FREE VOLUME 9 NUMBER 8 3KRWR%ULWWDLQ‹9DQV,QF

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3KRWR.RVPDQ‹9DQV,QF 3KRWR6SHQFHU/RZHOO‹9DQV,QF The Creators Project: La Gaîté Lyrique 2011 VAJP, Lumpens

See original artworks, live performances, and exclusive interviews from today’s most compelling artists Playing now: Anish Kapoor + Richie Hawtin, Squarepusher, Anti VJ, Lumpens, Mary Fagot, Robyn and more www.urbanears.com [email protected] Feature 3.5mm standard 3.5mm Feature remote. and microphone Available in Available colors: 14 PLATTAN BAGIS PLATTAN & TANTO MEDIS LAVENDER Featured colorway

Photo: Vincent Skoglund

TABLE OF CONTENTS

Photo by Samantha Murasko

VOLUME 9 NUMBER 8 Cover by Stuart Griffiths

EXTREME MISCHIEF NIGHT BED & BREAKFAST & FISTING A Report From the Frontline ...... 28 Take One up to the Elbow at France’s Luxurious La Fistinière . . 50 NEVER-ENDING DEATH POUNDING THE PAVEMENT Iraq’s Wadi Al-Salam Mega-Cemetery Bruce Gilden Does Street Photography Right ...... 86 Knows No Bounds ...... 32 CLOUDS AND APPARITIONS ...... 92 GOD SAVE BELFAST ADVICE TO A YOUNG MAN FROM He’s the Only Guy Anybody here Can Agree On ...... 98 AN OLD MAN TWICE MARRIED Love in the Time of Honduran Divorces ...... 34 THE TRAGIC TALE OF THE MONKEY-LION Changoleón Is Mexico’s Most Troubled Reality TV Star . . . . 106 WRAP ’EM UP TIGHTLY LEATHER TROUSERS AND VHS TAPES Burritos and Kidnapped Juárez Drug Dealers, That Is . . . . . 38 When the Jesus and Mary Chain Were Wee Bairns ...... 114 I AM IRON MAN CHOKE IT DOWN Make Mr. Jack’s Birthday a memorable one. Please drink responsibly. Boredom and Beatdowns in the Burbs ...... 42 Foul Eating with Dirty Beaches ...... 124 Competition closes 21st September 2011, age restrictions apply, see online for full details.

Copyright © 2011 JACK DANIEL’S. All rights reserved. JACK DANIEL’S and OLD NO.7 are registered trademarks. 12 VICE TABLE OF CONTENTS

Photo by Samantha Murasko

Masthead ...... 16 Toupée: A Hero Made of Shit ...... 117 Employees ...... 18 The Cute Show Page! ...... 118 Front of the Book ...... 22 Skinema ...... 120 Fashion: Li’l DOs & DON’Ts ...... 54 Video Games Killed the Radio Star ...... 121 DOs & DON’Ts ...... 62 Literary ...... 122 Fashion: Party Naked ...... 70 Reviews ...... 126 Fashion: Tubular Belles ...... 80 Johnny Ryan’s Page ...... 130 The Learnin’ Corner ...... 116

14 VICE FOUNDERS Suroosh Alvi, Shane Smith

GLOBAL EDITOR IN CHIEF Andy Capper ([email protected]) CEO, VICE MEDIA GROUP EUROPE Andrew Creighton ([email protected]) MANAGING EDITOR Bruno Bayley ([email protected]) EMEA GROUP PUBLISHER Matt Elek ([email protected]) ASSOCIATE EDITORS ADVERTISING DIRECTOR Darren Burroughs ([email protected]) Piers Martin ([email protected]), Jamie Lee Curtis Taete ([email protected]), ACCOUNT MANAGERS Angelica Gola-Ebue ([email protected]), Milène Larsson ([email protected]) Elise Blampied ([email protected]) EXECUTIVE EDITOR Alex Miller ([email protected]) ACCOUNT EXECUTIVE Zac Russell ([email protected]) COPY EDITOR Steve Yates SPONSORSHIP MANAGER Dan Kemp ([email protected]) EXECUTIVE CREATIVE DIRECTOR Eddy Moretti ([email protected]) HEAD OF MARKETING & EVENTS CREATIVE DIRECTOR Santiago Stelley ([email protected]) Claire Bartolomeo ([email protected]) STAFF PHOTOGRAPHERS MARKETING & EVENTS Camella Agabalyan ([email protected]) Jonnie Craig, Henry Langston, Ben Rayner PRODUCTION Gareth Johns, Imogen Bellotti, Jenny Hirons PHOTO EDITOR AT LARGE Alex Sturrock EXECUTIVE EDITOR VICE GLOBAL Rocco Castoro VBS.TV PRODUCTION LAYOUT inkubator.ca Vida Toombs ([email protected]), Alison Severs ([email protected]), WORDS Pegah Farahmand ([email protected]), Rhys James ([email protected]), Jon Blyth, Wilbert L. Cooper, Jonnie Craig, Avi Davis, Brett Gelman, Hugo Donkin ([email protected]), Alex Hoffman ([email protected]), Kev Kharas, Milène Larsson, Pauline Magnenat, Clancy Martin, Chris O’Neill ([email protected]), Zoe Roberts ([email protected]) Clarisse Mérigeot, Chris Nieratko, Chris O’Neill, Anthony Pappalardo, VBS.TV POST-PRODUCTION Weston Phippen, Elbert van Putten, Toni L. Querol, Oscar Rickett, Al Brown ([email protected]), Mike Horlock ([email protected]), Ben Shapiro, Lynne Tillman, Karlos Zurutuza Laurence Cleary ([email protected]), Jim Demuth ([email protected]), PHOTOS Niall Kenny ([email protected]), Ellie King ([email protected]), Brett Barto, Kim Baskinger, Angela Boatwright, Janicza Bravo, Rafa Castells, Devin Yuceil ([email protected]), Alice Wagstaff ([email protected]) Casey Chaos, Maisie Cousins, Jonnie Craig, Miguel Dimayuga, Branden Eastwood, Matthew Frost, Vito Fun, Michael Galinsky, Bruce Gilden, Stuart Griffiths, Douglas Hart, Kevin Hodapp, Andy Jenkins, Kimberly Kane, Chris Kelly, Fisnik Lama, ONLINE EDITOR Kev Kharas ([email protected]) Evan Long, Pauline Magnenat, Abelardo Martin, Alex de Mora, Samantha Murasko, ONLINE EDITORIAL Dylan Hughes Ryan Murphy, Alexander Perelli, Brian Ryder, Anthony Sandoval, Davo Scheich, WEB DESIGN Solid Sender Sadie Sez, Nathalie Shein, Alex Sturrock, Eva Talmadge, Nick Zinner, Karlos Zurutuza ONLINE DEVELOPMENT Daniel Hockley ([email protected]), ILLUSTRATIONS Dave Pullen ([email protected]) Sascha Braunig, Jesse Gelaznik, Hannah Kunkle, Johnny Ryan DIGITAL MARKETING Remi Ajani ([email protected]), VICESTYLE EDITOR Daryoush Haj-Najafi ([email protected]) Hugo Pinto ([email protected]), Melissa McFarlane ([email protected]), FASHION EDITOR Sam Voulters ([email protected]) Nicole Kai ([email protected]), Igor Zinatulin ([email protected]), CONTRIBUTING FASHION EDITOR Aldene Johnson ([email protected]) Jazz Atkin ([email protected]) FASHION INTERNS OLD BLUE LAST Ross Allmark ([email protected]), Marika Ames, Ali Carman, Laura Chatterton, Charlet Duboc Russ Tannen ([email protected]), Martin Wade-Thomas ([email protected]) OFFICE MANAGER Leyla Treble INTERNS Esra Gürmen, Ilektra Kotsoni, Katharine Ogilvie

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STUART GRIFFITHS Photographer Stuart Griffiths joined the Parachute Regiment at age 17 and served in Belfast during the Troubles in the 80s and 90s. On leaving the army he found himself homeless and living on the streets of London along with other ex-soldiers. He found his way out through photography and making a film about his life, Isolation. Over the past year or so he’s been working with us on a documentary about post-peace-process Belfast and all its attendant dramas. We recently went there to take part in parade season (that’s when everybody throws rocks and petrol bombs at one another), and Stuart came along to snap photos. See GOD SAVE BELFAST, page 98

CLARISSE MÉRIGEOT AND PAULINE MAGNENAT Clarisse and Pauline met each other three years ago, talking about Lomography dead drunk in one of Paris’s finer gaybourhoods. Since that ignominious begin- ning they have been living a fiery lovers’ life, writing weird articles together for magazines that are occasionally even weirder. Clarisse has also written two books on her own, one of which is a long love letter to Dave Grohl. For this issue, they visited La Fistinière, the only B&B in the world that is entirely dedicated to the practice of fist fucking and sitting on objects that most doctors would probably advise you to keep out of your asshole. See BED & BREAKAST & FISTING, page 50

AVI DAVIS Avi Davis is an American who works in Mexico City teaching English. In another life, he used to be VICE’s office manager in Brooklyn but left in a glorious Hiroshima of burned bridges to pursue “literary stuff” (not really—Avi is a studious and very nice gentleman—but that truly is the best way to leave a job). Four years later, he needed some new shoes (or botas, as he now calls them), and so here we are. For his grand return to the VICE fold, our prodigal son tracked down Changoleón, Mexico’s most famous tramp-turned-reality-TV-star. In the end, the search would cost Avi hours of waiting, untold frustration, £26 and his dignity. See THE TRAGIC TALE OF THE MONKEY-LION, page 106

MATTHEW FROST Matthew Frost is part of the benighted profession of fashion photography, but we swear he’s one of the good ones. You know, the fun ones who kind of dress like new dads and don’t seem like they’re taking anything seriously (while secretly they’re taking every technical and creative detail very seriously), not the preening, kissy-faced cocksuckers who look like an eight-year-old girl dressed up her pet chinchillas and left them too close to her make-into-a-person machine. For this issue we sent him to a nudist colony in upstate New York, where he shot a fashion spread with a very attractive model and some not-so-attractive naked old people. See PARTY NAKED, page 70

18 VICE THE END OF STORE STREET

After fi ve years, the people behind Manchester club The Warehouse Project are moving on from their current location on Store Street. Within 48 hours of their leaving, all evidence that WHP ever set up home in the caverns beneath Piccaddilly Train Station will have van- ished. All the fun that was had there, including the riotous WHP and Puma Easter party collaboration earlier this year, will be consigned to myth. What was once a car park will probably return to being a car park. But WHP have never wanted to be confi ned by bricks and mortar, and though they’re yet to fi gure out where they’ll live next, they’ll be going hard for 12 weeks from September until the house lights come up for the last time in the early hours of January 2. After such a huge success at Easter, Puma are partnering up again with The Warehouse Project on this epic fi nal run at Store Street. For the chance to win tickets for you and three mates to attend one of the three HUGE nights in the series – listed below – head to www.viceland.com/afterhoursathlete and tell us why you deserve to be there.

SATURDAY 17 SEPTEMBER SATURDAY 22 OCTOBER SATURDAY 26 NOVEMBER THE BEGINNING OF THE END HOSPITALITY R&S RECORDS PRESENT

DJ Shadow Live High Contrast James Blake Live

Skream & Sgt Pokes London Elektricity Mount Kimbie Live

SBTRKT DJ DJ Marky Andrew Weatherall

Hudson Mohawke Camo & Krooked Live Optimo Espacio Jackmaster Ft Ayah Marar Space Dimension Controller

Africa Hi-Tech Netsky James Blake DJ Mark Pritchard & Alix Perez Pariah

Steve Spacek Pinch Vondelpark Live

Falty DL Starkey Cloud Boat Live Illum Sphere Dark Sky Untold Jonny Dub Alexander Nut Blawan Juicy Rich Reason Lone

For the full line-up please go to www.thewarehouseproject.com FRONT OF THE BOOK

Albania Loves Bush

BY WILBERT L. COOPER SEIZED IN SOMALIA PHOTO BY FISNIK LAMA

For the past VICE: You worked in Somalia for a while. That doesn’t sound The Balkans sure know how 20 years, UN like it could have been too much fun. to treat a cowboy. In security officer Rolf Helmrich: There is a Somali proverb: “Somalia against Albania, the village of the world. My clan against Somalia. My family against my Fushe Kruja recently Rolf Helmrich clan. My brother and me against my family. Me against my erected a 9.5-foot-tall has conducted brother.” Somalia was never peaceful. The people are pastoral- bronze statue of George W. operations in ist and nomadic, constantly in search of water. As a baby you Bush in the town square, Somalia, one of the sleep with a dagger in your cradle. You always have a weapon. celebrating the 43rd president’s first and most dangerous So how did you get kidnapped? only visit to Albania in countries in the Me and my UN colleagues were stopped at a bridge near a 2007. They like Bush so world. He’s a tough village, and we were met by a militia. Initially they tried to get much over there that his son of a bitch money from us, but since I was trying to help the people in the name has been immor- area they changed their tactics. My five Somali colleagues were talised as the moniker and an old-school told to find their way back to Kismayo. I was alone with 15 for a bakery, a café gentleman. We militiamen with AK-47s. They squeezed into the vehicle and and a street. It’s talked to him about drove me deep into the desert. understandable his cheery time as a that Albanians feel How long were you there? pretty pro-US, con- hostage in Somalia About ten days. We moved around a lot at night. I was very sidering the Clinton in 2004. tense. They would throw hand grenades to each other and I administration’s would follow the grenade left to right, right to left. The worst 1999 bombing part was not having a bathroom. I stank. of Yugoslavia on behalf of ethnic How did your kidnapping end? Albanians in Ahmed, my guard, came to me and said, “Get your shoes.” We Kosovo and the BY OSCAR walked 300 yards into the darkness, and two gentlemen from country’s admis- RICKETT the same subclan as my captors came out with a bodyguard. A sion to NATO ransom of £11,000 had come from the business community to under Obama PHOTOS cleanse the name of the subclan, which had lost face because of in 2009. But COURTESY my kidnapping. I was picked up and taken back in a 27-vehicle in light of the OF ROLF convoy. I spent an hour in the shower. presidential HELMRICH alternatives, how Did you blame them for kidnapping you? does Bush warrant No, I understood why they did it. I was a target because I worked a statue in Fushe for the UN. A week before, Somalis working for a UN agency were Kruja? Apparently, also stopped and asked for money. They agreed to pay but then he touched an elderly broke their promise and threatened the militia. That agreement is woman’s soul there important. Things are sealed with a handshake, like in the Middle by comparing her to Ages. You can’t break a handshake. I like that. I like Somalis. his mother.

Phones provided at no additional cost on a 24 month minimum term contract. Subject to availability. Connection subject to status, credit check, direct debit and 24 month minimum term contract. 22 VICE Inclusive UK mobile internet monthly allowance is from 500MB depending on the tariff you choose. Terms apply, see o2.co.uk/terms FRONT OF THE BOOK

A SHORT HISTORY OF NEARLY RECTUM ORIFICE WEAPONS

Fearmongering terrorism experts now want us to believe 1887: Just before being that Al-Qaeda bombers have started stuffing their bodies executed, anarchist Louis with explosives, be it through surgery or the old-fash- Lingg commits suicide by WORDS AND ioned “stick it up your ass” technique. We wanted to run exploding a blasting cap in PHOTO BY this by someone who knew the ins and outs of removing his mouth. HARRY foreign objects from body cavities, so we called up Dr CHEADLE Nageswara Mandava, the chairman of the Department of Surgery at Flushing Hospital in Queens, New York, 1942: The CIA designs a ILLUSTRATION who wrote a paper on removing packets of coke and dope kit of tools and knives that BY HANNAH from drug mules. could be carried inside an KUNKLE agent’s anus and retrieved VICE: Could a potential body-cavity bomber use the same in case of capture. techniques as a drug mule? Dr Nageswara Mandava: Typically they’d have some kind of operation, like an appendectomy, and a large package 2005: A corpse burning would be put in the empty space between the bowel and in a funeral pyre in Nepal the abdominal wall, alongside the organs. No one really explodes from a bomb has the data on how large the packets are or how power- implanted by Maoist rebels. ful the explosives are. Unlike drugs, bombs aren’t going to get out on their own. 2007: Cops at LAX stop a So it would probably be harder for you, say, to get man who has wires and a bombs out than it would be to remove drugs. rock in his ass, in what they It’s a different mindset. If a drug mule’s pellets decide was possibly a “dry of heroin are leaking into his stomach, run” for an attack. he’s willing to have the pellets removed and live. But the goal of a terrorist is to set it off and kill himself. So it’d 2008: Al-Qaeda sews bombs be a harder sell to persuade him to into a pair of dogs in an have surgery. attempt to blow up a plane, but the dogs die before Do you think you could remove takeoff, possibly from hav- a bomb from somebody’s body, ing bombs sewn into them. even if they didn’t want you to? I don’t know that you could actually do it safely. You could 2009: An Al-Qaeda terror- do an X-ray or a CAT scan to ist explodes a bomb in his identify the problem and then butt in a botched attempt quarantine the person and to kill the Saudi head of figure out a way to remove it counterterrorism—the without detonating it. Or you first and so far only true might just quarantine them and case of a human body- see what happens. cavity bomber.

Death Dongs So, more than 50 percent of the squishy gunk that makes up butt plugs and rubber vaginas BY WILBERT contain phthalates and other carcinogenic plasticisers, which are toxic enough to cause hormonal L. COOPER imbalances, diabetes and even infertility. Because of this, manufacturers in developed countries like the US are starting to phase out plasticisers in all products; however, noxious toy cocks are still widely used, especially in Germany, where the consumer-safety study that came up with this figure was conducted and where the country’s Green Party is demanding that the government regulate these pestilent penises. Until manufacturers stop using phthalates, you can practise safe masturbation by buying 100 percent silicone sex toys or just using your fucking hands. iStockphoto.com/AlexMax

24 VICE FRONT OF THE BOOK

In Egalia, Everyone Pees Sitting Down

BY MILÈNE LARSSON PHOTO BY EVAN LONG

Egalia, the world’s first gender-neutral nursery, is exactly where you’d expect it to be: in the socialist paradise of Sweden. The institution discourages the use of third-person pronouns “him” and “her” (all the kids are called “friend”) and believes that giving girls dolls and boys toy cars is a form of gender oppression. This means making sure that toys and books are free from traditional gender roles and letting the girls enjoy ball games and the boys play dress up. Egalia is either years THE ORDEALS OF THE MASTER ahead of its time, an Orwellian nightmare, or both. “They think Raven Kaldera VICE: So what is the job of an Ordeal Master? we’re trying to turn boys into is a polite, mild- Raven Kaldera: People come to me asking for me to design girls and girls into boys and that they’ll all end up homosexual,” mannered farmer in ordeals and perform them. Often they’ll want to face up to and relive something that’s happened in their life, like child abuse, says Lotta Rajalin, Egalia’s rural Massachusetts although it’s not always sexual. The process is basic role-playing, principal. “It’s clearly written into who is also one of but it’s more like ritual theatre with real pain. We talk beforehand the UN’s Convention on the Rights of the world’s most about who we’re going to be and what will be done with them. the Child that all kids should have equal rights prominent voices on Whether they’ll be beaten, branded, cut or something like that. and opportunities. Twenty years from now, we’ll look Will there be a permanent mark that will remind them of this or back and wonder why all schools didn’t share our paganism, BDSM, just something that will fade? values and education plan.” Incidentally, Lotta is a polyamory and sha- Probably the longest and most involved ordeal I’ve ever woman. Not that that should matter. manism. He’s also a done was for a guy dedicated to Odin—the god of wisdom. self-styled “Ordeal Part of why Odin gained such wisdom was that he gave up one of his eyes, lived as a woman for a year to learn their mysteries, Master”, which… and then was hung on Yggdrasil, the world tree, for nine days. THE CATALAN CRAZY we’ll let him tell This guy wanted to re-create this. you about. On the first day, he was sent to sleep in a park. The next BY TONI L. QUEROL morning, we hosed him down, dressed him in skirts, and he PHOTO BY RAFA CASTELLS spent all day being forcibly feminised and slapped when he wasn’t learning fast enough. In the evening when he came On the northeast coast of home, three guys threw him on the floor and had their way Spain lives 74-year-old with him as if he were a woman. The first two were pretty Josep Pujiula. Over the BY CHRIS rough, but the third was gentle. The next day, we taped one past four decades he’s O’NEILL eye shut, then in the evening we stitched his lips shut so the torn down and rebuilt a words would build up but he wouldn’t be able to talk. The psychedelic labyrinth in PORTRAIT BY next day we took the stitches out and untaped his eye. Then the Catalan countryside at SADIE SEZ I whipped him and sang Norse runes as I beat him, to get the least three times. There’s energy of each rune into his body. Then we put hooks in his a tower made of fallen flesh and hung him from a tree. But not for nine days, only branches and chicken wire for about an hour. The whole ordeal lasted for four days. As that’s more than 100 feet high, a deerskin-clad E.T. an Ordeal Master, you go into it with the mindset that you’re surrounded by crucifixes and shotguns, a museum helping this person have the experience they want. We are cave hidden underneath a maze, and enough other embodying the sacred darknesses that one has to go through. wacky shit to pique the interest of tourists, pill heads, gang members and LSD fans. It seems Joseph Did he gain the wisdom he wanted to, after all of this? can do anything—even tame a wild ram. He told us, It seemed to do the trick. He said he learned many, many things. I “I grabbed him by the balls, threw him to the ground, keep encouraging him to write about it, but he’s too shy. and shouted, ‘I’m the boss here!’”

26 VICE Kids sprint away from the advancing police outside the ransacked branch of JD Sports on Mare Street in Hackney, east London, on Monday afternoon. A police car burns in Tottenham, north London, on the first night of rioting in London.

mango shower gel fills the night sky. A police officer is EXTREME MISCHIEF NIGHT later heard to say, “It was like an explosion in a coconut butter factory, with subtle hints of mango.” A Report From the Frontline SUNDAY, 10:50 PM, BRIXTON A man sits glumly on the sidelines as a post office is BY ANDY CAPPER aturday, August 6, 2011. As England went up in ransacked. “I’ve gotta come back here on Tuesday to & KEV KHARAS flames in a violent outpouring of sheer criminal- pick up my JSA,” he whines, as 200 revellers dance in a S ity, we sent our photographers and writers out to confetti of stolen cigarettes. PHOTOS BY cover the national tragedy step by step. It was GREAT ALEX STURROCK for the page hits on Viceland.com. MONDAY, 8:23 PM, CLAPHAM Some 14-year-old fat lads have managed to overcome Here are a few disgraceful highlights from a timeline the robust defences of a local party shop. “Am I the of chaos. fairest of them all?” one of them asks a cobwebbed mir- ror as he admires his new witch’s hat. “No,” it replies. SATURDAY, 11:15 PM, TOTTENHAM Saddened, the deprived youth grabs a Big Mouth Billy A young man from north London poses proudly with Bass off the wall and smashes the screaming mirror A looted amusement arcade in Wood Green, north London. The wreckage of a burnt-out police car on Sunday morning in Tottenham following a night of rioting and looting. his haul for Twitter: a 30p bag of Tesco Value basmati out of existence, vowing to bring the government to its rice. Behind him, a half-blind Bangladeshi pensioner knees one fancy dress shop at a time. stood guard outside their taxi ranks and kebab shops, smok- WEDNESDAY, 1:05 AM, MANCHESTER shakes her fists at the sky and weeps in the arms of a ing furiously and ignoring their wives. Finally, they get to Fifteen years ago, all these angry young revolutionaries self-checkout machine as she tries to remember why she MONDAY, 11:28 PM, ENFIELD chase 50 wailing looters from the area with their broken would have been in a stadium watching Oasis. Now the only ever moved to this joke of a country. A Sony distribution warehouse is burning to the pool cues, and are hailed by the media as vigilante heroes. way they can get within tit-flashing distance of their heroes is ground, and with it, the vinyl stocks of England’s fin- The Turks celebrate by sharpening their scimitars and hav- by paying a crazed megalomaniac trillionaire a week’s wages SUNDAY, 2:49 AM, WOOD GREEN est independent record labels. His eyes glazed with the ing a heroin-related tear-up with their old enemy, the Kurds. to watch Beyoncé and Jay-Z parade their $15m watches at A gang of youths descends upon the Body Shop. The serenity of a condemned man, Steve Lamacq mumbles a shit-filled pit called Glastonbury. The irony is not lost on crazed mob makes a beeline for the moisturiser section, something about “destiny”, and then something else TUESDAY, 10:30 AM, WESTMINSTER Manchester, where spotty youths ransack saxophones from tearing it apart. It’s carnage: coconut butter is flying about “Ash”, before removing his leather jacket and The nation sighs with relief when David Cameron cuts short Dawsons Music Shop and express their disenchantment everywhere. A young girl, maybe 15 years old, slips and hurling himself into the flames. his holiday in Tuscany to come home and save everybody. The through the medium of jazz. somersaults into a pile of blue and orange dinosaur- PM floods the streets with 315 exhausted PCSOs, aka Plastic shaped soap. The police charge, slipping and sliding TUESDAY, 2:13 AM, DALSTON Police, and announces that he will personally evict looters from If you want to find out what really happened in the UK last month, we covered everywhere, as the stench of non-biologically tested For three days, east London’s Turkish community have their council flats and throw all their children in jail. it extensively on Viceland.com and VBS.TV.

28 VICE VICE 29

Al-Sadr’s NGO,” he tells me. “Money shouldn’t be an obstacle for the faithful who want to bury their loved ones alongside Imam Ali.” He says this underneath a portrait of Al-Sadr, Iraq’s most controversial political and religious leader. Americans might know Al-Sadr as the commander and founder of the Mahdi Army, a well-organised Shia militia that fought occupying forces, the US-backed Iraqi government and other militias until they disbanded in 2008. Iraqis, however, view Al-Sadr as a legitimate political force. His party won 40 parliamentary seats (out of 325) in last year’s election and has provided oil, water and food to the impoverished populace. It’s no coincidence that Al- Sadr is so popular among the workers and other long-term visitors who are still breathing in Wadi Al-Salam. The Mahdi Army and American forces fought an intense battle throughout the streets of Najaf in the summer of 2004, which inevitably spread to the labyrinthine graveyard. The US army divided the cemetery into sections named Hisham quit school two years ago to work in the Valley of Peace. His greatest after New York City boroughs, but this didn’t do much to improve morale. wish is to be buried here when his time comes. From “Queens” to “the Bronx”, insurgents used an underground network of passages between the crypts to move stealthily throughout the cemetery and fire RPGs on Bradley tanks and Humvees. The English translation of Wadi Al- Salam, “Valley of Peace,” hardly seemed appropriate in those days. Many of the Mahdi loyalists who fought in this battle never left the cem- etery; they are buried in a dedicated wing to the right of the main entrance. Their tombs are decorated with plastic flowers and portraits of the fallen martyrs in battle dress—or at least that’s what I’ve heard. Admittance to this area is forbidden to anyone without direct ties to Al-Sadr’s organisation. In another part of the necropolis I meet two men both named Said, con- struction workers and occasional undertakers who today are working in an area reserved for unidentified bodies. Believed to be the most expansive necropolis in the world, Wadi Al-Salam is constantly expanding and therefore difficult to survey. The grounds cover at least 1,920 acres. Photo courtesy of “Most of them are victims of suicide bombings,” says the elder Said of the United States Department of Defence. the anonymous remains. “They all end up here. Sometimes they’re identified and taken elsewhere, especially if they’re Sunni or Christian.” The younger Said and Said tend a plot that will soon be filled by new occupants. Said adds that the number of unknown corpses has dropped sharply since the last wish is to be interred here, near the tomb of Ali—the worst years of the war, particularly the dead recovered from areas where US NEVER-ENDING DEATH first cousin and son-in-law of the Prophet Muhammad forces allegedly dropped white phosphorous bombs. Although the US denies and, according to Shias, the original Imam. And Iraqi that the deadly antipersonnel weapon was used on Iraqi civilians (after first Iraq’s Wadi Al-Sa lam Mega-Cemetery Muslims aren’t the only pilgrims—for thousands of years, denying that it was used at all), residents in places like Fallujah were some- Knows No Bounds travellers have flocked to the site from Iran, Bahrain, how exposed to the substance, and its effects were devastating. Azerbaijan and further locales. The silence of Wadi Al-Salam, however, can make the travesties of war feel It’s virtually impossible to imagine how many rotting distant. It’s an insular community with its own workforce, grid of streets and corpses and skeletons lie packed underground, resting avenues and taxis. The cabbies must contend with uneven roads littered with WORDS AND inding the way to where I’m going couldn’t be easi- on top of one another in a surreal vertical queue that thousands of discarded plastic perfume bottles, which are used in ceremonies, PHOTOS BY er: just follow the cars with coffins strapped to their will only become longer. Wadi Al-Salam currently spans and an increasingly saturated market for their services. For merchants, the KARLOS ZURUTUZA Froof racks. This grim procession happens daily as more than three square miles and is perpetually expand- local economy is grim in more ways than one. hundreds of Arab men in turbans and women wearing ing—its size increased by approximately 40 percent after Ali Abdul Hassan, 32, had worked as an undertaker since the age of 12 black veils drive through the unforgiving Iraqi desert to- the US and its allies invaded Iraq in 2003. The current until chronic back pain forced him find a new career selling incense and the ward Najaf, the third most sacred city for Shia Muslims plan is for American forces to completely withdraw by aforementioned bottles of pink ceremonial perfume.

after Mecca and Medina. Death is both their constant the end of 2011. In their wake they will leave wrecked “I arrive at 5 AM, and I work until the sun goes down,” Ali says. “I Plastic flowers, bottles of cologne and the flag of Imam Ali decorate virtually every travel companion and their final destination—it liter- buildings, angry Muslims and a fresh layer of death atop make about 15,000 dinars [about £7.80] a day. If it’s a holy day, then I can grave in Wadi Al-Salam. ally hovers above their heads throughout the journey to a place that records Iraq’s history via strata of skeletons. make twice that. My wife and eight children live in a rented room. It’s all Wadi Al-Salam, which contains an estimated 5 million “How many bodies are buried here?” says Beyan we can afford.” graves and is reputedly the largest Muslim cemetery in Shakir Abu Saib, repeating my question. “There could Najaf’s perfume industry is cutthroat. Later I meet Hisham, a 14-year- the world. be millions. People have been buried in layers, one over old perfume peddler who is also dismayed with his profits: “If I can save I arrive at the same time as Hassan, a man who came the other, for centuries.” Beyan is a member of a clan enough money one day, I’d like to be a soldier or a policeman. The problem from Basra along with his brothers, wife and three of undertakers that was founded hundreds of years ago. is that unless you’ve got contacts—family members who work for the govern- children to bury his father. Theirs was not a funeral pro- His children work alongside him. ment—you have to pay $1,000 just to fill out the application form. There’s cession that allowed much time for grieving. The Saib family business is as ancient as the cemetery no guarantee they’ll accept you.” “We only stopped once on the way here, a five-min- stones, and they certainly aren’t the only ones employed Considering the alternatives, almost everyone wishes to be employed by ute toilet break at the service station halfway,” Hassan by the Grim Reaper. For instance, near an area where the Iraqi government in some capacity. The main problem is that corruption says. “It’s five hours to Basra, and in this heat the corpse cadavers are cleaned and embalmed, Sadaw Ubeid sells here is perhaps even more rampant than death. decomposes rapidly.” burial shrouds for 10,000 dinars (approximately £5) a Fortunately, young Hisham is able to put things into perspective and ac- He has the content look of a son who has successfully pop. According to Sadaw, it’s a hell of a good deal; in oth- cept whatever fate he is dealt: “Did you know there are angels who take carried on a family tradition. Hassan’s father will rest next er parts of the cemetery, merchants charge up to 75,000 away the bodies of those who aren’t meant to be buried here? A while ago to his father and grandfather, and, Allah willing, one day dinars (approximately £40) for an identical product. they opened a tomb over there and it was empty. It works the other way too. Family vaults can serve as a historical summary of Iraq’s wars and natural it will be Hassan’s turn himself to make the journey atop a So why doesn’t Sadaw raise his prices? “What If you’re a good Muslim but are buried somewhere else, the angels will bring catastrophes. The portrait in the foreground depicts one of the many who car, and after that generations of his offspring. Every Shia’s we’re doing is humanitarian aid financed by Muqtada you. But I want to die here, in Wadi Al-Salam.” perished in the Iran-Iraq War, which lasted from 1980 to 1988.

32 VICE VICE 33 ADVICE TO A YOUNG MAN FROM AN OLD MAN TWICE MARRIED Love in the Time of Honduran Divorces

BY CLANCY MARTIN ILLUSTRATIONS BY JESSE GELAZNIK

here’s a fire pit the men sit by at night in the “There’s one way to learn,” Javier said, ris- Red Iguana, a restaurant on the edge of town in ing to his feet and smoking a long Cuban Romeo T Copán, Honduras. They roast meat, smoke their and Julieta from a case I had purchased earlier that cigars and drink beer and Nicaraguan rum while the week. I had one too. They would last us three hours stars intensify and their wives put the children to bed. out in the cool night. “Let him find out for himself. I was there trying to purchase a kinkajou for a There’s no rules in love. He could be one of the lucky friend. You can buy kinkajous as pets in the United ones.” Everyone laughed. We were all married men, States, but in Honduras the baby golden bears have a divorced men, men who no longer knew where our different temperament. For example, they do not like wives lived, men of many children. liquor. They never bite. They sleep both at night and “Let me tell you a story,” a viejo said, quietly. during the day, and are awake in the mornings and Everyone hushed. I didn’t know this elderly gentle- evenings. And their prehensile tails are much stronger man in his worn yet elegant white suit, but he had and nimbler than those of the American-bred species. ridden a horse down from the mountains three nights If you want to keep a kinkajou as a pet, the place to before, sitting with us each evening and drinking an get one is Honduras, and you must buy a baby fresh inferior Honduran rum neat from a glass. He rarely from the nipple and hand-feed it for as long as possi- spoke. I guessed he owned a coffee plantation. He ble. It grieves at separation from its mother, but I have looked like one of the Hondurans you met when you always been careful in my business not to buy a baby were up in the bush for days and suddenly you see the unless I see the mother with my own eyes. Otherwise long rows of glossy, almost plastic-looking green cof- the natives will kill the animal for its babies. fee bushes lining the mountainside and then a clearing By the fire was a young man, Juan: handsome, opens up and you find the low hacienda, spread out slender, full of bravado and enthusiasm, like a Latino in many buildings, and behind it a drying plant and Jimmy Page in the famous picture of Page gesturing perhaps even a small roaster, and horses wander the grandly to the name LED ZEPPELIN painted on the property along with the usual farm animals and when side of their Boeing 727. The old men were teasing you are invited to dinner—as you must be—you can- him because he planned to marry. He was a novio. not tell which of the women are wives and which are Another man there, Javier, a friend of mine from sisters and which are mothers and which are daugh- Nicaragua who was born in Copán—they teased ters, except of course for the very young ones. The him too, because Nicaragua is considered déclassé by women sit at one side of the long dinner table in the the Hondurans, and he was thought to have stepped tiled dining room, and the father and his sons are at down in the world by establishing his trade in an infe- the other. This viejo could have ten wives, for all we rior, poorer country—stood up for Juan. knew. It was not unheard of.

34 VICE VICE 35 “You speak of love, and laugh.” He shook his head and “The second time the priest came to my house I was police and the priest. They arrested me and, to my surprise, sipped his rum. I felt embarrassed that I had been part of already a man of 50 and my father was dead. My brother’s they also arrested the priest, who screamed in protest and the teasing. “Two times I have married with a priest,” he farm had failed, through no fault of his own—there were fought with them. This was most indecorous behaviour said. “And these women, who you marry with a priest, three hurricanes that year.” Several of the old men nodded for a priest, and we were all disappointed. The girl, to her you cannot divorce. This is the law of the church. The first and held their hands to their brows as they remembered credit, insisted that she wanted me as her husband. But it time, I was like this one.” He removed his hat, nodded to their own losses that season. “He came to live with me with was a simple case of sacrilegious incest and an unholy mar- the suddenly bashful novio, and then put it back on his his seven wives and 11 children. His eldest wife, Simone— riage. Also during the trial it came out that there had been head again. “Her name was Alfansa. A strange name. She she was from Brazil, not Honduran, and though she was lesbianism and masturbation practised among the sisters, was 15 when we married. I was 27. My father told me, the oldest she still had him the most nights in bed. When he perhaps also involving their mother. You should never ‘Wait eight years. No man should marry before age 35.’ It met her she was a dancer in a club in Teguc [Tegucigalpa, marry a woman who is not from your own country, my was excellent advice.” He gave a look to the novio, who the great, dangerous, furious capital city of Honduras], and father often told my brother. But once she has you by the blushed again, shrugged, and took a shot of rum. “This she conceived a plan for me to marry one of his daughters. balls, that’s it—you’re screwed.” was a great love. So I could not ignore it. But a great love I was ignorant. I had many children of my own. Simone The men were silent now. One or two relit their cigars. makes for a real husband. And a real husband is always told me the girl—who was a beauty, with eyes like a jag- My own cigar had gone out and I decided I didn’t want suspicious, though he often suspects in the wrong place.” uar—had a great passion for me; they pretended she was it anymore, so I passed it to a teenage boy who sat at the There were grunts of agreement. The men nodded a girl from the city. Nothing affects an older man like the edge of the restaurant, on the wooden steps. He smiled around the fire. Waitresses came and went silently, refill- admiration of a young girl. But it had to be done with a and ran to the fire pit to light it. ing our glasses, replacing our beers, their faces appearing priest, or else it would not be a sin. You see, she wanted “I served five years in prison. When I returned to like pale moths in the firelight and then disappearing to damn me, and to have me thrown in prison, so that my estate all of my horses were gone and the wild had again into the darkness. The cook roasting the beef cut her husband could take my estate. It is dangerous when reclaimed my coffee plants. My brother had become a great slices of red meat, passed around on a platter for our women plan the marriage, that is when they direct the drunkard and Simone had run off with a Mexican truck plates, and I thought of what it might have been like to sit man, because of his own passion, into making his prom- driver who once transported our coffee. The children had on the beach after nightfall with Odysseus and his men, ise to love only one; the women conspire to make him grown up as wild as the coffee plants and the women were only a few ships left, lost, on an unknown island, passing believe he should marry, and they have chosen his wife running the place, but everything was in great disrepair, the serving plate of sacrificial ox or lamb and drinking the “Pleasure’s a sin,” the rabbit man said, “and some- in advance. Otherwise, why should he marry? like a camp. They had thrown my own wives and chil- thick red wine that they had to mix with water. times sin’s a pleasure.” Wait, isn’t that from Byron? I “He has everything to lose, and nothing to gain. A man dren out of the main house. I got my whip and put things “It was a summer day. Summer is a dangerous season.” thought. But we were speaking in Spanish, and these were marries so he can possess something he can never own, in order. But it was three years before we had a paying “Yes,” said another old man. “Dangerous for love. Honduran farmers, peasants and coffee pickers, not read- or so that he can be possessed by someone who will own crop. All because of the schemes of a woman, and a vir- Spring, too. Especially around the end of May.” ers of British romanticism. him forever. Look at any married man, and you will see gin beauty. Who, as it turned out, was probably a very “De conejos [the rabbits],” another man said. We all “I shot them both there in the field,” he said. “He died that it is true.” accomplished lover of women herself. I tied her to a tree looked at him curiously. He was sopping up blood from quickly, but she lingered. She said, ‘You are my first and There was rueful laughter. I watched the novio. He and beat her with a stick until she was half-dead. Not his plate with a tortilla, and nodding his head with the most passionate love, you are my only love: This is noth- shook his head impatiently. This is old man’s talk and old because it was just. But to demonstrate that a man had patience and mystery of a tortoise. ing. Why?’ And her eyes closed. She breathed for a while, man’s laughter, he was thinking to himself. My love is of returned to the house.” “Jules was his name, my friend. Also a strange name. and I watched, impassive, until the end. When I inspected an altogether original kind. But when he raised his drink, Many of the men around the fire had fallen asleep, He was my closest friend. He was like a brother to me.” them more closely, I saw that I could have been mistaken. I thought I saw his hand was trembling very slightly, with their chins on their chests. Javier was curled beneath The old man took a silver case from his pocket, opened They were both fully clothed. I could not have been wrong though it could have been the firelight. his coat like a dog under a blanket. Others stared into it, removed a brown cigarette about the size of a pinkie about their embraces. But perhaps she was fighting him “The priest married us. I took her that night. She was a the fire, thinking of their own lives, their own wives, finger, and stood to light it in the flame of the roasting off? When I rolled her body over, I began to cry, and I saw virgin. The next morning Simone came to my bed with the their daughters, their troubles. My wife was divorcing pit. The narcotic smell of a strange herb mixed with the a snake escape from beneath them. Then I thought, perhaps me back in Kansas City, and I had no plans to return to sweet aroma of fat dripping into the fire and the strong he was trying to kill the snake? Perhaps she had not said the United States. The novio, though, was wide awake, perfumes of the Honduran mountain air. a word of what I supposed. Of course there is no way to and he approached the viejo. He offered him a drink. “They went riding together. When I found them he was know. It is equally as likely that if I had waited another ten The viejo took the drink, said, “To your happiness,” cutting her a grapefruit from a tree. He peeled it with his minutes he would have died between her legs.” and drank. Then he handed the drink back to the hand- knife and handed her the slice. The juice was running from I looked at the novio. He was angry. His eyes were some novio, who tossed the rest into the fire. It flamed her full lips. You know, in a single gesture then, the way dark and sparking. I didn’t know if he was enraged that up from the rum. she smiles at him, what she is thinking. No doubt nothing his future bride might be compared with this woman, at “She wants a priest,” the novio said. “So do I. I want a has happened. But in her heart it has already taken place. the obvious injustice that had been done, or if there was real marriage. Not one of the Indian stupidities.” I watched them, full of rage, but still hoping. They rested a best friend of his own, whom he suspected. I too had The viejo did not move or look at the young man. He in the shade. He released the horses to roam the pasture. lost a lover to a best friend, and, unlike the French writer was watching the fire now too. Then, sitting by him, his arm barely brushing her arm, just Édouard Levé, who boasts, “I have not made love to the “I have eight wives now living,” he said. “Eight of these as I saw her say, ‘I will never consent’—she consented.” wife of a friend,” I have had lovers who were married to Indian stupidities, as you say. I have children from all but A murmur rose among us, like a sudden wind: it is friends of mine, like so many friends and lovers before one of them. But I would go back to prison for that night unusual for a man, especially in this part of the world, to me. I had no moral opinion on the viejo’s first story. The with the girl. She still lives on my farm. But she works with admit he wears horns. second, though, was quite different, and uncanny. the horses. I do not let her come up to the house.”

36 VICE VICE 37 The Juárez police alleged that these gang members were caught stealing cars (which are often then used in drive-by shootings). After being cuffed, they were hogtied face-down in a truck bed. Out of the untold crimes committed in Mexico on a daily basis, the police only get around to investigating about 15 percent of them. So unless you’re like this guy and get caught red-handed, you’ve got a pretty good chance of getting away.

handful of times has he been asked to dispose of bodies, and in those cases he’ll drop them at the edge of town WRAP ’EM UP TIGHTLY for the cops to find later. By his estimate, about half Burritos and Kidnapped Juárez Drug Dealers, That Is of the people he abducts are eventually murdered. But that’s none of his business—he’s only a forceful courier. Besides, he’s needed back at his other job, where there BY WESTON PHIPPEN efore he abducts someone, Zurdo likes to get high: are endless tables to be clean and burritos to roll. a little weed, maybe some lines, a few shots, pills, Zurdo lives in an apartment connected to the back PHOTOS BY Bwhatever. After that he puts on black clothes, gets of the eatery where he works from 5:30 AM to 11 PM BRANDEN EASTWOOD his guns together—an AK-47 and a 9-millimetre—and almost every day (except when he’s been snorting lines AND climbs into a Chevy Tahoe with four other guys. Then all night). He’s about 5' 7" and 38 years old. Our meet- ANTHONY SANDOVAL they creep around the streets of a town a few hours ing was arranged by a friend of mine who somehow southwest of Ciudad Juárez that I’ve been asked not to persuaded Zurdo, one of his best and oldest amigos, to identify. By sunrise they’ll have nabbed some poor bas- grant me an interview. tard and delivered him to “El Patron”, Zurdo’s boss. Before sitting down to talk, he walks behind the coun- During the day, Zurdo (“Lefty” in English) works at ter, grabs a rag and wipes down a wooden table where a Mexican restaurant across the street from a halfway- two customers just finished eating. He’s wearing a tight crumbled building, near a bar where leather-skinned black Tony Montana t-shirt, tucked snugly over his gut drunks hold court all day on the pavement. Kidnapping and into faded black pants. His football shoes—the sole for the Juárez Cartel is his side job. He mostly abducts small hint of his other, more lucrative life—are so white small-time drug dealers or their relatives. They all know and spotless they practically glow. He thrums the table, how it works: if you sell narcotics without El Patron’s his eyes wandering off, following the traffic outside. I ask permission, or break his rules, Zurdo and his crew (or whether we should maybe take a walk so he can talk another group of masked men) will chauffeur you to about his other job without worrying about eavesdrop- one of the boss’s many ranches or houses. There you pers. But he can’t leave until 11 PM, he says, because will either be tortured and released—in exchange for they need him at the shop; he’s even had to turn down money—or tortured and killed, your body tossed into some kidnapping jobs because the past two days have the street like a cigarette out a window. Most go eas- been so busy. Anyway, it doesn’t matter. We can talk ily, Zurdo tells me. He says to them: “They’re calling here, he says. Everyone at the restaurant knows what he you. Get in the car,” and they usually comply. Only a does, even if they aren’t aware of the particulars. In Juárez, violence and death are so common they have become part of the scenery.

38 VICE VICE 39 When one PRM During our conversation Zurdo tells me he feels bad that Each time Zurdo goes out for a pickup he gets a little Job security is a rarity these days, and Zurdo’s industry Josué Reyes Castro, 26, was the 560th person killed this The dead are gang member was his side job perpetuates Mexico’s ongoing drug war: “If they scared and anxious, but the drugs and money help him over- is no exception. The cartels have recently moved away from year in Juárez—and that was in March. In the aftermath, treated with about asked what he’d as much respect do with the body don’t ever call me then it’s best. But if they do, I have to come these feelings. One thing he doesn’t worry about is the the expensive “professional” hitmen and kidnappers—part- police counted more than 130 AK-47 rounds in front of his as the living in this of a rival gangster go.” Then he immediately contradicts his last statement: police. Mexican officials only manage to complete about 4 timers like Zurdo, current or ex-army officers, and others house. Inside, his mother, father, grandfather and cousins Juárez cemetery. he was talking “If I don’t do it then I’m not happy.” He also won’t have percent of criminal investigations. Even more troubling, they who specialise in this kind of work—and are instead tap- hugged the ground for cover. Slumped between the centre about killing, he said, “Throw it in as much money to fund his costly vices, of which there are only bother to investigate about 15 percent of the crimes ping into the internecine battles between rival gangs like console of the family car, bleeding to death, Castro was the fucking street. many. Zurdo was lured to his line of work (crime, not bur- committed in the country (according to a 2010 study by the Partido Revolucionario Mexicano (PRM) and the Aztecas. driven to the hospital by his brother because most ambu- What? You think ritos) at a young age, dropping out of school in the eighth Monterrey Institute of Technology). Many times, Zurdo Kidnapping and killing are being outsourced, just like the lances in the area no longer respond to shootings. The killers I’m going to put grade to make quick money in the streets. Chihuahua, the says, the police are complicit in illegal activities. factory jobs that once attracted Mexicans from all over lingered long enough to reload three times, Castro’s brother it in my freezer?” He—and all of his Mexican state where he resides, has one of the highest mur- In March, a group of men walked into the El Castillo the country to Ciudad Juárez and then gradually shifted to tells me, and the police waited up the street for the firing to fellow members— der rates in the western hemisphere and, according to the bar in Ciudad Juárez and massacred ten people. A survi- China and other, less costly locales. stop. By mid-July, Juárez’s murder tally had reached 1,250, thought it was a UN, the second-lowest number of high-school graduates in vor told the local newspaper El Diario that federal police Like any other business, cheap and sloppy is always an averaging eight per day for the first half of the month. stupid question. the country. stormed in just before the shooting and conducted a thor- option. For instance, there’s 35-year-old Monico Aguirre “It’s bad. That’s why it’s bad. That’s why we pick [the The last time Zurdo snatched someone, he tells me, ough search that ended with them confiscating everyone’s Carillon. Barring an early parole, escape, or death, he will be abductee] up,” Zurdo answers when I asked him about the was three days before our meeting. He was working at mobiles, as if they were clearing the way for the killers. 130 when he’s released from CERESO prison in Juárez. Yet new crop of gangster assassins. “Why would you kill the the restaurant when his mobile rang. El Patron gave him The police, of course, were also the first on the scene after he tells me he has a good thing going here. His gang, PRM, wife or kid if they have nothing to do with it?” He under- the name and address of his target, who, like most, was the shooting and were later accused of rifling through the runs his side of the prison. Monico enjoys a small amount of stands, however, why people do desperate things for a bit a young man. Zurdo and his team found their prey shop- pockets of the dead and stealing a plasma-screen TV from notoriety among his fellow inmates, partially due to his PRM of cash. “They come and offer you money, and you don’t ping for groceries with his wife around 9 PM, which was the scene of the crime. affiliation but mostly because he tied a rival gang member to have a job… well, then you’ll do it. But I do it just to do good timing: it’s best to do this kind of work before mid- For his trouble, Zurdo is paid £600 to £1,200 per kid- a chair and was caught trying to slit his throat. “With a fuck- it, not because I’m in need. I have everything here—home, night, when more people will be outside and it’s less likely napping, depending on his target and other—sometimes ing wire that I had there. He’s a pig. I tie them up like pigs.” work and food.” the victim will cause a scene, try to flee or retaliate with unpredictable—circumstances. (He tells El Patron if a The cartels’ tactic is to pit gangs against one another and Zurdo says he doesn’t see himself working for the cartels a weapon. This last pick-up was no exception. As the pickup was particularly challenging or if the person tried employ them to push drugs. The result is that the brutes take forever; his dreams for the future have more to do with bur- couple walked to the car with their groceries, Zurdo got to run, and the boss takes him at his word.) He only accepts one another out for around £120 a week. Economically, it’s ritos than with guns. One day he’d like to open his own out of the vehicle, confronted them, and said, “They’re US currency, he says. “I get paid in dollars. Pesos? Don’t good business. The difference is that before hiring gang mem- restaurant. “Or at least be the manager, if I couldn’t be the calling you.” Then he flashed his gun. The couple under- shit me. The burritos earn the pesos.” But he spends it bers was common practice, a certain amount of professional owner.” He’d call it Zurdo’s, he replies, and I ask him how stood. The man went easily, and they let his wife go. They quickly, either on his beloved shoe collection or on even pride was taken if the wife or son waiting in the car was spared. he’d decorate it. That’s thinking too far ahead, he says, but dropped their passenger at one of El Patron’s houses, and more fleeting pleasures. “It costs a lot: women, drinking, But gangs usually target their victims with the delicacy of a fire if it happens he won’t be selling burritos in this town. He has Zurdo returned to the burrito shop, where his help was coke. And the women also drink. I have to spend money hose, spraying innocent street vendors, neighbours watching too much of a past here. He only assures me that he’d keep it still needed. on the hotel…” television on their couches, and kids walking home from school. very clean, like his glowing white shoes.

40 VICE VICE 41 I AM IRON MAN Boredom and Beatdowns in the Burbs BY ANTHONY PAPPALARDO

Anthony Pappalardo helped write Radio Silence, one of the few retrospectives of 80s American hardcore that nobody hates. He also played in Ten Yard Fight, the band pretty much singlehandedly responsible for the jockification of straightedge in the mid-90s. Live… Suburbia!, a new book Anthony put together with author Max G. Morton, will be released in October by powerHouse Books. It’s like a personal, pictorial history book of everything Boston punk kids have been doing for the last 30 years. So you have the early, figuring-it-out years, then the youth crew stuff, then some diversions into skinhead, then posicore, and so on, all featuring the same group of people, just getting older and figuring new shit out. It’s kind of like a BHC version of the Up movies and will probably be on the coffee table or cistern of every person you know come Christmas. Below is an excerpt from the BMX years. Also, if you haven’t figured out by now, we are not talking about Anthony Pappalardo the skateboarder.

ames Regan was a boy by age but not by stature. He stood No sooner had ground been broken than we heard the menac- well over six feet with broad shoulders and cold blue eyes. ing roar of James’s dirt bike. We were fucked. James had a JWhen he gripped his ruddy fingers together they looked like method to his torture: he’d single out one boy and then force brick wrecking balls that could easily smash through walls or the others to make decisions. For example, you might be asked at least flatten the noses of young boys with one swing. The to punch your friend or absorb a blow from James himself. neighbourhood was terrified of James Regan. From age 13, he He’d make you jump off things, eat things, and one time he rode his yellow dirt bike around town without a helmet, licence even buried poor Joey Belisle in a mock funeral only to piss on or care. He was above the law. his grave. James wasn’t nice. No matter what the thermometers said, he wore a sherpa-lined He power-slid into our construction site and covered us in denim coat that housed a weapons armoury: butterfly knives, dirt and rocks before dismounting his yellow steed. “Gaying Chinese stars, butane lighters, prerolled joints and a switchblade off in the woods, faggots?” he asked rhetorically. Despite comb were always by his side. Normally, young burnouts deco- his golden shower, Joey hadn’t learned anything and actu- rated their jackets with patches and pins of their favourite metal ally responded. “No, man, we’re building some jumps...” he bands, but James’s jacket was bare. He didn’t have time to be stopped and gulped emphatically, realising his mistake and a seamstress—he was focused on mayhem and destruction. I trying to save himself. “We… we figured you’d wanna use the learned quickly that the more patches, the less threatening a kid jumps so we’re gonna build them really high!” was. This theory was proved later in my life when I saw crusty “Why the fuck would I wanna jump off a mound of dirt punks lying in their own filth with pregnant dogs begging for while you homos watch me? Do you think I’m a fag too?” change in Harvard Square. There was nothing scary about junk- James responded. This wasn’t going well. The mountain was ies resembling shit-stained rag dolls asking for beer money. sandwiched between two growing housing developments, and James was a loner who didn’t need backup. He was a one- a construction site directly bordered the first trail where we man army… or at least capable of keeping a gang of preteens were now standing. Building had slowed down and the site in check. None of the kids on my block had older brothers was merely a sea of discarded cinder blocks, lumber, nails and willing to challenge him to a fight, so when he roared through, mortar. James kicked around the piles of raw materials briefly we were pretty much at his mercy. before picking up a piece of plywood about three feet square. Normally, it was easy to avoid James, as he was always busy “OK, Joey, go stand over there and hide behind this piece of fixing something, building something, smoking something, or wood,” James ordered. Joey grabbed the wood and walked off fucking something, but things changed when we found an aban- about 20 feet into a grass clearing. “The rest of you, come over doned ski slope near our neighbourhood that was full of paths here now!” he demanded in between drags of a Marlboro Red. perfect for racing BMX bikes. There wasn’t a black diamond James directed us to a pile of rocks and chipped bricks. trail, just amateur inclines descending the “mountain” that only “OK, Joey is gonna hide behind his piece of wood for the needed a little grooming before they became our private race- next ten minutes while you guys throw shit at him. Don’t way. We heard that a homeless guy lived in the woods there fucking stop or you have to join him, and there ain’t much and hanged himself, but that only added to the danger and room back there. OK, start NOW!” James said as his soulless excitement. We spent the winter sleighing there, one friend even eyes pierced all of us. It was a minor relief to not be behind snapped a wing, but we persuaded him to tell his parents he did the wooden shield, but this seemed too simple. There was no it playing football to make sure we wouldn’t be banned from way it was this easy. the mountain. Our plan was simple: after the winter thaw, we’d We pelted Joey for what felt like an hour; he’d occasionally grab shovels and build jumps along the trails and we’d have the have to readjust the wood and James would chuck a rock right only true racing track and stunt zone in a 30-mile radius. at his fingers. This was the only time he joined in. On James’s Spring came and we swapped our winter work boots for command, Joey emerged from his foxhole, ears ringing and

CLOCKWISE FROM TOP LEFT: Brian Ryder, Andy Jenkins, Michael Galinsky, Michael Galinsky, Chris Kelly, Casey Chaos, Brett Barto Chris Kelly, Michael Galinsky, Andy Jenkins, Michael Galinsky, Brian Ryder, CLOCKWISE FROM TOP LEFT: sneakers and set off to the mountain to begin construction. fingers swollen.

42 VICE VICE 43 “Hey, I’m hungry,” James said. “Who lives the closest to quickly shot down. We went through a few more suggestions, here?” Apparently, watching the stoning piqued his appetite. including the Salem Swords and Salem Samurais, but allitera- Once again, Joey was the victim as his house was a five-minute tion didn’t sound tough enough. walk through the woods. We followed James single file like an “Scorpions have those big stingers,” said Rick Hannigan. adolescent chain gang before arriving at Joey’s house. He was “They’re small, but they can really fuck you up. What about instructed to go inside and fetch some chips and soda in five the Scorpions?” Balding German rock bands and women in minutes or less, or else he’d be back behind the wooden shield cages were not on our minds—we completely forgot about or maybe thrown off his tree house. As soon as his door opened, the band the Scorpions as no one fucking liked them. The we heard a familiar sound: Buddy Mailloux’s dinner bell. Each Scorpions was now our gang and we started training that sec- night when it was time for supper, Buddy’s mother rang a bell, ond, without Buddy—he was a total pussy anyway. First order which was his cue to scamper home like a puppy before eating of business was to gather up our collective weapons. We had something overcooked and fattening. “Buddy… Buddy, dinner nunchakus made of sawed-down broomsticks and clothesline time!” sang his mother with her brittle bleached hair. rope, sheet-metal shanks carved in shop class, and Rick even Buddy thought he was off the hook, but as he took a step had a pair of brass knuckles he had stolen from his uncle. toward his home, he was quickly stopped by James. In one Well… they weren’t actually brass, they were some kind of motion, he was body-slammed to the ground and pinned. silver alloy, but they looked cool. James’s voice was suddenly two octaves higher as he screamed, “Fuck you, Mum! I’m not going to eat your meatloaf any- more. GO FUCK YOURSELF, BITCH!” Buddy was tearing I was the fi rst one to the clubhouse, armed up as James’s mammoth hand covered his mouth. His mother kept calling and James kept responding with more curses until with my weapons and a bulldog mentality. things went silent for a moment and we heard a door slam. With a spin and a kick, James’s cycle was roaring and he was Our arsenal was set, we headed off to Rick’s basement to gone. Buddy’s mum ran over and saw him spitting dirt as sharpen our hand-to-hand battle skills before having to go the dust settled from James’s escape. She knew Buddy hadn’t home for dinner. There was a wrestling mat lining his base- cursed her out and silently escorted him home to dinner. ment floor that served as our battle arena. In a few minutes The rest of us headed off to our fort, which was really just we were confident that the Scorpions could take James or a plywood shanty that overlooked our neighbourhood. Two any bully—fuck, we could probably fare better against the pieces of plywood were configured around some rocks, creat- damn Russians than the fags in Red Dawn. Years of re- ing a shelter from the elements and a perfect place to read creating the WWF, NWA and AWA wrestling moves in Rick’s stolen porno mags and light small, contained fires. No parents basement boosted our confidence more. I was daydreaming or cops could get close to the fort without us having ample of my finishing move—a variation on the Iron Sheik’s Camel time to scatter and flee back to the woods. Clutch—when Rick was called to dinner. We needed a good The second-oldest kid in our neighbourhood, Kenny meal and some rest. Tomorrow wasn’t just Wednesday, it LeFevere, was there smoking Winston cigarettes stolen from marked the beginning of a war. his dad and drinking something he stole out of a flask. Despite We hashed out our strategy on the bus ride to school. The being older than us, Kenny was relatively cool. He might turn trick was to play dumb, head off to the woods with our shovels on you if someone cooler and closer to his age was around, but (which could come in handy in case we needed to bury James’s he generally didn’t give a fuck. He’d offer us cigs and swigs and corpse) and our weapons, and wait. At the least, we’d make occasionally would give us old bike parts and metal magazines progress on our dirt jumps and build some muscle. The day that he had read cover to cover. We told him about the wooden- crawled by but eventually the bell rang at 3 PM and we were shield game and the meatloaf beatdown and he laughed. free to fight. My Walkman was blasting “Shout at the Devil”, “If you guys are sick of James fucking with you, why don’t and James was fucked. you all just fight him? He’s beating the shit out of you every I was the first one to the clubhouse, armed with my weap- day. You’ll probably lose, but there’s five of you. Maybe you ons and a bulldog mentality. One by one, the Scorpions can take him, and if not, he’ll probably just find someone else to arrived, each bringing his own expertise to the table. This was fuck with,” Kenny reasoned. We stared at him blankly. I think one of those Dirty Dozen movie moments when the team is we all wanted to just ask him to fight James for us, but we knew assembled. Rick was the calm, good-looking one; I had the that would never happen. Five-on-one started to make sense to most weapons; Joey and Buddy had taken the most licks and me. We asked Kenny a few combat-related questions before he were hungry for revenge; and our wildcard was Greg Derosa, pedalled off. James didn’t have any friends who would torment or Rosie, as we called him. Unlike the rest of us, Rosie had us in school as retribution if we did beat him up, and he couldn’t actually stuck with his karate classes. He even had a satin really do much worse than beat us up more. At the worst, we’d jacket with a dragon on the back, his name on the sleeve, be confined to the safety of our yards for a while and avoid the and the dojo’s name in gold thread. He had recently learned usual secluded fishing spots, and at best we’d have the hairy, how to chop through thin pieces of wood and was flexible beastly monkey of James Regan off our backs. Suddenly we enough to kick higher than his head. Rosie’s skills were our realised we were playing with house money. secret weapon: if things got sketchy, he could always deliver a My potluck crew sat in our clubhouse planning our attack. Spot-Bilt sneaker to the jaw and give us time to regroup. We “We should form an official gang,” I said. I think I was just believed in the sting of the Scorpion. excited about writing a gang name on walls or maybe even Off we went to dig and wait. We marched on like the ran- putting mailbox decals on my bike’s number plate proclaiming dom excavation crew that Indiana Jones employed to find the the newfound gang. Everyone agreed, and it was time to vote Lost Ark. We set up camp and anticipated the roaring grind of

CLOCKWISE FROM TOP LEFT: Nick Zinner, Kim Baskinger, Ryan Murphy, Eva Talmadge, Kevin Hodapp, Angela Boatwright, Nathalie Shein Kevin Hodapp, Angela Boatwright, Nathalie Shein Eva Talmadge, Ryan Murphy, Kim Baskinger, Nick Zinner, CLOCKWISE FROM TOP LEFT: on a name. The Lions, Demons, Black Snakes and Titans were James’s dirt bike. We were ready.

44 VICE VICE 45 Burning petrol and the familiar growl of James’s bike manifested of “stinky kid” permeated the air. It certainly was James, but about 30 minutes into our dig; he was so fucking predictable. The he wasn’t rushing to kill me. Perhaps he was building suspense. Scorpions exchanged stone-faced nods, each of our heads playing When he reached the top of the stairs, I noticed that his foot was a victory soundtrack. Our minds were fixated on punching Drago, mummified in white bandages and he was gripping his stomach. blowing up the Death Star, and throwing that weird spiky thing He entered my room and immediately sat on my bed and from Krull at our enemy. Again, James slid his bike at us, creating stared at me, only this time there was no venom in his gaze. a dust cloud as he pushed his kickstand down. As his loose tan “I had to get a fucking tetanus shot and a bunch of stitches, work boot slid off during the motion, our window had arrived. asshole,” he said. “I didn’t give a shit, but my mum fucking Someone yelled “SCORPIONSSSSSSSSSS!” as we surrounded freaked out because I tracked blood into the house, then she him and unsheathed our weapons. James sat on his bike unfazed made me go to the hospital.” and laughed loudly, tilting his head back like Goliath, looking Apparently, the piece of wood I chose to bludgeon James’s towards the sky. “I’m gonna fucking wreck you guys!” he yelled. foot with had a rusty nail protruding from it that pierced his A bolt of lightning struck him and he grew to 30 feet tall, his bike thin-socked foot. No one had ever seen James’s parents: we now a Clydesdale breathing fire. I was frozen, afraid to flinch, but assumed he just lived on his own like one of the Outsiders, the rest of the Scorpions were already half a football field away. but he did actually have a mother, albeit one who smelled James jumped to his feet, his eyes fixed on me the entire time. My like boxed wine and cigarettes, according to my dad. Before I nunchakus lay limp in my hand, they were just parts of a broom- could even think of how to respond, James was mimicking the stick and would probably just shatter on his thick skull if I even garbled beginning of Black Sabbath’s “Iron Man” playing on had a chance to swing them. I was screwed. I spotted a small piece my stereo. “I am Iron Man!” he gurgled with his eyes closed, of two-by-four lying to my left, threw my homemade weapon far while Tony Iommi bent guitar notes that bounced around my into the woods, and picked up the lumber. skull as I envisioned my own funeral procession. I glanced up “What are you gonna do with that, Jim Duggan?” James and saw my parents standing next to a rail-thin woman with a shouted. Not only was he going to fucking kill me, but he was also maroon leather jacket and poodle perm. witty for the first time in his life. I reared back and emulated Roger Clemens’s windup and flung the wood at him, hoping it would hit his face and blind him, or perhaps knock the wind out of him. I was today’s Tom Sawyer and briefl y forgot The small piece of pine spiralled at James and fell well short of his face or sternum, it actually just hit his bare foot. Before I could that I’d be dead in less than 24 hours. even feel a touch of disappointment James screamed like a stuck pig, gripping his foot. “I’m gonna fucking kill youuuuuuuuuu!” “Yous guys is friends now, right?” she asked in a thick he exclaimed. It didn’t matter now—I had plenty of time to get New England accent. It was obvious she had been crying and the fuck out of there. My feet didn’t touch the ground on my her face was so wrinkled and pursed that it looked like she way home. It took me half a second to flee to my bedroom, blast was permanently taking a drag of a Virginia Slim. Three… Diamond Dave, and air-guitar to “Unchained”. As the adrena- two… one… The waterworks began and my parents looked line wore off, I debated penning my will on loose-leaf paper and completely shocked. My mother actually curled her lips in and asking my parents if they had thought about moving to another held back a smirk. town, preferably tomorrow. My mum knocked on the door and “I know James is wicked big and can be rough, but he ain’t told me I had a phone call. It was probably Rick checking to see a bad boy and he likes yous guys,” she said between sobs. “He if I was still alive. I told her I’d call him back, and she asked if she won’t push yous around anymore, OK. But my baby really got was my secretary before agreeing. I lied about a book report I had hurt today. He got stitches and everythin’,” she said, leaving to finish and shut my door. I’d be safe at school the next day, but the “-g” off everything as most in suburban Massachusetts did. expected to see James waiting for me when I got home. Both of James shot her a glare, presumably for the baby comment and my parents worked until 5 PM, giving him a two-hour window letting everyone know that he was mortal. My dad realised this to beat me to a pulp. was his time to be the alpha male and resolve this so he could I finished dinner quickly and asked to be excused. There get back to watching VHS tapes of Sherlock Holmes and the was nothing on television so I fished around in my closet and Three Stooges. found a handheld electronic football game that I hadn’t played “OK, boys, so let’s see you shake hands, and Anthony, in years. I swapped out the batteries from my Walkman, and you apologise for hitting James. Only fairies use weapons in a suddenly the flickering red lights on the screen had me dis- fight, you know that,” he said while giving me a slight wink. tracted. I was the New England Patriots squaring off against His tone and gestures confirmed that he wasn’t mad at me, and the Chicago Bears for a rematch, and I wasn’t going to lose this fuck, James was taller than him, so I think he knew exactly time. Rick had taped a bunch of his brother’s records and lent why I had to throw shit at him. I almost died! me the cassette so I could copy it. I was today’s Tom Sawyer We shook hands for about five seconds, and I thought and briefly forgot that I’d be dead in less than 24 hours. the cycle was over. “Hey, can I borrow this tape? I’ll copy it There was a knock on my door, I sprung up and answered tonight and bring it by tomorrow,” James asked. it. My dad was standing there looking a little annoyed and “Oh, this tape? You can just have it,” I replied, quickly confused. “One of your friends is here, Anthony,” he said. lying through my teeth: “I have all the records anyway, so I “Why don’t you guys hang out here while your mother and I can just tape them again.” There was no way in hell I wanted talk to Mrs. Regan.” to see James again. There was a chance that he’d be off his dirt My whole body went numb. Why the fuck had my dad bike for a while and we could finish our jump, but I wasn’t sold me out? There was now one flight of stairs between me really interested in going to the mountain again.

and death… I couldn’t even fucking move. A large silhouette From Live... Suburbia! by Anthony Pappalardo and Max G. Morton, published by

CLOCKWISE FROM TOP LEFT: Michael Galinsky, Casey Chaos, uncredited, Davo Scheich, uncredited Michael Galinsky, CLOCKWISE FROM TOP LEFT: lurched up the stairs with a noticeable limp. The familiar scent powerHouse Books.

46 VICE VICE 47 CURIOSITY IS REWARDED AT FACEBOOK.COM/TIGERBEERUK

After a night of blazing disco from house legend Derrick Carter, Tiger Beer hooked up with hotly tipped UK soul star Ben Westbeech for the latest in Tiger’s 8 NotKnown party series. On Thursday July 28, Ben celebrated the launch of his second album, There’s More to Life Than This, at The Loft on Kingsland Road, east London. Supported by a full live band, the intimate gig saw the Westcountry singer perform brand-new material and one or two old favourites to a packed room.

Boosted by a specially installed Funktion One soundsystem, Ben’s jazzy live show was followed by killer DJ sets from house and techno selector Midland and a crowd-pleasing session from London funk ambassador T. Williams. Previous instalments in the series have seen the likes of Off Modern and GET ME! team up with Tiger to create one-off events in unique venues across London.

For more photos and tickets to upcoming events, visit facebook.com/tigerbeeruk Over 18s only – terms and conditions apply

IN ASSOCIATION WITH

Photos by Dan Dennison and Benjamin Eagle La Fistinière’s fisting chapel, aka the Fistine Chapel. The interior of the fisting chapel is illustrated with examples of the type of business that goes on there.

VICE: How did you two meet? What are your guests like? BED & BREAKFAST & FISTING François: At a bathhouse. We quickly fell in love, and François: I’ve seen comments online about us like, “You’ve got Juan told me about fist-fucking on our first night together. to be a weirdo to go to this place.” But our guests are people you Take One up to the Elbow at France’s Juan Carlos: I tested him right away. He was talented, know: your baker, pharmacist, daughter’s philosophy teacher, he got in on his first try. From first contact, you know dentist, or the surgeon who operated on your grandmother. Luxurious La Fistinière whether a person’s hand was made for this or not. It’s Juan: The only thing we have never had is a dad and son. like somebody’s handshake. François: Thank God! [laughs] Juan: But we did have a guy with a baby seat in the back of INTERVIEW BY a Fistinière is an idyllic bed-and-breakfast located Why did you decide to open a hotel devoted to fisting? his car. CLARISSE MÉRIGEOT on the grounds of a former farm in the French François: We enjoyed throwing orgies at home and AND PAULINE Lcountryside, 100 miles south of Paris. It is distin- wanted to create a place dedicated to fist-fucking, What kind of gear can be found in the fisting chapel? MAGNENAT guished from all other B&Bs in the world by the fact where everyone would feel at home. We wanted some- Juan: We have a veterinary speculum, for cows and mares. It that it is dedicated to fist-fucking. Lodgers can eat a thing welcoming and clean. helps to open the anus wide really well. There are also table- PHOTOS BY gourmet French breakfast in the morning and get their Juan: We wanted a place for people to talk, where there tennis rackets for “dick-pong”. You play it with your balls PAULINE MAGNENAT buttholes stretched to the max by noon in one of five would be no discrimination based on race, age, looks, and dick. We have baseball bats, which are meant to be put private rooms. Or, for the more adventurous, there’s or dick size—somewhere people could come without up one’s ass, of course. The golf clubs are as well, and so are a communal “fisting chapel” in the attic that features feeling ashamed because they were fat or even straight. the bowling pins. We also have the big traffic cones that are all sorts of medieval-looking contraptions and a large used on motorways. We use them as seats. [laughs] There are mural of muscular men sticking limbs, chains and traf- The majority of the population isn’t too interested in also many different-size ropes, for bondage. Then there are fic cones up one another’s anuses in a series of complex, plunging their arms into assholes, but those who are act the mallets, which are for banging on the perineum and anus. painful-looking positions. The place is owned by Juan as if it’s a religion. What’s so awesome about fisting? Every time you knock, it opens wider. Oh, and the cage is for Carlos and François (they both go by their first names Juan: It’s the most intimate sort of relation there is, locking up our naughty guests. only), a friendly pair of untraditional gentlemen who apart from touching someone’s brain directly with remodelled the building themselves and run all day-to- your fingers. With fisting, you’re touching some- What do the neighbours think about your operation? day operations except the meals (which are lovingly one’s bowels, and through the bowels, all the internal François: We met the local mayor to discuss our project. Two prepared by François’s sister, Nelly). They also have a organs. It’s a practice that requires a lot of attention. days ago, policemen came by to see whether we had any prob- cat named Fistouille, which roughly translates to “My It’s the act of opening another’s perception in a spiri- lems related to homophobia, which has never happened. Fingers Beloved Fist Fuck”. Clearly, these Frenchmen are not tual way, and it can be almost religious. I believe in crossed. We invite people from the village sometimes, to have a afraid to get their hands dirty. the magic of sex. drink or two, to show that we are normal, nice people. Juan Carlos and François pose outside La Fistinière, their pride and joy.

50 VICE VICE 51 This is a veterinary s peculum. Typically it’s used to spread animals’ orifices for surgery and insemination. In this case, it’s a party favour for fisting enthusiasts.

You told me earlier the stuffage record here was someone who put 14 golf balls up his ass. François: Is that really interesting? Fisting, for us, is not about performance. It’s about pleasure.

Are you ever impressed by someone’s, um, abilities? Juan: I can be impressed by the anatomical capacity of some- one, yes. A person with a whole arm up his ass, for example.

How does that work? Don’t you run out of space? Juan: If the person is lying on his back, the intestine goes to the right first, then turns left. The arm follows it naturally. Still, you have to know the anatomy to do this. François: We’ve never had accidents here, though. If we know someone can be brutal, we’ll keep an eye on him. Everyone watches out for the others.

Do you take part in the fistivities? Juan: We do it from time to time. We can start touching a guy, but we’re never completely available because we need to keep an eye on everyone all the time. François: We got to a point when things started to go really bad between the two of us. Once the Fistinière was up and rolling we didn’t have a single minute left for ourselves and almost broke up. We talked a lot and now we each have a second husband. They’re not around all the time, but they give us each extra pleasure. The Fistinière takes all of our time, we’re here every day of the year, 24/7. Between the playroom, breakfast, cleaning, and everything else there are days when we wish we could escape.

52 VICE LI’L DOs & DON’Ts

Versus dress, Spirit Hoods hat; American Apparel hat Versus PHOTOS BY VITO FUN Stylist: Paloma Perez Stylist’s assistants: Nikki Gonzalez and Scarlet Giesbrecht Our resolution for 2011 is to cull the boring “this town sucks” whiners from our pool of friends so we can focus our full attention on the ones who turn another year with nothing to do from “Oh my” and “A boo-hoo” into “Woo-hoo” and “Give me some more K.”

54 VICE VICE 55 DO DON’T H&M top, Volcom shorts, Tommy Hilfiger sandals, vintage sunglasses from Beacon’s Closet, Michael Kors belt, Céline purse; Hilfiger sandals, vintage sunglasses from Beacon’s shorts, Tommy H&M top, Volcom sunglasses, Roxy belt, Hello Kitty bracelets NYC wig, Versace Marc Jacobs top, Converse trainers, Ricky’s tights, The Sock Man socks, Opening Ceremony boots, Silly Bandz bracelets Element top, American Apparel leggings, Leg Avenue

Jesus, could these two have summer any more under control? Even their negatives are making me wonder how The one good part of dressing up like a Hello Kitty juggalogre is that most of us have been conditioned since child- hard it would be to fake owning a yacht. hood to avoid disturbing your slumber.

56 VICE VICE 57 DO DON’T Etro shirt, Matix shorts, vintage sunglasses from Beacon's closet, Silly Bandz bracelet; vintage shirt from What Goes Around Comes Around, H&M shorts Etro shirt, Matix shorts, vintage sunglasses from Beacon's closet, Silly Bandz bracelet; shirt What Goes Around Comes suspenders adidas jacket, Burton t-shirt, O’Neill jeans, Nike trainers, G-Unit hat, Topshop

I envy the currently non-existent foetus who someday gets to whip out this picture and say, “Here’s my mum These jeans wars have really got to stop. All the waffling between tight and baggy has left the vanguard of the and dad before I was born.” trousers community looking like two circus midgets trying to sneak into an 18-certificate film.

58 VICE VICE 59 DO DON’T Gucci robe, vintage shirt from Screaming Mimi’s, Still Life hat, Emu slippers, Tom Ford sunglasses, American Apparel belt Still Life hat, Emu slippers, Tom Gucci robe, vintage shirt from Screaming Mimi’s, jacket, Wrangler jeans, Opening Ceremony boots, Coal Headwear hat; Famous t-shirt, BDG shirt, HUE tights, Levi’s jacket, World & Vaudeville Trash Converse sneakers Artful Dodger shirt, custom vintage jeans by Jessica Resler,

Don’t feel guilty, guy. This is exactly what you’re supposed to do when you come into a lot of cash: wake up Yikes! It’s those spooky Nazi kids from the Village of the Denimed! at 5 PM, assemble a uniform of leftover party scraps, and devote the better part of the day to figuring out who “that chick with the weird eyes” was from last night.

60 VICE VICE 61 DOs

TIGER BEER PRESENTS 8NOTKNOWN:

EARNEST ENDEAVOURS & BLACK ATLANTIC DANTE FRIED CHICKEN – LONDON EDITION

THE DANTE FRIED CHICKEN SHOW!

SECRET GUEST

WE’RE DOING RELEASE ALEXANDER NUT & FATIMA The Supreme Court has finally declared that dressing your children up as giant merkins and Now that Game of Thrones is a super- PARTIES AROUND THE THE BLESSINGS forcing them to march in the Merkin Pride Parade is totally legal, as long as everyone pretends big megasuccess, George R.R. Martin has they have no idea what a merkin is. decided to celebrate by adding a couple more letters to his name: MGD. COUNTRY, COME. FLAKO AUGUST DARKHOUSE FAM Wednesday 24 August – Nation of Shopkeepers, Leeds JON PHONICS Thursday 25 August – The Old Blue Last, London Friday 26 August – The Green Door Store, Brighton PATCHWORK PIRATES SEPTEMBER FINE FOOD & MUSIC Wednesday 28 September – Nation of Shopkeepers, Leeds Thursday 29 September – The Old Blue Last, London SUNDAY 28TH AUGUST 2011 Friday 30 September – The Green Door Store, Brighton 3PM - 11PM OCTOBER SPACE STUDIOS, 129-131 MARE ST, Wednesday 26 October – Nation of Shopkeepers, Leeds LONDON E83RH Thursday 27 October – The Old Blue Last, London Friday 28 October – The Green Door Store, Brighton ADVANCE TICKETS AVAILABLE FROM NATION OF SHOPKEEPERS www.bit.ly/dantefriedchicken 27 - 37 Cookridge Street, Leeds, LS2 3AG WWW.EARNESTENDEAVOURS.COM THE OLD BLUE LAST WWW.BLACK-ATLANTIC.COM 38 Great Eastern Street, London, EC2A 3ES WWW.RIDEORFRY.COM THE GREEN DOOR STORE WWW.TIGERBEER.COM Howie Mandel used to wear that glove purse What if Batman was a radical gay I like this new thing they’re doing at Trafalgar Arches, Lower Goods Yard, Brighton BN1 4FQ onstage. It was filled with latex gloves that Muslim? He would move the Batcave to music festivals now. After taking a dump he would pull down over his face and blow the mountains of Afghanistan and would in the Porta Potty, a Mexican girl rubs up with his nose until they exploded. Howie continue to solve crimes. But they would her perfumed head all over your ass. It’s VICELAND.COM/ISSUELAUNCH did that bit so much he finally burst a major only be crimes against semen. incredibly revitalising and gets you pumped blood vessel and that was the end of glove for several more hours of Kings of Leon. @viceuk #VICElaunch viceland.com/blogs/uk-photos facebook.com/vice comedy forever.

62 VICE DON’Ts

If you go to college and live in the dorms and one night your roommate crawls into your bed Summer is in da house! And you know and fucks you, that’s not rape because you gave advance consent when you filled out your what that means. It’s time to cut holes in the college application. pockets of your swimming trunks and head down to the beach for some serious jackin’. But be sure to bring a baby with you, so if anyone gives you flak you can just say you’re looking for nappy pins.

What’s the secret to staying so young and Before Cinderella met her Prince Charming Most people like the Beatles, right? But vibrant? It’s easy. Simply put a little dab of this is what she had to look at every summer the thing is that most people are fucking Oil of Olay’s beige goop on your face every during those horrible family holidays to douchebags. So, following that logic, the morning. It’s the only beige goop on the Cape Cod. Beatles wrote music that appeals primarily to market that contains semen that was taken fucking douchebags. Therefore, ipso facto, from a porn set in 1975. fuck the Beatles.

64 VICE DOs

KNEE ARAB SPRING HITS THE DOG DAYS OF SUMMER. EGYPT

DEEPFROM THE FRONT LINES OF THE REVOLUTION. LIBYA

Fuck Team 6. This is real bravery right here. Going topless on a beach raft even though it Speaking of heroes, looks like an emergency kinda makes you look like a pile of plain doughnuts wearing an enormous crystal maxipad. call is coming though—some lady got nipple burns from whipping off her t-shirt too fast. Just another day on the line for Spring Break 911.

CONGO CONFLICT MINERALS AND THE REBELSIN WHO LOVE THEM. NEWS BELFAST WHERE THE TROUBLES NEVER END.

This is the perfect look for the hermaphro- I was just thinking that if G.G. Allin were Here at the DOs & DON’Ts we’re assaulted dad on the go. Very sporty, but still says, “I alive today he would be 55 years old. That by images of sweaty transsexuals teabagging wanna rock out with my scrambled genitals means he would totally be eligible for the each other or homeless people with tumours THESE NEW DOCUMENTARIES AND MORE out!” And the bag can hold up to eight big GoldK prescription discounts at Kmart. Up dripping out of their assholes, so when COMING THIS AUTUMN ON VICE.COM bottles of Listerine, which is ideal when you to 20% off. Way to miss out, shithead. we see this it’s like taking our eyeballs to spend the better part of your days jetting Selfridges and letting them sit in the Zero- over to the next glory hole. Gravity Massage Chair for five minutes.

66 VICE DON’Ts

If I remember my Sunday school teachings, Ash Wednesday is the day that Jesus Christ went That’s right, dreadlock dude, take a look into to his apostles and said, “Watch this shit.” He then took a fistful of ashes, smeared it on some the future at what your life will be like when dumb guy’s head and said, “Now you walk around all day with that ash on your head. Don’t you shave off those dreadlocks. Exactly the wash it off!” And that guy was all like, “Duh… OK.” And Jesus went back to his apostles and same except with fewer shirts. they were all like, “LOL”.

Pleated jeans with double ankle belt straps? Hey, it’s Cool New York Dad with his soul “So do you want to have a cookie-sheet/Wiffle Who thought that up? Probably someone patch and his black leather satchel filled Ball bat war in the rain or do you want to be who saw Shaquille O’Neal in Kazaam and with jazz CDs he borrowed from his job at a fucking pussy for your whole life?” thought, “This movie would be so much Borders, which he can blast all night long better if there was more denim in it.” and into the wee small hours of the morning cuz his ex-wife has the kids this weekend.

68 VICE PARTY NAKED

PHOTOS BY MATTHEW FROST Stylist’s assistant: Bobby Doherty; Model: Lauren Young Make-up and hair: Jen Myles using MAC Cosmetics STYLIST: ANNETTE LAMOTHE-RAMOS Special thanks to Sun Ridge Nudist Resort American Apparel visor; Suno swimsuit, DC shorts, Apparel bum bag, Nixon watch; Oakley sunglasses

70 VICE VICE 71 Saturdays Surf NYC shirt, Motel jeans, Reiss belt Sachin + Babi shirt, American Apparel headband

72 VICE VICE 73 Reebok trainers; American Apparel scrunchie and socks, Vans sneakers, Richard Nicoll for Fred Perry gloves Reebok trainers; American Apparel scrunchie and socks, Vans Roxy dress, Dolce Vita shoes, Topshop bracelets shoes, Topshop Roxy dress, Dolce Vita

74 VICE VICE 75 Reebok shoes, Wilson racket and ball; Amy Winehouse for Fred Perry racket and ball; Amy Winehouse Reebok shoes, Wilson shirt, Robinson les Bains shorts, Suno headband, Nike socks, Reebok racket and ball shoes, American Apparel sweatband, Wilson Vivienne Westwood jacket, Westwood Vivienne Lacoste skirt, ASOS shoes

76 VICE VICE 77 THE COLLIDING WORLDS PART II

THE CENTENNIAL MID THE FORUM MID LEATHER THE STAN SMITH MID TREATED

THE STAN SMITH TREATED THE ZX 700 POJAK THE ZX 700 OCRA

They said it couldn’t happen twice. They said that once was ERSANDSUEDES SPECIALMULTILAYEREDSURFACESANDlNISHES AND enough. But you know what? They were wrong. Because next a range of sparkling and unusual colour combinations. “When month Diesel and adidas Originals are back with the second we make things, we want people to wear them and make round of their limited-edition sneaker collaboration series. them even more alive than they already are,” says Stefano. After the success of last year’s debut capsule collection, “The more you use the sneakers, the better they get.” Colliding Worlds Part II features six classic adidas styles redesigned by Diesel. So how does the collaboration between Diesel and adidas Originals work? “Innovation and quality were the two things You could call it a battle between two iconic brands, but that brought us together,” says Stefano. “We started work- there’s only one winner: you, the sneaker lover, because ing together four years ago. With this series, we select the each shoe has been tastefully pimped up by the Italian design styles together, then Diesel makes the design and adidas house. “We’ve put even more of our DNA into these clas- develops the shoe based on our design. We both love design sic adidas styles,” says Stefano Rosso of Diesel. “When you creativity.” have two brands with such strong heritage in two very distinct worlds—classic kicks for adidas and the denim world and all 4HElRSTCOLLECTIONTOOKOFFONTHEWEB WHICHISWHYTHISNEW the treatments for Diesel—it’s very easy to apply one world range launches with an exclusive preview online on Monday, to the other and make something unique.” August 22 and then in-store one week later on August 29. And once again, this series is strictly limited. “We don’t want The famous shoes in question—namely the Forum, the to sell it everywhere,” adds Stefano, “we want to keep this Centennial, the ZX 700 Pojak and ZX 700 Ocra, and the Stan small. These are for the sneaker lovers.” Smith Camou and Stan Smith Mid—have each undergone a Diesel makeover that takes in rivets and studs, treated leath- You know what to do now. Get them while they’re hot.

diesel.com/diesel-adidas TUBULAR BELLES PHOTOS BY MAISIE COUSINS STYLING BY SAM D. VOULTERS Grooming by Stephanie Gannon-Malcom using MAC Cosmetics Fred Perry top, vintage Lee dungarees from Mint, Dr Martens shoes, jewellery hold-ups Fred Perry cardigan, Nike skirt, Tezenis 80 VICE VICE 81 Vintage top from Mint, Topshop bra, Urban Outfitters shorts, Converse shoes, Eastpak bag, Claire’s Accessories earrings bra, Urban Outfitters shorts, Converse shoes, Eastpak bag, Claire’s top from Mint, Topshop Vintage COS top, Carhartt shirt around waist, vintage adidas shorts from Mint, G-Shock watch, jewellery 82 VICE VICE 83 Pringle top, American Apparel skirt, Palladium boots, Specsavers glasses, vintage bangle from Mint, bracelets Accessories earrings vintage top from Beyond Retro, Lavenham vest, McQ kilt, American Apparel leggings, Claire’s 84 VICE VICE 85 POUNDING THE PAVEMENT Bruce Gilden Does Street Photography Right

INTERVIEW AND PORTRAIT BY JONNIE CRAIG PHOTOS BY BRUCE GILDEN

udging by the poorly worded pitches VICE receives on a daily was everything until I learned better. I think the whole reason I basis, “street photographer” has become shorthand for “I am a like to get close to people when I shoot them is because if you had J graffiti-enthusiast DJ with a fitted-hat collection, terrible social done that to my father he would have knocked you out. Literally. skills and an interest in nightclubs and the people who frequent I think it’s my way of getting back at him. them. Oh, and I have a physical aversion to focusing a camera.” So it’s easy to forget that up until recently, this style of photog- Have you ever got into trouble for the way you jump out at people raphy had a very different, very literal definition: picture-taking when you first decide to photograph them? informed by unchecked insanity, spontaneous joy, downtrodden Yeah, once in a while. I’ve had fistfights. I didn’t lose any, but I’ve souls, criminal behaviour, spewing fire hydrants, and all the oth- had a camera broken by a guy who tried to fight me. Ironically I er varieties of filth and glory that can be documented by simply put it down to stop it from getting smashed, but he picked it up and walking down an unfamiliar pavement. threw it. But generally I have a very good bedside manner, so those One of the genre’s forebears—and perhaps its finest practitio- things tend not to happen too often. I’m good at picking the right ner—is Bruce Gilden. Born in 1946, his career started on the streets people. I don’t take any shit from anybody though, even at 64 years of New York City, where he became obsessed with its peculiar old. One time I was at Mardi Gras and this biker chick comes up and varied characters. His style gained almost instant recognition to me and said, “Do you want to shoot a picture of my breasts?” I from master photographers such as Henri Cartier-Bresson, who said, “Sure.” I took the picture and then she grabbed the camera, has heaped praise on Bruce’s work. His subjects have included which was around my neck, and started walking me around the Japan’s yakuza, grinding poverty in India and Haiti, Irish book- festival. She was joking, but that will never happen again. ies and gambling addicts, prostitutes, members of bike gangs, and anyone else who caught his discerning eye. VICE was lucky I’m very curious about your work with yakuza members. How did enough to obtain a selection of unpublished work from Bruce, and you manage to get in with them? he kindly agreed to a short chat about his ability to convince just I had a few people make some connections out there, but the about anyone to stand in front of his lens and be happy about it. yakuza weren’t too hard to track down. With all their tattoos you know who the fuck a yakuza is on the street. I’ve grown up VICE: I’ve read that photography wasn’t necessarily your dream around gangsters so I have a very easy manner with them, I treat vocation as a child. them like everybody else. If I have a problem, I tell them and I Bruce Gilden: I hadn’t initially aspired to be a photographer. I only expect the same back. I only shot about six days over a period of wanted three things in life: to be a boxer, own a monkey and play ten months for that book, a lot of them on the street; they didn’t the drums. I couldn’t be a boxer because my father didn’t want seem to mind much. me to get my brains knocked out, I couldn’t get a monkey because they’re dirty, and I wasn’t allowed to play the drums because they’re You also shot some biker gangs while you were in Japan. Were too loud. Years later, I was at college, and I didn’t know what to you worried they would turn out to be imitators like those weird study. So I quit to take courses in acting and photography. Acting Japanese greasers who are basically cartoons? was going all right, but then I took a picture for the first time, devel- Before I got there I did think they would just be kids trying to oped and printed it myself, and I said, “Jesus Christ, look what I look like they were something else. But they were full-grown, and did.” I was astounded at what I had managed to make because the what I mean by that is that you could tell who the boss was going only other thing that I had done well in my life was sports. Blow-Up to be. It was the same with the muscle, the brains, the teddy-boy had just been released, so it suddenly became very trendy to be a fashion type, and who would turn into an alcoholic. It wasn’t just photographer. I didn’t love Blow-Up as a movie, but it did put the all about the look for them. idea of becoming a photographer into my head. What’s next for you? You approach subjects almost as if they are characters in a book or I’m heading to Haiti again to shoot some more pictures of the movie. Have you always looked at people and strangers in this way? ongoing disaster there, and I’m going to be continuing a project I’ve been obsessed with them my whole life. My father was a char- I’ve been shooting about foreclosures around America. Don’t even acter; a racketeer-looking five-foot-seven, 220-pound guy who get me started. The whole thing is a scam by the bankers and the wore hats, diamond rings and always had a big cigar in his mouth. government, and I’ve been shooting the victims of these scams. I idolised him—he was George Washington, he was a fireman, he Plus, I’ve got a long-term project on bad guys.

86 VICE VICE 87 New York, New York, 1982 New York, New York, 1979

New Orleans, Louisiana, 1975 New Orleans, Louisiana, 1975 88 VICE VICE 89 Lourdes, France, 1992

New York, New York, 1980 New York, New York, 2004 90 VICE VICE 91 CLOUDS AND APPARITIONS BY LYNNE TILLMAN PAINTINGS BY SASCHA BRAUNIG

Lynne Tillman is an author, essayist, art critic and the fiction editor of Fence magazine. Many well-read individuals recognise Lynne’s 2006 novel American Genius, a Comedy as part of a cautiously guarded canon that includes Gravity’s Rainbow, Infinite Jest, The Dead Father, White Noise, etc. It will teach you lots of things about Zulu, the Manson family, chair design, and what life’s like for an extremely intelligent middle- aged woman stuck in an asylum. Hence we are extremely proud to present an exclusive extract from Lynne’s novel-in-progress, which will tentatively share the title of this sneak preview. We’ve coupled the story with paintings by Sascha Braunig whose portrayals of hypnotic, iridescent beings were met with acclaim at her first solo exhibition at Foxy Production in New York last spring. Her work, like Lynne’s, makes our brains feel weird in very good ways.

he end doesn’t depend on the beginning. The end may be father’s an agnostic and a lawyer, or maybe the same deal, the beginning of other possible endings. Damned with Doubt. T There’s a story in my family about Great-Uncle My mother thinks she is America. Her family arrived on Ezekiel, who didn’t know, until he was 18 and married to the Mayflower—with the criminals, Mother; the religious Margaret, that women went to the bathroom. It’s always crackpots, Mother. Man, she gets pissed. We were poets, told with this euphemism. My father, whose uncle Ezekiel feminists, abolitionists, politicians, she says. Her Boston was, told it to my older brother, Hart, when he was 13, people hung with the Henry James crowd; but when she then me at 13—a father-son rite of passage—and his two came of age, she let family privilege go, which was part of brothers told their sons, and then their daughters, when the her privilege. Image was a personal issue for my mother; fathers loosened up about girls. the way I’d put it, it was in the family as ancestor worship, My kid sister, Clover, baby of the family, was named and she knew herself as an image from birth, distanced or after a minor-league 19th-century figure on my mother’s not. Her family’s house was decorated with ancestral por- side, a great-great-great-ancestor. Historical Clover had a traits by respectable English and American painters, and tragic end, but Mother liked the woman, the name, and later on 19th-century photographers. Mother was our only gave it to her baby girl. Also Mother felt attached to her family photographer, until I was eight and she gave me a family in a mystical way, she said. I thought it was creepy, cool camera. She owned a Zeiss Ikon, and my father bought given the provenance, but you can’t argue with mysticism; the first Polaroid camera in 1962. In 1982 Kodak launched you just need to know your enemy. For a long time, I stayed disc photography, the easy-to-use, “decision-free” cameras out of all that, or tried to be objective. That was when I built around a rotating disc of film. Mom bought me that. had hope for objectivity. But the mind is weaker than the It was cool, unfussy. Primitive now. I loved it, but I was flesh. Just kidding. My father didn’t know that much about more interested in bugs and rockets then. Then, at about his genealogy. They came from different parts of the old 12, I went crazy for photography. You could say it became country, his mother, German-Scottish-Irish, father, Russian everything to me. Jewish and Austrian, all from the mid- to late 1800s. The I was a boy who didn’t kill insects or torture small usual immigrant deal: fourth and fifth generations not only creatures, except my sister; she believes adamantly that I don’t refer to the old country but also never think about tortured her. Tormented, that’s more like it. When I was six, it; brothers became professionals, sisters married well. My I found ecstasy in our backyard. A praying mantis appeared. Sascha Braunig, Chameleon, 2011, oil on canvas, 24 x 20 inches. Courtesy of Foxy Production, New York.

92 VICE VICE 93 CLOUDS AND APPARITIONS by Lynne Tillman

I didn’t know what it was, but it rocked my world. I watched the hospital. I figured he jumped around in the halls like they underlined their gene-carriers’ supposed exceptional- Then: Why am I interested in this? What’s my stake in it? its little head turning on its neck—the only insect on earth a big insect, the way he did in our house. But older bro ism by bestowing us with “unique monikers”. I’m Ezekiel All portraits are self-portraits. that turns its head, like a person. They’re dinosaur humans. Hart went into medicine, so that got taken. When Uncle (after Dad’s uncle and also a sixth-century prophet) Hooper The world is wired, and remote has several meanings. PMs have a face and look you in the eyes. Theirs are in Lionel was drunk, he lunged at the couch, collapsed, and (maternal surname) Stark (paternal German-Jewish- So, a so-called native informant—a “native” is also an the middle of their tiny heads, and they see the way we do. slept like the dead until he was pulled off by his wife (Aunt English-Unitarian). In grade school, “Zeke” was yucky, upstate New York gang member—is not an innocent infor- So cool. The PM noticed me, looked right at me. I thought Marnie). My father drank too, but held it better, and he “Stark” sucky, I rhymed with everything. Brother Hart mant. No one’s innocent. The most obvious stuff wasn’t 60 I was face to face with a god or an alien, E.T. is a PM. was an estate lawyer. Hooper Stark, same rhymey biz, but he glories in it, imag- or 70 years ago, and new-style obviousness hides in bla- The PM really took me in, with sympathy and intelligence. Lionel took the big hit, a one-time muscle-destroying ines he’s special, like Hart Crane, the writer. But he’s just tant plain sight. Many humanists and social scientists are I wanted him for a pet, a friend, and named him Mr Petey. heart attack. My miserable father battled oesophageal can- a pathologist. incensed—everyone appears to be incensed—about the loss (My parents wouldn’t let me bring him indoors.) I could cer. People mostly lose this one, and eventually he did too, Our Clover (Clover Sturgis Hooper Stark) doesn’t say of objectivity and Truth with a cap T. It’s not the end of talk to him—it could have been female—he listened better not so long ago. Through his breathing tube, Dad spat out anything about her handle, or if she suffers because of its Western civ. Or maybe it is. than my parents, and pretty much every day I went into the his last words to me. Nothing spiritual from an estate law- sad legacy (I do). She suffers from selective mutism. She can backyard to find him. Mr Petey usually showed up. I never yer: get your money out of the market. I almost forgave him talk, but she doesn’t want to, or she chooses to be silent— s part of my investigations of self and posse, I’ve touched him. You can’t for that, later. and it’s debatable, maybe she doesn’t choose. She’s six years quizzed myself on what actions I’d take in various cir- kill a PM, my mother I’m so running ahead of younger. Ten years younger than Hart. That’s a big spread. Acumstances: what if I lost my home and had to live on said, huffily, they’re a myself. Clover’s a singular presence in our midst. the streets? What if, before the pill, I’d gotten a girl preg- protected species, and if 1) Not a good time in nant, say, in the 1950s. Would I have married her? Or, if an you kill one, we’ll have to my life. In most ways, not. ultural anthropology—my branch, ethnography—isn’t invading army—drones flying low, monster submarines ris- pay the government a lot 2) Could be exciting, if a 19th-century discipline anymore. There’s rigour, or ing at Boston Harbour—had troops landing on the beaches, of money. I wasn’t ever it weren’t my life. Csolemnity, about approach and methodology, but there would I fight? I think I would. But first I’d hide. Then, when going to kill Petey, she 3) Studying people’s are questions and restiveness in this very divided field about they came near my house, I’d fight. Still, by then it might was crazy, but learning lives, beliefs, customs. A recording subject/object relationships, objectivity itself, be over. about the existence of a cultural anthropologist, which was challenged especially with poststructuralism; and At first I think there would be a warning, along with protected species thrilled ethnographer of images. the field’s been dug up, blasted, and basically either lies in some panic, but I’d have bought an Uzi or another attack my kid-brain. Still does. 4) Things shifted—I ruins or doesn’t, or it’s helped by its differences. gun. Maybe my posse—all the guys in my sample— would I wondered if I was one, became my own subject. I specialise in media, especially photography, also in launch into guerrilla action; maybe I’d be solid with fighting a special boy with special A soft science, Hart family, sexual/gender behaviour, and relationships as building to building, block to block. What about our other powers because I knew Mr says. “Not putting it understood through images. I’m an associate professor friends and families, what happens... Petey. I revelled in talking down, Little Bro.” He’s at a northeastern university, gaming for tenure, and if I At this, I stop imagining and shake my head. with Mr Petey. You can’t four years older and a play my cards right (and don’t piss off the moribund in my The point is, I don’t want to be taken over. find a PM stuffed animal, forensic pathologist. department), it will happen. The questions propelling my curiosity about others— so I made drawings, and Right, Big Bro, I say, Cultural studies scored big during the 1990s; since then, their images and mine—are the bits I recognise and also my mother sewed me one. and you see dead people. the academy’s star is anybody’s guessing game. But no don’t recognise in myself, but which filter my narrative, I still have it, Petey’s head Actually, dead people Sundays off in our post-60s academic and not-so-academic my lopsided tale of self. Self-defining, self-mystifying, and flops down after all these have a lot of currency in civil wars. A cultural anthropologist reflects on differences, mythologising. I still know when I’m blowing smoke. Some, years. Mr Petey has seen my family. similarities, patterns, problems, gathers information; we like me, use self-denigration as a way to rise up. But when it all—Mr Petey, plural. I Our family house was look at how human beings act and ask why, about others your story goes passive, I mean, when it’s changed on you, didn’t know then that he/ a large 1960s split-level and ourselves. The native is no “primitive”, maybe never but that’s a different condition: What happens to you when you she lives only one year. ranch: four bedrooms, certainly not now; we can be any “we”—whoever we are. are no longer the agent of your story? A PM’s short life span parents on one end, chil- “We” can all be subjects and objects of investigation. And fundamentally defies the dren the other, bedrooms are. Then the variations—everything and everyone’s being long with Mr Petey, other small creatures, outer space,

value of human longev- the same size for Hart Sascha Braunig, Lashes , 2011, oil on panel over canvas, 22 x 18 inches. Courtesy of Foxy Production, New York. studied, from Tokyo, Sydney, London, to Borneo and back. rockets, robots and cloud formations, the family pho- ity, its evolutionary merit. and me and baby sister In the midst of the field’s epistemological crisis, I am Atos, movies, and videos were my early obsessions. I The flaws therein. Clover—but hers had more windows, a sore point—and breaking away. Or coming to terms with myself. Almost classified and did my best to preserve them. My library- I must’ve fooled myself—actually, kids don’t fool them- there were walls of picture windows in the living- and dining- kidding. (Because there’s no strict separation between “us” making was a formative experience, and a secret world only selves—when a new PM showed up, because their markings room areas, slate floors, an open kitchen with an island, and “them”, I’ve started observing my posse and me, guys I understood, with a system I alone knew, because I con- and colours vary. I don’t know what I thought. But a PM floor-to-ceiling stone fireplace, and we were sort of in the 30 to 40, and our attitudes toward women.) ceived of it. I stored and preserved (or thought I did) how arrived in the spring and stayed through summer, I called country. Outside Boston, near Beverly. John Updike ter- What you study is informed by yourself. Or, them isn’t I wanted. Martin Scorsese says preservation is filmmaking. him/her Mr Petey, and then one day Mr Petey went for a ritory. Nice family place, if you didn’t know the family. a “them”; there’s an interaction. Because how you arrive Think about how much of existence goes into preserving vacation, in the South. I figured that out for myself. And Just kidding. at the information is also a matter of interaction and per- what could instantly disappear, and maybe should, like that was always Mr Petey in the backyard, until I left home. My parents told stories of their upbringings, to the point spective. It’s a genuine question, how you behave with your taking a photo at a wedding. Good or bad? Which is impor- I was a dreamy kid. I’m not so dreamy now. Maybe I where they couldn’t make sense of them, or why they were informants; it’s about trust but also the ethnographer can’t tant, the moment or the memorialisation? am still, but in a different way, and my dreaminess is more telling them. Reminding them: they shouldn’t have had trust that he or she knows exactly the motivations for coop- I named my cataloguing system “Zekabet”, coding blocked to me. Or it was, until recently. Anyway, I had children. Three of us. “But we had you. We love you.” eration. I’ve worked with family photographs since grad by colours and numbers and symbols I liked. Naturally, dreamed about being a medical doctor because of Dad’s They were older parents, who waited until the best time, school. Why do people open their doors and let you in, why the praying mantis was significant. My colour was dark brother Lionel. He told me people wore green uniforms in they said, to have the best children. With all that pimping, do they answer questions, what’s at stake in their lives. green, like Petey’s; any home video or Super 8 I appeared

94 VICE VICE 95 CLOUDS AND APPARITIONS by Lynne Tillman

in was marked with a dark green Crayola. If I shot it, it y dissertation, You’re a Picture, You’re Not a Pic- rom my POV, storytelling IS ethnography. Some study I remember asking my mother what her work was, was marked with lime-green Crayola, and any green was ture, was pubbed by a good university press when I society in its smallest gestures, conversations, for in- because I knew she wasn’t a housewife: “No woman in her number one. Hart was shit-brown, Clover violet, my Mwas 27. “Hot-shot associate prof,” bro’ Hart said. Fstance, those guys Harold Garfinkel and Harvey Sacks. right mind would be a housewife,” she’d said at dinner to mother grey-blue (heavy weather), my father alcohol-red. Hot-shit Hart. (But I’m on my third book now, Men in I’m down with that. I hear society singing (just kidding) Great-Uncle Zeke. He was drunk, laughed it off. It made an These accorded with their temperaments and behaviour. Quotes, and on a sabbatical, sort of.) Hart’s, constitu- when people gather. And shoot people. Just kidding. Every impression on me, in 1983 or so. From the 60s through the (My mother once wore a mood ring; it made an impact.) tionally, a weak sadist, no cojones. He’s bad enough, word in a conversation glues society or tears it. Niceties and 80s, mostly educated, articulate, frustrated, despairing, ill- The code never left my pocket. My biggest problem was but several assholes have married into the family, and social customs are more than niceties—don’t say hello to treated women, who were housewives or not, voiced those how to show the passage of time, except by dates, like the there’s nothing to do about in-laws but despise and ig- your mail carrier today. See what happens. kinds of positions. Second-wave feminism. My mother year, say, 1989. Too easily decoded. So I created a calendar nore them. Clover, at 31, lives at home. With Mother. I argued, in my second book, Speaking in Plain Sight, that never believed women were inferior to men. (Even imag- that related to weather, that is, when it was first recorded There’s a picture. a family photo album effects a silent conversation, one that ining my mother as inferior is wack.) But women bought in 1880, or “Year 1”. Simple, but cloud formations and In You’re a Picture… I analysed how families picture constitutes an unspoken familial narrative, which adds to it, she said. And for many, there wasn’t the same urge to movements were also factored in, because I was entranced themselves through their own photographs, what that what’s reported from sib to sib, generation to generation. But overcome what she and others felt was injustice. Personal by clouds and why they took the shapes they did, that they picturing implies in terms of association, pecking order, it’s the image of the family that’s built by a combo of words loss. But she told me that people can’t lose what they never had volume but were made of air, of space. That killed me. gender relations, etc. I interviewed over 200 families and pix. For this book, I didn’t interview families, I grabbed had, a statement also pertaining to me and my narrative in When I wished upon a star, I wished for the preserva- across America, and chose pictures from their albums or images from the net and read them only as pictures: formal a crucial way. My father claimed he was a male feminist; I tion of the open-eyed boy I was—to keep him safe, pure, O let them do the choosing. They told me who was who, in terms of composition, how the image was constructed, knew he was a condescending asshole. stars in the sky. In another century, I might have become a what was going on, and weird narratives spilled out. As an etc., and as interpretation, When Great-Uncle castrato, to hold back maturation. I once heard a concert ethnographer, I inferred meanings by sorting through the what they projected. Also, Ezekiel, the one who was recording of the last known castrato, made in 1905— consonances and dissonances, and what the gaps meant, if I considered what the mod- totally ignorant about totally eerie, his boy voice. I wondered how he had aged, anything. There’s not much a picture can actually tell you. els were from art, movies, women, and his brothers if his face had stayed boyish too. Me, I was a shouter. You can’t read an expression as a permanent response or etc., for their compositions were kids, they made up I’d shout at my parents, who didn’t raise their voices, so effect of anything or anyone. A family’s secrets may appear and meanings, and also their own basketball team that scared them. “I’m not going to grow up like you, I as absences and exclusion. A first marriage was annulled: from earlier albums. I in the Not-So-Tall League won’t become an adult.” Not unusual for me or America, no pix. A child given up for adoption, no pix of the preg- did a semiotic breakdown (they were all under five but I’m nearly 37 (born June 28, 1975). “You’re emotion- nant mother. The not-there unpictured life, or invisible of how the images were feet nine inches). There ally immature,” my mother occasionally says, and sister story, hangs around, along with the silent conversation of constructed. I’m curious are six photos of the team. Clover smiles faintly, which pisses me off. But so what. I nonspeaking pictures. about whether image itself As I said, I’m named after know I shouldn’t have children. I fell into science, because Sometimes the inability to see can be in the self. I call it dominated a person or Great-Uncle Ezekiel—they of insect-interest and cameras, and because of a super- the Fault Dear Brutus syndrome. family’s sense of itself. As say he guarded like a wild charged madman high school biology teacher, Mr Adams. In the early 1990s, I saw an exhibition of photographs in, “upholding the image of dog. When I visualise my He had a purple scar across his forehead from fighting in curated by an African-American photographer from the family”, which needs to namesake, I see a smile and Vietnam. Hand-to-hand combat, that’s what I pictured. Mississippi. She had asked “black folk” (her term) to be learned, and is what my a robust body, and I always Biology. Math. Chemistry, the warring test tubes. There lend her their photo albums, then selected and printed mother hoped to teach me. ask myself: Could Great- he was at the front of the classroom. Tall. Strong. Bald. photographs, their photos of themselves. Weddings, Society’s an image of Uncle Ezekiel have had any His head framed by the green board, his purple scar scarlet fooling around, hanging out. Not soul-sad, so-called itself. It’s impossible to kind of a sex life? I don’t in the sunlight. Not a hero, exactly, but close enough. Mr vérité images of “oppressed black folk” that profession- extract, separate, or pull know why they named me Adams. Sort of family, the Adamses, John, Abigail, John als “captured” on visits South. HUGE impact on me. out images, in all their after him; I’m not like him, Quincy, Henry the historian. Cretins, neurasthenics, crimi- Documentary photography performed itself, whatever varieties and senses, from according to my mother, nals, too. its subject; its mission was to photograph “others”. This how we see and act; to but l feel implicated in his I wonder if blood-kin marry idiots and bring them into doomed their subjects to objecthood, to an “authentic think about how they sexual ignorance. Families the family with the intention to destroy the family from inauthenticity”. That’s my term. That exhibition encour- shape us, because they do that, implicate you in within. Hart’s wife is a classic example and should be a case aged me to write my dissertation on family-made images, do. Image is a mental them. When I think about study of the garbage-spouse phenomenon. Life between my own family’s included. activity. They picture us Great-Uncle Ezekiel’s

Hart and me was weird enough, competition, etc., then Some shit hit the fan, before I earned my doctorate, after Sascha Braunig, Collared , 2011, oil on canvas over wood panel, 24 x 20 inches. Courtesy of Foxy Production, New York. to us. Pix R us. shock at seeing his blush- his wife committed noncriminal criminal behaviour, which my article appeared in Contemporary American Cultural ing bride, Margaret, on the occurs regularly in families where, and nowhere else, things Artifacts, “Documents of Authentic Inauthenticity”. I could t 15, I wanted to kill Bro Hart and my father. Figura- can for the first time, I imagine a snapshot that could be in our happen or are spoken that would get people incarcerated on have dropped out of sight then, rather than later. But for- tively. Most days. I was born into late punk. Say, I was family album, but never would be—the unrecorded image, one the outside, and not just for sexual abuse. In France, they’ve tunately my thesis director was sympathetic. Also things Asecond-generation punk, with some heavy metal and of the awkward notes of life, always unpictured. Or if pictured, criminalised violent marital verbal abuse; it’s considered as were changing, and do change. I know that. A viewer can’t Kurt Cobain and alt-rock thrown in. Being enraged by ev- they’re not in family albums. destructive as physical violence, the old sticks and stones tell a documentary photo or movie from a gallery art image erything and everyone around me, I was also just a teenager. See Weegee, for pictures of the unwanted, unpictured life, can’t hurt your bones but names can never harm you has or a narrative film. The genre has embraced its inherent It’s normal, my mother told me. Hormones, etc. Normal and remember the Ouija board. always been bullshit. The French government may be more fiction-making. is on a continuum between insanity and sanity, but who They say you can’t know the other; the family is other; worried about violence to the French language than to their There also used to be a claim: artists make art from defines those degrees and what they mean, family to family. the other is in you, and you can’t know yourself, mostly people, but I’d argue, with ethno-methodologists like Sacks chaos. Which is funny, to me. Hell. Barely sane, functionally insane, frequently sane, infre- you can’t, because of how you’re inhabited by others. And and Garfinkel, that language is constructing society, invent- 1) Chaotic people make chaos, which they can’t unmake. quently insane, moderately sane—THIS PERSON COULD sometimes you don’t want to know the other or yourself. ing it continuously. 2) Chaos is the Real, and totally unavailable. GO EITHER WAY, worse than but approximating normal. I’m so there.

96 VICE VICE 97 GOD SAVE BELFAST He’s the Only Guy Anybody Here Can Agree On

BY MICHAEL MOYNIHAN & ANDY CAPPER PHOTOS BY STUART GRIFFITHS

A bonfire party organised by some amazingly friendly people from the loyalist community who treated us very well.

98 VICE VICE 99 here was a time when the conflict in Northern stressed that the march is a celebration of “culture”, Ireland suffused popular culture, with its easily one that is hamstrung by bigoted politicians and a T explicable cast of Catholics and Protestants and its needlessly aggressive police force. It’s the familiar deceptively simple narrative of joining the Republic language of multiculturalism, adapted for a schizo- of Ireland versus remaining under the protective wing phrenic religious conflict. of Great Britain. The IRA loomed large—an irregular But others were articulate, passionate, clever— force giving the Brits hell, a pre-Al Qaeda byword although no less strident in their views. When I for terrorism. asked a group of local loyalist teenagers whether The Troubles, as the Cranberries called them, were they planned on attending university—and at first everywhere. blush, they seemed perfect candidates—all agreed But in 1998, after a furious but low-intensity war that if forced to choose between earning an advanced that claimed almost 3,700 victims over 30 years, the degree and staying to “defend their community”, two sides suddenly called it a draw. Political repre- they would, without hesitation, choose the latter. sentatives of paramilitary groups and mainstream That economic opportunities are scarce in Belfast’s political parties hammered out the Good Friday working-class regions is beyond dispute (almost Agreement, outlining a cessation of major sectarian every young person I spoke with was out of work; a violence, the decommissioning of weapons, and the precious few worked in call centres), but these politi- release of prisoners affiliated with groups like the IRA cally involved and mostly unemployed kids would and its unionist analogue, the Ulster Volunteer Force forgo higher education for the higher calling of pro- (UVF). There would be no land swaps, no signifi- tecting the tribe. cant concessions made to those demanding a united It isn’t uncommon to see the Irish tricolour flag Ireland, just a tenuous and long-overdue “peace pro- in the staunchly republican areas around Falls Road cess”. It marked, as an Irish journalist once told me, in west Belfast. But nestled in among the Catholic the effective surrender of the IRA. estates, surrounded on all sides by hostiles, I stum- bled into a tiny redoubt of loyalism, oddly adorned with both Union Jacks and the colours of the Irish An 11-year-old objected to the Republic. Packs of kids scuttled about, constructing a July 11 bonfire: a pre-Twelfth march ritual in which Catholic Church’s conduit to God: Protestants fashion wooden pallets, tyres and various other bits of flammable scrap into a pyramid adorned “The pope’s a fucking cunt.” with ornaments—the flags and campaign posters of their Catholic enemies. Burn, Edict of Worms, burn. But in the unionist communities of east Belfast Having asked whether I would assist in building and nationalist enclaves of west Belfast—working- his temporary monument to Catholic-hatred, a che- class areas where militant sectarianism is one of few rubic 11-year-old kid, born a year after the Good birthrights—there is little sense of peace and much Friday Agreement, provided me with a potted history

talk of being “sold out by the tea-drinking politi- of the bonfires (“something to do with the king”) and The sign “Bobby Sands 8 Fuck cians”. And every year on July 12, when unionists of wanted my opinion of the pope. His line of question- All” is a reference to IRA hunger the Orange Order celebrate the victory of Protestant ing wasn’t designed to precipitate a conversation on striker and republican icon Bobby King William of Orange over Catholic King James by Pius XII’s diplomatic relations with the Third Reich, Sands. Loyalists hate him. They really love the Queen. marching through Belfast, one could be forgiven for but rather an opportunity to offer his preteen objec- thinking that the Troubles never ended. tions to the Catholic Church’s conduit to God: “The In the lead up to this year’s Twelfth parade, ten- pope’s a fucking cunt.” sions were running higher than any period in recent If bonfire nights and Orange Order marches are memory: it was only a few months since a 25-year- manifestations of Protestant grievance, their Catholic old Catholic police officer was murdered by dissident equivalents can be found in Ardoyne, a rabidly republicans (to dissuade others from joining the nationalist area in north Belfast that straddles one force) and just weeks after altercations between side of a sectarian fault line (what the locals dryly nationalists and unionists in east Belfast ended in call an “interface area”). In 2010, when the Orange riots and multiple shootings, including a cameraman. Order passed in front of Ardoyne on their way to What better time to explore Belfast and marinate in an abutting estate, young people responded with a the divisive hate? shower of Molotov cocktails, rocks and bricks. The Arriving a few days before the festivities, I quizzed police were expecting a repeat this year. It was a well- a handful of young parade attendees, some from informed prediction. as far afield as Toronto, about the significance of As the march approached, heavily armoured police the July 12 celebrations. A few offered platitudes divisions penned in protesters (and those of us who about the brilliance of “King Billy” and the need to preferred being with those throwing, not absorbing, assert the primacy of unionist culture; the historical flaming bottles), preventing a hastily organised coun- particulars of the march seemed almost irrelevant termarch from confronting the Orange Order. Behind to its participants. It was odd, though, to listen to the police lines, away from the media gaggle and drink-sodden teenagers employ squishy political rhet- embedded with the protesters, an odd scene devel- oric rather than just nakedly sectarian slogans. They oped—an incongruous combination of the battle-ready

The Orange Day march attracts all kinds of different uniforms. Some look like the A lot of people travel from 100 VICE Village People if/when they were into fisting. Glasgow to celebrateVICE the marches. 101 balaclava set and middle-aged protesters invoking balaclava falls and the discussions of “culture” and the American civil rights movement. There was a trampled rights make way for the more unambiguous requisite singing of “We Shall Overcome”, a march denunciations of fucking taigs (Catholics) and fuck- organiser quoting Martin Luther King into a bull- ing huns (Protestants). horn, and a wild-eyed kid using his mask to obscure Even more jarring are the calls to “KILL ALL a bag of glue he was huffing. TAIGS” daubed on brick walls in loyalist areas and In a moment more reminiscent of the 70s anti- spray-painted on bonfire pallets. When I asked one busing riots in Irish Catholic South Boston than civil community representative whether this slogan wasn’t disobedience on the Edmund Pettus Bridge, veteran perhaps a bit much (“Surely not all of them?”), I was protesters and republicans quickly ceded ground to assured that while there was no impending Catholic the young and agitated—rocks and paving stones Holocaust, one had to look at calls to murder in the flew, Molotov cocktails exploded, and police fired context of the conflict. plastic baton rounds and water cannon. A graffiti tour of west Belfast demonstrates that “Did Darren borrow the car today?” “Yes, The neighbourhood refrain in Ardoyne is that 12 years of shaky peace haven’t exactly dampened Doesn’t that look like God’s dick spraying love. He said he was taking his new troublemakers are bussed in and that the locals have nationalist enthusiasm to “KILL ALL HUNS”, either. them and saying, “Peace please!”? girlfriend to the pictures.” little control over what these teenage interlopers hurl I asked a young Catholic kid, who likely last saw the toward police lines. But it quickly became clear that inside of a church when relieving his local parish of a few dissident republicans—imposing men with fad- Communion wine, what he thought should be done ing prison tattoos and mangled teeth, and all keenly about his Protestant neighbours, many of whom, he aware of the presence of journalists—have the power claims, menace the kids on the Catholic end of the to turn off the spigot of violence at a moment’s street. He snarled that they should be dispatched to notice. As I chatted with one local who, I was reliably shallow graves or, perhaps, simply ferried back to informed, had rather close ties to a dissident terror- England or Scotland. With a grunt, he clarified that his ist group, kids wrenched cinder blocks from a house fantasy commando division of tracksuit genocidaires might allow the women to stay—a concession unlikely to assuage the young Protestant ladies of east Belfast. The police held their line There are, though, causes for hope. With a shock- ingly high instance of teenage suicide (one young and Northern Ireland remained Catholic related that five people he knew had killed themselves in the past year), chronic unemployment, under the dominion of the and the still-present allure of paramilitary organi- sations in Belfast, some veterans of the Troubles United Kingdom. are offering their cautionary stories to the young and aimless. My two fixers—one Protestant, one under construction, smashed them on the pavement, Catholic, because everything in this city requires and distributed the resulting pile of ammunition to negotiation—both served long spells in the infa- their friends. The police held their line, a few people mous Long Kesh prison on terrorism charges, were hit with plastic bullets, and Northern Ireland and both provided smart, nuanced takes on the remained under the dominion of the United Kingdom. entire sweep of recent Northern Irish history. And After a few days darting between enemy camps, while they agree on few political issues, they work conversing with experienced murderers and those together—often to the consternation of their former who seemed interested in murdering nosy journal- comrades—in an attempt to disabuse kids of the ists, I realised that there are only two ecumenical twin notions that armed conflict is both glamorous truths in Belfast: adidas tracksuits are the clothing and part of a viable solution. choice of men from both communities, and if one asks To those divorced from the reality of a dirty “Catholic” or “Prod” kids when they last attended a war, one in which Catholics and Protestants killed church service—or to expand on the theological divide their coreligionists with equal frequency and feroc- separating the two camps—prepare for a mumbling ity, the Troubles were an uncomplicated morality non-answer. No one agrees on anything else. play: occupied versus occupier, liberationist move- In Belfast, you either allow various factions to ment against imperial aggressor. Those who lived spin you in exchange for access or you return home through the darkest days of the Troubles, and who with nothing—and every person, regardless of con- have regrets about their participation in what many fessional affiliation, bombards you with his or her now view as a pointless civil war, talk about their narrow version of “the truth”. This is, of course, past without romance. expected. But Catholics and Protestants appear to I asked one former prisoner how many members be working off the exact same script: we’re second- of his republican paramilitary group were flipped by class citizens who get stiffed by the politicians, the British intelligence—something they did with remark- private sector, the shrivelling welfare state, and our able success. He says that he couldn’t count, “but in masters in London. All denounce the terrorist tactics the leadership? Around five.” of their enemies, while offering convoluted defences “How did you know?” of the terrorism perpetuated by their friends. When “You just start putting the pieces together. They cameras and tape recorders are switched off, the never confessed, but…”

Kids a lot smaller and younger than that 102 VICE one were doing the same thing.VICE 103 One knows the answer but must still ask the ques- The moral and political complexities of this tion: “What happened to them? Did any manage to war are often lost to reductionist slogans—in Irish successfully go into hiding?” America, the IRA are the good guys, the alphabet He paused, breathed, and said, “We took care of soup of loyalist paramilitary groups more or less the them.” bad guys. In England, which suffered deadly main- There was also the disarmingly casual conversa- land bombing campaigns, they were all bad guys, tion with a former UVF prisoner who, at the tender but those who blew up Canary Wharf were surely age of 17, shot a Catholic man three times in the the worst. head based on “intelligence” that later proved to be And while the vast majority of Northern Ireland, as inaccurate. demonstrated by polling and voting patterns, wants Did he regret what he did? nothing to do with (and has little sympathy for) the “Absolutely.” dead-enders and dissidents in either camp, there is a Does he apologise to the family of his victim? reluctant understanding in Belfast that while the war “Of course.” is over, the conflict isn’t going anywhere.

INTERVIEW WITH THE EX-PARA WHO TOOK ALL THESE PHOTOS

VICE: What’s your history with Belfast? exorcising them. In terms of therapy, it was a good Stuart Griffiths: I was a British soldier there. I came thing to do. It was a very moving experience. when I was 17 and was a Parachute Regiment soldier in 3 PARA. At first I was kept in the canteen, as I was How did you feel when we were in Ardoyne and the too young to go on the streets. When I reached 18, I rioting kicked off? was posted to B Company, 3 PARA. Well, I’d been in riot situations before, but I wasn’t expecting that. I was thinking, “What if a brick or What made you join the Paras? a rock falls on my head, because this time I haven’t At the time, there was a TV programme called The got a helmet on?” But when you’re out there trying Paras, and at school there was a big thing about join- to get good pictures, it’s the photography that takes

ing up: join the Marines or the Paras and all that over. And I guess it showed me how far photogra- Some of us wanted this as a cover macho bullshit. It looked cool. phy has taken me in my life. As the photographer but it looked like we’d photoshopped Patrick Zachmann said, “You photograph your own two tweens from Facebook and put What was it like in Belfast as a teenage soldier during history. Everything else is tourism.” So I took that them on top of a Pantera album sleeve as an art prank. the Troubles? on board. But yeah, when they started hurling stuff, We got up about six and went out all day patrolling. I thought, “These guys really know how to riot.” It’d be four hours on, two off, and then we’d get food in between. People would shout, “You fucking Brit, Yeah, that’s what I was thinking: “They’re pretty shit, scumbag, bastard!” good at this.” They made us amazing cocktails at the bonfire It’s in their blood. And I don’t condemn it. You can party. You couldn’t drink What would you say to them? see why they’re frustrated and angry. There is no them but you could Nothing. I took it on the chin. Early on a really fit girl work, the economic situation is bad, and the peace definitely throw them. said something nasty to me, but I didn’t really mind that. process is there but it’s gonna take a long time to see results. I saw this little kid, about ten or 12 years old, What was the worst abuse you got? and he had this massive green bottle, and this other We got shot at. Actually, the worst might have been kid was saying, “Go on and throw it!” And the little having shit thrown on us. We had potties emptied kid was spitting on the floor trying to be the hard from out of windows at us. It took a long time to get guy, but he couldn’t bring himself to throw it. And rid of the smell. It’s not you they hate, though; it’s I really felt for him. When you’re in that situation the uniform you wear. That’s why I got out, I think. you’re expected to go along with the crowd, or else people turn on you. I came away thinking, “Well, this What was it like going back to Belfast? situation is still very much a live wire.”

It was cathartic, an emotional release. It was all Watch us dodge rubber bullets and Molotov cocktails in Belfast on an about facing my ghosts and demons of the past and upcoming news special on VBS.TV.

In six months’ time, some gay fashion magazine will duplicate 104 VICE this shot. We guarantee VICEit. 105 THE TRAGIC TALE OF THE MONKEY-LION Changoleón Is Mexico’s Most Troubled Reality TV Star

BY AVI DAVIS, PHOTOS BY MIGUEL DIMAYUGA AND ABELARDO MARTIN

n a megalopolis teeming with bums, freeloaders, crazies, At the time, this brand of spontaneous, on-the-street comedy mooches and free spirits, the man known as Changoleón may was already tame by American standards, but Mexicans were Ibe Mexico City’s most notable vagabond. The strange thing just beginning to get acquainted with reality TV. In an entertain- is that many of his fans think he’s dead. Then there are those ment landscape dominated by telenovelas, football and corny who know the facts, most of whom would rather Changoleón slapstick comedy, the idea of a TV show that mimicked real life remain a famous corpse than deal with the messier realities of was shocking. When the Mexican edition of Big Brother first his life. This confusion is a result of a sad and bizarre series aired in 2002, viewers were scandalised by the idea of the cast of events that were set into motion by what is perhaps truth’s being filmed 24 hours a day. Facundo was the first person to greatest enemy: reality television. bring “reality” comedy to Mexico. His skits included convincing Ten years ago, Changoleón (“Monkey-lion”) was just girls to take their clothes off in public parks, sending kids to ask another ageing, homeless alcoholic, aimlessly wandering the strangers on the street why they were fat, and crashing debauched streets of Mexico City’s Coyoacán neighbourhood. Earlier spring break parties. Facundo became the Mexican equivalent of in his life, when he was known as Samuel Gonzalez Quiroz, Tom Green, Johnny Knoxville and Howard Stern, all rolled into things seemed to be going well for the young man. He one. But Changoleón’s segments were the only truly unscripted attended the National Autonomous University of Mexico, the parts of Incógnito, and many people considered him the real star country’s largest, and had his sights set on a career in psychol- of the show. Facundo had effectively transformed a forgotten ogy and starting a family. Then something (no one knows for and left-for-dead vagrant into the country’s first reality TV star. sure because Changoleón’s backstory changes depending on Changoleón had accomplished something many people desired who’s telling it) went terribly wrong, and he spent the next but few managed: he got famous. And he did it with no plan- few decades drinking and living hard. ning or ambition. Then suddenly, in March 2006, he stopped In 2002, Changoleón’s life changed forever. An up-and- appearing on Incógnito without explanation. Two months later, coming comedian and television host named Facundo Gómez on May 1, Carlos Loret de Mola, one of Mexico’s most respected Brueda discovered him on the street and realised the unfortu- news anchors, announced to Primero Noticias’s national audi- nate homeless man’s raw, drunken comic potential. The next ence that Changoleón had died of a heart attack. Facundo later thing Changoleón knew, he was featured on Facundo’s new confirmed the news, adding, “He died last Sunday from a cardiac late-night sketch comedy show, Toma Libre (Film Whatever, arrest; he had diabetes, hypertension, and was old.” which aired on Televisa until 2004). “My name is Samuel Over the next few days, the story took off, and Mexico’s Gonzalez Quiroz, alias the Monkey-lion!” Changoleón blub- major newspapers ran obituaries for Samuel Gonzalez Quiroz. bered as he introduced himself during his first TV appearance. One memorialised him as “the classic character who came out Soon he was a Mexican media sensation. His fame expanded of one of the most popular neighbourhoods of any city in the when, a few years later, Facundo moved to a more main- world; the other side of the coin from what we’re accustomed stream prime-time comedy show called Incógnito and brought to seeing on TV. He was the indigent who lost work, family and his dopey foil along for the ride. Changoleón was a TV execu- dignity because of drink.” Laments and goodbyes popped up on tive’s dream: kids loved him, the coveted 18-to-35-year-old blogs across Mexico. On May 3, during an episode of Incógnito, demographic idolised him, and older folks found him scandal- Facundo clarified Changoleón’s mysterious disappearance from ously amusing. the show a month and a half earlier by explaining that he had The beloved Changoleón reached the height of his popularity enrolled in a treatment programme at an alcoholism rehab cen- in the first months of 2006. Every Mexican with a TV recog- tre, but that he had left the clinic just before his death. nised the shrivelled-looking man with stringy grey hair, floppy Then things took an absurd twist. The day after Facundo clothes, and an enormous gap in his front teeth. He was over 60, confirmed Changoleón’s death on Incógnito, Mexico City’s but his perpetual drunkenness gave him a childlike energy. With Forensic Medical Service announced that they had not received the cameras rolling and “The Lion Sleeps Tonight” playing in any cadavers matching Changoleón’s description. Even more the background, he would drink, sing, flirt with attractive girls, troubling, the city’s attorney general stated that no corpses had and practice lopsided martial-arts moves, all while muttering even been recovered from the neighbourhood in question on the unscripted non sequiturs with a lisp. day of his supposed death.

Changoleón, in the flesh. 106 VICE VICE 107 The following night on Incógnito, Facundo reversed his After a lot of cajoling and offers to buy him beer, he told us story. He said that, in fact, Changoleón had not died and that that Changoleón was at home and that he would take us there he would reappear on the show at a later date. He promised to later that afternoon. reveal the details but only spent a few seconds explaining the Three blocks from Coyoacán’s main plaza, we found convoluted situation, adding that Televisa, Mexico’s television Changoleón’s abode. He lived off a dirt driveway in a little behemoth, had been paying for Changoleón’s treatment at an room in a house owned by a guy known as Don Antoño, who alcoholism rehab centre. Facundo said that when he and his told us to come back with 150 pesos and a few things from the Televisa colleagues had gone to retrieve their star, they were corner shop: three Modelo Especiales, a litre of Alpura milk, denied access to the centre. He concluded by claiming that powdered hot chocolate and a packet of “Concha” pastries. Changoleón had escaped rehab and returned to the streets to On the way to the shop, we imagined Changoleón pouring die in a more familiar setting. the powdered chocolate directly into his mouth, followed by In the days following this announcement, some newspa- the milk and then the beer. The Monkey-lion was waiting in pers reported that Changoleón was still alive but no one had the driveway when we came back. He was even shorter than I enough facts to completely explain the confusion. Without remembered, and wore a baggy blue windbreaker, dirty blue more clarification from Televisa, the story didn’t stick, and jeans, and black sneakers. He was beardless but stubbly, his most Mexicans were left thinking they had lost their most hair pulled into a ponytail. He greeted us with mumbles and a cherished bum. grin before inviting us inside. We sat on a large bed that took up most of the room. Against one wall was a huge cabinet with glass doors filled All I saw was a little man with an unkempt with seashells and coral. The rest of the space was filled with piles of CDs—Mexican pop, Ricky Martin, salsa— grey beard and a Mickey Mouse sweatshirt some architecture books and a large black refrigerator that looked at least 20 years old. The TV was playing some non- marked with a huge wet spot. descript 90s horror movie. In one corner hung a grey suit with a pink tie. s an American who had recently arrived in Mexico City, “Nice clothes, eh?” Changoleón said before explaining that I first heard of Changoleón last Halloween. Some friends they were gifts from a certain television prankster. “Facundo Aand I went to the main plaza of Coyoacán. Walking told me, ‘You raised my ratings, I gave you clothes.’ He gave through the costumed crowds, my friends suddenly shouted, me some office clothes. The pants I’m wearing, too. I even “Take a picture! Take a picture! It’s Changoleón! I can’t be- put on three pairs because of the cold. Then I go out with the Samuel was drinking and smoking regularly by age seven, A bit more flotsam and jetsam from Samuel’s former life After the author lieve it!” All I saw was a little man with an unkempt grey beard punks.” While we talked, Changoleón occasionally occupied but after the death of his father, Samuel’s mum, who was illit- surfaced during our discussion: he spent a lot of time hang- finally tracked down Changoleón, we and a Mickey Mouse sweatshirt marked with a huge wet spot. himself with picking bits of lint off the bed. I noticed that he erate, made certain he attended school every day. He stuck to ing out with small-time gangs who sold drugs on the UNAM tried to set up a I couldn’t tell whether the excited knot of people surround- was missing half of his left middle finger. it, graduated from high school, and was eventually accepted campus, joined a squatters’ collective, demonstrated with portrait shoot, but ing him were laughing or trying to help as he staggered and Later, Changoleón recalled an incident in Acapulco. “One into the psychology programme at the National Autonomous socialist groups, slept on the beach at Acapulco one night the Monkey-lion time I went over to the Fiesta Palace... no, wait... I think it’s in was nowhere to grimaced. “I thought he was dead,” someone said. I took a University of Mexico (UNAM), one of the biggest universities and nearly drowned, and ran with Mexico City’s biker be found. Three picture and we kept moving. the Paradise Hotel... whatever, I don’t remember. Anyway, in in Latin America. Mostly he remembers being surrounded by gangs, among other random adventures. At one point, he rumour-filled I didn’t think much of it at the time, but the more I learned this restaurant I was with these guys and these girls, and they middle-class kids and attractive girls, and having a distaste for kept a house on the outskirts of the city, by the highway to months later we about Changoleón the more I wanted to find him again to start gossiping: ‘Hey, it’s the Coyoacán gang! The guy who taking notes. But he enjoyed reading, and the Mexican friends Cuernavaca, but he usually got too drunk in Coyoacán to were fairly sure he was working at a ask what had happened. Did he take his money and just walk works with Facundo—but really Facundo works for him!’” who had come with me to help translate the interview said that even attempt to make it home. Eventually he gave up the bar in Acapulco. We away? Did he become too much to handle for Televisa? Was it Even Facundo, whom I later interviewed for this article, agreed he was very articulate in his own rambling, disjointed way. house and took to living on the streets of Coyoacán, where immediately sent a “fuck you” to the TV big shots, or did they use him and then that Changoleón had been the real star of the show. After graduation, he took an internship at a mental he fell in with a band of other drunks and street people, who a photographer, who found him throw him back into the alley? Nobody seemed to know, and Listening to my recorded chat with Changoleón the next institution. It seems that it left a lasting—and disturbing— apparently gave him his famous nickname. within 15 minutes. so I set out to find the Monkey-lion myself. day, I realised that over the course of an hour and a half I had impression. Some of the patients thought they were Changoleón happily It took almost a month for me and a few Mexican friends I asked him five questions about his experience with Televisa presidents or members of the petit bourgeoisie or the king art of Changoleón’s comic appeal was that he was mugged for the camera and goofed had enlisted to track down Changoleón. Online searches were and he hadn't answered any of them. He was an incurable bab- of Spain, and then there were those who screamed “Don’t the epitome of Mexico City’s lower classes and street around like we were no help. Most people said he had kicked the bucket, while oth- bler. He would start a sentence, then halfway through it switch touch me!” when anyone approached them. The staff hid Ppeople. Audiences loved watching Facundo’s sarcastic filming an episode ers reported random sightings: “I ran into him at the Hidalgo to recounting some unrelated episode that had taken place ten pills in the cafeteria food and inmates received electric rich-kid persona slumming it with the happy hobo. Ironical- of Incógnito. metro station with a dude carrying a guitar,” “I saw him at the years earlier. Either he thought we had come to hear him tell shocks to their testicles. Samuel had originally studied psy- ly, Changoleón is more educated than his discoverer, who Taxqueña bus depot,” “He was at a bar in Acapulco, and my disjointed stories about his life or he had no idea what he was chology with the intention of helping the poor, and planned proudly announces on his Facebook page that he dropped friend took a picture,” etc. Useless. saying. I did, however, learn some things about the man he to charge little for his services. His experience at the hospi- out of college before finishing a degree in music, and that he All we really knew was that he supposedly still lived in was before he adopted his current moniker. tal, however, may have turned him off the entire profession. got mediocre grades in high school. Coyoacán and he was alive, or at least he was last Halloween. Not once did he mention going into practice. Facundo is unusually pale by Mexican standards, with a All the crafts sellers, car washers and busboys on the plaza amuel Gonzalez Quiroz was most likely born in 1941— After this chapter of Samuel’s life, the chronology gets thinning blond buzz cut and perpetual stubble. A Mexico knew him, but no one had seen him recently. Some people he doesn’t know his exact birthday—and according to his murky. At one point he had a wife, or at least a female part- City native, he was born in 1978 to Argentine parents. After said he hung out and drank in front of a gym. Others told us Sown account is a Coyoacán native. His parents were poor ner, with whom he had three children. As near as anyone playing in bands in his teens, he started hosting Mexican he could be found in a nearby park. Someone else directed evangelicals; his mother sold sweets and candies on the street, knows, something went horribly wrong with this arrange- music shows for the TV channel Telehit before he was 20. us to the food market. But wherever we went, the shopkeep- and his father was a bricklayer who woke up at the crack of ment and he began drinking in earnest. Facundo told me Soon he got a gig at Televisa hosting Toma Libre. At first ers would tell us that he hadn’t been there for a week, two dawn every morning. One morning during his childhood, he that Samuel sometimes implied he had been devastated by I had trouble tracking down Facundo, but finally reached weeks, a month. Finally a man who sold handmade jewel- was standing on a corner near his home with his mother, who the sudden death of his mother while he was away from him after an old acquaintance of his gave me a direct email. lery and tie-dyed t-shirts in the crafts market said he knew was working. Suddenly an ambulance approached his family’s home, and that this was why he turned to the bottle. But Facundo called me back almost immediately, apparently where Changoleón lived. He said that he was a friend of house. A group of men emerged from the ambulance and told no one knows exactly when or how this happened, and eager to give his side of the story. Changoleón’s, and I believed him: he had the same monkeyish his mother that his father had been killed in a car accident on Facundo doesn’t consider this story to be completely true: One thing Facundo and Changoleón agree on is how stature, stringy grey hair, and looked to be about 60 years old. his way to work. “He’s told me a thousand different things, so who knows.” they first met. Facundo told me that the camera was rolling

108 VICE VICE 109 when he first laid eyes on Changoleón. The Toma Libre team ensuring that their star would always be at the same place, had recently come up with an idea for a new segment in which belly full and slaphappy. they would find unusual people on the street and film them— Changoleón, however, wasn’t just providing popular “to show something of their life,” Facundo said. entertainment. He was changing the way people in Mexico Changoleón’s recollection is that Facundo frequently came thought of fame. In an online meet-and-greet in 2005, a fan to Coyoacán’s main square to buy a strawberry smoothie from called “polanco” (the name of one of Mexico City’s swankiest a particular shop, and he happened to be hanging out there neighbourhoods) asked Facundo how he could land a spot on when Facundo first spotted him. Facundo asked Changoleón TV. “i kan do the same stupid shit as Changoleón,” he wrote if he wanted to take a ride in the Televisa van, meet some during the online chat. “and plus i havent showerd in like 3 chicks and have a good time. Changoleón remembers the two dayz... hahaha.” Facundo replied: “Lose a few teeth and then girls. He told them he was going to buy drinks for everyone. you’ll get it haha,” before taking a more cautious tone: “no They weren’t convinced. But then, as he remembers, Facundo but Changoleón is already really popular. Not just any dood stepped in. “It’s true,” Changoleón said. “I’m paying him now who does stupid shit deserves his spot, not even me.” and he’s going to buy all the drinks.” The Monkey-lion represented a very specific part of society, When I first watched a video of Changoleón’s debut televi- one that everyone who watched Incógnito recognised. Every 38 Great Eastern Street, London, EC2A 3ES sion appearance I had the notion that—even if this was the neighbourhood in Mexico City has its own Changoleón, a pair’s first encounter—there was no way to tell if Facundo fed shaggy, drunk and gap-toothed joker. Some of them are called him a swimming pool of booze before taping or if he was ham- Changoleón, too. In fact, the best known of Changoleóns— FRIDAY 12 AUGUST TUESDAY 16 AUGUST SUNDAY 21 AUGUST SATURDAY 27 AUGUST mered when the crew arrived. But the two girls are there in Samuel Gonzalez Quiroz—received his nickname from another CLUB.THE.MAMMOTH THE OLD BLUE LAST SUPER ALUNAGEORGE VICE PRESENTS the episode. The four of them joke around, Changoleón sings Changoleón. One night, Samuel spotted a guy in a Coyoacán & TOO PURE PRESENT PRESENTS SINGLE LAUNCH Secret Show drunkenly to a frightened child, and then he stumbles through band who was very short, with curly hair and a beard. Samuel SEIZE THE CHAIR League Live AlunaGeorge Live Check website SINGLE LAUNCH PARTY a playground with a cigarette dangling from his mouth. shouted, “El chango-leon!” Then the short guy in the band Man Without Country Live Throwing Snow & Py Live for announcements Seize the Chair Live Alpines Live Bloom Live Plus Special Guests 8 PM - 10:30 PM said, “No, you’re the Changoleón!” This went back and forth, Friendship Live Entry: Free Entry: Free Entry: Free until at one point everyone in the group was a Changoleón. Every neighbourhood in Mexico City Whales In Cubicles Live But the name stuck with Samuel because, as his friend Gerardo Entry: Free WEDNESDAY 17 AUGUST MONDAY 22 AUGUST STREETS OF BEIGE (the man who took us to Changoleón’s house—he wouldn’t BIG SCARY MONSTERS KILIMANJARO Full Line-up TBA has its own Changoleón, a shaggy, give his full name) put it, “He’s a little monkey who thinks SATURDAY 13 AUGUST Tangled Hair Live [ME] Live 10:30 PM - 4 AM he’s a lion.” PAINT IT BLACK Hymns Live UTE Live Plus Special Guests Entry: Free drunk and gap-toothed joker. Cloud Boat Live Entry: Free Entry: £6 adv acundo insists that Televisa had nothing to do with the Ghosting Season Live SUNDAY 28 AUGUST Facundo was thrilled with the results, and the format rumour of Changoleón’s death. Around March 2006, he Plant Plants Live THURSDAY 18 AUGUST TUESDAY 23 AUGUST WHERE’S BRADLEY? 3 was set for the new “Changoleón” segment on Toma Libre: Ftold me, Changoleón suddenly decided to quit drinking. My Panda Shall Fly DJ RECORDS RECORDS THE OLD BLUE LAST Full Nelson DJ Entry: Free RECORDS RECORDS PRESENTS Enchante DJ ZTG DJ Changoleón in elementary school. Changoleón at the amuse- The Incógnito team tried filming a few “sober” episodes with Bookhouse Boys Live Planes Live Entry: Free ment park. Changoleón riding around the city in a convertible him, but it was soon clear that his comedic value was inextrica- SUNDAY 14 AUGUST Wet Paint Live Grass House Live with a megaphone, accompanied by a woman with large breast bly linked to the consumption of booze. Facundo didn’t want WEREWOLF PROMOTIONS PAWS Live Entry: Free THURSDAY 1 SEPTEMBER implants. Changoleón getting a facial. Always drunk, lisping, to drop Changoleón, though. So when Changoleón found it Bearsuit Live Entry: Free OLD BLUE LAST PRESENTS and mumbling. A-wimoweh, a-wimoweh. hard to stay sober and asked for help, Facundo convinced Dimbleby & Capper Live THURSDAY 25 AUGUST Iceage Live Eagulls Live Facundo told me that Changoleón received nothing but Televisa to pay for his rehabilitation and the Monkey-lion left We Are Losers Live FRIDAY 19 AUGUST VICE ISSUE LAUNCH Cold Pumas Live positive feedback from the audience. “According to the emails the show. Air Castles Live FRIDAY NIGHT FIST FIGHT Dam Mantle Live Friendship Live and other things we got,” he said, “people thought, how cool “We didn’t want to motivate him to keep drinking just The Racket Live Good Game Live Trippple Nippples Live Entry: £5 adv that we’ve kept in mind a guy who’s excluded from society, because it was entertaining,” Facundo told me. “It seemed like The Complete Francobollo Live Mafi a Lights Live and that we proved to people that even the homeless have it would be cool if we paid for the clinic and all of his reha- Short Stories Live The Recusants Live VICE DJ SATURDAY 3 SEPTEMBER COLD HAUS something interesting to show the world.” But even in the bilitation, instead of him going to some asshole clinic where Entry: Free Entry: Free Entry: Free Klaus Dj Soosh Dj beginning, there were lots of problems. Facundo initially tried they would have bad food and treat him badly. So that’s how MONDAY 15 AUGUST SATURDAY 20 AUGUST FRIDAY 26 AUGUST Shells Live Rounds Live to integrate Changoleón into the show as a scripted character we thought of doing the series about Changoleón’s rehabilita- ALCOPOP RECORDS BREW RECORDS SPLIT THE CARNIVAL KIDS Tankilo + Estoshi Live and gave him a few pages’ worth of lines. When Changoleón tion.” If his star wanted to stop drinking, start working, and PRESENT 10” LAUNCH PRESENT EL*TROPICO Entry: £5 adv showed up for filming, he hadn’t memorised his part. “Get reintegrate himself into society, Facundo wanted to make it Jumping Ships Live Kong Live Smutlee DJ out your script,” Facundo said. Changoleón didn’t have it. into reality TV. He realised he could turn the old bum from a LightGuides Live Castrovalva Live Lady Stush Live MONDAY 5 SEPTEMBER Facundo rolled with it. “How about this?” he said. “You just comic hero into a moral one. Delta/Alaska Live Nitkowski Live Jimmy Valencia DJ MAN ALIVE! mumble, without really saying anything.” Soon after Changoleón entered the clinic, an entertainment- Paddy Johnston Live Plus Special Guests Friday DJ Stza Crack Live There was also the issue of how to do business with gossip magazine interviewed Facundo and asked him whether Entry: Free Entry: Free Entry: Free Entry: £5 adv Changoleón. Televisa never offered him a contract, although Changoleón had in fact died, since he was no longer appearing at first they tried to give him a salary. He’d spend all of it on Incógnito. Facundo said he didn’t know, because he had just in a day, buying endless rounds of drinks for himself and his left him at the clinic. So he returned to the rehab centre, intend- friends. This wasn’t working, so Televisa changed the plan. ing to continue filming his reality series about Changoleón’s Downstairs: Free entry Facundo told me they gave Changoleón a little bit of money rehabilitation. The staff denied the crew’s entrance; only family Free Rough Trade jukebox, free Wi-Fi so that he didn’t feel like he was working for nothing, and in members were permitted to visit. Facundo was forced to tell the addition they set up an exchange with a local restaurant where magazine that he couldn’t confirm Changoleón’s status because No Pain In Pop | Off Modern | Leo Deus | Tapped | Mischa | Hatcham Social | Zoo Music Girl | Dark Party | Pop Scene | Danielle Changoleón could eat and drink as much as he wanted, when- the clinic wouldn’t let him in. According to Facundo, this was ever he wanted. Facundo felt good about the deal. Before, the beginning of the rumour that Changoleón was no more. For full listings visit theoldbluelast.com Changoleón would get drunk on terrible five-peso wine. Now Facundo returned to the clinic a few days later with he could drink quality beer. It also solved the Toma Libre a lawyer. The pair talked their way into the rehab cen- team’s problem of where to find the nomadic Monkey-lion, tre by explaining that they were effectively Changoleón’s

110 VICE family—he didn’t have any other relatives, and they were the But what to do with him posed a dilemma. Without a con- ones paying for his treatment. Finally permitted to enter, they tract, they could not simply fire him. Even more important, found Changoleón alive and well. Facundo tried to dispel the taking the “character” off the show would not get rid of rumours about his death, but by this point they had already Changoleón in real life. The logical approach was to put him reached the national news. in rehab in an attempt to make him a functioning member When Changoleón was released from treatment, he returned of society. Following this line of reasoning, they could feed a to the house of a Televisa associate where he had been staying story to Primero Noticias (also a Televisa production) about before the clinic, his rent paid by the TV company. Things Changoleón’s death. almost immediately went to shit. Fernando returned from a No one anticipated the kind of media frenzy Changoleón’s trip out of town to find the house full of people and at least supposed passing would unleash. When his body never one stray dog, the furniture wrecked and an extremely drunk appeared and the story of his death started to unravel, his Changoleón, who was promptly homeless once again. friends implied—and I believe—that Televisa had to come up Facundo told me that throughout it all, he had been plan- with a new explanation for his absence. In a stroke of luck, ning to continue supporting and working with Changoleón. Changoleón seemed to supply it himself by sabotaging the sec- He had even convinced Televisa to continue paying for the old ond attempt to put him into rehab. Despite their best efforts man to eat at the restaurant in Coyoacán, but now the idea to help him, Facundo could explain, Changoleón had escaped of a reality series about Changoleón triumphing over alco- from rehab and returned to the streets to drink himself to holism and returning to work and society seemed hopeless. death. Maybe they hoped he really would. At the least, they When I asked Facundo whether he felt that Changoleón had hoped people would believe it. After all, that was the logical, abandoned him and TV, he said no. “The programme ended socially acceptable end for an unreformed drunk. Not fame, and that was it. We couldn’t do anything else.” Incógnito not his own show, not girls—just anonymous expiration. would last until December 2006, when it had a brief hiatus and was revamped into a slightly more serious show (minus Changoleón, of course). This iteration didn’t last long. The fi rst thing Changoleón did after being During my time with Changoleón, he never suggested that he went to rehab voluntarily. He recounts getting drunk on the picked up from the rehab centre was get street outside the Televisa offices one day and being found by Incógnito cast members. They asked him what he was doing drunk on the car ride home. there. “Take a look,” he said. “Not much.” The next thing he knew, he was in a car with Fernando. he truth is probably some tangle of all three stories that will Changoleón spent several disoriented weeks in an addiction- never get sorted out. When I asked Facundo why Chang- treatment centre. Workers convinced him that he had been T oleón’s friends would think that Televisa wanted to get living his life as a “dead man”, spending all his money on rid of Samuel’s character, he dismissed them as opportunistic booze, oblivious to society. While he was in the centre, he bums. “I only met one of Changoleón’s friends,” he told me. was completely unaware of the story of his supposed death. “El Vikingo, who wanted to act as Changoleón’s manager. After a month, he was released. “So the day to leave comes,” Everyone wanted to take advantage of the ride Changoleón he told me. “And as soon as I get out of the AA place—flash, was on. We had to tell them, ‘Look, man, our deal is with flash! What’s going on?” He was immediately surrounded Changoleón, nobody else.’ But they were really anti-Tele- by reporters asking questions, taking pictures and filming. visa, too.” “What happened?” they asked. “You’re not dead? Were you In some ways, Changoleón is just as famous as ever. His just MIA?” friends told us that his life has not returned to normal since he The first thing Changoleón did after being picked up from retired from TV. Everywhere he goes, people buy him drinks the rehab centre was get drunk on the car ride home. Two and food and pay to get their pictures taken with him. The days later, a friend asked if he wanted a ride to Puebla, a few man whose house he lives in, Don Antoño, lets him stay for hours’ drive from Mexico City. Changoleón agreed. But when free. A few times a month, he sends Changoleón to clean some they got to Puebla, he realised where they were going: another houses he rents. rehab centre. As soon as he got out of the car, he ran. He came Changoleón told me that he had decided it was better that across a bike-repair shop whose owner let him hide inside until he stay away from TV. “I don’t really miss it,” he said. “Even his friends stopped looking for him. He was done with rehab though you eat good, you have to hang out with all those people and show business. who stick their pinky out when they’re drinking... No, but I A third, more sinister explanation of the events surround- don’t have anything against them. They’ve got their rights ing Changoleón’s faux death was recounted to me by his because they earn their money with the sweat of their brow.” friends. Many of them said that Changoleón was too real He said he’s found various other ways to make money over the for Mexican TV, that he upset the social balance. One friend years, from selling Tibetan jewellery on the street to charging compared him to Cantinflas, the Mexican comic star of the people for photos, and is happier doing this than he was work- 1940s and 50s—a poor nobody, a man of the people who ing for Televisa. babbled his way out of sticky situations. But there was one Changoleón also told me that he doesn’t depend on alco- very important difference: Cantinflas’s character relied on a hol and drugs anymore, but then added that the milk and costume and make-up. Changoleón was just himself, Samuel powdered chocolate he had requested were ingredients for his the Monkey-lion. personal hangover cure. “When I was a kid we had cows,” he In March 2006, this story goes, the production team at explained. “I’d grab my stool and sit down with the bucket... Televisa realised that the “Changoleón character” wasn’t just and the tits... what’re they called.... the udders... and you could Changoleón would’ve done well to a source of criticism. He was a threat to their entire system. drink the milk. Deluxe.” send this sentiment to more than a few people in his lifetime. 112 VICE VICE 113 A thing like that though, it informs your choices. As much as Clock. You know when you feel so good about something you we wanted to be like that, we were nowhere near as glamor- want to smash a window? It’s like that. It’s a dark energy that’s ous. We were getting as close to it as we could, doing acid in a actually quite healthy. concrete dump, you know? And even the way we looked, this weird rag-tag look, the main influence on the way the band Geoff Travis then signed you to Blanco Y Negro. looked then was the pre-moptop Beatles, when they were in Yeah, he signed us with what seemed like a massive advance at Hamburg and wore leather. And so we were all about big the time. I guess it would be worth £250,000 these days. It cer- hair and leather trousers and even in ’81 or ’82, I guess we tainly felt like like a large sum to us who’d been broke for years. looked slightly freakish, complete outsiders. And then, meet- ing Bobby, we had never thought there was anyone like us, What did you do when you got it? who was that weird. Well, funny thing is, we didn’t have a big party or anything. We weren’t like that. You can tell what we did if you look at When was the first time you met Bobby? photos of us at the time and you can tell we are a bit… well, we Gillespie got hold of our demo tape and on the back was my did what broke people do when they get money. Eat more and number and so he called it. One day I came back from school buy more drugs. and my mum was like, “Some guy phoned up about your band” and I said, “Oh really?” She goes, “I asked him if he was And then you actually got on Top of the Pops. famous, and he goes, ‘Not yet’.” So I called him back and we The first single from the second album, “April Skies”. We had were literally on the phone for two hours. Not just about the Top Ten hits before that, and all our singles were in the Top 40. music but talking about films, everything, it was way beyond We had been on the Old Grey Whistle Test before then, around just music. Drugs, everything. the time of the riots at our shows. The ...Whistle Test was a live show but they were shit scared of having us on TV, so they got What kind of films? us in to film us at 8 AM. We still turned up wasted anyway. A Clockwork Orange and If….. You could only get Clockwork Orange on 15th-generation VHS and so it looked What’s it like to see yourself on telly for the first time? amazing. It was so distorted, it looked like ghostly forbidden We were always very drunk, so shows like Top of the Pops we images. I guess that probably influenced the way our record wouldn’t get to see until much later. We were introduced by sleeves looked. We would take photographs direct from TV Peter Powell and Steve Wright, who were wearing woolly jump- screens with oversaturated colours. Bootlegs were the same: ers knitted for them by viewers in mental hospitals, I remember. you had record fairs where you could buy Sex Pistols com- They kept getting our name wrong and barely disguised their pilations on Betamax or whatever, and it would be like 15 disgust and horror at our presence. We loved that, we loved the generations old, so it would be the Bill Grundy show but contrast between them and us. black and white and just the outlines of them. When I finally got to see Clockwork Orange as it was meant to be, all clean It was better when presenters were like dads. Better than now and that, it just wasn’t as good. Things aren’t better when when they’re like, “I love these guys, they’re great and we go to VICE: Describe the East Kilbride of that time to me. they’re cleaned up. nightclubs together.” It was better when they had no clue and LEATHER TROUSERS Douglas Hart: I would say it was like Stonehenge with were offended by the groups. I remember when the odd weird windows. Me and Jim and William, we used to hang out What was the scene like in Glasgow at that time? or punk band would get on Top of the Pops, my dad used to and do acid and take mushrooms. We only had a cheap Total shite. Worthy and po-faced. We always told people we say, “If I see you wearing anything like that I will shoot you.” AND VHS TAPES old tape recorder but we used to take it to a big, echoey, wanted to be on Top of the Pops from the start and they would Yeah, like “What’s he on? Is he gay?” My dad said that about abandoned paint factory and take acid and play the music see us, these fucking spotty kids, and think we were mental. the Pistols, and then he saw Ian Curtis and said, “That boy’s When the Jesus and Mary Chain Were Wee Bairns real loud. I definitely think one of the things no one ever One of the first things we did in Scotland was a battle of the not right.” spoke about enough with the band was the psychedelic bands, and not only did they throw us off stage, they threw INTERVIEW BY n the early 1980s, three bored friends from the un- aspects of our music, in the broadest sense of the word. us into the street. We started our show and 30 seconds later When you got famous, where would you hang out? ANDY CAPPER remarkable Scottish town of East Kilbride formed a The layers and the guitars, when you don’t know where we were in the rain going, “What the fuck happened?” Even I remember the first time we played New York and there was I band that they ended up calling the Jesus and Mary you are—that was where it was coming from. When you when we attempted to record the single before Psychocandy the club-kids culture and they just loved weird outsider stuff IMAGE BY Chain. They played druggy rock’n’roll drenched in sear- come from any small town in Britain, what do you do? with Stephen Street, who had produced the Smiths, it just didn’t like we did. There weren’t even that many people there, but DOUGLAS HART ing feedback and, under the stewardship of their young work. We thought punk had changed the whole world, but it the spirit was great. I met this woman and she gave me some manager Alan McGee, soon became a national sensa- Acid? hadn’t. He was horrified at our chaotic methods. He couldn’t cocaine at this after-hours club. I had never really done real tion when their chaotic gigs regularly descended into Yeah, you do acid. believe I only had two strings on my bass. cocaine before because it was too expensive. She was telling riots just as they were becoming moody poster boys for me that she saw Jim Morrison when she was 13 and how it the first generation of British indie-rock. The Jesus and Who did you get it from? Things went pretty fast for you when you went down to made her come in her pants. It was like a scene from Midnight Mary Chain also recorded a lot of amazing music, all Older brothers or maybe from the bikers’ pub called London, right? Cowboy, it was amazing. I was like, “This is what it’s all about!” of which is being reissued next month in the form of re- the Yeoman—just ask a biker and you’d get it straight Well, we released “Upside Down” on Creation and it sold like The next time we went to New York some guy brought us pros- mastered and expanded versions of their classic albums. away. Every town has one. I was talking to Jason 50,000 records. It was insane. titutes and we were so naïve. We were asking them their names Bassist Douglas Hart founded the group with brothers Jim [Pierce, of Spiritualized] about this actually and he said and what school they go to and did they know the film If.… or and William Reid, later being joined by Bobby Gillespie, he had the same thing in Rugby. You’d go in this bar all And the live shows you were playing around that time were a the band Subway Sect, and they were like, “Aren’t you gonna who went on to form Primal Scream. Douglas, who some- nervous and go and get some acid and then get out of bit of a laugh, eh? fuck us?” We had no idea! I dunno, we always liked those ex- times writes for VICE on sartorial matters, left the band in there as fast as you could. Well, the music was really exciting, and there were people en- treme excesses, like doing heroin on the roof and staring at the 1991 and is now a successful director who has shot videos thralled into smashing stuff up and people who wanted to kill Empire State Building. for the Pet Shop Boys, Stone Roses, My Bloody Valentine The bikers who sold acid where I lived would always us. I guess it’s like those shows the Stones did in the 60s when The remastered and expanded Jesus and Mary Chain album catalogue is out and the Horrors, among others. We caught up with have really, really young girlfriends. after the gigs there would be riots, and like when everybody in September on Edsel. Douglas Hart’s first short film is called Long Distance Douglas to talk about the early days of the Mary Chain. Yeah, fucking amazing. They were all young and fit. was slashing the cinema seats after watching Rock Around the Information. Google it and watch it online.

114 VICE VICE 115 THE LEARNIN’ CORNER: LOOKIN’ THROUGH THE SKIN LENS TOUPÉE: A HERO MADE OF SHIT ELBERT VAN PUTTEN AS TOLD TO HARRY CHEADLE BY BRETT GELMAN, PHOTOS BY JANICZA BRAVO

Photo courtesy of the MESA+ Institute at University Twente I’m done. I’m done with here. I’m done with this. Others pray. “Yeah, man. All of us at the Brotherhood are real impressed A comparison of how light travels through a conventional lens (left) and a scattering lens (right), coupled with the resulting images of gold particles. I am done. with what you did to that Grunt. Real proud of you. And you “Did I ever tell you my dream of all dreams, Toupée?” know who else would have been really proud of you? Extra- “No, Grunt. You didn’t.” special proud of you? Hitler. If Hitler were here, he’d give you “My dream is… to one day… RAPE THE QUEEN OF a high five.” ENGLAND!” After he busts his nut, we lie there. I get extra cigarettes Elbert van Putten is a scientist and PhD candidate at the University of Twente in because light is a wave, and the diffrac- “The Queen of England, huh?” if I hang around and snuggle afterward. Some sick maniacs Enschede, Netherlands. The focus of his research is imaging with scattered light, tion limit dictates that you can’t focus “That’s right. The Queen of England. I know just how I’d are weird like that. They’d chuck a baby out of a moving which is a fancy way of saying makin’ pictures. a wave on a point smaller than about do it too. First thing I’d do is learn to talk in an England voice. car, but in the end they want to be the baby. They want a half its wavelength, and visible light’s Then I’d get a job as one of those guards with the big furry fucking mommy. Sure, I’ll be a mommy. I’ll be a daddy. wavelength is between about 400 and hats, who stand there all day.” I’ll be a fucking step-granddaddy if it means me getting a Normally if you want to image things, backwards in time with respect to the 650 nanometres. In our recent study, “They’re called bobbies.” little extra. like if you want to look at cells through rest of the wave. And because the output however, we demonstrated that we “Yeah. I’d be a bobby, and I’d guard her. But then at night, Didn’t know it would be a lot extra—a whole lot extra. a microscope, you use clear lenses, is a vast amount of pixels, which you could visualise things that were slightly when no one was looking, I’d sneak into her castle and get it Next day I’m in the yard. Lifting weights. By myself. No which focus light on a point to create can control individually, you can direct smaller than 100 nanometres by exploit- done. Nobody would stop me either, because they’re used to one around. No one’s ever lifting weights here. This has got an image. However, any defect in such exactly where your reflected light goes. ing materials with a significantly lower seeing bobbies walking around the castle. I’d find my spot. I’d to be the laziest prison in the whole fucking world. All these a lens—any surface roughness, and in You can predict how the light will diffraction limit. do it, and I’d do it real royal.” scum are just letting themselves get fat as houses. Don’t know practice these lenses will always have potentially scatter through a certain Generally speaking, it really doesn’t I AM DONE! why. Wish I could get fat as all shit, but there’s no fucking surface defects—will cause the image’s material by measuring the transmission matter how a certain material scatters One of the neo-Nazis I was letting hammer me gave me a way. My body is my cash. Gotta keep that ass lookin’ like a resolution to deviate from the theoreti- matrix, which determines the relation light—as long as the light is scrambled knife as a present. I keep it in my ass. In prison your ass is your little boy’s. cal perfect limit. between the incident and the scattered and you have the correct transmission wallet. Luckily, I’ve got a big wallet. And my cellmate’s got a I’m just now getting a good taste of my time alone. Really My team takes the opposite approach light. Using a normal lens, the relation matrix, it works. However, if the mate- big fucking mouth. starting to feel jacked on these weights. I feel like my glisten- in our research and make lenses that are between light that comes in and out is rial absorbs a lot of light rather than I stab Grunt all up and down his flabby tits. I clench my ing muscles are about to bust out of my fucking skin, when up not clear but opaque, which causes light very simple, because it begins as a nor- scattering it, things become a bit more lips to make sure blood doesn’t get in my mouth. I know the walks my Aryan john and the rest of the Brotherhood. They waves to scatter. Normally you cannot mal wave that becomes increasingly difficult. We once executed a small blade isn’t long enough to hit anything vital, and that’s fine. look serious. Maybe they’re going to kill me. Don’t know what image with something like this. However, focused. If a material scatters the light, experiment in which we focused light I’m not necessarily a murderer. I just need to hear this fucking I said. Maybe it’s what I didn’t say. Maybe it’ll be just to see we found that if you can control every however, this relationship becomes through some chicken flesh bought rapist squeal. I’d like to think this is all in the name of some my breath float away. We’re all fucking insects. individual light wave with which you much more complex. You send light in from the supermarket and essentially kind of justice, but really it’s that I’m at the point where I need The leader, Klaus (his real name’s George), steps forward illuminate these lenses, it is possible to at a certain angle and it comes out at all had no problems. to hear screams. and looks at me a long time. A real long time. Stares forever. prepare for the scattering, allowing you angles with different, random phases. A The real-world applications for our Grunt’s taken to the hospital. I’m sent to the hole. The pigs “We’ve decided you’re one of us.” to focus the light through opaque materi- very large matrix with a lot of numbers scattering lens are mainly related to actually don’t beat the shit out of me. Not only that, before “Huh?” als. So you can control scattered light by is needed to describe this relationship microscopy, although it also could be they slam the door one of them shakes my hand. I guess that’s “We’ve decided you’re one of us. Do you want to be one us?” changing how it arrives at the lens. between incoming and outgoing light, used in medicine, where very often a thank-you. Everybody hates rapists. Especially pigs. So I “Sure.” To control the light, we use small but once that information is obtained scanners can only read above the skin, guess I’m kind of a hero to these guys. A hero made out of shit. “Good. Tonight, we all fuck you.” liquid crystal devices that work like com- you can predict exactly how light will which, of course, scatters light. Imagine Two weeks later I’m out of the hole and cash-milkin’ my “Obviously.” puter monitors but are much smaller. exit the sample. all the amazing medical applications and Nazi john like I never left. Turns out he’s pretty proud of my “Tomorrow, we break out.” When light reflects from such a device, With conventional optics, 200 nano- terrible art that would result from the little stabbing too. Doesn’t attempt to hide his enthusiasm “What?” the phase of the light can be changed— metres is the approximate limit of the ability to use your own skin as a lens to while he’s fucking me. “We’re breaking the fuck out. Heil Hitler.” you can basically move it forwards or smallest thing you can image. This is image what lies underneath.

116 VICE VICE 117 THE CUTE SHOW PAGE! BY ELLIS JONES, PHOTO BY ALEX DE MORA “Pure, undiluted genius” – New York Times

Don’t let their size fool you, pygmy Shetland ponies like to pig out big time. Carrots, apples, grass—they love it all, and Pygmy will do just about anything to get food in their mouths. Running through barbed wire or risking a zap from an electric fence? Doesn’t faze them. At least not the adorably naughty ponies we visited at Misty Meadow Farm in Kent. One of Shetland the highlights was their daily exercise routine, which consists of trotting and jumping over tiny pony hurdles. When Ponies they leap, their stunted mini-legs swish in the air, and it’s so precious we almost died. Sometimes, if they’ve put on a few too many pounds, they have to wear muzzles when they leave their itty-bitty stables so they don’t eat everything in DOs & Watch a brand-new episode sight. They hate that! But it’s for their own good, and watching them try to push the muzzle off makes you laugh and of The Cute Show! featuring these portly pygmy Shetlands feel sorry for the chubby little guys at the same time. These peewees are also quite intelligent, and some are even trained later this month at VBS.TV. as guide horses for the blind. How noble! DON’Ts

THE LATEST COMPENDIUM OF 400 NEW JOKES FROM THE FUNNIEST MAGAZINE COLUMN TO EVER EXIST IN THE HISTORY OF THE UNIVERSE

AVAILABLE WHEREVER BOOKS ARE SOLD SEPTEMBER 1

118 VICE SKINEMA VIDEO GAMES KILLED THE RADIO STAR BY CHRIS NIERATKO, PHOTO BY KIMBERLY KANE BY JON BLYTH

Driver: San Francisco (Ubisoft/Mac, In keeping with the original best-game- PC, 360 and PS3) is a game that’s impos- ever of 2000, Human Revolution isn’t your sible to describe to someone face to face average shooter; it’s around 30 hours of re- without laughing. So, right. You’re John lentless decision-making, attention-paying Tanner, and you’ve just put this massive and role-playing. Shooting everyone is one criminal dick Jericho behind bars. But way of getting through the levels, but it’s he’s got this woman in a helicopter with also the least satisfying, and it’s like walk- a bazooka, and to cut a long story short, ing around the Tate Britain in an “iPood” he escapes. t-shirt. The people at Ubisoft Montreal Driver: San Francisco And then Jericho rams Tanner into traf- have filled the levels with multiple solu- fic, and he gets hit by a truck. But get this: tions, and filled the world with backstory, Tanner wakes up, unhurt, and sees a post- and this is a 30-hour game that demands er saying “Wake Up! You’re in a Coma (and deserves) to be taken seriously. or Something, Mate.” And then Tanner Finally, a shout must go out to the finds out he can shoot out of his car like Humble Indie Bundle. The third collec- a hovering eyeball and take control of the tion of six indie games, sold as a package, driver of any car in the city. And the pas- at a price set by the buyer. Thanks to senger will say, “What is going on, you’re people buying the compilation not being literally driving like a man possessed.” complete stoma bags about it, they raised Deus Ex: Human Revolution Seriously, that slightly paraphrased line over a million for the developers and kids’ is used more than once. The game’s satis- charities. Buyers also chose how much of faction with its own set-up is slathered on the money went where. If you missed the so thick that you’re waiting for the pas- bundle, here are a few games from this senger who says “What’s wrong with you, one and previous bundles. I’ll keep them Justin? Just lately you’ve been acting like short to pack in the mentions. we’re both neurons in a city that’s become VVVVVV (thelettervsixtim.es) is an a metaphor for the phsyical health of a 8-bit platformer with just three buttons: policeman. And then, just then, your driv- left, right, and swap gravity. The simple ing changed in a way that suggested, oh, I premise is explored exhaustively, and if And Yet It Moves don’t know, like... have you ever seen Life VVVVVV had been released in the 80s, on Mars or Quantum Leap?” it’d be a revered title today. And Yet It Is this a good game? In many ways, Moves (andyetitmoves.net) is another Fuck me already with all the times I’ve had to plug a I guess I should google it and slide it into the credits yeah—leaping around from car to car excellent platformer with a slightly twee Kimberly Kane movie just so I can tell you that at some of the last episode if that’s the case. changes the basics of a driving game, cut-out style, and a world that you navi- point in my lifetime VBS will supposedly air my four- I’ve repeatedly said with all certainty that Apocalypse turns it into something that isn’t just gate by spinning it around. It never rests part Skinema exposé on Ms Kane and her sexy exploits. Now had an easier time being made than this Skinema drifts, jumps and speed. If you’re involved on its laurels, and gets better all the way What is this, like, the ninth time I’ve told you the show show, but now I’m willing to bet that building both Rome in a race, it’s easier to possess innocent through. Crayon Physics Deluxe (kloo- will be airing and then it doesn’t? At this point, I would and the Egyptian pyramids involved less labour than get- bystanders and smash them into your op- nigames.com) is an intelligent Penny just ignore me telling you anything about it anymore. I ting it aired. I’m not really sure why since everyone loves ponents than it is to race them. The whole Crayon-style puzzler where the objects VVVVVV feel like Charlie Brown going to kick the fucking foot- sex, porn is one of the biggest demographics in entertain- “help San Francisco, help yourself heal” you draw become real, and can be used to ball, and every time VICE just yanks it out from in front ment, and screwball comedies with titties are always a thing doesn’t quite work, because you, build see-saws, pulleys and more compli- of me and I land flat on my back with mud on my face. home run. Perhaps racism is the reason? Could it be VICE and the people you’re helping, are all pret- cated stuff. The idea’s been stolen by a few Why are they stalling? Fuck if I know. After bothering is racist against Portuguese men from New Jersey? One ty much dicks. Driver: San Francisco is Flash game websites, but it began here. to watch the episodes, one of the VICE bigwigs said, can’t help but assume so, given the high level of racism that enjoyable, but only if you’re able to bark Machinarium (machinarium.net) was in KIMBERLY KANE’S “Wow, this is really entertaining.” No shit, Sherlock. still exists in porn, when a girl’s porn application lists boy- with joyful derision. Rule of thumb: if you last year’s bundle—it’s an adventure puz- BEEN BLACKMALED That’s what I’ve been telling you for years. That was six girl and interracial separately. (In an unrelated thought, enjoy Torchwood’s drama and dialogue, zler featuring a melancholic robot. If you months ago. Still hasn’t aired. since porn is all about spoofs and interracial movies right here’s your game. lost hours to the Flash exploration puzzler Rating: 9 In case you can’t read the fine print on the cover, now I was thinking they should do a remake called Last It’s Ubisoft’s month, with Deus Ex: Samorost (amanita-design.net) or played Vivid.com this video is “Miss Kane’s very first DP & Interracial Mandingo In Paris and have a black fellow play the role Human Revolution out too. But while Myst back in the shit old days, suck it up. Crayon Physics Deluxe Sex Scene Ever!” If this were a comic book you’d of Marlon Brando.) I remember one girl many years ago Driver is funny, Human Revolution is just Of course, there’s always the famous want to keep it polybagged and unopened so it would telling me she’d do anything on film, even attempt to put properly brilliant, rich and complicated, ones, too—Braid and World of Goo are retain its value. Swinging from two black curtain three wieners in her butt… just no black guys. I don’t so it’s not as much fun to talk about. modern indie classics—but spread your rods is a very special moment in a young girl’s life, know what’s wrong with people. Or VICE. It’s almost Basically you work as security for a com- money around a bit. Those guys have been much like her Sweet 16 and first abortion, but don’t 2012. Can we please get our shit together already? pany that builds weaponry and human paid enough, and should make something

expect to hear any mention of it in my show because Rumour has it that the Skinema show will finally be released in August augmentation. When you’re just-about- new. Yeah, I’m that entitled of a prick. this is Ms Kane’s newest movie and I FUCKING on VBS.TV. Or maybe it won’t. You’ll just have to keep checking the site killed in action, it turns out your medical Make me more games, guys. I want to WRAPPED FILMING TWO YEARS AGO! For all to find out. And it’s fucking great, we swear. plan included getting unbreakable ankles play them. Make me some games or I’ll I know, Kimberly Kane is recently dead or retired. More stupid can be found at Chrisnieratko.com. and a sword put in your arm. get snippy about it in a magazine. Machinarium

120 VICE VICE 121 LITERARY LITERARY BY VICE STAFF BY VICE STAFF

THE HARDY TREE why he’s so productive and has managed to put Lagerfeld of the cat world. Her two feline super- within the first half-hour of his witty commentary Iphgenia Baal out several publications since we featured Feel the model muses are the adorable Princess Prin and on late-teenhood, transports the reader to a sub- Trolley Books Darkness last year. Sleeping Village is an A5-size dashing Prince Kotaro, whom she bedecks with urban family home, doing ketamine and listening collection of new, meticulously detailed pencil wondrous costumes throughout the book: elegant to Die Antwoord. Every other line of Grow Up In The Hardy Tree, Iphgenia Baal deftly “unearths” and ballpoint drawings, with a small black and tuxedos, lace veils, flowered paw bracelets, wool is a hilarious pop-culture reference, or a thought the history of St Pancras Old Church, through white photo zine inserted into it. It embodies his capes with matching hats, and much more. It’s you’ve definitely once had. This deserves a cult fol- the distraught mind of a then-young architect, reflections on growing up in a small town in the the cutest book of the cutest cats wearing the cut- lowing, for which I will most definitely be running poet-to-be Thomas Hardy. Back in 1868, he was far north of Sweden: walking empty roads, look- est outfits ever. the fan Tumblr. commissioned by the bishop of London to super- ing over picket fences to get a glimpse of other canongate.net vise the exhumation of bodies in the burial grounds viceland.com people’s lives, smoking cigarettes and drinking that Great Midland Railways acquired to enter moonshine at bus stops, or spending time in the London from the north through King’s Cross. A ABUZE METALION: THE SLAYER MAG DIARIES forest, dreaming away. cheerful job, one imagines. Iphgenia tells his story, Toomuchposse Jon Kristiansen happano.org combining fact and fiction through newspaper cut- Expensively printed collection of tedious and pre- Bazillion Points tings, headstone epitaphs, correspondence, poetry HOW TO DISAPPEAR tentious photographs that anybody who’s got a Metalion chronicles not just each individual issue and illustrations. If you fancy getting to grips with spare five minutes to browse Flickr could put to- of Slayer Mag throughout its 25-year existence, Duncan Fallowell north London on the verge of modernity and seeing gether themselves. Because we didn’t write back to but also the life of zinemaker Jon “Metalion” Ditto Press it through the eyes of an idealist exhumer, then give them thanking us for sending it to us, they wrote Kristiansen. Growing up in the small town of this a go. Back in the 2009 Fiction Issue, we spoke to Duncan me an email calling me a “nigga” and then said Sarpsborg, Norway, Kristiansen began listening trolleybooks.com Fallowell, novelist, traveller, rock critic and the guy “it’s better than all the other trendy fucking fag- to heavy metal in the early 80s via his brother’s who nearly replaced Damo Suzuki as Can’s front- got dick sucking shit you get through the door”. record collection, but quickly discovered the 1981 & + man in 1973. His new book is part memoir, part The last statement is ironic because I’d say that underground metal of bands like Bathory and Sophie Bramly travelogue covering some of his many wanderings, this is the EPITOME of all the “trendy fucking Hellhammer and in 1985 started the zine which 12Mail from 70s India in a psychedelic haze to the Scottish faggot dick sucking shit” we get sent. In fact, it’s would go on to be one of the most important piec- Isle of Eigg on the hunt for a non-existent German the WORST “trendy fucking faggot dick sucking es of writing documenting the metal underground We made a rule at VICE that if one more photo conceptual artist obsessed with “fire-energy”. shit” I’ve ever been sent. Thanks lads. Better luck and its often shocking circle. This was of course book on the world’s most cliched subject, the Designed by Nazareno Crea and printed and pub- next time! a time before the internet, where if you wanted early-80s New York hip-hop scene, was sent in lished by Ditto Press, this book is about as strange to hear something it wasn’t a click away. Enter for review, we’d pay a visit to the publishers, lock toomuchposse.com and hypnotic as you would expect from a man of tape trading, which Kristiansen says changed his them in their office, and force them to listen to Fallowell’s experiences, which are varied to say life. It was this obsession with the worldwide “Rapper’s Delight” on a loop at full volume un- ONT ROAD #16 / GO FUCK YOURSELF #2 the least. underground metal collective, sending tapes and til they apologised and pulped the lot. Luckily for Split zine dittopress.co.uk interviews back and forth across the globe, that Parisian imprint 12Mail, we won’t be heading to A travel-writing/tour diary/Leeds-based punk zine got the zine up and running, and it wasn’t long France because 1981 & + is a cut above the usual TAKE A JOKE made by some kids who love drinking coffee and before he met two young chaps from a nearby graf-and-sneakers guff. This is chiefly because journeying all over the world in vans that smell of Johnny Ryan town who had a band called Mayhem. They French snapper Sophie Bramly seems to have im- petrol and cheese pasties. There are a lot of kids Fantagraphics turned out to be none other than Necrobutcher mersed herself in the city’s nascent rap scene and masquerading as well-travelled punk rockers these and Euronymous and they got their first bit of Given that Angry Youth Comix is always amazing, won the trust of local characters who gave her ac- days but this feels like the people who wrote the exposure in Slayer Mag. Both would later go on the idea of a compendium of its best bits is pretty cess to intimate and candid situations, such as a pieces have actually been somewhere and remem- to write themselves into metal folklore for other much heaven for anyone fond of comics about young Afrika Islam (pictured in his bedroom, pet bered stuff about meeting new people beyond just genre-defining and grisly reasons, such as church- dicks, tits, shit, sex, violence, animals, killing ani- tarantulas just out of shot) and DSt and Double following them on Twitter. What’s more, there isn’t burning and murder. mals, killing tits, or shitting sex. Featuring many Trouble, both shot at home. There are also rarely a single photo of somebody’s girlfriend wearing a Kristiansen became a pivotal figure in the of Johnny’s most adored characters such as Sinus seen snaps of Rick Rubin, Beastie Boys, Futura, Black Flag shirt while obviously not really being Norwegian metal scene, but the sinister events that O’Gynus and Loady McGee, Take a Joke sees Grandmaster Flash, Fab 5 Freddy, Keith Haring, into it all that much. came to define the genre in the early 90s meant them visit hell, have sex with condiments, and all Lisa Lee and more, all in the flush of youth. You Copies £1.50 post paid to Ont Road Zine, 14 Hessle Mount, Leeds, that he was soon a pariah in his home town, where the other vile shit you would expect. If you aren’t LS6 1EP. Paypal to: [email protected] get the feeling that Bramly, whose photos are locals brandished him a church-burning Satanist sure if Johnny Ryan’s brand of humour is for you good but not earth-shattering, just happened to on account of his connection to the “black metal then flick to the last page of this magazine and see be in the right place at the right time, which of GROW UP mafia”. There are interviews with every decent for yourself. course is often how the best images are captured. Ben Brooks metal band ever through each issue and there’s Just 500 of these have been printed, so treat a pur- fantagraphics.com Canongate even time for features on a few other not-quite- chase as an investment. When I was 11 or 12, I’d spend hours on forums metal bands such as Faith No More and Marilyn 12mail.fr FASHION CATS and ridiculous fan sites trying to track down the Manson. It’s laid out in the style of a zine with Takako Iwasa email addresses of various authors, who I believed cut-out blocks of text decorated with gore-themed SLEEPING VILLAGE Vice Books deserved my personal glowing reviews of their borders and even has its own cartoon character. Ragnar Persson Unless this is the first time you have picked up the works. They HAD to know first-hand the affin- Roughly the size and weight of a large dictionary, Happa-no-Kofu magazine, and you have never watched VBS.TV ity I felt with the central characters and hear my it is, in short, the definitive guide to the under- Ragnar Persson draws all the time. Especially before, you should be aware of the Cute Show advice about how not to succumb to the pressure ground metal scenes of the 80s, 90s and beyond. when he’s doing other stuff, like watching films or and its papery equivalent, the Cute Show Page. to make a movie adaptation of their masterpiece. Metalion is essential reading for anyone interested eating dinner or speaking on the phone. Whenever Well, back in 2009, the Cute Show featured No one ever replied. Skip forward eight years, and in pieces of wood with six strings played by men he doesn’t have a pen in his hands he starts shak- one Takako Iwasa and her amazing cat-specific I find myself similarly compelled to reach out to with long hair. ing and twitching and looking nervous. That’s clothing line. Takako is pretty much the Karl Ben Brooks, 19-year-old author of Grow Up, who, bazillionpoints.com

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INTESTINES IN DUCK BLOOD — www.Rinse.fm CHOKE IT DOWN I think these are making me horny. They’re exactly how — 106.8 fm I remember them, but this place is stingy with the duck Foul Eating with Dirty Beaches blood—it’s kind of thin. My mom’s coagulated into thick cubes that went squish when you bit into them. But this is still delicious, like marinated tripe. I can tell BY BEN SHAPIRO f the most putrescent aspects of New York City were it’s well cleaned because it doesn’t taste like there are boiled into soup, it would be a viscous chowder of chunks of shit inside. — Rinse: Mix Series PHOTOS BY Isunbaked garbage, hairy cysts, street-meat gristle and ALEXANDER PERELLI subway odour. And chances are, the best place to get a SLICED PIG STOMACH IN SOUR CABBAGE SOUP steaming bowl of this shit would be at one of the many The Taiwanese eat almost every part of the pig, so this Asian eateries in Flushing, Queens, the city’s second- is like a hamburger over there. They slow-cook the largest and oft-overlooked Chinatown. stomach until the fat completely melts off. It’s weird to Taiwan-born Alex Zhang Hungtai is the man behind think about digesting something’s gut, but it’s also deli- Dirty Beaches, whose songs sound like they’re being cious. Pork-stomach success! transmitted into the future by a band of Sun Records- obsessed ghosts who were killed in a car crash on the LIVE OCTOPUS ON A BED OF LETTUCE way to their senior prom in 1952. Last month Alex vis- This is one of the most unique eating experiences I’ve ited New York, and we thought we had a bright idea: ever had. The octopus comes out about two minutes after Invite him to a “nice lunch” at one of Flushing’s gas- ordering—they just pull it from the tank, hack it up and tronomical nightmares and watch him get sick. Little throw it in front of you. It writhes on the plate as you eat did we know that Alex, a lifelong nomad, lived in the it, and you can feel it slimily wiggling around your mouth neighbourhood in his early teens and finds things like while its suckers stick to your tongue and grab the insides goat’s-eye soup utterly scrumptious. So we ended up of your cheeks. I wouldn’t recommend this to anyone. wandering around all day in shame, knowing that he Food shouldn’t attack the person who’s eating it. was going to rub the backfired plan in our faces (which, by the way, involved eating an actual face). Here’s what CHILLED PIG FACE IN GARLIC AND — Out now — Out now — Released Alex had to say about each of our meals after he fin- SMASHED CUCUMBERS Sept. 2011 ished laughing at our perpetual dry heaves. This is refreshing after the octopus. It ’s really savoury, a great way to end the day. It’s hard to tell which part of TAIWANESE-STYLE STINKY TOFU the face you’re eating because it’s all hacked up, but I do There’s that tofu stink. I haven’t smelled that in a know it’s a mixture of forehead, chin, cheek, neck and while. It’s the curd equivalent of a sweaty triathlon, for ears. I was hoping it’d be served as a flat-face sheet, but tough guys only. They make it by letting tofu rot until I guess that’s Silence of the Lambs territory. it ferments. It tastes like it smells: cheese thrown into a Check out live sets from Dirty Beaches and a whole mess of other bands / 1 0 6.8 fm / www.Rinse.fm public toilet that hasn’t been cleaned in ten years. at Noisey.com.

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fic would satisfy some of us. And yet 4ev- set to streaky sci-fi soul that’s tricky to back the gloss, leaving its frantic dance-punk treatment by Captured Tracks. Her songs erevolution is the first time he’s sounded grab hold of, but once you have it’s hard to loft party with exposed beams, dodgy plumb- are sing-along pop exotica with a deceptively like he’d rather be supping Guinness than forget. Whether stumbling through Abba’s ing and more than enough sweat glistening sweet exterior, his tracks are fraught nucle- pushing himself back around the block. The “Honey Honey”, alluding to French phi- on the ceiling. ar-age electronics that sound quite a lot like WU-TANG CLAN words are good, the stories are sharp, the losopher Hélène Cixous, or pastiching the GEORGIE GREED that recent John Maus album. Back in the THE MEN Legendary Weapons music sounds like something you’d see be- late-90s work of Rocco Siffredi in the video day they played shows with Suicide but I just Leave Home E1 Music ing dragged out of bed in a documentary for “Soo High”, she’s invented her own JOAKIM googled them and nowadays they’re an ador- Sacred Bones about care homes. peculiar world and managed to make it ap- Nothing Gold able silver-haired couple who run an antiques LAURA MERCI pear incredibly seductive. Beyond all the Tigersushi store in Massachusetts and yeah, I wish they When Ghostface and Raekwon grum- surface stuff, though, it’s her trippy music were my uncle and aunt, OK? Not to be confused with former Le Tigre 6 bled that 8 Diagrams, with its kook-rock that you return to with a curious smile on DEAN FUNK 8 sorts MEN, the Men are, quite literally, guests and Beatles knock-offs, was nothing your lips. If first impressions count, then I’m say- men. Dirty, unpleasant-looking men, from but hippy-hop, presumably this is what they JENNIFER JUPITER 5 ing that Joakim has extracted some RUBIK Brooklyn, probably sporting bad tattoos, were outwardly longing for: a compilation of lovely sounds from his synthesisers and Communication playing lumbering, feedback-soused noise- wall-to-wall Wu that takes no chances and AZARI & III APPARAT drum machines, and blended his fourth al- Domestic rock that sounds, in the slower bits, kind offers no surprises, but is just as effective as S/t The Devil’s Walk bum beautifully on his customised mixing of like Harvey Milk if all their occasional the last time you put Heinz ketchup on your Loose Lips Mute desk. But as an artist with something to say, moments of fist-pumping celebration were bacon sandwich. Still, amid the weariness even after four albums, I’m not convinced by Don’t play this if you’re having a party. replaced by a general mood of creeping black and familiarity there’s enough to remind you the French producer. “Forever Young” and 7 It’ll put everyone in a terrible mood. depression. It’s pretty good, like. why you wouldn’t switch to mayo. Azari & III are four Canadian house music With The Devil’s Walk, Teutonic tech- “Labyrinth” are great here, but little else re- Want something beautiful to burn a hole CHARLES HANSON TODD PHUTURE 7 fruits who look like extras in a nightclub 7 no dandy Sascha Ring bids farewell ally grabs me. I’d rather listen to his remixes, in your brain? Communication will do the scene from an early-90s Harrison Ford thriller. to the lucrative Euro club circuit and sets where he seems less self-conscious. trick. Rubik is a bloke called Shaun Yule ÅRABROT TODDLA T Having released “Reckless With Your Love” out with his new band to slog round the LES PANINI who got the dubstep thing out of his system Solar Anus Watch Me Dance and “Hungry for the Power” about 28 times in toilets of Great Britain peddling swoon- on his last album. Now he’s treading a line Fysisk Format Ninja Tune three years, they’ve managed to get it together ing Sigur Rós melancholia. The transition LADYTRON between morose and sentimental, and pull- for long enough to produce a whole album of from solo electro pin-up to indie dream- Gravity the Seducer ing it off fairly elegantly. warehouse chuggers and smoochy disco which pop four-piece may be bumpy at first, but Nettwerk BIMBO BAGGINS Årabrot are from Norway and appar- Toddla T’s muse comes from all the sounds like the smacked-out hi-NRG record his doe-eyed mix of Steve Reich and Snow 7 ently named after one of the nation’s 6 right places—dancehall, hip-hop, house, the Scissor Sisters badly wanted to make but Patrol should see him through. It worked ZOLA JESUS municipal dumps, which should give you a squidgy-bouncy electronic noises—and none didn’t have the balls to. Any takers? for Caribou, and Apparat is an altogether The ’Tron’s 91st release in their 600- Conatus bit of an idea of where they fall on the “easy of the shit ones. So this should really be much THEYDON BOIS classier proposition. 9 year career damps down some of the Souterrain Transmissions listening” to “unpleasant noise” axis. Solar better than it is. Not that it’s bad, but it THANDIE NEUTRON techno textures of Velocifero for a more Anus, it probably won’t surprise you, was should be sell-your-granny great. Instead it’s MARIA MINERVA stately, bitter, bewitching bitches’ brew: a recorded by Steve Albini, and with its monot- just kind of like listening to a more reggaefied Cabaret Cixous THE RAPTURE mid-paced ghost-ride through the burnt- While it’s hard to fault any of Nika onous drums, grinding guitars and apparent Basement Jaxx album, minus the moments of Not Not Fun In the Grace of Your Love out husks of digital dreams that displays 6 Danilova’s records to date, the feeling lin- sex pest on vocals, does a pretty good job genius. Watching him dance might actually DFA the same imperious disdain for reinvention gers that everything she’s done so far has been a of making your skin crawl just like the Jesus be more enjoyable. they’ve always shown. bit of a rush-job, bashed out in spare moments Lizard might have done back in the day. STEVE WHY Despite her surly pose in photos, ROSIE BOYCOCK between listening to industrial music, leafing INSTANT SHARMA 10 Maria Minerva is easily one of the Everybody loved the Rapture, but through heavy tomes by continental philoso- ROOTS MANUVA best pop stars to come out of nowhere in 8 hasn’t their time passed? Evidently not. JEFF & JANE HUDSON phers, and moping around looking complicated CHARLES ALBRIGHT 4everevolution 2011. This year the 23-year-old Estonian Producer Philippe Zdar gave Phoenix the Flesh in middle-American shopping malls. Conatus is Weight 7" Big Dada has already released two mini-albums of kick up the arse they needed, and here he Captured Tracks a slightly more nuanced listen than Stridulum, Permanent Records druggy nocturnal overtures on Not Not manages to address the problems the Rapture crashing war-drums replaced by glitches and Fun and 100% Silk, and now she completes always had—feeling like a slickly airbrushed pulsing electronics, but really it’s her voice you Rodney Smith’s lexicographical mas- the perverse trilogy with Cabaret Cixous, a approximation of a band more than a band in Superior no-wave synth artefact, record- listen for, a blend of Siouxsie and Florence Not enough people are glorifying se- 4 tery and big huggy baritone means just full-length album of hallucinatory disco, ex- itself—to breathe new life into their project. 8 ed by a New York husband-and-wife Welch that’s big like cathedrals. 9 rial killers these days even though it’s a him talking over the hum of distant traf- otic mind games and post-feminist rhetoric Accordingly, In the Grace of Your Love strips duo in 1981 and dusted down for the reissue MILEY O’CYRUS surefire way to get attention. Naming your

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band after the guy better known as the Dallas with Van Dyke Parks, publishing short sto- BUTCHER BOY STEPKIDS OH LAND Ripper and the Eyeball Killer (because he ries or shopping around for great deals on Helping Hands S/t S/t would surgically remove the eyes of prosti- car insurance, Dev Hynes likes nothing more Damaged Goods Stones Throw RCA tutes after shooting them) is a good first step. than to kick back by making albums of lo- Making a really noisy, screechy punk record fi soul influenced by tragic transgender New PRURIENT where you overwhelm your listeners was the York model Octavia St Laurent under his For the uninitiated, Butcher Boy basically Backing the likes of Fiddy and Alicia I imagine when Oh Land fills out a tax Bermuda Drain second good thing you did. The third good Blood Orange nom de suave. What he brings 6 sound like Belle & Sebastian jamming 7 Keys on tour would be enough to drive 1 form she scribbles drawings of fawns in Hydra Head thing was giving me a copy. The Spits already back from the intersex hinterland is strange with Belle & Sebastian over old Belle & the Daily Mail to drugs, and this Connecticut the margins, then writes “a debt paid with have a song called “Drop Out”, but telling fruit indeed: a slowed-down, creamy-dreamy Sebastian records while Belle & Sebastian psych-funk-soul trio of old stagehands sound love” in red crayon across the front, and people to drop out is important. world in which Sade has replaced the Beatles wander in from the next room to ask if any- like they’ve been neck-deep in a bucket of posts it attached to a magical stone shaped People who spend a lot of time writing DIXIE as the bedrock of popular music, underlined one wants to go see Belle & Sebastian at the maggot brains. But among the swish and swirl like a swan. Well, I hope the tax authorities 9 on noise message boards have been get- by a girly new singing voice caused in part Belle & Sebastian Arena. This would be less and psychedelic stick-ons, there’s a sunniness bang her up and she ends up in the Danish ting their panties in a twist about the new NIG-HEIST by a recent throat operation. Trend report: exciting were we not living in a world in which to the songwriting that makes Stepkids more equivalent of Cell Block H, making shanks Prurient album, which marks a shift from S/t transgender is officially hip again. Belle & Sebastian remain imprisoned in an on- than just Stones Throw’s latest stab at corner- out of teaspoons and stacking weight on her the whole screaming-and-feedback thing into Drag City MAX PASTINGS going mojo crisis involving fuck-awful synths ing the retro market. hips from endless rounds of bread and jam. new, synthier, electronic realms. But there’s and Corinne Bailey Rae, so there’s something FUNKER CLERIC Teeth-rottingly kooky, this is poppy folk- no getting round the fact that Bermuda Drain BEIRUT heartening about the way their seven-piece tronica so inherently super-Scandinavian is basically a masterpiece, a gloomy collage Black Flag were always renowned for The Rip Tide Glasgow doppelgängers have stayed true to the LAURA MARLING that Anders Breivik would give it at least of melancholy synth, industrial wreckage, 4 their confrontational approach to play- Pompeii purist “don’t fuck with the flutes” principles A Creature I Don’t Know 3-and-a-half stars in Q, yet it brings nothing Dennis Cooper-style spoken-word and on ing live—setting up an environment designed of indie-pop. They did so more concisely on Virgin to the table that Lykke Li or a dozen others “A Meal Can Be Made” and “There Are Still to antagonise. The apex of this was the puerile 2009’s React or Die, true, but Helping Hands haven’t with less of a patience-testing patina Secrets”, pulsating EBM over which Dom id-rock of de facto support band Nig-Heist. It must really suck to play in a wander- remains an indulgent pleasure. of self-congratulation. Fernow shrieks himself hoarse. Technically, Led by SST employee and roadie Mugger, 6 ing gypsy band and suddenly turn up in CHRIS BLACKWURST In my imagination, anything that receives DOMINIC MOHAWK it’s not a noise album, but it’s every inch a every night audiences were baited by juvenilia town to find that a 12-year-old boy with an 6 the semen of Marcus Mumford immediate- Prurient album, and another landmark in a and partial nudity, gay jokes and rape allu- accordion has totally stolen your audience. BOMBAY BICYCLE CLUB ly withers and dies, but actually Laura Marling GANGLIANS restless, exploratory discography. sions from a revolving door of musicians who Welcome to the free market, losers! A Different Kind of Fix has made a very pleasant folk record here. One Still Living CANARY DWARF should have known better. Here, stripped of EL PEE Island that’s particularly nice if your mum used to lis- Souterrain Transmissions context, you’re left with an idiot savant col- ten to Joni Mitchell, like mothers often do. GRUMBLING FUR lection of brain-stem cock-rock that makes THE DRUMS CHILL DAVE Furrier the Meatmen look sophisticated. Highlight Portamento In my head, BBC are twinned with that Hmm, Ganglians. Are you the ones Aurora Borealis “Walking Down the Street” evokes the early Moshi Moshi 2 other great club, Two Door Cinema, in BAXTER DURY 7 who are dating Beth from that Great Flag/Stooges/Ramones worship with Greg the bracket “Things that reveal an alarming Happy Soup Coast band? Or are you the ones who are Ginn’s unmistakable downstroke attack. previously unimagined mass public appetite for Regal best friends with the weird dude who runs Rumours of this collaboration have bil- DOUBLE EWW It’s a slightly weird thing that there’s a MOR teen indie-pop made by milksop boys Captured Tracks? Was one of you the 8 lowed for aeons, and, apt for music so 3 generation of handsome young American with slightly less personality than shopping drummer in Crystal Stilts? Honestly, the stoned that it can barely stand up, the as- men with such a boner for obscure British channels”. I imagine lots of frantic record label Baxter Dury is a proper diamond who hazy, sepia-toned US lo-fi scene is so con- sumption was it would lay slumped in the indie-pop that they spend their blessed ex- conversations about whether they’ve found any- 8 looks like he’d be a right laugh to hang fusingly incestuous from this distance, it’s vaults, unable to string a sentence together, istence moping around like bored teenagers one with a more recessive personality than Jack out with. He writes songs about birds and hard to get a grip. Oh right—you’re the let alone put its trousers on and meet the from dull market towns in the 80s and know Steadman yet, or anyone with Alex Trimble’s coke and London town but his career’s al- ones who do that Flying Nun-derived out- public. THC troubadour Alex Tucker, BLOOD ORANGE Bobby Gillespie best as that guy who used to gift for polite nodding, because that’s where the ways been overshadowed by his more famous sider pop with the supersized twangy echo Mothlite/Miracle man Daniel O’Sullivan Coastal Grooves play bass in the Wake. In these fairly narrow motherfucking sales gold is. If I were reviewing dad, Ian. It’s about time folk picked up on effects. And yeah, like a lot of that stuff, and Jussi Lehtisalo from Finnish institution Domino boundaries in which the second album by this for a sensible periodical, I’d probably sneak Baxter, particularly because this third album their second is totally pleasant, if not al- Circle all pray for smoke over cathedral pipes the Drums exists, it’s reasonably hard to find a look at the general trajectory of industry chat- of sweet funk and lairy soul is his best yet. ways engaging; a thicket of reverb you have and joyous clamour, building a remarkably much fault, although both Beach Fossils and ter and say “big step up”, “stunningly mature” He calls Happy Soup a “candid portrait of to crawl through on your belly, but worth coherent ode to bliss from the dreamlike When he’s not illustrating his com- Wild Nothing do this winsome, why-won’t- now. As I’m not, I can spare everyone the glad- romantic failures”, and you know what? The it for the occasional shafts of brilliant odd- mire. Serves particularly well as a sound- 8 ics, blogging, working on Lightspeed girls-talk-to-me jangle with a spot more nous. handing and say: “Pfffffffffffffft. Boring.” geezer is spot on. pop sunshine. track to the lightshow under your eyelids. Champion, writing film scores, collaborating LUIGI PATAZONI KELVIN MACKCRACKERS FRUITY MCGINTY LARRY LAMBO PAPA VUH

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