VOLUME 8 NUMBER 6 What’S Your

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From founder Paul Van Doren’s doodle came one of Vans’ most iconic The Vans Warped Tour, 16 years of punk rock.

Rebel with a cause.

Kye Forte wears Jupiter® from the Oakley lifestyle collection.

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Photo by Hannah Kuo. Hannah’s series of people and their pets was our favourite thing at the Parsons senior thesis photography exhibition this year. Happy graduation to Hannah and the class of 2010! VOLUME 8 NUMBER 6 Cover photo by Jesper Damsgaard Lund and Lasse Bech Martinussen WORKIN’ ON MY NIGHT CHEESE OUR HOUSE MUSIC INSPIRES ART Tryin’ to Have Some Fucked-Up Dreams ...... 30 In the Middle of the Trees ...... 52 CHUNKA CHUNKA BURNIN’ LOVE A WANDERFUL EXPERIENCE PROGRAMME. Elvis’s Big Baby Boy Never Says Diet Cracking the Crazy Behind the Amazing AMwand ...... 58 (Except That He Did, and Lost 500 Pounds) ...... 32 DETLEV LIVES! CASTROLAND German Precision at 4% Thomas Haustein Is Our All-Time-Favourite The Beauty and Despair of Modern-Day Cuba ...... 64 German Teen Junkie Hustler ...... 34 FRIGHT NIGHT Discover more free thinking from celebrated TRANNY IN A MAN’S JAIL Dancing With Zombies and Ghosts at Carnival in Haiti . . . . 72 artists inspired by their favourite The New York Penal System Threw WADE IN THE DARK WATER music at facebook.com/becksvier Our Friend Kira to the Wolves ...... 38 Going to Church With Sabbath Assembly ...... 108 WAR ALL THE TIME I Joined the Parachute Regiment ROKY ERICKSON and Watched Them “Kill” Taliban ...... 42 Interview by Matthias Connor ...... 112 VICTIMS OF PAIN AND BLIND JUSTICE SIX NEW BANDS Fighting California’s Three Strike Law ...... 46 By Ben Rayner ...... 116

Photo by Hannah Kuo (hannahkuo.com)

Masthead ...... 24 Fashion: I Do Like to Be Beside the Seaside ...... 99 Employees ...... 26 Skinema ...... 122 VICE Mail ...... 28 Video Games Killed the Radio Star ...... 124 DOs & DON’Ts ...... 78 Reviews ...... 126 Fashion: Zuul ...... 91 Johnny Ryan’s Page ...... 130

16 | VICE

Nike Stadiums are a series of creative hubs First, we met up with Brazilian Wilson bringing their ideas of art, football and From Paris to Tokyo to São Paulo, we located in London, New York, Tokyo, Paris, Egidio in New York, and watched how playgrounds all together in one dynamic witness the merging of Japanese and Milan and Berlin. They are stages for inspired his love of the game turned a group space. Brazilian cultures through the story of performers and innovative expressions, of unlikely Brooklyn kids into football After that we went to Paris to meet hero Marcus Tulio Tanaka, the game spaces for stories to be told and new ones to fanatics. of football, and a variety of artists who be written. Sanghon Kim and explore his hypnotic Next, we met two members of the SUPER! project for the Paris Stadium, connect these two vibrant cultures. To celebrate the upcoming summer of collective, the playful alter-ego of three entitled Black Magic. The result of a Finally, we travelled to Hollywood’s most football in South Africa, VBS went on a trip to Italian artists. They took us on a journey meet the key creatives who have collaborated from Berlin to Milan, to meet the third collaboration between various Parisian renowned special effects studio and then PLAYMAKERS with Nike on the Stadiums projects—the member of their group, showing us the creatives, brought together by Nike, we back to London, following Zoltar, London’s playmakers who push forward in their field, cities that they take their inspiration from. follow the contributors for a few days, eccentric and artistic artisto-socialites, exploring and blurring the line between In Milan they revealed the work created revealing the most energetic and diverse and their spectacular creations for the football, art and culture. for the launch of the Nike Stadium, side of the city. Nike London Stadium, 1948.

WATCH NOW ON NIKESTADIUMS.COM | VBS.TV/PLAYMAKERS 4 | VICE VICE | 5 JUMP IN VICESTYLE.COM

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3KRWRE\5-6KDXJKQHVV\ FOUNDERS Suroosh Alvi, Shane Smith

EDITOR Andy Capper ([email protected]) CEO, VICE MEDIA GROUP EUROPE MANAGING EDITOR James Knight ([email protected]) Andrew Creighton ([email protected]) ASSOCIATE EDITORS Piers Martin ([email protected]) EMEA GROUP PUBLISHER Matt Elek ([email protected]) 0207 749 7816 Bruno Bayley ([email protected]) UK PUBLISHER Matt O’Mara ([email protected]) 0207 749 7819 PHOTO SUBMISSIONS [email protected] ADVERTISING DIRECTOR Kirsty Dare ([email protected]) 0207 749 7817 STAFF PHOTOGRAPHERS HEAD OF FASHION SALES Kristen Lazaric ([email protected]) 0207 749 7817 Jonnie Craig, Ben Rayner, Jamie Lee Curtis Taete ACCOUNT MANAGER Hollie Blue Allum ([email protected]) 0207 749 7817 PHOTO EDITOR AT LARGE Alex Sturrock FASHION SALES CONSULTANT Stephen White ([email protected]) EDITOR IN CHIEF VICE GLOBAL Jesse Pearson HEAD OF MARKETING & EVENTS Claire Bartolomeo ([email protected]) EXECUTIVE EDITOR VICE GLOBAL Chris Cechin PRODUCTION LAYOUT inkubator.ca Gareth Johns ([email protected]), Imogen Bellotti ([email protected]) WORDS Mark Allen, Bruno Bayley, Jon Blyth, Andy Capper, Rocco Castoro, Matthias Connor, VBS.TV PRODUCTION Vito Fun, Gary Gouda, Claudine Ko, Jesper Damsgaard Lund, Vida Toombs ([email protected]), Nicole Saganice ([email protected]), Lasse Bech Martinussen, Chris Nieratko, Adam Patterson, Tony Sylvester Pegah Farahmand ([email protected]), Alison Severs ([email protected]), PHOTOS Hugo Donkin ([email protected]), Dorota Zylewicz ([email protected]), Stephanie Chernikowski, Vito Fun, Lance Gordon, Leah Gordon, Rhys James ([email protected]) Stewart Griffiths, Tim Harvey, Claudine Ko, Hannah Kuo, Jesper Damsgaard Lund, VBS.TV POST-PRODUCTION Lasse Bech Martinussen, Chris Nieratko, Brayden Olsen, Michael Otero, Al Brown ([email protected]), Mike Horlock ([email protected]), Adam Patterson, Ben Rayner, Steve Ryan, Bob Snider, Jennifer Tzar, Dan Wilton Laurence Cleary ([email protected]), Simon Holmes ([email protected]) ILLUSTRATIONS VBS.TV INTERN Phil Kelly Jiro Bevis, Johnny Ryan COPY EDITING John McDonnell ONLINE EDITOR Alex Miller ([email protected]) FASHION EDITOR Aldene Johnson ([email protected]) WEB DESIGN Solid Sender ONLINE FASHION EDITOR Daryoush Haj-Najafi ([email protected]) ONLINE DEVELOPER Daniel Hockley ([email protected]) CONTRIBUTING FASHION EDITOR DIGITAL MARKETING Ben Walton ([email protected]), Sam Voulters ([email protected]) Alice Harold ([email protected]), Nicole Kai ([email protected]) FASHION ASSISTANT Kristina McCormick DIGITAL ASSISTANT Dan Dennison ([email protected]) FASHION INTERNS Chanyaporn Thongthai, Scarlett Valentine OLD BLUE LAST Russ Tannen ([email protected]), INTERNS Dan Devine, Emily Foister, Henry Langston, Ross Allmark ([email protected]) Chris O’Neill, Maya Roberts, Leyla Treble, Holly Venndell DIGITAL Dylan Hughes

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All submissions property of VICE Magazine, Inc. The entire content is a copyright of VICE Magazine Publishing, Inc. and cannot be reproduced in whole or in part without written authorisation of the publishers. For subscription information go to www.viceland.com. Vice magazine is published twelve times a year. 24 | VICE EMPLOYEES OF THE MONTH

JESPER DAMSGAARD LUND & MICHAEL OTERO LASSE BECH MARTINUSSEN We met Michael through his brother Jose, who makes Jesper and Lasse are two Danish photographers whose work animation for VBS and is also a translator. Michael, on the lives up to their amusing, elflike names. They met in 2007 in other hand, takes photos. You can see his work later on in this New York City, where they worked for design agencies and issue, capturing the youthful exuberance of Ramsgate’s bonded over shared interests in photography and boat shoes. A scallywags. Aside from fashion, he has also taken stunning short while later the chaps travelled to Japan to photograph, photos of eerie landscapes, beautiful people, and one of a you know, Japanese stuff and have since collaborated on photo terrifying bald cat on a roof. On top of that, he is painfully projects all over the world. This issue contains photos from their well-dressed at all times and we think we might like him more recent trip to Cuba, where they documented what they describe than we like Jose. as a cold-war anachronism, and what we describe as a perpetual See I DO LIKE TO BE BESIDE THE SEASIDE, page 99 going-out-of-business sale at Fidel’s personal cigar factory. The next stop on Jesper and Lasse’s endless world tour is southern China, where they will use their cameras to capture the story of a dwarf theme park called Kingdom of the Little People. See CASTROLAND, page 64

CLAUDINE KO MARK ALLEN While Claudine was in California writing her article about tree Mark was a famous go-go boy /beefcake pin-up model /club houses, her apartment in New York burned down. We felt so promoter in NYC in the 90s and then somehow warped into this bad for her, but she seems to be taking it in stride. She moved incredibly weird writer guy who reads his weird stories on NPR into a hotel, indefinitely, and says that it suits her well, “in a and DJs weird music on WFMU and knows about every weird late-era Nabokovian way”. Claudine has written for just movie ever made. He’s obsessed with bull riding, skin diseases, about every magazine in existence, and she was one of our male “gunge”, and his own ass. He’s also the longtime boyfriend favourite writers at the late great Jane magazine, for which she of our favourite artist, Jim Krewson, and the two live together wrote that famous article about American Apparel (you know, in the Catskills in what we can only imagine is a magic castle the one in which Dov Charney masturbated in front of her of wonderment. We hope to one day be invited there, NOT SO during their interview). After eight and a half years at Jane, SUBTLE HINT. For this issue, he interviewed the actor who she left to work on the PBS series Nova in order to fulfill her played Detlev in Christiane F. People have been trying to track wish of becoming a science journalist. “I’m still working on this guy down for more than 20 years, and it was Mark who that,” she says. “Mostly I just write about food and perverts.” finally found him. Mark’s funny website (which he began as a See more of her perverted food writing at claudineko.com. Flying Lizards fanpage in 1998!) is at markallencam.com. See OUR HOUSE, page 52 See DETLEV LIVES!, page 34

26 | VICE VICE MAIL

THOUGHTS FEELINGS Dear Vice, Hello Molly Young, I’ve really been enjoying Sam McPheeters’s contributions to the [Re: “Bless This Mess”, V8N5] This is easily one of the best arti- magazine. A few years ago he wrote a column in Punk Planet about cles I have seen on this topic. You made it real, tangible, and taking the postal exam and blowing it. I’m glad that didn’t pan out somehow personal. Yours is a remarkable talent and I anticipate see- for him. He’s doing good work these days and I feel like his mailman ing your work in other publications. No kidding. You are very good duties would have been a distraction. at what you do. Also—thanks for the Vollmann excerpt, it was much more The pictures in this article are superb and the selections you made digestible than his last one in Vice. My girlfriend is writing her thesis show a certain whimsy in the midst of a genuine human tragedy (I Skoglund Vincent on Willy V. so he is a constant third wheel around my place. Last especially liked the one with Ron and Melissa complete with “mask- winter when she was reading (and talking a lot about) Europe lines” creasing Melissa’s face). Central, “Nibelungenlied” was like Pee-wee’s secret word of the day I was also taken with the tiny insights you used to garnish the arti- for me. It’s a really surprising word to hear said aloud, especially cle—Melissa’s trembling hand, Ron’s indestructible beer belly, the when you hear it more than once a day. 500 sit-ups of the caballero. Nicely done, Molly. Did you hear about Prahlad Jani? He’s the 82-year-old Indian holy I hope Vice serves as a showcase for your abilities and a launching man who claims he hasn’t had anything to eat or drink in 76 years. platform for a long and fruitful career. The Indian military just did a two-week study on him where he was STEVEN LaVELLE kept in confinement and was only allowed water to rinse his mouth Via viceland.com out and bathe in; they measured the water afterward to make sure he wasn’t cheating. He made it the whole two weeks without taking Sounds like someone has a crush on a pretty girl. anything in or putting anything out. He claims his tongue was touched by a goddess when he was a child and since then he hasn’t ATTITUDES needed food or water. India hopes to figure out a scientific explana- Dear Vice, tion for his abilities and then make magic supersoldiers. I read your magazine, believe it or not, for the articles, not the See you soon, photo spreads of topless and possibly underage girls you insist on HENRY publishing every issue. I read your article (in the April issue) on the via email Japanese pervert cult and the English racists thoughtfully, glad to find out there were horrible, fucked-up people outside of Arizona. Then I What a pleasing letter. This should be the template for all future let- turn the page and what do I see? ters: compliment, funny and relevant anecdote, interesting random PAGE AFTER PAGE OF ANIMALS DRESSED LIKE PEOPLE! fact. It’s like the five-paragraph formula they teach you in school, but Did you have something else planned that fell through, so you for letters. said, “Fuck it, let’s just put a kangaroo in a shirt and take a picture?” MUSINGS Seriously, animals wearing people clothes? I bet the glue-huffing por- tion of your readership (which, no doubt, is substantial) enjoyed the Dear Vice, picture of the goat, but the rest of us really, really didn’t find it inter- Just writing to commend you on your excellent contribution to the esting. More cultists, less animals, please. modern magazine world. Haha. Just kidding. I don’t read your mag- BILL azine, but the cartoons in the back make me laugh. Keep up with via email that, please. Anyway, I just wanted to write and say thank you. My sister bought a subscription before she moved out and it still arrives You’re upset with us for dressing animals in clothes, and not even on my doorstep, so I’m renting out your magazine to the kids in my in a PETA type of way? We hope you get mauled by a bear in a posh south London neighbourhood. I usually just charge about £3 bow tie. for a night to the kids I deal weed to. I’m sorry that I’m pimping your creation out, but it goes down very popular with the kids who have REFLECTIONS porn blocked on their computers. Dear Vice, Also, if you could put more female nudity in I could probably I really like your magazine and all, but I poop... a lot. So I was make a better profit. wondering, what’s the best way to not poop? I mean, some of my If this is illegal, I used a fake name. teachers in school don’t let me go to the bathroom. I have one teacher Thank you, in particular who, after one kid goes, yells, “NOBODY ELSE CAN LULU HOOKE, 14 GO! IT’S A HERD OF CHILDREN!” And one time, heh heh, I South London pooped my pants in there. It wasn’t my fault. Vice’s managing editor replies: Wow. When I was your age, the only Now, you’re probably going to reply with some quirky thing about porn I had access to was a single page that my friend Karen ripped out lotion or headphones or glasses or even flannels, but all I ask is for of her older brother’s Playboy and brought to synagogue to show the some guidance. girls. It was a photo of a nude brunette squatting with her legs spread PS: I don’t have small boobs. on a beach, and I remember vividly the long tendrils of wet pubic hair Love, that hung down from between her thighs. The caption that went along GENEVIEVE with it was about her first experience at a nude beach. It contained this London exact sentence: “I couldn’t believe the size of his… his… DONG!” I If you only eat bananas, grapefruit, yoghurt, and brown rice, you will didn’t know what a dong was, but I would soon find out. never fart again. I know you asked about not pooping, but the best Karen let me keep the magazine page. I folded it up into a tiny square we can do is not farting. Not pooping is impossible. and slid it under my mattress. It stayed there for about a year, forgotten, until one day it popped into my head and I pulled it out from under my mattress, tore it up into a hundred pieces, and flushed it down the Send correspondence to [email protected] toilet, full of shame. There is no way my mum didn’t find it while chang- or to VICE at 77 Leonard Street, London, EC2A 4QS ing my sheets at some point, but she never said anything to me about it. Letters are edited for length. models / [email protected]. Featured www.urbanears.com Plattan and Also available in these colors in White. Tanto

28 | VICE first instance was alone in my house, which saying something in a weird language, like wasn’t actually my home, and the next time Russian or something. my home was part of the street and there What do you think she was saying? were people around. I think she was saying something like, “See? Shit. This is how you get the chips!” Totally. You know when you dream that you Do you remember anything else? can get away with doing something but then Yes. I dreamed about the girl I had dinner with you realise 20 or 30 people are watching and she had some weird sunglasses on. And I you? Anyway, I’m not sure what it was dreamed there were all these young kids in my about, if it was for my skin or whatever. I house having a party. I tried to politely ask don’t even really eat eggs. LAUREN them to leave but they were basically little shits. It was actually really frustrating. Vice: Talk us through your cheeses. What happened next? Lauren: Well, I ate about seven ounces of vin- Next I had a dream I was in another country I’m sorry to hear it. tage cheddar and a decent wedge of Gruyère. and this old lady was asking me for my hot I know, I usually have a lot of crazy and vivid chips. She was being really pushy and annoy- dreams, but they’re never this angsty and Just the hard stuff, eh? ing, which was a common theme throughout frustrating. Plus, it gave me a tummy ache. That’s how I like my cheeses. It did make me the night. Thanks a lot, cheese! feel pretty sick, though. Your dreams were annoying? So, cheese dreams: fact or fiction? Thought it might. Tell us what you dreamed. Yeah, angsty and stuff. Pretty much everyone Well, I usually have weird dreams, but Well, for starters I dreamed I made a con- pissed me off. So, I was feeding her these chips these were super-vivid and, as I said, heaps coction of eggs and sugar and smeared it all one by one—I think she was homeless—and more annoying than usual, so I’m gonna go over my body. I did it multiple times; the she kept looking over to her husband and with true.

Cheap and cheerful. Did you dream? Go see a door? Yes, I did, as a matter of fact. A couple of Yeah, it was stained glass. So, I was going out times, actually. the back and Harriet’s mum had left three pots of soup on the steps. I don’t know why, Do tell. but I stepped in them on purpose. My first dream took place around a picnic table in a garden. It was me and two friends, OK, I suppose that’s a bit weird. and one of them was doing a kind of healing So I’m standing with a leg in a pot each and on us. He had a boom box and we had to do everyone is looking at me funny. this trance dance while sitting down. Then what happened? Well, to make it better, I put my hand in the That dream sounds boring. What else have third pot. LANI you got? Vice: What delicious cheese did you get to eat Well, next I dreamed I went to my friend That’s it? last night? Harriet’s mum’s house. It was really huge, Hey, it wasn’t very good cheese. Lani: Pretty shit selection, actually. You guys and for some reason I was moving in. I had Did you notice any effect from the cheese at all? “Cheddy Krueger” illustration by Johnny Ryan left me with a block of Coon [an unfortu- this really beautiful room. Anyway, I went to Maybe a little. I definitely dreamed, which is nately named Australian brand of cheddar go out the back to this studio because every- good. Sometimes I don’t dream at all. Workin’ On My Night Cheese cheese] and a packet of Kraft Singles. one was telling me I had to go see this door. Perhaps with better-quality cheese… Tryin’ to Have Some Fucked-Up Dreams collection of faceless friends. A teacher with my school friend Sam to Chris’s house, walked out the door, and as she left I said, where he showed us the Flinders Street clock WORDS BY GARY GOUDA, PHOTOS BY TIM HARVEY “Goodbye, Substitute Hickling.” She turned replicas he was selling to old people in around and said, “What did you say? How Bayswater. Then I woke up. DARE you!” Then I said, “What? What? That’s kind of a let-down, considering how here’s an old wives’ tale that claims that eating cheese For example, I told my housemate last night and she was all like, “Yeah, What did I say wrong?” And she said, “You awful that Stilton smelled. before bed makes you dream weird and incredible things. I suppose so. But it’s just cheese.” Just cheese? You’re an idiot, Claire. called me stupid Hickling! You’re in big trou- I thought so too. I’m usually a pretty intense T For serious? The British Medical Journal thinks so. A finely- The fact is, cheese doesn’t grow on trees. It’s made using a pretty ble, boy!” So I pleaded and pleaded that I dreamer, though. Maybe it’s like giving speed aged 1964 edition tells of a man whose nightly supper consisted elaborate mélange involving milk, rennet (an enzyme taken from mam- didn’t say “stupid” at all and actually said to kids with ADD. of two ounces of cheddar. This man was haunted by horrible, malian stomachs), and any number of moulds—a hodgepodge of “substitute”, but nothing worked. Works as a theory… So in a way, you’re say- horrible nightmares: ingredients and baffling techniques. Most important, somewhere dur- What do you think it means? “He dreamt of [a workmate], terribly mutilated, hanging from a ing that whole process, a thing called tyramine is produced. This is TAIT ing that cheese dreams do exist. Vice: What did you eat? I think it boils down to the fact that in high I guess I am. Wow. meat-hook. Another, he dreamt of falling into a bottomless abyss. essentially a form of dopamine that, while it can’t get you stoned, can school I felt as if anytime I tried to do the right When cheese was withdrawn from his diet the nightmares ceased.” trigger high activity in the part of the brain that controls REM. In other Tait: Soft stuff. One small wheel of Camembert thing, I was always accused of doing the wrong As we know, the British Medical Journal doesn’t lie. Doctors don’t words: if you shove a whole lot of it in your face just before sleepies, and a few ounces of pungent blue Stilton. So there you have it. Pretty conclusive stuff. thing. Not terribly Freudian, but I guess that’s study for ten years just so they can make shit up in a trade mag. Neither weird shit might happen. Your body must hate you right now. Any Three out of three people think cheese what the cheese was trying to tell me. do old wives, for that matter. But if you’re still sitting there making So in the spirit of science, we bought about £30 worth of cheese dreams? dreams sort-of kind-of exist. So, have a scrunched-up “cheese isn’t a drug” faces at me, you’re not alone. For and roped some poor young people in to eat it and then go to sleep. I dreamed that I was sitting in the front row Well, that sounds vivid at least. Anything else? Gouda night and don’t let the Muensters some weird reason, everyone wants to disprove the cheese-dream myth. Here are their stories. of a nameless school classroom with a After the Substitute Hickling episode, I went bite! Cheese puns!

30 | VICE VICE | 31 Big Elvis performs in 2004, back when he weighed 960 pounds. That photo on the pedestal is what he looked like at his thinnest. And that’s the author on the left, dancing with a nice lady. The author and Big Elvis today, minus 500 pounds.

What’s the secret to your weight loss? You Did you and your fiancée meet before you in the entire casino. Before, I couldn’t do life, because I heard the stories from my didn’t staple your stomach or take any drugs. started the weight loss? that. I’d walk 20 feet and I’d have to stop family since I was this high. My aunt spilled Chunka Chunka Stay away from fast food. Watch potatoes, No, she met me two years ago, so I was well and sit down. It’s a big thing to get healthy. the beans. I heard them talking with my bread, and pasta—real heavy carbs. I dis- on my way. But she has been very motiva- For somebody who’s been on the edge, mother about it. I mean, my mother ended agree with people who say, “Don’t eat any tional through this. If she finds me wanting whether it’s drugs, alcohol, weight, or just up with a singing session in Nashville with carbs.” You gotta have some, just small por- to go off the deep end—and we all want to being sick, it’s a real big thing to come back DJ Fontana and Glen Hardin. She had a Burnin’ Love tions of it. Eat more proteins, a lot more sometimes—she’ll let me have something from that. huge session in Nashville with no money. vegetables and fruits, but a lot less carbs. bad, but after that she’s like, “That’s it. It shows in your performance too. When we How do you figure that happened? So I Elvis’s Big Baby Boy Never Says Diet Have you considered calling The Biggest That’s enough.” And I know better too, but saw you years ago you’d get winded, and wasn’t surprised. I’m blessed and I’m happy. Loser? Seems like you have a great story to she’s really conscious of everything. today you were cruising. And you do three or I got upset for a while when we couldn’t get (Except That He Did, and Lost 500 Pounds) share. You mentioned you were exercising. What four sets in a row. this thing to roll. My manager is trying to reach out to them. It kind of exercise are you able to do? Oh, yeah. I’m able to do it now. I get tired What kind of stories would you hear about WORDS AND PHOTOS BY CHRIS NIERATKO can’t hurt. Swimming. I love the water. I just put in an and I have to sit down, but I’m able to get Elvis from your mum when you were younger? In 2006 when I got married I wanted you to in-ground swimming pool this year and I back up and do a few songs standing up and I just heard what a great person he was. have some wind. I take some breaks, but any- love and collect all things Elvis. He is, to have witnessed women fainting and crying and come out to Jersey and play our wedding. swim every day. It’s the best thing: It’s easy I’m very good friends with his bodyguards one would when you’re doing 15 shows a me, the definition of Americana and fans entranced by Big Elvis. But I often won- Yeah, my manager told me the whole story. I on the knees, it loosens you up, and you’re and people who worked with him. I’ve got- week at 45 years old. But it’s light-years from I everything we hold holy. For my wed- dered how long he would be able to continue. remember when it happened because I was at using all your body parts even if you’re not ten to meet his girlfriends. I’ve heard where I used to be. There was a time for nothing but good about him. Everything ding in 2006, I rented a 1960 four-door DeVille When I first began to go to his shows, Pete my sickest then and I wanted to do it, but of doing that much. Whereas if you’re walking, years where I would go out and sit on the you read about him is pretty much the because Elvis had one. We replicated Elvis and weighed nearly half a ton—960 pounds, to be course I couldn’t. At the time I was only able it’s a little bit more strenuous. stage and that was it. Now, thank God, I can truth. He loved God, and he was very giv- Priscilla’s wedding cake and we had a sculptor exact. My wife and I wanted to bring him out to travel via RV and that’s just too expensive. Are you nervous that you’ll get so small that get up and entertain the people. ing and caring. He got on prescribed make a four-foot Elvis bust out of ice. My to perform at our wedding, but he was too big But I heard that due to the weight loss, you won’t be able to call yourself Big Elvis medication, but that wasn’t his fault. They home is full of Elvis memorabilia. Yet there is and unhealthy to fly. Over the past three years, you’re travelling now. anymore? Any plans for Little Elvises? didn’t have Betty Ford Clinics or drug one piece of Elvis I can never have: his blood. he has lost more than 500 pounds the old-fash- We went to Hawaii last August and I bought Ha! At 300 pounds, not a chance. I’ve Well, I have two kids with my first wife, and rehabs back then, so by the time it was out Pete Vallee, better known as Big Elvis, is ioned way: good eating and exercise. He is a second house in Washington now that I’m always been built like a football player. I we have two puppies that we call Fur People. of hand, who was he going to turn to? I feel the bona fide son of Elvis Presley. He has a gunning to lose a couple hundred more. able to fly. It’s such a blessing. It’s just so don’t see anyone ever saying, “Oh, he’s a We’ve talked about it, but we don’t have bad. I wish something would’ve happened DNA test to prove it. So to shake his hand is For our tenth anniversary, my wife and I nice to get out of the house. I hadn’t been tiny guy.” I’ll always be Big Elvis, but I’ll be plans in the near future. to help him. as close to the King as I’ll ever get. (Unless plan on renewing our vows in Vegas at one of out of the house in two years before that, a healthy Big Elvis instead of an unhealthy Most people don’t know this, but you are the Lisa Marie answers my emails or late-night those Elvis chapels. I’m happy to say that other than playing the shows at Harrah’s. Big Elvis. son of the one and only Elvis Aaron Presley. You were a teenager when he passed away. If thanks to his extreme weight loss, Big Elvis you could have said anything to him, know- phone calls. For the record, I believe I am Hawaii was monumental. What has changed in your day-to-day life as Well, you know what? It is a proven fact that will surely be there to sing us down the aisle ing that you were his son, what would you way less creepy than Nicolas Cage and Hawaii played such a huge role in Elvis’s life. result of the weight loss? I am the son of Elvis. It’s positive. We did a for the next go-round. have said? Michael Jackson.) We got to do a show not two miles from I wasn’t able to drive four years ago. I wasn’t DNA test about seven years ago and it came Wow. A lot. It’s hard to think of everything I’d I have been seeing Big Elvis perform for ten Vice: What was your original fighting where he played, and it was incredible. We able to walk very far. I can do gigs now on back conclusive. It’s been put in with the want to say. “Have a hot dog! Cheeseburger! years now, ever since the first time I went to weight? played the Elvis: Aloha From Hawaii DVD my own. My manager doesn’t have to be at estate—that’s going to go on for about a Whatever!” I would’ve wanted to have just sat Vegas. He is the only reason I continue to Big Elvis: My original weight when I was in on the big screens and it was just awesome every gig worrying if I can walk 200 feet hundred years. with him and spent time with him. return. He has the voice of an angel. If you shape—what I should be—was about 250, being right there in the same city where he without collapsing. Some of these casinos How did it feel to have it be conclusively close your eyes you would swear you were 260. But that was many, many years ago. If I performed such an important show. Big Elvis plays three free shows a day, Monday through are two blocks long—I just walked through proven that you are the son of Elvis? Friday, at Harrah’s on the Vegas Strip, Las Vegas. For more actually hearing Elvis singing. Over the years, I could get down to 300 now I’d be ecstatic. Everyone had a good time. one on Saturday and I only had to stop once I’ve pretty much felt it in my blood all my info go to bigelvis.biz. 32 | VICE VICE | 33 Thomas Haustein, now and then.

Vice: Let’s start in 1981. How did you get the part of Detlev in I tried many things. But with heroin I always said no. I saw how it Christiane F.? affected the lives of young people around me who started using it Detlev Lives! Thomas Haustein: I was hanging out at the Sound discothèque, and because it was so nice and then they ended up getting hooked. the sister of the producer Bernd Eichinger was walking around, look- Did you hang out with junkies as research? Thomas Haustein Is Our All-Time-Favourite ing for interesting faces for the film. She gave me her phone number Sort of. Before the film, I was a normal schoolboy in Berlin, going and said I should call. I wasn’t sure I should do it, or what exactly it through puberty. Then my life changed very quickly. I wasn’t in school German Teen Junkie Hustler was, or if it was real, but I did eventually call. for six months while filming. I was suddenly in a totally other atmos- Natja Brunckhorst was chosen out of 2,000 girls in Germany to play phere and space. For a boy at 14 it was all very strange, but fun. I made INTERVIEW BY MARK ALLEN, PHOTO BY STEVE RYAN Christiane. Was it similar for you? a big jump in my own development. I absorbed a lot of things from cul- I think so. In their offices there were a lot of photos on the wall of ture, subculture, film people, punk music, junkies, lots of scenes. different boys up for the part. Every time I came back, there were I love your expression when you walk out of the Sound bathroom hirty years ago, Thomas Haustein starred in one film. When the internet happened, fans of the film finally had a public less. Then it was something like you often see in television now— and bump into Christiane like a zombie. You imitate a junkie well. Then he never appeared on-screen again. He’d have long forum to ask the question that had been plaguing them for years: “Hey, round for round, like a competition. I kept going back, doing things That’s because they were all around me! T been forgotten, except that the role he played happened to whatever happened to Thomas Haustein, who played Detlev in in front of them, speaking to the camera. Finally there was only my be that of Detlev in Uli Edel’s gorgeously grisly true-story biopic Christiane F.?” And they asked it a lot. I documented the mystery photo and one other boy’s photo on the wall. That’s when I knew I’d Did you meet the real Christiane F.? Christiane F. (1981), which proved to be Germany’s most popular myself by writing about him for WFMU’s Beware of the Blog back in gotten the part. She came to the set one day with friends of hers. She was kind of a punk-looking woman and she was very nice. I liked her, but right film about an adorable heroin-addicted teenage prostitute who 2007. Had he become his character? Was he swallowed into Berlin’s How old were you? hangs out in a train station with other heroin-addicted teenage world of drugs and prostitution after the film? Had he been a real child after I met her they called me to go in front of the camera, so I could I was 14. My birthday is in June, so I turned 15 as the film was being only talk with her for a short time. prostitutes, does a lot of heroin, goes to a David Bowie concert on of the Bahnhof Zoo (the Berlin train station notorious for prostitutes made. It was a great summer. heroin, and eventually vomits red wine all over her bedroom walls and junkies) all along, simply playing himself? Was he still alive? Did you meet the real Detlev R.? while trying to kick heroin. Despite the film’s rabid cult following, Last month, my head nearly ass-ploded as my hand clicked on a The film was based on Christiane Felscherinow’s autobiography, Wir No, I never saw him at all. I only knew something about him years Thomas—who starred as Christiane’s 15-year-old, peach-fuzz- Facebook message from someone named Thomas Haustein. Kinder vom Bahnhof Zoo [We Children From Zoo Station]. Had you later. He was working for a welfare community, driving a bus for moustachioed hustler boyfriend—just dropped off the face of the “Greetings from Berlin!” it said. “I like what you wrote about me.” read the book before you auditioned? handicapped people, doing OK, and living with his wife and family earth. Natja Brunckhorst, who played Christiane, was often asked Gasp! Could it be? Turns out he’s been living a lovely life in Berlin Oh yes, of course. Everyone my age had read it. in Berlin. One person I became close with was Christiane about him in interviews over the years, but she knew nothing of with his wife and son all these years, as a social worker helping drug- Did you have experiences with heroin at the time? Felscherinow’s real friend Stella from the book. We dated for a while his whereabouts. addicted teens. Imagine that… I spent a lot of time at parties in Berlin, in contact with a lot of drugs. when the film was being made.

34 | VICE VICE | 35 Wow. You dated the real Stella? with someone pressing something off-camera. She held it to her Yes. She’s in the film too, briefly. She plays the drug dealer who sells mouth and out it came. And kept coming! me heroin at the Sound, near the beginning. She’s wearing a long Your last scene in the film, when you’re having sex with your male coat. I liked her a lot. She showed me how to act in that scene so it client, is pretty graphic for a 14-year-old in 1981. Were you nervous? was more realistic. I was not involved in the gay world and of course I was nervous to Did you hang out with David Bowie? act out something like that in front of a camera. This was also the He came to the Sound one day, but my friends tricked me. They told same with my first sex scene with Natja. I hadn’t had any sexual me it was David Bowie’s double! So when I met Bowie’s “double” I was experiences yet! So before the scene with my male client, Uli got me very cold. Then he left and my friends told me the truth. I was like, “I alone without the crew, just me and him, and he got behind me to missed my chance!” Something that is not known is that the concert demonstrate how it should look. [laughs] scenes were filmed at an AC /DC concert, not a Bowie concert. The That’s hot. Do you remember any scenes that were shot that didn’t Bowie footage was shot later in the US with Natja and a small crew. end up in the final film? When you were filming in the Bahnhof Zoo were there still teenage Yes. There was a scene in an old house in ruins close to the Berlin junkies and prostitutes everywhere? Wall. There was a big man there, the owner of the house or some- Oh yes, of course! That was not fake. In the film there are a lot of thing, with a strange face and fat stomach, and he was very violent. people in the background who were really staying there, using drugs I was there with Natja. We were going to take our junk and we were and everything. You can see in some parts they’re crowded together fighting a lot, and he surprised us with a big stick. He was trying to because Uli wanted them in a certain scene, like when Natja’s walk- hit Natja and we ran away outside. I liked it because we did a lot of ing down the corridor looking for me. Otherwise they were all just action scenes inside this house. There were also more scenes filmed hanging around as we were filming. with Christiane’s mother, something in relation to their flat. Others too, but it’s hard to remember them now. Did you ever see Natja Brunckhorst after the film? “Before the scene with my male No, I didn’t. Every once in a while I see something about her on television. But my contact with her stopped with the end of the film. I client, Uli got me alone without don’t know why. I liked her very much. the crew, just me and him, and he The film has such a following. The cast should have a reunion. Oh, yes! It would be nice to see everyone again, even only for one got behind me to demonstrate evening. Are you surprised that the film is still so popular after 30 years? how it should look.” Yes, especially during the last several years. It’s like a little revival. I was in Bahnhof Zoo today for the photo shoot for this interview and there was a school class there who obviously had watched the scenes You mentioned that you hung out at the Sound before the film hap- in the film or read the book. They were snooping around the back of pened. It’s interesting how true to location Christiane F. is. The the station, looking all around. I am really surprised it’s maintained Gropiusstadt housing project, the Sound, the Bahnhof Zoo, the pub- its popularity with young people because today, with the special lic toilets on Bülow Strasse, these were all the exact locations. effects in films like Requiem for a Dream, you can see there are so Yes. Many are gone. Some are still there. many other possibilities for telling a story like this. What is the Bahnhof Zoo like today? Would you ever act again? Are you happy Christiane F. was the only There are a lot of luxury shops inside. They tried to upgrade the qual- film you were ever in? ity and get rid of the smell. There’s a lot of security and police I didn’t try to act again. I’ve asked myself very often why I didn’t do around. Still, I know from my current social work that the back of something in this direction. Maybe it’s because when I see the film I Bahnhof Zoo was hosting young male prostitutes for a very long am a very strong critic of myself. Not acting again was an unhappy time. There are still prostitutes, and homeless there as well. It’s a point. I enjoyed being in Christiane F. very much. Those are intense, meeting point because the welfare offices are close by. It’s also very wonderful memories. anonymous because it’s so big. If the police are after you, you can stay there and nobody will catch you. You can be lost quickly. What do you do now? JOIN THE BIGGEST PARTY OF THE YEAR Social work. Drug advice and psychoanalytic social therapy for I love your clothes in the film. I’m amazed how much they made you addiction. When I was young I began doing needle exchange, then look like the real Detlev R., based on the pictures from the book: over the years I did other things in the field, always staying in con- your skinny jeans and heeled boots, all that denim, the tiger t-shirt TO CELEBRATE THE NEW TERM TIME! tact with the same users. Now I work at a drug office, doing that says “Wild Thing”, and that filthy black scarf. ambulant therapy. As an adviser, I’ve remained in contact with some Yes, I liked the clothes as well. Some were my own clothes, not too of the teenagers I worked with since I was 14. strange to wear. ST Wow. Do you ever tell them you were Detlev in Christiane F.? 21 4&15&.#&3t"3&"t."/$)&45&3 Was the “California Gold” jacket yours? No. Certainly not in the beginning. If I have their trust later, perhaps 23RD Yes! [laughs] I will. They’re always surprised and ask so many questions. But that’s 4&15&.#&3t56564t-0/%0/ Did the needle scenes depict real injections? not really me. I have to maintain real contact with them first, that’s It was a prop. The needle went inside the tube when pressed against the priority. your vein, and there was fake blood. Like a magic-knife trick. Have you shown your son the film? DOORLY/A1 BASSLINE/TOM STAAR/LEATHERHEAD What about the withdrawal scene in your flat, with the endless vom- He’s 14 now. I showed it to him once, but he wasn’t interested. Some iting? I love that scene. things were a bit strong for him. He spends a lot of time on the inter- %"/$*/(30#05.64*$+0"$)*. Ah, yes! It was a trick as well, of course. There was pressurised mate- net like most kids his age, so he knows about it and is proud to tell LIVE ART WARS WITH AMAR STEWART VS MARK BATLOW rial on Natja’s hand connected to a long plastic tube along her arm, his friends. TICKET PRICES: £8 IN ADVANCE £10 ON THE DOOR DETAILS: WWW.EASTPAK.COM/HAPPYNEWYEAR0350#6:5*$,&547*4*5888$308%463(&$0. 36 | VICE ran up and jumped on top of him and we started making out. Almost immediately he Tranny asked about the drugs and I ran back to my friend’s car to grab my purse. Out of nowhere someone slammed me onto the car. I felt like my tits were going to explode. I in a looked over at my friend who drove us there and saw that he was also pressed up against the car. I mouthed to him, “What the fuck is going on here?” Man’s Did the police find your stuff right away? Yeah, and then a cop came up to me with a big wad of money and said, “What’s this?” I told him it wasn’t mine. He threw it on the Jail ground next to me and said, “It is now.” I was wearing heels, a micro-miniskirt, and a The New York tube top. The cop felt he had the right to grab what he thought was my pussy. When he felt Penal System Threw a bulge, he freaked out. He screamed, “This is a fucking faggot!” Once he realised I was a transsexual he tightened the cuffs. He was Our Friend Kira to going to be nice and let me keep my Burger the Wolves King when he thought I was a girl, but after he realised I wasn’t, he just stomped on it. It “The cop felt he had the right to grab what he was so mean. I had barely eaten anything in INTERVIEW AND PHOTOS BY VITO FUN a week! thought was my pussy. When he felt a bulge, What happened when you got to jail? y friend Kira is a 28-year-old Conference in Florida, so she decided to me in the car at the airport, and we started The cops at the police station didn’t know he freaked out.” transsexual who recently became spend some time down South to care for her smoking then and there. After I got off the what to do with me. They were like, “We M a free woman after spending sick father. She had been there for a few bor- airplane, my mission was to party. have never seen one as passable as you. We you get there, they give you a physical. The him. Then he was like, “You fucking faggot! three years in New York’s worst men’s ing months when she received a phone call So you just went out to a club immediately? don’t want to get in your business, but what doctor asked me, “Do you want to go to Didn’t you hear me?” When he called me prison. Kira was born a man in Hialeah, from a friend urging her to return to New I got a hit of that glass cig, baby, and I went do you have down there?” I was in shock. I homo housing?” He said it would be safer that something inside of me snapped. I Florida, a short drive from Miami. Her par- York. Little did she know it would be the out Friday night until Saturday night. Then we told them, “Look, I’m a pre-op transsexual; I for me, so I signed the papers and thought I picked up the chair next to me and slammed ents were Colombian immigrants who loved beginning of three years of incarceration, dur- went to an after-hours place. Sunday night we have breasts and a penis. Whatever the fuck was going in with the girls. But when I it into his head. I knocked him on the floor and spoiled her very much, partially because ing which she would endure soul-crushing went to Asseteria, and Monday morning we you have to do, just make sure I’m safe.” A walked into the room I saw something like and started swinging on him. I found out she was the youngest of five brothers and prison guards, life-threatening conditions, went to the Green Room. Then I went to my female officer strip-searched the top half of 60 guys. It was general population—appar- later that I had made a big mistake because two sisters. violent inmates, and a terrifying smorgasbord girlfriend’s house after that. Eventually she my body and a man searched my bottom ently homo housing had been closed a month the kid was a Blood. Early on, Kira’s family knew that she was of base humanity. I sat down with Kira to put was like, “My kids are coming home. You’re half. Then I was interrogated. They claimed ago and the doctor hadn’t heard. Thankfully, different. In kindergarten she timidly ques- her story on paper and get the word out What were the consequences? Did other going to have to go, girl.” When I finally got that they also found an ounce of cocaine in the cops gave me a triple-extra-large jump- tioned her gender identity even though she Bloods come after you? about the need for the prison system to pro- home I was in a delirious state. the car even though all I had was a bit of suit to hide my breasts. The inmates just didn’t yet fully understand the concept. She They gave me a warning. They told me I had tect LGBT inmates from the unique dangers crystal and some coke. I thought they were thought I was a faggot and started screaming enjoyed feminine activities like hairdressing. You still hadn’t slept? to pack up and leave or I would be stabbed they face behind bars. just trying to bully me. that I couldn’t sleep there. Her brothers called her a faggot and told her No, and I was really horny. I got on the com- or killed. I guess I was lucky, because they Vice: What sparked the vortex of unfortu- You really didn’t know anything about the she didn’t belong in the family. At the age of puter and I started looking for sex. My On top of all this, I imagine you were still told me that if I wasn’t a transvestite I wouldn’t nate situations and horrible conditions that ounce of coke? eight she was diagnosed with gender identity ex-boyfriend instant-messaged me to ask if I coming down from all the meth. have received a warning. So I requested to be began for you about four years ago? No, they were either making it up or it disorder, and a year later Kira’s mother was was in New York, even though I thought I Oh yeah, I was freaking out. I was tweaking transferred to another section of the jail and Kira: After being in Florida for a few months belonged to the guy who drove me. Three sent to prison for selling cocaine. The family had him blocked. I told him I was in Miami. hardcore. It was horrible. But I finally found moved out. taking care of my dad, I grew really, really He kept asking if I had any drugs, and finally days later I was finally sent to court. Before disbanded and Kira was forced to move in a place to fall asleep. The next few days were Were there any more repercussions from that bored. There’s nothing to do down there I caved and told him I was in New York and seeing the judge, a legal aide sat down with with her father. rough and I hadn’t bathed because I was ter- incident? except go to the beach. I was dying to get had an E pill, a 50 bag of crystal, and a lit- me and told me this bullshit story fabricated By 13, Kira knew that she wanted a sex rified of being naked in front of the other They moved me to the most dangerous house out, and in early June I received a phone call tle bit of K. I agreed to meet him. On the by the cops. I said, “The only thing that’s change, and a few years later, she came out to prisoners. Another inmate came up to me in that part of Rikers Island. It’s called D-top. from a friend who lived in Long Island. He way out, I ran into another friend and he true is that I had an eightball of coke and an her parents. They accepted what she had to and told me my body odour was offensive. I I could tell that no one in that house wanted said, “Kira, I know we had a falling out, but fronted me an eightball of meth and an eightball of crystal. Everything else is a lie. I say, and they respected her for telling them told him I was scared to take a shower and me there. I was transferred late at night, and you’re my best friend and I need you. Can was not prostituting and I had no ad on the the truth. She got a job bagging groceries, eightball of coke. He offered me a ride to my he gave me shit about it, so I pulled my jump- all these guys were screaming the meanest you come to New York?” Back then I was an internet. This is ridiculous.” He told me to be and by the time she was 20, Kira had saved ex’s place in Queens, but I forgot exactly suit open. He understood once he saw my tits shit at me. I came out to eat for the first time escort, and I was like, “You know times are quiet and sign some forms. I was signing all enough money to move to New York, where where he lived. I called to ask for directions and helped work out a time where I could and noticed that there was maybe one tough here. I have no money.” He offered to this paperwork, but I didn’t know what it all she underwent various gender-reassignment and he said for us to meet him at the Burger shower while the other inmates were in the Hispanic guy in the house. Everybody else pay for my trip and asked when I wanted to surgeries. She had laser hair removal and her King close to his house. meant. The judge finally called me in and set yard. And then, a little while later, they was black and either a Muslim or a Blood. come. I was on a flight the next day. breasts grew to a 38DD overnight—for once That sounds really fishy. my bail at $350,000. My mouth dropped. moved me from the boat to Rikers Island. Immediately people started threatening me it seemed things were looking up for her. How long did it take for you to get into some Well, my friend drove me to Burger King and Were you sent to prison immediately? Where Were things more intense there? and told me to get out of the house or I Then, in 2006, her dad experienced a trouble? he went in to get some food for us. As he was were you held? The second day I was in the house, I was would be beaten or killed. I told the guards blood clot and grew ill. She had already As soon as I met up with him, it was like a coming back out, my ex pulled up in a This place called “the boat”. It’s a holding watching TV and this black guy walked up and they said I needed to provide the names planned to attend the Winter Music drug fest. He had a crystal pipe waiting for Mercedes SUV. He got out of the car, and I area for Rikers Island. It’s a jail boat. When and said, “You’re in my seat.” I just ignored of the people who threatened me before

38 | VICE VICE | 39 Why was it so dangerous? finally went to court on December 5th. My Attica, where they had the facility to per- cell I was in, but they moved me to the most It’s where all the gangbangers and crazy-ass lawyer said I had a choice: I could go to form the surgery. Attica is legendary for dangerous block in the prison—A-block— people are. There’s no “movement” in the trial or cop out to a plea of three years. If I being the worst prison in New York. where the officers are very fresh. entire place—you have to eat in your cell went to trial I’d have to pay my lawyer Did that turn out to be true? What do you mean by fresh? and you’re not really allowed out except to more money and if the state wasn’t willing I’ll put it this way: as soon as I arrived they Verbally fresh. They would just scream at shower and get food. It’s basically where all to separate our cases—the driver and I— strip-searched me. The officer who was me, holler at me, and make noises. They the murderers go. I was livid and terrified we’d get tried together. If I lost the case, going to search me told me not to move, but would walk by my cell and tell me to suck because I was comfortable where I was and there was a risk that I would have to stay while he was searching me I got this really their dicks through the bars, to show them I’d felt pretty safe. But my officers promised in jail even longer, so I just took the three- bad urge to sneeze. I tried to fight it, but my titties, and to bend down and open my they were moving me to a better place—they year sentence. I had already been in Rikers eventually I just had to let it out. As soon as ass. It was some really uncalled-for stuff. were taking me to a place with less jail poli- for 18 months and that time would count I did, he slammed my face into the wall and And the cops heard about some personal tics. I came to realise that it was a Crip toward my sentence. I tried to get my clas- said, “I thought I fucking told you not to photos I had and wanted to see them. I house, and the Crips can’t really fuck with sification dropped because I was at an A-2, move, you fucking faggot! You see what you wouldn’t let them see my pictures because anyone in that section because if they do which is one step below a murderer. I made me do?” After that he took me to the they were assholes, so one day while I was in they’ll be transferred to a Blood house and explained that I had never been to jail medical ward and the officer on duty there the yard they flipped my cell and took all of probably get killed. before, but they weren’t having it. They took one look at my nails and said, “If you my photos. All of them! So the transfer turned out to be a blessing in told me it would not be lowered and that I don’t cut your fucking nails I’m going to Jesus. Did things ever get any better? disguise? was going to be sent upstate. They sent me break your fingers. I don’t care if you have From A-block I went back to C-block, and At first I was mad, but then I realised I had back to the Beacon for a few days and then to bite them off, chew them off, or swallow everything was always fine in C-block, the my own cell with a view of Manhattan, the transferred me. them. They better be off the next time I officers were cool with me. But then they midtown skyline, and the river. I also had Did you have any idea what to expect make my rounds.” moved me to E-block. The E-block itself central air conditioning, and it was the upstate? Were you worried? So what did you do? Chew your nails off? wasn’t that bad, but in order to get to it you middle of summer. It was like a luxury I was terrified because the correction offi- Yeah! And after that he said, “Since you’re a had to walk through A-block. That meant I resort compared to where I was living cers at Rikers are so different from the fucking faggot, I’m not going to put you in had to deal with all of the same asshole offi- before. I got a good night’s sleep and the guards upstate, where they can get away the cell with other men because you’re going cers who were harassing me in the first place next morning one of the guards told me with anything. I heard that upstate officers to be too busy sucking dicks all day long.” just to get to my cell! There was a point that there was a girl like me in the house. sexually harass gays and trannies and beat When I was eating breakfast someone them up. They sent me to a facility known walked in front of my stall and said, “All as Downstate, which is confusing because right, Miss Honey! Finally a girl that looks it’s actually in upstate New York. “[The officers] would walk by my cell and tell real.” Her name was Venus and she was a Downstate is kind of like a reception area. black tranny from South Carolina. She had It’s not a long-term facility. So I was only me to suck their dicks through the bars, to already done ten years, and it was good there for a little under two months before having her in the house because it made me they moved me to the Auburn Correctional show them my titties, and to bend down and feel like nothing bad was going to happen Facility. I was freaking out because it is a to me. maximum-security prison. open my ass.” Was she the only other tranny in the house? And Downstate isn’t? Unfortunately, no. There was this other girl, This is Kira at Rikers. She carries this Polaroid in her purse to remind her to not do anything wrong. Downstate is maximum-security, but it didn’t Attica sounds like hell. How long did you where I didn’t even go to lunch or dinner if I can even call her that. She just appeared look scary. Auburn looked scary. It was tall, have to stay there? out of nowhere one day while I was eating, because I was so scared to deal with the dark, and rainy, and they moved me in the About a week. My surgery was supposed to and I almost gagged. She was this big old nasty comments. they’d move me out, but I knew my rights provoking him. Eventually I told some middle of the night. They always move happen the day after I arrived and then I was black gorilla—a fucking beast. Her name How did you finally get out of jail? and told them they had to move me if I Hispanic guys what was going on, and they people around when they first arrive, and due to head back to Auburn. In the morning was Lisa. She wore one of those wigs old I had a record of good behaviour and I had thought my life was at risk. They finally told one of the Bloods. eventually they moved me to D-block. they woke us up and said, “Y’all are going to black ladies wear with the little braids and been in a state-run drug-rehab programme. agreed and I was relocated to another area of That doesn’t sound like the most inviting get x-rayed and the doctor is going to see That sounds pretty risky. What happened? the bangs. She swore it was her real hair. Her When I completed it they released me on my the prison near the cafeteria. place to be. what he can do for you.” The doctor x-rayed One morning I got up and took a shower. Of eye was indented, like she had been in a lot own merit. I was locked up for just under Yeah, the guards were pretty bad. They’d me and said, “You have two on the top that Was the new spot any safer? course, the pervert comes over to the urinal of fights, and she had these huge tits that three years. Well, something different happened this time. and starts whacking it. He was concentrating looked like saggy yams. She would piss with show me off to other inmates and say stuff aren’t completely out, but they’re pushing Can you summarise your feelings about how There was this older black guy in this section so hard on jacking off that he didn’t even the door open, standing up. When she’d take like, “Doesn’t this one look female?” It was out—they’re impacted. The bottom ones the LGBT community is treated in the who was a tranny chaser—they called him a notice that a fellow Blood member snuck up a shit, she’d get up from the toilet seat and so embarrassing. Other inmates would put need surgery and we can’t do it today, but I American prison system? “booty bandit”. behind him. All of a sudden the Blood blood would just be coming out of her ass. It their mirrors out into the hall so they could can just yank the top ones out.” So I got the What’s going on with the jail system is that they slammed his fist on the tiles and the perv knew was gross. see who was coming, and whenever I came top two removed, and I stayed another night Does that mean he was a rapist? think gays, transgenders, and transsexuals he was caught. He had disgraced the Bloods, down they’d scream, “Look at the chump!” because the dentist was supposed to be back No, he just liked ass and would do whatever Ew, that’s disgusting. I was worried someone would throw hot the next day to take care of my bottom teeth. are worthless people—especially if you’re so he immediately packed up his stuff and left. he could to get it. He was obsessed with me. Yeah, the Crips hated her, but they kept water or boiling oil at me. I’d just go to my But he didn’t come, and they just kept hold- black or Hispanic. They put these types of He was responsible for making a rule that Did you stay in that section for the rest of their distance because you could tell she cell and cry. I felt like I was losing my mind. ing me there longer and longer. Eventually I people away for the stupidest things and give only I could shower at 7:30 in the morning your time at Rikers? could kick some ass. She started to get really I was in D-block from February to April, and talked to some other inmates and they told them the maximum amount of time they so “nobody would bother me”. But the real No. There’s a rule at Rikers Island—you’re jealous because I would get attention from eventually they moved me to C-block, where me to just go back to Auburn. They said that can, because they figure no one cares about reason he made that rule was so he could not allowed to live in the same area for guys, which wasn’t even sexual—it was I underwent a drug-treatment programme. It I was going to end up in a very bad situation you—there are already two strikes against watch me shower while he jerked his dick more than one year, so eventually they friendly attention. was less dangerous, but out of nowhere my if I just kept waiting for the dentist or reported you because you’re black or Hispanic and into a urinal. The worst part was he was one moved me to what I thought was the most So you didn’t have much trouble in the teeth started to hurt. Turns out I had to get him. So I just sucked it up and was done gay or transsexual. They feel like they can do of the Blood leaders in that house, and if dangerous building in the entire prison. It’s Beacon? my wisdom teeth removed, and in order to with it. When I got back to Auburn I thought whatever they want to you, and many times anyone found out, they might think I was called the Beacon. I was only there for a few months until I do that I had to be temporarily transferred to they were going to put me back in the same they can.

40 | VICE VICE | 41 The missions start with a briefing where the senior paras have the day’s activities mapped out. I don’t remember Yoko Ono being there, but apparently she was (right).

Two members of the fake Taliban lie “dead” after B Company stormed their fort by blowing a hole in the wall using a mortar. The guy posing is a Royal Marine in charge of the various training exercises. He would tip us off whenever a huge explosion was about to happen.

War All the Time I Joined the Parachute Regiment and Watched Them “Kill” Taliban

WORDS BY ANDY CAPPER, PHOTOS BY STUART GRIFFITHS THANKS TO JASON MOJICA

oph. Being in the army makes you given this amazing access to a top-secret mil- gloomy brick building in the middle of tired. This photograph of me looking itary facility. The MoD had seen the films nowhere and were told that the next time we O exhausted and fat was taken by ex- we’d made for VBS that’d been shown on slept in a bed would be five days away. Then paratrooper and Vice regular Stuart Griffiths. CNN and so (we thought) had given us carte we were thrown head first into four 36-hour It was day three of a five-day embed with blanche to look around and observe the back-to-back missions that were some of the B Company of the second batallion of the operations as journalists. most exhausting, gruelling and fun things Parachute Regiment (2 Para) at their training We checked into the reception area like it that I have ever been on. We took no drugs, facility in Thetford, near Norwich. was an army hotel and found an agreeable but at the end of it all it was trippier than I’d gone there to film the army’s much- room in the barracks. “Ah,” we thought, Glastonbury 2002 (the liquid acid years). talked-about, multimillion-pound “fake “this should be an informative and relaxing To go with this brief recap of my trip via Afghanistan village” and to find out how it few days in the countryside.” the medium of photos and captions, I would all worked. On arrival at the camp we felt Soon after leaving my change of clothes in like to thank 2 Para for finally making a man This is Sergeant Major Adam Proud. He was the first member of B Company we met and he runs the show. He’s great at yelling at people and keeping morale high during the boring bits pretty pleased with ourselves that we’d been the barracks, we were driven miles away to a out of me. L.T.F.D! * where you’re lying on gravel for three hours waiting for explosions and shooting to wake you up. 42 | VICE VICE | 43 This dog is trained to attack anybody in civilian clothing so we had to be super-careful around it. It had been caught up in a really nasty gun battle in Helmand last year.

After marching for 30 miles in freezing cold, lying in ditches and eating only five boiled sweets, the full English breakfast Sadly, we never got to see this being fired. The main you get is what I imagine the first meal God serves you in heaven is like: eggy bread, fried bread, bacon, sausage, eggs, weapons used were M-80s that had been modified to and then Coco Pops for afters, with eight cups of tea to keep you from falling asleep in your food. fire blanks.

These explosions are fucking loud. On our first night there I had to sleep on the floor in a room filled with 90 paras. I shivered so much it was like I was breakdancing in my sleeping bag. I passed out from the cold and was woken by the sound of one of these going off outside the window. All my life I’ve had problems getting up in the morning, but since that day I’m up before the birds.

These are built to resemble forts that the British army use in Helmand. At night they are not very warm so you have to take straw from the fields to sleep on.

These Gurkhas pretended to be Taliban fighters. One Each backpack weighs more than your sofa. If you’re unlucky enough to be carrying the IED identification equipment then And after breakfast, which could be at any time between 4 AM and 12 PM, you’d be off again on another four-hour hike across beautiful fields filled little lambs, shells, and unexploded highlight was when they re-enacted a suicide bombing. your backpack weighs more than two of your sofas. mortars. We made our trip into a film which you can see on VBS.TV in a month or so. * L.T.F.D means “Living the Fucking Dream” and is a shout-out to Sergeant Dave Etok. 44 | VICE VICE | 45 Victims of Pain and Blind Justice Fighting California’s Three Strike Law

WORDS AND PHOTOS BY ADAM PATTERSON Michael Romano sits in his office at Stanford University. The defence clinic he established with Galit Lipa has seen eleven three-strikers’ life sentences overturned in the past 18 months.

n 1997, William Anderson stole a dollar in loose change from a Proposition 66 ballot proposed to amend the law by requiring the three-strikers, although arguably the injustices in those cases were as innocence: all their clients are guilty of committing crime, but those parked car. He was arrested and sentenced under California’s third strike to be a violent or serious crime in order to warrant a life bad as anywhere in the [justice] system.” misdemeanours should not have cost them their lives. I voter-approved “three strikes and you’re out” law. Mr sentence. The ballot’s failure to pass could in some way be attributed After more than a year of casework and tracking people down, Recently, more and more former supporters of the legislation Anderson’s two previous convictions of daylight residential burglary to the blitz of TV commercials led by Governor Arnold they had a breakthrough. Romano persuaded the Superior Court of have had a change of heart, says Romano. “We have judges calling in 1985 now accounted for his first two strikes, allowing his petty Schwarzenegger in the run up to the ballot, in which he suggested California to consider a habeas corpus appeal for Alex Maese, a us and saying, ‘I sentenced some guy to life ten years ago—I think theft from the car to trigger the hammer blow—the third strike. He reform would risk turning America’s most fiendish felons back onto Vietnam War vet with post-traumatic stress disorder who was sen- about the poor bastard all the time. Can you do anything about was sentenced to 25 years to life in state prison. the streets. tenced to life for possession of a cotton wool ball containing 0.029 it?’,” he says. A number of states in the US have the three strikes law, under As it stands, figures released by the California Department of grams of heroin in 1997. To everyone’s shock, the judge overturned The issue that remains is that most Californians are not aware of which criminals who persisently offend are given increasing penalties. Corrections and Rehabilitation show that, as of 2005, 56 percent of the conviction and ordered Maese to be released with immediate the problems the three strike law has caused. Without even consider- Yet in California there remains one glaring difference that many all three-striker inmates were convicted on non-serious or non-vio- effect in 2008. The lawyers had obtained expert testimony that ing the prison costs—the incarceration of three-strikers has cost an believe is a catalyst for continued injustice. While the first two strikes lent offences. Maese self-medicated his disorder with heroin. estimated additional $19.2 billion—the reality is that those caught must be “serious or violent” crimes, the third strike does not. This Earlier this year, I travelled to California to meet a lawyer called The impact of the Stanford team has spread through the prison up in the law are the homeless, the drug-addicted and the mentally discrepancy has allowed criminal prosecutors to press for a variety of Michael Romano, who, alongside fellow attorney Galit Lipa, has system and the clinic now has thousands of requests for representa- ill. These are not people whose convictions get them on the front of life-crippling sentences for the most minor of offences. established the Criminal Defense Clinic at Stanford University to tion. They accept only non-violent cases where minor crimes have a newspaper. I spoke to four former convicts who fell foul of In California, the original three strikes law (Proposition 184) was fight on behalf of the three-strikers. Romano told me: “There wasn’t been committed in each of the three strikes. The focus is on the third California’s three strike law, each of whom was released from prison passed in 1994, but it was almost overturned in 2004 when the anybody, no interest groups or lawyers, dedicated to helping these strike discrepancy and the problems it creates. It’s not even about following appeals by Romano’s Criminal Defense Clinic.

46 | VICE VICE | 47 James Clark in Palo Alto Charles Ramirez sits on as he waits to begin his his weights bench after Charles fishing with his daily shift with the He sweeps the streets as working out in his family son Nick at Redondo Downtown Streets Team. part of his morning shift. home in Whittier, LA. pier.

Charles in his parents’ yard. His James beds down for the evening father sleeps in the afternoon sun. at Palo Alto Church of Christ, one After being released from prison, of a group of churches that pro- Charles returned home and rebuilt vides shelter for the homeless. his life with his family’s support.

JAMES CLARK Clinic arranged a place for him at a local mission. CHARLES RAMIREZ and when they threw him out of jail he came out as a shell. He did- (WAS WILLIAM ANDERSON) James has been failed by a system devised to help those who Third strike: Breaking into a van and stealing the radio n’t know anything about cell phones or the TV. They took his spirit Third strike: Breaking into a car for a dollar in change cannot help themselves. He should still be in jail but is now free Previous two strikes: Two non-violent residential burglaries in 1991 from him, his identity. They broke him.” Previous two strikes: Two non-violent daylight residential burglaries and fighting one day at a time for acceptance in a faster and less Sentenced: 25 years to life in 1996 On his days off he goes to church, to the movies with his girlfriend, in 1985 forgiving place than he knew before. He doesn’t have big plans, Released: 2008 and fishing with his son, Nick. They go to Redondo pier in west LA, Sentenced: 25 years to life in 1997 but has a steady goal that’s focused on survival. It’s arguably the Charles’s problems started when he was physically and psychologi- a long strip leading out into the Pacific. Charles was incarcerated Released: 2009 most practical way of thinking. He says: “Sometimes some things cally harmed by his parents. I spoke to Charles about the difficulty of when Nick was six, leaving him to grow up without a father figure I first encounter James when Michael Romano arranges for me to tag can be fixed, but instead [the penal system] just decided: ‘We’ll just moving back home with these dark memories, and he could only talk which has created an uncertainty in their relationship. Neither of along to one of their regular lunch meets. As the most recently do this to people— they’re broken, so who cares? Let’s just toss about “moving on”. “The past is ugly but I learned to forgive and them are expecting miracles, but they are both giving each other a released prisoner, and one with no family support, the Stanford team them into the garbage pile.’ I’d been going into my fourteenth year leave it alone,” he says. chance. “I still got a long road to go,” says Charles. “At least now he had arranged for James to relocate to Palo Alto to maintain contact inside if I hadn’t got out with Mike [Romano]. I’m still working on Despite the past, his parents seemed happy to have him back in the calls me Dad. I don’t like when he calls me Charles. But I got my son and a framework of support. Unlike other three-strikers I would it, I still have problems. I’m taking medication to try to get house. His mother, Mary Lou, was clearly disturbed at what the back and I’m working at it every chance I get. Dad ain’t going meet, James had no partner and was homeless. The Criminal Defense things straight.” prison sentence had done to her son. “They took my son as a man nowhere. I’m here to stay.”

48 | VICE VICE | 49 Vincent Rico at home in Upland, LA, displaying some of the tattoos he got while growing up in Vincent and his wife Monika out- Miguel embraces his Miguel Algarin at his home Azusa and in prison. side their apartment. fiancée Jacqueline. in Bell Gardens, LA.

Vincent and Monika returning from their local Swap Meet, which is a Miguel reflects on his bit like a car boot sale. newfound freedom.

VINCENT RICO which had been bought the previous day. They had been eating on the MIGUEL ALGARIN Miguel clearly needs this companionship in order to survive in the Third strike: Stealing a pair of children’s tennis shoes floor since they moved in. Third strike: Found inside a dollar-store warehouse after business outside world. Prison was a tough ride for him, and like many others Previous two strikes: Two non-violent residential burglaries in 1986 He says he had a normal childhood, but a history of gang violence, hours and arrested for attempted burglary he attempted to take his own life. He has mental conditions that went and 1987 alcoholism and abuse didn’t provide the best start in life. Despite this, Previous two strikes: Two non-violent daytime residential burglaries untreated—an IQ of 62, major depression, schizophrenia, and ADD— Sentenced: 25 years to life in 1996 Vincent had aspirations. “My dad was a truck driver, so I wanted to in 1991 and yet he has worked through it, holding down a carpentry job until his contract recently expired. “I probably would have given up inside,” Released: 2009 drive a truck. But my whole mind went off that focus and I started Sentenced: 25 years to life in 1998 he says. “My board hearing was supposed to be 2020. If they would ending up in juvenile hall.” After spells of petty theft and heroin Released: 2009 After his release, Vincent stayed with his wife at his sister’s place until have denied me I would have found some heroin in the yard, then I just he found a job to earn money for rent. They moved into their own addiction, Vincent found himself looking at a lifetime behind bars. Miguel welcomes me into his Bell Gardens home with a smile. He would have went out. I thought about that every single time. I said to place in February this year, which by coincidence was the first wed- Vincent’s son is stationed with the US army in Germany. He hopes lives with his fiancée Jacqueline and her daughter. The couple are myself, ‘I don’t wanna die suffering in prison.’” ding anniversary they have ever spent together, having married in to see him soon. He takes nothing for granted now and relishes wak- openly affectionate. “We met through his mother,” says Jacqueline. Miguel finds life difficult on the outside, but is grateful for the help 1995, mere months before his arrest. Since then, they attend weekly ing in the morning to a life of freedom. “Our future looks bright,” he “We were supposed to just go out a few times, but we fell in love. he’s received. “I almost lost my life. If it wasn’t for Galit [Lipa] and Swap Meets—like a car boot sale—to buy furniture and other says. “Everything is falling into place now. We have our home, our job Seven months later, here we are—he asked me to marry him.” She Stanford University, I wouldn’t be sitting here talking to you, and I household appliances. I share the first meal on their kitchen table, and our health. Our kids are grown and we can focus on each other.” shows me her engagement ring. thank the Lord that they were there when I needed them.”

50 | VICE VICE | 51 Our House In the Middle of the Trees

WORDS AND PHOTOS BY CLAUDINE KO

he view of the San Francisco Bay from a few planks of wood It must have taken me at least 45 minutes to make it to 80 feet, strategically placed over some branches at the top of a 100- where I was shocked to find the lower platform: a sketchy construc- T foot coastal redwood is just as panoramic as, say, that from tion of what seemed to be a section of chain-link fence, some metal a high-rise apartment in the city’s posh neighbourhood of Russian piping, and a few pieces of plywood. I had lost sight of the ground Hill. What’s different is the wind factor. When it picks up, the apart- long ago, and the tree was swaying a few inches to the left, a few ment building stands firm, while the tree just… doesn’t. inches to the right... I wrapped my body around a sap-covered It was the summer of 2007. I was in the Bay Area, on the kind of branch like a wrench-hugging Varga girl, balancing my feet precari- gorgeous afternoon that tempts New Yorkers like me to give up our ously on the fence. Then David unhooked me, said something like type of sadomasochistic urban suffering. I stood at the base of the “You’ll be fine,” and dropped into oblivion. tree, my fingers stained a juicy blackberry purple. The fruit picking Of course, I wasn’t entirely convinced. In fact, I was scared shit- had been a random diversion from our primary goal: climbing to the less. But then there was Yoda or, more specifically, a little figurine of top of the redwood where a secret tree house awaited. In retrospect, Yoda, sticking off the end of a branch near me, emanating his one- my friend Raluca wondered whether we could’ve spent our Sunday ness with the surrounding energy field that binds all living things. So doing something more productive, like, oh, reading the paper. I I quietly clenched and waited with the Jedi Master. resigned myself to the fact that we really didn’t have a choice in the When David finally returned with Raluca, he insisted we free- matter. When someone brings you to a century-old conifer in the climb to the in-progress penthouse, an equally rudimentary middle of a forest, hands you a rope, and says, “Meet me at the pent- construction where we sat down, popped open a couple of beers, and house,” going home to do the Sunday crossword doesn’t exactly ate some trail mix. I chugged the hefeweizen, hoping it would calm register as a viable option. me down and, somehow, not fuck with my depth perception. Still A few weeks before, Raluca’s boyfriend, David Freitag, had heard looking for distraction, I asked David whether he had a pen. He about the house. On a whim, he called its original architect to ask handed me a Sharpie and I tagged the board beneath me, a simple permission to climb the tree. Josiah Clark, a local SF ecologist, sentiment about surviving the climb. answered the phone. “What do you know about it?” he asked. When Weeks later, when David had finished building, the house was two David told him he was a professional theatre and circus rigger, Josiah levels and stocked with amenities: sleeping bags and pillows, chairs, said, “I’ll meet you there in ten minutes.” a set of dominoes, a camping stove. But then, after another couple of At the top of the tree, David found a crude platform constructed years, it was suddenly torn down. “I knew what was going to hap- with various recycled materials that had deteriorated from years of pen,” says David, who won’t reveal the exact nature of its demise. He UV exposure. “My rigger brain just went crazy with what could be laughs. “It’s like anything, it’s not going to last forever.” possible. I said, ‘We can build something bigger and sturdier; you could have a better view and bring friends up here safely.’ I became These days, David, now owner of Beanstalk Aerial Designs, and obsessed with it.” Josiah have a new project. And that is how I find myself riding in So as not to disturb the public or reveal the house’s location, David David’s old truck to Sonoma, California, where a couple with worked silently, forsaking all power tools—cutting, drilling, and young children has hired Josiah, who has an environmental-con- building everything by hand. He would surreptitiously climb up in sulting company called Habitat Potential, and his crew to build a the morning, when the surroundings were deserted. It was a dream tree house on their five-acre forest lot. When we pull up to the dri- come true for the geographer-turned-stage worker. “I couldn’t stop veway of the main residence, Josiah, his childhood friend Andrew until I was finished,” he says. “I felt like I finally found the art I was Scavullo, and their protégé Rob Ward are already lugging equip- meant to be creating.” ment down into the lush wilderness. Together with David, the four are an A-Team of tree-house builders. David hangs a thick coil of “Who wants to go first?” At the time, David had seven years of pro- rope around my neck, hands me a crate of tools, and leads the way fessional rigging experience and 18 years of climbing. I volunteered. down the woodsy path. It had rained the two days before, so I He harnessed me into a safety belt that fit like an S&M nappy—strap- keep my eyes on the muddy trail until it’s time to stop. And then I py, with easy crotch access—and began instructing. First, he threw a look up. rope over a “low” branch and hoisted himself up to free-climb about The tree house floats 30 feet above us like an incoming spaceship. two-fifths the way up the tree, or as long as half the length of the rope Suspended by 12 cables drilled into a fairy circle of three redwoods, would go. Then he rappelled back down to give me a boost. I clumsi- its underbelly is a platform of smooth redwood planks supported by ly maneuvered my way up, like a waterlogged pig, to the first branch, ten-foot-long, pressure-treated 6x6 beams. Although it needs a roof about 20 feet off the ground. My right hand gripped an ascender that and is essentially an open-air deck with three walls forged from sal- was looped to my seat harness and automatically braked against the vaged wood and embedded with an equal number of charmingly rope after each lunge I made to pull myself up. mismatched windows—it takes my breath away. That’s David up there.

52 | VICE VICE | 53 Josiah Clark, Andrew Scavullo, and David Freitag building something or other. Looking down at David from about 100 feet up. You can’t even see the ground from that high.

Andrew, a licensed contractor and registered California engineer- It was August, and they knew they had three and a half months of I try to imagine what salamanders sound like and come up blank. As soon as they left, others filled the vacancies. “It was a lot like a in-training, explains there are no rules or regulations when it comes good weather left. Naturally, a windstorm hit on their first night. “I “Oh, they don’t sound like anything,” says Andrew. “You’d come home nest in the forest,” says Josiah. “A cavity opens up, the woodpecker to tree houses. “Building codes are extremely narrow and unimagi- looked around and the crowns of all the redwoods were shaking,” after school, and there’d be salamanders hanging out on your platform, makes the hole, uses it one year, clears out, and the next year it’s open native,” he says. “We’ve done everything to code, shy of the says Josiah. “It’s almost like you’re in the crow’s nest of some old 100 feet up in a tree, and the chorus of birds and the coyotes in the and something else is going to move in.” suspension.” That part, he says, is “educated guessing”. I make my sailing vessel, and I remember thinking, ‘Oh my God, this is what I’ve evening. The wind would sway, but it was kind of hypnotic in a way.” way up the ladder. signed up for, living in this pitching and rolling tree house 90 feet up. Josiah says they basically joined a culture of people who lived in Rob hops down onto the deck from a ladder. “Whoa, no jump- I am so fucked.’ the woods—they knew of five total tree dwellers in the Campus ing,” Andrew says, in the middle of sawing wriggle board for the In 1995, Josiah was entering his junior year at UC Santa Cruz. The “I sat up in bed and thought, ‘I know what screws are in here, I Reserve. “When everybody else was going into their dorm rooms, new corrugated, translucent roof. “That would be the dynamic- university was having a housing shortage, forcing mobs of students know what cables—so if this tree chooses to fall down after the hun- we’d all be going back up into the forest.” Sure, it was spooky—this load condition.” into intense bidding wars for old houses down in the flats. dreds of years it’s been here, I guess I’m just meant to die.’ And I was only 15 years after the Trailside Killer murdered seven people “We were like, ‘Dude, this is so ridiculous’,” says Josiah. He and never had a problem sleeping there again.” along hiking paths in Marin and Santa Cruz counties—but they all Andrew, both environmental-science majors, planned to share a When I raise an eyebrow, he reassures me it wasn’t a death wish. watched out for one another. “I came to realise that whatever was house that year. They had also recently met some guys from Earth “Every morning, I would wake up and the sun would be rising over happening out there in woods wasn’t as scary as what was happen- First, who had built a tree house in the 400-acre Campus Reserve the Monterey Bay. Some days it was orange, some days it was azure ing in a lot of the rest of society.” above school. Eventually, it was discovered and dismantled, but the blue, some days it was grey, some days it was gold, some days it was Andrew lived in the tree for three months and was never more two were already inspired. pink. I was always shocked. It gave me this new inspiration to wake attuned to the weather. “It was mid- to late October. I was in a biol- They’d been camping while looking for a place to live, and one up earlier every day.” ogy class and it started to drizzle, and I had this sinking feeling, like night, lying in a meadow, Josiah turned to Andrew and said, “We Andrew had 8 AM classes three days a week that trimester. He’d my life was about to get a lot more difficult.” could spend the same time and money and we could build tree get up, stash his sleeping bag in a dry box, rappel 90 feet down “The first winter we were up there, it hardly rained at all,” says houses. We could live in tree houses.” There was a long pause through the canopy, hop on his bike, and haul. Josiah, who stayed for 11 months. “It was like, ‘Great, this is so before Andrew said, “Yeah, let’s do it.” So the next morning, they “From the time I clipped in to rappel to the time I was sitting at easy.’ I remember the next year thinking, ‘I’m so excited to live in the dumped their housing applications, headed to the forest, and began the lecture hall taking my exam or whatever was, like, nine min- tree house.’ And that was the El Niño year. It was the other end of plotting. Soon, they found a seven-foot-diameter, second-growth utes,” says Andrew. And campus provided much of their daily the spectrum, where it rained all the time. But when the weather got redwood that had split into two. They climbed up and constructed needs—lockers, showers at the rec centre, meals, and libraries. bad, it was girls who bailed us out.” two cantilevered decks surrounded by eight-inch-high ping-pong “People ask, ‘What do you do up there?’ Nothing, nothing at all. “That was key,” says Andrew. “When you got drunk, to go ride netting on either trunk, as well as a massive hammock suspended You just sit there and watch. It was awesome. The noises at night— your bike five miles uphill and then climb a 100-foot tree with dead over a 100-foot abyss. “It was a very creative solution to a serious did you know there are salamanders that live hundreds of feet up in branches—at night—it was kind of important to have a girlfriend, a housing crisis,” says Andrew. redwood trees?” little crash pad available, and that’s my wife today.” A view of the top of the tree house from about 80 feet up.

54 | VICE VICE | 55 Rob Ward, scaling the side of the tree house to stain the outside walls. The majestic tree house, suspended within a circle of three even more majestic redwoods.

sometimes they’re just sick. Still other trees have been suppressed and “If this tree chooses to fall down kept from the light, but it only makes them stronger.” He points out a slew of woodpecker holes, explaining how they after the hundreds of years it’s been eventually form knots. Therefore, he reasons, a screw and a bolt are not going to kill a tree. That happens by gashing or constricting it, or here, I guess I’m just meant to die.” infecting it with some disease. David whoops from above. As he comes into view, he surveys the house and says, “This looks like a classic Boy Scout tree fort.” Here’s the maths, briefly: a 5 /8-inch bolt inserted perpendicular “You mean the classic tree fort they always wanted but never got,” to the grain of dry lumber can safely resist loads of more than says Andrew. 1,500 pounds. Combined with 1 /4-inch cables, which can handle In actuality, this tree house is far from conventional. At first, 1,200 pounds each, one can conservatively assume that every cable Josiah had suggested designing it on stilts between the trees, like and eyebolt connection system supporting the structure can sup- many I’ve seen in coffee-table books on the topic. But David doesn’t port 1,000 pounds. So with the 12 cables and anchors, Andrew consider those to be tree houses: “Why do you even need the trees estimates it would be safe to hold the 3,000 pounds of wood and then? They’re engineered to be more like houses, with drapes and another estimated 1,500 pounds of people. However, no one’s plumbing and shit.” made these calculations using live wood. “Obviously we do not He points out that they’re not the first to hang a house from the recommend using the structure during high winds or for dance trees like a hammock, but that others usually employ bigger pins and parties,” he says. Of course, they could always alleviate risk by more steel. “They’re probably better designed, I’m sure,” he says, “but lowering the structure. they don’t quite look as delicate and airy and floating as this one does. “If it’s not high up, we’re not interested,” says Josiah, who con- “A tree house should be one with the tree. Redwood trees cradle siders this project fairly low, its lack of height due to the likelihood all kinds of life in the canopy. Suspending the house like a cradle gives that children will be using it. “The longer the climb, the better the it more kinetic energy. It actually makes it feel more alive.” views, the more isolated, the more extreme. People who like to go Here, amid wine-country flora and clear-running streams, our cell into the wilderness like to go way deep into the backcountry. And phones have no reception, the outside world falls away, and time when you’re in the trees, you gotta go higher…” But, says Josiah, “If holds still. In the middle of a food break, I suddenly remember. At you’re smart about it, it’s still probably safer than driving on the free- 3 AM this morning, I received an emergency text from my neighbour, )LIW\3RSWRQDO way or crossing a busy intersection.” whose deck my kitchen window looks down onto back in New York. Josiah stresses that for him, building tree houses is not about When I call him, he regretfully informs me that my apartment had $SSDUHO&RUH%DVLF7HH money, and if done improperly, it can destroy the trees. It requires a caught on fire in the middle of the night. I soon learn that the dam- lot of observation and research; there is no perfect recipe to find the age was severe enough to render the place uninhabitable. But by right tree. “It’s like choosing the place to reintroduce a rare animal or several small miracles, nobody was hurt. And as I lay on my back perhaps like choosing a girlfriend,” he says. staring up at the forest canopy from the tree house of our collective “Many trees look beautiful but inside are rotten and lack integrity. dreams, listening to the call of the pileated woodpecker, I feel just Sometimes it’s because they have been through so many storms; fine. In fact, better than fine. QHZHUDFDSFRP 56 | VICE A Wanderful Experience Cracking the Crazy Behind the Amazing AMwand

BY ROCCO CASTORO PHOTOS BY BRAYDEN OLSEN

hree grown men recently gyrated their wands inches above fruit juice. It kind of takes away that back-end bitter taste.” He then my lower back while I laid facedown on a red couch. Every filled the two glasses with wine, pushed one to the opposite side of T few minutes they asked me whether I was “feeling any- the table, and began twirling his wand in tight clockwise circles inches thing”. They were hoping that twirling stainless-steel tubes full of above the liquid inside the chosen glass. This lasted for about five “granulated minerals” over my body would relieve an ailment that minutes. After Paul was finished, I sampled the unwanded wine. It has caused me niggling yet constant nerve pain for years. It had no had the bouquet of poorly aged swill and coated my tongue with bit- discernable effect on my discomfort, but hundreds of people across terness. I then drank from the wanded cup. It was subtle, but it did the world believe these wands contain a powerful healing energy. seem to be a tad less acidic. In hindsight the improved taste could My wanding experience took place inside a charming 100-year-old have been due to the powers of persuasion (and the fact that the sec- house in Mount Vernon, New York. The homeowner, 39-year-old ond sip of any wine will taste better after the alcohol dulls your taste Paul Saenz, had invited me there for a demonstration of the buds), but I was intrigued all the same. AMwand, one of the many wellness products manufactured by the Besides his involvement with Amega and other multilevel market- multilevel marketing company Amega Global. Paul is a part-time ing firms, Paul is a project manager who oversees the construction of musician, a father of two, and the founder of Resonance Technology cellular communication towers and base transmission stations. He Global, through which he sells products from Amega and other com- finds this ironic because the wand’s primary function is to repair the panies. He acquired his first AMwand (which retails for about £210) damage inflicted on our “bio-energetic fields” by devices that pro- in mid-March and became an Amega distributor soon after. duce radio frequencies and other electromagnetic disturbances. Upon entering Paul’s house, I walked in on two men vigorously According to an official Amega PowerPoint presentation, humans wanding a third in the living room. I watched and awkwardly asked have “a bio-energetic field which consists of subtle organisms with a few questions about exactly what was going on before introducing energetic potential that gives strength and power to the biological myself. The first-time wandee was Mike Joyce, and the wanders were field”. It also outlines the ten “body fields” that can benefit from a his older brother John (aka Juicecan) and his buddy Pers Van Kragg. good wanding and states that “quantum physics has revealed that When I asked Mike whether he sensed anything emanating from the everything in the universe is energy”. wand, he claimed that he felt some “general tingliness” around his “We are getting blasted by the cell tower down the street, the wire- back and head. Mike interrupted him to explain that it was the “sub- less routers in our houses, and the cell phones in our pockets that we atomic stimulation of cells”. This statement made me uneasy, and I are putting up to our heads all the time,” Paul said when I asked casually drifted into the kitchen to meet the rest of the guests. about the detrimental biological effects of the communications revo- Paul and his wife, Cheryl, had gathered a small group of friends lution and the AMwand’s potential to rectify them. “Even if you have and acquaintances who had varying levels of interest in Amega and a Bluetooth device, you are still getting what they call ‘electro-pollu- its products. Some already owned or had access to wands, which they tion’. It’s new to mankind in the last 50 or so years. [Before,] we unanimously praised. Of course, Paul was eager to demonstrate the didn’t really have these radio sound waves blasting our brains. It wand’s myriad abilities. After a round of introductions, we moved to weakens the bio-energetic field, and the whole concept with Amega his backyard to conduct a wanded-wine taste test. is to strengthen it.” The wine, Paul told me, was the cheapest his wife could find, Amega and its AMwand entered Paul’s life a few months ago. which supposedly would make the wand’s effects all the more appar- Colleagues in a travel-based marketing business recommended that ent. He set two empty glasses on the patio table and filled them. Pers he check out Amega’s products, which they claimed were amazing and Juicecan, both wand owners, claimed that wanding wine of any and “unbelievable” in the best of ways. After reviewing Amega’s calibre enhances its flavour. Paul, who moments earlier was wanding website and conducting some independent research online, Paul a cigarette to remove impurities, chimed in and said that he wands decided to take a chance and bought his very own AMwand. He just about every beverage: “I have tried it with wine, water, soda, and received it a few weeks later and said that he noticed the wand’s The author getting the shit wanded out of his lower back. 58 | VICE VICE | 59 effects on his body immediately. Within minutes, he was wanding everything in sight. I extensively wanded myself, “I have a torn shoulder. The pain goes down to my hand,” Paul said about his first experiences with the wand. “I have gone to see my girlfriend, my coworkers, my acupuncturists and massage therapists—all that stuff—and none of it has ever worked. I wanded myself for three minutes the night I got friend’s dog, food, wine, liquor, it, and the next morning my pain went away.” I looked Paul dead in the eye as he said this and several other seem- beer, and even my computer. ingly insane statements throughout the evening (the wand helped him lose 15 pounds in about a month, he relieved his wife’s back pain All that I experienced was a with the wand, his 75-year-old Portuguese neighbour who needs a hip replacement could walk much easier after five minutes of wand- tired wrist. ing, etc.). I even asked Paul whether he had wanded his penis. He told me he hadn’t tried that yet but was eager to use a warming massage oil called Inflame, which is also manufactured by Amega. However, A few minutes later Paul decided it was time for my first thorough nothing he said or did—no matter how far-fetched or ridiculous it body wanding. He asked whether I had any aches or other ailments. seemed to me—made me doubt his faith in the wand’s abilities. And I told him that I have mild sciatica. He then instructed me to take off he’s far from the only believer. my shoes, lie on the couch, close my eyes, and clear my mind of all The AMwand was released in the US in January, and since then a thoughts. The next thing I knew Pers, John, and Paul were triple- steadily growing number of Amega associates across America have wanding my back. As I said before, my back felt exactly the same discovered that the wand and the company’s other products are capa- after the wanding. I was relaxed, but napping on a couch for 15 min- ble of grand things. The short list of its supposed powers includes utes tends to do that to people. Paul told me that I might be relieving various body aches and pains, stimulating the circulatory experiencing some inexplicable blockages and that it could take a full system, reducing the acidity of lemons, increasing the potency of day to feel the wand’s effects. food, alleviating migraines, and “energising” just about any organic Unfazed by my declaration that the wand did nothing for my back or inanimate object you can shake a stick at. pain, Paul asked Pers’s girlfriend, Bobbie Jo Mason, who claimed she Paul Saenz and his astounding AMwand. The AMpendant works a lot like the wand except it’s omnidirectional, is supposed to be According to the company’s website, Amega Global was formed in worn by the user at all times, and doesn’t need to be twirled to activate its effects. had never been wanded before, to hop up on the couch and give it a Singapore in 2006 by a consortium of three companies: a wellness- try. Bobbie Jo has suffered from bone cancer for 13 years, which has product manufacturer, an investment firm, and a “people-development resulted in three herniated discs and nerve damage to the left side of company”. Most of their products are made in Asia and Australia. If her back. She takes multiple forms of pain medication and has recently you were wondering, its founders came up with the name Amega contemplated having a nerve stimulator implanted in her spine. She Global because they wanted to create “a mega global company.” And lay down on the couch while Paul, John, and Pers’s teenage son, if you’re to believe Amega’s distributors, the programme has been a Matthew (who, incidentally, had been intermittently playing the runaway success. Other Amega dealers told me that the AMwand pro- theme song to Halloween on Paul’s upright piano throughout the duced approximately £29,000 worth of presales in December 2009, night), began intently wanding her body. After a few minutes of £610,000 in its inaugural month on the market, and an astounding mostly silence and concentration, they insisted that I grab a wand £1.7 million in February. (More recent figures were not available at the and join in. I felt like I was somehow violating Bobbie Jo but thought time this piece went to print.) There is no way to ascertain whether it would be even more uncomfortable if I didn’t play along. Amega’s sales figures are legit. None of the emails I sent or voice mails Twenty minutes later, the wanding session ended, and Bobbie Jo I left for administrative members of Amega were returned. In fact, the relaxed on the couch for a few moments before slowly getting up. She only direct employee of Amega who would speak with me on the was smiling. “My back feels great!” she said. “Before I could not phone was a customer-service representative who told me they do not bend down. I don’t even remember the last time I was able to touch have a public-relations department and he did not have access to sales my toes! I’m not kidding.” I asked whether she was a believer now, information; he advised me to send an email to a general address and she replied, “I would have to say yeah.” (which was never answered). Yet every distributor I spoke with was I had suspicions that Bobbie Jo was a ringer, invited to the party in extremely enthusiastic about the products and claimed to be making a case I did not personally feel the effects of the wand. Still, I had no healthy supplemental or full-time income from their sales. In fact, real evidence to prove that it was a ruse, and the chemo scars on her many of the Amegans I contacted mentioned that the programme has shoulders made it painfully obvious that she wasn’t fibbing about the been so successful it’s spawned cheaper bootleg wands available on the bone cancer. internet (which, according to them, do not work). A few days later, I emailed Paul to see whether I could borrow one I spent the rest of the night at Paul’s, wanding myself, water, and of his wands to casually try it for a few days in more familiar sur- beers; sampling Amega’s DNA powdered food supplement (which roundings. He graciously agreed. I had the wand for about a week resembled an Emergen-C packet); huffing AMised vapour emitted and followed the included instruction manual, which outlined differ- from an ultrasonic humidifier; and listening to testimonials from ent exercises to clear the bio-energetic field of whatever bad junk Paul, Pers, and others who claim to have relieved all sorts of pain might be floating around in there. I extensively wanded myself, my with the wand. Someone (I promised not to say who) had the bright girlfriend, coworkers, my friend’s dog, food, wine, liquor, beer, and idea of wanding marijuana to “antioxidise it”, supposedly to even my computer. All that I experienced was a tired wrist. After enhance its taste and perhaps increase its potency. Two of the atten- reading something on a message board about how the wand may not dees wanded a ceramic bowl full of weed for a few minutes before work on everyone, I decided it was time to contact distributors out- packing a small amount into a bong, where it was wanded a second side of Paul’s sphere to see what they had to say. time. One of the guests prepped the bong, lit the weed, and took a One of the distributors I spoke with was 71-year-old Jack Herd, a rip. I asked him whether he felt more stoned than he did from chiropractor located in Camp Hill, Pennsylvania. I requested an unwanded pot. He wasn’t sure, but judging from his eyes he was def- interview with him after randomly googling Amega representatives in initely zooted. the States. He told me that he had recently run into a patient while Amega’s ultrasonic humidifier produced some tantalising smells. Paul wanding a glass of wine for a taste test.

60 | VICE VICE | 61 the company’s secretive and proprietary AMfusion technology The whole thing felt like process (no one I spoke with had any idea how the procedure worked, and some said they had heard it took up to 20 hours to cre- Amway with a little bit of ate one wand). The procedure was supposedly developed over a 15-year period of biophysical research. Proponents of the AMwand Scientology-esque esotericism claim that it can focus this energy in a way that clears the body’s bio- energetic fields of distortion and reminds its cells “where they came thrown in for good measure. from”, which prompts the wanded area to return to a healthier, homeostatic state. Amega’s wares range from energised pendants to bracelets, food products, skincare creams, a “gas discharge visualizer” attending church who said her knee hurt so bad that she was worried that can detect and diagnose disturbances in an individual’s bio-ener- she wouldn’t be able to make it to work the next day. “I told her to getic field, aromatherapy systems that infuse the air with AMised come to my office,” Paul said. “I had loaned the one wand I had at vapour, and other energy-enhancing paraphernalia. the time—I have three of them now—to a massage therapist, so I Throughout the past century, many hucksters and loons have touted called him over. He came to the office and wanded her for four min- devices that supposedly tap into zero-point energy in some capacity— utes. She jumped out of the chair and said all the pain was gone. mostly perpetual-motion machines and mystifying objects that Then she immediately sat down at my computer and ordered one.” operate without an outside source of energy. Most of these claims Like Paul, Jack has been involved with numerous multilevel mar- undermine the basic laws of physics. In the interest of public aware- keting programs throughout his life. In fact, just about every ness, I decided that a scientific analysis of the wand was in order. I You have to be careful with wanded weed. John Joyce wands his younger brother Mike. Amega salesperson I spoke with had been climbing pyramid-based contacted renowned and somewhat controversial astrophysicist companies for quite a long time. And like Paul, Jack believed that Bernard Haisch. He and collaborator Alfonso Rueda have conducted the wand was capable of tapping into a heretofore-inaccessible extensive research on zero-point energy and developed a theory to source of energy. explain the origin of inertia, a theory that may someday be used to I also spoke with Ronnie Lane, a 67-year-old full-time Amega rep power spacecraft. Haisch is extremely open-minded for a guy who and amateur blues musician who signs his emails “Have Fun & Keep tries to unravel the secrets of quantum physics on a daily basis. He is Rockin’”. Ronnie said that he was one of the first people to sell aloe intrigued by UFOs and in 2006 authored The God Theory: Universes, vera in the US during the late 60s, and he was very optimistic about Zero-Point Fields, and What’s Behind It All, which attempted to rec- the potential of Amega’s product line, which can “self-demonstrate oncile traditional religious beliefs with scientific logic. itself within three to ten minutes”. He told me about his friend Before our interview, I emailed Bernard a short explanation of the Chuck, an older gentleman who uses his health problems as a crutch AMwand and provided links to the websites of various Amega dis- for attention. “When I went to see him in the nursing home I had to tributors. When we spoke on the phone, he quashed the operating have a long, straight, heavy-duty talk with him,” Ronnie recalled. “I principles of the wand (at least scientifically) in one fell swoop: “It’s said, ‘Chuck, you know you like to flirt with these nurses and they a complete scam. Trying to measure zero-point energy is a very sub- give you Vicodin and pain pills and you’re going to all these doctors tle thing. You can do it in a scientific laboratory. You can produce and going through chemotherapy and your whole life is revolving some very, very subtle effects of the atomic spectra and things like around being not well.’ Then I said, ‘I can’t promise you that this that. But the very idea that you can affect it with a wand is a scam, wand is going to do anything, but you have to have an attitude, you and the idea that it could have some effect on the human body is also have to have a belief system that makes you not want to be here the ridiculous. It’s like saying, ‘I’ve got a wand that modifies gravity. I’m rest of your life.’” Ronnie then wanded Chuck for 25 minutes. Three going to wave it over your head and it will cure your disease.’” After the wanding, Bobbie Jo claimed she could touch her toes for the first time in years. Lorcan Folan’s RF meter found that the wand wasn’t emitting much of anything. days later Chuck went in for a prostate-specific antigen (PSA) test. I asked Bernard why he thought companies like Amega and their Ronnie claimed that Chuck’s PSA level had lowered by 100 points consumers have latched onto a very complex and difficult-to-measure and the doctor was amazed. aspect of quantum physics. “‘Zero-point energy’ has become kind of The top North American Amega distributor is a man named Sam a buzzword in New Age circles, which tend to use it to describe all analysed the pendant and found that it contained thorium-232 and he had anything that could test this claim. He did and went to Adams. According to every “downline” distributor I interviewed, he sorts of things,” he said. “It’s God, it’s consciousness… I’ve seen all uranium-238 at high enough levels to cause erythema and seriously fetch an RF meter. I watched as he held it next to a microwave introduced the AMwand and Amega’s other products to the conti- sorts of allusions. In physics it’s a very well-defined concept and it has increase the risk of skin cancer. Following this revelation, a total of oven that was on and the needle jumped. The wand, however, did nent earlier this year and created most of the early YouTube videos none of those properties. People either don’t understand it or they do 2,835 Quantum Pendants were promptly seized from a chain store. not seem to be emitting anything of the sort. “It’s safe to say that and websites about Amega. Now he is at the top of a perpetually and they try to fool other people with it.” What’s more, an almost identical product, called the Scalar Energy nothing is coming out of that,” he said. “It’s not even magnetic.” growing pyramid. He did not return multiple phone calls, so Sam After attending the party and speaking to other Amega enthusiasts Quantum Pendant, is readily available from Amazon.com for $29.99. I thought about trying to crack it open to see what was inside, but remains semi-mysterious. However, Ronnie directed me to a across the country, I was getting culty or, at the very least, severe FusionExcel, the company that makes this version, claims that Cosway’s given that this thing was not emitting any kind of frequency, it YouTube clip where Sam explains how he discovered Amega while in groupthink vibes from the entire operation. Pyramid schemes, espe- radioactive pendant was an unlicensed, counterfeit knockoff. would be irrelevant. the Philippines during a trip to a place called the NURA Energy cially ones that are based on health and wellness, are creepy enough, This development made me worried that my wanding festivities While the AMwand may not be magnetic in the electrically Wellness Centre, a facility that offers “the holistic solution to pre- but it was deeply troubling that none of the distributors or Amega had left me energised with melanoma, so I immediately began search- charged sense, it undeniably possesses a powerful attraction of another ventive care, stress management, personal wellness, and youthing fans I interviewed had any clue how the company’s products work ing for someone with access to a Geiger counter who would let me sort. In a little less than six months, hundreds and possibly thousands [sic] process”. I was not able to verify the specifics of the relationship past the catchall terms of “zero-point energy” and “AMised Fusion use it on the wand. Thankfully Lorcan Folan, head of the of Americans have come to believe that the wand is a marvellous between NURA and Amega, but they share many executive-board Technology.” Mostly they would just repeat what was stated in the Department of Physics at the Polytechnic Institute of New York creation that can ease their health concerns and provide a significant members and advisers and both sell products infused with AMised literature. The whole thing felt like Amway with a little bit of University, came to the rescue. Or rather, I came to his office where source of income. It is working for some people, even if their hopes Fusion Technology. After his trip, Sam was blown away by NURA’s Scientology-esque esotericism thrown in for good measure. he had his Geiger counter ready and waiting to tell me whether I had and dreams are founded on pseudoscience and lies. Although I business model and products, and the rest is now history. Regardless, every single wand distributor and admirer I met was been waiving a radioactive stick across my body for the past week. remain dubious about the wand’s abilities and Amega’s business phi- According to Amega’s literature, the AMwand operates on the extremely nice and seemingly well intentioned. He flipped on the counter, waited a few moments as it warmed up, losophy, it is impossible to refute that some sort of magic is at work. principals of zero-point energy, a phenomenon of quantum physics Another point of serious concern arose when I was conducting fur- and perversely waved it over the wand. My asshole clenched as I eyed It appears that I’ll just have to live with the fact that I’ll never know discovered by Albert Einstein and Otto Stern in 1913. Put simply, ther research on Amega and their wand after Paul’s party. I discovered the meter. “Well, it’s not radioactive,” Lorcan said. “That’s good.” whether it’s outright trickery or something truly mystical that I’m zero-point energy is an invisible, underlying sea of subatomic energy the Quantum Pendant, an energised medallion made by a Malaysian I smiled and finally relaxed. On the way to Lorcan’s office, I had too stubborn to accept. that remains even when all other energy in a system has been spent. company called Cosway and advertised as offering many of the same remembered something Paul had said about the wand’s energy Rocco filmed his wanding experience for VBS.TV. Watch it—it will cleanse your bio-ener- Amega’s products are reportedly infused with zero-point energy via benefits as the AMwand. Last October, customs officials in Hong Kong being measurable in terms of megahertz. I asked Lorcan whether getic field.

62 | VICE VICE | 63 Castroland The Beauty and Despair of Modern-Day Cuba

PHOTOS AND WORDS BY JESPER DAMSGAARD LUND AND LASSE BECH MARTINUSSEN

either of us had any expectations when N we, two pale Danes, decided to take a holiday to Cuba last April. Of course, there’d be the stereotypical imagery: colonial architec- ture, old men with cigars, American automobiles from the 50s, and salsa dancing. But we wondered what Cuba was really like, especially now that the architects of the revolution are ailing old men who’ve lost their ability to effectively govern what Fidel Castro’s sister once called “an enormous prison surrounded Cubans bowl too, only barefoot, and against a different colour scheme than what We spotted this farmer from afar, gazing at a controlled burn of his fields that got by water”. you’ll find at the average British alley. way out of hand as the dry corn crops exploded in a massive cloud of smoke. He wasn’t too happy. It’s been more than 50 years since Castro and his comrades marched into Havana and ousted the dictator Fulgencio Batista. Since then, the tiny island nation has endured a complete trade embargo imposed by the United States that deprives Cuba’s citizens of many things the rest of us take for granted. During our trip, it was unsurprising to observe that Cuba mostly retains an aura of cold-war anachronism. It is out of time, out of tune, and out of step with the modern world. What we experienced was a unique form of societal deteri- oration as baffling and beautiful as it is sad. It is a country, adorned with kitschy aesthetics, that lacks even the most ubiquitous modern technology and, in recent times, a place that has been soiled by dubious forms of tourism. In many ways, it feels like a dilapidated theme park des- perate for new rides. The upshot is that these peculiar conditions have produced lots of beautiful things to photograph, which we did. We found this plastic flamingo with a broken neck in the garden of an old beachside hostel in Cienfuegos. It’s a good metaphor for the country Cubans have been isolated politically, socially, and financially from the rest of the Cubans are still nostalgic for an era when American movie stars and gangsters gal- as a whole. world for decades. As a result, their access to mass communications has always livanted through the streets of Havana. Aldo, the barman at our Havana hotel, been extremely limited, and the few things they do have access to are heavily cen- looked like he stepped out of The Godfather: Part II. sored. It was only two years ago that the government set up an internet infrastructure and allowed people to go online. 64 | VICE VICE | 65 This is Cesar, a retiree from Italy. He visits Havana several times a year to meet The Cuban National Zoo is located ten miles from Havana. There were no road Cuban ladies. They become his “girlfriends” and move in with him at whichever signs and we didn’t have a decent map, but after an hour of searching we found it casa particular (sort of like a Cuban bed-and-breakfast) he is staying at. Cuba’s sex at the end of an unmarked dirt road. It was a desolate and run-down place. industry is growing because there is less work than ever for young women. Perhaps this clown was attempting to bring a little cheer to the situation. It wasn’t really working.

A Slovakian tourist looked right at home at the Hemingway Marina, just outside This is Jaimes, who is from Chile. Inexplicably, he asked whether we were doing a Vladimir is the star of the water ballet that plays every day at the National Aquarium in Havana. He was simultaneously elegant and masculine—a hard thing to pull off in a loincloth. Havana. What didn’t look kosher was the 18-year-old girl he was with who was project on Nazis. As you can probably guess, he is a huge fan of Che Guevara. standing outside the frame.

66 | VICE VICE | 67 A shopfront window in Havana. It can be hard to find toothpaste and soap, but if you want something esoteric like a minibear bike, they have them.

We visited Cienfuegos, which is about 150 miles from Havana. There, we met this woman, a secretary for a state-run organisation of architects and engineers. Her office was We found this lone American tourist lounging poolside at dusk at the legendary Hotel Habana Riviera, which opened in late 1957. Little has changed since then except that small and not very swanky. Despite her modest quarters, she was proud of the organisation and was happy to let us photograph her working. And, yes, the muostache is very real fewer and fewer guests visit each year. and very amazing.

68 | VICE VICE | 69 WeActivist LADY TIGRA SHOT BY CHERYL DUNN 2010 www.wesc.com

This is Yimi Konclaze, a fairly notable Cuban rapper /DJ who just finished his sec- This is Reynaldo, a respected entrepreneur who has made ecotourism a profitable ond album. A friend of ours knows him and asked us to bring Yimi a hard-to-get (in business in Cuba. His passion is crocodiles. He owns several stuffed specimens Cuba) cell phone. We visited him in his tiny Havana apartment-cum-studio, where and has a live one in his backyard. he lives with his mum, sister, and eight-year-old daughter.

Friday night at the Hotel Habana Riviera. The dancefloor was completely empty. In the rural town of Trinidad, this old guy charges tourists 50 cents (30p) apiece to take his picture. The rest of the time he sits on his mule, smoking cigars. He told us that he sometimes moves to a different location in town, but most days you can find him right here. Work hasn’t been that profitable lately.

70 | VICE Fright Night Dancing With Zombies and Ghosts at Carnival in Haiti

INTERVIEW BY BRUNO BAYLEY PHOTOS BY LEAH GORDON

efore Haiti was catapulted into the news following which culminated in my co-curating the Ghetto Biennale the catastrophic earthquake in January that killed with them. This was the first arts biennale to be held in a B some 230,000 people, it was mainly known for slum in the developing world. Andre Eugene, one of the two things: Wyclef Jean from the Fugees and Voodoo (or artists, has been my partner for nearly four years now. Vodou, if you’re more culturally aware). London-based Getting down to the book: when and where are the images photographer Leah Gordon has been documenting Haiti for from? years, long before a natural disaster of this scale made it These photographs have been taken over a period of 14 newsworthy. Her new book, Kanaval, for Soul Jazz years and are all from one particular carnival, in the small Publishing, documents the often eerie and at times frankly town of Jacmel on the southern coast of Haiti. terrifying costumes and clans that make up the Jacmel Carnival. Sadly, the southern coastal town of Jacmel was Traditionally, what does the carnival celebrate? What reli- devastated in the earthquake. We spoke to Leah about the gious aspects are involved? things she knows best: Haiti, carnival, and costumes. All Caribbean carnivals have their roots in European medieval carnival. Mardi Gras means “Fat Tuesday” and is Vice: Firstly, what inspired you to travel to Haiti? It’s not a the last day of excess before Ash Wednesday and the fasting popular holiday destination. leading up to Easter. Before that, it was a time for rest and Leah Gordon: I first went to Haiti in March 1991 and have celebration while the agricultural land either lay fallow or at been back about 30 times in the last 19 years. I blame Jill least needed little tending. Dando for my whole long love affair with Haiti. After a post- grad diploma in photojournalism, I was working as a van Compared with, say, more well-known carnivals like driver for the Communist party. I had a vaguely guilty feeling Notting Hill, these images, the outfits, and the overall that I should be going somewhere. I had a friend in Hungary, appearance seem more eerie and less about peacock feathers and glitter. Why is that? but wasn’t too entranced by the idea, mainly as the climate This carnival isn’t government-supported so everyone makes seemed too similar to the UK. It was a snowy, miserable his or her own costumes with no funding whatsoever. Also, evening and the Holiday programme was on the television. I there is a recurring theme: some of the carnival is in memory was only watching it with half an eye open. Jill Dando was of the slave revolt when the uprising slaves had to be fairly expounding the joys of a family holiday to the Dominican damned frightening on a low budget! In Haiti, people laugh Republic. At the end of the show she turned to camera and along with and often even celebrate death, so imagery relating said, “I must warn you that the Dominican Republic shares the to death is far more prevalent there than in our society. island with another country, Haiti, but don’t go there by acci- dent. It has dictators, military coups, black magic, Vodou and Are there different groups of costumes that refer to particular death.” I thought: “All that and hot weather?” Within a periods? month I was on a plane from Miami to Port-au-Prince, clutch- There are many different groups which all have leaders. ing a copy of The Comedians by Graham Greene, with no Each group has a costume, set of gestures, narrative and particular idea what to do on arrival except to ask the taxi dri- street performance that have been passed down through ver for the Hotel Oloffson where Greene had set his novel. the years. There are always little changes and refinements made year by year. Boss Cota, the leader of the Chaloska, Not a typical approach to visiting a country. Aside from the always designs a new hat each year. carnival, what other issues have you covered in the country? I returned in 1993 to cover the military coup, doing photo- Have you been to Haiti since the earthquake? graphic work for Amnesty International and the Guardian, Yes, I was asked to go back to Haiti to photograph for an on and off, until 1995. I started buying the exquisite sequined aid agency five days after the earthquake. I didn’t get the Vodou flags to sell in the UK, which opened up access to chance to visit Jacmel but heard that it was devastated. many of Port-au-Prince’s Vodou temples and communities. I Through friends I was able to find that none of the people worked with a music promoter to bring a Vodou group over who had contributed oral histories to the book had died. to hold ceremonies in rave clubs in London and Liverpool. This was the first year ever that they did not hold carnival. I wrote a small book about Vodou and worked with Instead, in Jacmel, they walked solemnly through the town women’s arts collective Orphan Drift to make a film essay wearing black and finished at the cemetery where they called Lineaments of the Lwa. In 2006 I was sent to Haiti remembered the dead. by the International Museum of Slavery to commission a Kanaval: Vodou, Politics and Revolution on the Streets of Haiti is out on June 21 through Soul Jazz Publishing. See more of Leah’s work in her exhibition, sculpture to be a permanent exhibit in the museum. The Invisibles, held at Riflemaker, 79 Beak Street, Soho, London, from July

All photos © Leah Gordon 2010 Consequently I met the eponymous Sculptors of Grand Rue, 5 to September 10.

72 | VICE VICE | 73 The group is called “les diables”, which is best translated as “the diaboli- These are the Chaloska (Charles Oscar). They always wear military uniform and These are members of a tradition that always carry some kind of box—here, a Here they are again, looking slightly less menacing. cals”. This is an ancient group, the most involved with Vodou ritual. They start have a mouthful of false teeth made with bulls’ teeth. Charles Oscar was a partic- cardboard coffin—that spectators can pay a small fee to peep inside. off in the cemetery paying homage to the ancestors with fire. At the end, they ularly vicious military commandant in charge of the police in Jacmel. He died pile up their horn headdresses and burn them while dancing and singing. here in 1912. He was feared by all.

The main character is wrapped in a sheet and represents the phenomenon of A lone man in drag. In Kanaval, Don Cosentino notes in one of his footnotes zombification. He is led around town by a zombie master who has a whip in to his essay that there is a history of transvestitism. According to Ady Jean- his hand and cracks it at every crossroads while the zombie mutters com- Gardy’s “Carnaval Histoire”: “Male transvestitism goes on throughout the 18th plaints. century, mercilessly mocking the effete lords of French nobility.”

Here we see a typical ghost. Many people dress as ghosts by imitating skeletons. This is Yahweh. The guy is dressed in bull horns and a bull skin.

74 | VICE VICE | 75 PHOTOS BY JONNIE CRAIG

WWW.MONSTERENERGY.COM DOs

You know when you see something in another country with English words written on it that are basically nonsensical Awesome. This guy is banging something tonight. That’s because it looks cool, and the person who owns it has no idea what it means? Like a child’s backpack in Japan that the same look inbred beagles have right before they says “Obama Harry Potter Dragonball Z Brad Pitt”? This car is just like that. hump stuffed animals. I like this dude, because you know if it comes down to it, if he ends up alone at the end of night, he is capable of physically raping himself.

He’s wearing Crocs, sure, but his are different from the Taking pictures of people sleeping at parties is corny. So I like this sleazy Hungarian hipster’s style. If he weren’t ones obese people wear to amusement parks because what if he’s sleeping? Clearly his muttonchops are wide- so fat you’d think, “Wow, he probably gets laid a lot,” BEST BRANDS. BEST BUYERS. BEST BUSINESS. his were dropped out of a plane in a rubbish bag full of awake. And besides, if you can fall asleep in the corner ’cause he’s sort of creepy and lascivious in that vampire used clothing collected by school kids. He actually of some shithole loft surrounded by creepy minimal- kind of way girls often dig. But then you notice the meat walked from Waziristan in these Crocs and slept outside techno fans, you are a certified gangster. It’s like puppet he’s been dragging around and realise, damn, the whole time. And he’s a gimp. walking up to a nightclub bouncer with a sloppy joe in he actually gets laid a lot regardless. your hand. This guy’s a pro. WWW.BREADANDBUTTER.COM 78 | VICE DON’Ts “A delightful boutique festival with an ear for talent.”–Observer ORQUESTA BUeNA VISTA SOCIAL CLUB® FeATURING OMARA PORTUONDO LIARS etienne De Crecy presents beats ’n’cubes (new live show) the MAGIC I know the old-timey aesthetic of curly moustaches and straight-razor shaving is popular with 20-somethings these Notice his bummed-out, dumbfounded expression? He NUMBeRS days, but this is just too much. You know what would tie this moron’s outfit together nicely? A cane pulling him out just remembered how many manatees died in the last of the frame by his neck and a bout of scarlet fever. minute because of pollution. I hope this dude gets eFTeRKLANG decapitated by a Frisbee or drowns in a gravity bong. GILLES PeTeRSON

Totally cool eccentric older dude, right? Even with the “Yeah, y’know, I’m into big butts and, like, tribal “Hi! I’m Lambert, and this is my nephew Magnus. His rollerblades, right? ’Cause he’s older and looks kind of piercings, and—drum ’n’ bass? Yeah, I used to be father was a fisherman who drowned in the Baltic, so I try badass, and then the rollerblades sort of conflict in an pretty heavy into jungle but then, I don’t know, the scene to spend as much time with him as possible. This is a bike ironic way, right? Nope. Hate this guy. I don’t care if he kinda got weak after...” and then at this point you we built together.” Did you expect something scathing? used to hang out with Andy Warhol or shot dope with interrupt and tell him you were just kidding and don’t Well, guess what, fuck YOU. YOU are the DON’T. These MURDeR Keith Richards or some bona-fide righteous nonsense actually give a shit. motherfuckers are so great it should make you reconsider ON THE STANDON EXPRESS along those lines. I’m unimpressed. It would be cooler if your entire life. What are you even doing reading this? Go he had a lame helmet. find a local youth organisation and mentor the shit out of an emotionally neglected kid who needs you. standon calling / 6-8th august 2010 / standon, hertfordshire / www.standon-calling.com

80 | VICE DOs standon calling ORQUESTA BUeNA VISTA SOCIAL CLUB® FeATURING OMARA PORTUONDO etienne De Crecy LIARS presents beats ’n’cubes (UK EXCLUSIVE) Metronomy efterklang Gilles Peterson The Magic Numbers

The coolest thing about shoving poppers in someone’s face is that it magically causes their buttholes to distend Oh, hahaha, you’re at a party with friends enacting sex, wildly, and judging by the black-tie atmosphere of this party I’m assuming that means an hors d’oeuvre just shot or you’re actually having it, whatever, I don’t care: don’t British Sea Power Jeffrey Lewis out of her ass. you know having sex is not supposed to be fun or funny whatsoever? It’s—oh, wait a minute, never mind, you’re throwing her out the window. Cool, continue. Do you know if there’s any beer left in the fridge, though? also featuring These New Puritans A Hawk And A Hacksaw Steve Mason Fucked Up Wildbirds & Peacedrums Alice Russell Pantha Du Prince (UK exclusive) Phenomenal Handclap Band Delorean Esben and the Witch Fool’s Gold Telepathe Three Trapped Tigers Egyptian Hip hop The Phantom Band Summer Camp Casiokids Gold Panda Sleepy Sun El Guincho Factory Floor Clock Opera The Ruby Suns Joe Gideon and the Shark Plants and Animals and many more...

SILVER COLUMNS | EDDY TEMPLE-MORRIS | DAVE HASLAM i AND SO I WATCH YOU FROM AFAR TOM RAVENSCROFT i JAGZ KOONER i JESCA HOOP | GABBY YOUNG AND OTHER ANIMALS BO NINGEN i NORTH ATLANTIC OSCILLATION i THE RUMOUR SAID FIRE i RADIOPROOF THE MEGAPHONIC THRIFT | LULU & THE LAMPSHADES i ANTHONY JOSEPH AND THE SPASM BAND REVERE i DELIRIUM TREMENS i SOUND OF RUM | HARRY’S GYM i DRY THE RIVER | WILD PALMS PICA PICA | WHITE HEAT DJs | MIKE DIVER AND COLIN ROBERTS i THE FABULOUS PENETRATOR GOD DON’T LIKE IT | TIM FANUCCI i FRAN AND JOSH | STOPMAKINGME i YEARNER BABIES

She’s a DO as in “I’d like to DO things to you and make You don’t need cutting-edge fashion blogs to key you into This is an amazing Halloween getup because it’s two JAMES DELAY i THE VIOLET MAY | CANTMIXWONTMIXSHOULDNTMIXDONTMIX | MR FOGG you use your outside voice while I’m inside you”, but what look is in this summer, because this guy already costumes in one. In many cases it could be a disaster, BRENDAN ROGERS | TRISTRAM | SPARROW AND THE WORKSHOP i IRON LUNG QUINTET also a DON’T as in “you DON’T have any style and your nailed it. Rick Moranis dressed as a Nepalese Sherpa. like a Marilyn Monroe /Napoleon Dynamite mash-up, but outfit has the sex appeal of a school-bus fire”. edgy sword-licking pirate meets Tom Hanks dying of KATTWYK | DEATH ’N’ GLORY AIDS at the end of Philadelphia is pretty original. standon calling / 6-8th august 2010 / standon, hertfordshire / www.standon-calling.com

82 | VICE DON’Ts standon calling more entertainment from SALENA GODDEN’S BOOK CLUB BOUTIQUE DR SKETCHY’S BURLESQUE LIFE DRAWING | SWEENEY TODD’S BARBERSHOP LEXI ON THE RUN CINEMA i SWING MON AMOUR DANCE LESSONS WILLIAM HUNT: POLYGRAPH INSTALLATION i ROCKAOKE DRESSING UP WITH BIZARRE BAZAAR | THE DIG i SPOKEN INK THE HERITAGE ARTS COMPANY | KILFORD THE MUSIC PAINTER Late-night parties from Filthy Dukes (Kill ‘em All)

Close your eyes and try to think of the absolute lamest activity you can. What did you come up with? WRONG. It’s You know that timeless facial expression of a Japanese Greco-Roman Soundsystem shopping for patches at a flea market. Collecting and buying funky patches is like taking out a restraining order guy fleeing from a giant monster attacking his city? against seeing a respectable vagina. Japanese people with dreads make me feel the way that face looks. THE GREAT BRAIN ROBBERY PRESENTS CLEANING WOMEN | ROTTEN HILL GANG HOOK & THE TWIN | HOOLIGAN NIGHT MANO DE DIOS i THE AMIGOS | ROXY VELVET RYAN STYLES | LA SCARAH THE GOOD COUNT | MENTAL BLANK Murder, mystery & mayhem a weekend in the country you won’t forget

Obviously, jogging is for the worst people alive, but First of all, that better not be his kid. Secondly, don’t Judging by the pasty skin and amber-highlighted hair, I working out is good for you. So what I like to do is act own an earth-toned BabyBjörn and expect not to get imagine her to look like a Scottish au pair in the face. If like I’m taking a walk in my tracksuit bottoms and then searched at the airport, Cheech. I can smell your dank that’s true, I’d rather look at the macramé backpack. when I spot a precious little boy like this running nuggets from a mile away. 6-8th august 2010 around, I chase him, catch him, and then beat him mercilessly with tears streaming down my face because I’M NOT GAY AT ALL. standon calling / 6-8th august 2010 / standon, hertfordshire / www.standon-calling.com

84 | VICE QUAKER STREET BRICK LANE

OLD TRUEMAN COMMERCIAL DRAY WALK BREWERY

STREET

HANBURY STREET BRICK LANE

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G-Shock East Opens 24 June

On 24 June, Casio G-Shock will be opening up a new retail space off Brick Lane in East London. There will be 20% off on the opening day for all Vice readers who turn up with this copy of the magazine.

Located on Dray Walk by the Old Truman Brewery, the space will feature the latest G-Shock, Baby-G and Retro designs, play host to exhibitions, local collaborations, with installations by up-and-coming artists and designers, and will stock the Collect London collaboration limited to ten pieces, each individually numbered by the artists.

G-Shock East, Dray Walk, London, E1 6QL

WWW.G-SHOCK.CO.UK WWW.G-SHOCK.CO.UK WWW.G-SHOCK.CO.UKWWW.G-SHOCK.CO.UK

WWW.G-SHOCK.CO.UK WWW.G-SHOCK.CO.UK www.gshock.com Zuul PHOTOGRAPHER: DAN WILTON STYLIST: MISCHA NOTCUTT Hair: Roxy Attard using Bumble and Bumble Make-up: Laurey Simmons Model: Maaya @ Storm All cats courtesy of Cat Party at miaowmix.blogspot.com SHOT BY KERN

Watch now on

Topshop dress, Two Weeks top, vintage waistcoat from Beyond Retro, bracelets Weeks dress, Two Topshop

VICE | 91 Hannah Marshall bustier, American Apparel top, Uniqlo trousers, Rachel Freire suspender belt Hannah Marshall bustier,

McQ dress and vintage necklace

92 | VICE VICE | 93 Hannah Marshall bustier, McQ trousers, vintage jewellery Hannah Marshall bustier,

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94 | VICE VICE | 95 Topshop top, vintage dress from Beyond Retro, necklace Topshop top, vintage dress from Beyond Retro, necklace Topshop

96 | VICE I Do Like to Be Beside the Seaside

PHOTOGRAPHER: MICHAEL OTERO, STYLIST: HANNAH LOGIC Make-up: Topaz, Hair: Kerry Tidy, Stylist's assistant: Elizabeth Eisen Models: James, Channon, Ashleigh, Taylor, Dan, Kenny, Ryan, Ellis, Elliot

Fred Perry t-shirt, Uniqlo jacket, New Era cap

VICE | 99 adidas hoodie; Duffer t-shirt, adidas hoodie, New Era cap; Fred Perry t-shirt, adidas hoodie, New Era cap, Nike tracksuit bottoms Duffer t-shirt, adidas hoodie, Nike tracksuit bottoms, New Era cap; Duffer t-shirt, adidas hoodie, Nike tracksuit bottoms, New Era cap, Nike bag

100 | VICE VICE | 101 McKenzie jacket, vintage jeans, vintage cap; Diesel t-shirt, adidas jacket, vintage jeans Uniqlo jacket, New Era hat, Nike bag

102 | VICE VICE | 103 Fred Perry t-shirt, adidas tracksuit bottoms, New Era cap, adidas braces; Duffer t-shirt, Duffer jacket; Year Zero t-shirt, vintage jeans, New Era cap, vintage watch

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104 | VICE VICE | 105 adidas jacket, New Era cap Year Zero t-shirt, Ecko tracksuit bottoms, New Era cap; adidas jacket, Umbro shorts, New Era cap

106 | VICE VICE | 107 Wade in the Dark Water Going to Church with Sabbath Assembly

WORDS BY TONY SYLVESTER PHOTOS BY JENNIFER TZAR

abbath Assembly are an apocalyptic acid-gospel group formed by a guy S called Christian (he doesn’t do sur- names) and lady singer Jex Thoth. The New York band’s specific purpose is to pay homage to and play the unrecorded hymns of the mysterious Process Church of the Final Judgment. The Process, as it was originally known, was started in London in 1965 by Robert and Mary DeGrimston, two disaffected refugees from the Church of Scientology. Using similar techniques to L. Ron Hubbard, they set about gathering like-minded Age of Aquarians around them, forming a pseudo- spiritual psychoanalytical millennial cult who lived together in Mayfair. From there they soon expanded into Europe, Mexico and America, setting up a network of coffee shops and communal houses. The acolytes wore their hair and beards long, appearing in public in austere dark robes emblazoned with crucifixes, goat heads, and quasi- swastikas. They were often accompanied by German Shepherds, and sold bizarre and luridly psychedelic literature on the streets, including glossy magazines with titles such as Fear, Death, Love and Exit. But it was a contentious chapter in Ed Sander’s seminal book on Charles Manson, The Family, linking them to the shenanigans at Spahn Ranch, which forever sealed their place in the hearts and minds of occult fetishists. Despite the removal of the chapter after a costly court case, rumour and myth continued to follow the Process as they made insinuated cameos as the nameless London Crowleyites in Robert Irwin’s novel Satan Wants Me, and as the renamed centrepiece of William Sims Bainbridge’s 1978 classic Satan’s Power. 108 | VICE VICE | 109 mysterious shroud. I still thought of the Church as being closer to the baby-eating satanists of myth, and the story of that one man’s time in the Church made it feel like a more sacred, intensely personal and almost tender book to me. That said, it is only one person’s take and the more I met other people who had been a part of the Process, the more I was hearing different sides to the story, so it doesn’t exactly set the record straight. It just sets one man’s experiences straight. How did the hymns go from being written on bits of paper to being performed? Jex: There were obviously no recordings to reference and in the process of shaping them into an authentic mould they changed a lot. We don’t know what they changed from as there is no reference, but they definitely feel like they changed. When we performed the “These lyrics were written by people who so songs as part of a ritual in both New York and LA, several original Process Church passionately believed in the lifestyle they members showed up, and when we talked to them they said that they sounded very differ- were living that we realised we had to ent. When they were originally performed they were uplifting and sung by many, many cherish the music.” people chanting together. Our versions were darker and more complex. We wanted to pay respect to where they came from and we were Last year saw the publication of Love, teachings are definitiely worth taking a look both convinced that these songs were written Sex, Fear, Death: The Inside Story of the at today. from a place of very true and pure intention Process Church of the Final Judgment by for- Christian (vocals, guitar, keyboards): The with a lot of conviction and devotion. mer initiate and founder member Timothy communal living, the worship, the practicing Christian: As soon as I saw the hymns and Wyllie, which chronicled the intensity, para- of high spiritual ideas—these songs read the lyrics, they immediately resonated noia, and ultimate betrayal of cult life. It obviously meant a lot to a lot of different with my own theological take on the world sidestepped or debunked a lot of the more people—but they also mean a lot to me. It between the dark and the light. resonated with me so much and my philo- outlandish claims of life within the Church And how did you actually perform the sophical take on the world. It’s like a Western that its notoriety had spawned. hymns? Taoism, in a way. I mean, Christ and Satan, Hidden in the appendices of this book was Jex: We performed a full liturgy mass direct Jehova and Lucifer: that’s fucking radical! sheet music for several hymns, unpublished from the original Process sources. We incor- These lyrics were written by people who so and unheard until now. These hymns gal- porated some of the hymns that were listed passionately believed in what they were being vanised Jex and Christian, as Sabbath within and some from the appendices. Assembly, into being. Teaming up with pub- taught and the lifestyle they were living that lisher Feral House and the author, they learnt we realised we had to cherish this music. It’s With the discovery of a hymn book contain- the songs to help promote the book and very rare to find this authenticity. ing no less than 60 songs, you obviously have no intention of hanging up your cloaks any- found something powerful in their presence. The cult has divided survivors over the hon- time soon. The arrangements of the songs are aston- esty and morality of its founders. How did it Christian: There are 60 hymns and we have ishing, effortlessly catching the zeitgeist in feel singing songs that they’d created? only recorded nine so there is certainly a lot tone and sound, mixing the West Coast Christian: The guitarist who played on the of work to be done. But in the meantime a lot Electric Kool-Aid Acid Test feel of Jefferson record quit after recording the album. He felt of the teachings are certainly relevant today Airplane, the lotus-eating ecleticism of we were doing a disservice to the people who so can and should be revisited. Jodorowsky’s soundtracks, and the Christ- got burnt, but that is not my intention. This psych blowout of Electric Prunes’ “Mass in F was an axial period of opening up in the Is there any chance of a full-blown cult revival? Minor”. We spoke to Jex and Christian wake of LSD, and a lot of these groups were Jex: There’s nothing going on like that that about the cult and the hymns. social experiments. There’s always the ques- we’re involved in. Christian: I am not entirely sure that is rele- Vice: The hymns you’ve chosen to play con- tion: After we’ve opened up, what do we do vant anymore. There was probably a 15-year tain some pretty heady stuff. Were you next? That’s where you have to watch out because some people always like to control. period when it was, but now people don’t concerned that the baggage of the cult might hear “Come follow me” and just follow. overshadow the album? How did you find the book compared to the That said, though, I could be totally wrong Jex Thoth (vocals): While we definitely don’t woolly rumours about the cult that had exist- because when we play shows people come up agree with all the teachings across the board, ed prior to it being published? to us afterwards and are like, “Sign us up.” we are convinced that these songs were Christian: I came to the Process Church via So maybe there is still scope for it. clearly written from a place of pure intention Ed Sanders’ book on Charles Manson and the Sabbath Assembly’s Restored to One album is out now on with a lot of conviction and devotion. The Church was couched in this diabolical, hyper- Anja Offensive.

110 | VICE Roky Erickson INTERVIEW BY MATTHIAS CONNOR, ILLUSTRATION BY JIRO BEVIS, THANKS TO J. SPACEMAN

ar more than anyone else, 1960s psych-rock legends the 13th I’ve always wondered how Tommy decided he was going to play Floor Elevators epitomised the ideal of the band as a gang of the electric water jug? F outsiders poised against the world. While other bands might He just did what he did and he had a jug and he would have to clean have got high recreationally, the raw, spirited Elevators, hailing from it out every so often, every short interval of time. Then he’d put a Austin, Texas, would take their LSD before performing and try to microphone up to it and play it. play along with the high. By the late 60s, these freaky-looking kids Did he think that the jug player would get the all girls? soon attracted the attention of the redneck local police force. By the No, I don’t think so. time the band got to San Francisco, already busted with their hair cut Are you aware of the power in your voice? It’s deeply moving and short, the hip who lived there looked down their noses at them. It affecting. wouldn’t be long before Roky was arrested one too many times for Ah, yes, I am, thank you. I find it very easy to do, you know? possession and, under the guidance of a state attorney, he would plead insanity. This resulted in him being placed in hospital, but after Is there anyone whose singing does that to you? being rescued by friends he was re-arrested and detained at Rusk I just listened to the radio a lot as a kid. I liked to play my instrument State Hospital for the Criminally Insane in Texas. and sing along to the radio. So I guess whatever was on the radio. When he was released three years later in 1972 he was the A lot of bands have covered your songs, and Sire even put out a shadow of the man who entered. Since then, while sporadically whole covers album of your material. Are there any you particularly continuing to record, he has struggled with mental health problems. loved or hated? This was illustrated in the 2005 documentary about Roky, You’re I like them all. There were periods in my life when I would go Gonna Miss Me, which chronicled the custody battle between his through them and think about what I would do if I had to. I put the mother and brother over his wellbeing. Since then, I am pleased to songs in, like, a container and think about them later. I am pleased report that Roky is happily married and has a new album available, that all my songs are here, you know what I mean? True Love Cast Out All Evil, which he recorded with the band Your return to health, performance and recording—considering the Okkervil River. places you were in 20 or even ten years ago—is nothing short of Speaking over a crackly transatlantic phone line to the remarkable. What made you want to get back onstage? disembodied voice of someone you’ve spent much of your life I was asked if I might be interested in maybe doing a show or listening to is an odd experience. Roky, who turns 63 next month, something like that. It was either arranged or not. I think that’s what was quiet and occasionally reticent, but always warm and polite. He it was, kind of. also finishes most sentences with “you know?”. How did you end up recording True Love Cast Out All Evil with Will Vice: You wrote tracks such as “We Sell Soul” and “You’re Gonna Sheff and Okkervil River? Miss Me” when you were 15. What inspired songs like that at such We kind of just got together. I think they wanted me to do a couple an early age? of songs, you know? So that’s what I did. Roky Erickson: I just sort of wrote them, you know? I just sort of did Some of the songs on the record have been around for many years it. I didn’t really think about it. now. Are you happy with these new versions? Sometimes it sounds like you were trying to sound like Buddy Holly… Yes, I was happy with them. I think they are relatively the same. A Yes, I was. Aha. lot of my songs sound the same. But Buddy Holly chewing acid. Seeing as the record contains songs from so many different periods in Aha. your life and career, does that make it closer to a biography? Did you want to become stars like the Stones or the Who? Yes, I do enjoy the things that the songs say about my life but I’m not Well, I listened to the Who a lot and I liked to read about them. Prior really sure what they are saying, you know? to them I was listening to a lot of rhythm and blues music. I really You have released records on Trance Syndicate, the label run by King enjoy rhythm and blues music, you know? Coffey of the Butthole Surfers, and Henry Rollins published a Can you remember meeting Tommy Hall, who you founded the 13th collection of your lyrics. How did you meet those guys? Floor Elevators with, for the first time? It just kind of happened. Well, Henry Rollins I’d heard about. Well, I met him when I was in a band called the Spades. I thought I Someone had got me a poster and it said Henry Rollins on it, so I was in Houston when I met him but I don’t think it was in Houston, knew who he was. know what I mean? He’d heard that I joined a band and he was Have you seen the film about your life, You’re Gonna Miss Me? thinking of having a band too, something like that. I have, a little bit. I’d like to see more but you really need somebody

112 | VICE VICE | 113 2562 KILL EM ALL ADDISON GROOVE (LIVE) KUTZ FABRICLIVE AL TOURETTES LTJ BUKEM & MC CONRAD ALIX PEREZ LUD DUB APPLEBLIM LV COMING SOON BEN UFO L-VIS 1990 B2B BOKBOK Open 10pm - 6am £14/ £11 Students. FabricFirst Members free +1 at concessions for the whole of June. BENGA MISTAJAM Entry after 3am – £6 fabric operates a 24 hour license. Bars open late. Information line: 020 7336 8898 BLOC PRESENTS… MIXHELL Tickets available from Ticketweb: 0870 0600 100 and www.fabriclondon.com fabric, 77A Charterhouse Street London EC1. A selection of recordings from these events will be available to hear again at fabricﬁrst. FABRICLIVE 52: ZERO T – Coming Soon BREAKAGE MOSCA FABRICLIVE 53: DROP THE LIME – Coming Soon / FABRICLIVE 54: DAVID RODIGAN – Coming Soon BUKEM IN SESSION MUMDANCE CASPA NUMBERS CHEF P MONEY CLUB AUTONOMIC PANGAEA Is it true that the manuscript of your book of poetry, Openers, had to COMMIX PARIAH be smuggled out of Rusk? CRITICAL SOUND PATCHWORK PIRATES DAVID RODIGAN PINCH Openers is a really good thing. It was for my family so they would DBRIDGE RAMADANMAN be able to raise money to get me a lawyer. I just let my family DEEP TEKNOLOGI ROSKA handle it. DJ MADD SCRATCHA DVA DJ MARKY SHY FX What are your feelings towards the punishment system in America DMX KREW (LIVE) SKREAM now that you have some distance from it? DOCTOR’S ORDERS SOUL:UTION Like I say, I don’t really think about it. I like reading, though, and you 5th BIRTHDAY SPACE DIMENSION DROP THE LIME CONTROLLER (LIVE) could read. I like reading stuff from Russia. The Union of Soviet EAT YOUR OWN EARS STOPMAKINGME Socialist Republics. Things like War and Peace, you know? I actually EGYPTRIXX SUKH KNIGHT haven’t read that. It’s a very huge book and I don’t know if I’ll read ELIJAH & SKILLIAM TECTONIC it, but it looks like a good one. EMALKAY THE EXTENDED PLAYERS FABIO THE OTHERS After getting out of Rusk, you played with Doug Sahm and FOUR TET TIM WESTWOOD recorded with him as a producer. What are your memories of GOLDIE (GOLDEN AGE SET) GREENMONEY TODDLA T working with him? GUIDO TRUE TIGER PRESENTS… We went to some studio. He helped me with a couple of songs called GUILTY SIMPSON (LIVE) UNTOLD “Two Headed Dog” and “Starry Eyes”. He really did good on them. HARDHOUSE BANTON WARRIOR ONE HESSLE AUDIO ZINC Roky hanging out on a cliff, 1975, by Stephanie Chernikowski You said recently that you like to “write about religion and horror at HIGH CONTRAST — the same time”. INSTRA:MENTAL — I just enjoy horror movies and things like that. Getting into things, JACKMASTER — KARIZMA — “I like reading stuff from Russia. purchasing them. And I enjoy reading the Old Testament Bible and writing songs about it. So those are two things I like, you know? Things like War and Peace, you What are your favourite horror films? I like the Creature With the Atom Brain. I haven’t seen any in a long know? I actually haven’t read time, but I enjoy them. One of your backing bands was called the Aliens, and on the back of that. It’s a very huge book and I your “Bermuda” /“Interpreter” single from 1977 you wrote: “I am an alien, I am from Mars. And like I even had it notarized, y’know, don’t know if I’ll read it.” had me swear it was true.” SUBSCRIBE I enjoyed playing with the Aliens. We did an album called The Evil One and we really enjoyed doing that and I enjoy reading about the with you to watch it. It is hard to watch in a way because you have secret hangars on the air force bases and aliens, you know? to understand what you’re saying as you watch it. TO VICE Did you ever want to act? In the film, when you would turn on all the electrical appliances in your Well, I have thought about it. That’s the whole thing with movies: For years we told people not to subscribe to Vice because it doesn’t really house, did it sound like music to you or was it to drown out something? you always want to be in them and be able to be in the show and make us any money and, unlike most other publications (which are corrupt Did I try and listen to it from a musical point of view? I like noise a everything. I had met this guy once at some ice cream thing, an ice organs of lies and filth), we don’t use our subscriber numbers to try and lot of the time, so I guess it was music. cream social—his name is Darren, you know? He was just some guy squeeze an extra quid out of advertisers. Plus, the whole managing the list I met. He lives way up, very far from here, know what I mean? You once roomed with Townes Van Zandt and even suggested him as and mailing thing is a huge pain in the arse to deal with. a replacement member when John Ike Walton quit the Elevators in And he was in the movies? 1967. How did you know Townes? Yeah. [Pause.] No, he’s not. This is all still the case, but after untold years of emails and letters from Well, it was just by chance that I heard about him. People always people whining about how they can’t get their hands on an actual physical Do you still enjoy movies these days? copy of the magazine because some idiot keeps grabbing 20 copies at a said, “Go and see him play his music”, and I had a chance to see I like cartoons. What cartoons do you like? him play so I went along and saw him. He just liked country time and then selling them on eBay, we are throwing our hands up and music. That was the hard thing about it. That’s all he would sing. I like South Park. saying, “FINE!” I can’t really remember if I played with him or not in the end. He South Park. Oh yeah, that sounds good. So if you want to get Vice in the mail every month, it’s £35 for 1 year may have given me a guitar once but I don’t remember if I played I like The Boondocks too. including the behemoth Photo Issue in June. Send cheque or money order with it or not. Yes, I listen to that one every so often, but it’s a hard one to follow. (payable to VICE UK Ltd) to: Did you suspect then that he was also bound for a path of hardship? A lot of your songs deal with God and Satan. What does God mean VICE Subscriptions I don’t know. I didn’t hear about that until later. I’ve worked with a to you? 77 Leonard Street lot of people. I heard things about it but I have to be real careful Well, God is a thing that you like. You think good thoughts, and then London about what I read. I enjoy reading things but I just take my time. you perceive that someone is going to tell you about God. What kind EC2A 4QS On the new album, some of the songs recorded while you were of form He is, stuff like that. Or subscribe online at: www.viceland.com incarcerated in Rusk are credited to “unnamed prisoners”. Who did And how about Satan? you play with while you were in there? Satan is the same way. Satan is God and Jesus Christ. Please allow 6 to 8 weeks for delivery of your first issue. Is that right? I didn’t know about that. That’s a long story. I think Roky Erickson with Okkervil River’s True Love Cast Out All Evil is out now on Chemikal there were a lot of people I played with, but then maybe who knows? Underground.

114 | VICE CHAPTER SWEETHEART Charlotte Turner (keyboard /melodica /tambourine), Kevin Soar (vocals /trumpet /sax), Matt Turner (guitar /bass), Christy Taylor (guitars /bass), Alex Sandoval (drums). Chapter Sweetheart have a 7-inch EP out soon on Sweat Shop. Six New Bands myspace.com /chaptersweetheart

PHOTOS BY BEN RAYNER

Vintage t-shirt, Desigual jacket; American Apparel t-shirt, Levi’s jeans; t-shirt, Desigual jacket; American Apparel Levi’s Vintage jeans; Number (N)ine shirt Hurwundeki top, Wrangler

FLATS Craig Pierce (bass), Dan Devine (vocals), Samir Eskanda (drums), Luke Tristram (guitar). Flats have a five-track self-titled 7-inch EP on Sweat Shop /Loog Records out soon. myspace.com /flatsofcourse

Topshop t-shirt, vintage jacket, H&M skirt, Uniqlo leggings, Aldo shoes; Diesel shirt, Topshop shoes; American Apparel jeans, Vans jacket, Levi’s t-shirt, Onitsuka Tiger trousers and shoes; Levi’s jeans, Clarks shoes jeans, Converse shoes; vintage jacket, Levi’s hoodie, Lee jacket, Levi’s

116 | VICE FACTORY FLOOR Nik Colk (guitar), Gabriel Gurnsey (drums), Dominic Butler (bass /machines). Factory Floor’s “Untitled” 10-inch single is out now on Blast First Petite. myspace.com /factoryfloor

Vintage t-shirt, Stella McCartney for adidas jacket, vintage Lee jeans, Clarks shoes; American Apparel shirt Vintage shoes jeans, Vans Diesel jacket, Levi’s and jacket, Uniqlo jeans, vintage shoes; jumper,

FAMILY George Cassavetes (all instruments). Family currently has no recordings forthcoming in the real world but you can listen to them on the internet whenever you want. www.myspace.com /familychoirs

Komakino jumper, Cheap Monday jeans, Underground shoes Komakino jumper,

118 | VICE 2:54 Hannah Thurlow and Colette Thurlow (both guitars /bass /drums /vocals /progamming). 2:54 have no confirmed forthcoming releases. They’ve only been together for five weeks. Keep an eye out, though, because they have big plans. myspace.com /thetwofiftyfour

Insight playsuit, vintage shoes and bangles; vintage Wrangler shirt and jeans, Dr. Martens shirt and jeans, Dr. Insight playsuit, vintage shoes and bangles; Wrangler shirt, vintage jacket, Uniqlo jeans, Ray-Ban sunglasses, Clarks shoes; shoes; Levi’s Gap t-shirt, Diesel jeans; vintage shoes

All vintage except jewellery from Comfort Station; Topshop dress, vintage jacket, Converse shoes All vintage except jewellery from Comfort Station; Topshop

YUCK Mariko Doi (bass), Daniel Blumberg (guitar /vocals), Max Bloom (guitar /vocals), Jonny Rogoff (drums). Yuck have a split-7-inch with Herzog out now on Transparent Recordings. myspace.com /yuckband

120 | VICE VICE | 121 SKINEMA

THE DEBUT ALBUM OUT NOW WWW.VILLANAH.COM

fabric DEBBIE DUZ isn’t magic. There is no “kitchen fairy”, as she calls the man who has suddenly come alive since the baby was born to help out more SUMMER DISHES AGAIN www.fabriclondon.com Adameve.com around the house. There is only me, waiting to be noticed for help- Dir: Jim Malibu ing, hoping to earn those points for good behaviour, the smiley-face Craig Richards Martin Buttrich LIVE Rating: 9 stickers that in years past accumulated to earn me a visit to my wife’s Terry Francis Martinez panties. But them days is done. The dishwasher is getting all the credit. Alex Under Martyn Does life imitate porn? Or does porn Arne Weinberg LIVE Matt Tolfrey I fear for the day when I come home from the skateshop and my wife imitate life? I ask only because for the Ben Klock Maayan Nidam (Miss Fitz) is riding on top of the Kenmore, enjoying its sani-cycle, thanking it Ben Sims Melon past eight months since my son was for all its help around the house. Carl Craig Modern Deep Left Quartet LIVE born I have been starring in a porno Claude Von Stroke Motor City Drum Ensemble Without giving away too much of the story line or revealing the with a similar title called Daddy Duz Damian Lazarus Nathan Coles ending (spoiler alert: they all get fucked in the end), I will say that at LIVE Dishes, although my porno is made for Dave Clarke Nicolas Jaar one point in this film, after the door-to-door dildo salesman gets Deepchord presents Echospace LIVE Olanskii public-access TV and thus all the sex humped and the exorcism of the monster haunting the house is com- Derrick Carter Paco Osuna scenes have been edited out. And Dinky Posthuman LIVE replaced with more dishes. pleted, guest stunt cock Mike Horner asks, “Who do I have to fuck Diskjokke LIVE Rhadoo There is no longer sex. Only dishes. to get off this series?” (a reference to him appearing in the 80s Debbie Dj Heather Ricardo Villalobos Duz Dishes original). Unlike him, I don’t mind my recurring role, but Dopplereffekt LIVE Russ Gabriel LIVE I once told my wife I enjoyed doing dishes. That I found the sound Eddie Richards Sascha Dive of the running water calming—and that is why for the first four years I do need the question answered: “Who do I get to fuck?” Elektro Elvis Sascha Funke in our home we did not have a dishwasher. Then my wife pushed a Let’s face it, at the end of the day men and women are not so dif- Ellen Allien Sasha Gadi Mizrani (Wolf+Lamb) Scott Grooves nearly seven-pound, 20-inch human out of her far-from-20-inch-wide ferent: neither wants to pull down the other’s pants and find a hairy butthole. Those words of wisdom are just a paraphrasing of where G-Ha Sebo K vagina, and ever since then there has been nothing I refuse her. Now Heartthrob LIVE Seth Troxler we have a dishwasher. And there are no more soothing sounds of the the Bible says, “Do onto others as you’d have them do unto you.” Heidi Shed LIVE ocean coming from my spout as I stare out at the orioles and blue jays And I can’t stress this enough: I need my wife to do something unto Holy Ghost! LIVE Slam me and soon. Italoboyz Steffi and rabbits and squirrels that frolic and play in my backyard. There Jamie Jones Steve Rachmad is only rinse, load, run, unload. And no sex. The sex ended before the But I’m sure after she reads this it will do little to help my case. Lakuti Stian dishwasher arrived and yet I can’t help but damn the machine. Perhaps I can sabotage the dishwasher. Ah, but that will only lead to Lee Burridge Superpitcher Thanks to its stupid stainless-steel exterior and annoying sense of Sears sending a young, sexy repairman to my house while I’m at Lopazz LIVE Swayzak M.A.N.D.Y. Tama Sumo convenience there are no more points earned toward sex by being work. I can hear the 70s funky porno music now, and I don’t like to Marcel Dettmann The Revenge seen slaving over pots and pans at the sink for an hour. As I dirty a picture how she’d thank him for his hard work. Marco Carola Tiefschwarz LIVE dish I simply load it directly into the dishwasher. Dishes no longer CHRIS NIERATKO Mark Farina Zip pile up. They are, as my wife says, magically always cleaned. But it For more of Chris go to chrisnieratko.com or njskateshop.com.

122 | VICE VIDEO GAMES KILLED THE RADIO STAR By Jon Blyth

ALPHA PROTOCOL Platform: Xbox 360, PS3, PC Publisher: Sega It feels lazy to describe one game in terms of another similar game, but sometimes it’s the only way. So here we go: Alpha Protocol badly wants to be Mass Effect. It has the same shape—have a conversation, shoot a few people, repeat until the world’s no longer about to blow up. Some things, such as the conversations, Alpha Protocol does very well. You’re not limited to Mass Effect’s “hero” and “badass” options; you can be Suave (randy clown), Professional (efficient jobsworth), or Aggressive (a gung-ho tool). More realistical- ly, the game recognises that as a spy, you’re basically acting, so your conversation choic- es will only affect your relationship with the person you’re talking to, and not some over- tries to give you a choice in the way you play you play a level where you’re not supposed to all sense of awesomeness. It works, especially the levels—sneaking, using tech or shooting shoot anyone. Alpha Protocol is well above when you’re thrown into a group conversa- heads—but stealth isn’t much fun, thanks to average, and playing people in the cutscenes is tion and forced to work out how to chat to the enemy’s uncanny ability to spot you a mile good fun, even if the Suave options are usual- the two girls you’ve been Suaving up. off, then behave like retards. It’s really easy to ly toe-curling extracts from a chat-up line The combat doesn’t work so well. The forget about the gadgets, which leaves you book. But it pales in the shade of its consider- intentions are good, the execution wobbly. It shooting people. This is all very well, until ably more awesome stablemate.

LEGO HARRY POTTER killjoy, you’re letting an arrogant, ignorant, story. But Lego Harry Potter does make Platform: Pretty much all formats pre-teen version of yourself judge you on sense of the chaotic nonsense that powers the Publisher: Warner what you should and shouldn’t like, then act- Lego games. It’s magic, see? Of course every- ing like you’re some kind of post-ironic thing floats around—you’re in a school full I’ve never bought into the idea of guilty plea- genius for liking it anyway. Clap, clap, clap. of randy teenagers with wands. sures. They depend too much on your ability Well, that was a long way to get around to The basic premise of the game is: do every- to give a judgmental sense of superior taste to the fact that, despite myself, I like Lego Harry thing you can, to everything around you. a killjoy strawman, then cast yourself as the Potter. I was the guy reading the hardback There’s no morality, and you can’t really die, defiant hero who can see through all that edition of Harry Potter with its sleeve removed so just destroy everything. The rooms are so “cool” bullshit and just, you know, enjoy on the tube. I was convinced I wasn’t like densely packed with things to do, bonuses things for what they are. those in-denial losers reading the copies with and collectibles that even the single-screen But there is no killjoy. It’s like that awful the adult illustration, but not having the con- puzzle rooms can be overwhelming. moment when you’re growing up when you viction to proudly sit there and read the kid’s More than the wordless retelling of SUPER MARIO GALAXY 2 Galaxy game introduced the big new idea of ment into our bloodstreams. realise that The A-Team isn’t realistic. So, version. Basically, I’m a cunt. Rowling’s worthy-doing wizard, LHP is a Platform: Wii gravity. Now, the second game explores every Galaxy 2 is such a dazzling extension and smarting from the fact you believed it, and But the game is good. It’s not going to game with its own language. You’ll find your- Publisher: Nintendo possibility. It’s so full of new ideas that you expansion of the Galaxy world, you’d have unable to enjoy it on an absurd level, you appeal in the same way Lego Star Wars and self taking on and accepting its rules and rarely begin to wonder how much was deliberately to be an affected, jaded prick to witter on consign Murdoch and his bin-bag hot air bal- Indiana Jones did—those franchises are feeling cheated, even though there are odd Mario doesn’t need a traditional review. It is held back from the first game, and whether about the limitations of the Mario template. loons to childhood and progress to the gritty straight from the decade of guilty pleasures. times when it fails to communicate those rules essentially the same game released again and this holding back was a cynical drip-feed or a Save that for Galaxy 3, because it’s hard to realism of MacGyver. And it can’t appeal in the same way Lego clearly. Just borrow a kid to play it with, oth- again. But nowhere does that recycling feel kindness designed to stop our glee glands imagine how it could improve on this— So I was wrong: rather than an imaginary Batman did, because that was an original erwise you might end up sneering at yourself. more like refinement than in SMG2. The first from firing lethal jets of heartbreaking excite- Galaxy 2 is a masterpiece.

124 | VICE VICE | 125 REVIEWS REVIEWS

BEST ALBUM OF THE MONTH: WORST ALBUM OF THE MONTH: MOUNT KIMBIE TENDER TRAP:

trembling heart. Their music had that terrify- pioneering New York disco DJ and produc- MOUNT KIMBIE boring crap that doesn’t really mean any- Mattias Gustafsson is as good a place to start ing, portentous quality of the best rap. Their er in the mid-’70s whose fastidious editing Crooks & Lovers thing anyway. as any. Mixing decayed analogue synth enduring influence on Texan rap is part of and primitive mixing technique threw some Hotflush MIKE HACK drones, tape-loop chew and billowing feed- what’s made Scarface your favourite rapper’s grit, tension and space into Salsoul’s thick back, Permanent Cavity is pitched perfectly FRANCIS HAROLD favourite rapper. Unfortunately, like so many syrupy boogie and would lead to an invalu- between slow, creeping dread and panic-sat- AND THE HOLOGRAMS GIGGS greats before him, success fatted Scarface, able relationship with Arthur Russell. His urated noise barrages, and is pretty much a Who Said These Were Let Em Ave It and now he’s reduced to parrotting the same immaculate mix of Strafe’s ’84 electro-glide Hotflush stays ahead of the curve with syringe of very bad things straight down the Happy Times? XL boring rap tropes we’ve heard a bazillion “Set It Off” is a must-have that perks up 10 this debut from Mount Kimbie. If you ear canal. times before. any party, plus there are trippy takes on tuned in to the duo’s excellent “Sketch on Agitated CHARLES HANSON Stetsasonic, Harlequin Fours and an unre- Glass” or “Maybes” EPs last year then you’ll BEN REMARKABLE Who indeed? Rampaging psychedelic leased Russell track. Sadly, dude got into know to expect warped, woozy synth stabs ANGEL WITCH Not sure how much compelling content punk recorded so all the sounds are religion and then died of AIDS in ’86. and shuffling idiosyncratic beats that even in 7 S/t Giggs is going to be able to eke out of forced into one very narrow dynamic spec- 7 CANARY DWARF the good company of James Blake, Joy Universal tales of war on the streets of Peckham, but trum that sounds like a cymbal right next to Orbison, FaltyDL and Floating Points stands with his moody cinematics and malevolent your ear behind smashed very, very quickly V/A out as something genuinely special. vocal delivery—muttered threats at enemies, and very hard. The result is sort of like Michael Mayer: BUSTER BLOODVESSEL Flipper playing Nuggets, or how the Crazy It’s incredible to think that there was a haters and the “flippin’ Bill” delivered in a Immer 3 voice that sounds like it’s been pitched down SKREAM World Of Arthur Brown might have sounded time when heavy metal was not a genre Kompakt K-X-P 7 a couple of octaves—it’s extremely effective Outside the Box S/t if Arthur Brown was genuinely crazy and mired in copycat cloning and the lack of clear didn’t secretly have some guy stood just off rules made for heady excitement and genuine in evoking an atmosphere of workaday Tempa Smalltown Supersound amorality and trudging nastiness. Certainly it Kompakt’s blue-ribbon mix series reaches camera ready to extinguish his head. surprise. Thirty years on, Angel Witch’s doesn’t look like he’ll be mugging by a swim- 9its third instalment and while the feverish GIDEON SUITS debut, recorded for the mighty Bronze ming pool in a rubber ring or guesting on an scrutiny that followed the every move of Records, still exudes the intoxicating thrill of Somewhere amid recording the Magnetic N-Dubz song, unless, of course, they decide Mayer and his Cologne cohorts during the last An Helsinki-based supergroup of sorts, KELLERMENSCH the new and hits the mark more times than it Man LP, playing 278 DJ gigs a week, fir- to finally write that track where Dappy gets 7 decade has lessened, this set remains hard to featuring as it does ex-members of avant- S/t misses: Zeps-like tub-thumping, Wishbone ing off chart-topping remixes and holding 6 jumped in an alleyway and marked with a fault if you’re a person for whom minimal pre- kraut-poppers Op:l Bastards and The Persona Non Grata Ash-esque twin-V take-off, proggish time down his weekly show on Rinse FM, Ollie Stanley knife. sents even a passing interest. By now you Lefthanded, K-X-P offer motorik, Neu-esque changes and Hammer Horror doom organ Jones has somehow found time to present the FLORENCE RIDA know the drill, but newcomers will be chugging crammed with melodies so wide- dominate, often in the same song. They’re world with a solo album. It’s no slim affair beguiled enough by the never-heard-any- eyed and optimistic that the whole record more effective when channelling Sabbathic either, featuring 14 pathologically varied Enigmatic and slightly baffling sounds MATT where-else Superpitcher remix of Charlotte sounds a bit like it could soundtrack a five- chug on the likes of “Sorcerers” than in han- tracks from the silky techno-influenced open- from Scandinavia. Imagine Euro-metal SHADETEK Gainsbourg’s “The Operation” alone to year-old’s Christmas morning. But on a really 6 dling the ballads, however. Reished here with er “Perforated” to beyond wobbly silliness on without the metal, or the strings and melo- Flowers search out parts one and two. fast train to infinity. more singles, demos and radio sessions than the onomatopoeic “Wibbler”, to fuzzy explo- drama of the Constellation catalogue welded Dutty Artz JOHN ATKINS JUNIOR KNIGHT you can shake a bellbottom at. rations into low bpms with Murs (“8 Bit to post-hardcore, but with Nick Cave thrown THE MILKY BAR KID Baby”), “Amen” tear-outs (“The Epic Last COCO in. In frontman Sebastian Wolff (what else One half of this sounds like Wiley Song”) and a possible “In For the Kill” remix ELECTRIK would he be called?) they have their own MASAKARI 6 soundtracking Carry On... Up the follow-up featuring La Roux herself. It’s this White Ink twitching, impassioned frontman in the The Profit Feeds Khyber and the other half sounds like a diversity and ability to roam freely and rest- Oscillation mould of Ian Curtis, David Yow or Berlin- Southern Lord boozed-up toddler making speed garage. lessly between genres that make Skream great, period Iggy. And they do the best Neil Young Quite fun, but you’d feel like a wally danc- but they don’t make for a cohesive album. cover you’ll ever hear. You may remember Anne Booty (yes, ing to any of it in public. HALING PARK FANG ISLAND FRED WREST really) for her split release with Tom Vek, Coming off the back of the Black Breath MORGAN FREEMAN 7 S/t WALTER her string of idiosyncratic electro-pop singles Sargent House ALTAR 8 album, here’s another debut of speedy SCARFACE GIBBONS on Tummy Touch or maybe even for her OF FLIES fury from Southern Lord. While Black Dopeman Music Jungle Music guest vocal on that Acoustic Ladyland track Permanent Breath racked up some imaginary Swedish that was in that Coen brothers movie. Well, air miles with their Entombed worship, Facemob Strut Cavity forget what you thought you know and go A joyous, jangling, low-fidelity mess of Cleveland’s Masakari set their horizons fur- iDEAL pick up White Ink right now. It contains ten 8 riffs and shout-along choruses that ther still, mashing together angry Jap I don’t want to sound all djhistory.com, straight-up synth-pop anthems that will have bypasses lazy shitgaze and no-fi pigeonholing Sweden is getting a rep for producing the hardcore, D-beat filth, Tragedy-style melan- There was a time in my adolescence 8 but Jungle Music is the first comprehen- you partying like it’s 2009 in no time at all. simply by sounding like it’s having ten times 7 dirtiest, sickest noise music around at the cholia and that gloriously retro crust-punk 4 when the Geto Boys could break my sive round-up of work by Walter Gibbons, a PERRY NUTKINS too much fun to be bothered with a bunch of moment, and the debut album from Mjölby’s institution: political samples. If there’s a 126 | VICE VICE | 127 REVIEWS REVIEWS

BEST COVER OF THE MONTH: WORST COVER OF THE MONTH: RUSSELL HASWELL WOLF PARADE:

genre where strident left-wing sloganeering !!! and drums with intense wailing over them tuous and I gave up keeping track of all the plaintive hooks than you can shake a copy of WOLFGANG can still hold water, it’s crust-punk. Good Strange Weather, and other instruments sometimes. band-hopping a while back. Hell, I almost Harvest at. Expect even more people to like VOIGT enough to make me send soaped postage Isn’t It? RIZMO RAZMO expected Dan Bejar or Neko Case to pop up them very soon and some A&R guy at Freiland stamps to Profane Existence. on this record at any minute. They don’t, by Columbia to get a raise. Cheers! Warp Klaviermusik TONY MOLESTER Z-STAR the way. If you like indie-rock then you don’t OLIVER BONGWELL Profan Masochists & get any indier or rockier than these guys. The New York dance-punks are still at it, Martyrs NAG HAMMADI Fans of the Kompakt head honcho’s 5 and this time they’re definitely aiming for Muthastar 8 ambient work as Gas may find this exer- the stars if that album title is anything to go ISLET cise in exploring the further reaches of by. !!! have always seemed a bit second-tier Celebrate This piano-music-that-you-can-just-about-dance- If you were wondering where Nina and, sorry, but this doesn’t really switch the to a bit much. Their loss—this was what Simone’s restless, aching, world-weary Place script, offering lolloping go-nowhere grooves 7 Profan was all about in the first place, and TOBACCO voice of experience disappeared to when she Turnstile EMERALDS that linger like the smell of a party where it’s great that one of the blockiest German shuffled off this mortal coil, then you need Does It Look Maniac Meat everyone has dreadlocks and unwashed electronics labels ever has been reactivated. look no further. Sure, Z-Star might be about Eldritch folk songs and skronky no-wave Anticon cargo pants. Worst song title here, and there Like I’m Here? Repeated listens prove this album to be as as sensible a name as Toad The Wet messing around by some young people are a few: “Jamie, My Intentions are Bass”. 5 Editions Mego moreish as chocolate-coated crack. Sprocket, but when your tunes are so good from Cardiff who make their own fanzines DEAN FUNK POPPA ACID that Terry Callier asks you to play on his and everything. It’s not brilliant but at least Black Moth Super Rainbow frontman Ohio synth explorers Emeralds just keep JEREMY JAY records, then what’s in a name? they’re trying and that’s the main thing, right? Tom Fec’s second solo effort is a summer on getting better and better. Yes, the QUACK QUACK 6 BILLY BUNTER L-PATZ 9 record. Not summer in the traditional down- Splash packaging does make it look a bit like some- Slow as an K the-beach sense: more the summer of hazy, MENOMENA THE BOOKS thing you might pick up in an organic health Eyeball paranoid, morning-after navigation through Mines The Way Out food shop—flowers, crystals, white light, Cuckundoo Records etc. But Does It Look Like I’m Here? finds city streets, avoiding wafts from drains and City Slang Temporary Residence dodging traffic. Fec’s demonic vocal, filtered Jeremy Jay has the most fey, knock-kneed the happy midpoint between new-age wibble Quack Quack are a freestyle krautrock trio through vocoder, drifts over beats of languid 8 singing voice I have ever heard, the sort and gusty noise drones, and the result is 6from Leeds who offer the kind of offbeat destruction, while melody lines edge into the of precious grandma’s trinket of a croon that thankfully far closer to cosmic synth dinner jazz you might hear being performed in frame, offering glimpses of synthetic escape. makes me imagine he draws a sweat every Arch, complex and crammed with con- Remove the avant-garde baggage and grandaddy Klaus Schulze than anything you the lobby of a four-star hotel or beside a falafel It’s also the best thing that Beck (who guests time he ties his shoelaces. So why do I like 6 fusing sounds (I am sure I heard a 4“meaning” from New York duo The Books might use to realign your chakra. stall in that corner of Glastonbury that “comes on two songs) has had a hand in in a while. Splash so much? It must be because Jeremy glockenspiel in there at one point), and what remains is a serviceable experimental CHILL DAVE alive” after midnight, when everyone’s stum- PHILLIPA MARTINEZ genuinely is the sort of person to sing lines Menomena should be all too easy to hate. pop outfit who’ve yet to write a decent song bling around in ball gowns snorting ketamine. like, “I called you up and we talked for-e-e- Perhaps their most irritating trump card is and are boring live. Anyone can paste spoken- RUSSELL Hearing Quack Quack in that situation would TENDER TRAP ver” like he is invincible to all mockery. That, pulling off such complex and engaging songs word samples over chugging riffs and curdled HASWELL definitely be a highlight. Dansette and “This is Our Time’ is the best late-period with such skill that they render hate impossi- tape loops to create a “contextual” composi- Value + Bonus. LES PANINI Dansette Pavement rip I’ve heard all year. ble and you just have to lump it and admit tion, but right now I’m having difficulty No Fun Fortuna Pop EL PEE that when it comes to this whole art-rock whistling along to anything off The Way Out— PASSARELLA thing they really know what they’re up to. and that includes the ones with so-called tunes. DEATH SQUAD Suffolk squire Russell Haswell hooks up EFFI BRIEST JAY KAY THANDIE NEUTRON S/t “Look at me! Look at me! I’m so twee!” Rhizomes 7 with No Fun for a double-disc survey of Sure, a couple of these guys used to be in recent activity. This involves tone bursts, Republic of Desire 1 Blast First Petite WOLF PARADE BAND OF Talulah Gosh and Heavenly and release Expo 86 HORSES acid, noise, live performance, and speaker- records on K and Sarah, but the whole testing rumbles on disc one, and, on the Sub Pop Infinite Arms Crepuscular drones and vampish moans gingham pinafores and “ooh-la-la-la” cho- second, addled birdsong and an hour-long Columbia 9from this exotic trio whose debut sets the ruses thing is always a hair’s breadth away Hey, all right, an all-girl band that isn’t trawl through a radio dial. As ever with tone for those S&M soirees you’re always from being too much like too much. Plus, 7 “twee”. These guys are more Slits-ish or Haswell, there’s a raw honesty to Value + thinking about hosting. You may know have you ever tried to use a Dansette? They Kleenex-esque. They take their name from a At this late stage it’s difficult to know Oh no! Band Of Horses have done the Bonus. which means that every second of Passarella Death Squad as purveyors of fine t- look great but they break quicker than you book, or possibly the film based on the book, 5whether Wolf Parade is a side project or 7 dirty and jumped ship from Sub Pop to sound has been considered, and so even if shirts, but their archly sinister musical project can say, “That looks pretty cool.” We have about a young woman who gets married too whether the myriad other acts that Spencer Columbia! Luckily for their new employers, you don’t fully understand what he’s trying is also worth your time. It’s like putting your a couple in the office that we use as gigan- young, believes in ghosts, has an affair, and Krug and Dan Boeckner are involved in are everything that made lots of people like the to do, you know there’s a very good reason ear to Pandora’s jar to hear a musky thrum of tic paperweights. gets completely alienated from everyone she the distractions and this outfit is the main band’s first two records is present here, with why he’s doing it. Gina X and Einstürzende Neubauten. PEWTER PERRET knows. There are awesome disco bass lines deal. These indie-rock guys are all pretty inces- an added layer of AM radio sheen and more SUBURBAN DWIGHT THEYDON BOIS

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