The VICE Guide to the 2016 Election: Bun B's Wisconsin Dispatch, Part 2: Ted Cruz and the Women Who Love Him

Bun B in Madison, Wisconsin. All photos by Abazar Khayami

Wednesday started off kinda shitty. When I woke up this morning, I made a serious mistake of watching The Today Show interview Donald Trump. He just can't help himself: When he's not lying he's simply evading questions altogether. It's way too early in the morning to hear someone lie so fucking bad. But I'm not complaining—I've had way worse days before.

It's our second day in Wisconsin, and the first stop is in Madison, the state capital, where Texas Senator Ted Cruz is rolling out his "Women for Cruz" coalition. The issue of how the Republican candidates deal with women has been deep in the news cycle this week, thanks to the recent wife-bashing that's been going on in the primary race. It started before the Utah caucuses, when an anti-Trump super PAC sent out a nude photo of Melania Trump from an old GQ story. Trump blamed the incident on Cruz, and retweeted a not-too-flattering photo of Ted's wife, Heidi. Since then, Cruz has been loudly defending his wife's integrity, in the process perhaps winning over some female voters. Which brings us to Wednesday's campaign event, at a Sheraton Hotel in Madison, aimed specifically at conservative women.

As we walk into the lobby to pick up our press credentials, the first thing I see is a crazy-ass poster of Ted Cruz, shirtless and covered in tattoos with a cigarette dangling from his mouth. The campaign is passing out the posters to supporters, and I spot an older woman holding one. She tells me that she hears the cigarette is fake. God bless you, hun.

Photo by Bun B

The vibe here is completely different than the one in Janesville on Tuesday, where I went to a Trump rally. First of all, the security is almost nonexistent. There are no metal detectors, no SWAT team on the roof, no Secret Service wanding reporters or emptying out their bags. Getting into Cruz's event is as easy as one, two—no need for three. Some of this might have to do with protesters—there aren't any here. Apparently no one wants to protest Ted Cruz. That's not to say he doesn't have detractors; they just don't feel the need to congregate outside the Sheraton and argue with the ladies coming out to support him today. Trump is holding a rally in Green Bay, so Wisconsin's protesters have bigger fish to fry today.

The other difference is the music. At Cruz events, the tracks are all country or southern rock; when we walk into the Sheraton conference room, Kid Rock is singing "Born Free." Eventually, though, the room goes silent and Rebecca Hagelin, the national co-chair for Women for Cruz, comes out to introduce the event. She talks a lot about how conservatives want what's best for their families; about how parents, not the government, should decide how children are educated; about how terrorists are walking free around the United States; and how the government should start monitoring them already. Then she introduces the man who "gets it": Ted Cruz.

Ted Cruz

He enters to a round of polite applause, smiles that really awkward smile of his, and goes into a story about how his young daughter hates politics. Cruz, of course, claims to agree, but adds that the current election is "bigger than politics." Then the pandering begins, with a line about how women are not a special interest group, and that "all issues are women's issues." But Cruz himself is just the warm-up act today. After a short speech, he bows out, introducing three women who will make his case for him: His mother Eleanor, his wife, and Carly Fiorina, the one-time 2016 candidate who dropped out after the New Hampshire primary and endorsed Cruz.

The audience is invited to sit back and watch, while these ladies talk about Ted Cruz. It's a strange setup, more like a political version of This Is Your Life than a real campaign rally. His mom talks about the candidate's youth, which, according to his campaign narrative, was spent memorizing the US Constitution and speaking at Rotary Clubs. But her general message is one that most people can get behind: that moms should pay attention to their children, nurture their gifts, and allow them to express themselves. That's a good mom right there. Mine did that.

Heidi Cruz

Heidi then speaks about her family's Christian faith, and how she wants to instill in her two daughters a desire to make the world a better place. She's a confident speaker, and her points are clear and concise—I can see why Trump might see her as a threat. Later, Fiorina talks about the pain of losing a child to drugs, and its a powerful moment, a glimpse of humanity in the political circus. The conversation seems to be resonating in this room, and while there probably won't be any juicy sound bytes for the press to mainline, maybe politics shouldn't always be about that.

After the show is over, I talk to Hagelin about whether, as a conservative woman, she's offended by the sexist undertones of the current Republican presidential race. Unsurprisingly, she is, but she adds that what troubles her more than the sexist tone of the race itself is the fact that more conservative men aren't offended.

The crowd at the Women for Cruz event

In the afternoon, we head back to Milwaukee, for the last stop of the day. And this one is more my style. The homie G-Eazy is in town on his tour, and it's just my luck. He has a crazy fan base, and they'll be going apeshit at his show here tonight. Plus the homie Kevin Kellett, one of the illest barbers I've ever met, is here with him, so I can get a fresh cut tonight too. And you know what happens in a barber shop: Chopping up game!

Kevin's from New York, which is holding its own primaries on April 19, the week after Wisconsin's contests on Tuesday. He wonders how Trump, with all his anti-immigrant and anti-Muslim rhetoric, will play in America's melting pot. He tells me he likes Bernie Sanders for the same reason he believes people like Trump: The candidate says what people want to hear, regardless of whether or not it's achievable. I get that. Kev's always come across as a sharp guy, and his insight is interesting. Plus, his blade game is no joke. It doesn't take long for me to look like a new man. Good looking, my G.

Later, I talk to the rap James Dean himself, Bay Area's own G-Eazy. He comes from a liberal family, but says his own political opinions aren't fully formed, so he doesn't mix music and politics. The people at his show are voters, though, and when I talk to some of them, I'm surprised to find a mix of Democrats and Republicans, with a couple of independents mixed in. Wisconsin is not a lackadaisical state, politically. There doesn't really seem to much of a middle ground when it comes to political involvement here: People who vote in Wisconsin are not scared to be vocal about their choices—and people who don't vote are happy to tell you why.

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We Made the Rounds with a Whippits Dealer

This article originally appeared on VICE UK.

It's hard to remember a time before the hiss and pop of nitrous oxide dispensers—or whippits—soundtracked every British social gathering. Before groups of rough men in North Face jackets offering three balloons for $5 made up 25 percent of all attendees at any given dance music festival. One thing's for sure: It was a simpler time, back when drugs were drugs; "gas" was what Americans called petrol; and NOS was what made Vin Diesel's car go faster.

Now, laughing gas is the second most popular drug in Britain (behind weed)—probably due to the fact it's available outside most nightclubs and inside basically any house party with a conscientious host. Daily Mail scare stories about Coronation Street stars "indulging in FASHIONABLE new drug HIPPY CRACK" presumably don't hurt either, with readers realizing it's relatively harmless stuff and deciding to try it out for themselves.

The cottage industry that's sprung up around NOS is unique in the way it falls between legitimate business and old fashioned, meet-me-in-that-side-street-in-half-an-hour drug dealing. The mark-ups are huge—depending on the bulk of your order, you can flip individual canisters for nearly 1,000 percent profit—so it's no wonder scores of budding entrepreneurs are getting involved; type the name of any major city into Facebook, followed by the word "gas," "NOS," "whip," or "cream," and you'll find a host of small businesses delivering laughing gas around the clock.

These businesses use social media to advertise their product, making tongue-in-cheek allusions to being innocent catering-supply companies selling chargers for whipped cream dispensers, circumventing the legal gray area NOS falls into: It's not illegal to possess or inhale it, but it is illegal to sell it to anyone under 18 if you think he or she is going to inhale it.

Type in "Sheffield," and one of those kicker words, and you'll likely end up on a page advertised as the city's largest and cheapest supplier of cream chargers. The business is run by my friend Mark, who I've known since school, back when he used to hawk out-of-date Mars bars on the field at lunchtime. Now, he delivers colorless gas to the students, stoners, and assorted burnouts of Sheffield, who know him universally as the "Gasman."

Up on the roof of Mark's apartment building, he's telling me that he's "not just in this for the love of NOS." A business management graduate, he comes off like a fairly typical young entrepreneur; an Apprentice contestant you wouldn't actually mind going for a beer with.

"I tend to do a sponsored Facebook post most afternoons," he says, his eyes darting between the two iPhones and the iPad laid out in front of him. "I used to spend hours trying to write funny posts, but I realized that just posting a picture of some canisters with the phone number does the job just as well. People want gas; they just need to be reminded."

His system obviously works: Mark's gas-phone barely stops buzzing throughout my entire time with him, and at one point, he leans over to show me the 786 unread messages, 514 missed calls, and 224 voicemails he's accumulated in the past week or so.

Half an hour into the delivery run, the incessant rattle and clinking of hundreds of NOS canisters is beginning to grate on me. Mark's obviously used to it, hurtling around Sheffield at a speed that doesn't seem legal as he chats about the status of his business.

"Officially, I'm selling whipped cream canisters," he says. "They're not for human consumption—that's what it says on my website. Can I guarantee that nobody who buys from me 'misuses' them? Unfortunately not, but I don't sell it for that purpose."

Under the current provisions of the UK's proposed Psychoactive Substances Act—which aims to ban all "legal highs"—Mark's business, at best, would remain in a legal limbo area, placed under heavy scrutiny, or, at worst, land him up to seven years in prison. That said, the bill was supposed to be passed into law on April 6, but has now been delayed while the government works out what it's doing, after a number of setbacks, so the legislation could still change.

Either way, Mark's decided to get out while the going's good, as he doesn't see much of a future for the venture post-ban.

"It's a good time to get out, really," he says. "I've done OK for myself, but business is in decline anyway; more people are wise to the fact that you can order NOS online for half the price. The ban will put people like me off, but I don't see how they can stop fucking Amazon."

It's 9:47 PM, and I'm sitting among the many boxes of NOS in the back of Mark's car to allow his customers space in the front seat. We've just dropped 14 boxes of canisters off to two girls outside Sheffield's main student halls. They came out in dressing gowns, and upon seeing me and my camera, they thrust the money through the open car window before scurrying back inside, ignoring my—in hindsight, probably quite creepy—request for a "quick photo."

Our next customer, the host of a nearby house party, stops and chats with us for a while. He addresses Mark as "Gasman" three times over the course of our brief conversation. It doesn't sound like he's being ironic.

Though most of the deliveries tonight are to students, Mark isn't without his more mature customers. As we navigate the many one-way streets and dodgy junctions of Sheffield city center, Mark catches up on his voicemails. A middle-aged woman's voice comes over the speaker. She identifies herself as "Jelly Bean," explaining that she's lost her iPhone, so when Mark's on his way, he should give her a call on the landline.

"She and her husband usually order three boxes maybe every other Saturday night," Mark explains. "Apparently they drop the kids round at her sister's, come home, open a bottle of wine, and balloon the night away."

As the night progresses, I notice the various ways people go about their business with Mark. Compared to other transactions, where the customer-vendor relationship is much more established, buying laughing gas is relatively new territory for most people. Some treat Mark like a friendly drug dealer: non-threatening, but someone to be respected. They invite him into their parties and overuse the word "mate." Others simply hand over the cash and take the gas without exchanging any more than basic pleasantries—the kind of inane shit you mutter to a pizza guy or a bus driver.

Our last stop of the night takes us way, way out into Sheffield's suburbs, to a punter who's offered to pay double the normal price to cover delivery. We're met at the end of the drive by Dan, who is shirtless and has pupils the size of a watch face. He invites me into his back garden to share in his purchase and pose for a picture.

There's an awkward moment as he stands there topless, shivering in the cold March night and fumbling with the dispenser, neither of us talking. I look through the conservatory and into Dan's living room; nobody's there. We finish our balloons, and without an explanation as to why he's at home, possibly alone and shirtless at 3AM on a Saturday morning, Dan goes back inside.

NOS, when used safely, is pretty harmless stuff. There were 17 deaths associated with laughing gas between 2006 and 2012, but in almost every case, the deaths were caused by asphyxiation due to the method people had used to inhale the gas (plastic bags), not because of the gas itself.

Professor David Nutt, neuropsychopharmacologist and the former UK drugs czar, argues NOS is "exceptionally safe" given the number of people who use it. "I mean, you can kill yourself, obviously," he told the BBC. "If you breathe nothing but nitrous for ten minutes, you will die, but I don't think there's any evidence that nitrous kills people if you use it recreationally."

How exactly the government is going to legislate against a substance that's arguably less harmful than a pint of beer is yet to be decided. Why exactly they want to ban it is something we'll probably never know.

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The VICE Guide to Right Now: Smoking Weed Makes You a Loser, Says Study

Photo via Flickr user Blind Nomad

Read: Can You Tell Which of These Ten-Year-Olds Took Cannabis Oil Today?

If you needed another reason to quit blazing other than cops, sketchy-ass hippies, and crippling paranoia, here's one for you: Regular weed use makes you poorer and less happy, according to a study released this week.

The report from researchers at UC Davis and Duke University report claims that the more you toke, the more likely you are to be broke—pot smokers who indulge four times or more a week eventually "ended up in a lower social class than their parents, with lower-paying, less skilled, and less prestigious jobs than those who were not regular cannabis smokers."

"Our study found that regular cannabis users experienced downward social mobility and more financial problems—such as troubles with debt and cash flow—than those who did not," Magdalena Cerda, an associate professor of emergency medicine and leader of the study, said in a statement that accompanied the report.

Funded by the National Institute on Drug Abuse, the researcher's data comes from a project that has been tracking 1,000 pot smokers in Dunedin, New Zealand, for decades, which must be tedious work. Naturally, some people object to the findings, since it's hard to control for all the different variables that might affect people over the course of their lives. Another criticism is that weed is still illegal in New Zealand, and maybe some of the problems these people have had can be chalked up to the stigma and stress of breaking the law constantly, even if you never get caught.

But the broadest possible reading of the study is probably unassailable: If you do a drug a bunch for years and years, it probably will fuck you up.

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How Can I Get My Parents to Stop Talking About Death?

Death is creepy. Image via Imgur

I called my dad on his birthday recently.

I opened with, "Hey dad. Happy birthday!" to which he replied, "Who is this?"

He was being facetious (I'm his only daughter), needling me because I don't get in touch often enough. Momentarily, I felt guilty. He lives in Vancouver, and I'm in Toronto, and I know I should pick up the phone more, but even on his 71st birthday, I procrastinated until late into the evening. Within minutes, I remembered why.

My dad always wants to talk about dying.

He talks about it the same way other parents discuss politics, or their dogs, or the latest episode of Ellen. My dad likes chatting about all those things too, but he can hop from Donald Trump to where he wants to be buried without batting an eye. It's not something he does out of fear, either. It's more that, realistically, it's the biggest event he has left to look forward to, so he thinks about it a lot.

On this day, his birthday, he told me he wants to have his body cremated and his ashes scattered in a river in India, a place he scouted on his recent and first-ever trip there. At first, as I always do, I tried to brush the conversation aside with a few "mmhmms" and "yeah sures." But he wouldn't drop it. He started spelling out the names of the river and the temple that sits on it, and asked if I would be willing to take his remains there upon his demise.

"You'll love it," he promised, as, on my end, I grudgingly took notes about his plan in a Google doc titled "Dad's ashes."

Then, just as I was hoping we could switch topics, he informed me he'd paid off two grave plots in Vancouver. Since he now has his heart set on India as a final resting place, he offered me one of them.

"You can have it when you die," he said, totally matter-of-fact. (In the meantime, I'll rent it to some poor UBC students for like $1,200 a month, so they can pitch a tent on it rather than trying to find reasonably priced housing near the school.)

It was the first time he dragged my own mortality into one of these conversations, and it startled me. I don't remember how I responded, but in my head, I was thinking WTF? in a furious and agitated loop.

Truth is, I don't need to be dwelling on death anymore than I already do. Even though I'm in my 20s, I think about it all the time. Not so much the act of dying—though sometimes when I take a break from work to get coffee or lunch, I visualize getting hit by a car, and on occasion, when I light up a cigarette, I wonder when I'm going to get cancer, something I'm convinced is an inevitability. But more so, it's the idea of being dead—of ceasing to exist—that haunts me.

I guess everyone goes through a death phase, and I'm not sure when my fixation started. I remember asking my mom about dying when I was really little, and her telling me it wasn't something I'd have to worry about for a long time. My maternal grandma, whom I adored, died of cancer when I was 14. I was old enough to be sad, though I couldn't grasp the gravity or permanence of death.

My grandpa's death, in 2011, hit harder. A couple family members and I were with him when he took his final breaths in a hospice in Vancouver.

Though very sad, it was peaceful, and I thought the experience would make me more comfortable with death. Instead, and despite being exposed to many tragic deaths as a reporter, I've grown increasingly anxious.

When I contemplate the fact that we're all going to die, I start to question my life choices. Why am I not backpacking Europe right now, or trying heroin for fun, or having indiscriminate sex all the time? Or maybe I should be reproducing in order to leave some kind of legacy. Death makes all of our morals and values—great career, marriage, house, kids, accumulation of stuff—seem trite and pointless.

Long ago, I abandoned almost all of the Catholic beliefs on which I was raised, but the concept of an afterlife is one I've remained agnostic about. Perhaps, if I had grown up atheist, never expecting anything but nothingness to come after death, the concept might be easier to accept. Instead, I've stayed up late googling "near death experiences" and read books like Proof of Heaven, which follows a skeptical neurosurgeon's "journey into the afterlife," in an attempt to comfort myself into thinking such a thing might be real. But logic seems to get the best of me, and I go right back to fearing being erased from this planet without a trace, aside from some of my more highbrow work, which will certainly be passed around by cave-dwelling robots thousands of years after we nuke the planet.

My parents, however, no longer share any of these worries.

While my mom never talks about me dying, she often brings up her will, keeping me informed of every little tweak she makes. I hate it, mostly because I cannot handle the thought of her being gone. I mean, aren't wills supposed to be read after a person has died? Can't I just deal with it then?

Sometimes, my mom says she wonders if anything happens after death or what she'll miss out on, but she's certainly not scared. She claims she hasn't been since she was young.

And I guess that's where the irony lies. I'm at an age where I'm supposed to be "living my best life." Yet, if I let it, the fear of dying can preoccupy my brain for extended periods.

After my grandpa died, I told a therapist that I regretted not visiting him more in hospital, and the regret had left me riddled with guilt. She asked how I could make it up to him post mortem, a question I didn't understand. She then alluded to other decisions I was struggling with at the time—primarily whether or not to break up my boyfriend and move to Toronto, and hinted that I should bite the bullet and commit to both of them since I'd been leaning that way for so long. I didn't fully grasp the connection between those things and my grandpa's death, but I think she was essentially saying I shouldn't hold back on taking risks because that could lead to more regret later. And perhaps more than anything, I'm scared of finding myself at the end of my life dwelling on things I didn't do.

These days, I try not to sink too deep into the rabbit hole, limiting myself to a few minutes of brooding about death at a time. But my parents' tendency to rehash the topic forces me to confront both their mortality and my own. Maybe it's a good thing. There's not much I find comforting about death, but seeing as how it's inevitable, indifference like that of my parents might be the best I can hope for. Who knows, one day that grave plot might look a lot more appealing than an overpriced condo in Toronto. But even if that's not the case, I'll be dead, so at the very least I will no longer have to give a shit about any of this.

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‘Final Fantasy XV’ Isn’t Just a Video Game—It’s a Whole New Universe

Noctis and Prompto take a load off in 'Final Fantasy XV'

Somehow, nobody says it. Aaron Paul, Lena Headey, hosts Greg Miller and Tim Gettys from internet show Kinda Funny, and a whole bunch of Square Enix representatives and talent: all silent on the subject. A vast number of people take to the stage of the Los Angeles Shrine Auditorium during the hour-and-more "Uncovered" presentation for Final Fantasy XV, and yet not one person mentions The Spirits Within.

And that must've been tough, given what else was announced alongside the Gamespot-leaked release date of September 30, 2016, and public details of the new, free-to-download (right now) Platinum Demo, which I play a few hours ahead of "Uncovered" starting.

For those who don't know, Final Fantasy: The Spirits Within was a CGI movie directed by Final Fantasy series creator Hironobu Sakaguchi—the first man on stage at FFXV's globally streamed LA reveal—released in 2001 to a fanfare of disappointment. Undoubtedly a technical milestone for animated movies, The Spirits Within's thematic detachment from any FF game that'd come before it, and a plot that was DOA, saw it panned by both critics without any prior knowledge of the games, and fans who couldn't connect with its near-future, dead-world setting and cardboard characterization.

The Spirits Within was a spectacular box office failure—estimates put its losses at well over $90 million. The next Final Fantasy film, 2005's straight-to-DVD Advent Children, was tied into the fiction, and the world it played out in, of 1997's Final Fantasy VII, a massive fan favorite. But for the new IP within a long-established franchise that is FFXV, the powers that be behind all things Final Fantasy have again chosen to produce a feature film.

Kingsglaive is its title; its English voice-over talent includes Paul Headey and Sean Bean; and its silky computer-produced visuals can splash themselves all over your TV, tablet, or whatever else you use to stream these things with, later this year—it's out before FFXV itself, and a Blu-ray copy is included in special editions of the game. The story follows events happening simultaneously to those of FFXV, in protagonist (Prince) Noctis's home kingdom of Lucius, and Paul, who voices a character called Nyx, describes what he's seen of it as being like a "$200 or $300 million blockbuster movie." But created exclusively with computer graphics, obviously.

In its trailer, Kingsglaive looks to be a lot more action packed that The Spirits Within was, but all the same: Holding any breath for it being a genuinely superlative viewing experience for anyone not already invested in all things FF is probably unwise. But "Uncovered" had a lot more up its sleeves than just a movie—there's an animated series, too, for one thing. The five-part Brotherhood follows Noctis and his friends Ignis, Prompto, and Gladiolus (disappointingly, I don't think there's the option of renaming them) as they bond, ahead of what plays out in FFXV's road trip across some fairly stunning landscapes. It's a prequel then, basically, and the first part of it can be watched right now, on YouTube. (Or below, if you like.)

'Brotherhood,' episode one

In case it wasn't already clear, Square Enix isn't just releasing a new Final Fantasy game in 2016—it's building a whole new universe around it. Kingsglaive is three years in the making, which shows you that it's no last-minute bonus content; and FFXV takes its parent series's fondness for mini-games and puts a new one into the palm of your hand, further expanding the fiction encapsulating the main plot of the game proper. We see a clip of the four travelers gathering around an arcade machine—the game in question being Justice Monsters Five. It looks like a strange mix of strategy combat and pinball, going by what we're shown at "Uncovered," and will be available "soon" for iOS, Windows, and Android phones. (Here's a trailer.)

But that's one for the (near) future—playable immediately (on Xbox One and PlayStation 4) is the Platinum Demo, a short introduction to some of Final Fantasy XV's environments, systems, and creatures. As in the main game, you play as Noctis—albeit as a child version of the prince with mostly toy weapons, whose sleep has taken him to a dreamscape in which he's guided by a white rabbit substitute, Carbuncle. This big-eared ball of fluff is a summon character from the final game, as well as series entries before it.

A screenshot from the 'Platinum Demo'

Platinum begins in a forest area, which Carbuncle guides you through to a watery portal to the next phase of the demo—keep your eyes peeled for a Leviathan cameo. You wouldn't quite call these gateways rabbit holes, but the Alice in Wonderland parallels are maintained when, in the second part of the demo, Noctis finds himself miniaturized, in what is presumably his own bedroom. From there, it's onto a Venetian-like city, and finally a boss battle with an Iron Giant. At this final stage, Noctis transforms into the man we saw in the Episode Duscae demo, and the encounter can be repeated. While it's a breeze the first time, re-spawning the demo-closing foe sees its level rise from three to 15. Naturally, the fight becomes a lot tougher, but it's impossible for Noctis to lose it—if he drops to zero health, Carbuncle will heal him.

Combat is straightforward but extremely flexible. Weapons are mapped to the D-pad, while holding B (on the tested Xbox One version) will string together attacks on the enemy. If you've a sword tied to up on the D-pad, and a hammer on right, then switching between the two is easy mid-combo—simply hold the attack button and tap on the D-pad as need be. X dodges can be held to avoid (a lot of) enemy attacks, up to a point. This is a change from the more detailed, menu-driven system of Duscae, but Platinum's simplified take on attack and defense feels just fine as it is.

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Related: Watch VICE's film, 'LARPing Saved My Life'

All the time you'll find glowing yellow crystal shards, just floating around the place—collect them to unlock panels on the ground, which serve a multitude of functions. Some award Noctis with limited-use magical powers—fireworks, damaging rain, thunder, and something called Meteorain, which drops glowing balls on the area and basically obliterates anything with a hit point or many to its name. At other times, these panels unlock new, stronger weapons, like a golden hammer that takes a substantial chunk of health off the demo's lightweight general enemies.

Some plates change the weather, some speed up time, and just a couple alter the young prince's form. In the bedroom phase of the demo, he can become a range of vehicles, controlled using the pad shoulder triggers to accelerate and brake. In the city, Noctis can become a beast from Final Fantasy XV proper—I saw a crocodile-like creature, a long-necked animal with horns, and a Garula, last seen grazing the grasslands of Duscae. This is Square Enix simply showing off some of the assets you'll see in its end product—come the full game, Noctis won't suddenly transform into a scaly reptile.

'Final Fantasy XV: Platinum Demo,' PS4 trailer

The 300 and more shards are what give the demo, which you'll otherwise easily finish in half an hour, any sort of longevity. Many of them are hidden in the different environments—all of which reflect areas in the final game, albeit in a rather different context here. You might run through the demo once without caring to collect them all, but then go back around to find each one and power up Noctis to his full dreamtime potential.

In terms of physical scale, Platinum is a fraction of the size of Duscae, a lot more linear, and should be treated more of a taster of what's to come in terms of look and feel rather than a standalone experience. It doesn't directly feed into its parent game save for, possibly, one area. At the end of the demo, you can name Carbuncle whatever you like, and that name will carry over into the main game.

Platinum isn't going to take up much of your time, and is fun while it lasts, but equally it feels fairly inessential against the grander design of Duscae. It's a complete tease, what with the Leviathan nod, the level variation and Carbuncle's presence, but if you're not into fan service, then you might want to save that hard drive space for something more substantial. Nothing here is going to really affect what happens in XV, making Platinum more of a pleasant (and unexpected) curio for existing Final Fantasy fans than an essential eye-opener for complete newcomers to the series.

'Final Fantasy XV', "Reclaim Your Throne" trailer

Unplayable though it was at "Uncovered," the new gameplay footage of FFXV looks incredible. (Watch the trailer above. That titan, seriously, come on now.) Personally, I've been hankering for a rich open world to fill a Witcher-shaped hole in my gaming time for a while now, and this might just be it. From dense cities to rolling countryside, dusty wastes to smaller settlements, everything sparkles with the kind of visual quality you expect from a game that's technically been in development for ten years, but you're never guaranteed to get. Here, it seems as if the years have been put to great use. Walking everywhere is avoidable, as there are chocobos to ride (!) as well as the car seen in previous trailers (and the Duscae demo), and said set of wheels has a new trick. Right at the very end of "Uncovered," we see footage of the car, the Regalia, transforming into a vehicle capable of flight.

How the crowd did gasp at the flying car, and just about everything else. How it was wowed, and how it whooped. Significantly more so than I did on learning that Florence + the Machine has recorded a cover of "Stand By Me" for the game, anyway. Get that shit in the trash, immediately. I don't even mind if you need to take that copy of The Spirits Within out of the garbage to fit it in there.

But that's really my sole (and entirely IMO) gripe with FFXV at this stage, and I mention it partially because it's always hard to not make a positive write-up read like it's been "paid for" when you're really excited about a game, but the publisher of the title in question has flown you overseas to see it. So perhaps you're thinking: Whatever Mike, nice one, enjoy that Square-covered hotel room. And I will, thanks. But also know that I know what this sensation is that I'm feeling right now: electric anticipation. The autumn can't come quickly enough.

Final Fantasy XV is released worldwide, for Xbox One and PlayStation 4, on September 30, 2016. The Platinum Demo is available now, digitally, for the same platforms. Find more information at the game's official website. Transportation and accommodation costs for attending "Uncovered" were covered by Square Enix.

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Silicon Valley Is Wetting Itself Over a $700 Juicer

This is what a $700 juicer looks like. Photo via Juicero.

I want to understand the $700 juicer. I mean, I understand the $700 juicer as far as the mechanics of it go: You buy the thing, it sits on your counter, you get pre-made packets of fruit and vegetables in the mail, you stick those in your $700 juicer, out comes eight ounces of juice.

What I want to understand is why everyone loves the $700 juicer. The company behind it, Juicero, just got $70 million in venture capital cash from the usual Silicon Valley suspects; in total, it's raised $120 million in funds from investors including GV (a.k.a. Google Ventures), according to the New York Times. Gwyneth Paltrow and Dr. Oz reportedly love the $700 juicer. A Vogue writer said that watching the Juicero machine in action was a moment "when I've felt, with palpable certainty, that time has slipped into the future." She went on to say that the juicer was right up there with "the advent of the Hoverboard, the invention of the Venmo payment, the first time my fingerprint unlocked an iPhone." That article's headline, by the way, promised that the $700 Juicero would "change life." I just want to understand that statement, as it relates to a $700 juicer.

Is it the way the $700 juicer looks? It looks, basically, like a big iPod that pees juice into a glass, which makes sense as Apple design dude Jony Ive reportedly had a hand in it. Is it the way the juice tastes? Everyone says that it tastes better than normal juice and I'm sure it does, because in addition to the $700 juicer you have to pay $4 to $10 for individual packets of fruits and vegetables, and when you pay a shitload for something it usually is pretty nice.

Is it the way the $700 juicer is being sold? Juicero isn't just going around saying, "Hey here is a $700 juicer, everyone!" Instead, it's doing that thing Silicon Valley people do, throwing out terms like disruption and farm-to-glass philosophy; on its website it describes the $700 juicer as "A personal cold-press juicer that's engineered to press nutrient-dense, raw produce into a glass in minutes." In other words: a juicer. It also touts the complicated system behind the $700 juicer: The company buys produce, hires workers to wash and chop it, then sends it out in those pre-made packets, which also come with QR codes so the Juicero, which is wifi enabled, can check to make sure the produce is fresh. If the produce inside the packet is not fresh the $700 juicer will not turn it into juice. It's a complicated way to make juicing as convenient and mess-free as possible, but that's apparently the point. Investors are not excited by a $700 juicer. They are excited by combining a bunch of techno trends in a way that results in a new philosophy in juice-making, even if the end result appears, to the naked eye, to be nothing more than a $700 juicer.

Maybe people are excited by the story of Juicero founder Doug Evans? He is the kind of company founder who starts out a Medium post about his company (titled "Journey to Juicero") by saying "I believe there are no chances in life — only choices," then goes into the story of his life, which involves graffitiing subway cars in New York in the 80s, working for famed designer Paul Rand for seven years without getting paid, then starting a juice shop that was later sold to investors who fired him. That is exactly the kind of guy who you want selling a $700 juicer, I guess.

I know that people can't be excited about This YouTube ad from Juicero. For a disruptive company, this is oddly like a traditional informercial, complete with people confounded by something as simple as bringing a tote bag to a farmer's market. Making juice with an ordinary juicer, in Juicero's reckoning, is a series of unpleasant, almost impossible tasks:

Maybe the secret of the $700 juicer is that the people looking at it don't see a $700 juicer, they see the future, a time when the ordinary functions of living are stripped of complications and mess. Juice, in the future, doesn't involve interacting with actual fruits or vegetables or even going to the juice store and clumsily asking a worker what you want with your mouth like some kind of primate. Instead, a packet is delivered to your door—ideally by drone—and you pop it into one of your many machines, and out comes your desired juice. There's an app that tells you when you're out of packets, and even suggests juices that you might want to try.

There are other humans in this vision of the future who have to do the unpleasant behind-the-scenes work to produce those packets—the agriculture and the processing and the packaging and so on—but you, $700 juice machine owner, don't have to think about them and they recede into the background. That is what is so exciting, presumably: The idea that things are getting easier and more streamlined and just all-around better for humanity, or at least the bits of humanity who can afford to live in the future.

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What I Learned as a Freelance Journalist in Iraq

The author (left) with a Peshmerga colonel, Masao, and Soran. All images by author

On March 6, 2016 I hopped an unsurprisingly cheap flight to Erbil, the capital of northern Iraq's autonomous Kurdish region. The plan was to spend a week with a Japanese photojournalist named Masao, who has covered conflicts as a freelancer for the past 40-odd years. I'm a freelance journalist in Australia, which is obviously safer and infinitely more comfortable that anything Masao was covering in Iraq. I'd briefly visited the region years earlier, but I'd come back with Masao as a mentor on how to work in a war zone.

I didn't expect to be "in the shit" as it were, but Northern Iraq remains a troubled place. Since 2014, the Kurdish Regional Government have been fighting ISIS; not only halting their advance across northern Iraq but going on the offensive to recapture lost ground.

A good fixer is the difference between life and death

Working in a foreign country, a fixer is the journalist's most important resource. Not only do they know the area and the language, but they can also set up meetings, organize accommodation and transport, and—as their name would suggest—fix things when you get "in the shit."

Masao's fixer was an Iranian-Kurd named Soran. He looked like a cross between Lenin and Hagrid, and was happy to argue with officials on our behalf for hours at a time to ensure we could do and go where we wanted. When I wanted to spend a few days in Sinjar on my own, he even found me an interpreter.

Soran (right) at the office of Domiz Refugee Camp in Duhok

Barjis (left) and a Yazidi fighter talk in front of a destroyed ISIS tank in Sinjar.

It was in Sinjar that I met Barjis, who demonstrated for us what a bad fixer is like. He oversold his language skills, constantly paraphrased answers during interviews and was moody as hell—souring at the simplest direction. But at $100 a day he was dirt cheap. He was also the only guy available, and without him I would have been completely fucked. And he was a Yazidi, which—as both Masao and Soran told me—meant he wouldn't sell us to ISIS at the first opportunity.

A Peshmerga soldier asks us where we are going. This one image sums up a lot of the trip.

You'll need a fake press card

There are few job titles in the whole world that inspire less confidence than Freelance Journalist. Not only do you come with the baggage of the privacy-invading, quote-distorting, your-pain-is-my-paycheck stereotypes, but you're unimportant to boot. Masao and Soran knew this. Soran carried a few press cards, some of which had been valid at one point, and others that he just made himself. In Erbil we made a fake one for me: A cheap passport photo and laminate job. It worked wonders. Doors were opened, permissions granted, checkpoints passed.

In Sinjar, I found myself alone at a checkpoint, being interrogated by a Peshmerga officer on how I got into the area without official permission. Even if I'd said I was a freelance reporter, and shown him my passport, there's a good chance he wouldn't have believed me and I would've ended up sharing a cell with Mohamed Jamal Khweis. But a few moments after flashing my (very fake) press card I was a free man.

A Peshmerga soldier on the front line.

Have cigarettes, the right ones

"A lot of soldiers smoke," Masao told me once, offhand. And without fail, every time we sat with anyone for more than two minutes, soldiers were lighting up. Barjis explained that he thought people who didn't smoke were untrustworthy. Even though he'd quit smoking, Masao would sometimes bum a cigarette from an officer during an interview to strike up a rapport.

Back in 2013, I'd traveled to Syria and found a couple packs of Marlboro Reds earned me a handy bit of goodwill, so this time I grabbed a carton at duty free. But no one wanted my American garbage sticks. Everyone smoked Arden Lights, which I've never seen outside Iraq. Whenever I'd offer a Malboro to someone they'd crinkle up their face and wave their hands at me before offering me one of their Ardens. On the few occasions I insisted they took one of mine I got a look that I roughly translated to, "Don't make me regret being nice to you, Australian."

A Yazidi man and child at a temple. The Yazidis have been an ISIS targest since 2014.

Get used to a blasé attitude to death

Obviously, being at war for the better part of 15 years will affect a country's relationship with death. But I was not prepared for how much everybody's casual attitude to the human toll would affect me.

At a Peshmerga special forces base in Sinjar, an American volunteer named David happily showed me pictures on his phone of dead ISIS fighters "stacked up like firewood." I mustn't have looked all that impressed because because David quickly offered to take Masao, Soran, and I to see some mass graves just out of town.

A mass grave of Yazidis, killed by ISIS.

David, the American Peshmerga volunteer, points out a bullet hole in a hip.

There were three of them—mounds of dirt covered in grass, weeds, clothing, bullet casings, and bones. Three or four hundred people would've been buried there. "This is a bullet hole in the skull," David said, almost like a tour guide. "Here's one in a hip. This is a girl's braid. This hip bone probably belongs to a child of three or four." While the Peshmerga picked through the bodies and their belongings, the three of us snapped photos. I knew I should've felt more disturbed than I did. But it was as though someone was showing us their vegetable garden.

Shoot first, ask questions later

I'd never had a problem taking people's photos until I visited a refugee camp in Duhok. It became quickly apparent people were trying to avoid my camera and I began to feel awkward. Who was I to jam a camera in their faces and ask them to tell the people back in Australia how shitty their lives were? Soran saw me struggling, and as an experienced documentarian, he offered a few words. "Sometimes it's better to just start filming and then ask permission," he said. "If you start filming people are more likely to talk."

A refugee at the Duhok camp

A few days later all three of us were in a Yazidi temple waving our cameras around as the people there prayed for the release of their women from ISIS. It still didn't feel right, documenting their intimate grief. But following Masao's lead, being just a fly on the wall, I didn't feel I was intruding as much as I did before.

Throughout our time together Masao kept saying he didn't think he had anything useful to teach me. But I learned a fucking a ton in that week. A lot of it wouldn't make the cut in an article like this, but it's essential stuff for getting the story and not dying. It's dirty, expensive, and sometimes dangerous work being a freelancer in a war zone, and hardly anyone will care what you did or saw over there anyway. But I went a full week without thinking "why the fuck did I become a freelance journalist?" In Northern Iraq I found a steady supply of the passion that led me down this road. I can't wait to do it again.

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The Porn Store Rivalry Involving Arson, Assassination Plots, and a One-Eyed 'Outlaw'

It probably wasn't even the first time Mark Fuston got hired to blow up a porn store.

In 2003, the one-eyed giant disconnected the propane hose on a construction site in Vancouver, Washington, and redirected it into a nascent shop called Desire Video. Then he placed an incendiary device in the corner of the building. Finally, he went back to the car of a co-conspirator and hit the trigger on a remote-controlled bomb.

To their mutual frustration, it didn't take.

As you might expect from a man who once got arrested for allegedly breaking a woman's wrist over 15 bucks and charged with fatally shooting a guy over a $180 drug debt, Fuston was determined to have his payday. With the cash on the line, he did what he had to do, laying down a fuel trail to the building and lighting it on fire.

"This was definitely not a case of unrestrained moral outrage or some misguided attempt to protect the community from pornography or the social ills that can be connected to that industry," a federal prosecutor later argued in court. "Rather, Mark Fuston's singular goal was to get paid."

A former Dead Head and bike-gang member who also went by "Mau Mau," Fulton was eventually sentenced to two and a half years for the March 27, 2003, fire. But a new federal lawsuit spells out the insane details of what is surely the most bizarre erotic business rivalry of all time.

Police apparently suspected pretty quickly that Desire Video had fallen victim to arson, so they deployed undercovers. Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, and Firearms (ATF) investigators knew the store was within a mile of another porn shop, Adult Video Only, and according to the suit, they rented an apartment in the complex where an employee named Ken Courtney lived. In the course of the investigation, they found out that Courtney—who committed suicide before the case went to trial—built the defective bomb.

For his part, Fuston had been wrapped up in porn mayhem before: In 1977, the career criminal was charged with trying to burn down an adult bookstore, but got off even though cops found him holding a gas can and matches at the scene. And in 1991, a man who looked an awful lot like Fuston was spotted near a Portland porn store just before it burst into flames, courtesy of a pipe bomb.

The burned Vancouver shop was eventually rebuilt and opened under the name Taboo Video, and the new suit alleges that the owners of Adult Video Only were so desperate to shake suspicion that they put a "For Sale" sign in their window. When Levi Bussanich, the owner of Taboo and the man behind the suit, took the bait and came over for a tour, the suit claims he was shown several video arcades––places where customers could insert cash and watch porn inside the store.

He was allegedly told that the machines weren't tracked by the Internal Revenue Service (IRS), which suggested the store was worth more than was on paper. According to the suit, this no mere marketing strategy—it was a trust-building exercise designed to cover up the fact that the owners of Adult Video Only had committed the arson.

Recordings obtained by investigators suggest the rivalry didn't end with the one arson: Fuston and Courtney discussed throwing a grenade into what had been Desire Video once it got rebuilt, with scant regard for the customers who would presumably have been inside. They also spoke about assassinating someone for $10,000, although the hit never took place.

The civil complaint alleges that the money used to pay for the arson came from weed sales and money from the illicit arcade machines.

The people who allegedly paid Fuston to light the fire were never charged with any crimes, apparently because of a statute of limitations issue. But Bussanich is suing them for civil damages, claiming violations under the Racketeer Influenced and Corrupt Organizations (RICO) Act, which is typically used to go after mob bosses.

Meanwhile, Adult Video Only is still up and running in Vancouver. Its website states that it plans to add a smoking room soon, and suggests that it will be BYOB (in weed-legal Washington, this apparently means "bring your own bud.")

"When you are ready to spice up your sex life come in and visit us," the site reads. "Our friendly staff will be glad to assist you in finding that perfect toy or gift."

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An Open Letter to My Vagina: Sex, Pain, and Vaginismus

Mietta said I should give you a name this morning—"an identity," so to speak. She's my sex therapist, who's helping me learn to listen to you. Then there's Brooke, a physiotherapist, who affably giggles when I apologize on your behalf during our fortnightly examinations. We started off with one-third of a pointer finger, and quivering knees. You're somewhat agreeable now; although only on certain days.

We'll celebrate when this is over—dilators and all.

Is naming a vagina like naming a child? I can't recall ever stumbling across an article recounting "1001 of the Year's Favorite Vagina Names" during my Internet trawls. Just as I can't recall a time when you didn't aggressively, perhaps instinctively, ensure the gates were sealed to your unknown chamber. And yet, amidst your intent resistance, here I still am—maintaining a steady gaze, smiling at my frustrated lovers, "It's okay, just keep trying."

According to vaginismus.com (a domain name I'm sure would've been in high demand), vaginismus is a condition caused by the "involuntary tightening of the pelvic floor, especially the pubococcygeus (PC) muscle group." Essentially that means one may experience burning, stinging, and tightness during sex. For some it makes penetration impossible. Often during sex your breathing will halt and other body muscle groups (such as the legs or the lower back) spasm involuntarily. Tampons and gynecological examinations are a no-go.

What makes vaginismus so unique is that it exists both in the mind and the body. The reaction isn't conscious. Much like blinking, the PC muscles have taught themselves to contract and "flinch" in ways to protect themselves against the anticipated threat. Left untreated, the condition worsens—the contractions have the opportunity to mature. And so they become "stronger" and last longer, with greater intensity. You're like my tiny, troublesome body-builder down there. An iron woman of sorts.

I never told my first love about you. I didn't tell anyone. As a woman amongst women, sex was never discussed in a way that suggested to me that it was physically pleasurable. Emotionally, perhaps. It was flattery, more than anything.

In retrospect, perhaps my first time was the best. I could justify the pain: I was merely losing my virginity, and it was my feminine duty to endure such affliction. He fumbled about my body in a drunken but polite fashion. But I remember jolting when he brazenly inserted the first finger. It was immediate. It was like an electrocution. Everything seized. It felt as if you were fastening yourself around the intrusion—like a painful, dry suction.

We kept at it for eighteen months; you, I, and him. And it's not as if I didn't enjoy the relationship. I loved the feeling of being loved. But I was always aware of your voice—shooting through me, occasionally bejeweling my body in goosebumps. I had to learn to ignore you. Every time my lower back seized, or my legs kicked out, I pretended it was intense pleasure. Because how do you tell somebody you care about and long for at 17 that his love feels like razor blades?

I'm sorry. I thought all cis-gendered, heterosexual women faked it. I thought we'd all subscribed to some hilarious, inside joke where, in a parallel universe, we'd laugh over coffee about how, as much as sex hurts, we all wanted it. Pain was just a price we had to pay.

Illustration by author.

I told my second boyfriend 18 months into our relationship. His reaction was exactly why I'd kept my secret for as long as I did: He was frustrated, confused, and robbed of empathy. I talked too much about it, he said. It was a disgusting topic, he chastised. "Oh!", he yelled sarcastically one night between my halted tears. "You have vaginismus?! Really? I had no idea."

I felt constant shame and rejection. It was as though my body was riddled with disease; a body he wanted nothing to do with unless it was fixed, and even then. My broken vagina became more than just that—I began feeling like a broken woman. My body not petite enough. My style not revealing enough. My voice: too loud and obnoxious. My hair: too thick, short and unruly. My fingernails weren't manicured and kept. If not an attractive woman; if not an attractive, heterosexual, penetrable cis-woman—then what?

When he went overseas, I made it my mission to be "fixed" in time to visit him. That's when I shyly introduced you to Mietta and Brooke. We were diligent, the four of us. I had so much incentive. I falsely envisaged how our relationship would change once I could have penetrative sex. We'd laugh more. We'd see more films. Naturally, that wasn't the case at all. We were reunited after two uncomfortable plane rides, and six months of my telling him penetrative sex wasn't an option until I felt truly comfortable. He insisted we try, and I said yes. Of course I said yes.

It was 4:00 PM, but true to the Scandinavian climate, it was as dark as night. I didn't know what day it was. He looked different, and it had been so long. The attempt was brief. I asked for patience, but perhaps too much patience. He sourly noted that the process was "too medical," sighed, and stopped. Too medical for who?

My wearied, tempered eyes locked with his. It was as if you, my enraged; now suffering self, sent a furious wave through me. It wasn't an electrocution, no. But rather a motivating force. This was the last straw. Never again was I to let him dictate my worth based on a condition he exacerbated. I was done. I didn't see his empty, frustrated pupils, but instead envisioned my painful interactions with dilators, my screams as Brooke attempted to remove a small tampon after one overly ambitious appointment, pretending my spasms were pleasurable responses night after night for so many years. How difficult it was to function for days after sex: the redness, the rawness, the hurt. Too medical for who?

RELATED: Meet the Model Who Sued a Tampon Company After Losing Her Leg to Toxic Shock Syndrome

Back in Melbourne, six months into my treatment, there are some weeks when you and I were ticking boxes I didn't even know existed. Then there are other weeks where you rejected me entirely. I understand that; I rejected you for so long as well.

I truly never meant to be unkind to you. It's just that sex is everywhere and nowhere at the same time. Sex is nothing like sex is. It is perplexing and discomforting. And rather than listening to you, I listened to the flustered giggling of a comrade of schoolgirls who—between porn, real-life, and poorly illustrated comics in sex ed books—discussed all things sex. Endlessly. At some point I started believing sex was meant to hurt; even if just for the first time.

There have been three since. One: a kind person, who laughed as I apologized for my body. My pelvis sighed a hot gulp of air: relief. There was nothing to fear. He won't hurt you. The second: captivating in every sense. I had met him that night. I was enthralled and forgot for a moment that I sported this ailment. So this is what sex is meant to feel like, I thought, as the morning sun began peeking through his windows.

The third was an eager admirer, who compassionately listened to the clinical description of my vaginismus, but when push came to shove, thought only to address his own pleasure. Sure, it hurt—it stung in all of those familiar, unprepared crevasses. But not like it used to. Never like it used to.

I named you Tori. Tori means winner; conqueror. Mietta thinks it's a fantastic name. I remember my mother telling me she was going to name me Tori, so it seemed fitting. It isn't too delicate. It doesn't remind me of petals and vanilla incense. You're not fragile. You're one tough lover, that's for sure. You are more than a throbbing, aching space to puncture, Tori.

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We Went to Rob Ford’s Post-Funeral Party to Hear the Best and Worst Ford Stories

All photos by the author

The sun is setting on Rob Ford's former stronghold of Rexdale as a line of people billows out of the Toronto Congress Centre. Ford Nation, in all its boisterous glory, is here in full effect: the signage, the T-shirts, and the coveted Rob Ford bobbleheads. The crowd, at his visitation, funeral, and, now, subsequent after-party, were enamored with gospel singing, post-Easter cheers of "Ford to rise again," and a hefty amount of backslapping. Provided this event were in a park filled with barbecues and empty beer cans, you could mistake the congregation that formed as almost any other iteration of Ford Fest.

Except something crucial is missing: Rob Ford. The former mayor, once lambasted across international publications for offensive tirades and smoking crack, is dead. Cancer took his life last week at the way-too-early age of 46. Since then, Toronto has been divided in mourning either the greatest or worst mayor it's ever had.There's been silence, selfies, statues (possibly), and a grand visitation in City Hall. The post-mortem red carpet was rolled out and garnished with sprinkles of the Gravy Train.

I came to the event—a post-funeral goodbye for the former mayor—for one reason: I needed to find out why Ford Nation loved and continued to love this man. I needed to understand why honest, hard-working people from different ethnic, cultural, and socioeconomic backgrounds would rally behind a man who worked against their interests and constantly perpetuated dishonesty and disrespect for those he claimed to serve. Most importantly, I wanted to know if another shitshow like Ford could happen again—with someone like his brother Doug—and what that might mean for Toronto.

When I arrived at 6 PM, the line outside the building numbered just around 200. By the time me and a small squadron of other journalists got through the doors at 7:30, that number had tripled. I was given a smiley stamp on my wrist, and a ticket for one free alcoholic beverage. I looked up from the blue coupon and stared at a slideshow of Ford, a known alcoholic, being projected on center stage. Somehow, the thought of sipping booze in his honor felt a little distasteful. Before I tossed my voucher in the trash, I saw a man in a wheelchair and a man with a cane toast wine.

"To Rob," one of them said. "To the best mayor!"

I spent the next 20 minutes canvassing the room for those decked out in head-to-toe Ford gear. When I finally approached some of them, they asked what organization I was with. Most were relieved VICE wasn't a newspaper—in the mind of Ford Nation, the mainstream media are crooks who drove Ford deeper into addiction and eventually to death. With a little bit of trust gained, I asked them what it was that really made them love Rob Ford so much.

Paul, 50, Electrician

VICE: What was the best thing Rob did for Toronto?
Paul: He stopped the waste of our money. Y'know, he cared for the average guy like you or me and he went in there and put a boot on the throat of the greed.

What in particular did he save you money on?
I once had a whole bunch of extra stuff on my lawn. It was leftover from a fellow we had in our basement. Not garbage but junk. The city said they wouldn't take it without extra bags, zips, a whole lot of money. I called the mayor and he took care of it for me. Didn't cost me a dime!

Do you have any stories of Ford yourself?
That man was good, real good. I was so blessed to meet him one day, just near here actually, and he paid for my drink. I was having a real bad day and he just sat there and listened. He asked what I thought of the city and I told him. He called me up one day too, just out of the blue, asked how I was and if my garbage was being taken care of.

Mazlin, 52, Unemployed

VICE: How did you come to love Rob Ford?
Mazlin: I used to work for in the 90s and they were always so, so good to me. He really did care for Toronto and its people. He was just like Christ.

How so?
He came through these streets and met people, he helped people, he was here to heal. He was like Christ the Lord. The way they betrayed him and stabbed him and left him to die, and then turn around and be at the front of his funeral, pretend like nothing happened. It's sick.

Who was the Judas in all this?
I don't want to talk about that, but Doug, I want to talk to him. The same people who turned their back on Rob were the first to roll out the carpet when he died. I want to know why Doug, if it was up to him, y'know, let them sit at the front of his funeral.

Danny 28, Construction Worker

VICE: Did you ever meet Rob Ford?
Danny: Three times! First was on the Danforth. He was out there with his family I think, I don't remember. I said, 'Hey mayor, can I get a selfie?' He was totally cool with it and remembered me when we ran into each other again.

This was before the crack scandal?
Yeah, but that didn't bother me.

Why not?
He was a man like all of us, and he was doing good things so the media, like you and others, tried to make it into something more than it was because they all wanted it back to business as usual. Keep taking from the taxpayers.

I'm a student with a very moderate amount of income. I'm not even an average taxpayer.
With your fancy camera and all that, I'm sure you get kickbacks.

Teresa, 67, Retired

VICE: Did Rob ever call you?
Teresa: That's how he got my vote. Asked me if I was happy with my house, my driveway, my neighborhood. Talked me for a good ten minutes. I wasn't even expecting it.

Do you think a statue should be built in his honor?
Abso-fricken-lutely! We don't have great men like him in this city often enough and I don't even know of any other statues like that. Who else are going to put, uh, what's his name? Who makes the music? Drake!

Are Rob Ford and Drake on the same level?
Oh love, no. Rob was a much better and more respectable man.

Donna, 49, Mother

VICE: What's the best thing Rob Ford did for Toronto?
Donna: He made this city great again! The Gravy Train—who's going to stop it now?

Maybe Doug?
Not Doug. I think he's tired. So tired of all the skimmying and scamming that goes on at City Hall. Maybe Michael .

What about John Tory?
You're out of your mind if you think that sideman is going to do what Rob did by even an inch. Rob cannot be touched.

Did you ever meet Rob?
No, and it makes me so sad. I saw him from a distance but I never got to shake his hand. I wish I had.

Leslie, 40, Pool Technician

VICE: Who was Rob Ford to you?
Leslie: The best, just the best person. He will not be forgotten, we won't let forget.

Did you feel like he was given a rough go near the end of his term as mayor?
The whole city turned on him and this man, he loved us. So yes, I think that we, and I say myself included, did not treat him fair.

A woman I spoke to earlier compared him to Jesus.
He, well, look at what happened! Compare it to the Bible. The tales are the same. He looked and sounded and acted like Christ in many ways. Y'know, you can't take that away from him.

I think that's kind of debatable. What's the best thing he did for you?
He fixed all the potholes along my commute to work. Now they're starting to pop back up again, now that he's gone. I don't think that's a coincidence.

What will you do now that he's gone?
Fight for Doug, fight for the Fords. They are down right now but they will come back and help us respect the taxpayers again.

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The Curious Case of the Phantom Penis

Photo via Flickr user J Brew

Last month, Brian (who asked we not use his last name) woke up in the middle of the night to the feeling of his dick hardening in his boxers. He could vaguely feel its outline as it tightened, becoming more erect, as his wife lay sleeping next to him. Could this be a dream? he thought. But, almost instantly, the optimism of that latter possibility came crashing down.

"I sort of pushed my hips forward against my boxers and looked for the bulge," he said, "and obviously it was still gone."

A year ago, Brian, a 38-year-old who lives in the midwest, had a penectomy—the surgical removal of a penis. He'd gone to his doctor, complaining of what he thought might be a genital wart, but after meetings with few specialists he learned it was late-stage squamous cell carcinoma, a form of skin cancer. Doctors recommended the penectomy.

"That was a bad day," he told me over the phone.

Oddly, since the surgery, he's been struck by an occasional sensation that the penis is still there, like a phantom limb.

For years, patients with phantom limbs were told the phenomenon was "all in their head," but now, research suggests up to 80 percent of people who have had an arm or leg amputated report a feeling of a body part that isn't there. For men who have had their penises amputated, the same holds true.

The phenomenon was first reported by Scottish physicians in the late 1700s, who mentioned phantom penises off-handedly in larger work about phantom limbs, according to a journal article. In 1815, Scottish surgeon Andrew Marshal described a man who'd lost his entire penis: "In the case of W. Scott, whose penis was carried off by a gun-shot, the stump of it, which was even with the skin of the pubis, resumed the peculiar sensibility of the glans penis," he wrote in his notes, which were published in 1815, two years after his death. Another Scottish surgeon, John Hunter, described several instances of the ghost dick in his 1786 book Observations on Certain Parts of the Animal Oeconomy, including one man who received so much pleasure from his phantom penis that he was able to ejaculate through his "stump."

Unlike phantom limbs, which are known to cause pain, phantom penises seem more often associated with pleasure.

But Wayne Earle, a 48-year-old Australian, finds nothing pleasurable about his phantom penis. Earle, the founder of CheckYourTackle, a website dedicated to raising awareness about male cancers and providing support for cancer victims, had a complete penectomy in 2014 to stop the spread of squamous cell carcinoma.

"I still wake up occasionally with it and it does get aroused when Tracy and I kiss, cuddle, or get close," he told me via Facebook messenger. "This is a big part of my depression, as you still get the sexual urges just like any other man. You still produce testosterone and the body does self-adjust, but you still get urges and a phantom erection. There is no way that it is pleasurable."

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In 1950, Boston surgeon A. Price Heusner described an elderly man whose penis was "accidentally traumatized and amputated" and had an occasional "painless but always erect penile ghost whose appearances were neither provoked nor provokable by sexual phantasies" in the the journal Transactions of the American Neurological Association. The man had to check regularly to make sure it wasn't still there.

A year later, Alfred Crone-Münzebrock published his study of 12 men, cancer survivors who opted for amputation and had remaining stumps. Seven of them reported phantom penises, with two of those men associating the phenomenon with pain.

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In 1999, Dr. C. Miller Fisher, a Boston neurologist who died in 2012, published a case study of a 44-year-old businessman whose penile skin cancer, manifested as a painful sore on the penis, necessitated a full penectomy. After the surgery, he reported phantom boners, often resulting from erotic stimulation like "seeing a pretty young woman." The phantom penis was essentially a replica of the one he'd actually had and he reported feeling phantom pain emanating from the cancerous sore.

"It only really happens if I start to think about it. Otherwise, it's more just the general shape and idea of a penis." — Matt

Earle experienced the phantom penis everyday in the six months following his surgery. "It is one of the things that is not really discussed with you and the doctors at the time of diagnosis," he told me. He described the ghost of his penis as mentally, emotionally, and physically painful, saying it was one of the worst experiences of his cancer journey.

"As time went on, it gradually reduced" he wrote, "and I just don't feel it anymore or in my mind I have some what blocked it out, as most of the muscle that help control erections are still in place."

Theories about the causes of phantom limbs are ever-changing. Most researchers seem to believe that it's the result of maladaptive changes to the brain after surgery. Others think it's related to the nervous system and the spine.

Even less is known about the cause and tendencies of the phantom penis. The lack of penile cancer support groups, compared to other types of cancer, mean less internet discussion of the phenomenon.

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A 2008 study by V.S. Ramachandran, a neuroscientist at UC San Diego who did not respond to multiple requests for comment, revealed completely new angles to the phantom penis phenomenon: In his research, Ramachandran found that trans women who had their penises removed reported experiencing phantom penises at a far lower rate (about 30 percent) than men who've lost penises to penectomies (about 60 percent).

Additionally, he interviewed 29 trans men and found that 18 of them experienced phantom penises, despite never having had an actual penis.

Ramachandran acknowledges that it's possible that these phantom experiences are confabulation, or distorted memories, but he lists seven reasons why he believes they're not. (Among them: Patients could describe their phantoms penises in great detail, could not will them to go away, and many of the phantom penises were different from the patient's "ideal penis" in size, shape, or length.)

Matt, an 18-year-old trans college student in North Carolina who didn't want us to use his last name, said he first felt a phantom penis before he went through puberty.

"At that age, I didn't really understand what it was—just that I could feel something that obviously wasn't there," he wrote to me in an e-mail. "About the time I learned about sex and all of that fun stuff and started going through puberty (13ish) I started to mess around with the whole phantom penis thing. This probably sounds really weird, but I figured out that if I pretended to masturbate like a cis guy, I could feel it. Along with that, thinking about sex gave me what i guess you'd call the 'phantom erection.'"

He's never been able to reach orgasm through this style of masturbation but he's come close. His "phantom penis" is there about half the time. The shape, he said, is not very defined but it does stay consistent for the most part.

"I'd say there's like roughly five inches of space where I can tell it's there," he wrote. "I haven't been able to really identify whether or not I can differentiate between the different parts of it. Oddly enough, the phantom testicle thing is rarely apparent. It only really happens if I start to think about it and try to feel it. Otherwise, it's more just the general shape and idea of a penis."

For Matt, who started taking testosterone a few weeks ago (which has boosted the prevalence of the phantom), the phenomenon is bittersweet.

"The presence of it both affirms my self image as a guy and frustrates me, actually," he said. "It's affirming in the sense that I know that I'm a guy and my body knows as well. On the other hand, it's kind of frustrating to feel the penis and then look in the mirror and have there be nothing—much less something that can be used for sex or using the bathroom, like a cis male."

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