Little to like about writer turned smuggler

Hey there, time traveller!
This article was published 21/05/2022 (1525 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.

In his compelling but ultimately flawed new memoir, former Canadian music journalist Slava Pastuk — or “Slava P” as he was known through Vice Media — chronicles his journey from music writer at a hip, trendy media outlet to convicted drug smuggler.

Born in Kiev, Ukraine, Pastuk grew up in Barrie, Ont. and developed a passion for hip-hop and online videos by then-upstart media group Vice. At the time Vice specialized in guerrilla-style videos featuring reporters buying guns in Liberia or trying mind-altering drugs in Brazil.

“I was obsessed with their gritty style: each video immersed me in the action, making me feel like I was participating in something illegal,” he writes.

At 19, he left a promising job in marketing to work for Noisey Canada, Vice’s music news division. It was his dream job and led to a life of exclusive parties in Toronto’s music scene.

Pastuk writes that drug use was encouraged by Vice. At its 20th anniversary party in Manhattan in 2014, he says the company gave employees $200 cash as “coke money.”

In reflection, he sees the company’s low pay and culture that encouraged “thrill-seeking and operating on the fringes of legality” as a partial reason for his downfall — the other being his own desire for a lurid adventure.

Needing some extra income, Vastuk began hosting a popular DJ night in a Toronto nightclub, cashing in on the hip factor of working for Vice. His other side hustle was selling weed through connections made on Grindr, a popular gay dating app.

In 2015, Vice was expanding and he found himself with a much more reasonable salary. He thought he could leave the drug-dealing behind, but instead enlisted a friend to do it for him while he continued to take a cut.

That year he also found himself connected to a drug cartel and, “in the name of adventure,” agreed to help smuggle cocaine from Australia to Canada.

While he made it back from his trip unscathed and $20,000 richer, he would soon have everything backfire on him.

He began bragging about his adventure to anyone who’d listen and eventually recruited others to also take trips for the cartel. By the end of the year, a group of five couriers he recruited — dubbed the Oz Five — were arrested doing the same run he did.

Currently serving a nine-year sentence for his crimes, Pastuk was recently denied full parole for “narcissistic traits and a rather enlarged ego,” according to a report in the National Post. This makes sense after reading this memoir.

While Bad Trips is an entertaining read that blends elements of true crime and a behind-the-scenes look at new media, Pastuk’s self-importance becomes exhausting quickly. It’s hard to like him or feel bad for him when he ultimately pays for his crimes.

He also shows little remorse for his actions.

“Everyone made their decision for a selfish reason. I’m sorry their lives changed as a result of venturing down the path I uncovered, but I don’t have a mighty weight of guilt pressing on my soul,” he writes.

Bad Trips was co-written by Brian Whitney, an American true-crime writer, who will also collect all the royalties.

Alan MacKenzie is a Winnipeg-based writer.