I once dared a buddy to eat £5 in coins. And he did. It cost him a fiver and will probably give him colon cancer, but it won him my respect. Last weekend I dared someone to sit in a fridge for an hour, which, it turns out, is so dangerous there’s even a Refrigarator Saftey Act to address that specific problem. However,
“I dare you” is one of the most magical phrases in the English language and if you care about things like pride and honour you pretty much have to do it. The daring community was hit badly this week after a forklift truck driver died after a dare to eat a whole jar of chilli sauce went horribly wrong…
Archive for September, 2008
LONDON - LAIR OF THE DARE
STOCKHOLM - FIFFI FUROR
Whenever there’s a big media controversy over here (Merica) it’s always over something stupid like suggestive ice cubes or the fact that somebody just read Huckleberry Finn for the first time. Very rarely is it because the local public health board has focused a little too much of their time on pubic health and created a computer game for girls to practice trimming their bush. Fiffi was developed by the Swedish Association for Sexual Education following a survey that revealed that 90% of all Swedish women tend their pubes and is basically just Wooly Willie taken to its logical, groinal extreme.
LONDON - TYPICAL NIERATKO
The Skinema reading at the pub last night was a packed out success, despite it very nearly turning into a total fiasco. Things took a turn for the worse early on when the organiser ate a peanut (bad idea for someone with a severe nut allergy). So while he was nearly dying in hospital we were unable to locate the books we were planning to sell and the slide projector Chris needed for his presentation. At 8PM, with a full house eagerly awaiting the acclaimed author, there was no sign of Nieratko. I called him and he told me that he was still 40 miles outside London, insisting that it wasn’t his fault because "NOBODY FUCKING TOLD ME STONEHENGE WAS CLOSED ON SUNDAYS!" Two nail-biting, thumb-twiddling hours later, Nieratko runs into the pub, apologising to everyone and thanking them for sticking around. Luckily for us, him and everyone concerned, he’s a very funny dude who not only managed to win over the crowd, but also did a repeat show for the people who couldn’t get into the first reading.
MELBOURNE - WHAT WAS MEANT TO BE THE FIRST EVER REVIEW OF THE NEW AC/DC ALBUM
This interview was supposed to take place in a locked vault in Sony/BMG headquarters, with Murray Engelheart, the author of the book AC/DC: Maximum Rock & Roll yelling his insights to me over the top of AC/DC’s yet-to-be-released Black Ice album, due out on the 20th of October.
I was then supposed to write these insights down, shorthand, because there was no way Sony was going to let me take a recording device into the vault. You’d have it all straight from the horse’s mouth. Unfortunately that didn’t happen because something they “couldn’t discuss” was going down at Sony and the guy who was supposed to put the CD in the slot wasn’t available and consequently morale was too low for anyone else to bother doing it. Something like that anyway.
So, instead, this interview took place in a cafe with Murray and another guy, Lucas Ihlein who is an affable fellow and also the man behind the bonscottblog.
LONDON - I LOVE MICHAEL JACKSON
LONDON - MUSIC KNIGHTS TONIGHT
OK, I know it’s a Monday and the sensible thing to do would be to stay in, but Music Knights tonight promises to be more fun than a Saturday night during which you win the lottery and all your enemies die. As well as free Suso cocktails, we’ve got live performances from Herman Dune and Fanfarlo, a band who David Bowie described as having a "particular knack of being able to create uplifting music that’s blessed with a delicious melancholia at the same time." Listen for yourselves and read through the little chat we had with Simon from Fanfarlo below…
Fanfarlo - "We Live By The Lake"
POLAND - JAROCIN FESTIWAL WEMEMBERED
Dear Vice,
My Polish cousin, Paulina, sent me some bootleg cassettes from the 1980s which were recorded on a tape recorder at a metal festival in communist-era Poland. This was apparently the only way this music could be distributed at the time. This was my first taste of Jarocin festiwal…
LONDON - CREATIVE 30: JESSICA PEMBERTON
Today we have a look at Jessica Pemberton, 28, an illustrator and designer from London.
“Jessy is
incredibly imaginative. Her sassy sense of humour shines through in her
drawings, making you want to see more. She has endless ideas and will, no
doubt, keep looking at things slightly off centre.”
Villeneuve, illustrator.
Since
graduating from the Royal College Of Art Jessy has worked for Paul Smith, Frost
French and Jockey, exhibiting alongside the likes of Tracy Emin and Mike
Figgis…
NEW YORK - DEBATE LIVEBLOG
OK, here’s how this is going to work. We know we’ve sort of been giving short shrift to this year’s election on the blog. Well, tonight we are going to make up for lost time by sitting down with you and watching the presidential debates online. I’m sure you’ve seen one of these "liveblog" dealies before–they’ve got them for TV shows and hippie festivals and abortions. You just refresh the page every couple of minutes and see if anything new has been added since the last time you clicked. It’s like a chat room, but slower and less fun.
NEW YORK - LIVE WITH ANIMALS
We just shot an episode of Practice Space with Golden Triangle in the insane installation one of their guitarists and one of their singers put together at the Live With Animals gallery on Kent and Metropolitan. It’s like they rehearse in a yeti’s lair–there’s all these stalagmites and pelt & horn things that look like they came from monsters and fancy paper dresses that look like they were pulled off models he (the yeti) kidnapped from a Vivienne Westwood show. But then there are also these really crisp and involved photo collages hanging everywhere and a big glass goldfish pond with a baby cow skull in the middle, so I guess it’s like a kind of cultured yeti? Anyways, it’ll probably be a little while before that episode airs but you should go see the space right now before it closes on Sunday. For those of you who’ve never been to the gallery look for the open door leading into the tunnel of glowing white paper flowers that almost completely mutes your voice when you try to speak in it. If you hit that little alley where the Hasidic men go to get blowjobs, you’ve gone too far. Click below for more pics.
TINY THINGS I HATE - MY UNCLE THE ALIEN
Here’s the pitch: What if… your uncle was an alien? Your uncle, is an alien. Let’s just take a minute to really think about how that might feel: "Erm, yeah. Suppose you want to know about my uncle. The alien. How does it feel? Well I don’t really see that much of him to be honest. I mean he’s just my uncle. So probably only get together once or twice a year, maybe Christmas. And I suppose when I do see him it is pretty weird, but it doesn’t really affect me day-to-day. It’s a bit like if your uncle had diabetes or something–you’re aware of it and all that, but it’s a tiny, tiny part of your life."
LONDON - SKINEMA SHOW THIS SUNDAY
Here’s a quick reminder that Chris Nieratko will be holding court this Sunday at the Old Blue Last. If you’re unfamiliar with Nieratko’s work, he’s the ex-Jackass guy who used to edit Big Brother magazine and has been writing our Skinema column for the past 10 years. On Sunday he’ll be presenting a slideshow and telling dirty stories from his book of sex, drugs, fake tits, bad decisions, and assholey antics. Make sure you’re there for 8PM.
CORPORATE SHILLING - YOU CAN WIN A HAT
We hate male hats. With exceptions made for those that keep you warm and those that keep high-velocity bolts from perforating your brain, they all make the heads they live on look as bald and attention-starved as a banjo-playing only-child on a unicycle. Oh, who’s also bald. However, we know from our previous outing on the subject that there are those of you out there who would rather post threatening comments on the internet than let the hat leave their itchy, bad-smelling scalps. As a concession to your shitty taste, we are giving away this hat made by Brixton and In4mation to whoever emails this guy the best reason why they need it. Actually, it looks like a pretty decent hat as far as hats go. If somebody put a knife to our throat and told us to wear it, we’d be like “Are you serious? Wear a piece of woven straw on our heads or you’ll kill us? OKOKOK. Look, we’re putting it on right now. There. See? It’s on, it’s on our head, just put the knife down. What the hell was that about?! No seriously, that was fucked up.”
