BAS | Sad Mag

I have only visited Vancouver once, and I recall it as one does a nightmarish dream. Two years ago to the day, I had set out to attend a conference on the declining state of the national dairy council, hosted in the beautiful town of Princeton, BC. However, due to an unforeseen clerical error, my transportation from the ferry was waylaid, and I had to spend a night in Vancouver. Skeptical of the city’s woeful standard of accommodation, I decided it would be better to take to the streets and “club it,” as it is known in the local parlance. As a result, I was afforded the opportunity to see Vancouverites in their native habitat: pale-skinned delinquents leering at me from dark alleyways, mustachioed hipsters wearing vintage sportswear, inebriated teenagers vomiting against shopfronts to the gleeful cheers of drunken hordes. They moved in packs, spittle flecking their lips as they jeered at me, screeching in an unintelligible cacophony from which I could discern little meaning. Nearby, a woman lifted her skirt, exposing her buttocks as a passerby hooted and hollered like a demented orangutan; two guffawing twenty?somethings stood snapping pictures, presumably for the pages of a perverted personal scrapbook.

As dawn extended her rosy fingers across the sky, I found myself carefully stepping over the syringe strewn streets, striding briskly to the nearest coach station to escape the stale, rancid city air. I boarded the next bus out of town with relief, resolutely establishing to myself that I would never return.

Look out for BurnAfterShooting’s monthly photo series on SADMAG, or follow BAS on Instagram.

Adventure was on the docket this month, as the boys from BurnAfterShooting once again donned their fedoras and took to the streets to boogie and jive with a new array of Vancouver’s wildest and wackiest. Never ones for excess, the boys each enjoyed a responsible amount of alcohol while ensuring that safety was the number one priority. As they strolled the streets, they documented the various mishaps and general hilarity of Vancouver’s charming characters, while distributing pamphlets on safe sex and the immorality of wanton drug use.

Through their wanderings, the BurnAfterShooting team continue to demonstrate that you don’t have to be a belligerent yahoo to enjoy a night out, and that, contrary to popular belief, fun and wholesomeness go together like sweater vests and corduroys.

Look out for BurnAfterShooting’s monthly photo series on SADMAG, or follow BAS on Instagram.

The great American novelist, Herman Melville, once wrote “I squeezed that sperm till I myself almost melted into it; I squeezed that sperm till a strange sort of insanity came over me” (Moby Dick).

This famed American adage has resonated with me for many years, as I’m sure it has for many others. Melville’s words reveal a man who loved to celebrate life, and render its moments of ecstatic beauty into clear, carefully crafted prose. This fine artistic tradition of transforming a prosaic sperm squeezing moment into something truly imaginative is what motivates many modern artists who, like Melville, seek gratification in the elevation of the seemingly mundane into something powerfully transcendent.

For the photographers at BurnAfterShooting, the transformative power of art continues to underpin their weekly forays into Vancouver’s seedy underbelly. With a penchant for light erotica and general horseplay, these supple young artists aim to show that the best cameras are the disposable ones. Tune in to catch the finest snaps from the sordid, booze soaked streets of metro Vancouver. While these pictures won’t break the internet, they may break your sense of common decency.