VICE CA - EntertainmentRSS feed for https://www.vice.com/en/section/entertainmenthttps://www.vice.com/en%2Fsection%2Fentertainment%3Flocale%3Den_caenMon, 28 Dec 2020 18:52:57 GMT<![CDATA[We Answered Canada’s Most Asked Questions of 2020]]>https://www.vice.com/en_ca/article/wx8zwq/we-answered-canadas-most-asked-questions-of-2020Mon, 28 Dec 2020 18:52:57 GMTAs we see lil’ baby 2021 peeking her head over the horizon, it's hard not to reflect on the monstrous troll year that was 2020.

2020 was brutal. Just a down and out slog in which days seemed to be months, weeks seemed to be years, and months felt like eons. Over the year, we asked lots of questions about ourselves, our mortality, and the news happening around us.

Thankfully, we have a tool that allows us to look back at the profound questions and interests Canadians had over the past year: the Google trends page.

The U.S. election, coronavirus, and Kobe Bryant were the top three searches in Canada. (Zoom and CERB ranked, very depressingly, as the fourth and sixth most searched terms.) In terms of people, North Korean leader Kim Jong Un, U.S. President-elect Joe Biden, and Vice-President-elect Kamala Harris were the three most searched individuals. Shockingly, outgoing U.S. President Donald Trump isn’t on the list but Tom Hanks, Shakira, and alleged Jeffrey Epstein conspirator Ghislaine Maxwell are.

That's all fun and interesting but it's bar trivia stuff. What we’re here for are the deep probing questions Canadians asked their Google machines in this, our darkest hour. For the fourth year in a row, I will do my patriotic duty and address the questions Canadians were begging to have answered this year.

Why are people buying toilet paper? No one knows exactly why TP was the thing people fixated on in the early stages of the pandemic (other than we were all assuredly pooping at home in greater numbers than ever before,) but there’s no denying that it was a hot commodity. In fact, I even wrote an entire article breaking down how much toilet paper you would need to survive a quarantine—the answer is to buy a 12 pack of TP (a plumber’s dozen).

Despite having a strong supply chain, people thought their bum paper was going away. They were wrong, but the fact that toilet paper is bulky, making it harder to keep shelves and stores fully stocked, did wonders to pass on a false sense of scarcity.

And so, many stores reported selling out of toilet paper. Some people picked it up because they thought the world was ending. Others purchased it because they thought the panicked people were going to buy it all. More entrepreneurial types bought it to resell like some sort of trader in a diarrhea-tinted version of Waterworld. As one TP hoarder told VICE during the initial freakout: “I’m buying this because I can see everyone panicking, so I’m also panicking,”

We’re all lemmings, in the end, you see.

What is a pandemic? This. This is a pandemic. It sucks.

How to make a sourdough starter? I’ve never made sourdough but what I can suss out from those who do, and never shut up about it, is that sourdough starter isn’t something you make. It needs to be gifted down to you like a family heirloom or earned through a series of challenges like Excalibur. Everyone who has ever made sourdough bread has a long-winded, boring-as-hell story on where the starter came from. You must never ask about this.

What does WAP mean? Oh, honey. It means Wet Ass Pussy. I’ve heard it’ll make that pull out game weak.

What is Antifa? Antifa is shorthand for anti-fascist and refers to an international decentralized group of people who organize for anti-fascist causes. These days, they’re most known for their presence at street protests, and those protests can lead to violent encounters with counter-protestors or vandalism. They're also the boogeymen for the right, who falsely equate them to neo-Nazis and virulent racists. Whispering the term “Antifa” is enough to strike fear in the hearts of many people who spend too much time on the bad parts of the internet.

What is fracking? Fracking is a mining process through which a substance made of water, sand, and chemicals is shot into the ground so forcefully it cracks the rocks below, releasing natural gas and oil. It’s long been described as an environmental nightmare that has been linked to flammable tap water and earthquakes. I assume this question is being asked because it was something oddly tied to Biden as both a good and bad thing.

What is Coronavirus? I assume you’ve learned the answer to this already but if not: it’s a virus and it’s, uh, not great.

What time is the U.S. election? 
It wasn’t a set time, more a day, and that day was November 3. And for millions of Trump fans, that day is still ongoing.

What is Juneteenth? Hey! Here we go, some good questions that enrich Canadians' knowledge about important subjects! Juneteenth is an unofficial holiday down south. It falls on June 19 and celebrates the emancipation of slaves in the United States. There is a push to make it an actual nationwide holiday.

Why is it called COVID-19? Well, according to the World Health Organization, (which I 100 percent didn’t just look up to help me answer this question) “in COVID-19, ‘CO’ stands for ‘corona,’ ‘VI’ for ‘virus,’ and ‘D’ for disease”—the 19 comes from 2019, the year it started. The full name of the disease is coronavirus disease 2019. It’s definitely for the best we don’t name viruses like we do hurricanes.

**How to make bread?
**Do I look like Julia Child to you? No, no I do not.

That said, I’ve made this bread a few times while lapsing in and out of pandemic-induced baking spurts and it’s pretty darn easy.

How to make hand sanitizer? At the start of the pandemic, people were making batches upon batches of hand sanitizer at home, as much of it was sold out in stores. According to Wired—where I get all my skincare tips—you just need three parts: Isopropyl alcohol, aloe vera gel, and a couple of drops of essential oil (they suggest tea tree oil). You mix that and badda-boom, badda-bing, you made hand sanitizer.

Why did 69 go to jail? Rapper Tekashi69 pled guilty to a litany of charges related to conspiracy to commit murder in February 2019. While he was facing 47 years in prison, he testified against his co-conspirators and received only two years. He was released into home confinement in April 2020 because of COVID-19 risks and was fully released on August 1. He’s also been connected to domestic abuse, child sexual abuse, and a bunch of drug and weapons charges.

**How to apply for EI?/How to apply for CERB?
**To show how bad of a state Canada is in these were our first and third most asked questions of the year. The best tip I can give you is to start here. Good luck.

What happened with Jessica Mulroney? Wow, finally, a Canadian celebrity scandal worthy of a Google search in 2020. In short, Mulroney, a.k.a. Meghan Markle’s BFF, was booted from her CTV reality series after allegedly threatening to damage Black blogger Sasha Exeter’s career prospects after Exeter made an Instagram post calling out people with large platforms who were not speaking out about anti-Black racism.

Mulroney went quiet for a few months, but the Daily Mail says she is plotting a comeback for 2021.

How to get tested for the Coronavirus? It’s pretty simple. Find your nearest location offering tests, go there, wait in line, and get someone to shove something up your nose. I got tested a few times and it sucks but it's doable. Thanks for asking responsible questions!

What is Blackout Tuesday? This was a social media protest against anti-Black racism that took place June 2, 2020, following the killing of George Floyd. In the organizers’ words it was focused on the music industry and meant to hold those “who benefit from the efforts, struggles and successes of Black people accountable.” The main action was for social media users to go quiet on June 2 and post a black square on Instagram as a way to disrupt the industry. However, it was quickly co-opted by brands and influencers and subsequently criticized for drowning out the Black Lives Matter movement.

Why was George Floyd stopped? For allegedly trying to use a counterfeit $20. He was killed for an alleged fake $20 bill. Think about how infuriating that is.

Why is Australia on fire? Australia had one of its most devastating bushfire seasons of all time this year. While a variety of factors affect the severity of bushfires, many scientists say climate change is playing a part in the intensity of the burns.

Why did Kobe have two numbers? Kobe Bryant, who died in January, had two numbers retired with the Lakers. He’s the only NBA player to ever have this honour and it goes to show how great he truly was. When Bryant was younger and breaking into the league he used number 8, rather than his high school number 24. But, in 2006, when he was already established as a bonafide superstar, Kobe switched to 24 which he wore until his retirement in 2016.

**How to cut your own hair?
**Don’t cut it. Join me in the long hair club. We look cool and adults fear us. (Editor's note: Mack is a 30-year-old man.)

**Why is Nevada taking so long?
**Short answer: the Americans have a badly broken electoral system they need to fix.

Why is gas so cheap right now 2020? This is the only question with 2020 in it and it makes the user sound like they’re asking a manifestation of the year 2020 a question. Why is life so bad, 2020? Why do I lay awake thinking of all the dumb shit I’ve done in high school, 2020? Will the Edmonton Oilers win a Cup with McDavid, 2020?

I’m no economist but 2020 saw a historic drop in demand for gasoline, which likely had something to do with falling prices, supply, demand, Adam Smith, etc.

How to use Zoom? I’ve answered this question enough for my parents. I’m not doing it again for you.

Why did Alex leave Grey’s? What? I have no idea what this question is referring to and I refuse, in principle, to look it up. All I know is this is a bad question and is most likely related to Grey's Anatomy. (Editor’s note: Grey’s Anatomy is now in its 17th season, which is impressive until you learn American Dad! and NCIS are also in their 17th season.)

Why is TikTok being banned? 
It’s not. Trump said something stupid about TikTok and, yadda yadda yadda, a bunch of news stories were written about it, but nothing happened. Please purge this news story from your mind.

Actually, my fair reader, let’s do one better. If you can, please purge this whole damn year from your mind as well.

Follow Mack Lamoureux on Twitter.

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wx8zwqMack LamoureuxManisha KrishnanJosh VisserCanadaCanadian NewsQuestionsKobe2020GoogleCOVID-19
<![CDATA[Borat 2 Roasts Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau for Blackface]]>https://www.vice.com/en_ca/article/93w5kv/borat-2-roasts-canadian-prime-minister-justin-trudeau-for-blackfaceFri, 23 Oct 2020 14:59:10 GMTLess than five minutes into Borat 2, a movie that will surely mostly focus on the dumpster fire that is U.S. politics, creator Sacha Baren Cohen throws Canadians a bone, slipping in a joke about Prime Minister Justin Trudeau’s blackface. 

The sequel, called Borat Subsequent Moviefilm: Delivery of Prodigious Bribe to American Regime for Make Benefit Once Glorious Nation of Kazakhstan, picks up 14 years after the original, where Borat is now working in a gulag. 

He gets plucked from the labour camp and taken to visit Kazakhstan’s president, who tells him that the U.S. was “ruined by an evil man who stood against all American values. His name? Barack Obama.”

“This led to other Africans becoming political leaders,” Borat continues, as the screen cuts to a photo of Trudeau dressed as Aladdin in blackface.

The photo, published by Time magazine in 2019, was taken at an Arabian Nights themed party at West Point Grey Academy, a Vancouver private school, in 2001. After it surfaced, Trudeau conceded that he had worn blackface multiple times, including while singing “Day-O” by Harry Belafonte. 

The prime minister’s cameo explains why the mockumentary’s content warning says it features “sexuality, drug use, foul language, nudity, blackface.” 

VICE News has reached out to the Prime Minister’s Office for comment and will update this story if we hear back. 

Trudeau likely got off pretty easy. In another scene, former New York City Mayor and staunch Trump supporter Rudy Giuliani gets caught with his hand down his pants following an interview with a  right-wing “journalist” posing as Borat’s daughter. 

Giuliani has since denied he was pulling a Jeffrey Toobin, tweeting: “The Borat video is a complete fabrication. I was tucking in my shirt after taking off the recording equipment. At no time before, during, or after the interview was I ever inappropriate.”

A giant inflatable Borat, donning his signature thong, also temporarily took over Toronto's waterfront, adding to the anticipation. 

Many people will likely be watching the movie this weekend, given that no one has plans due to the pandemic. 

Follow Manisha Krishnan on Twitter.

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93w5kvManisha KrishnanNatasha GrzincicmoviesboratSacha Baron CohenJustin TrudeauBlackfacecanadian politicsPoliticsworldnews
<![CDATA[Why a Vintage 'Aladdin' Shirt Sold for $6,000—and Why It Won't Be The Last]]>https://www.vice.com/en_ca/article/z3ea93/most-expensive-disney-aladdin-shirt-90s-nostalgiaTue, 29 Sep 2020 17:17:57 GMTStanley DeSantis was a college student when he printed his first T-shirt, a drawing of the Wicked Witch from the Wizard of Oz casually writing the words "Surrender Dorothy" with the back half of her broomstick. He eventually sold enough shirts to cover his tuition—paying for school by selling T-shirts was still possible in the 1970s—and it took him less than two decades to become one of the biggest names in novelty tees.

"I think what I am recognized for in the industry is for taking the humorous T-shirts to the gift-store level,” he told the Los Angeles Times in 1994. “At the time, they were sold in truck stops, or as fashion tees, but I melded the funny T-shirts into a fashion statement. Before, T-shirts like that were never sold in department stores. I remember, when I was trying to sell ‘Surrender Dorothy,’ calling Bloomingdale’s from my little apartment in New York and they said, ‘T-shirts are over. You couldn’t put a thing on a T-shirt that we would ever buy.’ ”

Bloomingdale's was wrong, obviously. By 1994, DeSantis' eponymous business was pulling in more than $18 million a year—around $31.5 million in today's dollars. He acquired the licenses to print shirts featuring some of the biggest draws of that decade, like Beavis & Butthead, The Simpsons, and South Park. And although Stanley DeSantis died in 2005, he still may be one of the hottest designers of this whole year.

A couple of weeks ago, Corbin Smith, a 27-year-old vintage T-shirt collector, offered an ultra-rare DeSantis fit during a live-streamed auction for The Virtual Flea. It had been printed as a promo item for the 1992 release of Disney's Aladdin, and featured a massive illustration of the animated Genie, which wrapped around both sides of the shirt. The opening bid for the auction was $1, and Smith had cautiously optimistic expectations for what the final sale could be.

"I was hoping it would reach at least $2,000," he told VICE. "You know, that was just wishful thinking at that moment, but just watching it start from a dollar and go all the way up to $6,000, like, that was just unreal. I started crying on live, because it was just a moment that I would never forget."

No one will forget where they were when they heard about the $6,000 Genie shirt, especially since six grand is about what you'd pay for a 10-year-old Toyota Corolla. The jaw-dropping sale was a solid return for Smith, who bought the shirt from Kyle Taitano for $500 in February. "I had two of the same [Genie] shirt, so I decided to part with one of them," Taitano said. "I sold the size large to Corbin, who also traded me a rare Cartoon Network Cow and Chicken T-shirt that I would estimate to be worth between $600 and $800 in today's market."

If it seems like today's market is more about mid-1990s memorabilia than it used to be, that's because it is. Time is passing at a terrifying pace, and 90s kids are now old enough to feel nostalgic for cartoons and comic books that came out when Bill Clinton was president.

"I feel like we're seeing a lot of new trends develop, especially when it comes to Marvel-related T-shirts and TV-related T-shirts, basically the non-music shirts," Patrick Klima, the founder and owner of WyCo Vintage said. "Once you're 20 years out, that's when you start seeing a lot of interest. Those kids are at the age where they've got some expendable income and they're starting to reflect a little bit on their youth and trying to maybe recapture some of that, or just have that feeling or that connection. The Aladdin shirt could be a perfect example of that."

Kerri Barta and Jason Yolkiewicz, the co-owners of Los Angeles boutique Hellhound Vintage, echoed that assessment. "There has definitely been a shift with this new generation coming into the scene," Barta told VICE. "They are more into 90s and Y2K, big sizes and a lot of kid-oriented culture like Disney stuff and kids' movies."

Hellhound sold the same Stanley DeSantis Genie-print shirt in February. They declined to confirm the final price, but said that it went for the "high end" of what that tee was selling for at the time. (Barta added that they donated a portion of the sale to an animal sanctuary. "With so much money floating around, I would love to encourage people in the scene to consider giving back in some positive way, when they can.")

It seems like "the high end" for Aladdin merch, DeSantis designs, and 90s memorabilia in general could just be getting higher. A different, equally obnoxious Genie shirt has been listed for $3,000 on Grailed, and for $1,500 on Poshmark. A "very rare and cool" Genie tee recently sold on eBay for $999. Meanwhile, eight bidders battled each other for a DeSantis T-shirt from The Mask, which sold for $1,400.

In the hours after the $6,000 Genie auction, Kyle Taitano posted a picture of his other Genie shirt on his Insta story. "Sure enough, I was DMed by a serious bidder and negotiated to sell it for $4,700," he said. "Prior to that, my biggest sale was $1,200."

But the Genie shirt is just the latest, and perhaps the most bonkers, example from a vintage market that has been heating up for years—now reaching a boiling point of unprecedented valuations. "The Nirvana 'Heart Shaped Box' shirt was the reigning grail before this Genie phenomenon," Barta said. "Justin Bieber wore it to the AMAs in 2015, and the price went up to $500 immediately and it's been climbing ever since. It sells for $2,000 to $4,000 right now, and I wouldn't be at all surprised to see that price point keep going up. Even reproductions are going for $500, which is crazy to me."

Barta said that there are currently "a ton" of shirts that are selling for upwards of a grand each, including those that rep 90s bands like Dinosaur Jr., Nirvana, and The Fugees, Disney and Marvel shirts, and tees that were released as movie promos.

"I really don’t consider the DeSantis genie tee to be worth $6,000 just because of one auction, but it definitely pumps the value way up," she said. "It was already culturally relevant, but now it has this status from commanding such a high auction price, making it instantly legendary within the scene."

The fact that the Genie shirt sold during a widely viewed online auction could be one of the biggest factors in its four-figure price point. "That Aladdin [piece] is a great shirt, it's got a great print, and a cultural significance," Klima said. "But when these auctions are on Instagram, it's a whole other thing. [The watchers] can see your name, and they see you bidding versus another guy. It's a little more personal than being an anonymous bidder on eBay. It's very pressure-driven."

He added that it's not unusual for vintage T-shirt buyers to focus their attention on one particular style, brand, or fandom. Several years ago, the must-have tees were Harley Davidson shirts that could be ID-ed by the blue bar across the Champion-logo tag. "They were all going for $500 or more and, at the time $500 for a vintage shirt was a pretty good amount," he said. "I think right now, we're just seeing a little uptick, where some of these shirts are definitely going to see new prices. Overall, the market is hot, and it's neat seeing people pulling stuff out of their closets that you haven't seen before."

Smith says he's absolutely still in the game, buying and selling 90s shirts, although he declined to specify the Grails he's currently trying to find. "I'm definitely grateful for what happened [in the auction] and I still can't believe it, to be honest," he said. "I think it'll be a long time before the average shirt is $6,000, but as long as these memories live on, the prices will rise. And the memories live on forever."

This article originally appeared on VICE US.

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z3ea93Jelisa CastrodaleHilary PollackFilm90s nostalgiaaladdindisneygénievintageT shirtsHypebeastsFashionexpensive things
<![CDATA[The Pandemic Is Sanitizing the Image of Private Travel]]>https://www.vice.com/en_ca/article/akzbkj/the-pandemic-is-sanitizing-the-image-of-private-travelFri, 25 Sep 2020 14:09:34 GMTIt’s time to wake up. On Global Day of Climate Action, VICE Media Group is solely telling stories about our current climate crisis. Click here to meet young climate leaders from around the globe and learn how you can take action.

In 2018, on "Sicko Mode," Drake rapped about how wealth had widened his travel options: back in high school, he used to bus it to the dance. But now, he "hit the FBO with duffels in my hands." He wasn't the only famous musician in the habit of making references to the fixed base operator, the terminal for private jets. A year later, on "Walk Like Kings," Third Eye Blind complained about the Gulfstream G550 cabin being "kinda narrow," advising the listener to "skip the FBO" in favor of going to a hotel instead.

Even though private jet travel has long come under scrutiny as an extravagance with a particularly big cost for the environment, in the age of the pandemic, companies are working to make this upper-crust experience more affordable and attractive, offering semi-private flights and concierge services to a new wave of customers looking for a safer way to fly.

According to a July article by New York Times, customers who ordinarily might never think to fly private are shelling out extra for private or semi-private flights so they can practice social distancing in the air. Citing a 5 percent year-over-year increase in private jet travel on the fourth of July this year, according to Private Jet Card Comparisons, the article frames the proposition as one of cost. "Afraid of Airlines? There’s Always the Private Jet," the headline asks and answers. "The catch, of course, is the price." There is no mention of climate, pollution, or carbon footprints. But there are deals, the article explains, such as one semi-private flight on JSX, which offers from Phoenix to San Francisco, for $159.

A Washington Post story from May makes another pitch for the PJ: "The world of private travel offers social distancing in the sky—at a premium." The article only uses the word "environment" in describing the private jet travel's atmosphere of exclusivity: these planes, the article says, are ideal for shooting music videos before takeoff. It also mentions JSX, touting fares as cheap as $89.

While the democratization of the private jet in the age of coronavirus is surely an attractive prospect to some customers, environmental activists and academics worry that a turn to private aviation will come with severe costs to the environment.

According to Stefan Gössling, a professor at Linnaeus University, School of Business and Economics in Sweden, the latest trend in air travel is a reflection of a society that's experienced a reprioritization of needs. Before the pandemic, in part due to Greta Thunberg's condemnation of the practice, Gossling notes, there was a shift in the perception of air travel. "We saw these major shifts from frequent fliers being seen as an adorable type of person to 'Oh, you're actually destroying the climate,'" he said. In an extreme example, actor Yael Stone vowed to give up her green card to the United States and stop living between Australia and the US, pointing to Greta Thunberg as the inspiration.

But even if public awareness of climate change is higher than it's ever been, in 2020, it's taken a backburner to a much more present threat right now: the coronavirus.

Per Gössling, this is understandable: "When you experience something like existential fear, what you do is withdraw into your personal fortress," Gössling said. "The big societal problems are no longer yours. It's a matter of survival." But this necessary self-centeredness, taken to the extreme, can also verge on wreckless selfishness: As the New York Times reported, thousands of people have taken flights "to nowhere," taking part in a pointless and ecologically harmful act because they miss relieving themselves 25,000 feet above Earth.

Climate activists acknowledge that there may be safety advantages to flying private, even if they're only available to those who can afford the price of admission. And even though some companies offer environmentally conscious features like carbon offsetting or sustainable fuel, they might be ethically better off opting out.

"Estimates vary, but it’s clear that private air travel produces much higher per capita CO2 emission than commercial flights, possibly ten times higher." The rise in private air travel is also another example of the vast carbon inequality on our planet," said Claudio Magliulo from the 350.org, an organization focused on fighting climate change, in a statement to VICE.

The Re-Earth Initiative, a youth-led international NGO, also said that private air travel might be safer for travelers, it also puts the safety of our planet at risk.

"[Ultimately] we feel the aviation industry is one of the most harmful to climate change, therefore our organisation cannot support the rise of private air travel. Private flyers should be encouraged to do carbon offsetting, but that is not enough," its statement to VICE said.

While the disproportionately high carbon footprint per passenger for private travel is well-documented—partly owing to the fact that the study of air travel and disease spread is extremely new—scientists have yet to confirm whether private is actually safer. the biological safety versus commercial is not.

Dr. Howie Weiss and Dr. Vicki Hertzberg led one of the first studies to determine how diseases spread on transcontinental flights in 2018. Though Dr. Hertzberg testified on issues related to air travel during the pandemic in front of the House Committee of Science, Space and Technology earlier this summer, she did not mention private air travel. Speaking with VICE, Dr. Weiss said the two have been trying to secure funding to do further research on how aerosols—or the "smallest virus-carrying particles"—spread in plane cabins.

He said that there is reason to believe flying private is safer from a disease transmission perspective, noting that there are fewer passengers and crew members, and that if passengers are spaced farther apart, there will be less chance of a passenger generating infectious aerosols from farther away." For commercial airliners, he said, the rapid exchange of air in the cabin should eliminate aerosols quickly. "On the other hand, in 2003, twenty passengers and crew were infected during a three hour flight by a passenger [infected] with SARS. Many of these infections are believed to be transmitted via aerosols," Weiss said.

Until we have more information on how the virus travels on planes, Weiss offered a few tips for those who have to travel—whether they are flying private or commercial. Wear your mask—properly—and don't take it off in the lavatory. He also recommended eye protection, and sanitizing your hands after touching any surface. He encourages travelers to check that passengers near them are wearing masks properly, and socially distancing at the airport.

A renewed interest in private air travel reflects an overall broadening of inequality, in both income and emissions. A study published by Oxfam and the Stockholm Environment Institute earlier this month, for example, found that the richest 1 percent emits more than twice the amount of carbon emissions than the poorer half of all people on the planet.

"We're drifting into a world that's made for a very tiny share of humanity," Gössling said. "There's been so much research now on global inequality, and that's not just wealth distributions, it's in terms of transportation systems, it all essentially comes down to the same conclusion: it's not a socially just development that we are witnessing."

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This article originally appeared on VICE US.

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<![CDATA[Horror Movie Fans Are Having an Easier Time Dealing With the Pandemic, Study Says]]>https://www.vice.com/en_ca/article/5dzvez/horror-movie-fans-are-more-equipped-to-deal-with-the-pandemic-study-saysTue, 22 Sep 2020 12:34:49 GMTIn his book Dreadful Pleasures, pop culture author and occasional plagiarist James B. Twitchell looked at both the origins of the horror genre and at the sustained appeal of being scared shitless. "Modern works of artificial horror originated in the late-eighteenth-century discovery that by inducing extreme feelings of dreadful pleasures, both print and illustration could arouse and exploit powerful feelings deep within the human spirit," he wrote.

A couple of centuries later, a group of researchers from the United States and Denmark have questioned whether the "extreme feelings" prompted by horror flicks could be beneficial to our mental health, now that every day is literally terrifying. For their study—which was recently published in the journal Personality and Individual Differences and funded by the Research Program for Media, Communication, and Society at the School of Communication and Culture at Aarhus University—they recruited 310 participants and asked them a series of questions about the kinds of movies and TV shows that they liked, about whether they watched pandemic-related films, and asked how much they agreed or disagreed with 13 questions about their emotional state ("I have been more depressed than usual") and mindset ("I feel positive about the future") during the early days of this crisis.

"Although most people go into a scary movie with the intention of being entertained rather than learning something, scary stories present ample learning opportunities," they wrote. "Fiction allows the audience to explore an imagined version of the world at very little cost. Through fiction, people can learn how to escape dangerous predators, navigate novel social situations, and practice their mind-reading and emotion regulation skills."

What they learned was that people who indicated that they were fans of horror films and who "engaged more frequently with frightening fictional phenomena" were experiencing lower levels of psychological distress during the pandemic than those who preferred other genres.

"One reason that horror use may correlate with less psychological distress is that horror fiction allows its audience to practice grappling with negative emotions in a safe setting," they concluded. "Experiencing negative emotions in a safe setting, such as during a horror film, might help individuals hone strategies for dealing with fear and more calmly deal with fear-eliciting situations in real life."

In addition to their focus on horror flicks, the researchers combined four film types (alien invasion, apocalyptic, post-apocalyptic, and zombie) into one category that they called the "prepper" genre. The subjects who indicated that they enjoyed those films the most were—surprise!—better mentally prepared for the pandemic and experienced "fewer negative disruptions" to their lives.

Finally, the participants were also asked to rate themselves on the Morbid Curiosity Scale, a 24-item assessment that determines their interest in "unpleasant things," including death. (Some of the statements on the scale include "If I lived in Medieval Europe, I would be interested in attending a public execution" and "I would be interested in attending or watching a video of an exorcism.") The most morbidly curious reported having more positive experiences, and they were also among the most likely to kick back and watch Contagion or other pandemic-related films while we're living through a real one.

Lead author Coltan Scrivner, a PhD candidate in the Department of Comparative Human Development at the University of Chicago, told VICE that the morbidly curious might consider this time a positive one, because they're learning about pandemics, for example, or how they affect the world. "This of course doesn't mean that they enjoy the pandemic, simply that they are able to find something interesting about it, even if it is awful," he said.

The original research was conducted in April, and the participants were asked the same questions one month later, with similar results. Obviously things have gotten worse (millions of cases and tens of thousands of deaths worse) since then, and it might take more than horror movies to make any of us feel psychologically resilient if this keeps going. "It would be interesting to see how long this sort of buffering effect lasts," Scrivner said. "I suspect that it would be pretty similar [to the original study]. Of course, six months later may bring about new challenges that have arisen that are related more to the social impact of the virus, like loneliness [or] financial insecurity."

What Scrivner isn't sure about, at least not yet, is whether, say, forcing ourselves to sit through all of the Annabelle movies tonight would help us feel any better going forward. "Assuming the causation flows from watching horror movies to becoming more resilient, it may depend on the mechanism by which this happens. For example, if the primary mechanism is practicing emotion regulation and learning to deal with fear and anxiety, it's possible that it could help," he said.

"Of course, if someone hates horror movies, it may simply make it worse [...] If emotion regulation skills are what are being improved and helping people deal with the pandemic, it may also be best to watch movies that are scary to you, not movies that are considered the scariest in general. If this is how it works, the whole point would be for you to learn to accept feeling afraid or anxious, and learn how to overcome that feeling."

So on the one hand, you just have to accept feeling afraid. On the other, you just have to accept feeling afraid. Cool, cool.

This article originally appeared on VICE US.

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5dzvezJelisa CastrodaleHilary PollackFilmhorror moviesCoronavirusCOVID-19mental healthpsychologyanxiety
<![CDATA['The Bachelor' Romanticizes Toxic Behavior, and It Has Dangerous Outcomes]]>https://www.vice.com/en_ca/article/7kpye4/the-bachelor-romanticizes-toxic-behavior-and-it-has-dangerous-outcomesMon, 21 Sep 2020 18:28:33 GMTColton Underwood's 2019 season of The Bachelor seemed like it would have an unconventional ending from the get-go. A boyish runner-up from Becca Kufrin's season of The Bachelorette, Underwood, now 28, was introverted, emotional, and, as host Chris Harrison pointed out many times, a virgin; producers framed him as a Nice Guy who kept coming in last. So when Underwood broke convention and ended his season not by proposing, but by jumping a fence and fleeing from the set after getting dumped by Cassie Randolph, one of his final four picks, producers relished the dramatic moment. When Underwood went after Randolph despite her insistence that she couldn't give him the fairy tale ending he deserved and the two ended up beginning a relationship regardless, the show stamped his season a success story, albeit one that didn't end with a Neil Lane ring.

Producers may have relished Underwood's melodramatic behavior on the show, but they probably didn't foresee how his relationship with Randolph would proceed—and eventually end again—once the cameras stopped rolling.

On September 11, Randolph, 25, filed a restraining order against Underwood, whom she claimed has been "stalking and harassing" her since their breakup this past spring, alleging that the behavior of the ex-Bachelor (now her ex-boyfriend) took a dark turn after the show, leading to obsessive harassment and stalking. Per the restraining order, Randolph claims that Underwood “sent her unsettling text messages, repeatedly called her, and placed a tracking device on her vehicle,” as well as lurked outside her apartment in Los Angeles and her parents' house in Huntington Beach, Calif. On one occasion, Randolph's brother and friends caught the former Bachelor standing outside her bedroom window at her parents' home at 2 a.m. And according to court documents, Underwood also incessantly called or texted Randolph's friends and family; sent messages to Randolph from different phone numbers, some making it evident he was following her; and claimed he was also being harassed by a stranger over text, only to admit he'd been sending the messages to himself. Reports surfaced this week that the court granted Randolph's request, and as a result, Underwood has been ordered to stay at least 100 yards away from Randolph's home, car, and work, as well as her parent's home.

The evidence is deeply concerning, but looking back at Underwood's time on The Bachelor and beyond, there have long been signs of his volatile and obsessive behavior. And the series' treatment of his reactive conduct as romantic sweeping gestures has only served to perpetuate abusive relationship standards.

When the former football player—who has also dated Olympic gymnast Aly Raisman and Pretty Little Liars actress Lucy Hale—jumped a fence and disappeared for two hours following Randolph's decision to leave the show, he became one of the franchise's most infamous Bachelors. Touted as one of the most dramatic moments in the show's history, the incident took place after Randolph admitted she was confused, wasn't "in love" with him and wanted to end their relationship, as Underwood grew more and more visibly upset. Once she'd left the Portuguese hotel where the crew was shooting, a furious Underwood pushed a camera out of his way, threw a piece of recording equipment, ripped off his microphone, and then scaled the fence and ran off into the night. The scene was teased ad nauseam leading up to the season and throughout, with seemingly endless replays of Underwood's impressive leap, as well as Harrison marveling, "He just jumped the fucking fence," and producers waving flashlights, searching for their leading man in the dark Portuguese countryside.

After the fence incident (and the public rejection), Underwood immediately quit the show, tearfully telling Harrison, "Every time I put myself out there, I get fucking rejected," though he later assured Harrison that he believed Randolph really loved him. He was going to fight for her, he told producers, and he flew to California to reunite with Randolph. He refused to take no for an answer, and eventually convinced Randolph to date him without the engagement that usually comes at the end of each season.

As their relationship developed off-camera, Underwood went on to write a memoir and vehemently criticized producers in various interviews, accusing them of interfering in his and Randolph's relationship. During one interview on a 2019 episode of NPR's This American Life, he said that he believed producers flew Randolph's dad out to Portugal to convince her to break up with him.

"I was thinking I just got screwed," Underwood told This American Life producer Emanuele Berry. "I was thinking that that wasn't her doing... If I feel like my relationship's going to be messed with or toyed with at all, I'm going to be done. Especially at this point, I've completely fallen in love... I mean, I had nothing to lose at that point besides the girl and the woman that I wanted to spend the rest of my life with."

After their breakup in May, Underwood had less flattering things to say about Randolph, first criticizing her appearance on the special The Bachelor: The Greatest Seasons Ever, where she addressed the breakup and admitted to being worried about upsetting him. He then appeared on the Reality Steve podcast to say he warned Randolph about going on the show and to double down on his anger toward producers. "You have Chris Harrison pointing questions saying, 'I sense you don't want to make Colton mad', or 'you're afraid you're going to upset Colton,'" he told reality television blogger Reality Steve. "It's like, 'No, Chris. I literally talked to her the morning of that interview. We're good.' Stop worrying about me or painting me to be this controlling or angry person. I'm not angry. If there's anybody I'm upset about or upset with, it's you guys." He admitted on the podcast to distancing himself from the franchise for mental health reasons.

Underwood's anger might be warranted, given the notoriously manipulative behavior of reality television show producers. But knowing what we know now, and looking back at the red flags Underwood exhibited on the show and in public, it's pretty clear that there has been a pattern of alarming behavior on his part as well. And while Underwood is wholly accountable for his off-camera behavior, producers do deserve criticism when it comes to their framing and enabling of the relationship, which has clearly ended in toxicity.

During the reunion for Underwood's season, Harrison gushed to the then-couple, "Now you know he jumped a fence for you and ran away… but apparently he ran into your arms." While she first appears uncomfortable discussing the fence jump, Randolph responds, "I'm glad that he did, too. I feel like the luckiest girl." Producers spun the bright red flag that was Underwood's on-camera outburst into a gesture of passion. That positive reinforcement for his off-the-wall action may have seemed justifiable at the time, but reads differently after hearing that Underwood continued pushing boundaries—tracking Randolph's car and bombarding her with harassing texts. What should we make of those behaviors if we're supposed to believe they're a sign of his undying love?

"This is what the producers want," said Maureen Curtis, the vice president of the Criminal Justice Program at Safe Horizon, a victim's assistance program. "They don't want just benign, everyday relationships. They want to see actions that are going to get them good ratings. So it wouldn't surprise me that producers would encourage behavior like this. And maybe they didn't realize where it would lead to."

Curtis has worked with countless stalking victims in her 35-year career, and she told VICE that the behavior laid out in the court documents—as well as Underwood's regular blaming of producers, Randolph, and others, for his actions—is "classic stalker behavior" and "common behavior in abusive relationships." "It's not taking responsibility for their own actions, for their own behavior, that potentially lead to the end of the relationship," she said.

Curtis explained that a high percentage of stalking behavior occurs where there was an intimate relationship, and often that behavior was occurring during the relationship as well. The problem is exacerbated by our society's romanticization of this type of toxic fixation and jealousy, which is dismissed as 'lovers' quarrels' or shows of affection. This portrayal creates real-life danger for stalking victims, who are often blamed for their abusive partner's behavior. One look at Underwood's Instagram comments shows many of his fans defending and supporting his behavior, even with clear evidence of his harassment of Randolph.

"People around [victims] are not taking it seriously, including sometimes the criminal justice system," said Curtis. "It's only in the past 10 years that stalking has become a crime and recognized as criminal behavior, but it's still one of the most underreported crimes."

From reality TV to rom-coms, the media's portrayal of stalking behavior in relationships is treated as romantic time and time again. This disturbing pattern is especially excused for male characters, and is intrinsically rooted in the misogynistic notion that women should be "won over." Take Crazy, Stupid Love, in which a kid who won't stop pestering his older babysitter is supposed to be a cute joke, even if he has 'future creep' written all over him. Or, there's Think Like a Man, which is practically a guide to being a patriarchal shithead that women must accept. Even a modicum of critical observation can reveal these tropes to be coercive, manipulative, or abusive

"As a society, we often support and sometimes condone what is abusive behavior and romanticize it, and equate it with love," said Curtis.

Rosara Torrisi, a sex and relationship therapist and the director of the Long Island Institute of Sex Therapy, agrees. "Since the advent of storytelling, there's been a media influence on the way we think of as a good relationship," she told VICE. "But in terms of this kind of behavior, we really truly have romanticized obsessive, manipulative, power control types of relationships and behaviors…[people get] lured into a relationship with somebody like that, but then at some point when they're trying to realize where did that turn into [something bad] they can maybe then recognize the danger of it…The idea that dating and relationships, and the communication, the hearts and love and passion and sex and pleasure, is a game is also problematic."

Torrisi explained that the cat-and-mouse aspect of dating shows like The Bachelor, in which the titular character often wavers between wanting to be with someone and not, "can be really confusing." Producer interference only makes this process worse, and in Underwood's view, was to blame for keeping him from Randolph. While Randolph initially seemed uncertain about Underwood (with or without producer meddling), the producers' actions likely fueled her confusion, and the context of meeting on a reality show clearly damaged the relationship from the get-go.

"That's, in a way, the purpose of a restraining order," said Torrisi. "It's like, This is real. I'm not just like making TV and I'm not getting a bunch of likes and sponsorships on Instagram. I really want you to leave me alone. And hopefully this will help with that."

Contestants go through a psychological screening and background process before appearing on the show, but there have been enough instances of troubling behavior from contestants over the years to suggest that those handling such an important task have done so irresponsibly, so much so that critics and viewers now continuously criticize how unethical those choices have often proven. On Jojo Fletcher's season of The Bachelorette, she contended with belligerent, meat-chomping Chad Johnson, who routinely antagonized his rivals for Fletcher's affections, even threatening physical violence and ripping one contestant's shirt after an uncomfortable joke. Last year, Johnson, who made the jump from reality TV to a porn career, tracked down Fletcher's and her now-fiancé Jordan Rogers' house and had sex with a woman outside of their home in a car, filming the entire disturbing incident. He wrote in an Instagram post, "I always told Jordan I’d find him… So I went to his house and I video’d exactly what happened for my website. Now every time Jordan and JoJo step foot inside their house they’ll think of me." The series has often glorified—or at least sought ratings from—an unhealthy and imbalanced power dynamic between the lead and contestants, encouraging competition between parties as long as it makes good television. Hell, encouraging anything as long as it makes good television.

Producers and the network are placing contestants in danger by not just inviting people onto the show who exhibit threatening behavior, but keeping them on and playing up that behavior for drama. Those on the receiving end of their aggression may feel uncomfortable or fearful, but producers and viewers reward them with adoration or notoriety.

Underwood has spoken openly about his mental health issues. There's plenty of evidence within the texts sent to Randolph that he's dealing with overwhelming emotional turmoil. "For people who aren't just kind of people out to hurt people," said Torrisi, "this often comes from a place of confusion and despair, wanting the other person to understand them… but it wouldn't be her job to help him find the closure to help him him through his stages of recognizing this is what's happening, my relationship with the person is ending."

"Once [an action] crosses that line where it's now abusive behavior, that person needs to take responsibility for what they're doing, and as a society [we need to as well], and a producer also needs to take some responsibility," added Curtis. "I think that's why it's bigger than the producers. It's really all of us in society, we need to look at ourselves and how we probably play into this."

Alex Zaragoza is a senior staff writer at VICE.

This article originally appeared on VICE US.

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7kpye4Alex ZaragozaHilary Pollackreality tvThe BachelorColton underwoodCassie RandolphstalkingabuseTV
<![CDATA[Hannibal Buress Wants to Blow Your Expectations of Socially Distant Standup]]>https://www.vice.com/en_ca/article/akzmne/hannibal-buress-wants-to-blow-your-expectations-of-socially-distant-standupMon, 21 Sep 2020 12:32:03 GMTThe last show Hannibal Buress attended was a private performance held by his niece and nephew. They performed a medley of hip-hop instrumentals on the piano, and it got him psyched. Prior to this performance, he told VICE, the last production he attended was a car wash, which he also found exhilarating.

Given his own excitement at these events, the comedian is optimistic that his next set of shows will be "an opportunity to make a real mark," he said. Tomorrow, Buress, joined by rapper Open Mike Eagle, will begin the "Let's See How This Goes" tour, a five-stop drive-in theater run starting in Cleveland, Ohio, and concluding in Buress and Eagle's hometown of Chicago.

It's difficult to imagine Buress's earlier work—mellow, and hilariously sedate—scaling to a drive-in theater, as a socially distanced audience looks on from parked cars. But as his career progressed, Buress has become more animated, and is used to experimenting with the format. His last special, Miami Nights, presented by his new venture, Isola Man Media, included on-screen graphics, Auto-Tune, and other effects not usually seen in a standup special.

"I've shown that I can tell jokes and write jokes without sauce or production," Buress said, but the effects can "nudge" a bit, or have an additive property to the joke. The drive-in shows will also have this "sauce," but with new material.

VICE spoke to Buress about his upcoming tour, and performing comedy at a time when something as simple as a car wash feels like entertainment.

Hannibal Buress: Sorry I'm late. I started messing with this beat-making app and I got lost in it a little bit. And I looked at the time and I was like, "Oh shit!" [laughs]

VICE: What app?
It's Endlesss. With three S's. You heard of it?

VICE: No. You're not sneaking an ad read into the beginning, are you?
No I'm not sneaking one. I wouldn't sneak one; I'd tell you. I have no involvement. I just discovered it yesterday. But it's really dope. I was talking to some friends about it. You can make loops really quickly, in a way where for me, I'm easily distracted with shit, so working on the traditional stuff, like FruityLoops or Logic or Ableton, it's easy to get lost and start doing something else because it's tedious and there's a lot of tinkering you've gotta do with those types of programs.

When did you create Isola Man Media?
One of the people that works with me, an editor/producer, Shaliek Jenkins—we were working on Isola Fest, a festival in Isola, Mississippi, in December. He said there should be an Isola Man. We conceptualized him as almost a mascot of Isola Fest. My cousin Ron actually played Isola Man. That area of Mississippi is known for catfish. And so Isola Man, his enemy was [laughs] a giant catfish that was trying to destroy the festival. And Isola Man saved the Isola Fest from the catfish. It ended with them battling right before T-Pain went on stage to close out the festival.

So after that, I was thinking of how I wanted to move forward with production and everything, and thought about the name Isola Man media had a fun ring to it, and just started putting out stuff under that.

With the name "Let's See How This Goes," this tour sounds more like a test. How do you think it's going to go?
I think it's gonna go really well. I haven't performed for a while, or put on shows in a while, so it allows for a lot of time to think about ideas and how I want to approach the show and approach the audience experience when you're considering all the factors that people really haven't been going to shows that much—things are shut down. I would call myself re-sensitized.

In May, I was about to go to Arizona, and I went through a car wash. And the car wash was really dope, because I hadn't been to shit in a while. At that point, the last show I had seen, I saw Thundercat at the Wiltern [in Los Angeles.] When I drove into the carwash, I remember feeling, "Whoa!" Because I hadn't been to anything. And when you really think about it, a car wash is a small production. I think about the show like that. I think people [would] be appreciative of a normal standup show from me right now, and I'd be excited to do one. But there's a chance to really step it [up] from a production standpoint and blow people's expectations out of the water because they haven't been seeing things in a while.

People are really excited to do something that's not in their apartment. When I've gone to comedy shows, even in the park, there's an enthusiasm that wasn't there in the Before times.
Yeah man, you can't take that shit for granted. Actually, I drove to Arizona after that car wash, and I got to my sister's crib. My niece and nephew—they play piano. They were playing different hip-hop instrumentals on the piano, doing a medley, and I was probably more hyped about it and appreciative than I normally would've been. Because at that point, it had been a while since I'd seen a motherfucker play the keys live [laughs]. The carwash was the first production, and then my niece and nephew was my first concert in a while. And I'll remember it forever.

Can you explain how you know [tour mate] Open Mike Eagle?
Open Mike Eagle—we met in maybe 2001, 2002. He was my RA in college. I knew him a little bit before he was my RA. He was rapping—he was known as the best battle rapper on campus at the time.

I was a terrible host, by the way. I had no sense of flow and what the audience needed. I was stretching when there was no need to stretch, [and] there would be hella acts waiting to go on. I'm a comic a year in, doing 10-12 minutes between people. Really bad. When I first started doing standup—I'll never forget—I had a VHS tape of [one of my earlier sets]. I got to perform in Peoria, [and] I went up to his spot and played him the tape. Which is also—just that mode of showing somebody your stuff back then is so [laughs] wild to think about. Now you send links: "Check this out, here's the link." But before, you really went to somebody's place, or they came to yours, like, "Yo. I'm about to put my shit in."

It's a vulnerable commitment.
[laughs] He watched it and he said, "You should check out Mitch Hedberg," because he thought my style was similar to Hedberg's. I hadn't heard of Hedberg at the time. He also gave me a bootleg audio of Dave Chappelle performing Killing Them Softly; he had the audio of that from Napster. So he passed some stuff for me to learn from when I first showed him I was working on standup.

How was he as an RA?
Pretty chill. He wasn't a noise-violation guy. He's more of a knock-on-the-door 'Hey, come on, man." That type of shit.

Kanye posted about how he'd have to re-record some of his masters if he wanted to get out of a contract. I know you've done that—can you talk a little bit about why artists opt to do it, and what that process is like?
I can't speak to it on a Kanye level [laughs]. That's a whole different game: [He's got] a lot more catalog and tunes and other stuff. For me, with My Name is Hannibal, I offered to buy back the rights from the label, just because, at this point, I'd rather have it. I don't think they're doing the best that can be done with it.

That deal was done at a time when the focus was on actual physical CD sales. There were physical CDs and iTunes purchases when I did that. I recorded it in 2008; it released in 2010. Somebody made your physical CDs, and then you have something to sell on the road after shows, and also on iTunes. Now the business has shifted in a completely different way, but the old deals that you have don't reflect it.

I found out that the option was to re-record it. The material was recorded when I was 25 or 26, but some of those bits were from the mind of a 20 year-old or a 21 year-old. It was a really fun, special show; the performance of it is another thing. I listened to some of it, I can tell that I'm reading it, and so that's why I've actually been hesitant to release it. I got into the overthinking mode of it: My audience is different than the My Name is Hannibal audience—is it too narrow? Or I may just have to drop that shit. Or do another one. Either shit or get off the pot. I got a lot of stuff I sit on.

Was there a moment for you, or a period of time, where you thought, “Wait. Standup as we know it might take a long time to come back.”
Early on—shit shut down March 12, 13—we were talking about the fall. Six months from now, Boom, we'll be back. We might have to play different cities, because everybody's trying to tour in the spring. We might have to play more secondary markets: Little Rock. Missoula, Montana. Savannah, Georgia. Because the main cities, those gigs are gonna be booked. That's how I was [thinking].

I think a lot, and I'm an optimist. A lot of time, shit would hit when I was going through old footage for Miami Nights stuff or just editing, looking through hard drives and then [seeing me] rocking a crowd—or afterparty shit, DJing with people, kicking it, and getting emotional at that footage. Like, Damn. Look at that: People having fun. And [then] Panicking. I've gotten over that part. I don't tear up when I look at party footage [laughs]; I just go, Oh yeah, that was a good time. But there was a time in LA when I was solo for a while, and would have a lot of moments like that.

Are you still thinking of spending some time In Ghana? [Buress told Joe Rogan on The Joe Rogan Experience that he was thinking about moving to Ghana.]
Yeah. I've been thinking about it for November. Let's see how the first few dates of this tour goes. There's a chance to add some shows, but I really don't want to add them until I do one or two, and then I'll know if I want to do more. This could be the only handful of shows, these five cities—and then I go do something else, chill out, go to an island or something, see which country we can go to. I know a lot of international travel is starting to open up, so go get into a different zone and work there. Maybe it's Ghana, maybe it's somewhere else. The rebellious part of me wants to—since I talked about going to Ghana on such a [laughs] public platform I wish I didn't say it. I didn't go into the interview planning on it, but Joe was talking about moving to Texas, and I was just talking, like, "Yeah, I'm thinking about going to Africa." He's like, "Yeah let's get into it!"

It's weird when people know your plans like that. The comedian and the writer in me almost wants to [say,] "Well, actually, Japan." [laughs]

What do you think about Joe Rogan hosting a debate between Biden and Trump?
It'd be something to see them go at it for three-to-four hours like that. It would be something. [laughs] I don't know if we need it, or what it would do at this point. Are there still undecideds? I guess so. That's the nature of elections: You are campaigning to the very end, and there are some folks that are still really thinking [between Biden and Trump.] It's wild to think about that [laughs].

This interview has been edited and condensed for clarity.

The "Let's See How This Goes" Drive-In Theater Tour begins tomorrow, September 22.

This article originally appeared on VICE US.

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akzmneAshwin RodriguesLeslie Horn comedyInterviewshannibal buressdrive inOpen Mike Eagleiamavoter
<![CDATA[‘This Is Paris’ and the Celebrity Documentary Trap]]>https://www.vice.com/en_ca/article/889pmg/this-is-paris-and-the-celebrity-documentary-trapSat, 19 Sep 2020 01:36:15 GMTEarly on in the newly released documentary of her sister's life, Nicky Hilton Rothschild says something about Paris Hilton that she implies is important: "She’s very normal." It's the kind of phrase you hear often from the people who surround the very famous, and even from the mouths of the famous themselves. It's meant, it seems, to convince the viewer that the subject in question is actually not full of secrets—or if they are, that they are not the ones you might think.

But there's an inherent fallacy to this statement, one that weaves its way through all of This Is Paris: the subject is the whole reason you're watching, and in the case of celebrity documentaries, their celebrity—their being not at all normal—is the main draw. With Hilton, whose every move has been documented since she was a toddler, first by her parents, and then by the general public whose attention Hilton craved, one begins to wonder: how much more can there be to this person we seem to know everything about?

For fans, the answer is never enough. Over the past several years, celebrities have benefited greatly from their followers’ curiosity, coupled with the rise of platforms that allow them to funnel that attention into a narrative of their own choosing. No longer are they reliant on deciding between some of the early ways of putting their story out there, like a memoir (ghostwritten or otherwise) or an autobiography, or an authorized biography, or an unauthorized biography. The popularity of non-fiction film and television has led to a glut of self-produced documentaries (and reality TV, docuseries, docudramas, etc). This has allowed celebrities to nominate themselves as worthy of coverage when and how they want to, no longer at the mercy of others to be deemed deserving.

Perhaps no one has had more written about them on this topic than Beyoncé, whose involvement in her own documentaries (a term used to describe these projects even if it doesn't quite fit, lending them a certain kind of legitimacy) reminds us every time that she is the creator and holder of her own image completely. Or take Justin Bieber's Seasons, which was released in installments earlier this year on his YouTube channel; he was a producer on it, along with his manager Scooter Braun and Allison Kaye, the president of SB Projects, Braun's company. Both Braun and Kaye also appear as talking heads in Seasons, credited as "manager" and "management" respectively.

Bieber was not unfamiliar with this style of doc, and paved his own way for Seasons. In 2010, he and Braun produced the doc-slash-concert film Never Say Never. Reality TV veterans Dan Cutforth and Jane Lipsitz, producers of Never Say Never, would later go on to direct Katy Perry's Part of Me in 2012. Netflix's Lady Gaga: Five Foot Two was produced by Gaga's production company, though its director noted that she didn't see the whole movie until the premiere. Though Taylor Swift did not receive a producer credit on the movie Miss Americana, she entered a deal with Netflix, later choosing Lana Wilson from a list of potential directors. ("At one point she said that she didn’t like documentaries that are like propaganda, and I was thrilled to hear that," Wilson said in an interview earlier this year.) And so on and so forth. All of these projects were reviewed somewhat critically on this front, the conversation pinging back and forth between how much agency a human should have in their own story and how much fame alone renders them worthy of critique. Whether that debate trickles down to the audience at large is a different question, and the more important one.

All of these celebrities are following a pattern set by Madonna with her 1991 documentary Truth or Dare, which she produced, and which lives on in infamy. But Netflix and YouTube have shifted the impact—a movie no longer needs to be green-lit under the guise that it will draw audiences to the big screen. (Bieber, for instance, found his fame on YouTube, had Never Say Never released in theaters, and then returned to YouTube with Seasons, which is a YouTube original, as is This Is Paris.)

That the subjects of these movies are mostly musicians makes sense, given how much more captivating a tour or performances interspersed with the mundanity of life is to watch than the alternatives. (All of these films are also usually named after their hit songs.) The projects themselves flirt with different levels of reveal depending, often, on the intent of the celebrity in question. To this day, Part of Me is still cited for one particular moment: when Perry is seen in a deeply emotional state over her relationship with now ex-husband Russell Brand as she is preparing to perform in front of thousands. Crying but moments before, she rises up onto the stage, her face suddenly shifting, almost clown-level scary, into a beaming smile, the audience at home in on the secret, the audience in front of the stage none the wiser. By contrast, Bieber's Seasons appears to serve entirely as a narrative about how strong his new marriage with his wife Haley is, with nary a mention of the name "Selena Gomez" in all six parts.

There are other films in the celebrity documentary oeuvre that are more clear-eyed about their subjects, and notably, they’re about people in the final stages of their lives: A Piece of Work, about Joan Rivers, or Bright Lights, on Carrie Fisher and her mother Debbie Reynolds, or Quincy on Quincy Jones. Though the latter two were made by friends or family members of the subjects, none were produced by their main characters, and as such, remain more formally true documentaries, however much we can classify something as such. Though Hilton did not produce this doc—she was approached by the production company to do it, and all parties say she relinquished control of her own story—This Is Paris also sits somewhere in this murky realm: It's framed as revealing but, because of the involvement of Hilton and her acolytes, is possibly incapable of going too deep.

“During the editing process when we were watching the final film, there was so many things [where] I was like ‘Oh my god, I cannot have the world see this, like we need to cut that part out,’” Hilton, who has been featured and starred in numerous reality TV and documentary ventures previously, told Variety. “But after talking with [producers] and them explaining to me why it’s important to keep all this in, I just said, ‘You know what, this is real. This is who I am. And I might as well show the world that, [rather than] showing the person I invented who really isn’t me.’”

The film, which is directed by Alexandra Dean, shifts very slowly, like a child enjoying a leisurely afternoon with a kaleidoscope, beginning with the audience learning that the Hilton we know is all an act, right down to her baby voice. Hilton is never not performing, and even in front of Dean, who was ostensibly hired to capture the real her, she has a hard time not walking and talking like her character.

Much of the first half of the movie functions as you might expect, exploring the downfalls of a life lived in public; Hilton describing two fans who have flown 30 hours to see her for what appears to be one night as friends, and some of the only genuine people she knows; her actual close friends, besides her sister, have chyrons that suggest they also work for her. While her life looks beautiful, she claims to not have taken a proper vacation in 15 years and when finally on one in Mykonos, her favorite place, she has trouble relaxing and cannot get off her phone. She is always being filmed, even when she is not—it feels as if she must watch herself through the lens of an HD third-party at all times. In one scene with her sister, Hilton shifts across the floor to be closer to her, a move that reads less like she is looking for the physical closeness, and more so that they can both be in the same shot.

In the second half, the rest of Hilton's life is more clearly unwound. There is a necessary rehash of the "sex tape" that has now been rightly reframed as revenge porn. We learn that it is the years she spent in disciplinary schools, where she was abused, that led to who she is now. She says that the tape never would have happened had it not been for the abuse—something she has never fully discussed with anyone, even her family. It is the reason, we are told, that she has nightmares constantly and insomnia, why many of her romantic relationships have failed or have been abusive, and it’s partly why she is such a workaholic. "I will not stop until I make a billion dollars," Hilton says. "I just don’t want to worry. I don’t ever have to worry about anything."

Her father does not appear in the documentary (he is described as private) and Nicky makes it clear she has only shown up at her sister's request. One climactic moment, when Paris reveals the extent of the abuse to her mother, Kathy, is so quiet, it’s difficult to grasp what you’ve just witnessed. Others, like Paris reuniting with her former classmates to work through their shared trauma, feel equally uncertain. Are these meetings happening because of the doc, or because of Paris, or both?

The tension between her fame and herself is, as it always is in these movies, constant. "It almost became like a blueprint to become famous," Hilton says of the "sex tape," which she is resentful of: "I didn’t need to do that. I always had a plan."

She continues on, saying, "My grandmother always called me Grace Kelly, Marilyn Monroe. I always wanted to live up to her. That was my dream; it was going to come true. I just felt that when that happened it took it away from me." She does not seem to realize that those women were also much more than shiny exteriors.

For the viewer, there is never enough information, and it leaves one uncomfortably thirsty. The camera flits across Hilton's life. We are told DJing is Hilton's "zen" moment, that she has been working on a set for a music festival for ages, that she is upset with people thinking she isn't really doing the work. But how she learned to DJ, or how she practices her craft, aren’t explored to reset that narrative. The moment when she reveals a massive stack of laptops and the information that she gets a new one every time she ends a relationship to protect herself from former partners snooping echoes with both deep sadness and the realization that she is exactly so rich that she can keep a pile of unused machines worth several thousands dollars sitting in her closet. At one point, Hilton is asked if she feels responsible for an obsession young women have about their looks. She affirms that she does, but the topic is then dropped and never returned to.

We watch to see what’s there behind the scenes. But it’s the same story no matter the subject. Is Paris Hilton public or is she private? Do we care more about the trappings of her wealth, or her internal pain, or are they one and the same? The intent of this documentary, as with the others, ends up confused—is it to have people watch and feel empathy? To be moved? To garner acclaim for the subject? To change the narrative of this person, who has become purely brand? Or to make us feel all the more fascinated and in need of more?

Hilton might not trust the world. But it's also hard for an audience to trust someone who says they have never stopped performing.

Follow Kate Dries on Twitter.

This article originally appeared on VICE US.

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889pmgKate DriesLeslie Horn Celebrityparis hiltonJustin Bieberdocumentariesreality televisionkaty perrytaylor swiftBeyoncé
<![CDATA[A Brief History of Logan Paul Getting His Ass Kicked]]>https://www.vice.com/en_ca/article/k7qvgy/logan-paul-boxing-getting-punched-floyd-mayweather-fightFri, 18 Sep 2020 19:13:53 GMTDuring a midwinter appearance on Revolt TV's Drink Champs, former professional boxer Floyd Mayweather casually said that he didn't train at all for his fight against then-UFC Lightweight Champion Conor McGregor. "All I did was pushups and situps. That's all I did," Mayweather said. "Pushups and situps, box a few times, hit the bag a few times [...] Sometimes I wouldn't go to the gym for a week."

Mayweather, who won the fight with a 10th round TKO, said that he didn't even watch any tape of McGregor's previous fights. "My thing is this: I don't have to watch any footage of a fight because I'm Floyd Mayweather," he said. "Everybody's got to watch me."

If that's true, then he could probably skip the pushups, forget the gym even existed, and still be fine against Logan Paul. According to TMZ Sports, Paul is trying to set up a fight against Mayweather, the undefeated (50-0) eleven-time five-division world champion. Paul, a YouTuber who is basically what would happen if a drawing of a dick on a school binder got its wish to become a real boy, told the outlet that he "can't say shit right now" about whether or not the bout is happening. The Fighting News' Mike Feinberg, though, insists that Mayweather has "officially" signed a contract to get in the ring.

The fight is expected to be an exhibition and not a sanctioned fight, which means that it wouldn't affect either man's record and, in a bit of good news for Paul's prefrontal cortex, it also means that the fighters are allowed to wear larger-than-normal gloves and protective headgear. The upcoming fight between Mike Tyson and Roy Jones Jr. has been classified as an exhibition, as was Mayweather's last fight against undefeated kickboxer Tenshin Nasukawa.

It took Mayweather just over two minutes to knock Nasukawa down three times, which was enough for a first round TKO. Most of us have struggled harder to open a jar of store-bought marinara than Mayweather did getting that knockout—so good luck, Logan!

"The level that Mayweather has reached in the game is obviously top tier," Nicco Diaz, a New York City-based boxing coach told VICE. "You don't get to that level easily. That's decades of work he's put in, and he never really got out of shape. Even with what may be a bit of rust, his ring IQ and the fact that he's stayed in good form, he could win that fight [against Paul] tonight."

Paul has had one amateur fight and one professional bout as a cruiserweight. He fought fellow YouTuber KSI both times, and he didn't win either one. Vox described their first fight, a majority draw, as a "flawlessly executed circus of bullshit." The second, which took place 14 months later, was more of the same, except this time Paul lost.

Although KSI dominated the first three rounds, Paul fucked up a good fourth round by hitting KSI while he was on the mat. He was docked two points, which was enough to give KSI a split-decision win after six rounds. (Paul appealed the points deduction with the California State Athletic Commission, but his appeal was denied. "I quite literally only lost because of my actions," he said in a rare moment of self-awareness.)

As satisfying as it is to see Paul get punched in the face (the main appeal of the recent remake of Valley Girl is that it features Paul getting a blow to the nose), he hasn't boxed since last November. According to Sporting News, he got "knocked out cold" during a spring training session with UFC fighter Paulo Costa. He also spent several months trying to schedule… something with Antonio Brown, the embattled former NFL wide receiver. The fight never went beyond social media shit-talk, a threatened lawsuit from Brown, and Paul's truly unfortunate diss track. ("You ain't caught a pass in like so long/Dropped from your team, boy you're done for.")

"It's not happening," Paul said in the spring. "He DM'd me, and he said something like, 'I'm expecting a national apology [for the track].' And I said, 'I'm sorry you're a bitch.' I really am, that dude needs help."

Earlier this month, Paul issued a press release, teasing his return to the ring in a "major event" that could take place sometime this winter, so he might've been laying the groundwork for this whole Mayweather thing. It also means that he has several months to, you know, maybe realize that it might be a terrible idea.

Some boxing insiders certainly think it is. "It’s scary how bad Logan’s stamina is, and it might be a mistake for him to fight someone like Mayweather," Boxing News 24 wrote. "Logan’s gas tank was running on empty after one round [against KSI]. It was pathetic."

WBC Silver Lightweight Champion Ryan Garcia doesn't seem to think Paul has a chance either. "Logan Paul is fighting Floyd Mayweather," he tweeted. "Prayers going up for Logan." And KSI just thinks it's all bullshit. "My thoughts on Floyd Mayweather vs Logan Paul," he wrote, attaching a picture of a cap.

Diaz, who said he watched both of Paul's previous fights, was slightly more measured in his assessment. "Honestly, I see zero chance for him with one of the top, if not the top pound-for-pound fighters," he said. "I think Logan will demand more of Mayweather's attention than Nashukawa, but if Floyd goes back to his aggressive ways, he could definitely get him out by the first round. It's all about what kind of fight this becomes. If Logan comes out and tries to box, he loses easily. If he tries to make it a dog fight, he may survive a bit longer."

Either way, he should probably wear the headgear.

This article originally appeared on VICE US.

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k7qvgyJelisa CastrodaleHilary PollackSportsLogan Paulyoutubersfloyd mayweatherboxing
<![CDATA[How Michael Imperioli Became Instagram's Favorite Punk Intellectual]]>https://www.vice.com/en_ca/article/7kp3ya/how-michael-imperioli-became-the-go-to-intellectual-punk-thinker-of-instagramWed, 16 Sep 2020 12:58:58 GMTThere's a lot to Michael Imperioli, so much so that it's hard to decide which of his eclectic interests stand out the most. The former Sopranos star has become a popular cult figure on Instagram, not just waxing on about behind-the-scenes details from his time on the critically acclaimed and culturally beloved HBO series, but also about politics, Buddhism (his chosen religion), COVID-19, his new online meditation practice, Hollywood, his favorite post-punk bands, and all manner of other topics. You could probably throw a dart into a box of Trivial Pursuit: Cool Punk Shit Edition™ and he could go off about whatever subject it lands on. So naturally, we talk about everything over a few hours on Zoom.

He answered my call sitting in front of a red velvet curtain in the office of his Santa Barbara home, where he's lived for the past eight years with his wife, Victoria, and their three kids. As a soon-to-be empty nester, the 54-year-old actor/writer/musician/multi-hyphenate is preparing to leave the sunny beaches of California and return to his hometown of New York City. "This is a beautiful place," he said. "But New York is kind of the creative source of a lot of my work. So I need to be there… Seems like a time when a lot of people are leaving New York, but that's okay."

Imperioli has plenty of personal projects that he could promote: There's Talking Sopranos, his Sopranos podcast with co-star Steve "Bobby Baccalà" Schirripa; the aforementioned meditation practice he holds online for hundreds of people worldwide; or his eclectic taste in music, but he's talked plenty about that recently. He released his story "Yasiri" this week as part of The Nicotine Chronicles, a collection of short stories centered around cigarette smoking. (We do talk about that, which I'll get to later.) But mostly, there was one big thing I wanted to know about the man who gifted pop culture with the deeply conflicted and thick-browed character Christopher Moltisanti: What radicalized you?

"Part of it was living in Greenwich Village in the 80s and early 90s," he answered, alluding to the HIV/AIDS epidemic of the era. "Just seeing people die and basically the government not giving a shit."

Imperioli grew up in Mount Vernon, a blue collar Italian-American neighborhood outside of New York City. "I didn't know much about the world till I got to Manhattan, and then I really wasn't sure what my politics were until I started going to acting school and meeting other people who had read good stuff and had different perspectives on the world. Being in New York at that time period was very formative toward my opinions."

"If you're going to be a fan of mine, watch my stuff, I'd rather you know who I am than not. And if you don't like it, I don't really give a fuck."

He recalled visiting his friend Ron at St. Vincent's Hospital in Greenwich Village, which was "ground zero of the AIDS epidemic in New York City," as he put it. "Visiting him during his last few months, and just seeing not just him, but people just [dying]..." he said. "It wasn't just the government and the religious right not giving a shit, but demonizing people who are getting sick, and thinking that it was just punishment for their lifestyle... There was just such vehement prejudice and bias against people who were dying. It was horrifying."

Witnessing that level of death and discrimination—then, and now with COVID and the ongoing treatment of marginalized communities—has given Imperioli zero patience for hateful bullshit. Since he joined Instagram late last year, Imperioli has been extremely vocal about his leftist politics, calling out systemic racism, transphobia, and homophobia, and sharing his progressive views to his more than 72,000 followers. They don't always take it well; after sharing a Pride Day post, he was bombarded with homophobic comments from people who didn't seem to understand that he, Michael Imperioli, is not actually Christopher Moltisanti.

"[They were like], ‘How could you Chrissy! Tony would be spinning in his [grave].’ Weird shit like that," he said. "If you're going to be a fan of mine, watch my stuff, I'd rather you know who I am than not. And if you don't like it, I don't really give a fuck."

This is why he removes political posts from his feed after a day or so, as a means to cleanse his timeline of the negativity that often infiltrates the zen garden he's created on the platform. He likens the deletions to a ritualistic burning.

"You can't really engage in those debates," he said. "Someone said something very eloquent to me. They said, 'A lot of the Trump people, they're like fans of a football team. No matter what you say about their team, no matter how bad they suck that season, they're gonna love their team.'"

Imperioli's Buddhist leanings prove useful in the face of considerable backlash from his more conservative fans, as well as during his moments of reflection about why he chooses to share political content on his social media. He recently posted a joke ridiculing Trump's nomination for the Nobel Peace Prize with the zinger that Mitch McConnell was also nominated for Sexiest Man Alive. Then, he thought about his intentions with that post.

"Yeah, to humiliate Mitch McConnell, or am I really trying to make a political point while the United States is falling apart and burning, and there's violence all the time and unrest?" he said. "My ridiculing Mitch McConnell's looks, yeah, it's easy, but do I really want to do that? It makes the argument a little less serious. To someone who loves Trump and maybe loves Mitch McConnell—which I don't know how that's possible—they [would] think I'm a dick rather than just a liberal freak, which I prefer to be called by those people."

So he took the post down.

He uses social media to share not just his political musings, but also the artists, music, cultural figures, books, and Buddhist teachings that have influenced him—all of which he addresses without pretense; wild to see, really, in a space where even newborns have a hashtag and regular schmoes obsess over the vibe of their page. Imperioli just likes to honor and discuss what he thinks is good and interesting—be it an indie film, a shoegaze band, or a poet—without too much concern for aesthetics. "If I could turn people on to a cool movie or cool band that they wouldn't have heard of, that makes me really happy," he said. "I'm kind of surprised that people are that interested [in my life] really."

From the quick growth of his following, it's clear that they are, and he's curated a place to share his radical world while removing himself from the pitfalls that come with life online—a feat for a normal person, but an astonishing achievement for a celebrity.

Imperioli has seemingly mastered a tranquil perspective on life, one in which he examines the intentions and purpose of each decision and statement he makes. His voice is soothing, even when he's punctuating a carefully considered thought with a "fuck" or "shit" in his New York accent, with the energy of our conversations conjuring the mood of a combination yoga studio and dollar slice spot. Even over Zoom, Imperioli carries himself with a gentle and calming confidence that makes holding a conversation natural and easy. His careful choice of words doesn't feel rooted in the typical celebrity "I don't wanna get canceled" way, but more as the result of a lot of work on his spiritual self.

Imperioli came to Buddhism in 2007, the same year The Sopranos ended. Despite having found success in his career—as well as opened a theater with his wife, had children, and achieved many other typical markings of fulfillment—Imperioli was "still engaging in a lot of self destructive behaviors and mental attitudes" rooted in what he calls "dissatisfaction," as he realized he was "facing things about myself that I felt lacking."

"I think it was kind of a perfect storm of reaching a degree of success in my business that I had worked for for [20 or 30] years and realizing that there was a spiritual component to being human that I hadn't quite addressed," he said.

Buddhism called to him "as a method of dealing with your own mind." Through Buddhism, he was able to gain a "perspective on the nature of reality," ask existential questions, and have "methods to explore those questions." It's this intentional thinking that he brings to his mediation webinars, which he began in August and have become just another thing that has made Imperioli such a fascinating figure among not only fans of The Sopranos, but a wider array of pop culture spectators. Any time he's come up in my conversations with friends and colleagues, someone mentions—without fail—an aspect of his life that they found surprising: "Did you know he does meditation classes now?" "I only recently discovered that Michael Imperioli has fantastic music taste." "He actually plays in a really rad post-punk band!" "Oh! His book was pretty good. Did you know he writes?"

Imperioli is a seasoned writer; he co-wrote the screenplay for the 1999 film Summer of Sam, as well as a few episodes of The Sopranos and the indie film The Hungry Ghosts. In 2018, he released his debut novel The Perfume Burned His Eyes, which he's currently trying to adapt for the screen. And now, he brings his social justice sensibilities to "Yasiri," an allegory on the evils of colonization that follows a young Puerto Rican seer who uses tobacco leaves to perform santeria. When a greedy white man asks her to perform a ritual that will rid him of his supposedly lazy and greedy investment partner, she sees right through his lies using her intuitive power. He based the story on historical readings from Christopher Columbus' journal, as well as texts on indigenous spirituality and santeria and his own observations while living in Puerto Rico, where wealthy Americans would establish residency in order to avoid taxes. It was a loophole that benefited the wealthy while doing little for the people of Puerto Rico, who even as residents of an American territory are too often denied the resources afforded stateside.

"I'm not trying to write a story about the subtleties of humanity," he said. "It's meant to be like black and white, good and evil."

"If I could turn people on to a cool movie or cool band that they wouldn't have heard of, that makes me really happy. I'm kind of surprised that people are that interested [in my life] really."

This fixation on justice and self-awareness creates the compelling aura that now surrounds Imperioli, a paradoxical persona for someone who was pigeonholed as the mafioso he famously played on television. "Perception-wise, I think It's been a constant in my life," he said. "I was kind of dumb enough to think I've already gotten [all those things about me] across to people, but I definitely had not."

Through Instagram and his podcast, Imperioli has been able to reestablish control over his public image, share his passions, and introduce the many sides of himself—the radical thinker, the punk connoisseur, the spiritual seeker, the author, the artist—to a wider audience that may have once only thought of him as 'Christophaaa,' Tony Soprano's bratty, drug-addicted sidekick and Adriana's abusive, ambitious boyfriend. For Imperioli, this generosity with his time and transparency of self is intrinsic to his core beliefs. "When people ask for things like [meditation guidance,] if you're in a position to give it to them, I think you have an obligation to," he said.

That deliberate openness has made his re-emergence into the pop culture landscape a pleasant surprise in these weird times.


Speaking of Imperioli's impeccable taste in music, he was kind enough to curate a playlist for VICE. The playlist, which he titled "Love, Death and Divas," features some of his favorite songs dealing with, well, love, death, and divas.

Tracklist (in very particular order):

Death, "Keep on Knocking'"
Michael Imperioli: A band so far ahead of their time it is insane....and sinfully overlooked. This song always makes me happy.

Violent Femmes, "Add it Up"
Perfect. Period.

Dinosaur Jr., "Pick Me Up"
Three-and-a-half minutes into this song begins the greatest guitar solo in rock history, barring none. J. Mascis channelling the spirits through his Jazzmaster; three minutes of sonic bliss, infinity and ecstasy.

Annette Peacock, "The Succubus"
My favorite song by this incredible visionary, innovator, and mystic. It was used to great effect in Cabaret Maxime, a film I starred in and produced that was released in early 2020.

L.A. Witch, "Kill My Baby Tonite"
Saw them live a few years ago at Jesse Malin's BERLIN club in NYC and was knocked out.

The Raincoats, "In Love"
The fact that I can listen to this song 20 times in an afternoon makes no sense, and it makes perfect sense.

Hennessey, "Sleeping Beauty"
Caught them live at BERLIN last year. Pay close attention. I expect much greatness to come.

Belanova, "Rosa Pastel"
Fifteen years ago, I heard this song in a restaurant and had to ask what it was. For reasons unbeknownst to me, I became obsessed with the tune, and still have no idea why. It's as sugary sweet as the title ("pink cake" in English), as poppy as pop gets; nothing I usually gravitate towards, and yet here it is, and I still think it's fantastic.

Kinokoteikoku, "WHIREPOOL"
The pinnacle of Japanese shoegaze for me.

Fanny, "You're the One"
Another criminally overlooked band from the early 70s. I love their sound, their passion and their whole vibe. Would have loved to have caught them live. Check out their videos, their spirit is so pure and beautiful.

Gil Scott-Heron, "The Bottle"
Absolute classic.

Cesaría Evora, "Sodade"
"Cize" was without a doubt one of the most soulful singers in history.

Hayedeh, "Shanehayat"
This diva was the most popular Persian singer of her time. The song and the way she sings it I have always found incredibly haunting.

Alex Zaragoza is a senior staff writer at VICE.

This article originally appeared on VICE US.

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7kp3yaAlex ZaragozaHilary PollackPROFILESMichael ImperioliThe Sopranosiamavoter