arkbound.

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Texans have never really had a "drinking" or "party" culture like, say, Boston, New Orleans, or Los Angeles. But we're catching up quickly, especially in Austin. Travis County imbibes more than any other in the state, and alcohol sales saw a 50 percent jump in just the past seven years.

Part of it relates to Austin's unyielding growth. If we can't have cheap rents and "authenticity" anymore, at least give us places to drown our yuppie sorrows. There are a few "classic" bars still around, but the destructive Godzilla that is progress has seen more than a few places crumble. The local favorites that seem like they've been around forever are really just ten years old, if that, and the ever-evolving "us" would very much prefer the obvious "them" to stay away (they won't). Worse, all new places seem to come prepackaged for a johnny-come-lately clientele that, at best, wants "hip" and "dive-y" without any of the hassles. The drinking areas have developed like landing strips in certain neighborhoods.

Cynicism aside, there's never been a better time to be a drinker in Austin. Livers can be pickled without going broke, and those nights, if remembered, will be looked upon fondly as the best mistakes you could safely make.

White Horse
The epicenter of what you might-could call "New Austin," White Horse is where a local will take an out-of-towner to meet other "locals" (no one's from here any more). It will be crowded and glorious, and you'll meet just about every type of Austinite— the vaguely fratty college kids adventuring away from "Dirty Sixth," the aging squares and old Austin hippies, the young kids in hipsterish threads, the annoyingly fashionable nouveau riche from the tech sector, some colorful weirdos. A condominium now looms over the building, and the owners recently replaced the piss trough with urinals (goddamn gentrification). That said, the bartenders bust hump, and the music, leaning hard on the honky-tonk vibe without ever feeling creaky, is rock-solid every night. A cowboy on an actual white horse might show up, someone will definitely be banging on the beat-up piano in the back, and there's a popcorn machine. Only assholes have a bad time here.

White Horse. Photo by Ben Sklar

The Side Bar
The first few times you go to Side Bar, you will have forgotten you went to Side Bar. The notion will be there, but the rest, a blur —if you're lucky. No one says "let's go to Side Bar" with any intention apart from being beaten senseless by their own youthful regrets. The inside is dim, even for bar standards, and booze spreads across the floor like blood in a slaughterhouse. Thanks to development, a 12-foot tall cinder-block perimeter was erected, which makes its patio look like a prison yard for college dropouts and kitchen hands. If you don't witness gravity taking revenge against at least one unsteady soul, you're in the wrong bar. Unless you like jail, or the clinic, this should be your only/ last stop of the night.

Yellow Jacket Social Club
There once was an idea of what "cool Austin" was, and its spark was Yellow Jacket. Pretty much everyone there will have more tats than you, which is OK, since you're really just there to sit outside on the patio with an idyllic canopy of bamboo and trees overhead. Every third person in Austin has had one of their Tinder pictures taken beside the foliage. Needless to say, these people are not regulars, who all appear to, and might actually, be part of the coolest proto-psychobilly/punk-looking biker gang since the Wild Angels. These regulars are mostly indistinguishable from the staff members, who will pretty much look at your with a bored, thousand-yard stare, as is their right. For a place that specializes in cheap beer and well whiskey, Yellow Jacket has a surprisingly solid food menu as well. Like every other place in Austin, this old and odd missionary-style building beside the train tracks is now dwarfed on two sides by condos. No matter. Yellow Jacket is a great place, where day drinking inevitably turns into night drinking. Just don't be a dick.

Jackalope
This is pretty much the one place on "Dirty Sixth" that doesn't suck. Despite being on the main party strip full of douchebag bars blasting bland rock music on the inside and annoying shot barkers advertising disgusting concoctions by the door, outside, Jackalope keeps it real. And porny! Apart from the lovely and artistic erotica paintings lining the walls, the movies playing on the back-patio TV are the most violent, smut-oozing productions the world's finest cine-freaks have to offer. The attached New Haven-ish style pizza place with a street-side counter is pretty damn decent, and people swear by the burger inside, even after they sober up. In the hellish oasis of bland party bars full of bros and indiscriminate night-trippers, Jackalope has that rough and worn edge that feels like home.

Photo by Josh Verduzco

Cheer-Up Charlies
It's only been around for a few years, and it's moved locations once, but Cheer-Ups has managed to become an institution for the young, artsy drinking class. There are two reasons for this: good music and good vibes. Cheer-Ups works super hard booking new and experimental bands, local and international. In addition, it's definitely been a proponent of the local scene in all its forms, particularly for the Ls of LGBTers. Oh, and it has kombucha on tap, because why not? As is proper in Austin, go outside where the spacious patio/stage area sits at the bottom of a massive limestone bluff. The one group you're allowed to hate on are the developers, particularly of the Hyatt Hotel, turning the area around Cheer-Ups into an ugly construction zone.

Ego's
The sign of a good karaoke bar is (1) a solid MC (2) not explicitly advertising itself as a karaoke bar. Welcome to Ego's, motherfucker; sign up for a song before you take your first shot, because all the people here want their two and a half minutes of transubstantial fame, and that shit takes a long time. The place is different than your average karaoke bar, mostly because it skips past any notion of "Asian karaoke bar" and goes straight for what really matters in Texas: "singing drunk + getting drunk." The place is also different from other Austin establishments because, rather than being stand-alone, it's nestled, hidden almost, inside the bottom of a drab, 1970s-style office building (the table settings look like they were stolen from an old Dallas diner), with just a small sign out front. The songbook rolls deep, the nightly MC is a dead ringer for Det. Rollins on SVU, and she runs as smooth a ship as possible with drunks belting out their favorites. If there's one place where a group of friends can convince that one asshole who refuses to karaoke to actually step up, it's Ego's. Your friends'll be the only ones who really pay attention when you're up—the rest of the people are just on the edge of their seats waiting for their turns.

Spider House Cafe & Ballroom
On the north tip of the UT campus, this is the spot if you're a young person and/or college student with a computer who needs to "work," or at the very least, convince yourself you're working while downing beers. The patio is spacious—with scattered, janky-ass tables and decorum that looks like it was salvaged from a Vegas junkyard, circa the 1960s. The cafe part is a converted house, so it's all hardwood floors and cozy inside, while the ballroom space in the front hosts all manner of hip entertainment. Then, of course, there is an adjoining tattoo parlor just in case you want to permanently imprint your bad ideas. Fair warning, though: The service can be downright terrible at Spider. It's like there's no system in place for, like, taking your order or dropping said order off. But the staff and clientele are always chill, and after a few rounds, none of that crap will really matter anyway.

Bar Lamar (in Whole Foods)
Austin used to be the "The Live Music Capital of the World." No mas. It's now the capital of techsters, new millennial money, and sell-outs (remember when SXSW wasn't a dumpster fire for corporate "brands"? Don't worry, no one does!). Which is why a visit to the original home and corporate offices of Whole Foods is perfect! The complex is huge, basically a whole city block. This is the Vatican for that whole eco-city lifestyle that all the people and their therapists have bought into. Stroll past the asparagus water and overpriced organic products to the back, where there is a wine/beer bar surrounded by the perfect summation of a transitioning Austin—a barbecue counter on one side and a sushi counter on the other. Go on a weekend afternoon or weekday around rush hour, have no intention of grocery shopping, but instead sit and enjoy a featured beverage while you observe the Austinite in its new habitat—the yoga ladies, the health-fad-conscious college students, people with respectable 401Ks, well-off kids disguised as hippies and hipsters. Don't be too cynical, because you're one of them, too; fight it all you want. It's a beautiful sight, on par with people-watching from a Paris cafe.

Photo by Josh Verduzco

The Grand
Probably the most naturally diverse bar in Austin, precisely because it doesn't advertise itself as such. For a town that's all about the hot new scene, this place has no pretensions, and its clientele is the same. It's a neighborhood spot right in the newest "up and coming" strip on Airport Boulevard, but it's a well-settled pool joint in the best possible sense. The waitresses provide table service for those in the middle of sharking, the jukebox/PA system has a habit of playing lonely traveller songs like Dylan's "Tangled Up in Blue," and the regular barflies with their gin blossoms and softly-held mixed drinks aren't territorial. Pool's the great barroom equalizer, and The Grand is one of the few places in town you'll see Latinos, blacks, whites, wannabe pool pros with their travel sticks, and groups of amateur friends, all doing their thing without any kind of strutting. The comedians from the next-door comedy venue come by after their show to hang out in one of the poker rooms, and there's a cluster of small tables in case there's some sort of game on the big screen. It's all low-key until the "Rock Candy" shows on Sunday and Monday, in which it seems the town's entire hardcore punk population comes out from wherever they were hiding to listen to the a wild-haired DJ play records in front of some dart boards.

Donn's Depot
One of last survivors from "Old Austin," this Fisco train-station-y themed bar doesn't appear to, er, be leaving the station anytime soon. The inside is what happens when the saloon set of a 1970s Western movie is abandoned before being turned into a cozy home by some industrious squatter. Donn himself, on his baby grand that has its own drink rail for customers, leads the band most nights. All wood beams and red shag carpet, the bar has sections, each divided into its own little area. It's great for groups, or even if you're alone, pretending that you're a red headed stranger contemplating that one last score to settle. The dance floor (more of a dance pit) really ties the whole ramshackle place together. There'll be lots of old timers there, many of whom seem like discarded characters of a Charles Portis novel.

Scholz Garten
There's not much around the area: mostly drab, state government buildings that turn from comatose to dead after 5 PM. But maybe go, if only because it's both an Austin and literary landmark. The restaurant itself sells the kind of barbecue and German-ish fare that's OK by normal standards but is altogether forgettable in Texas. The tap selection (German-ish, duh) is solid. More important is the brick-laid, tree-dotted patio that has the city's oldest operating bowling alley, built for German farmers to unwind in the 1800s. The place is a character itself in Billy Lee Brammer's The Gay Place, the second greatest novel (or tied?) about American politics after All The King's Men. Go for a couple drinks and imagine yourself getting hammered with the likes of LBJ himself, the greatest politician Texas has ever produced.

Hole in the Wall
Oh, you want the Austin experience and don't want to go to Hole in the Wall? Go fuck yourself. This place is a goddamn landmark. No, literally. It has its own entry on the Texas State Historical Association website. Somehow, this place, with an inside that stays true to its namesake, has fought off the steamroller that is time and progress, unmoved while Urban Outfitter-ers and yoga studios arise like little Mount Dooms all round it. Other great venues have fallen over the years, yet this booze-and-music-infused gem remains. Every band you love that you didn't realize came from Austin has played here. It's basically the poor musicians' version of the Grand Ole Opry. And being on The Drag, UT's main strip of student-oriented shops, its crowds can be transient, like a bus stop or army camp. What else do you need to hear? The decor and vibe is exactly what you'd expect at place that's been around forever (like 1974), and it's been fighting to survive since before you knew what cool was. Go pay your respects.

Photo by Josh Verduzco

Barflys
There's funny "haha" and funny "hmmm." Sliding closer to the latter is Barflys funny. It's hard to say what makes Barflys a little... off. Undoubtedly, it has something to do with the fact that it's a neighborhood bar on the north end of central Austin—no one can quite agree if the area qualifies as "north": It certainly doesn't have a specific vibe. The general 'hood includes a mix of better-off neighborhoods, kinda-slummy houses of long-time residents, and poorer young adults with steady paychecks. Whatever the reason, the barflies of Barflys love to get hammered and jabber on with strangers. Everyone has opinions! The results can be mixed. You might be forced into conversation with a vaguely menacing idiot sporting a neck beard, or get curious ideas while talking with the 21-year-old entrepreneur of a live-streaming sex-chat operation. Go there if it's close to your friend's house, or the sweet SXSW couch surfing deal you found on Craigslist.

Shangri-La
A mainstay of the hip East Sixth district, Shangri-La is the Walmart of hipster bars. It's got plenty of space, always low-ish prices, and pretty much everyone goes there. Inevitably, people will describe, in detail, that one SXSW when Bill Murray came in and started bartending, as if they were there (they weren't). Good and proper Austinites judge their bars based on the patios, and in this regard, Shangri-La is a standard-bearer. Wide open with long rows of picnic tables, the outside sorta just demands that you meet and drink with new people. The drinks are cheap-ish, and the bartenders are attentive. A fine place for early evening drinks, or anytime, really.

Hotel Vegas
If someone tells you that Hotel Vegas, many years ago, used to be a boarding house filled primarily with people who charge by the fuck, do not fact check it. For one, there still are depressing, cinder-block rooms being occupied on the second floor. Secondly, half an hour there on the weekend will convince you that some kind of nefarious juju still resides. Less of a melting pot and more of a liquor still for the young Austin horde, there's some kind of trouble for everyone. Maybe you'll do coke on the picnic tables outside, with no one around you paying any mind. Or maybe someone will mouth off to your friend, and you'll have to get his or her back. Maybe some Cross Fit nutjob will challenge you to feats of strength. Maybe some young thing will hop on your motorcycle, uninvited, and you'll drive him/her around until he/she yells into your ear that their partner is a cop. This is all theoretical, of course! The music inside is loud, and the conversations in the backyard patio are unwieldy. But, again, mostly innocent trouble is there if that's what you're looking for.

Driskill Bar
Classy AF, and in a very Texas way. The whole area looks like an extended version of the drinking "study" you'd expect in some rich oil man's mansion. In other words, it's ornate, carpeted, and Western-themed. Those ladies you see hanging around, particularly when the state legislature is in session, or on Valentine's Day, are, yes, probably high-priced ladies of the night. The bartenders will always remind you of the one in The Shining. Famous people often stay at the equally ornate hotel, and men in suits go to the Driskill to discuss deals, or look burdened by their responsibilities, or whatever. Go there when you want to feel like what you're doing with your life is important and Texany. Order good whiskey, neat, and polish your cowboy boots beforehand. Bolo tie optional.

Photo by Ben Sklar

Living Room Lounge (Inside the W)
New money's a weird thing, and not in the same way as the tiresome "Keep Austin Weird." Anyway, the W is the perfect fancy place for people who think expensive and upscale means sophisticated. (Think obnoxious tech nerds with some fresh cash and a complete lack of social sense.) (Or the douchebags in finance who maybe have a DJing habit.) (Or the ladies who put on sparkly new cocktail dresses that best facilitate proper tequila shot technique.) The place butts up against the Moody Theater, where Austin City Limits is filmed, and it's surrounded by new restaurants that go for that fancier big-city vibe. But, hell, popularity is popularity, and the W is where the cool people with better jobs than you go to make believe. Go at happy hour with the good-looking suits and pencil skirts to avoid being slightly poorer after the experience.

Tiniest Bar in Texas
Yes, there's already an Alamo in Texas. But this is the Alamo of Austin bars. The bar really is tiny: The inside is a glorified liquor cabinet and two bathrooms. The rest of the place is the ultimate Austin bar: all patio. Like the Alamo, it's not just a quiet sanctuary, but the neighborhood's last barricade against fancy new condominiums literally towering over it, and the gyms and Whole Foods at the flanks. Not a whole lot to walk to in the immediate vicinity, but a perfect place for a quiet weekend day drink or three.

Stay Gold. Photo by Josh Verduzco.

Stay Gold
"Austin" is basically a brand at this point, and Stay Gold is one of its latest products. That's not an insult! It's one of several gentrifying buds that has sprouted on East Cesar Chavez in the past few years, and it's certainly not as bad as the recently opened "cat cafe" or the yuppie coffee-table bookstore that's pushed out those living and working in the historic Latino neighborhood. Stay Gold was an immediate hit when it opened about a year ago. That probably had a lot to do with the fact that it was the creation of owners from both Hole in the Wall and the White Horse. The music calendar does not include amateurs. And the crowd is young, good looking, hip, and as upwardly diverse as any promo manager could ask for—basically all the easily appealing parts of the Austin brand. A fine place to make a friend-of-a-friend an actual friend.

East Side Showroom
Places in America with a kinda "Old Europe" feel are odd because Old Europe has working toilets older than our entire country. Still, people enjoy the vibe at East Side, which seems like a Paris absinthe bar from the Third Republic. Basically, its veneer of bohemian (it is on cool East Sixth), and its prices creep toward bourgeois. It's also for the pretty well-to-do who love Tom Waits and want to feel a little arty. A great drinking date spot! Fair warning, though: The booze shelf is "curated," like a vinyl collection, and the mustachioed barkeeps in their Bo-bo garb will be far better dressed than you. Just assume they'd prefer to be called "mixologists."

Iron Bear
The gay bar for the rest of us, or at least those who want a nominal choice between just having a few drinks and going all in with the clubbing. Just off downtown Congress Ave., and removed from any immediate watering hole, the Iron Bear can be quiet by any bar standards, to say nothing of rainbow establishments. It's popular among the older Texas gentlemen, who look like they've survived the bad ol' days mostly intact. And, of course, in keeping with the name, there are plenty of sturdy, hairy men with stout drinks and a twinkle in their eyes. Go for a few rounds, stay for the puppy play contest (or whatever event is running at the time).

Oilcan Harry's/ Rain on 4th/ Halcyon
Gay bars aren't created equal, but they do sometimes cluster, which is why those wonderful-in-their-own-way places are lumped together. Probably the most gay-friendly city in Texas (OK, that's not saying a whole hell of a lot, though Houston has a bigger LGBT community), Austin's Fourth Street is the closest thing to a "Gay District" available—it's the epicenter of the yearly Pride parade. Oilcan Harry's has been around since before Rick Perry's own sexuality was constantly called into question. Because of its landmark status, it and its clientele can have a very high opinion of itself. Expect tight quarters. Essentially right next door is the newer-ish Rain on 4th, which is "upscale," and its dance floor has colorful glass lights! Both promise some of the best dance fun you'll have in Austin, because duh. And for lower-key scenarios, across the street from both is the gay-friendly Halcyon coffee/bar/lounge, full of a general mix of good people and a variety of drinks. Day or night, it's a place that loves all

Barbarella
You've got a crew revving to party, and y'all are as diverse and happy as the promo pictures from a university recruiting pamphlet. Time to go dancing at Barbarella. A weekend trip will do just fine, but TuezGayz is the best night for letting your fun flag fly high. Imagine all the best parts of hip and indie, combined with beats that'll roll your eyes back in ecstasy. DJ'd by fan favorite The Glitoris, TuezGayz is the most goddamn fun you'll have sweating booze and smelling of sex. Unbutton your shirt just a little lower, take a colorful, candied shot, and embrace the fabulous.

Skylark Lounge
If there is hope that Austin won't be completely ruined by its progressive destiny and position on the "best cities to move to" list, it lies with Skylark Lounge. The extended, shack-looking bar sits back in what clearly used to be some kind of salvage or lumber yard, and the dark, cozy inside looks like it was pieced together from items stolen from bars of your childhood, when dad used to drink a lot. The secluded patio, just past the tiny bandstand, has the feel of a friend's back porch. What's particularly amazing is that the place is both new and old. The "Skylark" part is new, but it also used to be the local watering hole for the (mostly former) black neighborhood, and after that was a lesbian bar. In the best Austin way, it's "changed" without having really "progressed," in the development sense of the word. The music is still country and blues, and it's still played by true musicians. Preserved, in other words, without being surrounded in glass and glitter.

Photo by Ben Sklar

Whip In
From the highway, it kinda looks like a former El Pollo joint converted into an Asian liquor store. This is a ruse. Yes, it is a beer and wine store, but it's also a solid Indian-ish restaurant, a tap room (more than 60 options), and a wine bar. There's a little stage with a few tables about, which give the place a really settled, inviting vibe. An after-work spot for young professionals and office workers, there are always groups chilling, singles sipping, people munching, and general low-gear merriment. A fine place to wait out the hellish rush-hour traffic, a "this doesn't qualify as going out" night out, or to take colleagues you don't quite trust with hard liquor just yet.

Lala's Little Nugget
Lala's has managed to stay mostly unchanged since it was opened about a billion years ago (1970s). That's probably due to the fact that it's a neighborhood joint on the farthest northern edges of what most Austinites consider a reasonable distance to downtown. It's a small, simple place, and people swear by the jukebox selection. Oh, right, and it's Christmas-themed, year-round. All in all, underwhelming in the best possible way. A nice reality check and break, particularly if you arrive in town for SXSW.

Nasty's
It sounds like a bad idea, and half looks it, too, since there are absolutely no windows in this simple, concrete structure. But people, a surprising majority of them women, love this place. It really makes no sense, except this is a nice neighborhood dive for livers young enough not to actually need a neighborhood dive just yet. For whatever reason, the TVs inside are glued to rugby channels, and rugby paraphernalia doesn't so much line the walls as dot them. Everyone's in a good mood here, which might have something to do with the drink prices (don't get fancy, stick to beer and mixed drinks). And, again, for whatever reason, Nasty's is the epicenter for rockabillies on Saturday. Their ducktailed-hair bands have a long-standing engagement that night, and the women come decked out in the hottest 1950s fashion.

Carousel Lounge
Vic, who you just met a few hours ago, wants to keep going with his all-day bar hopping. But he objects to going "so far north" to the Carousel Lounge. Also, the Carousel Lounge is a beer and wine cash bar, with a BYOL policy, and liquor stores have long since closed. But when you get to the carnival-themed bar, an all-but-one lesbian band is rocking the butch crowd's socks off with classics from Guns N' Roses. Y'all get right up to the front of the floor-level stage and brandish devil horns with one hand, gripping Lone Star tallboys in the other. The "weird" Austin of yore, full of aging hippies just looking for a good time, still exists at such a place. You and Vic, now BFFs, will sit in a booth, watching semi-regulars get half-heartedly cut off, realizing the decision to go to Carousel, right at the edge of an unseemly part of town, was the best one you made all night.

The Butterfly Bar
Unlike all the other "new" bars that pop up fully-formed as douche monsters, the Butterfly Bar had a beautiful and lovely evolution. Originally just sort of a waiting area for those about to watch local alternative performance art in the adjoining theater space, the bar later served beer and wine with all the presentation of booze culled from the corner market. No mas. It is now one of the best (and quietest) places in town. In the large, rolling yard, pulled away from any main street, there's a sort of outdoor sun room that will most certainly be occupied by one lucky group when you arrive. It's OK. Lounge outside on the lawn or patios for a bit, and know that you are better than those kids at the nearby bars on Manor, watching big screen TVs and guzzling expensive sugar.

Photo via Flickr user Tanjila Ahmed

Anyone who's been to one of the corporate festivals typical of today's EDM industry making millions off of barely legal millennials might find it hard to imagine how these descended from the grubby warehouse raves of the 90s. Before pop culture started borrowing the neon-laced sentiments of raving and predating regular news of kids being hospitalized at big fests due to overdoses, there was a thriving underground rave subculture running through the veins of numerous major cities in North America. This movement was undeniably fueled by several substances, but most notably, pressed pills of ecstasy.

As I've been working on modern-day ecstasy stories, I've caught myself daydreaming about what it was like to be part of the scene back in the heyday of raving, and I ended up speaking with two sources who worked together as part of a major ecstasy ring in the United States during the 90s. They were there to witness the shift in rave culture as it began to evolve at the turn of the century.

Both sources were eventually caught for their involvement, served time, have not taken part in any related activity since, and have agreed to speak to VICE on the basis of anonymity. If you dropped ecstasy in the 90s in the United States, there's a chance you took a pill that came from the very ring they were part of.

VICE: How did you guys get into this in the first place?

A prison guard places an inmate in solitary confinement at the Beto Unit prison in Tennessee Colony, Texas, in this February 23, 2001, file photo. (AP Photo/LM Otero)

Upon entering administrative segregation—a.k.a. solitary—at Mark W. Michael Unit, a prison in east Texas, I was escorted down a long hallway. I saw a small infirmary, a smaller visitation booth, and a kitchen. Then we turned down a corridor and headed toward my block.

"What's that smell?!" I shouted.

Sitting at the door to the cell block were four milk cartons, each containing a brown liquid. Before I had time to process what I was looking at, I got my answer.

"It's shit," one of the guards said, just as calmly as if he were telling me what time it was. "Welcome to the shithouse."

When the door opened, the full force of the odor hit me like a brick. I couldn't believe these four cartons of feces were just sitting there... like that. Why hadn't one of the inmate janitors taken them and flushed them? What kind of place was this?

Ad-seg, as we call it, works in levels. You can start out in Level 3, and after 30 days with no disciplinary infractions, you can be promoted to Level 2, where you can have two visits per month. After 60 days there, you receive all of your personal property and go to Level 1, where you can buy food items and coffee from commissary.

But it's back on Level 3 that you find the kind of people who defecate into milk cartons.

The facility is designed to break you. It houses some of the most dangerous people in Texas, as well as some of the most mentally-disturbed. I immediately feared that I would soon find myself turning into them, by virtue of my proximity.

I understood that only the strongest men can spend full days among lunatics and not become one.

My neighbor spent hours at a time kicking his door for no apparent reason. Yells came from down the corridor as I slept. And there was a nagging voice I heard at the same time every day, like some sort of chant or incantation, unnerving in its consistency.

I began to memorize it: "Attention F-Pod, this is Rabbi Shepard," it always began. "I live in F-Pod, 65 Cell. My TDC number is 599999. This is no time to bring children into the world. Warden Moore works for Satan, and Lieutenant Holder is their servant. The snitches on this unit are Black Major, Easy Black-E, and Whiteboy Snow. Do not drink the water after 7 PM. If you want to go to PAMEO, a safer place, hang a sign on your door that says, 'I AM A PEDOPHILE,' shave your head, and toss shit on the first black nurse you see. They took Morris from 62 Cell and never brought him back."

I eventually learned that the four cartons of feces that greeted me were the rabbi's doing. The cartons, apparently, were known as "bullets," and they were thrown at guards—a practice called "shit-chunking." Since inmates had no other weapon, they attacked their enemies with what their own bodies could provide.

The serious "chunkers," like the rabbi, kept an arsenal of three or four missiles at the ready. The less psychotic would load one when needed.

But the only time these projectiles were actually used was when a guard opened up the food slot, where trays and mail got inserted. Often, the inmate would hurl as many bullets as possible before the guard could scramble away.

All of this sounds sick, I know. I never condoned chunking nor did it. But this was my introduction to the Ad-seg experience. This is what happens in prisons.

What people on the outside don't always understand is that most of us in here will, one day, be released.

Jeremy Busby is a 38-year-old inmate now incarcerated at another state prison called Ramsey Unit in Rosharon, Texas, where he's serving a 75-year sentence for a murder he committed when he was 21.

The low point of Thursday night's Republican debate came when Donald Trump held up his hands. Marco Rubio, Trump said, "hit my hands. Nobody has ever hit my hands. I have never heard of this. Look at those hands. Are they small hands?" While the crowd laughed, Trump went on: "He referred to my hands, if they are small, something else must be small. I guarantee you there is no problem. I guarantee."

"OK," moderator Bret Baier said, clearly not knowing what to do with that. "Moving on."

But the mogul wasn't ready to move on. After the debate, Trump approached a reporter to compare hands, saying, "My hands are bigger than yours" and insisting that his hands were "good-sized" and "very beautiful."

This obsession with telling people about the size of his hands goes back decades—decades—and apparently began when Graydon Carter, now the editor of Vanity Fair, decided to start an inside joke. He explained it last year in an editor's note:

"Like so many bullies, Trump has skin of gossamer. He thinks nothing of saying the most hurtful thing about someone else, but when he hears a whisper that runs counter to his own vainglorious self-image, he coils like a caged ferret. Just to drive him a little bit crazy, I took to referring to him as a 'short-fingered vulgarian' in the pages of Spy magazine. That was more than a quarter of a century ago. To this day, I receive the occasional envelope from Trump. There is always a photo of him—generally a tear sheet from a magazine. On all of them he has circled his hand in gold Sharpie in a valiant effort to highlight the length of his fingers. I almost feel sorry for the poor fellow because, to me, the fingers still look abnormally stubby."

Trump takes his short fingers golfing in 2013. (Patrick Farrell/Miami Herald/MCT via Getty Images)

Like many topics that consume the public political debate, the size of Trump's hands and the slimness of his fingers is a controversy with two sides, but only one side can be correct: Are his hands the big, beautiful appendages he claims they are, or are they pathetic little stubs?

To get an unbiased opinion, I reached out to Dani Korwin, an agent at Parts Models. Parts does exactly what its name suggests: cast models for jobs that require magnificent parts. The agency has been placing hand, leg, feet, and body models in advertisements and catalogs work since 1986.

Obviously Korwin couldn't examine Trump's hands in person, but I sent her a collection of photos of them and asked her opinion.

She was not kind.

Is this really the hand of a president? (AP Photo/Carlos Osorio)

"They don't look stubby," she said over the phone from her uptown Manhattan office. "But they do look child-sized. Childlike. They are somewhat smaller than what you would expect, certainly from someone of his stature."

"He's not a short man, and you would expect him to have longer, more masculine fingers," she added.

This, of course, echoes what Rubio has been saying to crowds on the campaign trail. "He's like six-two. Which is why I don't understand why his hands are the size of someone who is five-two."

Beyond the size of his fingers, Korwin said that Trump's hands are "severely weatherbeaten" and speculated that he plays lots of golf in the sun between stump speeches. When Korwin casts hand models, she's mostly looking for an even skin tone, she said. A nice shape, good nails, and nice cuticles are also something she considers.

Upon examining one close-up shot, she said, "You can actually see the redness and sun spots. Whatever the underlying problems are, he's obviously been in the sun too much, and hasn't taken care of his hands."

Marco Rubio has reason to be proud of his hands. (AP Photo/Carlos Osorio)

Rubio, on the other, er, hand, has world-class paws. "If he doesn't make it in his political career, he can come work for me as a hand model," Korwin said. "His hands have nice shape to them, his skin looks good, not too vascular. A good-looking hand. If I was going to cast an executive type of hand, his hands I could use."

Ted Cruz showing off his stuff. (AP Photo/Patrick Semansky)

What about Ted Cruz? According to Korwin, his hands are very slender, "which you wouldn't expect, given his body type." (Burn.) She could cast him for an executive ad as well, she said. His hands "have an elegance to them."

That's no small feat, considering Parts is looking for perfection. "Because we work with the leading advertisers and products in the world, we are highly selective about the models we choose to represent," reads the agency website.

Trump, as you might have guessed, could not get work as a hand model, according to Korwin. "Not unless he was the before in a before-and-after campaign," she said.

Follow Brian McManus on Twitter.

Right on. Photo via Dead North

In February, Yellowknife, Canada, can drop below -49 degrees. The capital of Northwest Territories is a confusing amalgamation of diamond money, young professionals, and poverty. Twenty-nine to 44-year-olds make up 30 percent of the population. Young professionals abound, but the city doesn't reflect the average family income of almost $150,000 into making a film," Bulckaert, also a founding member of Yellowknife's Artless Collective, told VICE.

An initial call-out to friends has ballooned into a festival that has grown exponentially. The first year featured four films, the second year had eight, the third year had 17, and this year, a total of 25 films were screened.

I asked Bulckaert about the numerous items that filmmakers needed to produce for the festival, including a poster and a trailer. As Bulckaert explained, the purpose is so that after Dead North, filmmakers have a complete project to submit to other festivals. Dead North thus becomes a starting point for what could become a festival circuit.

While completing these tasks can be difficult, Bulckaert describes Dead North, which took place between February 26–28, as "giving the middle finger to winter" at its worst time. It forces filmmakers to embrace the land in which they live—and work in some seriously harsh conditions. Equipment suffers, tensions run high, and teams often cancel their shoots. Eight projects pulled out this year, for a variety of reasons. But for every difficulty, there are new connections made. People join the film community, meet other artists, borrow gear, and get and give advice. The film community grows as the temperatures continue to plummet.

On opening night, the Capitol Theater was packed by the time CBC's Loren McGinnis greeted the crowd and introduced Saravanja and Bulckaert.

The films that night ranged from ones shot on iPhones to films using drones for expansive landscape shots. Ghost in the Snow imagined Yellowknife after a zombie apocalypse, as councillors and newspaper editors sit around and think of things to pass the time. Cast Iron followed a stranded snowmobiler as he attempted to seek shelter as night crept in.

Regardless of quality, no film is turned away, as long as it meets the deadlines. "We've made a promise that if someone makes a film, it will get played at the festival," said Bulckaert.

Each one received applause, and all filmmakers were equally cheered on by the crowd.

Saturday's films were equally gruesome, eerie, and weird. Refresh followed a young man as he continually went back in time, each time speaking with the same girl and trying to ask her to prom. Killer Workout featured a woman who is consistently pushed to the back of the aerobics gym, only to return and murder everyone in the class.

At midnight on Saturday, I was in an Elks Lodge lit by long pink neon lights that run the length of the club. The stage was loaded up with 17 Zombears—the festival's awards. Awards are handed out for a variety of categories, ranging from best death to best camera shot.

The awards, however, are an awkward part of a festival that is aiming for inclusivity. The organizers encourage entrants, but they are filmmakers themselves and take home two awards. Bulckaert said that the awards help artists push their craft and get better, and that without them, the festival would not be the same.

As the festival grows, which it surely will, further issues around inclusiveness are bound to arise. With the increasing number of entries, organizers will likely soon have to decide whether they should screen every film that is submitted, if they should cut the maximum running times of the films, or if they should give out awards. These are not insurmountable issues by any means, but will ultimately shift the unique DNA of the festival. If it becomes too competitive, new filmmakers might drop out or not participate at all, convinced that their film wouldn't get selected.

By all accounts, this year's festival was a success. Both nights of screenings sold out, and filmmakers traveled from as far as Dawson City, Yukon, to attend. Workshops were full, and the presentations from the judges were well attended. Getting a hotel room was nearly impossible, and each night had plenty of spots to party. Entries to the festival are up, and international interest has developed. Dead North looks to be a mainstay in Canadian film festivals going forward, Marty McSorley jerseys and all.

All photos by Cannon Show

This article originally appeared on VICE Canada.

On the eve of International Sex Workers' Rights Day, March 3, I found myself half a bottle of wine deep in a $12-an-hour Montreal sex motel with all my dildos stuffed into a tote bag. I was about to embark on what looked like a cheap porno shoot. You may ask how I got here, or may already be forming in your own mind a sad story of what could drive me to such a low and grimy place. But if you knew me a little better, you would know that this is just what I do for fun.

You might remember me as the girl who flashed her nudes for the entire country during Canada's last election with my campaign Votes4Nudes, which was run by the Sluts Against Harper. Well, not much has changed... I'm still nude. And I'm still a slut. And still a performance artist with a passion for getting political. Though this time, I found myself on a round bed below a mirrored ceiling, thinking,Was this still my performance, or was it just porn? And that's when things got interesting.

I've been performing the "slut" through my Instagram account for a while now, but there's a question of: When do you stop imitating the camgirl you feel the pressure to be, and when are you actually just a camgirl? I justified my work as still performance art because I sure as hell wasn't being paid for it. Not that people weren't offering, but I don't think they wanted to buy my... piece of work. So where do we draw the line between sex work and performance art?

Saleem Haddad was born in Kuwait. He currently lives in London, where he works as a conflict and security advisor, specializing in the Middle East. His first novel, Guapa, will be published by Other Press on March 8, 2016. It takes place over the course of a single day, and is about an unnamed man in an unnamed Arab country. But the lack of names is not vague; rather, it is intimate and particular. The voice is that of a speaker telling a story to someone he knows—names aren't necessary, because you already know. The novel opens with the speaker's grandmother, who has raised him since he was a child, walking in on him having sex with a man. He's humiliated, leaves the house, and is scared to go back home. He also needs to find a friend who has been put in jail. And so what follows in a single day is a sort of tour of the city—high and low—and of the narrator's memories, as he comes to terms with being seen by his grandmother (Teta). In this excerpt, he remembers his first sexual encounter with a stranger. The writing, as you will see, is simple and direct and honest and a little bit gross, in a good way.

The Long Way

The memory returns to me so vividly I feel I am back there, at 14, in the backseat of that taxi. At the time my father had been dead for 18 months, my mother had vanished the year before that, I was magically sprouting hair in places I was not expecting, and I was still sharing a bed with Teta.

I was returning from a history lesson at Maj's house. We were both struggling with the material. Our school followed the British curriculum, which meant we had to study the history of Europe and the World Wars: the Kaiser, the Treaty of Versailles, then Churchill and Stalin. It all seemed like another universe to us, so Teta and Maj's mother agreed to share the costs of a private tutor.

I hailed a taxi outside Maj's house and got into the backseat, as Teta directed me to do when riding in taxis alone. The man behind the wheel was young, though I couldn't make out his age: perhaps 18, maybe 20. He was wearing a tight red T-shirt that gripped his body. He drove without speaking. A familiar pressure inside me began to build. It was a terrible choking sensation that had been growing in the months since I lost my parents. I had no control over my destiny, and everything around me could suddenly die or run away.

I rolled down the window and pressed the back of my head against the leather seat. The crisp November air felt cold against my face, releasing the pressure somewhat. Through the streetlights, which lit up the inside of the car in recurring waves, I saw that the driver's forearms were potholed with scars. I admired the way his T-shirt stretched tightly against his chest. His arms broke out in large goose bumps.

"Shut the window, it's cold," he said. I rolled up the window, feeling the choking sensation close in on me once more. I watched the muscles in the driver's arms tighten as he shifted gears. The large veins running under his skin awoke a sensation inside me I had never felt before. I wanted to connect with him in some way, to be closer to him somehow.

"Is this your taxi?" I asked.

"My brother's," he said. His jaw clicked as he chewed a piece of gum. He sighed and put one arm behind the passenger seat while steering with the other. I looked at the hand resting behind the seat. His fingers were decorated with gold and silver rings. Dark black dirt was wedged underneath his fingernails. I glanced down at my own fingernails, which Doris had clipped earlier that day.

I tried to imagine what this man's life was like, outside of this taxi. His rough accent meant he probably lived in al-Sharqiyeh, maybe in a tiny room that smelled of fried onions and cigarettes, because that's what I imagined al-Sharqiyeh would smell like. How much did we have in common, he and I? If I knew then what I know now, I would have put our differences down to a complex algorithm of class and culture. But back then I did not know about any of that, so I stuck to what we had in common: the car we were both sitting in.

"Do you drive this taxi often?" I asked.

"One or two nights a week," he replied, making a turn into the side street that took us off the highway and toward my new neighborhood downtown.

"Do you enjoy it?"

"Enjoy what?" His eyes flicked up to look at me through the rearview mirror. His eyes were a cool gray, almost silver. "Driving the taxi," I said, holding his gaze as I played with the dog-eared corners of the history books on my lap.

"It's just a job," he said, turning back to the road. "Well what do you like doing when you're not driving the taxi? Do you watch television?" Teta fed me on a diet of dubbed Mexican telenovelas, American television shows, and an endless stream of news. Perhaps his television set also showed those channels.

"I don't have spare time. When I'm not driving, I work on a construction site."

The next turn would take us to my street. I felt a sudden panic. I wanted to spend more time with this man. We were moving closer to something new and exciting. I wanted to be his friend. And not just any friend, not like Maj or Basma, but a friend who would always be around, someone I could hug and be close to. My insides were buzzing. I wanted him to keep on driving, to take me out of this sad town, far away from that empty apartment with Doris and Teta.

"Is that why you have big muscles?" I scrambled to find a way to delay our separation. He glanced at me, studied my face for a while, clicked his chewing gum. Then his lips turned to form a crooked smile.

"Come up here and sit next to me," he said.

I hesitated. It would be eib to say no, although it also felt eib to say yes. Stuck between two eibs, I left the books in the back and climbed into the passenger seat. We drove past Teta's apartment. He took a right into a dark street and parked the car between two large trees. He unzipped his jeans and pulled out his thing. It stood between us, hard, like an intruder to an intimate conversation. Instinctively, I reached out and grabbed it, and he let out a slight moan. I studied the thing in my hand, feeling it grow in my palm.

"Yalla," he whispered as his eyes scanned the area. "Huh?"

"Put your mouth on it," he said impatiently.

I swallowed and bent down. He smelled sour and hot. I put his thing in my mouth and looked up for further instructions.

"Wet your mouth, wet your mouth," he hissed. "Your tongue is like sandpaper."

I swallowed a few more times until my mouth was wet, and this time the process went more smoothly. He seemed happy with this and sighed. He pressed down on my neck but he remained alert, his head darting back and forth as if following a game of tennis. I was down for a few minutes when my excitement began to disappear, replaced with a strong sense of guilt that I was making a terrible mistake.

I struggled, concentrating on breathing through my nose and not gagging each time he pushed my head down. I wasn't sure how long this would last. He groaned. My mouth filled with salty slime. The warm hand at the back of my neck disappeared.

"Get out now before someone sees," he said, zipping his trousers up. I wiped my mouth, took my books from the backseat, and got out of the car. The man started up the engine, reversed out onto the road, and sped off.

I looked around. There was no one. The awkward feeling slowly disappeared, and the memory of what happened seemed sweeter. I stored bits of it for later: the warm hand on the back of my neck, the sour smell, the shape of his thing in my mouth. I relived those memories as I walked home. Teta looked up when I came through the door. I was terrified to face her. She always seemed to know everything. This was something she should never know. She was sitting in her nightgown, cracking roasted sunflower seeds between her teeth. On the television the news showed footage of bombs dropping on a busy neighborhood.

"You found a taxi?" she asked, picking at bits of seed lodged between her teeth.

For a moment I thought she might be able to tell just by looking at me, or that she would smell the taxi driver on my clothes and face. I swallowed hard, feeling the salty slime slide down my throat. It felt scratchy, like I was coming down with a cold.

"Yes, but he took the long way," I said, trying to look as natural as I could. I took a deep breath. This was the first lie I had ever told Teta, and as I said this a part of me split from her forever. The gooey liquid in the back of my throat felt far away from the words coming out of my mouth. I was two people now, in two separate realities, where the rules in one were suspended and different from those in the other.

Follow Saleem Haddad on Twitter.

Excerpted from Guapa by Saleem Haddad, published by Other Press on March 8, 2016. Copyright © 2016 Saleem Haddad. Reprinted by permission of Other Press.

Check out Ed's website, Twitter, Instagram, and buy his book on Fantagraphics.

John Podesta in 2010. Photo via the Center for American Progress's Flickr account

Read: An Alien Hunter's Guide to the 2016 Election

Over the last several months, the presidential candidates in both parties have staked out claims on the issues that matter to ordinary Americans. Ted Cruz is the candidate for evangelical conservatives. Bernie Sanders is the candidate for liberals who want the Democratic Party to move to the left. Donald Trump is the candidate for angry Americans who like men who lie about the size of their hands. And Hillary Clinton is the candidate for people who want the government to tell us more about UFOs.

Clinton's campaign manager, John Podesta, underscored that fact earlier this week when he went on local TV in Las Vegas and said that he wants to declassify documents related to UFOs. He's "talked to Hillary about that," he says. "I think I've convinced her that we need an effort to declassify as much as we can so people have their legitimate questions answered."

This is not a joke: Podesta has long advocated the declassification of documents on principal. When he was White House chief of staff for Bill Clinton, he helped set "hundreds of millions" of such documents free, according to the KLAS-TV report, and when he left his gig as an advisor to Barack Obama, he said that his "biggest regret" was not doing more to disclose UFO-related files.

Hillary Clinton once joked to a New Hampshire paper that we might have been visited by aliens before, but her husband Bill might have been a little more serious about the subject—he apparently once asked around to see if the government knew anything about aliens.

Little green men aside, a lot of people believe that the US government

An Instagram post from Annie Goodman during her battle with brain cancer

Everything in your life changes the moment you learn you have cancer. Besides the challenge of, you know, staying alive, there are difficult decisions about how much to share: Do you go dark on social media and focus on taking care of yourself? Or do you return to life's regular programming, already in progress? When I got cancer, I decided to keep 'gramming. If social media is about sharing your life, then I wanted to share my cancerous life too.

To be clear, cancer is not fun. It's not glamorous. In an instant, you go from living a regular life to one full of expensive drugs, inspirational pamphlets, and hyperbole ("You're a fighter. You're a survivor"). It's like an alternate reality, and it's incredibly difficult to explain to people who haven't lived through it.

I was diagnosed with testicular cancer in 2012, and very quickly, talking to people about it became awkward. For reasons I cannot explain, a lot of people wanted to tell me about the person they knew who had cancer... and died. To avoid these kinds of interactions, I started to retreat, only allowing certain people to see me in real life. But I kept posting—on Instagram, Twitter, and Facebook—where I could share how I was feeling on my own terms, in my own words, without the need for any explanation.

There, I connected with people like Annie Goodman, another 20-something who was battling brain cancer. Even though I lived in Los Angeles and she in New York City, we struck up an easy friendship, moving from Twitter to email to text effortlessly. Talking to her made more sense than talking to anyone in real life, because unlike anyone in my immediate social circle, she understood what I was going through.

Other young cancer patients have had similar experiences. "Some of my best friends are fellow cancer patients that I met through Twitter, Facebook, and Instagram alike," said Suleika Jaouad, a writer based in New York City who was diagnosed with myelodysplastic syndrome and acute myeloid leukemia in May 2012, at the age of 22. "I don't think everyone needs to blog or post pictures about their illness, but I do think social media can be a wonderful way to connect with a community and to feel less isolated."

In the friendships I made online, I was able to talk about the areas of cancer people don't often think about—like sex, post-traumatic stress disorder, and the loss of teeth (yes, chemo fucks up your teeth). I needed more than buzzwords and touchy feely walk-a-thons. By sharing my experience online, I found others who felt similarly.

"I immediately posted on Facebook and Twitter: 'I have cancer. Who wants to FUUUUCK?'" — Erik Bergstrom

Plus, social media gave us an outlet to be funny. In one of her posts, Goodman captioned a photo: "Don't worry, it's not Ebola."

After Erik Bergstrom, a 33-year-old comedian and cartoonist based in New York City, was diagnosed with stage 4 Hodgkin lymphoma, he turned to social media. "I waited until a biopsy was analyzed showing it was 100 percent cancer," he said. "Once I knew that, I didn't hesitate a second . I immediately posted on Facebook and Twitter: 'I have cancer. Who wants to FUUUUCK?' I use social media frequently and mostly for jokes, so it seemed like the right thing to do."

Throughout his illness, Bergstrom regularly posted on social media. He said the visuals helped his friends, who were young and healthy, understand what he was going through—that "people could read that I had cancer, but I think an actual image of me in the chemo chair makes people actually think 'Oh shit, this is really happening.'"

Lacey Henderson, a 26-year-old Special Olympics long jumper who lost her leg to synovial sarcoma, said she thinks "people identify deeper and more quickly by photos." Posting photos online becomes a way to explain something that's so difficult to understand, and to reclaim your own narrative.

"I didn't post anything publicly about my cancer until I was two months into treatment and bald," said Kelsey Morris, 25, who was diagnosed with osteosarcoma. "Eventually, I started to feel inauthentic in things that I was posting because it started to feel as though I was leaving out such a huge part of my day-to-day life."

As my treatment progressed, and I grew weaker, I came to need the support from the strange little internet community liking my posts. Besides Goodman, I began corresponding with people from all over, some who had gone through similar things, others who watched their friends and family go through it. Cancer has a way of breaking down barriers between people, bringing people together in a way that normally would never happen.

After I finished chemo, I visited New York City and met Goodman in person. We talked everything: dating with cancer, working with cancer, living with cancer, Instagramming with cancer. It was a digital connection that buffered into a lovely human connection. The power of social media created our friendship, and it keeps some people alive longer—in some ways, forever.

Less than a year after I met Goodman, she died. In some of her final days, she was still Instagramming, and up until the end, she kept it real, honest, even funny. By choosing to share her life online, Goodman left behind an incredible history of her reality with cancer: She lived with humor, light, and honesty, and her social media is a testament to that life. Because of the internet, she lives on—her own way of surviving.

Follow H. Alan Scott on Twitter.

The first few minutes of ADR1FT, once you're past an essential controls tutorial, are both awesome and terrifying. You're alone, more than 250 miles above sea level, attached to what's left of a space station, the Northstar IV, by a rope wrapped around your ankle. You, as Commander Alex Oshima, carefully untie it and pull yourself toward a jagged chunk of what used to be your safety from this vacuum, your home away from home spinning once around the world every hour and a half. All around you is chaos and beauty.

Torn metal dances above an Earth so instantly mesmerizing that for just a moment you forget yourself, your predicament, and the warning sounding from inside your helmet. Move. If you don't, you're going to suffocate inside your leaking suit. You push yourself forward. You find a canister of oxygen. You breathe again. And you snap out of the trance. The view can wait. You need to fix this mess, starting with your own damaged equipment. And you need to do it fast.

"The beginning of the game is supposed to be, 'Holy fuck, this is the worst possible scenario,'" says Adam Orth, ADR1FT's director and writer at Three One Zero, the Santa Monica studio he co-founded after leaving Microsoft in 2013. This is a game with a strong narrative focus, but it's not like bad things can't happen to the player. You can die. "We debated a lot about whether or not you should be able to die in the game. But once we got our head around the oxygen mechanic, where you need to initially be constantly topping yourself up, it made a lot of sense to allow that to happen. The stakes are very high."

To look at preview footage of ADR1FT is to be immediately captivated by its visuals, its massive scale, and the affecting nothingness that exists so few miles above where we lead our lives. And to play the game in VR—I take a spin using Oculus Rift, which ADR1FT is a launch title for—is to become even more consumed by its stunning aesthetics, assuming you can stomach the zero-G maneuvering. This is an incredibly immersive VR achievement, and spending just five minutes with it will make the room around you give way to a blanket of stars, and your legs turn to jelly.

Article continues after the video below

Related: Watch this episode of Daily VICE, where we go inside NASA's Mars simulation mission

"We always wanted to make VR, from the beginning, but we didn't want to abandon everyone else," Orth says—while ADR1FT works wonderfully in VR, it's every bit as captivating as a 2D experience playing out on a regular monitor or TV. Which is fortunate, given this is how most will play it. "We really wanted to give people options—you can play it on PC, through the Oculus Rift, or on your PlayStation or Xbox. We want the game in everyone's hands, but VR is definitely special."

Orth's a believer in the potential of VR to change much more than how we play video games—and ADR1FT is very much a complete game, so far from the tech demos previously used to showcase VR's potential. "It's so compelling to go to work, every day," he tells me, visibly lighting up at the topic. "Everything that we've done for decades, that we've become accustomed to and take for granted, in video games, is new again. The simple act of opening a door, you have to rethink that, from every angle. And it's super fun. It's like starting over, almost. We hit this refresh button, but with decades of experience behind us, so we're not dumb newbies at the beginning of something."

'ADR1FT,' Clair De Lune trailer

"I don't think VR is a fad, and that it'll fall off. I think this is a really powerful tool. And I don't think games will be the thing to break it open—it'll be something like Facebook or Instagram. A company like either of those will prove to the world that VR is amazing, necessary, and needed. It's too big to stop at this point."

Rather like another great narrative success of 2016 so far, Campo Santo's Firewatch, ADR1FT uses a grand canvas to paint a quite personal story. You'll find out exactly who Alex is through the scattered memories of her crew mates who didn't make it, learning about their relationships with you before this horror unfolded. Some information will be delivered via the genre staple of the audio log, but you needn't seek out every single story beat if you'd rather just blaze a path homeward.

"We didn't want to constantly have dialogue going," Orth explains. "We wanted to have space, in space. You can experience the game in a really minimalist way, ignoring the logs entirely. But the idea, hopefully, is that you're getting these seeds, and growing your own little narrative about these people, filling in the gaps and making the experience more unique to you. We could both play the game, and have a very different take away from it, and I hope that comes through."

Somewhere along the way, you'll (hopefully) uncover the truth of the catastrophic accident that has devastated your station, leaving only you breathing, barely. That "1" in the title is symbolic: There really is nobody else alive out here. Though that doesn't mean you can't relax a little.

"There's definitely less stress after the first section of the game," Orth says. "So there will be some time to just look at stuff. But this isn't about hanging out for an hour and then getting back to the serious situation at hand—it's always pressing. You have to get home. It wouldn't feel right to just let the player look at the scenery, but we worked really hard on setting it up so that everything is beautiful, all of the time."

And sometimes that beauty can get in the way of, basically, saving your skin from being nothing more than a tiny lifeless satellite barely worthy of a blip on the biggest radar. Get inside and get in shape—as lingering in ADR1FT, in the cold reality of a low Earth orbit, will quickly lead to the saddest moment of your life.

ADR1FT is released on March 28 on Oculus Rift and Steam. PlayStation 4 and Xbox One versions will follow later in 2016. Find more information at the game's official website.

Follow Mike Diver on Twitter.

Some punks from the north of Holland during a party at a squat in the Spuistraat in Amsterdam, April 30, 1986.

This article originally appeared on VICE Netherlands

Punk came to Amsterdam around 1977, and the epicenter of the first punk wave was on the Rozengracht, where No Fun—a record store founded by Hansje Joustra —was located. Joustra had visited CBGB in New York, and he returned to Amsterdam with the hunch that punk was going to be huge. He decided that his record store would be the place where it should happen, so he founded the first Amsterdam punk labels—Plurex and No Fun.

The first Dutch punk bands—like Tits, the Helmets, Meccano Ltd., Mollesters, and Subway—all signed with these labels, which was the start of a brand new punk scene in the Netherlands. This was before the mohawks and safety pins. A leather jacket was considered pretty punk at the time.

That first wave didn't last very long. Soon most of those bands moved on to genres like post punk and new wave, and Plurex and No Fun started putting out more experimental stuff. No Fun ended up changing its name to Torso.

The pictures below are from the archives of Martijn de Jonge—one of the photographers who showed at a recent Amsterdam exhibition honoring No Fun, Plurex, and Torso. Some of his pictures were taken during the first punk wave. Others are from a later period, when Amsterdam punks started wearing a lot more studs, safety pins, and buttons to express themselves.

Over the past seven days, America has seen three mass shootings, all of which occurred last weekend. The violence left three dead and ten wounded.

In the first shooting on Saturday evening, a domestic dispute in which a man apparently shot his wife to death in Woodbridge, Virginia, escalated when he allegedly opened fire on responding cops, killing one and wounding two. In the second, police investigating a shooting call early Sunday morning found four men shot in a parking lot in Jurupa Valley, California, one of whom later succumbed to his injuries. In the third, an altercation involving a patron at a Detroit strip club late Sunday escalated when the ejected man returned with a gun, shooting five individuals, including a female performer he'd allegedly tried to touch inappropriately.

These tragedies bring the tally of mass shootings in America in 2016 up to 36 incidents, which have caused 52 deaths and 137 injuries.

By most standards, three mass shootings with 13 casualties in a week is a bloody toll. Europe, by comparison, had zero such incidents this week—and has had only seven mass shootings that left six dead and 27 injured this year. But by American standards, this qualifies as a mercifully calm week. It's not the least violent week of 2016; the week bridging the end of January and beginning of February saw just one mass shooting in the US, with only four injuries. But compared to last week, which saw 12 shootings (including two high-profile random public rampages) that left 20 dead and 41 wounded—over six times as many deaths and over four times as many injuries as Americans experienced this week—the contrast is a stark one.

There's probably no rhyme or reason for this "lull." Experts have noted in VICE's previous coverage of mass shootings how random they are; the types of shooting situations that usually lead to mass casualties can wound almost no one or large groups—depending on a host of incidental factors. We may have been one block, one hour, or one argument away from a much deadlier or a completely bloodless week. It all depends on the vagaries of or around an individual with a gun, which are all but impossible for observers or officers to predict or control in favor of peace.

All Americans can do is embrace a respite from last week's more serious mass violence. Yet observers ought not allow this comparative calm to dull their awareness of the obscene scale and frequency of mass shootings in the United States. The fact that Americans now have to consider 13 senseless mass shooting casualties (relatively) palatable is appalling—especially given the example offered by our European counterparts.

Rather than tune out, America might best use this refractory period to meditate on the difference between a calm week here and a standard week in Europe—and the ways in which we might learn to mirror that continent's consistently lower mass shooting casualties.

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