May 2012
63 posts
2 tags
GOTH DAY AT DISNEYLAND!
Last weekend, I went to the 12th annual “Bats Day in the Fun Park”. Though you would never guess it from the name, it’s a day where hundreds of goths head to Disneyland California for a day of image-subverting fun. (Seriously, who the fuck decided to call it that? What does that mean?)
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ARTO SAARI
Arto Saari’s story is nothing short of miraculous. Obviously he’s naturally gifted and skated his ass off as a kid, but his rise to prominence is like no one else’s. If you wanted to describe it to someone who doesn’t skate, you could say: Imagine a boy from a faraway country showing up at the World Series and asking if he can play. And not only does he play, but he hits...
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WHICH OTHER SPANDEX-WEARING SUPERPEOPLE ARE GAY?
Northstar, who is apparently one of the X-Men, although you’ve never, ever heard of him, recently asked his boyfriend to marry him. This savvy PR move from Marvel marks the first time a mainstream comic book character has gotten gay-married, although Apollo and Midnighter (who are part of one of DC’s many, many alternate universes and are even more obscure than Northstar) got...
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CHRISTIANS MADE A HORROR FILM ABOUT A HAUNTED BOX...
Over the past few years, a Christian called Rich Praytor has been making a found footage-style horror film called Harmless. Harmless is about a loving, honest, God-fearing American family that is infiltrated by a demonic box of porn, which, when opened, unleashes a poltergeist that procedes to haunt the house. The main character (played by Rich himself) watches in horror as his home is overcome...
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MAKING COCKTAILS OUT OF HOUSEHOLD ITEMS
You’re too stupid to figure out how to use the Silk Road and the dog has eaten all of your weed again. What are you gonna do? Well, in a sane world, you do what generations of stupid, bored children have done before you and reach for the medicine cabinet. A few of Mum’s valiums and a wine glass of Calpol never hurt anyone, right?
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Waste Coast - An Interview With A Vampire
I first heard about Spookhaus (or Bruce Campbell) when I was on tour a few weeks ago. Our driver said he had bought weed off of this guy in Vancouver who was a real vampire. Anytime I hear about someone like this in my beautiful, boring city, I get really excited about befriending them. When I found out that Spookhaus allegedly sleeps in a coffin, I was sold.
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50 CENT WRITES EROTIC CRIME NOVELS
50 Cent is kind of like the Pope in that people depend on him to do stuff, and also he is anointed by a team of bishops or something. If you take a little trip down Wikipedia Lane, you’ll discover that 50 Cent has written over one million books.
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GETTING DOWN WITH DANNY BROWN
Our super-enthusiastic friends over at VICE Netherlands recently got to kick it with the cutest MC with the stupidest hairdo, Mr Danny Brown. Our Dutch colleagues claimed that Danny “enables shy boys from the Dutch countryside to love him like pregnant women love rolled herring”, which is about the most Dutch sentence ever.
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SUNNEKLAAS, A FUN HOLIDAY NO ONE KNOWS ABOUT
What seems as a sadomasochistic esoteric ritual is actually a holiday party on Ameland, a small island of the Netherlands. Called Sunneklaas, yesterday they celebrated it again. Masked men go out on the streets, blow horns, smash the ground with sticks, and do other stuff people rarely ever do. Women and minors can’t go out because they will be chased back home or get their asses beaten with...
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YOU'RE ALL HAPPY ASSHOLES (STATISTICALLY SPEAKING)...
Here’s a paradox worth revisiting as I sit here paralyzed with a mean case of writer’s block/procrastination fly trap: more people commit suicide in locales that self-identify as “happy.” Like Utah, which is full of happy jerks being athletic and having great diets and a fulfilling spiritual life. If you’ve never spent much time in the Salt Lake City suburbs, it’s a bit like an Applebee’s...
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MANWOMAN IS TAKING BACK THE SWASTIKA
ManWoman, a Canadian artist and poet, has been trying to reclaim the swastika from cue ball-headed bigots since the 1960s, when he was tasked with the mission via a series of powerful dreams. Two hundred swastika tattoos, a couple of near-beatdowns, and one failed marriage later, ManWoman’s mission is finally starting to pay off. He is now the unofficial grandfather of the Reclaim The...
RIOT GIRLS, LITERALLY
At Parliament Square, police were quite friendly. We asked if we could join the demonstration, and they were like, “Be our guest!”
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EARL IS FREE
There was no direct road map or GPS tracker to guide me on this journey. I had no idea where I was going. All I had were Earl’s tweets from the day before, which I had already memorized but also saved on my phone just in case I blanked on any important details. He had posed a tantalizing offer to his followers, and I was determined to take him up on it. He had tweeted, “Hai. If you’re in la come...
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PRETENDING TO BE HANDICAPPED FOR A DAY
My brother has hemiplegic cerebral palsy, and he’s a total dick about it. He’s always like, “Oh, I’m crippled so I can’t do the dishes,” or he’ll just blow all of his disability checks on video games and take-out food. For two decades I’ve been secretly jealous of him, yearning for all that extra attention, free stuff, and lowered expectations. I was so envious I hijacked a wheelchair from a...
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I WENT TO THE "ANTI-INTERNET" RALLY WITH A HASID...
“What do you think this is about?” was the question that Sruly, a bespectacled twenty-something Hasidic student and erstwhile packer and shipper from Williamsburg, bounced back at me while we rode on the G train together, en route to what may have been the largest so-called “anti-internet” rally in history. Most of the media coverage I had seen portrayed the asifa, which was organized by Ichud...
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FIVE REAL-LIFE GATSBYS
Aren’t there people whose lives closely mirror Gatsby’s own, almost to the point of parody? Here are five alternative, real-life 2012 Gatsbys they could have cast, and one for each of the supporting characters, because they don’t matter as much. If you haven’t read the book, or like me, can’t remember much of what happend, don’t worry, because i’ve...
WatchNIMROD IN CANNES
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KARACHI KILLS VICE
Interviewing a “target killer” in Karachi was probably the scariest thing I’ve done in my 17 years at VICE. His gun sat between my feet in the backseat of our car as we drove in circles around his neighborhood. After our chat about killing people for a living, I felt like vomiting for three hours. I’ve been around my share of guns and violence, but sitting next to someone who has murdered 35...
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A CONVERSATION WITH BIKER/SKATER/RAT PIG/ALL...
Many of you have surely seen our VBS special ‘Doin It Baja’, which followed skaters Arto Saari, Heath Kirchart, Keegan Sauder, Patrick O’Dell, Hime Hu, and their guide, Bill Bryant on a 2200 mile motorcycle trip from San Diego to the tip of Baja California, Mexico. You may also remember the two calm and collected Canadians who joined them, Kynan Tait and Harvey Foster, providing a very endearing...
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WELCOME… TO REAGANURASSIC PARK
Yesterday, news reports began circulating of a Channel Islands auction house selling what it claims is Ronald Reagan’s blood. The seller says the pro-market president would have wanted him to make a profit, but why you’d want to sell such a thing is much less important than why you’d want to buy it. There’s only one reason to purchase Reagan’s blood, and it should give us serious pause, as the...
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SCRAPS MAKES CLASSIC SHITS AND BEAUTIFUL VIDEOS
Brisbane resident Scraps (AKA Laura Hill) released a debut full length last year that blew me away just by its title alone: Classic Shits 2006 – 2008. I enjoyed it and listened to it here and there, but it wasn’t until a few months ago when I received her Secret Paradise 7” that I got up from my desk, put on a pair of pants and took notice to Scraps’ genius.
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WE INTERVIEWED 50 CENT AND DJ DRAMA
Here are four things I am going to tell you before this interview with 50 Cent. One: Get Rich Or Die Trying is basically the closest our generation will ever get to our very own The Chronic, so regardless of whether or not he has not had a true “smash hit” in years, he will always be important. Two: 50 Cent is a human brand, one whose holdings extend into film, energy drinks, headphones, a...
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A FIST IN THE FACE OF GOD MEETS... FRANK...
So Cannes is going on. One person who isn’t there right now, and who is probably never likely to discuss the merits of Up The Bracketon an expensive boat, is Frank Henenlotter, director of such sexploitation classics as Basket Case, Brain Damage and Frankenhooker. I saw the first couple a while back, and though I was impressed, it wasn’t until my eyes feasted on the majestic latter...
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AVE-DONE
Photos By Aliya Naumoff Stylist: Annette Lamothe-Ramos Photo assistant: Rafael Rios Stylist assistant: Miyako Bellizzi Hair: Bethany Brill Makeup: Lisa Aharon at Kate Ryan Models: Garima and Mia at IMG, Jana at Women Direct Shot at George Brown Studio
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MEMORY IS SELECTIVE
A collective group of artists and musicians located in Gothenburg, Sweden, called Radium invited me to show films a few times at their warehouse-like space in 1986 or ’87.
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ANOTHER DAY IN PARADISE
By this point, so many photojournalists have made the trek to the West Bank and Gaza Strip that the Plight of the Palestinians has become a predictable subgenre, complete with its own lame clichés: young men throwing rocks, protesters waving flags and screaming, children walking through rubble, checkpoints, rocket explosions, Israeli Defense Forces storm troopers busting down doors, and, of...
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WE INTERVIEWED TERI GENDER BENDER FROM LE...
As many times as we’ve heard Morrissey exclaim through multiple songs and various PETA campaigns that meat is, in fact, a murderous act, it’s hard to ignore how cool of a stage prop it can actually be. I mean, who doesn’t like a severed, bloody pig’s head in conjunction with their favorite band? Since 17, Teresa Suarez, aka Teri Gender Bender, founder and guitarist of Mexican garage Punk band,...
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FINALLY, A PHOTO PROJECT THAT FEATURES CHOLAS AND...
Exactitudes, the photo project started in 1994 by Dutch photographer Ari Versluis and profiler Ellie Uyttenbroek, is probably the best way of crushing any persisting dream you have of individuality, if that’s the kind of bizarre, masochistic thing you’re into.
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WatchMONROVIAN ANALOG BLOGGER
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IRAQI DERVISHES CELEBRATE GOD BY KNIFING...
The mystical twirling Sufi dervishes of southern Iraq are a peaceful and generally well-educated Muslim minority who live in poverty in hopes that it will teach them humility. Like most Islamic sects, they’re not appreciated by their religious brethren (especially extremist groups like Al Qaeda) and are regularly shunned, harassed, or even killed. And the continuing onslaught of extreme...
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QUESTION OF THE DAY - WHAT DO IDIOTS DRINK?
Scotland has decided that the minimum price for a single unit of alcohol will be fixed at 50p. This may not seem like much if you’re rich. But you know those super-cheap bottles of own-brand vodka you resort to when you’re waiting for your welfare money/paycheck/parental allowance to come through? Well those are gonna be 50 percent more expensive in Scotland now. And Scotland has...
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BULLSHIT ROMANCE: LIES EVERYONE TELLS ON DATING...
Romantic relationships are just a litany of lies. “Sure, I’d love to see a Katherine Heigl movie.” “No, it’s not creepy at all that your dad touched my thigh like that.” “I swear I never fucked that chick. We’re just, like, you know, friends.” But before you shack up with a partner and the pants are really on fire, we have to get through that...
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STUFF TO LIKE WHEN YOU LIKE BIKES
I recently moved to a new apartment and found that the subway to work takes an hour, but to ride a BIKE to work only takes 20 minutes, so that’s what I’ve been doing. Biking in itself doesn’t really require that much equipment aside from legs (right??? Or maybe not even) and a bike, but because I have an actual SPENDING ADDICTION, whenever I get into a new thing I search out...
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THINKING OFF
For a lot of women, having an orgasm requires hours of foreplay, a bottle of wine, and a British period drama (I recommend Age of Innocence). For tantric sexpert Barbara Carrellas, all it takes is a couple of deep breaths. Carrellas has the rare ability to “think-off,” meaning she can climax anytime, anywhere, simply from focused breathing with no “down there” special touch at all. Basically,...
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DRAW SOMETHING PORN
About a month ago I got really into playing Draw Something. If you’re unfamiliar with what that is, it’s a Pictionary-type game for the iPhone where you and your friends take turns drawing pictures and guessing what they are. I was really into it at first, but like all iPhone games, it got old fast. I gained a new enthusiasm for the game when I stopped trying to draw the suggested...
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FREE RANGE FUR
Years ago, I worked for a fashion designer who had a penchant for fur dyed in bold colors that ranged from acid-green to plum. Most of them were for very expensive jackets that looked like they were made of Muppet skin. Only fox fur—specifically that of the American red fox—was left in its natural state. It was perfectly gorgeous on its own. And while I admit that I’m somewhat vain—I like...
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RETURNING TO SOFEX, POST-ARAB SPRING
According to the people who study such things, the place where Yahweh supposedly rained fire and brimstone on Sodom and Gomorrah is only a few miles from present-day Amman, Jordan. The former site of God’s wrath is now the premier place to purchase the tools of man’s wrath—over the past week, the city hosted SOFEX (the Special Operations Force Exhibition) 2012, the military trade show showcasing...
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AN EARNEST EXPLORATION INTO THE MUSICAL MERIT OF...
If you did not know already, I am the type of person who listens to the vinyl version of The Language and Music of Wolves (narrated by Robert Redford) in earnest. I research, love, cry over, stare at, and think about wolves on a daily basis, and for several years, friends have been mailing me copies of this wolf-sounds album every time they find it in a thrift store. (At some point in the...
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NATIVE AMERICANS HAVE FRONT-ROW SEATS AT THE...
Native Americans, the people who have been on this land the longest, tend to consider climate change a matter of fact. For years indigenous individuals and groups, like the Indigenous Environmental Network, have voiced concern over climate change, pointing as much to changes they’ve seen in ancestral lands as to scientific studies. Now, month after month of unseasonably hot and destructive...
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JOIN THE FACEBOOK DEATH PATROL™!
FaceBook’s Five Stages of Grief: - Primary: “I am the first person here to post about this. I am well-informed and saddened by the loss of this person.” - Secondary: “Here is a link to an article or a video about this person. I remain saddened by this passing.” - Tertiary: “I am going to tell you a long story about myself to truly express my sadness.” - Quaternary: “I will comment on this...
WatchTEENAGE RIOT: MAY DAY IN ESKILSTUNA
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OK, DO IT: TEACH ME HOW TO "GET" ART
A while ago, I wrote a piece about how I don’t “get” art. For some reason, a lot of people have been looking at it lately. After reading through the several hundred really really fucking boring comments that were left on it about why I’m wrong, I thought maybe it would be a good idea to give art yet another chance. This time enlisting the help of someone who claims to...
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DANCING THE NIGHT AWAY AT A GERMAN MENTAL HOSPITAL...
On the second Wednesday of every month, Klinikum Wahrendorff, a psychiatric hospital in Köthenwald, Germany, becomes the most improbable disco in the world. The common room is cleared out and transformed into something resembling a typical discotheque: People dress up, dance, drink, flirt, argue, and generally get out of hand. The main difference here is that while it’s hard to get in to a...
WatchThe Vice Guide to Travel: the Gun Markets of Pakistan
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OMG, YOU GUYS ARE ALL SO STREET! BUT WHAT IS...
This weekend in a car park in Shoreditch there was an event called Streetfest. At Streetfest there is “street” art, “street” music, skateboarding, BMXing, graffiti and other things that have been broadly defined as being “street”.
But what is “street”? What does it mean? It’s difficult to pin down exactly what “street” is… and what it isn’t. So I went down to...
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ARMY GIRLS CAN BE GIRLY GIRLS
I don’t know about you ladies, but to me the army has never seemed like the ideal place to spend your early twenties. In my mind, there would be no shopping, Gossip Girl or spending hours in one position under the sun trying to achieve the perfect tan. Or basically anything else that’s silly and unimportant, but is an important part of me feeling unashamedly like a girl.
Turns out I...
PLANET LOL-LYWOOD
Among all the shitty themed family restaurant chains on this doomed rock, Planet Hollywood is undoubtedly the saddest, as is the story of its demise. At its apex, it was a place where patrons the world over could survey the USA from within the nation’s hemorrhaging, cancerous innards. A basilica where diners could eat fried food among America’s most prized national treasures—replicas of props...
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I GAVE A HANDY AT JEW CAMP
Without question the best thing about being Jewish is the free sex vacation to Israel. Most Jewish youths between the ages of 18 and 26 have taken advantage of this miraculous perk to enjoy a weeklong, all-expenses-paid orgy in the desert. I am, of course, referring to Birthright. The goal of Birthright, which is partially sponsored by the Israeli government, is that young Semites will meet,...
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VITO FUN'S WINTER PHOTO DUMP 2012
Like some sort of punctual shutterbug that runs on nightlife and obscure drugs, around this time every year Vito Fun emerges from his winter hiding and sends us a cyber mailbag of photos from the worst months of the year. This winter was no exception, and here is a collection of the things Vito saw from Tokyo to Miami to New York.
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