Cover photo taken by Terry Richardson at the Great Blacks in Wax Museum in Baltimore.
This particular tableau is a critique of gang violence. Visit great-blacksinwax.org to learn more.
In order to figure out what we should put in this issue we went to the poorest parts of Brooklyn and East London and asked the people we met what they’d like to see. Most just walked away when we asked to take a Polaroid but about a quarter of the people we talked to were willing to recommend a feature. After editing out the two dozen or so respondents who said “50 Cent” (whom we did a million years ago) we got a table of contents for the issue. It starts here:
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 WAKE UP!
Dinks Kill People
LEAN
I'd like to hear silly stories, everyday stuff from regular people, but with a point. ...READ MORE |
  BEATS AND RHYMES
Too $hort has it made. The guy has like four hundred gold and platinum albums and is only 29 years old. He gets more bitches than your top five rappers combined, and probably has a house in every city in the US. Somebody just got the bright idea to make a docu...READ MORE |
 MOO KARI MAKKA?
Living on the Streets of Osaka
"Moo kari makka?" That's what you say in Osaka, Japan when you meet someone. It means: "How you doing, making money?" Osaka is all about money. If it were a country it would be the world's ninth richest. The city center is a blaze of illuminated signs, a warre...READ MORE |
 ELECTRIC INDEPENDENCE
What's the sound of one ass slapping? Venetian Snares and Hecate (a.k.a. Rachael Kozak) have made a six-track EP under the name Nymphomatriarch, with beats composed entirely of their own sex sounds. I'm not sure which is scarier: the ill atmospherics and twist...READ MORE |
 MY BEDROOM WALL
Interior Decorating in Prison
My name is Corey Johnson and a few years ago I was sentenced to three years inside for robbing a bank. I ended up serving only 18 months in Her Majesty's Prison Feltham and then in HMP Portland-the closest thing in England to Riker's Island. (In Portland you d...READ MORE |
 VICE FASHION - PIRU, CA.
These kids live in a town called Piru (pop. 1,200), off highway 126 in Ventura County, California. Piru is an old orange grove town, so a large number of Piruians work for Sunkist.
Chris (pg 76) wants to be a cop when he grows up. His brother Eric (left) just...READ MORE |
 I LOVE METH
But it Ain't What it Used to be
There's a lot of meth doing the rounds these days, but to the best of my knowledge, it's not ANYTHING like the crystal clear shit we used to get back in the day in DC. The bike clubs had a tight fist on what was produced and it was absolutely OUTSTANDING....READ MORE |
 LITERARY
Book Reviews - The Down & Out Issue
Hip Hop Immortals: The Remix, Would You Like Attitude With That?, Orientalia: Sex in Asia...READ MORE |
 LIFE WARRIOR
Surviving the Pain, the Fear, and the Hurt
Everyone is looking for someone to blame. Not me. I've had plenty of fucked-up shit happen in my life and I'm not looking for anyone to account for it. I have no hunger for vindication, no thirst for explanation. When the great orangutan of life reaches back a...READ MORE |
 MY AMERICA
I'm rich now but I used to be poor. Boo-hoo. Ever been so poor (it's really about laziness, but...) that you opted to rent your body for medical experiments rather than work a real job?
My first time was for a company testing blood-pressure medicine. ...READ MORE |
 HOSERS ARE BACK
And This Time It's for Real
Bob and Doug MacKenzie were fuckin' awesome, eh? They were real fuckin' funny and I bet you and all your buddies did Dave Thomas's fuckin' "coo roo coo coo coo coo coo coo" like it was the Fourth of July national anthem, didn't yous? Well, I got a little nugge...READ MORE |
 TIDBITS
A Monthly Look At Things We Love - The Down & Out Issue
COLLON BISCUIT ROLLS
The best thing about incessant candy eating is that your colon fills up with undigested sugar and it keeps growing until your gut is actually a tarp wrapped around a massive python of hard, black tar that’s several miles long...READ MORE |
 THE VOICE OF PUSSY
Strip Club DJs Hold it Together
What is it with Strip Club DJs? Why do they talk like that? Most people are busy checking out tits and bums when they go to a strip club, but not me. I want to know who the fuck that guy is who's talking like an AM radio show host introducing Johnny Carson. Th...READ MORE |
 BUM RUSH THE WORLD CUP
America's Homeless Soccer Captain
This past July, nations of the civilized world offered up their welfare bastards in a jingoistic pissing match between social services departments: a soccer tournament. Street people from all corners of the globe were herded to Austria for the inaugural Homele...READ MORE |
 CUM VS MOISTURIZER
VICE Settles the Score!
People have been telling me that cum gets rid of zits since I was sixteen years old. I remember my best friend Caroline saying, "It works. Look at me, I always get it on my face and I don't have any zits." She also insisted that if she didn't have a boyfriend ...READ MORE |
 I HATE GYPSIES
But They Seem Nice
Do you hate gypsies? Me and my brother Gary were walking past this settlement of Gypsy children in Bristol recently when he came out with, "Y'know what, Jack? I fucking despise Gypsies and think they are the scum of the earth. Sending children out to beg by th...READ MORE |
 AIDS IN AFRICA
Cass McCombs' Cheeriest Ditty
In Africa, somewhere near 29.4 million people are living with HIV/AIDS, and 3.5 million new infections occurred in sub-Saharan Africa in 2002. Ten million African youths from 15 to 24 years old and approximately three million children under 15 have HIV. And al...READ MORE |
 BLACK METAL PIGEONS
Windir Camp Out on the Roof
Windir is an epic black metal band that lives in Sogndal, Norway, pop. 3,500. Of course, they can't actually say it's where they "come from," since they've never left long enough to have lived anywhere else.
Unlike those high-school dropouts who sti...READ MORE |
 NOT NYET
Russia's Dying Make Some Noise
Most extreme-music practitioners work in the comfort of their mummy's house, fat asses propped up by mum's gingham pillows, pudgy fingers clamped around steaming mugs of bedtime cocoa. When they've finished slaving away on their expensive computer for, oh, thr...READ MORE |
 STRIPPING FOR RENT
Matmos's Teabagging Days
Matmos are the cuddly face of concept-y electronic music. Their last album was all based around the actual sounds of plastic surgery and liposuction and it still wasn't annoying-it was funny, smart, and beautiful. On their brand-new one, The Civil War, they gr...READ MORE |
 CABADONNA
Life After the Wu
Remember Cappadonna from the Wu? What became of the slang editorialist who made his debut on "Ice Cream" and was the Clan's official sharp dresser back when Ghostface was still a dirtbag? Well, Cappachino the Great claims RZA juxed him for every penny of his p...READ MORE |
 GAMES
Tiger Woods PGA Tour 2004
TIGER WOODS PGA TOUR 2004
I hate golf and I don’t even particularly like video games but about four years ago, on a drunken whim, I bought the first PS2 Tiger Woods game. What an idiot, right?
I mean, even the design on the box was so boring i...READ MORE |
 VICE FASHION - SYNDICATE
All models in this fashion shoot are members of the South Man Syndicate organisation, including some from the associated Peel Dem Crew (Poverty Driven Children). For those of you who don't know, the South Man Syndicate is an organisation of mainly working clas...READ MORE |
 CASHING IN
Fortnightly Forms Met in the Dole Queue
At one point or another most of us have probably been on the dole. People assume that only drug addicts and layabouts collect, but this is not true. Some of the most successful people I know started out receiving benefits. Like two-piece Sydney super duo, The ...READ MORE |
 HARD TIMES DOWN UNDER
Resorting to Work in Australia's Gay Brothels
Like most Americans, I had no idea prostitution was legal in Australia until I moved to Sydney. They even passed a law recently making it legal for prostitutes to work out of their homes! God, I love this country.
After being turned down at countless ...READ MORE |
 MAORI WARRIORS
New Zealand's Gangs Have Never Been Stronger
Yeah, yeah, New Zealand is a stunning country and the vast majority of Kiwis are intensely proud of their heritage and customs. And ok, they've given us Kate Sylvester and Karen Walker, two of the most gracefully talented fashion designers we've seen, plus hip...READ MORE |
 DIRTY DANCING
System Corrupt Make Parties Fun Again
Back when you were nine, parties were memorable. You could steal a box of matches and set a pile of leaves on fire, piss on them, and be talking about it for months. Then you become an adult and parties start to suck. Nobody's wearing any costumes anymore and ...READ MORE |
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