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How To Portray Poor People: A Conversation With a Rich Hill Director

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How To Portray Poor People: A Conversation With a Rich Hill Director

The great service of Tracy Droz Tragos and Andrew Droz Palermo's film Rich Hill is that it makes accessible stories that are so often willfully ignored. The documentary winner of Sundance's Grand Jury Prize profiles three boys: Andrew, 13, Harley, 15, and Appachey, 12, who live in Rich Hill, Missouri, a town of 1,393 on the brink of economic collapse. All three deal with poverty on some level, but that's far from their only issue. With a stunning frankness (and while chain-smoking), Appachey describes his father's abandonment; Harley discusses being sexually assaulted by his mother's boyfriend. Rich Hill is modest in its slice-of-life approach to the stories of town's boys, but extraordinary in its effect.

"These stories, these families, they're not unique. Rich Hill is not this super, extra poor town. It's average. There are lots and lots of towns like that and lots of lots of families like that," Tragos told me when I talked to her about the movie earlier this week. Her father lived in Rich Hill, though he died in the Vietnam War when she was a baby. Still, she spent her summers and various other school breaks there with her paternal grandparents. She calls the town "a second home."

Tragos says the movie was conceived via a conversation with Palermo, her cousin, who also spent time in Rich Hill: "We got to talking about it—how much we love the community, but also the people are struggling and suffering there and what's going on. There are some moments when things click, and it just instantly clicked. Neither he nor I let it go."

The resulting documentary is in select theaters today. An edited and condensed transcript of my chat with Tragos is below.

Gawker: Did Harley's mom's case have anything to do with you deciding to make this movie? [Harley's mother attempted to murder her husband after discovering that he had sexually assaulted her son.]

Tracy Droz Tragos: No, we hadn't heard about it. We knew that we wanted to understand what was going on for the families that were struggling there. We knew we wanted to shed light on that. We didn't know who the authors of the story would be, by any means. We got there and started meeting with and talking to people.

Did you always know it was going to be young boys that you were following?

We went to the school, but we didn't know the focus was going to be kids. But then again, that was something that pretty early made sense. We realized it would be harder to dismiss kids. Often these families were dismissed for their own "failings"—their choice that they are in the circumstances they're in, their living off the system, they have an inferior moral compass, they should smoke less, and then they wouldn't be so poor. But [we knew] that if we focused on the kids, it would be harder to judge them like that, harder to shrug them off.

Were there challenges on the other side of that? Was there any sort of internal conflict morally about putting kids out there like the way you do?

Yeah. There was a lot of conversation. Conversation with parents, and going back to Harley, conversation with him about sharing his story, and how that would feel for him and did he want to do that and, "Imagine being at a film festival," where indeed he was, and sharing that with an audience and imagine having it be on TV and knowing a lot of people were going to see that. For him in particular, he was quite clear that he wanted that story out there and that he wanted to share that in a kind of way that I think he was wanting us to bear witness and that there was some relief. He wasn't talking about it, there weren't people talking to him about it, people in town didn't know, the school didn't know. And I think that was a burden. It would come up for him a lot, like it did in the movie on that Halloween night [scene], it would come up randomly because it was so top-of-mind for him. It was something he was struggling with, and he wanted it to be known.

Did the ease with which these boys shared themselves in front of the camera surprise you?

Yes. It's an honor that they had the courage, and I hope we didn't do anything to violate that trust and their willingness to be as open and honest as they were. It's also something that happens over time and there's an intimacy that you have. I think when you step back, that's when you might be surprised. This happened. There was a time that I didn't know Andrew, Harley, and Appachey, and isn't it amazing that I got to know these three kids, and they're in my life right now.

It sounds like there's a strong rapport there. Did you worry about that affecting your objectivity as a documentarian, or is objectivity even a consideration for you?

We were telling a very subjective story to begin with. We were telling it from their perspective. There may have been judgment that I had about some things, and certainly there was more intervening that happened than actually made it in the film, like telling Harley that he should go back to school, or telling Appachey that smoking was really bad for him. But that was all off-camera. I suppose the involvement is where it was hard, but the way we straddled that was we didn't include it in the film. But we were involved.

I think the sharing of Appachey is audacious because he is not exactly likable. He is, in fact, unlikable. And you understand why he is unlikable, but the effect is what you really feel.

I think he's the hardest for some people, but it's interesting, some people are particularly drawn to him. We wanted to be true to who they were and are, in some cases. I mean, there's the film, and there's who they are now, and some of their trajectories have shifted even because of their participation in the film...

Really? How so?

They have participated in the film, they've gone to film festivals, they have a camaraderie among each other. You know, Appachey, after our first screening at Sundance, was in tears. I thought it was about him, and sharing his story, but he was touched by Harley's story, and really moved by him. They then had a sleepover that night. I'm not going to say that in their lives, everything's better now and that it's all fixed, but Andrew is here with me in New York right now and is going to do a Q&A with me, and he's talking a lot about how much he hopes this film will...open people's hearts.

The thing about Appachey being so difficult, it makes the affectionate scene with his mom outside the courtroom such a payoff. Elsewhere in the film, we see her yelling at him a lot. Was that uncomfortable to witness firsthand?

It was very uncomfortable, and when I think about Appachey, the thing I took away from him was his deep capacity for forgiveness. It was very intense. [His mom] Delana now, she's one of the film's strongest supporters, and has this perspective that this was a very stressful time in her life, and her own capacity for change. But yeah, it was totally intense, and there were times when it felt like there were so many kids, they were all on top of each other fighting, and you just wanted to open the doors and get everybody out of there because it was stressful.

I love that the Variety contrasted Rich Hill with Boyhood: "Surfacing at Sundance, where Richard Linklater's 12-years-in-the-making Boyhood presents the happy-ending version of rural coming-of-age, Rich Hill feels equally attuned to poignant small moments that collectively amount to childhood..." Culturally, what most impressed me about Rich Hill was its investment in Americana, but the side of it that is often left out: the stories of disenfranchised people.

These stories, these families, they're not unique. Rich Hill is not this super, extra poor town. It's average. There are lots and lots of towns like that and lots of lots of families like that.

When you talked about awareness, was that among your main objectives with this movie? Just to show what you're showing?

Yeah, exactly. It's a different kind of awareness. Let's go inside these homes that you just kind of want to drive by that belong to families that are so easily dismissed as statistics and living off the system. This notion of people that are undeserving of [sharing their stories]. We were going into these homes, we hoped, in a different kind of way, in a way that wasn't just in/out, "Here's a quick look, oh my god isn't it awful?" We hoped to get past some of that stuff and show you these real human beings and these real families that are complex and that have made mistakes, but that even in the context of making mistakes, they're still worthwhile.

Can I read you the harshest critique of Rich Hill that I've read?

Sure.

It's from Slant's review: "Rich Hill is poverty porn, examining lower-class spaces with pity as its operative mode and engendering little more than a means for viewers to leave the film acknowledging its sadness." What do you think of that critique?

We didn't want to do that. We hoped that we didn't do that. I think it's absolutely valid that that's his experience, but we didn't want you to pity these guys. We wanted there to be moments of transcendence. We thought a lot about that. And it was a lot darker at times than what we shared. We didn't go there because we thought that would be exploitive. We thought about every shot. We thought about including a shot of a trash pile, and was that poverty porn? We actually used that phrase and said we didn't want to go there. We thought that was the treatment that, in large part, we'd seen before. We wanted to give moments of reflection and not just on the challenges, but on the love and the resources that were there but not necessarily tied to material things. We wanted it to be an emotional film. Ultimately, I'm sad that he didn't take that away, but I think on the other hand, pornography is something that is in the eye of the beholder to experience and label.

I think also via your subject matter and non-didactic approach, you take that risk.

The biggest risk we took, I think, as a documentary is not having outside experts and the statistics and the things that give you this safe contextualization to say, "This is the box that I can put it in," and also, "This is the policy that we want to overturn; This is the 1-800 number to call," and then you don't have to have guilt. Or you don't have to feel weird. And you don't have to wonder, "What is my role?" or, "What can I do?" or, "How do I feel that this is going on in my country?" So we hoped people would be moved, and there are conversations and stuff we are doing with the film, we have our outreach and we have our statistics. That's part of the conversation around the film, and not in the film itself. I'm glad we did that, but it was risky.


Eric Garner's NYPD Chokehold Death Ruled Homicide by Medical Examiner

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Eric Garner's NYPD Chokehold Death Ruled Homicide by Medical Examiner

The New York City medical examiner ruled today that Eric Garner's death was a homicide by chokehold.

A spokesperson for the examiner's office said that Garner's death, which came after a videotaped struggle with Staten Island police in July, was caused by pressure on his neck and chest while officers restrained him, as well as his positioning on the ground, NBC reports. Garner's asthma and obesity were also named as contributing factors.

[Image via AP]

Guardians of the Galaxy Is So Lovable You'll Want To Marry It

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Guardians of the Galaxy Is So Lovable You'll Want To Marry It

...But hands off, it's mine!

Just kidding. Guardians of the Galaxy is for everyone. It made over $11 million last night alone, which suggests a possible $100 million opening weekend (a record for August). Good. Everyone give this movie all of your money, because it deserves it. I don't remember the last time I saw a blockbuster so lovable, one that through extremely efficient establishment of back story (and pathos), made me feel so strongly for the characters on screen—even the ones who were a talking raccoon and a regenerating tree/man combo voiced by Vin Diesel. I'm sorry, make that, especially the ones who were a talking raccoon and a regenerating tree/man combo voiced by Vin Diesel. I had Gremlins levels of creature envy—I felt like a 6-year-old desperately wanting to inhabit that world so that I could interact with/own its monsters. "Watching Guardians Of The Galaxy Is Like Getting Back Part Of Your Soul" is the headline of Charlie Jane Anders' Guardians review on io9. Yes. That is correct.

The movie overflows with charm, due in no small part to the charisma of leads Chris Pratt and Zoe Saldana. Writer/director James Gunn's sense of humor is uncommonly sharp and off the wall for a $170 million space adventure with blockbuster potential. The movie routinely and affectionately skewers the intellectual shortcomings of some of its alien characters:

Rocket (the raccoon): These people are completely literal. Metaphors are gonna go right over their heads.

Drax (played by professional wrestler Dave Batista): Nothing goes over my head. My reflexes are too good.

At one point Pratt's Peter Quill implores Saldana's Gamora to dance and she demurs. "On my home planet there's a legend about people like you," he tells her. "It's called Footloose." He then explains the premise, that it's a movie about people in a town "with sticks up their butts" who learn the joy of dancing, blah blah blah. After his spiel, she asks, "Who put the sticks up their butts?"

The skyscapes—explosions of colors in clouds—are routinely gorgeous. The soundtrack, including the climactic use of the Five Stairsteps' "Ooh Child," is terrific. Benicio del Toro has a cameo, in which he is dressed basically as a space Liberace from the future.

Gush gush gush is all I can do when I talk about this movie. I suspect many people will do the same. This is coming from someone who routinely dislikes the other movies in this Marvel franchise. I wish more Marvel movies were as fast and loose and witty as this one. I wish more summer blockbusters were, too.

​President Obama: "We Tortured Some Folks" After 9/11

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At a press conference this afternoon, President Obama admitted that the U.S. tortured prisoners shortly after the 9/11 attacks. "In the immediate aftermath of 9/11, we did some things that were wrong," Obama said, responding to a question about the recently declassified Senate study of the CIA's Rendition/Detention/Interrogation program. "We did a whole lot of things that were right. But we tortured some folks. We did some things that were contrary to our values."

"When we engaged in some of these enhanced interrogation techniques, techniques that I and I think any fair minded person would believe were torture, we crossed a line," he added later. "And that needs to understood and accepted. We have to, as a country, take responsibility for that so hopefully we don't do it in the future. "

The Fallen Mt. Gox Bitcoin King Faces Jail Time in France

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The Fallen Mt. Gox Bitcoin King Faces Jail Time in France

After making a bloody mess of Mt. Gox, the first and biggest name in Bitcoin trading, no one is expecting CEO Mark Karpeles to redeem himself and refund their missing cyber-money. A new report of Karpeles' criminal past won't help.

Gawker first floated reports of Karpeles' shady history in March, and now Ars Technica has its hands on a French court sentence (below) stemming from 2005 allegations of fraud against Karpeles' former employer, a European gaming service:

The 2010 decision shows that Karpeles lost by default, and he was found liable of "fraudulent access to an automated data processing system" and "fraudulent changes to data contained in an automated data processing system." The document also states that Karpeles admitted to French authorities that he had "pirated" a server.

In short, Karpeles went behind the back of his boss and illegally copied substantial amounts of user data after disagreements regarding how the company should be managed. Abusing customer trust? Sounds like our man.

After the seizure and subsequent falling-out, Karpeles resolved nothing and moved to Japan (where he'd later begin Mt. Gox) before receiving a subpoena—meaning he never appeared in his own defense. This also means he served none of his hard time.

You can't blame Karpeles for ignoring a court case if he wasn't told it was happening, but the French government's verdict is clear: Karpeles is guilty of fraud, and should be jailed for a year and pay fines. Instead, he remains free and aloof in Tokyo, pretending he never broke French law or imploded the world's biggest Bitcoin bin, full of other people's millions.

Let's all agree to not give this guy access to another server in the future.

Respect the Cone: Hurricane Forecasts Explained

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Respect the Cone: Hurricane Forecasts Explained

Around this time every year, hurricane forecast maps pop up all over television and the internet — including on your favorite weather blog — but your friendly neighborhood weatherman rarely has enough time to explain the forecasts to you. Here's what those hurricane forecast maps mean.

Basic Information

Respect the Cone: Hurricane Forecasts Explained

Every hurricane forecast map includes a legend that tells viewers crucial facts about the storm. The most important facts in the legend are usually the wind speed and direction of movement. The wind speed tells you the strongest sustained wind within the storm — in this case, Bertha had 50 MPH winds at the 2PM advisory. That doesn't mean that the wind are 50 MPH throughout the entire storm, just in the strongest part.

On maps created for The Vane, the legend will also include a text listing of watches and warnings in effect as of that advisory, if any.


Watches and Warnings

Respect the Cone: Hurricane Forecasts Explained

Watches and warnings are usually denoted by color-coded shading along the coastline of the landmasses impacted by the storm. As a general rule of thumb, everyone in the Atlantic and eastern Pacific use the National Hurricane Center's yellow/blue/pink/red color coding. These watches and warnings often extend farther inland than just the coast.

  • A tropical storm/hurricane watch means that tropical storm/hurricane conditions are possible within the next 48 hours
  • A tropical storm/hurricane warning means that tropical storm/hurricane conditions are possible within the next 36 hours.

The map above shows the watches and warnings in effect this afternoon for the Antilles in advance of Tropical Storm Bertha.


The Cone of Uncertainty

Respect the Cone: Hurricane Forecasts Explained

The cone of uncertainty is the most important part of a hurricane forecast map. The cone shows you where the center of the storm may wind up at any point within the forecast period (usually 5 days).

Weather forecasting is still an inexact science, and hurricane forecasting is even less certain. The cone of uncertainty accounts for the historical margin of error in the National Hurricane Center's forecast track. The points on a forecast map are timed out every 12 hours, so the margin of error increases in 12-hour increments. The margin of error is measured with circles radiating out from the forecast location of the storm's center, and then smoothed, creating the "cone" that everyone is familiar with.

The easiest way to understand the cone of uncertainty is to remember that, historically, the center of a tropical cyclone stays inside the cone of uncertainty 66% of the time. The center moved so far away from the forecaster's predicted path that it fell outside of the cone 33% (well, I guess it'd be 34%) of the time.

Respect the Cone: Hurricane Forecasts Explained

For example, at the 24-hour mark, the National Hurricane Center's historical margin of error is 52 nautical miles. This means that 66% of the time, the actual location of the center of the storm wound up within 52 nautical miles of the NHC's predicted location. This also means that 34% of the time, the center wound up outside of that 52-nautical-mile circle.

Last night when Tropical Storm Bertha formed, I mentioned that there was a slight threat that the storm could impact the eastern United States, as the cone of uncertainty covered about a hundred miles of coastline across North Carolina. As the map at the top of this post shows, that forecast has since shifted, steering the storm out to sea, but it's still worth keeping an eye on.

For a historical example, Hurricane Isaac from 2012 shows us the importance of the cone of uncertainty, as well as a great reminder that the center winds up outside of the cone about 33% of the time.

Respect the Cone: Hurricane Forecasts Explained

Isaac was a notoriously hard storm for forecasters to predict. I lived in Mobile at the time and the center's predicted path came straight over us for several days, but the storm wound up making landfall in Louisiana.

Speaking of which, that brings us to the next major aspect of hurricane forecasts.


The Center's Predicted Path

When maps show the line stretching through the middle of the cone of uncertainty, that's the forecaster's predicted path for the center of the storm. The eye. The tropical storm and hurricane force winds, storm surge, heavy rains, and tornadoes can extend hundreds of miles away from the center of the storm. Just because the center of Hurricane Arthur last month missed Wilmington, North Carolina, it didn't save the city from getting a good wallop. Even though the center of Tropical Storm Bertha is expected to graze the southwestern coast of Puerto Rico, the northeastern side of the island is still under a Tropical Storm Warning.

The winds around the center of a tropical storm or hurricane are usually most intense, but the cyclone's adverse effects can extend well beyond the center. Case in point: Hurricane Sandy.

Respect the Cone: Hurricane Forecasts Explained

Just before Sandy made landfall and completed its transition from a hurricane to an extratropical cyclone, its wind field was absolutely enormous. Even though the center made landfall in New Jersey, its tropical storm force winds extended from Myrtle Beach, South Carolina to Bangor, Maine, and its hurricane force winds stretched from Atlantic City, New Jersey down through Virginia.

Sandy is an extreme case, but it perfectly illustrates the fact that the center's path isn't always the entire story.

As we head into the peak of hurricane season this month and next, keep these points in mind when you watch The Weather Channel or see someone on social media post those hurricane forecast maps. Understanding these maps is the difference between staying informed and panicking (or, even worse, a false sense of security).

[Map of Hurricane Sandy by the NHC, all other graphics created by the author]


You can follow the author on Twitter or send him an email.

James Franco Is Ready for Jail

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James Franco Is Ready for Jail

Aspiring writer James Franco is not afraid of jail. He has his time all planned out.

From a new interview with T Magazine:

If you had to spend a night in jail, what kind of thoughts would you entertain yourself with?

That's so weird, I was just thinking about this. Normally when I go to the bathroom, I have my phone with me and I'm looking at news or emailing or whatever. But the other day I went to the bathroom without my phone and it was like, Whoa, remember this? If I get a massage or something and my thoughts just run, I think about the stuff I'm going to do, the stuff I've done, just ideas really.

Just ideas really.

[Photo: Getty]

Why Are Tech Workers So Bad at Dressing Themselves?

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Why Are Tech Workers So Bad at Dressing Themselves?

If the guiding principle for building great startups is "solve an important problem," then the difficulty tech workers have locating (and laundering!) garments to wear in public would appear to be the sartorial equivalent of Fermat's last theorem.

The latest attempt to properly clothe helpless coders comes from The BlackV Club, a newly launched subscription service that sends men black v-neck t-shirts. Just black v-necks. The bar is so low that's all you need to distinguish yourself. Edward Lando told me that he and his cofounder Yagil Burowski "are both engineers and we're trying to solve a real problem."

Why Are Tech Workers So Bad at Dressing Themselves?

Is it real, though? The level of obsession tech workers apply to their jobs is a point of pride. If the pattern of a successful cofounder is a heads-down dude who hasn't taken vacation since the first slide of his pitch deck and is too busy crushing it to care about what he wears, then men are incentivized to copy the uniform. Startup tee, hoodie, and jeans. Cargo shorts, plaid shirt, sneakers. (Exceptions are made for Burning Man costumes or if the President of the United States comes to speak at your sprawling tech campus.)

Why Are Tech Workers So Bad at Dressing Themselves?

You hear this in the way that multi-millionaires and billionaires sneer at "suits." People who would love to make bank off a blockbuster IPO have an aversion to the straight-and-narrow corporate steez. It's just as rigid and hierarchical as Wall Street's dress code, except the top of the pyramid is "Can't be bothered." Shlubcore is one way to follow in the webbed footsteps of your idols. They call it "fuck you money" for a reason.

Women are held to a different set of standards, of course, but allocating resources to what you wear is still something to sneer at. As one female founder told me, "People judge you if you make effort, then ask if you are in sales or PR."

Why Are Tech Workers So Bad at Dressing Themselves?

This is not to say that male employees at tech companies don't dress like overgrown children, or that they could dress themselves better if the status symbols evolved. The industry has not transitioned into power very gracefully and neither has its wardrobe. But you're too much of a genius to dress yourself is a pretty flattering pitch—not unlike last summer's introversion superiority complex.

The convenience economy has offered up a few services to help: there's Bombfell, which sends men clothes picked out for a stylist, "so you can spend your time doing awesome guy stuff." Trunk Club, another men's personal shopper service, was just acquired by Nordstrom's yesterday. Both of those more established startups are backed by Silicon Valley insiders, but only BlackV Club (and The Awl's satirical startup Shirterate) explicitly calling out tech slobs.

Why Are Tech Workers So Bad at Dressing Themselves?

The BlackV Club founders met at UPenn, where Burowski is still a student. Lando, who is now based in San Francisco, says he's familiar with the Silicon Valley aesthetic through hackathons and summer jobs at tech companies. He told Valleywag the key was eliminating choice. Emphasis mine:

I think that a lot of people working in tech value their time a lot. So even though they have a bunch of options—a bunch of websites and supposedly they don't have to make that trip to the store—they can save time. If you go on any of those sites and you have a hundred options offered at you, it's overwhelming and you don't really know which one to pick. It's a very high cognitive load. If you're feeding yourself or clothing yourself, we think it's the same thing for all these basic daily things. When I go to a restaurant, I'm really assured when there are only five things on the menu because I don't have to explore it for five minutes and worry that I'm giving up a better option. So it's the same thing. You want to focus on what you want to do—working at a cool startup or at a cool company.

Framing freedom of choice as a burden is also baked into the marketing scheme for Soylent, the drink that promises "you'll never have to worry about food again."

Unlike Ensure® Shakes or artisanal liquid diets, it's marketed as a solution for people who operate on too high a plane. A #Soylentpioneer has a mind like a Hyperloop—speeding so fast to the future that it will freeze in the face of a grocery aisle. To drink Soylent is to ascended from the mortal drudgery of dining (and all the fattening free food at your startup office). Business Insider praised it as "a productivity cheat code." If only SlimFast had thought of that!

Limiting the number of options is also a discipline technique parents use on their children, so it's in keeping with the overall infantalization market for subscription services that act like your mom. As Burowski put it:

I won't die if I wear something not very awesome or eat the same thing everyday. Nothing would happen to me. We're tech people too. So we say we don't mind, but we should mind. It's an awful thing to go to a clothes store and somebody is like try this, try that. It's horrible, I just want to run away. Often, I just go buy something I don't even want and run away.

Hmm, I dunno about that. Both cofounders seem to be doing alright judging by this picture of them with fashionisto Jack Dorsey. I mean check out the pea coat and shades in Burowski's Twitter avatar. We should all be so effortless and classic!

Why Are Tech Workers So Bad at Dressing Themselves?

Lando credited their appearance, and the inspiration for the startup, to a female friend:

Yagil and I don't have particularly exquisite fashion taste, I would say. But we have a good friend of ours and once in awhile we go shopping with her and she just tells us: 'Choose this, Choose that.'

When I spoke to them earlier this week, they hadn't told their female friend about the startup or offered her a job.

Both cofounders say BlackV Club is not in danger of giving off the wrong I-actually-looked-up-from-my-computer impression:

EL: You're right, in Silicon Valley sometimes down dressing is a symbol of power. But you know that's sort of the idea behind the black v-neck. I've been to a bar or a club just wearing a t-shirt—a black v-neck—it takes one second to slip on. Other people spend hundreds of dollars on blazers and shirts and this and that and you actually come across as sort of more badass—

YB: —Exactly

EL: Because it looks good, but it's effortless and you didn't have to give a shit, you slipped your shirt on and you went because you had better things to do.

Their club already has some members. The day after launching on Product Hunt, Burowski told me 1,500 people joined "from a bunch of top tech companies, including some high profile individuals." It made some enemies, as well: "We also made it to the front page of Hacker News, but the post got flagged down by a few people who didn't like the critique on their wardrobe," he added.

To contact the author of this post, please email nitasha@gawker.com.

[Images via Getty and Business Insider]


Kickstarter Campaign Seeks to Bring Kenny Loggins to a Fan's Condo

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Kickstarter Campaign Seeks to Bring Kenny Loggins to a Fan's Condo

How much would you pay to see Kenny Loggins in the privacy of a random fan's living room? Erick M. Sanchez of Washington, D.C. is hoping to lure the 80s soft rock legend to his one-bedroom condo through a new Kickstarter campaign.

"If you're looking to make a dream come true, put your money where your ears are and drop some cash. Don't do it for me. Don't do it for Kenny, Georgia, and Gary. Do it for America," wrote Sanchez, a self-professed Loggins-ista, club sandwich consumer and Libra, looking for fitness.

The first 20 to donate $300 are guaranteed a seat in the condo. The aim of the campaign is to generate $30,000 by Aug. 23 to get Loggins and the Blue Sky Riders to play old hits like "Danger Zone" and newer songs for an hour and 15 minutes in Sanchez's living room. But, as the city told WJLA TV, an ABC News affiliate, a permit may be needed to hold the 50-person concert. To date, the campaign has raised $3,800.

Loggins' representatives told WJLA TV that they'll be more than happy to do the concert, if the campaign reaches its goal.

State of Emergency Declared in Ohio After Toxins Were Found in Water

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State of Emergency Declared in Ohio After Toxins Were Found in Water

The AP reports that Ohio governor John Kasich has declared a state of emergency in Toledo, Ohio, after tests showed the presence of a toxin in the city's water supply. About 400,000 people have been warned not to drink the water.

According to Toledo News Now, chemists found two sample readings for microcystin when testing water at Toledo's Collins Park Water Treatment Plant. The AP notes that the toxin may have come from algae on Lake Erie.

Residents of Toledo and the neighboring suburb Lucas County, which receives water from the city of Toledo, are being told not to use or boil the city's water. Toledo leaders are reportedly setting up water distribution centers, as many stores in Toledo have already sold out of bottled water.

The AP reports that the emergency order will "allow the state to begin bringing water into the Toledo area." From the AP:

Toledo's mayor says it's too early to know how long the water advisory will stay in place. More tests are being done and results are expected later Saturday.

[image via AP]

American Aid Doctor Infected With Ebola Arrives in the US

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American Aid Doctor Infected With Ebola Arrives in the US

Medical officials at Atlanta's Emory University Hospital say they are prepared to treat an American humanitarian worker infected with the deadly Ebola virus who returned to the United States today.

Dr. Kent Brantly, 33, the first of two Americans who became seriously ill with the virus while working in West Africa, landed today in Georgia. He was transported on a private jet with a portable tent specially constructed for patients with serious infectious diseases. A second American aid worker, Nancy Writebol, is scheduled for a later flight.

Via ABC News:

"The reason we are bringing these patients back to our facility is because we feel they deserve to have the highest level of care offered for their treatment," Dr. Bruce Ribner, who oversees Emory University isolation unit, said at a press conference. "They have become infected through medical care, and we feel that we have the environment and expertise to safely care for these patients and offer them the maximum opportunity for recovery from these infections."

Brantly, who works for Samaritan's Purse, and Writebol, of SIM, were working at a Liberian hospital, helping patients infected with Ebola, a virus that is spread through bodily fluids or direct contact with blood. Sierra Leone, Liberia, and Nigeria are seeing their largest ever Ebola outbreak. There have been a total of 729 deaths from Ebola as of July 27, according to the World Health Organization.

Emory University Hospital was chosen because it is one of only four U.S. facilities with a containment unit—developed with the help of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention—to treat patients with a serious communicable disease, the Associated Press reports.

[Image via AP]

Philly Police Detonate (Admittedly Very Realistic) Prop Bomb

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Philly Police Detonate (Admittedly Very Realistic) Prop Bomb

The Philadelphia Inquirer reports that police, firefighters, and ambulances responded to reports of a bomb in a vacant Philadelphia lot on Friday morning. Fortunately (or unfortunately, depending on how much pride you have on the line) it was just a prop bomb from a local theater's production of We Are Bandits.

Police evacuated nearby buildings and cordoned off the area with yellow tape while a bomb disposal expert approached the dumpster where the device was spotted. Bayla Rubin, of the Philadelphia theater troupe Applied Mechanics, told the Inquirer that she heard the controlled detonation and thought, "Oh my gosh. They just blew up our prop." From the Inquirer:

The prop in question? A length of PVC pipe, attached to a circuit board. It was used in the Bandits performance, which drew its inspiration from the 2011 Occupy movement.

After the show's run ended Wednesday, Rubin said, she instructed a fellow member to take the "bomb" to the Dumpster on 12th.

She said she had just worked a 14-hour day and "wasn't thinking clearly" when she gave the order to throw the very bomb-y looking prop bomb into the dumpster. After she figured out what happened, she went outside to explain the situation to the police, who the Inquirer reports "more relieved than annoyed."

The woman who came forward "was unaware of the fuss it would cause," explained Joseph Sullivan, chief of the city police's Homeland Security unit, who declined to identify her. "I believe she is sincere and contrite."

According to Philadelphia Magazine, Sullivan told press at the scene:

"It was a theatrical device that unfortunately was not disassembled before it was put in the trash. A very well-constructed theatrical device, I might add. It caused us a great deal of anxiety."

[image via PhillyMag]

Blood Orange Fans Voice Support After Alleged Lollapalooza Assault

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Blood Orange Fans Voice Support After Alleged Lollapalooza Assault

Messages of support from fans of Blood Orange's Dev Hynes are allegedly being deleted from the Lollapalooza Facebook page after the singer-songwriter and his girlfriend, Samantha Urbani, claimed to have been assaulted by the event's privately hired security guards.

Hynes, while wearing matching anti-police brutality T-shirts with his girlfriend, was performing on August 1 at the Lollapalooza Festival at Chicago's Grant Park. He delivered a speech on "police brutality and racism" right before the alleged assault.

The singer-songwriter took to Twitter:

Blood Orange Fans Voice Support After Alleged Lollapalooza Assault

Blood Orange Fans Voice Support After Alleged Lollapalooza Assault

Blood Orange Fans Voice Support After Alleged Lollapalooza Assault

A couple of links to articles about the alleged incident could be found in the comment sections on the Lollapalooza Facebook. But fans claimed on Twitter that their messages of support were being deleted.

Blood Orange Fans Voice Support After Alleged Lollapalooza Assault

Blood Orange Fans Voice Support After Alleged Lollapalooza Assault

In response to the allegations, Lollapalooza released the following statement:

"Late Friday night, we learned of an incident involving an artist and a security guard on site. Since then, we have been in contact with those involved and the authorities, as we work together to resolve the situation. As always, our top priority is to ensure the safety of everyone at the festival."

Hynes is asking anyone who saw the incident to contact him.

Blood Orange Fans Voice Support After Alleged Lollapalooza Assault

Baby's First Medieval Knight Sword Fight

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Do you remember the first time your parents dressed you up as a knight and made you fake sword fight another baby dressed as a knight in the middle of a crowd of people?

Ah, where has the time gone.

[h/t Time]

Six Flags Riders Walk to Safety After Roller Coaster Stops at Peak

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What happens when your Six Flags roller coaster putters to a stop at the peak? Adventure-seeking riders found out on Friday when the Nitro at Great Adventure in Jackson, N.J. got stuck, and they were forced to walk down along the 230-foot tracks.

Six Flags representatives told New York's PIX-11 that the ride stopped on the hill due to a power failure. When working properly, the "hypercoaster" reaches speeds of 80 m.p.h and heights of 233 feet. You can literally see Philadelphia from the first hill, according to Six Flags' website.


The Door Between Things

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The Door Between Things

A few years ago, I stood outside of my ex-boyfriend Billy's house. I was there for the second time that day, this time to take him to an appointment he had with his psychiatrist. It was an unusually sunny day for a Seattle February and I hadn't thought to wear sunglasses because it's not often that you need them here in the winter. If we hadn't broken up just before we'd both moved all the way across the country from New Haven, it would have been our fifth anniversary, but we had ended things and so instead it was just Groundhog's Day. I raised the heavy brass knocker on the dark red door and snapped it down a few times. The sound was loud as gunshots and echoed down the street. I struck it again and again. Nothing.

When I first met Billy in San Francisco it was a cold, wet January and the entire city seemed miserable. Nobody looked anybody in the eye, least of all me. I'd migrated there to start grad school, but the program hadn't been a good fit and I was stuck in limbo, waiting to transfer after the summer to try it again at the University of Iowa. I was friendless. I was broke.

When a room opened up in the apartment I shared with six other roommates, I'd spent an entire weekend showing the place to all of the typical San Francisco types—artists, hippies, techies, freaks—and every one of them had seemed just as dismal as the weather. But then came one last knock at the door, and when I'd opened it, there was a rather short guy standing there in a fitted blazer and jeans with mussed up hair and a half-smile staring back at me. "Hi, I'm Billy," he'd said. As I gave him the tour he explained that he was a paralegal. It sounded so grown-up to me, going to an office and lawyering all day. He'd gone to NYU, the school that as a Midwestern kid I'd been so sure I'd end up at that I'd gone so far as to memorize the streets of Lower Manhattan just in case. Just in case. He loved dogs, he said, a declaration made as my own growled at him and bit him hard enough on the ankle to draw blood. Have you ever noticed that this whole damn city is full of people who stare at ground when they walk? Nobody every looks at anybody else! he'd said and I'd laughed and thought, I like him!

After I'd given him the tour, I excused myself to listen to the radio. A friend of mine was being featured on This American Life. I love that show! Billy said, and so he joined me. We sat in my room, me on the bed, him cross-legged on the floor, and quietly listened as my friend told the story of a trip he'd taken with his deaf mother to a faith healer in Brazil. They were looking for a miracle. As we listened, he would sneak a glance at me, I would steal a peek at him, and then we'd look away quick because neither one of us wanted to be caught staring.

Later on, we would sometimes rehash this moment. I struggled to make it sound profound, probably because I am a poet. I'd say things such as, "I felt like water and you were the glass to contain me" or "In the silence of my room, you reached over and rapped out my heart's secret knock. It opened its doors to you." Billy would roll his eyes and reply with something like, "If anything was knocking it wasn't our hearts, lady. Maybe our metaphorical boots…." And I'd elbow him and he'd grab my arms tight and pull me close to cuddle. But we both knew that in that moment on the floor of my bedroom something had spilled out from us. Something had opened.

We sat on our deck and looked out over downtown San Francisco. Six months had passed, we'd become inseparable since he'd moved into the apartment, but I'd be moving away to Iowa the next morning. We'd known from that first day we'd met that this would be the eventual outcome, but now the time had come and neither one of us could fathom just how to go about it. There was fog, which was usual for San Francisco, but this night the air felt warmer than normal.

"I'm scared," I'd said to him. I counted the streetlights and thought about all of the days that were about to happen, "I'm afraid, that you're going to forget the little things that make me who I am. The things that you love about me. I'll just be a voice on the phone. There are going to be so many ski lifts and farms and strip malls and Walmarts between us. We won't build them, but they'll be there," and with that I hopped up and scrambled inside, pulling the sliding glass door shut behind me.

I yelled through it, "Everything's going to come between us and we will be as distant as this!"

Billy got up and slid open the door. He instead pulled the screen door closed. He pressed his hand to the screen and I could clearly see the outline of each finger against it. I put my own up against his and felt the heat of it. He said, "Love, it'll be like this, like we're almost touching. We'll be just fine," and I believed him.

"Pound on it or something," I said into the phone. I was sitting on the floor of an emergency room in North Carolina with my ear pressed up against a thick industrial door. I heard the sound of a muffled thumping.

I'd been in Iowa for eight months and, after an autumn spent applying to grad schools himself, Billy had moved out to live with me. We were both thrilled when he was accepted at his first choice program and he'd flown down to Durham for orientation. When he'd been gone for a day, his father called. Billy was missing, the police couldn't find him, and nobody had seen him. Within an hour I was on my way to North Carolina. I met with the police and I retraced his steps, expecting to find his mangled car in a ditch somewhere. I'd found nothing. I was frantic and decided to call every hotel and motel in the phonebook. There were hundreds, but at the seventh one I'd called the clerk had transferred me and Billy picked up the phone. He'd made a mistake, he said. He'd gotten drunk and ended up on the wrong side of town. His rental car, his phone, his computer, his luggage, everything he'd had with him had been stolen. Everything was gone. It was too much, he'd said. He'd made a mistake, he'd said.

"I didn't know what to do," he cried. I'd never heard him cry before.

I said, "I'm coming for you, we'll figure this out." When it became clear that the neighborhood he was in was bad enough that no cab would take me there, I'd called the police to fetch him. They'd found him with his wrists bleeding out and taken him to the hospital. I should have told the intake nurse that we were married, but I hadn't, and so the hospital forbade us contact. After twelve hours, and lots of wheedling and crying by the both of us, a psychiatrist took pity and snuck Billy a phone so that he could call me. We sat on either side of that big, metal door.

"I can hear you!" I said and kicked at the door with my feet.

"I can feel that," Billy said, "I can feel you."

I was living alone in a cabin in Northern Iowa, on fellowship, ostensibly working on "my novel". Billy came out to visit. I showed him around.

"At night, I'm pretty scared of that," I said, gesturing at the glass door to the cabin, "It becomes a mirror. I can't see out. It really feels like someone is staring in at me. When it gets too bad, I shut myself in the closet."

"Why the fuck would someone build a cabin with a flimsy excuse of door like this?" he'd grumbled and then set about covering the glass panes with towels, "I mean, doors should make people feel safe. That's why they have deadbolts."

For years we were on and off. He was sad. He was better. We lived together. We lived thousands of miles apart. He was going to marry me. He wanted me to pack my things and leave. I would come back. I would leave again. Years of coming and going and all of it marked by the doors we walked through. Doors we opened. Doors we closed again.

There was the hatch-like door of an apartment in an old Oakland Victorian that had been remodeled to look like a boat. One morning, out of the blue, he'd told me he'd bought me a ticket back to Chicago and he needed me to leave the next day. I didn't even ask why because I knew that there wasn't an answer. It just was. I'd slammed that door in his face so hard that he'd dropped the glass he was holding and I'd heard it shatter loud as anything as I stood on the porch and cried.

There was the beaded curtain we'd hung up in place of a bedroom door in our first apartment in New Haven. When I was in the kitchen cooking, I would watch him sprawled out on our bed, hunched over his textbooks and I'd smile and call him in for dinner.

And then our closed bedroom doors at our second apartment there. They were just down the hall from one another, but neither of us could seem to find the wherewithal to walk the distance between them. The sturdy wooden door at the office of our couples' therapist that I'd stare at as Billy detailed all the reasons that I just had to move on. The pale grey door of my first apartment in Seattle that he'd helped me to paint.

What must have been hundreds of sliding glass doors at airports. Sometimes one of us would appear out of one. Sometimes one of us would disappear back through another.

Billy never did come to the door that sunny February day in Seattle, because he couldn't. He'd put a pistol in his mouth just before I'd returned and he'd pulled the trigger and he was dead.

Billy hadn't been doing well for a few months, so I'd gone over Groundhog's Day morning to check on him. He was lying on his bed; I sat on the floor beside him and stroked his head. "This isn't how it's supposed to be, Rebecca," he'd said.

I told him jokes and I'd gotten him to laugh a bit, but I couldn't get him to roll over and look at me. I said, "Let's get you feeling better," then I called his psychiatrist and scheduled a meeting for later that afternoon. I didn't yet know that we'd never make it. I phoned his parents and told them he wasn't well. They made plans to fly out from Boston the next morning.

Then I lay down next to him for a bit and held him for an hour. I needed to run some errands so I told him I'd be back at three and I got up to leave. As I walked through the door, he said, "Rebecca." I'd turned to him. He was peeking out at me from beneath his comforter.

I'd said, "Yes, Billy."

He said, "I love you."

"I know," I said, "I love you, too, baby."

He said, "Very much, I mean, I love you very much."

"Yes," I said, my throat catching a bit, "I love you, too. More than I can say." I lingered there for a few moments and our eyes didn't break contact. It felt like we were both spilling out everywhere and I didn't know what to do about it, so I walked out of his room and I pulled the door closed behind me.

In this time since he's died, I'm scared that the last drop of Billy will run like water right through my fingers. I'm afraid that if I let myself move on from the pain of his death that my mind might take that opening to slam shut on him. And he'd be locked out, all alone in that darkness.

Rebecca Bridge is a poet, novelist, teacher, and screenwriter living in Seattle with her old dog, Charlie. She is the co-author of Clear Out the Static in Your Attic: A Writer's Guide to Turning Artifacts into Art.

[Illustration by Tara Jacoby]

At Least 175 Dead, 1400 Injured After Earthquake Hits Southern China

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At Least 175 Dead, 1400 Injured After Earthquake Hits Southern China

A 6.1-magnitude earthquake hit the Yunnan province of China Sunday, resulting in the deaths of over 175 (previously reported at 150) people and injuring at least 1400.

According to the China state broadcast, this was the strongest earthquake to hit the Yunnan province in 14 years. The AP reports that "at least 120 of the dead were in densely populated Ludian county, with another 180 missing and 1,300 people injured there."

The earthquake struck at around 4:30 p.m. at a depth of 6 miles.

[Image via Straits Times]

Mother Learns of Son's Death Only After Smelling His Decomposing Body

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Mother Learns of Son's Death Only After Smelling His Decomposing Body

It wasn't until Kimberly Tutko noticed an odor coming from the third floor of her home that she says she learned of her 8-year-old son's death, the AP reports.

Jarrod Nicholas Tutko Sr., 38, showed his wife the body of Jarrod Jr. on Friday. The mom, after pulling back a sheet, realized the boy had been dead for days, according to PennLive.com.

"I said to him 'Why didn't you say anything?'" Kimberly Tutko told PennLive.com. "He said he was too afraid to say anything because of other kids in the house." The media outlet was allowed to walk through the family home in Harrisburg, PA., taking pictures of the boy's squalid, feces-covered bedroom, where he allegedly died.

Jarrod Jr., who had autism and Fragile X Syndrome, lived on the third floor of the home and was cared for by his father. There were five other children in the home, all of whom have been removed by the county. Kimberly Tutko said she primarily took care of their daughter, who is blind and bedridden.

It's not clear how Jarrod Jr. died, but an autopsy will be conducted next week.

Jarrod Tutko was charged with concealing the death of a child, abuse of a corpse, and endangering the welfare of children. His bail is set at $500,000.

[Image via Sean Simmers, PennLive.com]

Bill Murray to Turn Off Bill Murray to Voice Baloo in The Jungle Book

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Bill Murray to Turn Off Bill Murray to Voice Baloo in The Jungle Book

Bill Murray, who just can't stop being Bill Murray god bless his heart, will be taking a break from playing the greatest role of his life (himself) in order to voice Baloo, the lovable bear in the live-action remake of Disney's The Jungle Book.

Deadline reports that Murray will be voicing the bear alongside Ben Kingsley's Bagheera, Christopher Walken's King Louie, Lupita Nyong'o's Raksha, and Idris Elba's Shere Khan, as well as some others. The Jon Favreau-directed film is expected to release in October of 2015 with ten-year-old Neel Sethi playing Mowgli, the only actor to appear among CGI characters.

Unless that good ole Bill Murray has something wacky up his sleeve like a walk-on cameo by actor Bill Murray.

[Image via AP]

Gaza Officials: Airstrike Kills at Least 10 Near U.N. School

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Gaza Officials: Airstrike Kills at Least 10 Near U.N. School

At least 10 are dead and 35 wounded in the wake of an Israeli airstrike that occurred today on the southern Gaza strip near a United Nations school, the AP reports.

Palestinians gathered around the fallen victims' bodies that were spread out on the blood-streaked grounds of the U.N. school, which shelters some 3,000 displaced people. Those who weren't taken to the Kuwaiti hospital in Rafah had their wounds tended to under an onsite makeshift tent.

The Rafah school strike comes after the Israeli military began a "new phase" along the Gaza border to demolish the Hamas underground tunnels.

"We have indeed scaled down some of the presence and indeed urged Palestinians in certain neighborhoods to come back to their homes," Lt. Col. Peter Lerner told the AP.

One U.N. staffer was confirmed dead, according to Robert Turner, director of operations for the U.N. Palestinian refugee agency in Gaza.

Some 70 Israelis—mostly soldiers—have been killed in the four-weeks of conflict. Another 1,750 Palestinians—nearly all civilians—died, according to Palestinian health officials.

[Image via AP]

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