Back in 1994, the Quebec government was paying these weird old Haitians to promote “ethnic culture” by putting out a magazine. The only stipulation was that the recipients had to be on welfare. We wanted the job, so we all got on welfare by filling out the forms with our left hands and acting retarded. The job and the magazine ended up being incredibly boring because they wouldn’t let us spend any money, so we decided to take it over and do it ourselves. The guy threatened to sue us, so we dropped the O and became VICE. (We told everyone the Village Voice forced us to change our name and the lie snowballed into a media event—oops.) Two years later, we became a glossy magazine, and after some funding from an eccentric millionaire, moved to New York. Then he disappeared and we went broke. Then we moved to Brooklyn and started making money again.
