Cover photo by Dana Goldstein
 FEUDAL DELUSIONSMissile-Making Samurai Hideyoshi Hashiba is Ready for WarThis past spring North Korea test-fired yet another Taepodong missile over Japan. It was the third such launch in just over a decade. The Taepodong is the Thor’s hammer of three-stage ballistic death devices, and the Japanese citizenry is rightly afraid of get...READ MORE | |
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  SLAB CITYLife in the Pits of the California BadlandsSet beside the Imperial Valley in southeastern California, the Salton Sea area was supposed to be Hollywood’s answer to the Riviera back in the 50s. But its developers failed to anticipate the raw sewage that would run up the New River from Mexico and ma...READ MORE | |
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 CONQUEST OF THE USELESSAn Entry from the Production Diary of FitzcarraldoIn 1979, Werner Herzog approached 20th Century Fox to fund a movie, based on a true story, about an overzealous rubber baron who wishes to stage an opera in the middle of the Peruvian Amazon. The producers loved the idea and were about to sign off when the dis...READ MORE | |
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 VICE FASHION - HELLO RENE RICARDRene Ricard is a semi-secret hero of American art and culture, specifically New York-ish art and culture in the later 20th century. He was there at Andy Warhol’s Factory from the first days. Some people say that he basically made Julian Schnabel happen. And if...READ MORE | |
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 SEX SMELLSWe Doused a Nerd in Pheromones to See What Would HappenEarlier this month we ordered up some Phiero pheromone cologne to see what all the fuss was about. This stuff is supposed to make a man more irresistible to women than LL Cool J after bathing in a pool of Spanish fly, beaver musk, and balm of Gilead. It arrive...READ MORE | |
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 SKINEMABy Chris NieratkoWE YUM YUM CUM
I hate when people speak to their kids in baby talk. It’s annoying. Then people wonder why their kids turn out to be mental midgets with no social grace and an inability to function in the real world. It’s because when th...READ MORE | |
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 RIPPING THE UNIVERSE A NEW ONELyn Evans Says There’s No Need to Fear His Large Hadron ColliderLast September, the opportunistic hypochondriacs who control the global media tried to convince us that the end of the universe was coming. The first test of the Large Hadron Collider (LHC), they said, would smash protons together at such a velocity that it wo...READ MORE | |
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 VICE MAILLetters - The Conversations With Distinguished Gentlemen IssueThis Guy is in Jail, This Guy Has Questions About Ray Kurzweil, This Guy is Angry About Something, This Guy is Also Angry About Something & This Guy is Annoying and Wrong...READ MORE | |
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 SUITING UP, CRUSTING DOWNYuppies vs. Punks for a Working WeekRecently London was tousled by a series of riots led by outraged anarchists who were probably just really bored. As usual, it looked like a good time. But it also made us wonder who really has the superior lifestyle: hand-to-mouth agitators or the city-boy cap...READ MORE | |
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 SMOKING HOT MUMMIESPapua New Guinea’s Fire-Roasted Corpses Are Pretty GrossIn Papua New Guinea’s Morobe Highlands, the indigenous Anga tribe adheres to a centuries-old method of mummification for its dead: smoke curing. The process is careful, thorough, and loaded with ritualistic bearing—in addition to memorializing lost...READ MORE | |
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 ELMORE LEONARD IS THE MANA Nice Long Talk with the Best Crime Novelist EverWe won’t waste much time on an intro here because you should already know who this guy is. Let’s just say this: Elmore Leonard, now going on 84 years old, is still cranking out perfectly detailed, thrilling, and hilarious stories of criminals at a ...READ MORE | |
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 BORDERLINE BIGOTSMexico Tells Immigrants: “No Way, José”Each year hundreds of thousands of optimistic South and Central Americans travel north to see whether things might be less crappy for them in the United States. The problem is they have to cross Mexico to get there. And Mexico is riddled with inhospitable loca...READ MORE | |
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 BEARDED, BALD, AND BELGIANWalter Van Beirendonck Designs Marvelously Weird ClothesAs part of the Antwerp Six, designer Walter Van Beirendonck stood out as the color-happy alternative to understated co-members Ann Demeulemeester and Dries Van Noten. Today Walt is the super-gay god-daddy to Bernhard Willhelm and all those kids at Saint Martin...READ MORE | |
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 SURROGATE COCKS, INC.Germany’s Fun Factory Pumps Out the DildosIt happens to a lot of men. You meet a beautiful girl, and for some reason you can’t divine, she’s attracted to you. You get to know her, take turns putting your mouths in unspeakably awkward places, establish sides of the bed. Then one day, like a...READ MORE | |
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 WAR IS HELL, AND HELL SUCKSAn Interview with Michael Norman Regarding His and His Wife Elizabeth’s New Book About the Bataan Death MarchThe husband-and-wife writing team Michael and Elizabeth Norman has a new book out this month. It’s called...READ MORE | |
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 DRAINPIPES BATHED THE GOLDEN GLOWThe Guy from Felt Is Still Angry About PantsLawrence Hayward has penned heaps of absolutely perfect pop songs, and yet none of his bands—Felt, Denim, and the latest, Go Kart Mozart—has ever delivered a massive crossover hit. According to Lawrence, this is due to two things: his unfailing abi...READ MORE | |
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 THE EYES HAVE ITNudging Aside the NiqabPhotographer Aaron Huey recently traveled to the Islamic nation of Yemen. While there, he had the chance to photograph and chat with some young Yemeni women who wear the traditional Islamic niqab or burka...READ MORE | |
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 HOCK TALKPawnshops Make the World Go RoundIf the worldwide financial crisis is a 195-car pileup caused by a bunch of manicured dicks in bespoke suits driving around drunk while rifling through a dossier of cooked-up financial portfolios, then pawnshops are the hospitals where the innocent survivors co...READ MORE | |
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 HOCK TALKA Pawnshop In... Mexico City & BrusselsNacional Monte de Piedad was founded in 1775, almost 50 years before Mexico declared its independence. Its HQ, a huge building bought during the 19th century, is located right in the heart of downtown Mexico City. This is how the glorified pawnshop works, acco...READ MORE | |
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 HAMILTON'S PHARMACOPEIAA monthly column by Hamilton MorrisIt may seem like exploding meth labs are a recent phenomenon, but the exploding drug-manufacturing facility predates modern science. Chinese alchemists discovered gunpowder while searching for the elixir of immortality. Moonshine explosions have been a common ...READ MORE | |
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 EPICLY LATER'DBy Patrick O'DellI seriously have nothing to say anymore. I’m getting older and less self-involved, I guess. Amy Kellner said I should just send some pictures in for my column, so here we go...READ MORE | |
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 HOCK TALKA Pawnshop In... Amsterdam & ViennaWe were disappointed when the pawnshop we visited in Amsterdam wasn’t some seedy box in the red-light district with a mean old coot slouching behind his desk and patting the shotgun on his lap. Instead it consisted of a neatly tiled room with a long glas...READ MORE | |
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 HOCK TALKA Pawnshop In... Paris & MilanLocated in the heart of Le Marais, the poshest gay area in all of France, Crédit Municipal is the closet thing to a Parisian pawnshop you can find. It’s run by the city because private pawnbrokering is illegal. You’re not allowed to interview ...READ MORE | |
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 A LIVING, BREATHING PHILOSOPHERVice Talks with a Representative from an Endangered SpeciesSimon Critchley is one of the most influential philosophers living today. That’s right, philosophers still exist! Critchley has written books on literature, poetry, death, humor, and the history of philosophy, and he is renowned for his groundbreaking et...READ MORE | |
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 HOCK TALKA Pawnshop In... Berlin & São PauloBerlin is poor but sexy. At least that’s what the mayor tells himself. In truth, the city is poor and filthy, and nearly everyone lives on welfare. When the state assistance dries up, the whole city runs to the one pawnshop chain that operates a virtual ...READ MORE | |
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 HOCK TALKA Pawnshop In... Helsinki & BarcelonaHelsingin Pantti is the largest chain of pawnshops in Helsinki, with 11 outposts dotting the Finnish capital. The most recent store opening coincided nicely with an uptick in the poor-people- selling-their- cherished-belongings business. Right now, the place i...READ MORE | |
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 HOCK TALKA Pawnshop In... Melbourne & TokyoAs a staunchly working-class suburb, Collingwood has had its fair share of shitty times. Smith Street, the main drag, has served as a popular place to score smack and gamble illegally for decades. Often these two activities cause people to lose money very quic...READ MORE | |
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 HOCK TALKA Pawnshop In... Vancouver & AucklandPawnshops in Canada aren’t all that different from those in the US, but for whatever reason finding a chatty pawnbroker was like chiseling a dead body out of concrete. No one in Toronto wanted any of it, and in Montreal they insulted us by pretending the...READ MORE | |
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 HOCK TALKA Pawnshop In... Stockholm & LondonHocking personal belongings is a popular and totally acceptable pastime in socialist Sweden. Pawnshops are found in prime locations throughout Stockholm, but most have teensy, dreadful offices. So we decided to visit one of the larger chains, Pantbanken Sverig...READ MORE | |
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 RECORDSMusic Reviews - The Conversations With Distinguised Gentlemen IssueCASS MCCOMBS
Catacombs
It’s getting kind of tiresome championing Cass McCombs every time he puts out another brilliant record, telling everyone who will listen that he’s the best singer/songwriter/guitar player going today, babblin...READ MORE | |
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 HELLO! GOODNIGHT!After 15 Years, Sleep Come Out Slugging For 48 Hours OnlyEarlier this year I was talking with a pal about dream musical reformations. The more we talked about the turds who’d recently reformed for cash, the more we realised how little we cared about any of them.
That all changed when ATP announced that Sl...READ MORE | |
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 SAME OLD BULLSHITRaekwon Keeps Us Waiting For Two Days, Then Talks About CakesThis magazine used to be well known for interviews with big-name American rappers. Back when Dave 1 from Chromeo was still writing for us every month we had scoops like Eminem’s first ever interview, Ol’ Dirty’s last ever interview, Lil’...READ MORE | |
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 DISNEYLAND AFTER DARKBy Sam McPheetersLast week I chaperoned a graduating high school class of 2009 to Grad Nite, an exclusive all-night party at Disneyland. My teacher friend Antonio requests that I not name the school, but says it is perfectly fair for me to mention that the school serves the sa...READ MORE | |
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