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Watch: Shots Fired During a Live TV Broadcast at the Cannes

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Reuters reports a man "carrying a dummy grenade and a knife" as well as a pistol was arrested immediately after firing shots at the Cannes Film Festival. No injuries are being reported.

The shots were fired in the middle of an interview with Austrian actor Christoph Waltz as the French TV station Canal+ kept the cameras rolling.

Police told Reuters that it was probably just "some crazy guy" who was not connected to the million dollar jewelry heist from earlier today which, in turn, was not connected to Sofia Coppola.

[BuzzFeed//Reuters. Video via]


Amy Schumer Can Take a Compliment

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In the most recent episode of Inside Amy Schumer, comedian Amy Schumer’s new show on Comedy Central, there is a sketch about not taking a compliment. A group of women greets each other by doling out kind words and then immediately dismissing the accolade. Oh I look pretty? No I actually look like Susan Boyle's toothbrush.

But then, when one woman happily accepts the compliment and responds with a simple, "thanks!" the others immediately kill themselves. Ladies! They light themselves on fire and blow their brains out. SNL's Abby Elliot breaks her own neck. Amy Schumer steps into moving traffic.

This is the rhythm of a typical segment on Inside Amy Schumer. She's not pushing comedic form—she uses stand-up bits, one-on-one interviews, sketches, and woman-on-the-street segments—or any particularly hot button issues. She's pushing the joke, exaggerating it so far that it comes back around and makes fun of its own absurdity. And the best of her stuff achieves wonderful comedic paradoxes; it can be simultaneously light-hearted and dark, silly and smart, crass and astute.

The show has a lot of room to improve, sure, but it's doing exceedingly well so far. Of the three original series Comedy Central premiered this year, all led by individual comedians (the Kroll Report, the Jeselnik Offensive—she was reportedly dating Anthony Jeselnik), Inside Amy Schumer had the strongest launch. Close to 1.6 million people tuned in to the premiere on April 30th, and it's stayed strong for the past two episodes. For someone whose major breakout in the comedy world was placing fourth in the fifth season of NBC’s Last Comic Standing, along with two specials on Comedy Central as well as some minor roles on 30 Rock, Girls, and Curb Your Enthusiasm, this is not bad, not bad at all.

The best part about Inside Amy Schumer, is that it's not constantly focused on setting up perfect wisecracks. Particularly with her sketches, you can see that Schumer is trying to provoke a little dialogue. Rather than aiming for a clear punchline, she's more concentrated on exploring ideas and letting everyone in on the joke.

[image via Comedy Central]

Alligators, Cats, Academia, and More Hate Mail This Week

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Our critics this week called us out on our poor timing, "form and content" generally, and our abilities to distinguish the titles of academia. Enjoy samples of our hate mail this week, posted below.

SUBJECT: Et tu, Gawker?

BODY: Ken,

I've greatly enjoyed reading your articles on The Awl, and you were always the best part of Wonkette. But life today is hard enough what with the depressing stories on politics, the environment, animal cruetly, etc. in places like the NYT, Mother Jones, Treehugger...I turn to Gawker for mindless drivel.

Your Gawker story today on alligator hunting means that I'll now have the same trepidation before visiting that site as I do with the rest of them. It's like you're trying to drive me to Buzzfeed for my fix of sugary garbage! I don't like Buzzfeed any more than you do.

Also, kindly tell Hamilton that he more and more resembles a grumpy old man with each new piece he writes. "Please walk on escalators?" If he had his way we'd all be doing lunges down the escalators with barbells in each hand.

Warmest Regards.

Why would we dare to write about cats or Angelina Jolie more than once on the internet? That's not what the internet is for.

SUBJECT: Same story post 35 minutes apart?

BODY: Is it really necessary to post the same stories multiple

times in the same 24 hour period?

Firefighters Rescue Cop Stuck In Tree Who Was Trying to Save Cat Tuesday, May 14, 2013 7:52 AM

Angelina Jolie wrote an excellent and important op-ed for the New York Times about her Monday, May 13, 2013 11:50 PM

Angelina Jolie Reveals She Recently Underwent Double Mastectomy Monday, May 13, 2013 11:15 PM

Big day for heroic firefighters: In Georgia, firefighters received an award from PETA for Monday, May 13, 2013 8:04 PM

BTW-Fuck Kinja

What was one writer's addition is the whole crux of this reader's email to us:

SUBJECT: Form and Content

BODY: to whom it may concern,

i think that your new format is crap. unreadable. maybe you can change it back? thanks for taking the time to read my letter.

SIGNATURE:

"The content of the Eleus inian mystery is nothing more than this: experiencing the negativity that is always already inherent in any meaning of sense-certainty. The initiate has no need to remain silent. Just as the animal preserves the truth of sensuous things simply by devouring them, that is, by recognizing them as nothing, so language guards the unspeakable by speaking it, that is, by grasping it in its negativity … The Eleusian mystery of the Phenomenology is thus the same mystery of the poem but now language has captured in itself the power of silence, and that which appeared earlier as unspeakable profundity can be guarded in its negative capacity in the heart of the word." -Giorgio Agamben

This is an ultimately positive exchange about academia and title inflation. Good job!

SUBJECT: correction re NYU "Prof" story

BODY: I know this seems picky, but..Ross Finocchio is, according to all reports, not a professor, let alone a "distinguished" one. He's a PhD candidate who teaches at NYU. This is the kind of mistake undergrads make. You guys should know better.

RESPONSE: I don't know. The two reports I read described him as an "accomplished NYU art history professor" or an "art history professor." What are these "all reports" you're talking about? And his now deleted website included a long list of awards and achievements, making it seem like he was somewhat "distinguished." "An accomplished NYU art-history professor — who has lectured at the Met and Sotheby’s —" - NY Post "NYU art history professor Ross Finocchio was arrested on charges of unlawful surveillance," - NYU Local "New York University art history professor Dr. Ross Finocchio was arrested on Monday for allegedly videotaping women inside dressing " - Opposing Views From Finocchio's CV: Adjunct Professor, New York University, Department of Art History “History of Western Art I, Antiquity through the Middle Ages,” summer term Adjunct Professor, New York University, Department of Art History “New York Architecture Field Study,” fall term “Painting and Sculpture in New York,” spring term Those are at least four reports that ID him as a "professor." Saying "Ross Finocchio is, according to all reports, not a professor" seems like the sort of mistake an undergrad might make, no? You should probably know better.

REPLY BACK: Dude, I'm not trying to argue with you—although yeah, my initial e-mail was kind of pissy and condescending. Sorry. Calling anyone who teaches undergrads a professor just annoys me (it did so before I had my PhD) just like I hate it when every model is called a supermodel. The fact that the Post calls him a prof isn't exactly something to die by. The NYU local piece later clarifies: "Ross Finocchio has been studying at NYU for twelve years: He graduated from NYU in 2001 as a double major in Art History and English, received his M.A. in ’06, and is a current candidate in the PhD program. The Department of Art History at NYU reported in its “Alumni News“, in a blurb that has since been taken down, that Finocchio graduated summa cum laude." But then I looked around on the NYU site and found one reference to his being an adjunct associate professor, which would indicate that he did complete his PhD. I guess without his CV it's hard to confirm.

Carry on. Sorry you got he brunt of my under-caffeinated morning peevishness.

That's all. Have a glorious weekend!

Tomorrow's Powerball jackpot is reportedly approaching $600 million.

Commuter Trains Collide During Rush Hour, Leaving Dozens Injured

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Two Metro-North Railroad trains collided during rush hour in Connecticut last night, injuring 60 people, 5 of them critically.

The collission occurred just outside of Fairfield, Conn., when an eastbound train derailed and crashed into a passing westbound train at around 6:10 pm.

“I thought there was a bombing,” Natalie Sepulveda, 23, told the Times. “I smelled smoke and looked outside the window and saw a whole bunch of dust, and I grabbed my son.”

Investigators are dealing with the derailment as a crime scene. One passenger is considered "severely injured," although officials believe that passengers were extremely lucky to have escaped the major collision with just a few injuries.

Metro-North, the main commuter railway into New York City, shares the right-of-way with Amtrak, which has suspended service between New York and Boston.

“The train leaned to the left and in so doing, clipped the train coming in the opposite direction,” said Marjorie Anders, an authority spokeswoman. Travel problems could continue for weeks as the two tracks that have been damaged are the only two current usable tracks between Bridgeport and New York City.

Obama Can't Even Avoid the Rain Without Causing a Scandal

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This has not been Obama's month. And with scandals rising out of the State Department, the DOJ, and the IRS, it was really only a matter of time before the military got involved in some sort of cover-up too.

Only this time, the cover-up is an umbrella.

Umbrellagate began on Thursday during a rainy Rose Garden press conference with Turkish Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan. As we've learned in these political scandals, when it rains, it pours — and when it really started pouring, Obama asked two Marines to hold umbrellas over the podiums.

So why, pray tell, have the umbrella-toting Marines set off another round of Obama-castigation? Is it because the commander-in-chief effectively turned them into White House Farnsworth Bentleys?

No. Apparently the outrage is derived from military regulations that bar umbrellas because they block the carriers from properly saluting.

And conservatives are pissssssed (ever-relevant Sarah Palin referred to it as a "Scandalous Hat Trick," because she'd never be hypocritical). And because never mind that Obama is the commander-in-chief; and never mind that Title 10 of the U.S. Code compels Marine Corps members to perform "other such duties as the President may direct."

“Obama expects our troops to hold damn umbrellas rather than go inside: It’s disrespectful, inconsiderate, classless,” Lou Dobbs said on Twitter.

This prohibition appears to be bolstered by a military belief that there is something "effeminate about umbrellas." Under Marine Corps uniform regulations, men cannot carry or use an umbrella while in uniform, but women may carry an all-black umbrella if they are not wearing combat uniforms. Attempted changes to this gender-controlled policy failed in the 1990s.

“They seem to be very nervous what constitutes unmanly behavior,” Clark University professor Cynthia Enloe told the Washington Post.

The gender disparity also applies to the Army. But not all service members have to get wet — both male and female Navy and Air Force members are allowed to carry umbrellas when they are not in field uniform. On the domestic side, we may never know how the Secret Service protects itself from rain — a spokesman refused to reveal if agents can carry umbrellas.

[via, photo via AP]

Se passer la corde au cou pour tous!

Koch Brothers Dump Three-Story Pile of Toxic Byproduct on Detroit

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There's a new addition to the scenic view along the Detroit River: a three-story pile of petroleum coke, a byproduct of the tar sands drilling in northern Canada over 2,000 miles away.

Petroleum coke is a byproduct of the refinery process of the tar sands oil, which leaves refineries with a huge amount of the coke after it sends the oil onward. The coke usually just piles up (Canada has 79.8 million tons stockpiled), because it's a dirty, and mostly inefficient energy source. But the industrialist/harbingers of the apocalypse Koch Brothers had a better idea: why not sell this high-sulfur, high-carbon waste to countries that don't care about the environment?

And that's exactly what they did. “It comes down to emission controls,” D. Mark Routt, an energy consultant, told the Times. “Other people don’t seem to have a problem, which is why it is going to Mexico, which is why it is going to China.”

But first it's precariously piling up in Detroit. “What is really, really disturbing to me is how some companies treat the city of Detroit as a dumping ground,” said Rashida Tlaib, a Michigan state representative. “Nobody knew this was going to happen.”

Michigan has already asked the Koch corporation to change how it is storing the petroleum coke, but the company has yet to act. And with the increasingly imminent construction of the Keystone XL pipeline, these massive toxic pile-ups will only become more popular inside the United States:

The Keystone XL pipeline will provide Gulf Coast refineries with a steady supply of diluted bitumen from the oil sands. The plants on the coast, like the coking refineries concentrated in California to deal with that state’s heavy crude oil, are positioned to ship the waste to China or Mexico, where it is burned as a fuel. California exports about 128,000 barrels of petroleum coke a day, mainly to China.

So even an incidental byproduct of tar sands gas drilling will unleash more awful shit into the atmosphere. And Detroit still cannot catch a break.


Student Fakes Kidnapping to Distract Parents From a Failing Grade

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Aftab Aslam may have failed his Georgia Gwinnett College English class (twice), but he definitely earned an A in "Faking Your Own Kidnapping, Worrying the Hell Out of Your Parents, and Wasting Police Resources: 101".

In order to take the sting out of his failing grade, police say that the 19-year-old college student first purchased a mobile phone from Target (a burner for those in the know, like Aslam) on April 24. Three days later, he texted his parents saying that their son had been kidnapped and would be killed if police were contacted.

Naturally, his parents informed police anyway, and the FBI was brought in for an "intensive investigation." But authorities were unable to locate the kidnapped-kidnapper, who allegedly lived in a tent in an open field for eight days. When the weather became cold and wet, Aslam abandoned the field (but not the pretense) and returned home telling his parents he had been drugged and held captive.

"It appears he thought the relief of his being returned would stop his parents being angry when he eventually told them about his grades," the Daily Mail reports.

Aslam now faces three felony counts for making false statements, three felony counts for tampering with evidence, and three felony counts for making terroristic threats.

[via, photo via Shutterstock]

Justin Bieber's Monkey Just Became German Forever

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The Germans still have Bieber's monkey, OG Mally. They have Mally, even though it's obviously not cool to have your own infant Capuchin monkey anymore, and Bieber has since lost interest in the well-being (or existence) of Mally.

But at midnight last night, something horrible happened to fun-loving rule-breaking Original Gangsta Mally: Mally became German. The four weeks that the Germans had given Bieber to clear his monkey paperwork have expired, he still owes Germany thousands of Euros, and Mally is no longer a citizen of Bieber nation. Instead, Mally has now become a subject of the Federal Republic of Germany.

Mally will most likely be transferred to a zoo or animal sanctuary, where it will live a boring German life, filled with German non-excess: regular feedings, well-regulated bathing, and probably a sturdy tree to climb.

Gone are Mally's days of bottle service, all-night parties, and thousands of screaming fans. Mally will now start wearing a dark turtleneck, get really into design, and start preaching fiscal responsibility.

And maybe, maybe in the midst of another whirlwind tour, in another couple of years, a bus will stop outside Mally's beautiful sanctuary, and a twenty-something man with a face tattoo will ask to see a certain monkey, and Mally will put down that morning's Der Spiegel.

"One more time, OG Mally?"

And the monkey will nod, urinate on the latest German architectural digests, and hop onto Justin's shoulder, ready to take on the world. Together, finally, again.

Disgraced Brooklyn Politician Now Resigning by Monday

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By now, you've probably heard about New York's latest sex-scandal-of-a-politician, Assemblyman Vito "Gropez" Lopez.

While Lopez's pervy predilections have been public since at least 2012, the Assemblyman's luck has appeared to have run out, and the New York Post is reporting that Lopez will finally step down on Monday before 10 a.m. The 71-year-old politician had originally hoped to close out the legislative session in June but now wants to retire before an expulsion vote can be arranged.

How did we get here? Well here's what we know.

Lopez has a lot of political clout. He controls a nonprofit agency in Brooklyn that serves as a "de facto political machine" for him and allies, and was chairman of the Housing Committee in the Assembly. But Lopez has also long been known for his inappropriate behavior. These issues first came to light last June, when two women quietly settled a sexual harassment complaint, receiving taxpayer settlements of $103,000. The settlement also drew Assembly Speaker Sheldon Silver, who gave the go-ahead and helped keep it quiet, into the scandal.

In August, 2012, the New York Times published a scathing expose on Lopez's inappropriate behavior. According to the article, Lopez told women not to wear bras to work, requested they wear short skirts and high heels, gave them cash to buy jewelry, complimented them on their figures, urged women to break up with their boyfriends, berated women who did not compliment him "effusively enough," invited women on overnight trips, told women they were "well-endowed," and, of course, made overt sexual advances.

But even after the news became public, and even after the Assembly censured him, Lopez easily won reelection this past fall.

Recently, Lopez was stripped of all party leadership positions after he commented on how he thought a 14-year-old intern was sexy, saying that he wished he lived in a state where he could sleep with underaged girls. That intern was also the daughter of a Brooklyn judge who helped Lopez get elected.

His comments became public after he asked another 24-year-old employee, Chloe Rivera, to "dress sexier," more like the 14-year-old intern. Rivera's mother notified police and filed an ethics complaint with the New York Assembly, and Rivera also filed a sexual harassment complaint with the Assembly Ethics Committee.

Now, at least eight women who worked for Lopez have told stories of sexual harassment to investigators from the New York Joint Commission on Public Ethics, although four of those women did not file a formal complaint.

According to the report issued by the Joint Commission, Lopez routinely groped staffers, sought to stay in hotel rooms with them, and gave one staffer pink eye after forcing her to put drops in his eyes. According to the New York Times, two women were so repulsed, they began secretly taping their interactions.

One woman secretly recording Lopez "began to cry after he pressured her to massage his hand," because she was uncomfortable because she had been raped in college. He told her, "Stop crying... Alright, rub my hand, do my hand."

Another woman complained Lopez tried to make her stay in a hotel room with him in Atlantic City. When she refused, he grabbed her face and tried to kiss her, and later pressured her to massage his hand and forced his right hand between her legs.

Why did it go on for so long? Well, at least one of the women believes that he was "oblivious" to the situation he created with his female staff. She reports that although he touched her, leered at her, and came on to her on an overnight trip, she doesn't "think he realizes or understands that what he was doing was bad."

Furthermore, Lopez's formidable political clout appears to have discouraged female staffers, many of whom had nominal experience in politics, from reporting anything. According to the Times, one Assembly member is quoted in the report saying, "You can’t get a dog license in Brooklyn without Lopez’s blessing."

Assembly speaker Sheldon Silver is also accused of shielding Mr. Lopez from public scrutiny by "failing to investigate and refer the initial harassment allegations to an Assembly ethics committee," making statements that "were not candid" and encouraging staffers to keep the matter a secret. The report itself was only released under pressure and after a failed politically-motivated campaign to have extensive sections edited out of the report.

Lopez's girlfriend, a co-chair of his Brooklyn nonprofit, appears to be standing by his side.

[via, photo via AP]

Oh Hey, It's a Naked Man on a Scooter, Carrying a Crucifix

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It's not everyday you see a naked man riding a scooter with giant cross.

Warning: This article has content some readers might find objectionable.

Last month, Kotaku brought word of a Beijing man who ran through the streets nude while carrying a sex doll. Online in China, the images soon went viral, and one Chinese blogger compared the incident to a real-life Temple Run.

This month, the same gentleman returned; however, this time he was carrying a huge crucifix. According to Chinese social networking sites, he was once again spotted in Beijing's Wangjing area, which is known as the city's Koreatown and which also houses many tech companies.

The Chinese media even reported this latest incident by the "Wingjing Streaker". Besides the dash, there was also a buck-naked moped ride. Both with a giant crucifix.

Last night on social networking site Sina Weibo, a man Li Binyuan admitted that he was the Wingjing Streaker. "I've done this about ten times," Li admitted. "So far, only six times have been recorded and put online by spectators."

Photos of the Wangjing Streaker started to go viral in China last month.

Li, a graduate of the prestigious China Central Academy of Fine Arts, works as an artist in China. He's still young and is still trying to make a name for himself. But this isn't necessarily an art project per se—though, it certainly does have elements of performance art.

"At first, it all started because I was bored and this seemed fun," said Li. "Later, it just became something to do." Li said that he had hit a wall with his work and was frustrated. He needed a release, and for him, streaking fulfilled that.

"Every time I finish a run, I always check online to see what people online are saying about me," said Li. "The internet creates such a wonderful way to interact, and I really want to see what others think of this thing I'm doing. It makes conversation online."

Li's art can break the public and private spaces in arresting ways. For example, in 2010, Li had himself filmed on the subway in China as he brushed his teeth, washed his face, and then lathered up to shave his face with a razor. He even brought a bottle of water, a cup, and a bowl so he could gargle and wash up after he finished. All this occurred on a crowded subway. Onlookers either ignored Li or took digipics.

While there's probably no law against brushing your teeth or shaving on a train, public nudity is a crime in China. Li doesn't think what he did was wrong, adding that when people are stressed out, they need to cut loose. A Beijing lawyer named Liu Xiaoyuan is quoted as saying this is illegal, but added that since the incidents occurred at night (and perhaps didn't disturb the peace), criminal charges are unlikely.

After admitting he was the Wangjing Streaker, Li wrote online this was the last time he will run naked in public, saying, "I'm done. Bye-bye."

北京の韓国人街に「十字架を担いだ全裸の男」、深夜街を駆け回る姿が目撃される―中国報道 [新华网]

望京再现男子扛十字架裸奔 [组图]

一号线上 [东方视觉]

Eric Jou contributed to this article.

To contact the author of this post, write to bashcraftATkotaku.com or find him on Twitter @Brian_Ashcraft.

Kotaku East is your slice of Asian internet culture, bringing you the latest talking points from Japan, Korea, China and beyond.

Two Anecdotes About My Parents and Marijuana

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Last year, my boyfriend and I went to West Virginia to visit my mother while she was undergoing chemotherapy for cancer. It was the second time she’d been diagnosed in three years, and the side effects from these treatments were much worse. My previous understanding of cancer had come pretty exclusively from pastel paperbacks, all dignified vomiting and heads shaved in solidarity, but the reality seems more Dante than Nicolas Sparks. A half-joke about supplemental painkillers was soon brought, tentatively, to the table.

Dave pulled me into the hallway. “She obviously wants it and doesn’t want to say,” he said, head cocked to a bullshit-cutting angle. We agreed she had been “bringing it up”— earlier that day she told me a story about her “wild” high school friend, Kim. After sharing a moment of pitying head shaking—isn’t our culture fucked up?—I sent my ex-boyfriend’s roommate a text message; he insists he’s not a dealer, despite the combination-locked safe containing a rotating stock of varietals under his bed. We arranged to “pick up” the next evening. I skipped into my mother’s room to tell her.

“But I don’t have any of that stuff to smoke it with!” I made a confused face to signify that a hip young person would not know what she was talking about. “You know, those big pipe things,” she explained. “Kim has them.”

Once, before I believed pot could be anything besides “the gateway drug” to more serious, skin-crawling-with-imaginary-maggots-substance abuse, I asked my mom if she’d ever smoked weed. She said only once, in an attic when she was in high school. I’d imagined a circle of bell-bottomed bowl cuts passing around a cartoonish joint reminiscent of the one on the cover of Because I Got High, which was soundtracking my friends’ older brothers’ cars at the time. Hearing this implied preconception, I replaced the imaginary jay with a psychedelic bowl and felt sympathetic to her discomfort; I still don’t know how to use them.

My first time was with the aforementioned ex-boyfriend around my eighteenth birthday. I spent that summer working as a cashier at Kmart, while he had weightier responsibilities at the service desk. He was mock-scandalized to hear I had never smoked. Thus, when my pre-birthday shift came to a close, he beckoned me outdoors and presented me with a small jewelry box wrapped in newspaper.

“Is this a joint?” Head cocked to bullshit-cutting angle. I opened it as soon as I hit a red light; it was accompanied by a note with instructions to make sure it went all the way down if I decided to flush it.

That night we met to listen to music in his red Hyundai Elantra, but I was afraid to smoke, so we didn’t. We didn’t kiss, either, which I thought peculiar, given several moments of sexual tension and poignancy. He later told me that what he considered my flippant attitude towards kissing ("I just like to kiss people") was analogous to his approach to pot smoking: he didn’t want to give it up so easily if I wasn’t willing to lend him the same trust.

Although we met and eventually smoked atop several other secluded hilltop locales before I left for college, I was instructed to save the birthday joint for a special occasion. Something to remember him by. I don’t think I could have predicted that, almost four years later, I would be four outfits deep trying to decide what I should wear to buy weed off his roommate.

I wanted to convey a worldly pot-buying nonchalance, that I had come a long way since the days of begging, through hysterical tears, to be taken to the hospital before my tingling right arm fell off. I settled on an obviously vintage dress and ripped tights, which I felt harkened to times and locations when and where marijuana usage was accepted and celebrated.

I showed up on their doorstep smug—he apparently still hadn’t demanded his landlord get rid of the cat-piss smell—but nervous; I’d always been gifted joints in jewelry boxes wrapped in newspaper or been offered hits gratis. I’d never bought weed myself. What if I got ripped off? Should I have brought something smell-proof to transport it in, or is it customary for the not-dealer to provide receptacles? How illegal is this, exactly?

I walked into the haze and videogame explosions one expects of this kind of interaction, with the added tension of my ex-boyfriend suggesting I should pay nothing, explicitly because of the product’s intended recipient and implicitly, I like to think, because of his residual guilt for the messy failure of our relationship; the not-dealer being visibly uncomfortable with this but not knowing how to delicately handle the cancer issue while objecting to free samples; and me insisting on paying fairly, mostly.

Back in the car, Dave assessed the quantity, took a whiff, and assured me I had scored not just a deal but a sweet deal. This was ostensibly because this weed was for my twice-cancer-stricken mother, though I would later find out not-dealer believed I had been using her as a decoy to get high myself.

Imagining potency wafting from the glove compartment, Dave and I went home and made known our intentions to bake brownies. We believed they’d be easier on a mouth and throat full of chemotherapy sores. My mom was clearly pleased, or at least not displeased, that we had ignored her "Oh, you really shouldn't!"s and gotten “the stuff," but she was vehemently opposed to cooking with it. My younger brother, age 13 but "sensitive," would be "so upset" if he came home from school and smelled his mother cooking something the acid-washed youths in a Just Say No video had told him was bad.

“I’m his mom,” said my mom.

Let it be known that this is the same mom who maintained a “secret” (cigarette) smoking habit for, as far as I know, my entire childhood and adolescence. I appreciate that she tried to protect my innocence, but I was maybe eight years old when I woke up to find a scattering of cigarette butts on the grass beside our front porch. Having recently seen, "Harriet the Spy," I mounted an investigation. Checking all my neighbors’ mailboxes and jotting damning opinions on my loved ones in a small notebook (to later be left, “accidentally,” in a location where those loved ones were likely to discover it) led me nowhere, so I turned to questioning potential witnesses.

“Oh, your mom’s smoked since she was sixteen,” my dad told me in the car, loyalties to his ex-wife’s self-cultivated status as the “good” parent apparently nonexistent. “It was probably her.” Years later, I drove past her going in the opposite direction. She was smoking a cigarette out the window of her ice blue Honda-CRV.

The chance of brownies disappointingly slim, Dave began rolling a spliff on my kitchen counter. After instructing her on the proper techniques for maximum enjoyment—inhale twice, hold it in for a few seconds, make sure it goes all the way down if you decide to flush it—he prepared several more, to last after we would leave. We were confident she would have many, many days of restful calm and alleviated pain and warned her not to smoke very much at once, first because the not-dealer had raised his eyebrows and told me it was medical-grade and from Vancouver, and then because after we smoked some fraction of a spliff ourselves—to make sure it wasn’t poisoned—we couldn’t get out of bed.

***

Three months later, I was back in West Virginia, spending a few weeks at home between graduating from college and moving to Berlin. Since purchasing a one-way ticket to bohemian Europe, I had affected a kind of overcompensatory swagger regarding minor illegal drug use, as if marijuana were the head cheerleader and I a scrawny, second-string kicker she had acknowledged in the hallway.

“Everyone!” I shouted. “Come and see how cool I am!” My mother and I were sharing Subway sandwiches at a TV dinner tray table when I inquired after the spliffs.

“Did you have fun with the drugs?”—the tonal equivalent of a guy pulling the yawn-and-stretch at the movies. The answer, it turns out, was no: My mother had smoked none of what Dave prepared for her. She had kept the remainder of the first spliff in a sealed Ziploc bag in her sock drawer and gifted the rest to Kim.

Disappointed, I decided to make the best of it and Googled “smoking old joint bad.” After reading the grasscity.com community’s thoughts on the subject, I finished off the sock drawer spliff on my front porch when my family went to sleep.

I had never smoked weed alone, but doing it on a floral-cushioned wicker rocking chair while watching the peaceful suburban fireflies in front of my childhood home proved something of a gateway. It was nice! Nicer than when doing it with of circle of potentially judgmental acquaintances, certainly. I had been having anxiety attacks since I came home—I imagine this is true of many young adults, as well as regular adults—so I arranged another trip to see my friendly not-dealer, who was happy to assemble me a sampler of four color-appellated varieties. Despite this being only the second time I had purchased marijuana—and the first time I had purchased it for my own recreation—I felt cool.

I felt significantly less cool, however, a week later, when I had a hunk of it in my hands and little idea what to do with it.

As a female, one can smoke fairly often without ever having to purchase or prepare the stuff one is smoking. Even if you do know, deep down, in a visualizable way, because you have seen your tousle-haired European boyfriend roll many joints and many more cigarettes wide-eyed American strangers have mistaken for joints, how paper and plant and small rolled up piece of cardboard come together to create jay, the dexterity required for this particular skill is not of the watch-and-learn variety. This life lesson will only become embarrassingly clear after you have purchased a not insignificant quantity of marijuana and made known your stash to a group of similarly cautiously experienced friends at a small gathering one sticky summer evening.

I realized quickly that simply having $40 worth of marijuana would not get me high. Not owning “one of those big pipe things”—and unwilling to scour headshopfinder.com to source one—I thought initially that I could use the Google to teach me how to roll a joint, even going so far as to pick up papers along with my weirdly flavored iced coffee at the gas station.

When push came to roll, however, I just couldn’t do it. The online cannabis community offers many resources to the doobie newbie, but that didn’t matter; after I shut my bedroom door, gathered my supplies, laid them out neatly on my carpet, and prepared for minor frustration but ultimate success (I’m reminded of my collage phase), I just sat there.

I don’t know why, really; the only thing I can think of now is fear of failure mixed with the sense that I was being a poseur, but at the time I just remember thinking, “I can’t do this!” I could not imagine breaking that marijuana into small pieces, placing them evenly inside a rolling paper, and licking it closed. I was no longer the independent woman smoking weed in a rocking chair on the front porch.

Apparently seeming a poseur only mattered in the privacy of my bedroom, though, because I began carrying a bud in my purse at all times, should the dual opportunity to get some of it off my hands and seem like a cosmopolitan buyer-of-drugs arise. At said small gathering, I thought it had, but that evening ended with the four of us driving to a Speedway to buy papers, coming back to a shed behind my girlfriend’s parents’ house, rolling a loose, limp joint that fell apart and spilled half its weed on the ground, and eventually trying to smoke out of an apple.

Weeks passed. Despite continuing to make faux-casual mention of having marijuana in my possession—the part of the weed-smoking process most indicative of coolness, I think—I eventually found myself days away from transatlantic travel with almost an entire summer’s stash of weed. That I had wasted my money was not so much a concern to me as the fact that I would be wasting the pot; I didn’t know when I’d be back in the States, so I felt like I needed to get rid of it.

Many of my friends try to distance themselves from stoner culture by trying weed and feeling relieved to dislike it. The line between smoking a hip amount and smoking too much seems blurry, literally and figuratively, a-ha, and some people want to avoid it altogether. “I just don’t feel anything when I do it! Really!” asserts the otherwise hard-partying Hannah, smiling at how special is her snowflake. “I get really paranoid,” affirms two-time Tony, with a weary headshake denoting some mild past trauma. “I had a bad experience,” says your roommate Ryan, referring to the basement party at which he ate an ill-advised number of brownies, cried, and vomited in an inappropriate receptacle.

These stories seem fundamentally different from first-time-I-got-drunk stories, which are generally understood as rites of passage into young adulthood and told with the self-deprecating understanding that one’s former naïveté has been replaced with happy-hour-hardened experience. Alcohol is allowed, expected, legal; marijuana is subversive, for experimentation, the chief characterization of “a phase.” Drink too much and you’re part of the club; smoke too much and you might as well hang up a glow-in-the-dark Grateful Dead poster. That’s a club, too, of course, but not one you want to be in.

Often, there’s a need for weed and no one wants to ask the guy they know, hoping to distance themselves from the kind of people with guys they know, but this was a different symptom of the same illness: I couldn’t stand having it in my possession.

Not much had changed then, actually, in the four years since I’d received patient inhalation instructions in the passenger seat of a red Hyundai Elantra. After making the eleven-hour drive from West Virginia to Connecticut and surviving freshman orientation, my birthday joint remained inside its jewelry box in the top drawer of my standard-issue dorm-room desk. Weeks passed, as they do, but I never offered to share it with any potential new friends or busted it out when life as a tall person on the top bunk became too stressful.

I was scared.

Eventually, I found myself hanging out with three people who would not go on to be lifelong friends, or even merit nod-based acknowledgment in passing on the sidewalk, when one of them mentioned wanting to smoke. (If I remember correctly, they had been talking about humanism and ancient Greece, subjects about which I still know very little but can imagine are made more lucid by marijuana.) I mentioned I had a joint and said they could smoke it. Free weed not being particularly commonplace, ringleader was skeptical. “Really?” he asked. What kind of person goes to the moderate lengths required to obtain marijuana and then gives it away to someone they’ve just met? “Really,” I said, keeping the box for myself. “I really don’t want it.”

A few days before my flight to Berlin, I went to lunch at a place called Taste of Asia with my father and stepmother. Conversation turned to my sex-writing, drug-taking dark side, and at some point during the crab rangoons, my dad asked if I smoked weed. Well, he asked if I smoked “weeeed,” in the jeering, nasal voice parents use to convey that they’re “cool with” whatever bad things we youths are up to.

I said, truthfully, sometimes, then thought it pertinent to ask, casually, "Do you want some?" Look at me, I'm moving to Europe, I’m so progressive, I offer drugs to my elders. My stepmother burst into laughter and flushed cheekedness, and my father chuckled before saying: "Well, be honest!"

She was happy to take some of it off my hands, and I was happy to entertain an image of myself as a kind of visiting weed fairy, bestowing the gift of “Chill out, it’s fun!” upon loved ones who, because of preconceived notions about location or age or logistics, couldn’t give it to themselves. Still, she didn’t want it all, and by my last day in West Virginia, I had resigned myself to the fact that my medical-grade Agent Orange might have to go to waste. I could have given it back to not-dealer, sure, but that would expose my progressive bohemianism as an act. If I wasn’t going to reap any medicinal benefits, I at least wanted to look cool.

My mother was undergoing radiation at that point, so she’d been welcoming casserole-toting visitors all summer. It was fated, then, that on the eve of my departure I would return home from some sad-but-excited good-bye session to see an old white Chevy Conversion van parked in the driveway. Could it be?

I opened the front door to vicious air-conditioning and a raspy, familiar voice. “Well, hi Lauren!”

“Hey, Kim,” I said. “Do you want any weed?”

In Berlin, Dave lives across the street from Görlitzer Park, a former railway station that was bombed out during World War II and which we sometimes call “the weed store.” At all hours of the day and night, conspicuous persons loiter in clusters spaced about eight feet apart and ask passersby—including elderly in sensible windbreakers and parents accompanied by children being transported in/on various wagons, strollers, sleighs, tricycles, miniature horses, etc.—if they want any weed. I’ve seen both accept.

It’s not particularly good weed, but buying illegal drugs in the middle of a busy footpath in broad daylight as rosy-cheeked babes skip past singing German nursery rhymes is infinitely better than having to ask six different friends if they, ahem, “know a guy.” Also nice is the dealer-to-dealer dynamic; when an interested party approaches a seller, he defects to the dealer who has gone longest without a score. I think there are peaceful borders between groups of dealers based on country of origin, and there are definitely problematic racial and immigration issues at play, but here that’s not the point. Rather, take away: 1. Except for periodic “raids” done presumably to help the Polizei maintain an air of legitimacy, it’s very relaxed, and 2. The drug dealers take turns!

After following my mother’s orders to make sure my younger brother was busy “gaming” in his room, I took Kim onto our front porch. It was a beautiful early-August afternoon: suburban lawns a resplendent green, giant oak tree casting long shadows over flowerbeds, the sound of an adolescent basketball game thumping rhythmically down the street. A quick glance towards the neighbors’ houses told me the coast was clear, and I was able to cut her a deal.

Lauren Oyler is a writer based in Germany.

In a project overseen by contributing editor Kiese Laymon, Gawker is running a personal essay every weekend. Please send suggestions to saturdays@gawker.com.

The moon was hit by a huge meteorite in March that left a new crater 65 feet wide.

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The moon was hit by a huge meteorite in March that left a new crater 65 feet wide. The impact was visible to the naked eye, but because it happened in March and NASA is just telling us now, don't even bother looking for it. Thanks anyway, NASA.

North Korea Launched 3 Missiles Into the Sea

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North Korea, strangely quiet as of late in terms of threatening to destroy other countries, launched three short-range missiles today into the sea. Its intent was unclear.

South Korea confirmed the missile launch, which were not in their direction, but rather towards the east. South Korea does believe that North Korea is working on its short-range missile capabilities, for possible further attacks on them and Japan.

North Korea had backed away from its April terror threats, where it laid out sketchy plans to bomb Washington D.C., and Austin, Texas, in a bid to get more aid from both the United States and China.

This new missile test comes after a series of diplomatic talks had helped stabilize relations with the secretive nation.

"We continue to urge the North Korean leadership to heed President Obama's call to choose the path of peace and come into compliance with its international obligations," National Security Council spokeswoman Caitlin Hayden told reporters.

Still, launching short-range missiles into the middle of the sea isn't the easiest way to put your neighbors at ease. The launch could have also been part of the introduction of a new defense minister, Jang Jong Nam, who was little-known before he was named to replace the hard-liner (as if there is any other kind of North Korean army official) Kim Kyok Sik. Not much is known about Jang, although the missile test might have been to show that he's serious about a possible attack on South Korea.


What's one way to thwart a dapper bank robber who hands you a note demanding cash?

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What's one way to thwart a dapper bank robber who hands you a note demanding cash? Screaming, "Oh my God," running across the bank, and hiding under a counter.

James Franco Painted a Mural in Williamsburg Today

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James Franco is trying his hand at the visual arts again, this time working in the time-honored medium of mural on the beaten streets of Williamsburg, Brooklyn.

The title of his new work, "This is The End," which is a meditation on the new film,"This is The End," is a tribute to all his good friends, and all the fun they had while making their new film, which looks... pretty great.

What does James Franco listen to on his headphones as he paints a picture of James Franco? James Franco, probably.

The mural can now be seen on Bedford and Grand. Franco was apparently working with Sky High Murals. James Franco enjoys marijuana/jokes about marijuana.

[Photos by Clare Thigpen]

A Man Was Shot Last Night in Greenwich Village Allegedly for Being Gay

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A 32-year-old man was fatally shot last night in what police are saying is the fourth local hate crime targeting gay men in the last two weeks.

Police say that the victim, Marc Carson, was walking with a friend down Sixth Avenue around midnight, when three Hispanic men began harassing him with anti-gay remarks. One or two of those three men then evidently recrossed paths with Carson a short while later, gunning Carson down at point-blank range outside of Gray's Papaya at West 8th Street and Sixth Avenue.

Police Commissione Ray Kelly told reporters that police are investigating the shooting as a hate crime.

According to police, the suspected shooter was seen urinating on the street outside Annisa, a West Village restaurant, earlier that evening. The man then went inside, made homophobic comments to the bartender, and showed the bartender his gun, telling employees that he was behind Sandy Hook and would shoot them too.

Upon leaving the restaurant, the suspect then apparently encountered Carson and his friend, asking them if they were "gay wrestlers."

"There was no words that would aggravate the situation spoken by the victims here. They were confronted," Kelly told reporters. "They did not know the perpetrators, no previous relationship."

A short while later, the gunman again confronted Carson, asking him, "Do you want to die here?" Carson was then shot once in the cheek with a .38 revolver at point-blank range. He was pronounced dead at Beth Israel Hospital.

"It was a quickie. He shot him and he went straight to the ground," a bouncer at a nearby club told the Daily Mail.

Police caught the suspected shooter about five blocks away from the crime scene and arrested him and two other men in connection with the shooting. Police say he appeared crazed and confessed to the shooting. But, according to reports, the suspect was carrying multiple fake IDs and police have not yet been able to identify him.

[via, photo via newyorkdailyphoto]

Florida Teen Faces Felony Charges Over Same-Sex Relationship

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Kaitlyn Hunt, an 18-year-old high school senior from Indian River County, Florida, is facing felony charges for engaging in a sexual relationship with another girl at her school.

Kate, then 17, reportedly met the unnamed then-14-year-old toward the beginning of the school year.

The two began dating last September shortly after Kate's 18th birthday, and their relationship eventually became intimate.

Everything was fine until a few months later, when Kate was suddenly arrested and charged with two counts of sexual battery on a person 12-16 years old.

It seems Kate's girlfriend's parents found out about the relationship, and went straight to the police.

Though Kate may have run afoul of the state's age-of-consent statute, her mother believes the charges have little to do with the law and everything to do with homophobia on the part of her girlfriend's parents:

They are out to destroy my daughter, because they feel like she ‘made’ their daughter gay. They see being gay as wrong and they blame my daughter. Of course, I see it 100% differently. I don’t see or label these girls as gay. They are teenagers in high school experimenting with their sexuality – with mutual consent. And even if their daughter is gay, who cares? She is still their daughter.

Sebastian River High School, where Kate was voted "Student with Most School Spirit," has taken a similarly prejudiced approach toward dealing with the situation, according to Kate's father.

First she was kicked off the school's basketball team by the coach in order to avoid "drama."

Then, caving to pressure from the parents of Kate's girlfriend, the school board voted to expel her.

Kate is now faced with a Sophie's Choice: Accept Assistant State Attorney Brian Workman's plea deal, which would require her to admit to a felony, spend two years under house arrest, and possibly end up on the sex offender registry for life — or go to trial.

She has until this Friday to decide.

Refusing to remain silent, Kate's family has launched a petition to convince Workman to "stop the prosecution of an 18-year-old girl in a same-sex relationship." The petition has nearly 56,000 supporters at the time of writing.

Correction: A previous version of this article incorrectly listed Kate's 18th birthday as having occurred this year. According to court records obtained by ThinkProgress, Kate turned 18 on August 18th of last year. She was arrested in February.

[photos via Facebook]

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