The Moral Compass Issue by VICE Australia

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TABLE OF CONTENTS

Photo by Ricardo Cases from his series Paloma Al Aire.

VOLUME 9 NUMBER 12 Cover by Ben Ritter

HADEPHOBIA IS THE FEAR OF HADES And It’s Scary as Hell . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 24 WE CAN ALL AGREE THE SYSTEM IS FUCKED But How Occupy’s Going To Fuck the System Is a Whole Other Ordeal . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 26

2011: AS THE WORLD BURNS 13 Pages of Protests, Uprisings, and Pissed-Off People . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 30 THE MYSTERIES OF THE TEACHER Vissarion’s Church of the Last Testament Is the Only Reason to Visit Siberia . . . . . . . . . 56

12 Masthead 14 Employees 18 Front of the Book 44 DOs & DON’Ts 48 FASHION: American Psycho 66 The Cute Show Page! 68 Toupee: Medicine Man 69 Sydney Festival 2012 70 The Learnin’ Corner 72 Reviews 80 Johnny Ryan’s Page

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MODEL: GA120A-7A

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EMPLOYEES OF THE MONTH Considering this issue mostly concerns morality and ethics, it seemed like an opportune time to take a look inward and see exactly where VICE stands when it comes to issues of right and wrong. So we asked Jesse Graham, assistant professor of psychology at USC and co-creator of the Moral Foundations Questionnaire (yourmorals.org), to create an accurate test that, country by country, would help us determine our collective conscience by analysing a sampling of 11 members of VICE’s international editorial team. Turns out, on average, we’re a pretty swell bunch when it comes to caring for individuals and being fair. What we’re not fond of is hierarchies, obeying authority, or maintaining bodily and spiritual “purity,” but who is these days? Of course, the results also detailed each editor’s moral pitfalls and other shortcomings. We graphed their results, designated a random interviewer who was not involved with the test, and asked the most extreme cases to explain their deviance. Then we emailed everyone to guess which country ranked as the most despicable of all.

Average of Each Moral Foundation for Each Editorial Office 5 4.5 4 3.5 3 2.5 2 1.5 1

Harm Fairness Ingroup Authority Purity

“nationalism,” where everyone stands around pledging allegiances to flags, getting into a tizzy because something is “unconstitutional” or “un-American,” and indiscriminately supporting invasions of Middle Eastern countries. Canadianness is really just talking shit about America, bragging about free health care (which actually kind of sucks), drinking beers, and secretly being jealous about how the US is warmer and more fun. However, if you fuck with our hockey teams we will completely freak out and by the end of it we’ll be drunk, naked, bloody, and peeing off the roof of a burning cop car. Royce, you scored the lowest for fairness, meaning you are a selfish and unjust tyrant who doesn’t care about anyone else but yourself. Royce Akers: I’d say that’s fair.

Which VICE bureau do you think is the most immoral? Julien Morel: Hmm, maybe the UK. We’ve been at war with them for five centuries, and they updated our common religion just to piss us off. That’s immoral enough for me. Royce Akers: Definitely Sweden. I definitely have the most immoral thoughts about Swedish people. Barbara Dabrowska: Russia, because the stereotype propagated by the media and movies is that there’s a huge gap between the rich and poor, and that every rich Russian got that way by being a criminal who doesn’t give a shit about human lives, women’s rights, or the environment. That said, I think the fact that I’ve never been to Russia probably contributes to this preconception. Bruno Bayley: This isn’t personal, but maybe Italy. Italians are pretty into corruption, but then again they are mostly Catholics. Maybe that instills some deep-seated morality in them? Probably not.

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Raf Katigbak: I’d have to say Russia. That place is the Federal Republic of We Don’t Give a Fuck. VICE: You two scored the lowest in the purity category. What’s the most impure thing you’ve done lately? Rocco Castoro: I killed a cockroach by lighting it on fire. Jan van Tienen: I carried a dead hare across a field by its hind legs, which were covered in its own urine. The hunter who shot it had just pushed the urine out of the bladder with his fist. (It keeps the flesh from tasting foul.) My fingers smell like hare pee now. Hey, Raf. Guess what, buddy? You scored a 1.17 out of 5 for in-group loyalty. Why are you such a treacherous snake when it comes to your family, friends, and country? Don’t you like Canada? Raf Katigbak: Maybe it’s because our flag is kind of gay, or that our national anthem is an uninspiring yawnfest, but blind devotion just isn’t our deal. Canada is lame because, unlike America, we don’t have this thing called

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Rocco Castoro: France, hands down. The people running the place—and for that matter running the IMF up until recently—seem to have no problem publicly cheating on their spouses. Also, I’ve never known a French person to ever admit any wrongdoing. This attitude informs their pathetic extradition and labor laws, which makes the country a magnet for unethical creeps with no responsibility. Toni Querol: Tough call. Russia, maybe because there’s that scene in Crime and Punishment where they beat a horse to death? Or Sweden, because when Swedish chicks come visit Spain they only hook up with Latin skaters? Or maybe Canada, because they never officially apologised for Bryan Adams? Milène Larsson: It’s a draw between Russia and the US. What’s worse? A country that minds its own business like Russia, or one that sticks its nose into everyone else’s business and fucks it up like the US?

By Daniel Salazar zŽƵ͛Ě ďĞ ŚĂƌĚ ƉƌĞƐƐĞĚ ƚŽ ĮŶĚ ĂŶǇŽŶĞ ŵŽƌĞ ĚĞĚŝĐĂƚĞĚ ƚŽ ƚŚĞ ĐƌĂŌ ŽĨ ƚĞƋƵŝůĂ ŵĂŬŝŶŐ ƚŚĂŶ Ă :ŝŵĂĚŽƌ͘ ĞǇŽŶĚ ƚŚĞ ŐƵǇƐ ǁŽƌŬŝŶŐ ŝŶ ƚŚĞ ĚŝƐƟůůĞƌǇ͕ ƚŚĞƐĞ ĂŐĂǀĞ ǁŚŝƐƉĞƌĞƌƐ ĂƌĞ ƉƌĞƩǇ ŵƵĐŚ ƚŚĞ ŬĞǇ ƚŽ ƚŚĞ ƌĞƐƚ ŽĨ ƵƐ ƚĞƋƵŝůĂ ůŽǀĞƌƐ ŐĞƫŶŐ Ă ƚĂƐƚĞ ŽĨ ƚŚĞ ƐƚƵī͘ tĞ ǀĞŶƚƵƌĞĚ ŽƵƚƐŝĚĞ 'ƵĂĚĂůĂũĂƌĂ ƚŽ ĂƐĂ ,ĞƌƌĂĚƵƌĂ͕ ƚŚĞ ŚŽŵĞ ŽĨ ů :ŝŵĂĚŽƌ ;ƉƌŽŶŽƵŶĐĞĚ el-heem-a-doorͿ͕ ƚŽ ŵĞĞƚ ŽŶĞ ůŝǀĞ ŝŶ ƚŚĞ ŇĞƐŚ ĂŶĚ ŐĞƚ ƚŚĞ ƐŬŝŶŶǇ ŽŶ ƚŚĞŝƌ ƚƌĂĚĞ͘ tĞ ĐĂƵŐŚƚ ƵƉ ǁŝƚŚ Ă ĐŽƵƉůĞ ŽĨ ŽƚŚĞƌ ǁŽƌŬĞƌƐ ǁŚŝůĞ ǁĞ ǁĞƌĞ Ăƚ ŝƚ͘

FELIX Hi Felix, nice to meet you. What do you do here at Casa Herradura? /͛ŵ Ă Jimador͘ KƵƌ ũŽď ŝƐ ƚŽ ƉŝĐŬ ƚŚĞ agave ƵƐŝŶŐ Ă ƚŽŽů ĐĂůůĞĚ Ă coa ;Ă ŬŝŶĚ ŽĨ ĂǆĞͿ͘ tĞ ĐƵƚ ƚŚĞ ůĞĂǀĞƐ ŽĨ ƚŚĞ ĂŐĂǀĞ ƵŶƟů ǁĞ ĮŶĚ ŝƚƐ ĐĞŶƚƌĂů ƉĂƌƚ͕ ǁŚŝĐŚ ǁĞ ĐĂůů ƚŚĞ ŚĞĂƌƚ͘ dŚĂƚ͛Ɛ ǁŚĂƚ ƚŚĞǇ ŵĂŬĞ ƚĞƋƵŝůĂ ĨƌŽŵ͘ tĞ ĐĂŶ ĐƵƚ ůŝƚĞƌĂůůǇ ƚŽŶƐ ŽĨ agaves ĚĂŝůǇ͕ ǁŝƚŚ ŶŽ ƚĞĐŚŶŽůŽŐǇ͘ /ƚ͛Ɛ Ăůů ĚŽŶĞ ǁŝƚŚ ŽƵƌ ŚĂŶĚƐ͘ tŚĂƚ͛Ɛ ŝƚ ůŝŬĞ ǁŽƌŬŝŶŐ ŽŶ ƚŚĞ ƉůĂŶƚĂƟŽŶ͍ /ƚ͛Ɛ ƌĞĂůůǇ ŶŝĐĞ͘ zŽƵ ŐĞƚ ƵƉ ĞĂƌůǇ ĂŶĚ ǇŽƵ͛ƌĞ ŝŶ ƚŽƵĐŚ ǁŝƚŚ ŶĂƚƵƌĞ Ăůů ĚĂǇ͘ zŽƵ ŵĞĞƚ ǁŝƚŚ ĨƌŝĞŶĚƐ͕ ǁŽƌŬ ĂŶĚ ŚĂŶŐ ŽƵƚ ǁŝƚŚ ƚŚĞŵ͘ tŚĂƚ ĂƌĞ ƚŚĞ ĚŝīĞƌĞŶƚ ƐƚĂŐĞƐ ŝŶ ƚŚĞ ƉƌŽĐĞƐƐ ŽĨ ŵĂŬŝŶŐ tequila? &ŝƌƐƚ ƚŚĞ Jimadors ĐŽůůĞĐƚ ƚŚĞ ĂŐĂǀĞ͕ ƚŚĞŶ ǁĞ ŐĞƚ ƚŚĞ ŚĞĂƌƚƐ ůŽĂĚĞĚ ŝŶƚŽ ŚƵŐĞ ŽǀĞŶƐ ƚŽ ĐŽŽŬ͕ ƚŽ ŐĞƚ ƚŚĞ ƐƵŐĂƌƐ ŽƵƚ ŽĨ ƚŚĞ ƉůĂŶƚ͘ dŚĞŶ ŝƚ͛Ɛ ĨĞƌŵĞŶƚĂƟŽŶ͕ ĚŝƐƟůůĂƟŽŶ͕ ĂŶĚ ĮŶĂůůǇ ƚŚĞ ƌĞƐƟŶŐ ƉĞƌŝŽĚ͘ ůů ƚĞƋƵŝůĂ ŝƐ ƉƵƚ ŝŶƚŽ ĐŚĂƌƌĞĚ ŽĂŬ ďĂƌƌĞůƐ ƚŽ ďĞ ĂŐĞĚ͕ ďƵƚ ŝƚ ƌĞĂůůǇ ĚĞƉĞŶĚƐ ŽŶ ǁŚĂƚ ŬŝŶĚ ŽĨ ƚĞƋƵŝůĂ ǇŽƵ͛ƌĞ ŵĂŬŝŶŐ͗ Blanco ;ǁŚŝƚĞͿ ƚĞƋƵŝůĂ ŝƐ ďŽƩůĞĚ ƐƚƌĂŝŐŚƚ ĂǁĂǇ͘ Reposado ;ƌĞƐƚĞĚͿ ĂŐĞĚ ĨŽƌ ĂƌŽƵŶĚ ƚǁŽ ŵŽŶƚŚƐ͘ Añejo ;ĂŐĞĚͿ ĂŐĞĚ ĨŽƌ Ă ǇĞĂƌ Ăƚ ůĞĂƐƚ͘ Why do you think tequila is such an important drink? /ƚ͛Ɛ ƚŚĞ ĚƌŝŶŬ ǁĞ ůŝŬĞ ƚŚĞ ŵŽƐƚ͊ WůƵƐ ǁĞ ƌĞĂůůǇ ĂƉƉƌĞĐŝĂƚĞ ǁŚĂƚ ƚŚĞ ĚƌŝŶŬ ŵĞĂŶƐ ƚŽ DĞǆŝĐŽ͕ ǁĞ͛ƌĞ ƉƌĞƩǇ ƉƌŽƵĚ ŽĨ ŝƚ͘ DĂŬŝŶŐ ƚĞƋƵŝůĂ ŝƐ ĂŶ Ăƌƚ͕ ĂŶĚ ŝƚ͛Ɛ Ă ƉƌĞƩǇ ŚĞĂǀǇ ƌĞƐƉŽŶƐŝďŝůŝƚǇ ƚŽŽ͘

EFREN SANDOVAL Why is tequila such an important drink in Guadalajara - and in Mexico? /ƚ͛Ɛ ƉĂƌƚ ŽĨ ŽƵƌ ƚƌĂĚŝƟŽŶ͘ ůŽƚ ŽĨ ƉĞŽƉůĞ ǁŽƌŬĞĚ ƚŚŝƐ ůĂŶĚ ĂŶĚ ƚŚŝƐ ƉƌŽĐĞƐƐ ďĞĨŽƌĞ ǁĞ ŐŽƚ ŚĞƌĞ͘ >Ğƚ͛Ɛ ĞŶũŽǇ ŝƚ͕ ƉƌĞƐĞƌǀĞ ŝƚ͕ ůĞĂƌŶ ĂďŽƵƚ ŝƚ͘ What makes a really great tequila? And how hard is it to create one? /ƚ ŚĂƐ ƚŽ ďĞ ϭϬϬй ĂŐĂǀĞ͘ dŚĞ ƉƌŽĐĞƐƐ ĨŽƌ Ă ŐƌĞĂƚ ƚĞƋƵŝůĂ ŝƐ ǁĂǇ ƐůŽǁĞƌ ďĞĐĂƵƐĞ ǁĞ ĚŽŶ͛ƚ ĂĐĐĞůĞƌĂƚĞ ĂŶǇƚŚŝŶŐ ǁŝƚŚ ŵĂĐŚŝŶĞƐ Žƌ ĐŚĞŵŝĐĂů ƉƌŽĚƵĐƚƐ͘ ƌĞ ƚŚĞƌĞ ĂŶǇ ĐƵůƚƵƌĂů ƚƌĂĚŝƟŽŶƐ ƚŚĂƚ ƌĞǀŽůǀĞ ĂƌŽƵŶĚ ƚĞƋƵŝůĂ͍ tĞ ŚĂǀĞ Ă tequila carnaval ĨƵůů ŽĨ ƉĂƌƚǇŝŶŐ͕ ŵĂƌŝĂĐŚŝ ŵƵƐŝĐ͕ ďĞĂƵƟĨƵů ůĂĚŝĞƐ ĂŶĚ Ăůů ƚŚĞ ƚĞƋƵŝůĂ ǇŽƵ ǁĂŶƚ͊ ŽĞƐ ƚĞƋƵŝůĂ ŚĂǀĞ ƚŽ ďĞ ŵĂĚĞ ŝŶ 'ƵĂĚĂůĂũĂƌĂ͕ Žƌ ĚŽĞƐ ŝƚ ũƵƐƚ ŚĂǀĞ ƚŽ ďĞ ŵĂĚĞ ĨƌŽŵ ƚŚĞ ďůƵĞ ĂŐĂǀĞ͍ WĞŽƉůĞ ĐĂŶ ĚŽ ǁŚĂƚĞǀĞƌ ƚŚĞǇ ǁĂŶƚ͕ ďƵƚ ŝĨ ƚŚĞǇ ĚŽŶ͛ƚ ŚĂǀĞ ƚŚĞ dĞƋƵŝůĂ dƌĂĚĞ ŐƌĞĞŵĞŶƚ Žƌ ĞŶŽŵŝŶĂƟŽŶ ŽĨ KƌŝŐŝŶ ƚŚĞŶ ŝƚ͛Ɛ ǁŽƌƚŚ ŶŽƚŚŝŶŐ͘ ^Ž͕ ŝĨ ŝƐ ŶŽƚ ĨƌŽŵ ƚŚŝƐ ƌĞŐŝŽŶ͕ ǇŽƵ͛ƌĞ ĚƌŝŶŬŝŶŐ ƉĞĞ͙

ALEJANDRO RIESTRA What do you do here, Alejandro? / ĐĂŶ ĚŽ ĂůŵŽƐƚ ĞǀĞƌǇƚŚŝŶŐ͘ / ĚƌŝǀĞ Ă ďƵƐ͕ ŐŽ ŝŶƚŽ ƚŚĞ ĮĞůĚ͘ / ĚŽ ŝƚ Ăůů͘ ,Žǁ ůŽŶŐ ŚĂǀĞ ǇŽƵ ďĞĞŶ ŝŶǀŽůǀĞĚ ŝŶ ŵĂŬŝŶŐ ƚĞƋƵŝůĂ͍ ŝŐŚƚ ǇĞĂƌƐ͘ / ƌĞĂůůǇ ĞŶũŽǇ ŝƚ͕ ĨĞĞůŝŶŐ ƚŚĞ ƐƵŶ͛Ɛ ŚĞĂƚ͕ ƚŚĞ ĨƌĞƐŚ Ăŝƌ͘ dŚĞƌĞ͛Ɛ Ă ůŽƚ ŽĨ ŚĂƌĚ ǁŽƌŬ ĨŽƌ ƐƵƌĞ͕ ďƵƚ Ăƚ ůĞĂƐƚ ǁĞ͛ǀĞ ŐŽƚ ďĞĂƵƟĨƵů ůĂŶĚƐĐĂƉĞƐ ĂŶĚ ǁĞĂƚŚĞƌ͘ ,Žǁ ůŽŶŐ ŚĂƐ ƚĞƋƵŝůĂ ďĞĞŶ ŵĂĚĞ ŝŶ 'ƵĂĚĂůĂũĂƌĂ͍ / ŐƵĞƐƐ ƐŝŶĐĞ ƚŚĞ ^ƉĂŶŝƐŚ ĐŽůŽŶŝĞƐ ĂƌƌŝǀĞĚ ŝŶ ŵĞƌŝĐĂ͘ dĞƋƵŝůĂ ŚĂƐ ůŽŶŐ ƚƌĂĚŝƟŽŶ ĂŶĚ Ă ŝŵƉŽƌƚĂŶƚ ŚŝƐƚŽƌǇ͕ ũƵƐƚ ůŝŬĞ ŽƵƌ ĐŽƵŶƚƌǇ͘͘͘ ƌĞ ƚŚĞƌĞ ǀĞƌǇ ŵĂŶǇ ƐƉĞĐŝĂů ŽĐĐĂƐŝŽŶƐ ƚŚĂƚ ƚĞƋƵŝůĂ ƉůĂǇƐ Ă ďŝŐ ƉĂƌƚ ŝŶ͍ ƌŽƵŶĚ ŚƌŝƐƚŵĂƐ ĂŶĚ ŽƚŚĞƌ ŚŽůŝĚĂǇƐ ǁĞ ŚĂǀĞ ŶŽŶͲƐƚŽƉ ƚĞƋƵŝůĂ ƐĞƐƐŝŽŶƐ Ăƚ ŚŽŵĞ ǁŝƚŚ ƚŚĞ ĨĂŵŝůǇ͘ dŚĞǇ͛ƌĞ ůŽƚƐ ŽĨ ĨŽŽĚ͕ ůŽƚƐ ŽĨ ĨƵŶ͘ Why do you think it’s such an important drink to Mexicans? /ƚ ƉƌŽǀŝĚĞƐ ũŽďƐ͕ ŝƚ͛Ɛ ĨƵŶ͕ ĂŶĚ ŵĂŬĞƐ ůĂĚŝĞƐ ůŽŽŬ ďĞƩĞƌ͘ /͛ŵ ũŽŬŝŶŐ͊ ;ůĂƵŐŚƐͿ͘

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BROKEN HEARTS, BROKEN DICKS Dinks aren’t as sturdy as you might like to think, especially when they are secretly stuck into holes they probably shouldn’t be in. Men have a higher chance of snapping their dongs while cheating on their spouses, according to a recent study conducted by Dr. Andrew Kramer, a urologist at the University of Maryland Medical Center, who surveyed 16 men who had broken their penises between 2004 and 2011. (Probably because they were tired of fucking their wives and gave it a little too hard to the new girl, but that’s just our guess.) Also contributing to penile pain were sexual encounters under “out-of-thenorm circumstances.” We asked Dr. Dick how to prevent this unfortunate condition.

BY ALLISON RAMIREZ ILLUSTRATION BY JOHNNY RYAN

Forget the First Nation BY BEN MAKUCH PHOTO BY COREY ADCOCK

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VICE: Your report says that people screwing in weird places are more likely to break their cocks. Can you give some examples of these dangerous locations? Dr. Andrew Kramer: Situations such as sexual relations in elevators, public restrooms, and at work qualify.

GLOBAL STREET POLL: WHAT WOULD YOU DO IF YOU KNEW THE WORLD WAS GOING TO END TOMORROW?

If a man chooses to have an affair or deviant, kinky sex, how can he protect his penis from snapping like a twig? By placing your hands on the woman’s hips or somewhere on her body to control the downward force that could result in the penis buckling. Is a man more likely to result in a broken penis if he’s cheating with a man or a woman? I didn’t study this, but I’m sure homosexual men have fractured their penises as well, and that the penis can buckle against an axial force in a similar way. Why is it called “breaking” when there isn’t a bone in there? And for that matter, where did boner come from? There are no bones in the human penis, although I’m told the dog has a bone of some kind in its penis. I think this is a slang term because the erection is hard and straight and resembles a bone.

Violence-plagued Indian Reserves like the Samson Cree First Nation, where a five-year-old was recently killed in a drive-by shooting, and the Sandy Bay First Nation, where a woman was beheaded, underline just how fucked up rez life in Canada has become. Some reserves are starting to resemble Brazilian favelas: Gun crime and incarceration is soaring, HIV rates are on par with global highs, and more than one-third of aboriginals haven’t graduated from high school. The real kicker is that this massively impoverished group (totaling more than 1.1 million people) is not only statistically the youngest but also the fastest-growing population in Canada. The other problem is no one in Canada gives a flying fuck. The federal government doesn’t have any revolutionary plans in place, and the Aboriginal Affairs and Northern Development department is a monetary black hole. It’s no coincidence most serial killers in Canada have targeted Native women, because cops don’t give a shit about them. Before the nation’s most prolific serial killer (Vancouver pig farmer and convicted murderer of 50 women Robert Pickton) was caught, Aboriginal prostitutes in Vancouver went to the authorities with information. “I have a friend that went to the cops in 1998 and told them about Pickton’s whole farm,” said Anishinaabe activist Audrey Huntley, who worked in East Vancouver with prostitutes. “They called her a ‘junkie ho.’” There’s no denying the stats: Amnesty International maintains that Native women are five times more likely to be killed by violence than other women. Not to mention, young men are joining gangs faster than ever before, resulting in frequent gang wars. Police have been accused of indifference when it comes to Aboriginal crime. Instead of dealing with the issue, the government continues to preserve archaic policies like the 19th-century Indian Act. “Ten percent of cases will involve Natives, and the reality is they’re the hardest to solve,” said a former Royal Canadian Mounted Police officer. “Witnesses won’t come forward, there’s gang silence, or just overall distrust of police.” He added, “They think [cops] are the enemy. Sometimes I don’t blame them.”

TESSA FROM AUSTRALIA I would probably fly to New York and go to Tasti D-Lite. It’s this frozen-yogurt place that is amazing. They have a thousand flavors. I would sit there sampling them all until I was covered in yogurt, and then I would vomit and die.

GERTRUDE FROM ROMANIA My child, I’m an active Orthodox Christian. God is the only one to decide when we die. But I’d take a cherry blossom to our great poet Mihai Eminescu’s grave. Eminescu was translated into 64 languages. 64! Better than Shakespeare. He was the last great Romantic. And love, as you know, is the salt of life.

SYLVAIN FROM FRANCE I recently attended some lectures on survival where I learned that if you put seven drops of bleach in your water tank, the water will stay immune to a biological attack. So I would probably do that and then I would barricade myself at home with my girlfriend.

EL JIMADOR TEQUILA REPOSADO 38% ALC BY VOL. IMPORTED BY BROWN-FORMAN AUSTRALIA, PTY LTD 2011. BRF00001/VICEFPC11.11

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Always enjoy responsibly. Gracias.

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THE ETHICS OF A SUPERHUMAN Philosophical questions about good and evil probably don’t crop up in your everyday life, but they do for Phoenix Jones. For more than two years, Phoenix has been patrolling the streets of Seattle at night in his custom yellow-and-black bulletproof suit, breaking up fights and helping strangers in distress. He’s one of the best known of the “real-life superheroes,” and lately he’s been getting a lot of attention in the media after being arrested for breaking up what he thought was a fight with pepper spray (they were actually dancing). This guy has quite the moral code, so we asked him to explain it.

BY MATTHEW UHLMANN PHOTO BY PETER TANGEN

Trivial Pursuit: Terrorism Edition BY WOLFMAN JAGOFF

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VICE: Do you believe that true evil exists in this world? Phoenix Jones: Yes and no. I used to think that some people were literally just evil and beyond comprehension. I work with autistic kids—I used to, at least, before I lost my job. And they’d do things that I would consider to be extremely rude. Like what? One of them bit me and took chunks of flesh out of my arm. I thought, “Why would you do that to me?” But when you put yourself in their situation, you realise that their lack of communication forces them to make a statement that you have to respond to. And they do things that other people may see as unconscionable. When I realised what they were doing, I started applying it do different things I’d seen in the world. Take Hitler for example: If you read his autobiography [sic], you realise that he had a kind of messedup childhood, with a father who wasn’t

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really around, and because of that non-presence, you realise his father represented a certain ideal. If you know the way his father looked, and if you consider the way Jews looked—he really internalised that fear and hatred for his father, and in his way he was making the world better by getting rid of the chance of people turning out like him. Even though it’s wrong, and I totally don’t agree, it’s a different way to look at the whole scenario. I think most people are trying to better themselves, and have confused ideals about what will better themselves. So, for you, doing something “good” means that you’re trying to protect people from themselves— ike parenting. That’s exactly how I would describe it. I went through my house and baby-proofed all of the electrical sockets so that none of my kids would electrocute themselves, and that’s kind of what I feel like I do with the city—I just go through and baby-proof all of the sockets, and if a person rips it out, I have to go back and fill it in again. If you could address the world for five minutes, what would you say? If I could have the entire world listen for five minutes, I wouldn’t say anything, because that’s 90 percent of the problem with people: We’re talking but we’re not listening. If you were listening you would understand people better, we would have better communication, and we would understand how to solve 90 percent of our problems without violence.

In September, a local radio station in Elasha Biyaha, a suburb of Mogadishu, held a really fun Koran-recitation contest for kids. First prize was an AK-47 and $700. The runner-up was also bestowed with an AK, along with $500, and the award for third place was two live hand grenades and $400. It was sponsored by Al-Qaeda affiliate Al-Shabaab, which is basically Somalia’s version of the Taliban. There was even a bonus question-and-answer round, which included stumpers like “Which war was martyred brother Sheik Timajilic killed in?” Most important, the competition provided a much-needed break from typical Somali radio programming, which mostly consists of recordings of gunfire, explosions, and animals growling because of an ultimatum from insurgent group Hizbul Islam declaring music to be “un-Islamic.” Even Al-Shabab official Mukhtar Robow was impressed, remarking, “Youths should use one hand for education and the other for a gun to defend Islam.”

GEORGI FROM BULGARIA I won’t hide. I’m a brave man. I’m a pilot so if the Lord sends us a threat, I’ll retaliate. I have a hell of a lot of weapons in my possession.

DARRYN FROM CANADA I’d try to make amends for an entire life of heartache and pain.

GIACOMO FROM ITALY I’d like to climb a human pyramid like in Kylie Minogue’s “All the Lovers” video. Have you seen that?

MIKE FROM THE NETHERLANDS I think I would smoke weed and drink alcohol in such an amount I wouldn’t even witness the end of the world.

VALERA FROM RUSSIA First off, I definitely wouldn’t believe that shit. It is never gonna happen! But I wouldn’t want to randomly die from a dumb-ass faggot who maniacally shoots everyone on the street.

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VIVA WESTRALIA! Australia is great. We ranked number two in the UN’s Human Development Index for 2009-10. Sure, we were behind Norway, but do you know how much pickled herring you are expected to eat up there? It seems second place isn’t good enough for everyone because some Western Australians wish to secede from the rest of the nation. They want to kiss federation goodbye and do their own thing.

BY KANE DANIEL ILLUSTRATION BY MEL STRINGER/ JACKY WINTER GROUP

Don’t Get Swastikas Tattooed on Your Face BY ALLISON RAMIREZ PHOTO BY JULIE WIDNER

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Sukrit Sabhlok, the academic director of Liberty Australia, says Western Australia (WA) is “currently getting ripped off by the other states. It’s one of the most productive states in the country, but it has to pay money to the federal government and it doesn’t get enough license to do its own thing.” WA’s gross product per capita is $81,795, by far Australia’s largest, and much of that juicy money flows east. Benjamin Marks, editor in chief of economics.org.au, declares “the rationale behind secession is simply self-ownership. Since we are each the rightful owners of ourselves, it is our right to secede from government, to evade tax, to employ people for whatever they’re willing to work for, to consume drugs, to deal drugs, etc.”

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But how would Westralians provide education, utilities, a police force, and all that junk? Secessionists believe, under a free market, those services would actually improve. According to Marks, government monopolies “provide an inferior quality product at higher cost than if there were competing providers to contend with.” And patrolling the border? They wouldn’t need to worry: “The borders between Westralia and the Empire of the Canberra Kremlin would not have much need for police protection on the Westralian side. I guess the Canberra Kremlin might want to build a wall to stop all the productive inhabitants from fleeing to freedom in Westralia.” Precisely how WA could successfully secede is murky, as there aren’t any real provisions for it. It’s been tried before, and it failed. In 1933, a referendum on WA secession was held, with 68 percent voting in favor. The proposal went limp when the UK House of Commons effectively refused to even consider it. Sixty-nine-year-old secretary of the defunct Western Australian Secession Association Walter Morris gave up after 18 years of arguing the 1933 referendum was still valid. He says, “Ultimately, in the long run, after a great deal of turmoil, probably violent, I think everything will go back to smaller identities, national identities. People will turn inward and start looking after themselves.” That sounds nice, doesn’t it?

When Bryon Widner, a founder of the Vinlanders skinhead gang, married and started a family, he decided it was a good time to put his racist past behind him and start anew. Turns out that’s not so easy if your face and neck are completely covered in racist, violent tattoos, such as a blood-soaked razor and swastikas (try explaining that when you drop off your kids on their first day of school). Bryon was ready to douse his face in acid when his wife contacted One People’s Project, an anti-hate group in Philadelphia. They put him in touch with T.J. Leyden, an ex-neo-Nazi who left the movement and now runs an organization called StrHATE Talk. With T.J.’s help a donor was found to fund the removal of tattoos from Bryon’s face, neck, and hands. It cost $35,000 and took 25 painful surgeries over the course of 16 months. He now suffers from migraines, pigment damage, and never-ending death threats. “There’s no owner’s manual,” Bryon says. “You just do the best you can.”

SOFIA FROM SWEDEN I would bring all my favorite people to Tropical Island outside Berlin for the best 24-hour party ever.

AME FROM THE UK I would eat really good food and buy a lot of really cool shoes. I am a Buddhist after all, so I don’t believe it will end too badly.

LAMORRIE FROM THE US I’d try to piss off all the cops, take their guns, and shoot them—not kill them—just shoot them. Then I’d probably hijack a taxicab and build my own ark like Noah, like the movie 2012.

TAIRYN FROM THE US I’ll write more music, then put it in plastic so it could survive the water. Oh, and my journal too.

DAVID FROM AUSTRIA Nothing. God is giving and God is taking. God has everything. We’re all in his hands. The whole world is tainted.

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HADEPHOBIA IS THE FEAR OF HADES And It’s Scary as Hell BY HANNAH BROOKS, ILLUSTRATION BY TULSI MAYA

re you terrified of spending eternity in a filthy pit of everlasting destruction? A horrible place where demons cut off your eyelids, forcing you to watch your worst memories over and over? And succubi peel layers off your skin, replacing it with a coat of maggots? A stratum of damnation in which the fire beneath your feet is never extinguished and “forever” translates to the blackest darkness? Where you will exist in perpetuity, tormented, weeping, and gnashing your teeth, with no one but the devil himself to hear your burning soul howl in terror? If so, you might be suffering from a condition known as hadephobia, or the “morbid, irrational fear of hell.” According to various mental health sites, hadephobes experience physical symptoms, including palpitations, sweating, nausea, and hyperventilation, while the condition’s psychological side effects include “feeling out of control, trapped, unable to escape, and an intense feeling of impending doom.” Like a lot of chronic fears, hadephobia can be brought on by a real-life trauma, with the fear of hell attaching itself to real terror. Unsurprisingly, it’s prevalent in people who have been raised in deeply religious environments because to fear hell you have to believe in it. And, according to a 2009 poll by the Pew Forum, 59 percent of Americans think that if you burrow deep enough into the earth you’ll arrive in Satan’s domain, where he and his demon friends will be torturing evildoers for eternity. To get an idea of what these poor bastards go through, I spent some time cruising online Christian forums. Almost every hadephobe I came across wrote about being afraid, confused, and losing the will to live. Also, almost all of them spelled hell with a capital H. Here are some highlights from my time trolling through Satanic cyberspace: “Clinton” writes: “I barely have the will to live… I always have nightmares of demons and snakes. I worry about a God that I despise [sic] might torture my atheist friends. I’m always so scared that I sometimes wish I could die so I could finally not live in fear of the unknown of what is on the other side.” “Depressed Girl” expressed a similar sentiment: “I can’t tell you how much it scares me; I can’t even imagine myself burning in the fire. I know I did sins, I even repent but surely God will punish me, I will be burned in the Hell. I am not able to enjoy life, all the time I think about Hell and its punishment, now I am experiencing living Hell.” “Somedude” worries about his non-God-fearing friends: “Most Christians believe that if you accept Jesus then you’re saved. That’s fine for me… but what about everyone else? Would a loving God allow anyone to suffer forever? And how would anyone enjoy heaven knowing that people are suffering eternally?” It’s a good question that attracted varied responses. “Pray about it” seems to be the advice most often offered by posters, while others suggest seeking medical assistance. Posing as a hadephobia sufferer, I started a few threads of my own to see what advice my fellow forum lurkers had to offer.

I quickly discovered that navigating Christian chat sites can be tricky. I got distracted at every turn, first by choosing a mood icon—I decided on one called “praising”—then by figuring out how to earn “blessings” (you have to buy them), and finally by the topics themselves. “Is muscle relaxation dangerous?” asked one. Another: “Do angels judge us on our appearance?” I hope not, because I’m not sure hell is big enough for all the ugly motherfuckers out there. After four days, I not only had a few replies but someone had bought me 300 blessings. The first comment, from a guy with 1,066,312 blessings, was pretty bleak: “There is just the forever worm and uncross-able huge chasm. There is just judgment and death. Forever life for true Christians and forever (no coming back) death for those who are evil. The two will not share consciousness together again.” A nice lady with 100,684,682 blessings posted a Bob Dylan quote—undoubtedly from his Christian period—and said: “Your symptoms are but one of the many symptoms of the destructiveness that can accompany religion. I would examine your motivations of the faith and consider what is best for your mental health.” Another man—and proud vessel of 696,926 blessings—posted a clip-art picture of a stoner dude holding a guitar in front of a blazing sunset, with the caption, “If you believe that there really is a fiery place where people are burned alive forever without end, then it would be normal and natural to be paralysed by fear of it. Thankfully, there is no such place. The bible specifically states that the wages of sin is death, not eternal torture in hell (Romans 6:23). I think it is a shame that people try to scare you with fairytales of eternal torment.” It was about this time that I came to wholeheartedly like this site and the advice I was being given. In an effort to be objective and glean a dissenting opinion, I also spent some time chatting to Rick Lannoye, author of the book Hell? No! Why You Can Be Certain There Is No Such Place as Hell. Offering hope to hadephobes everywhere, the text is a factual deconstruction of the concept of hell, using scripture to show that Jesus never cited such an awful place. Rick told me: “I was converted to Evangelicalism at the tender age of 14. I understand how the lack of adult reason makes one vulnerable to emotion conditioning, to become so afraid that hell might exist.” He added that it’s irresponsible of adults to instill this fear in the “minds of innocent children who are not old enough to discern the difference between real and unrealistic threats.” It took Rick more than 20 years of extensive research, compiled in Hell? No!, to shake off his fear, and he hopes that his book can help others who have been “subjected to the manipulation of the scriptures by false teachers.” He guarantees that “you can come to a sure knowledge that God will never, ever hurt anyone, not for a moment, much less for eternity.” My favorite advice, though, comes from a Christian forum poster who goes by the name “Iranian.” He says: “Live life as any normal person, and if God sends you to hell he’s a jerk.” Amen to that, brother.

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WE CAN ALL AGREE THE SYSTEM IS FUCKED But How Occupy’s Going to Fuck the System Is a Whole Other Ordeal BY MILÈNE LARSSON ILLUSTRATIONS BY MALIN BERGSTRÖM

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ccupy Wall Street’s transformation from a few leftist protesters squatting in Zuccotti Park into a global movement is both predictable and surprising. It’s predictable because the global financial crisis, the subsequent taxpayer-funded bank bailouts, and the stringent austerity measures that followed were the political equivalent of pouring gasoline all over the Western world; it’s surprising because no one would have guessed that a tent-based demonstration instigated by Adbusters magazine and Anonymous would be the match that lit the whole mess ablaze. As the leaderless Occupy movement spread to 2,400 cities worldwide, it’s slowly become more organised and is now trying to hammer out a consensus on what they want to change through roughly a gazillion mindnumbing, bongo-drum-backed general assemblies. Until it issues an eloquent sound bite suitable for public consumption, we’ll have to glean what we can from the countless reforms being suggested on the hundreds—if not thousands—of Occupy online forums, live streams, and Twitter feeds. Below are recaps of some of the suggestions, both clever and ludicrous, the Occupy movement has offered to date, coupled with commentary by Richard

Beardsworth, professor of political philosophy and international relations at the American University of Paris, and Martin Kragh, associate professor at the Stockholm School of Economics.

A WORLD WITHOUT MONEY Many protesters believe that a world without money would be a better place for everyone, as all the current problems could be fixed without anyone saying the solutions were “too expensive.” Additionally, it is claimed, in a barter-based society where people gave one another their skills and knowledge freely, crime “would be greatly reduced.” Richard Beardsworth: Without money as medium of exchange and stock of value, there would be neither international trade nor investment (and therefore growth). A world without money would quite simply not be a “world.” Like similar proposals during the crises of modernity, the proposal is ahistorical and metaphysical. Martin Kragh: The idea of a world without money has been around for centuries. However, archaeological and anthropological studies strongly suggest that all larger societies have used some sort of currency. Shells, coco beans, and various metals are examples of early money used already thousands of years ago. Today most transactions are done electronically, but it is money nevertheless. So one can probably change the current monetary system in bits and parts, but as long as we have any trade and interaction between people, money will be with us.

RESTORE THE GLASS-STEAGALL ACT The Glass-Steagall Act, passed in 1933, separated investment banking from commercial banking, preventing the banks where most people keep their money from specu-

lating in risky securities. Many components of Glass-Steagall were repealed in 1999 with the passage of the Gramm-LeachBliley Act. Some of the members of the Occupy movement believe that restoring it would help control speculation in complicated and risky financial “products” like derivatives, which they feel helped cause the financial meltdown. Richard Beardsworth: The Gramm-Leach-Bliley Act pulled down barriers between investment strategies and deposit holding, allowing bankers to confuse and ignore their responsibilities and take excessive risks with other peoples’ savings and debt. To argue for restoration of the division between investment and commercial banking makes a great deal of political sense to me, in this context (I cannot speak to the financial arguments). Without it, the actual responsibility for the crisis is not being politically addressed. This is bad politics. Martin Kragh: There is actually a discussion right now in the United Kingdom to implement a law that would again separate the two branches of commercial and investment banking. This is a political process, and as such is hard to predict. But it is clear that all Western economies will emerge from the current crisis with a set of new regulations. We just don’t know which ones.

RESPONSIBLE BEHAVIOR Some Occupiers go so far as to say that there should be a “cap” on how much money you can have—say, $1 billion per person—and how large a company’s market share could be globally—say, 10 percent. As a poster on the Occupywallstreet.com forum who goes by “apacheman” put it, “There is no moral, ethical, or legal ground to sustain an assertion of the right to unlimited wealth for an individual or corporation. Capping individual wealth and corporate market share is necessary for the betterment of all.” Richard Beardsworth: Disparity of wealth between the rich and the poor has increased substantially over the past

20 years, although it is important to recall that relative poverty has declined during the same period (most importantly due to the accelerated growth of “emerging” economies). A response to this growing disparity is critical for many moral reasons. However, I don’t think one should limit individual wealth per se, but tax this wealth, progressively, through institutional mechanisms; in other words, let us not moralise upon wealth creation but instead institutionalise its limits. How is one going to limit global corporate market share without antitrust/antimonopoly laws at the global level, which requires a world government? The suggestion is not feasible without a world constitutional order (with targeted mechanisms of enforcement) in which the global market is embedded. Consequently, each proposal is, respectively, morally and historically inappropriate. Martin Kragh: How do you know that $1 billion is the magic number? I don’t get it. And will this number be adjusted for inflation and exchange-rate movements? And if a firm has a huge market share, is that not because people like their products? Governments should not regulate whether people buy iPhones or Samsungs. I’m in favor of progressive taxation, but we also need to encourage entrepreneurship and investments. For this to happen, we have to accept the fact that some successful people earn more money.

GLOBAL ACCOUNTABILITY Some Occupiers want the global financial and global energy sectors to be thoroughly and constantly investigated for fraud, bribery, insider trading, violations of environmental laws, and conflicts of interest. The results of these investigations would then be published and all lawbreakers, including politicians, would be prosecuted. This argument speaks to the feeling among protesters that widespread corruption and illegal activity is what bankrupted the economy.

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Richard Beardsworth: Things are never black and white, and the universal pretensions behind this proposal are utopian and moralistic. That there should be a universal body to investigate globally articulated bank frauds is, however, a reasonable suggestion. The first more feasible and more effective thing to focus on is the elimination of tax havens. Martin Kragh: This sounds good to me. However, I’m afraid that most of the current financial disaster was brought upon us by people who acted completely according to existing legislation. So first we need good governance and sound regulations.

CONTROL OF OUR OWN MONEY Another idea bandied about in Occupy discussion groups is that taxpayers should have more of a say in how their money is spent. This could be accomplished by setting up secure taxpayment hubs where citizens would be able to decide which government departments and programs they want to support. The government could present proposals to voters, but it would be up to the citizenry to decide what programs get funding, and how much. Richard Beardsworth: Strong participatory democracy regarding fiscal policy can make sense locally. It certainly makes no sense, however, at the national level, given the technical complexity of the issues. This is not to excuse technocracy (Obama was unable to reform Wall Street partly because of his necessary reliance on “insider” technical advice), but one should bear in mind that politicising technical issues is itself a complex process. Direct citizen decision-making is not the answer on this issue. More generally, we need to reinvent republicanism for a global age, not reduce complex concerns to a “city-state” model of democratic participation. Martin Kragh: This idea sounds extremely dangerous to me. We do not want people to negotiate who should receive medical treatment or education. We elect governments on local and

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parliamentary levels; if you don’t like their spending decisions, you should vote for someone else.

THE ROBIN HOOD TAX The so-called Robin Hood Tax is a proposal that would place a tax on financial transactions like stock and bond trades and currency exchanges. The tax rate would be as low as 0.05 percent, but proponents say it would yield hundreds of billions of dollars a year. It has been backed by high-profile economists, politicians, and even the Vatican. Richard Beardsworth: It is a very attractive idea that dates back, in its specifics, to the 1970s and has, as said above, a large backing. The question is how to put it in place (feasibility and efficacy). Some suggest that the IMF would be the suitable institution to coordinate the levying and collection of the tax, although many countries in the South do not believe the IMF is impartial enough. With recent policy changes and new direction, I do think the IMF is the right institution to coordinate and collect, since it is the only financial institution universal enough to begin to make the tax effective. Concentrated focus on this proposal seems worthwhile at this moment of financial and ideological uncertainty. Martin Kragh: Economists believe that a tax can be levied in order to direct incentives of households and firms. The idea of a levy on financial transactions (also known as a Tobin tax) sounds reasonable but can be hard to enforce in practice. Banks today finance their activities to a large extent on short-term money markets, meaning that they rely on borrowing from other banks, domestically and abroad. I’m not sure we want to hamper their ability to do so. There is also the risk that the EU will use such a tax to finance their huge deficits, which implies a risk for more federalism—something most Europeans don’t want. There might be more efficient ways to regulate speculation on the domestic level.

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A Swiss partier-turned-protester prepares a very spicy cocktail.

PARTY ON, DUBSTEP DUDES Swiss Ravers Put Down the Lollipops and Pick Up Petrol Bombs BY TILL RIPPMANN PHOTO BY EVAN RUETSCH TRANSLATION BY PETER DAY

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arlier this year, as rioting and revolution convulsed the rest of the world, Switzerland remained predictably stable. This is largely due to a combination of its famed neutrality, guaranteed health insurance, low unemployment (2.9 percent, ha!), and labor unions that operate symbiotically with management. In fact, Zurich, Switzerland’s largest city, is regularly cited as one of the nicest places to live on the planet, even if it can be perceived as a tad boring. So if you’re a rebellious little Swiss shithead, you might be frustrated by the lack of things to rage against. You also might channel your inexplicably suppressed hate for The World into downing MDMA like Pixy Stix and dancing your face off to dubstep in 48-hour increments. This type of behavior was all good fun for everyone until summertime, when illegal raves began getting busted by fun-hating cops. Somewhere between ten and 15 substantial ragers had been shut down by September 3, when coppers put the kibosh on yet another massive late-night party. The kids decided they’d had enough, and over the next week organised an unholy amalgam of party and protest via text messages and social networking, taking to the streets of Zurich’s famed Bellevue Square. It quickly escalated into a full-blown riot.

Armed with party supplies—including speaker systems and crates of alcoholic beverages—more than a thousand teenagers swarmed the square, a major traffic junction and transportation hub. At 11 PMsharp, just as partiers-cum-protesters had been instructed (even parties start on time in Switzerland), overloaded amplifiers blasted distorted beats out of speakers, and the normal activity of the square was brought to a sudden, brutal halt. Minutes later, the boys in blue arrived in full riot gear, and the Swiss youth quickly learned that life is not a Chumbawamba video and you can’t literally party in the streets without a few heads being smashed in. Some of the partier-demonstrators climbed onto a roof, and the police predictably ordered them to get down. The cops brought out their riot gear and their opponents brandished their own: masks, flammable liquid, and approximately 2,000 beer bottles. Sticks and stones were thrown, shop windows smashed, trash cans set on fire, and the party officially “got out of hand.” After the smoke cleared, the riot had caused approximately $114,000 worth of damage, two people were injured, and the cops had arrested 91 people (only six of whom were over 25 years old). Naturally, blame had to be assigned, and Zurich chief of police Philipp Hotzenköcherle pinned it on “riot tourists,” which is a pretty awesome turn of phrase, and something that someone should probably base a business plan off of soon. Roger Tognella, a leader of Switzerland’s liberal FDP party, ominously hinted during a recent radio interview that if there were more riots, the army would have to get involved. Tanks rolling through Zurich’s streets in a clampdown on club kids? Now that would give the youth something to protest.

Cell phone photos of one of the 11 (and counting) Tibetans who have incinerated themselves in 2011.

FLAME ON! It’s Been a Banner Year for Self-Immolation in Tibet BY BRUNO BAYLEY PHOTOS COURTESY OF FREETIBET.ORG

ith the Arab Spring and the Occupy movement getting all the retweets and Facebook “likes” of late, it’s easy to forget that Tibet was once the cause du jour, attracting the attention of celebrities like Richard Gere and the Beastie Boys. And while the mainstream press now largely ignores the plight of the Dalai Lama and his fellow countrymen, the region remains firmly under China’s thumb. But things have been steadily—and quite literally—heating up since Free Tibet bumper stickers went out of style. Tibetans have become so desperate for autonomy that they’ve taken to lighting themselves on fire. So far this year, 11 Tibetans have self-immolated, all of them Buddhist nuns, monks, or ex-monks. We contacted Stephanie Brigden, director of the Free Tibet campaign, to find out more about burning yourself alive in the name of protest.

VICE: Is there a particular reason so many Tibetans have self-immolated this year? Stephanie Brigden: I think what is important to remember is that self-immolations are practically unprecedented in Tibet. There was one in 2009, but prior to that there has never been a history of self-immolations. The Tibet movement is probably the most famous nonviolent protest movement in the world, and we’ve now come to a point where the situation has become so desperate that people would choose to take their own lives. I think that’s quite interesting when you compare that with the situation in the Middle East, where you had a young man who selfimmolated in Tunisia. That triggered a whole set of events

across the Middle East, and the international community responded because it’s an oil-rich region. Tibet, on the surface, looks like it doesn’t have much to offer the West, and people are ignoring it. How did this self-immolation movement—if we can call it that—start? The first self-immolation was a 20-year-old guy called Phuntsog. He self-immolated on the third anniversary of a protest in his town in Sichuan province, during which Chinese security forces opened fire and killed civilians. Some of the subsequent self-immolations have tried to repeat what the others have done. For instance, during the last self-immolation the nun went to exactly the same place and self-immolated at the same time of day as the other monks from her town. Many of the monks have cried out either “Freedom for Tibet!” or “Tibetan independence!” before self-immolating. Do you believe that the multitude of protests and uprisings around the world this year have influenced this recent wave of self-immolation? There were widespread protests in Tibet in 2008, and these were the beginnings of what we think is going to be an escalation of protests that may spread across the region. What has been different between this and the previous protests in Tibet is that Tibetans are really conscious of getting striking images to the outside world. I also think you shouldn’t underestimate that China is doing everything in its capacity to stop this, from shutting down internet cafés to restricting telephone lines. More frighteningly, they are arresting people and creating a climate of intimidation. But frankly, I think people now feel that if they haven’t got the courage to give up their lives, they can at least risk imprisonment and probably torture to ensure that their message reaches the masses.

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A RIOT OF THEIR OWN A Year of Great British Uprising WORDS AND PHOTOS BY HENRY LANGSTON

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nlike their protest-happy French neighbours, historically the Brits have been pretty slack when it comes to setting things on fire and throwing paving stones at the police. Even last year, when the Tories returned to power, in coalition with their Liberal Democrat chums, apathy reigned; people were all too happy to sit at home moaning about everything, but no one was pissed off enough to take action. Then, on November 10, 2010, everything changed. The government, facing a massive deficit, decided to raise annual university tuition from approximately $4,700 to a whopping $14,000. Thousands of students stormed Tory headquarters, embarrassing the Metropolitan Police by forcing their way into the building unopposed and causing more than $3 million in damages. A month later, London was still under siege by protesters. This devolved into sporadic violence, and the government proved staggeringly inept at containing the protests, which soon spread to universities across the nation. Despite increased public pressure, the protests failed to change the government’s mind about the tuition hike, and in the minds of the student dissidents the new Tories of David Cameron became as bad as the Thatcher-era ones. The protest also helped to create a newly radicalised section of the British public willing to oppose the tuition hike by any means necessary. Caught flat-footed by the student uprising, the unions desperately tried to jump on the bandwagon by calling for a strike and organising a 500,000-strong protest in March against austerity measures and pension freezes. This was a peaceful affair until the anarchist “Black Bloc” turned up. Using the large crowd to divert police attention, the anarchists struck, attacking bank and fast-food chains, and even throwing balloons filled with paint at the Ritz hotel. London was left with a cleanup bill of about $1.5 million, and the government realised that their police officers were dorks (literally, whale penises). In the months following the violence, the government forced through more austerity cuts, which included a threat to lay off massive numbers of cops. Most would agree that it was a good idea that officials didn’t follow through with the latter, because on August 4 police fatally shot a young black man in the Tottenham area of London, and many in the community gathered in a protest that soon boiled over into nondenominational chaos. While police struggled to find out what was going on, looting and arson brought London to its knees, with Manchester, Birmingham, Leeds, and even places with names like Banbury following suit. Kids had come down with Looting Fever, gangs were running wild, and the cops in London were stretched so thin that they had to call in assistance from 16 other police forces, deploying 16,000 officers onto the streets. Besides breaking a bunch of windows, the August riots raised questions about issues the government had previously ignored: gangs, inner-city poverty, and a lack of working-class opportunity. Many feel that the crimes of the thousands of unemployed young people currently facing prison sentences for stealing sneakers were far less serious than those of bankers in fancy suits robbing billions from taxpayers. These people have carried the department-store-burning torch by joining the global Occupy movement. On October 15, the Occupy London Stock Exchange protest set up camp outside St. Paul’s Cathedral in London, the latest and least violent protest in this long line of disturbances. They plan to continue manifesting their malcontent until either the protest or the cathedral is forced to shut down. They’re going to need all the luck they can get.

and political oppression it’d spark political awakening even in the worst kind of glassy-eyed Jersey Shore fan. Not surprisingly, there’s been some controversy over Stéphane’s pamphlet, but we’re sure he can handle it. When we spoke to him recently, he sounded as robust and clever as ever. VICE: Why do you think you’ve been criticised for inciting “indignation for indignation’s sake” and condoning violence? Stéphane Hessel: People who don’t go beyond reading the title tend to interpret it in the wrong way. I agree, indignation for indignation’s sake would lead nowhere. Indignation must have an outcome, and the outcome must be an engagement, a taking on of responsibility, which then leads you to action. Is it OK to get angry in the sense of going out on the streets and smashing things, like the August riots in London? That was something very specific: a matter of culture clashes and people not being recognised in the way they want to be recognised. In the suburbs of our large cities those issues are important, but they shouldn’t be confused with the general movement of the indignant, which is a nonviolent fight against the financial powers. How does one fight such an enemy? It is more difficult to fight a vague enemy like the financial powers than it is to fight a foreign army that is occupying your territory. But it’s just as important. It’s a fight that can be waged by mobilising ordinary people with electoral power and making them aware that things can be changed and must be changed. The problems we face today are just as dangerous as the fascist, Stalinist, and other big movements, which were overcome by mobilising civic resistance. I take it you support the Occupy movement? Yes! Important values, such as fighting social injustice and the preservation of the planet, are not being met by our governments; therefore, it is time for us to protest.

MAD AS HELL A 94-Year-Old French Resistance Fighter Tells the Youth to Get Involved BY MILÈNE LARSSON PORTRAIT COURTESY OF LA VOIX DE L’ENFANT

ince its publication in October 2010, Stéphane Hessel’s manifesto Time for Outrage! has sold somewhere in the vicinity of 3 million copies and been translated into 40 different languages, which is pretty remarkable for a thin political pamphlet written by a 94-year-old. Then again, Stéphane isn’t an ordinary 94-year-old—he’s a genuine hero of the French Resistance who survived two concentration camps and took part in drafting the UN’s Universal Declaration of Human Rights. Time for Outrage! so captivatingly expresses discontent with the past decades of financial

What would you tell young people who feel the world is fucked no matter what they do? Well, my first message is that if you open your eyes, you will find something that is unacceptable and then be shaken out of your indifference. You will get worried, as you should be, and feel that you should do something about it. It is not impossible even for smaller groups to become efficient if they are determined. Indifference has always existed. Even during the Second World War, for instance, the Resistance in France was a small minority. But the small minority was finally accepted as the necessary guide to the future. If things are allowed to go on the way they are now, in about 20 years, it won’t be possible to live on this planet anymore. Do you believe the world could change for the better? Not only is it possible, it is certain and necessary. We live in a world that needs a radical transformation. When that need is felt all over the world, it’s sure to happen. I only hope it will happen soon because we’ve already lost a decade.

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On November 17, a day after the NYPD evicted Occupiers from Zuccotti, protesters turned Lower Manhattan into a Pennywise music video. It was pretty awesome.

FALLING IN LOVE WITH OCCUPY Is Pretty Easy If You Like Taking Photos and Hate Cops WORDS AND PHOTOS BY TAJI AMEEN

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ccupy Wall Street changes every day. In the two months I’ve been going down there, I’ve begun to recognise the regulars—the old headphonewearing pro-communism guy with the Chinese newspapers, the British guy with the cowboy hat—but the vibe was always different. I’ve seen the protests go from a contained group of sign holders to a temporary squat, and eventually to an overcrowded tent city. At first, I didn’t feel the desire to compete with the journalists, live streams, tourists, and hundreds of assholes with SLRs. Then a few of my friends began camping out in Zuccotti Park, the police started roughing people up, and pretty soon all I wanted to do was hang out and get a contact high off these idealistic kids.

The entire ordeal is a photographer’s dream come true. If you’ve got a camera, Occupiers love you—every time an arrest or a beat down happens, hundreds of protesters yell, “Shame, shame, shame” or “Get a photographer over here.” However, when shooting without an official city-issued press pass, you have to be real careful not to end up in those inhumanely tight zip ties or cracked in the head with a baton. I tried my best to float in and out of hairy situations and avoid pissing off the cops. One time, when things were getting physical between the protesters and the police, I had the impulse to run into the center of the park for a shot, but an older protester grabbed my arm and told me to stand back. It was good advice, because moments later, I saw one of my friends get manhandled and zip-tied. You can only see so much stuff like that before you find yourself firmly on the side of the Occupiers. Sure, lots of them are there to advance their own crazy causes, but you can’t help but feel a certain togetherness, that they’re making some kind of positive difference in the world. Occupy Wall Street is the most genuinely revolutionary movement I’ve ever seen, and I’m proud to help document it.

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YOU GOTTA FIGHT FOR YOUR RIGHT To Cuuuuuuuuuuuu-ray! BY ANNIE CARROL

ecently VICE stumbled on a Facebook page in Singapore promoting something called “Cook and Share a Pot of Curry Day.” Details of the event called for “every Singapore citizen or trueblooded natives to COOK a pot of curry… let the aroma-therapy of CURRIES permeate the whole nation!! SHOW them we will not be coerced and DUN COME and bully our Indian Malay, Eurasian, or Peranakan friends! Roar!” It left us both confused and hungry for some palak paneer. Digging a bit deeper, we discovered that the event is related to the spiciest curry-related kerfuffle in history Dumbfounded, we contacted Straits Times reporter Tessa Wong, who criticised Curry Day in a blog post, to find out what it was all about and why nearly 60,000 Singaporeans wanted to get involved.

VICE: What’s this Curry Day all about, because it sounds deeeelicious. Tessa Wong: In the early to middle 2000s, Singapore experienced a significant influx of foreign workers. The government allowed this because it said it was necessary to plug up labor shortages in certain industries, and also so that the economy could remain competitive. Foreigners coming to Singapore to work is nothing new, but this time it happened so rapidly and people felt the squeeze more acutely—in areas like public transport, housing, and jobs. There was a feeling also that foreign workers come in to earn money, but they can leave anytime they feel like or when the going gets tough.

You gotta love a good bowl of massaman. I do like curry. It’s one of my favorite dishes, actually, but I didn’t like what I saw as xenophobic overtones in the original description of the event. It was too aggressive, which is ironic because it was premised on annoying foreigners rather than getting them to appreciate our culture. The organisers later changed their tune to a more positive, inclusive one, which I appreciated. What’s the best curry in Singapore? There are so many different types of curries in Singapore, but the one I like best is the butter curry at Chutney Mary’s on East Coast Road. It’s really tasty!

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©iStockphoto.com/travellinglight

How do you explain the popularity of the campaign? I think there was some frustration and resentment regarding foreigners [coming into the country], so the campaign really tapped into that groundswell of feeling. It also caught on because it was a simple idea and appealed to Singaporeans on a very basic emotional level. We are a nation of foodies after all, and we take pride in our cuisine as a national symbol. Finally, we’re a small country and quite a wired nation. I think close to 100 percent of us have internet access at home and many are on Facebook [a recent study showed that Singaporeans, on average, spend more time on the social-networking site than any country in the world], so news of the campaign spread fast.

The scorched interior of a Papa John’s franchise in Lake City, Florida. Surprisingly, the arson had nothing to do with the quality of their pizza.

PIZZA WARS The Tale of Two Floridians Who Torched a Papa John’s BY BILL BRYSON PHOTO BY DALE GUNNOE

lorida is synonymous with “crazy weird shit.” This is probably because it’s a place where people go to escape the rigors of being a bipedal human forced to pay attention to boring things like traffic lights and the weather. But inside this cerebral palsy-ravaged appendage of the United States, there are intense pockets of ugliness that make one wonder if the entire peninsula is powered by Hee Haw reruns. Take Lake City, which lies about 50 miles west of Jacksonville and proudly proclaims itself the “Gateway to Florida.” Its freeway exit features a gigantic Confederate flag, assuring visitors of the stand-up people they are about to encounter. And it’s also where (celebrity alert!) serial killer Ted Bundy murdered his final victim, 12-year-old Kimberly Leach. Of course, Lake City wouldn’t be such a great place to live if its residents didn’t constantly strive to outdo themselves, and they did just that in late October, when Domino’s Pizza store managers Sean Everett Davidson, 23, and Bryan David Sullivan, 21, allegedly burned down the competition: a Papa John’s franchise across town. According to published reports, Sean recruited Bryan to torch their shitty-pizza rival (several blocks away, on a fast-food-covered nightmare stretch of US-90) because

Sean was sick of seeing the Papa John’s trucks driving by his store, where business wasn’t going so well. Bryan told police that he and Bryan believed sales at their Domino’s chain would improve if their competition down the street was no longer smearing slop on crusty bread and selling it to people. Their motive? A bonus of a few hundred dollars, split between the two of them, if they could move a few more pies out the door. After hatching their Nobel Prize-worthy plot, the pair built a few incendiary devices using a kitchen clock, a nine-volt battery, and a sandwich baggie containing a small amount of gunpowder. After failing to ignite the Papa John’s with one of these makeshift bombs, they resorted to using an accelerant to set the building ablaze, burning Bryan’s arms in the process. They also told a few people about their plans, a strategy that proved helpful to the police, who quickly arrested them on felony arson charges. As of late November, the Papa John’s store is still scorched and gutted, but it’s pretty clear that the would-be arsonists had no idea how to properly destroy a building. When I stopped by the Domino’s where Sean and Bryan worked, it was empty of customers and the phones were quiet, despite the elimination of their competitor. Even if they had gotten away with the crime, chances are they wouldn’t have scored that bonus. “Sullivan had been working for the company since he was 16, and it was the only job he’d ever had,” one of Bryan’s former colleagues told me. “He’s never been in trouble before. We do background checks on all the employees, but you can never tell when someone will do something stupid.”

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THE PHANTOM MASSACRE A Faceless and Motiveless Threat Ravages Southern Thailand BY HANNAH BROOKS

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ince 2004, almost 5,000 people, mostly civilians, have been killed in the southern provinces of Thailand in a series of bombings, shootings, arson attacks, and decapitations carried out by Islamic insurgents pushing for separation from the chiefly Buddhist Thai state. The conflict can be traced back to 1902, when the central government annexed land adjacent to the Malaysian border, areas primarily populated by Muslims. Separatists were active in the 70s, but by the 1990s, the situation seemed to have calmed, until the government began to decisively crack down on acts of low-level resistance. This new hard-line stance ripped the stiches out of the old wounds, and they haven’t stopped bleeding since. According to Amnesty International, between 2004 and June of this year, there were a total of 10,890 incidents of violence in the region, resulting in at least 4,766 deaths and 7,808 injuries. With the country and its security forces focused on the damage from recent flooding, the past month has seen a markedly increased number of attacks. Since 2004, the government has sent more than 40,000 soldiers to the southern provinces to take part in counterinsurgency operations, which has done little to quell the attacks. In 2005, an “emergency law” was introduced allowing the detainment of suspects for up to 30 days and providing officials with immunity from prosecution if they commit human rights violations in the course of their duty. This legislation, widely popular among ordinary Thais, has precipitated more than 5,000 arrests and

saw the Thai government accused of systematic torture and unlawful killings, as well as condemnation from international humanitarian groups. Amnesty’s Thailand researcher Benjamin Zawacki says the attacks are ideological and that the insurgents are deliberately targeting civilians. “The exact figures and percentages of ideological versus non-ideological killings are of course impossible to determine with certainty,” he says. “If non-ideological killings are indeed so few, why are Thailand’s other borders—all of which contain the same [criminal] elements—not as violent and deadly as the deep South?” While it’s rumored that traditional symbols of the Thai state are being increasingly targeted, the violence also appears indiscriminate, with as many Muslim casualties as Buddhist. Amnesty recently called the situation an “internal armed conflict” and said that by deliberately targeting civilians, the perpetrators are, according to international law, liable to be tried for war crimes. Fat chance of that happening, though. In an article published shortly after the release of Amnesty’s report, University of Melbourne political scientist Marc Askew questioned the human rights groups’ claims, arguing that 30 to 40 percent of the deaths in the SPBs may be related to criminal activity, which is rife along the Thai-Malay border. Indeed, it’s a claim supported by the Thai government, who have long linked the insurgents with the drug trade in southern Thailand. Theories regarding who is responsible for the violence have varied over the years. Some have suggested it could be attributable to “traditional” separatist groups in the area, the rise of global jihad movements, and Al-Qaeda. Undoubtedly, the most striking aspect of the conflict is that eight years on, the attacks remain a largely faceless threat. While experts, NGOs, media outlets, and the Thai government squabble over legal terminology and percentages, people are dying, steadily and horrifically.

AP/Sumeth Pranphet

An injured woman is carried away from the scene of a motorcycle bomb in 2009, one of the many casualties of the insurrection in southern Thailand.

THE GREASIEST PALMS IN THE WORLD Italian Parliament’s Pension Ponzi Scheme BY GIORGIO VISCARDINI PHOTO COURTESY OF ANSA

n Italy, a country on the brink of bankruptcy, it’s downright fucking silly how easy it is to secure a lifelong pension from parliament. All you need to do is participate in a single legislative session—even for just one day—and you’re guaranteed a payout of somewhere between $2,500 and $13,500 per month after “retirement.” Last year, Italians spent more than $275 million ensuring that former members of the Camera and Senato—the country’s legislative houses—were beyond comfortable in their dotage. A law passed in 1997 forbade MPs from collecting these pensions until the age of 65, but it wasn’t instated retroactively. So “legislators” like Angelo Pezzana, Pietro Graveri, Luca Boneschi, and Renè Andreani—each of whom physically spent only one day’s service in parliament—are now set for life. Disgusted as usual with the absurdity of Italian politics, I turned to Gian Antonio Stella, investigative reporter and best-selling author of La Casta (The Caste, a 2007 expose about the rampant corruption in Italian government) to try and wrap my head around just how bad things have become.

VICE: Parliament’s pension scandal is just one in a series of astonishing abuses of power by Italian politicians. How much does something like this affect their already terrible reputation in the eyes of the average Italian citizen? Gian Antonio Stella: Very much. The thing is, you can’t

carry out reform if you don’t cut political costs. I would lose money if they changed the public pensions system, but I do believe it is a vital operation. The only way it can be pursued without people taking to the streets is to reform parliamentarians’ retirement pensions from the inside. It’s not justiﬁable to lower the pensions of average workers if you don’t ﬁrst change the one received by members of parliament. Last year, the famously disgraced Italian politician [Piero] Marrazzo started earning a public pension at the age of 51. It’s ridiculous! What about the rule adopted in 1997? At least new MPs who weren’t grandfathered in to the pension system can’t exploit it, right? There are lots of exceptions to the rule. The 1997 law is a fake reform. It only applies to members of parliament who are appointed post-2011. What kind of change is that? So what needs to change in order to ensure this doesn’t continue to happen? Until right-wing voters demand more regulations, nothing is going to change. The problem is that today’s right-wing voters are too easy to satisfy. It seems like blowing up Palazzo Montecitorio [a palace in Rome housing the lower chamber of parliament] would be much easier. There’s nothing else that can be done on the ground level? You can be sure that if voters get pissed, things are going to change. But as long as right-wing voters keep forgiving [recently resigned] Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi, who is capable of taking a state-owned helicopter to a massage appointment, things are not going to change. And I’m talking about a helicopter belonging to the Italian police, just to be clear.

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TOTALITARIAN AVE. Crooked Third World Leaders Love Parisian Penthouses BY WIEGERTJE POSTMA, ILLUSTRATION BY YVONNE ROMANO aris’s Avenue Foch, in the 16th arrondissement, is lined with luxurious and gaudy residences owned by some of the worst African and Middle Eastern despots. Denis Sassou Nguesso of Congo-Brazzaville, Paul Biya of Cameroon, former Gabon president Omar Bongo, and many other potentates have second homes here, handy places to crash after a shopping spree on the Champs-Élysées. One might think that the French wouldn’t permit such unsavory characters to commandeer the neighbourhood, but if you’ve got the cash, you can sign the deed—even though the money was obtained by plundering your starving and disease-ridden citizenry. Change, however, is tentatively afoot. Thanks to a formal complaint from Transparency International and two other NGOs, authorities are investigating the funds used by Bongo, Nguesso, and Equatorial Guinea’s president Teodoro Obiang to purchase their fancy flats. According to Transparency International, Bongo, Nguesso, and Obiang have, combined, at least 180 personal bank accounts, 60 upscale European properties, and 18 cars worth a total of more than $8 million.

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Obiang’s son, Teodorin, is more of a New World kind of playboy. As Equatorial Guinea’s minister of forestry and agriculture, he owns more than $70 million worth of property in the United States alone, including a $30 million mansion in Malibu. Oh, and let’s not forget the Gulfstream Jet and $2 million worth of Michael Jackson memorabilia (someone needs to listen to “Man in the Mirror” a few more times). Equatorial Guinea is a tiny, oil-rich country where one in five children die before the age of five and 70 percent of the population lives on less than two dollars a day. The United States Department of Justice recently moved to seize his American properties. Even in France, where the government has been more hesitant to investigate the ill-gotten funds of domiciled dictators and their cronies, prosecutors have begun sniffing around the bank accounts of government officials from Tunisia, Egypt, Libya, and Syria. So, if you happen to find yourself in Paris anytime soon, take a little stroll along the banks of the Seine and enjoy the verdant greenery of Avenue Foch, inhaling the historical stench of a few tyrannical shitstains who, with any luck, will soon be wiped away for good.

DOs

You know a chick is really into you when her tits piss themselves.

I like how the sparkly blood and glittery black eyes make this tough guy look like he was in a boxing match with Pop Tarts.

Todayâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s cosmetics are truly amazing. Just a little bit of concealer, a dot of blush, and you can hardly even see the forehead tattoo she got for Charlie.

I want to be wearing a pair of these sneaks while I kick George Lucas in the stomach over and over until he shits out Howard the Duck 2.

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Getting a double mastectomy isnâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;t so bad when your entire body looks like one enormous tit anyway.

DON’Ts

The life of a papier-mâché pink-unicorn-cycle is a sad one. You spend most of your time on earth being pedaled around by some sandalwood-smelling fat-ass. And then when she’s done with you she just abandons you in front of an East Village McDonald’s like it’s a cul de sac in Hilldale Ridge and there isn’t a gang of teenage Loisaidas waiting to détourné your ass back to glue and newspaper.

I don’t know what’s scarier, John Carpenter’s 1978 horror classic Halloween or putting Shrek ejaculate in your hair.

Remember the days when if people found out that you liked Spider-Man you were immediately branded a nerd, shunned from most social groups, and beaten up on a regular basis? Can we go back to that, please?

We don’t think old people should be locked up in homes, and we usually have a lot more fun tossing back shots of Crown with our nana than hanging out with our regular “friends,” but walking in on her as the meat in a Fire Island gramwich is what we call a wee bit rich.

Hey ladies, you know that creep at the ofﬁce who’s always trying to give out free back rubs? What if I told you that science has ﬁnally invented the rolling travel creep for the girl on the go?

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DOs

I wish I had this kind of escort every time I got diarrhea.

All those soft, quilted toilet papers are for pussies. Try wiping your ass with a paper towel. It’s rough on your asshole and it will clog your toilet. Win-win.

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Preteen bedsheet Kate Bush slumber-party dressup game is just another way of saying “best people on the dance floor.”

Doesn’t this guy look like the villain in a shitty 70s comic book? “In this issue the Teen Titans face the unholy power of Mandanna!”

If only you knew the sheer rapture you feel when a church takes a shit on your chest.

DON’Ts

Let’s see, would I rather go to a hip burlesque show downtown tonight or would I rather stay in and google “brain rape”?

Well, if there’s one takeaway from this (besides a lifetime of gagging every time we now close our eyes), it is always always always tip your tattoo artist.

This picture was taken at the Gathering of the Juggalos, but it’s actually a pretty common ritual at most major music festivals. First, everyone paints their faces with clown makeup, then they pass a barrel around and everyone fills it with the last tiny shreds of dignity they may have, and then they burn that shit down.

I don’t care which side of the political aisle you’re on, we can all agree on one fundamental point: Kill Yourself.

Yeah, this is pretty sloppy, but imagine if you actually saw them fucking. It would look like he was wearing a white fanny pack full of gerbils.

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Theory coat, Vivienne Westwood Man suit, Dior Homme shirt and tie; Dior Homme coat, Ben Sherman suit, English Laundry shirt, Dior Homme tie, Rockport shoes; Dior Homme coat, suit, and clutch, Ben Sherman shirt and tie, Rockport shoes; Dior Homme coat, suit, and tie, English Laundry shirt

AMERICAN PSYCHOS PHOTOS BY BEN RITTER STYLIST: ANNETTE LAMOTHE-RAMOS Models: Henic, Leo, Sverric, Tommy at Next Models

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Dior Homme suit, Ben Sherman shirt and tie, Calvin Klein socks, Rockport shoes

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Vivienne Westwood Man suit, Dior Homme shirt, tie, and bag, Rockport shoes

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Dior Homme suit and tie, English Laundry shirt, Rockport shoes

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Dior Homme suit, Ben Sherman shirt and tie, Ray-Ban sunglasses

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Vivienne Westwood Man suit, Dior Homme shirt and tie; Dior Homme coat and suit

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Ben Sherman suit, English Laundry shirt, Dior Homme tie, Rockport shoes

THE MYSTERIES OF THE TEACHER Vissarion’s Church of the Last Testament Is the Only Reason to Visit Siberia BY ROCCO CASTORO PHOTOS BY JASON MOJICA

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Vissarion (aka Sergey Anatolyevitch Torop, aka the Teacher), founder of the Church of the Last Testament.

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en hours into my first trip to Russia I catch an express train back to the airport. It’s August in Moscow so I’m sweating in a particularly gross and unfamiliar way, as I have since my arrival, and I’m running late. If I miss my flight, I probably won’t make it to Petropavlovka in time for the Holiday of Good Fruits, or speak with a Siberian man who looks like Jesus and believes his is the Word of God. I buy a ticket and arrive at the platform with a couple minutes to spare, enough time to find the emptiest car and take a seat in the back. It departs three minutes later. This makes me feel a bit better, but I’m still suppressing a freak-out over the possibility of missing my plane. The flight only happens once a day, and I can’t fathom having to deal with whoever answers the phones at Vladivostok Air, Siberia’s largest carrier. If I don’t make it in time I’ll also have to reschedule my ride. This will involve begging a woman named Tamriko, whom I’ve only corresponded with via email, to persuade a fellow member of what many consider to be a cult to wake up at 4 AM tomorrow, make the three-hour drive to Abakan International Airport to pick up a nosy American stranger, and take him to a remote and deeply religious community of about 4,000 people living in the middle of the Taiga forest. On any other day it would be a borderline-reasonable request, one that I have already made when I rescheduled because of a last-minute issue with my visa. But if I’m not in front of a check-in counter in 30 minutes, the earliest I can possibly arrive is August 18. This is the Church of the Last Testament’s holiest of holidays—the day, more than two decades ago, when a 29-year-old patrol officer and talented painter named Sergey Anatolyevitch Torop publicly declared himself reborn as Vissarion. Since then he’s fostered a “unified religion” that is a vast amalgam of Christian, Buddhist, Hindu, pagan, and other spiritual beliefs.

We make a few pit stops for food and other supplies in what I—probably rudely—assume is Russia’s version of the most rural parts of Tennessee. Just about everything Vissarion has ever said or thought has been recorded in the never-ending Last Testament, which currently spans ten volumes and thousands of pages. More than 5,000 followers around the world consider him a messiah of sorts, known as “the Teacher.” They also believe that the universe has two origins (one spawned nature, the other the human soul) and in something called the “outer-space mind” (aliens, basically), and that the end of the word is nigh. Or at least this is what I understand from the handful of scriptures that have been (somewhat poorly) translated into English. On the train ride I reflect on my whirlwind impression of Moscow: It’s mostly grey, a little brown, and strangely efficient. And sure enough, I arrive at Vnukovo precisely on time and sprint to my gate. As I step to the end of a short line I look back at the neon-lit bar behind me. I was hoping to have time to get a beer, mostly because it’s not allowed where I’m going. Instead I distract myself by thinking about how fucked I would’ve been if this were JFK, and how I have to be careful not to say fuck over the next week because cussing is also forbidden within the church. So are tobacco, meat, and I’m guessing a lot of other things, but the above were specifically enumerated by Tamriko before I arrived.

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Four hours, a grey piece of chicken, and two weird lemon candies later, I land in Abakan at 7:30 AM, half an hour late. I walk into the tiny lobby. It smells weird. Everything looks like it was assembled by a giant Soviet airport machine that produced identical airports, all of which have been left to rot in isolation. Worst of all, I don’t see anyone with a sign that says ROCCO . Tamriko assured me a guy named Ruslin would be here, holding it. Too exhausted to panic, I sit and wait for 15 minutes, when a tall, wiry blond man in his 20s with a piece of cardboard tucked under one arm walks through security and scans the room rapidly. Even before noticing the sign, I know it’s him—the type of guy you see coming. I get up and walk over to him. He snaps his head toward me. “Rocco,” I say, pointing at my chest. He looks me in the eye and stares for a few seconds before holding the sign out in front of him. I just nod. “Yes,” he says, and puts something that looks vaguely Islamic on his head. We walk out of the exit and to the parking lot in silence. It creeps me out. Standing alongside his car, a four-wheel-drive station wagon with a steering wheel on the right side, I meet who I assume is his wife or girlfriend. She’s young and pretty in a peculiar way, and smiles as she introduces herself. But there’s no way I’ll ever be able to properly pronounce—or remember—her name right now. I don’t even attempt to write it down in my notepad. They quietly converse in the front seats for a few seconds, and then the man points to a thermos sitting in the console. “Coffee?” I nod. He pours me a cup while the woman rummages around her floorboard and comes up holding a mason jar of what looks like Elmer’s Glue. She pours some into my coffee and hands it to me. They stare until I take a sip. If it’s poison or brainwash juice, it doesn’t taste so bad. I quickly finish it, and we sit for another minute or two without talking. “We go,” the man says, and turns the key. I quickly realise that Ruslin and his lady either don’t speak much English, or don’t, for whatever reason, wish to talk to me, so I stay busy trying to get a 3G stick I bought in Moscow to work with my laptop. I manage to connect and attempt to choppily video-chat, then iChat, with my girlfriend. I tell her everything’s going fine, that I haven’t slept in something like 26 hours, and joke about how I just drank really weird coffee given to me by people who are technically cult members and who are now driving me into one of the most remote regions of Siberia. Then the connection goes out and doesn’t come back. We make a few pit stops for food and other supplies in what I—probably rudely—assume is Russia’s version of the most rural parts of Tennessee. But yeah, it is. Orange vests and fatigues run rampant, stores don’t seem to have signs, and I’m pretty sure one of our errands is to a place that sells giant garbage bags full of secondhand clothing. Also, the landscape is majestic and wild. At one point, we randomly pull over in front of a house and the young woman gets out of the car while Ruslin waits. She returns with a giant jar of what I assume is milk, and it assuages my fears about what I drank earlier. An hour later we leave the highway and alternately hit dirt and paved roads for the next half hour, until it’s just dirt. Ruslin rolls up the windows so the dust doesn’t suffocate us while he floors it. The engine and rocks hitting the chassis make it too loud to talk, so everyone’s silent the rest of the ride as we bake in the 90-degree heat. e make the final turn toward Petropavlovka, greeted by a sign-sculpture that literally looks like it belongs in front of one of the lesser Orlando theme parks. But the place is beautiful. Lakes, clear skies, trees, bountiful vegetable gardens, and grass forever, encircled by the Sayan Mountains. A few hundred structures of various sizes dot the landscape, most

of which are of an architectural style unique to the community. I spot the temple I’ve seen in photos, the one Vissarion and his followers built more than a decade ago as they transformed an unfertile mud pit into a self-sufficient village at least 100 miles away from civilization. Somewhere around 4,000 followers live between here and Adobe of Dawn, the area where Vissarion and his closest disciples moved after Petropavlovka got too busy for their liking. I feel like I’ve driven into a Tolkien novel. I arrive at the German House—a sort of spiritual halfway house run by Ruslin and Birgitt, a German woman who hosts students, Vissarionites from abroad, and the spiritually curious. Tamriko works here too, but she’s not around. I introduce myself to Birgitt, and she asks whether I’m hungry. I tell her that I’d rather sleep than eat, so she directs me upstairs to my room. She also instructs me to come back down in an hour and a half to meet the rest of the guests and speak with Vladimir, one of Vissarion’s minders and an important community leader. He will explain what is expected of guests invited to the Abode of Dawn. I also learn that I won’t be sleeping here tonight, or tomorrow, which is news to me. “Spah-see-bahh,” I say as I thank her with the inflection of a recent stroke victim. I manage a 45-minute nap, my first sleep in 30-odd hours, before being roused by a guy unpacking his stuff on the bunk across from mine. “Sorry if I woke you,” he says. I figure if I go back to sleep, I won’t wake up. He’s Maciej, a Pole studying anthropology of religion at a university in Slovenia. He says he’s come here via the Siberian Express, followed by a Soviet monster bus. “Some people I met on the train told me they brainwashed visitors here,” he says. “They tried to persuade me not to come, but I didn’t think I’d be in danger.”

We go downstairs for lunch—lots of fresh potatoes and green things—and meet our fellow lodgers, who include two female anthropology students and a German photographer and his wife. Tamriko is here too, and she isn’t what I expected (in a good way). She’s only 24, and tells me that less than a year ago she was practicing civil law in Moscow. “I didn’t feel like I was comfortable living in Moscow,” she says. “I realised that I didn’t like my job. When I came here I felt this very good feeling, that maybe I wanted to live here.” She has known about Vissarion since she was 18, when her uncle first introduced her to his teachings. She tells me that at first her parents—folks who lived through the fall of Communism and didn’t think much of religion—disapproved of her decision to leave Moscow and her job. “[My family] didn’t talk about ‘God’ or anything. But I was a very open person. For example, for me it’s OK to go to a Catholic church or to go meet Baptist people, but when someone told me about Vissarion it was like, ‘Wow, if this is the truth, it’s so interesting. I should try to find his books.’” Tamriko tells me that her parents have since come around—that they had some “soul problems” and her uncle explained to her “very logical” father that the Teacher held all the answers. Within six months, her father had virtually all of Vissarion’s books, and her mother, while not quite as emphatic in her belief, thinks the Teacher is a “good guy who has done good things.” She then says they have told her they want to move to Petropavlovka or a nearby community someday soon, even though they have yet to visit. Later I learn that she has never met Vissarion personally. Yet she has somehow facilitated my interview with him, the first he’s granted in at least three years after deciding he would no

The view of the Abode of Dawn from the Temple Mount.

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longer talk to journalists. She initially told me that an audience with the Teacher was highly unlikely, but I persisted, emailing my questions weeks before my trip. Five days before I left she sent me an email saying that the Teacher had approved our meeting, which will hopefully take place the day after next. She provided no explanation as to why I was bestowed with this honor, but that was fine with me. After lunch, we meet with Vladimir, a stout and energetic man wearing a grey ponytail and hat similar to Ruslin’s. He tells us what’s expected of visitors invited to the Adobe of Dawn, specifically those who wish to document their experience. In other words, myself and the middle-aged German photographer sitting at the other end of the table. He tells us we will leave in two hours, and gives tips on what to do if we run into a bear. Apparently I will be staying with a family who lives in the Abode of Dawn, or in the grass under the stars (I neglected to bring a sleeping bag); it’s not clear which. Either way, I will sleep soundly.

The many friendly faces of the Church of the Last Testament, and a few visitors.

manage to grab an hour or so of shut-eye upstairs before my roommate again wakes me and says it’s time to go. It takes me a bit to get dressed and check my supplies because I’m deliriously tired and half-dreaming in a place that could easily be a dream itself. I run downstairs with my shoes still untied, almost forgetting the sleeping bag loaned to me by Tamriko, who decides to stay behind, and squeeze into a rusty yet seemingly indestructible Soviet-era bread loaf packed with my new friends from the German House and a few fresh faces. It’s an even bumpier ride than the one I took this morning, but our skilled driver—who looks like he probably knows his way around a Soviet tank—easily navigates endless potholes and muddy puddles that could pass for small ponds. I try to make small talk with my fellow passengers, but it’s so loud and uncomfortable that shouting is necessary to communicate. Mostly we just stay quiet and hang on. In the seat adjacent to mine, facing the opposite direction, is a young blond man wearing a ball cap. His eyes—piercing and greenish brown— remind me of Ruslin’s, and he anxiously rolls what appears to be a black rosary between his fingers. I am later told that he is Vissarion’s son, but it’s obvious he does not want to speak with me or anyone else in the van. An hour later we arrive at the base of the mountain trail, which is filled with parked cars and travelers who’ve come to celebrate the community’s equivalent of Easter. I’m told that last year more than 2,000 made the pilgrimage. It looks like this year the turnout could be even higher. The hike up the mountain is nowhere near as strenuous as I imagined. Much of it is covered with wood planks, and no rock climbing is involved. Still, a few people have trouble keeping up with Vladimir’s brisk pace, and we stop a few times to rest. I shuffle around in the pack, chatting with my fellow travelers to find out why they’ve come all this way. One woman, who appears to be in her 50s—all smiles and bright eyes—tells me she has been traveling the world for decades, with a vague general mission of celebrating all religions and spreading the good word. She also mentions that a friend of hers recently invented a television that is capable of broadcasting the viewer’s soul. She’s come here many times before, and encourages others to do so, but spends most of her time in India. A couple—from Sweden—talk a lot about the environment and how the creator is present in everything, and how eating meat is reprehensible. It makes me crave a hamburger and a beer. Another guy—in his late teens or early 20s—has what appear to be small triangular cuts all over his face and forehead. I try to steer clear of him.

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We reach the end of the trail 30 minutes ahead of schedule, and Vladimir instructs us to walk to a small green structure in the distance and form a line in front of what is basically a makeshift customs office. The attendant inside the shack takes our names and grants admission to the Abode of Dawn. We walk in silence to the city gates, a narrow and sloped-roof structure made of pine, where a small group of what looks to be town elders is waiting for us. They greet Vladimir and have a short conversation. I make out the word American, and one of the men motions for me to follow him and Nina—a woman in her mid-30s who took the van up with me and seems to speak good English—to an unknown destination. “Where are we going?” I ask. “To the house,” Nina says. I laugh nervously. We walk up to a small dwelling and are excitedly greeted in Russian by a woman in a skirt. Nina tells me that her name is Marina and that we will be staying here for the next two days along with another half-dozen guests. I finally realise that Nina will be serving as my guide and translator for the rest of the trip; it seems they are fond of letting people figure things out on their own here.

Even the most steadfast atheist would have to admit that the scene here is pure and beautiful in a way few things are in this world. Marina shows us where we will be sleeping—the floor of an attic that has been converted into a living area just outside a curtain that leads to Marina and her husband’s room. She insists that we head downstairs for lunch immediately, where we are treated to simple food—cold vegetable soup, cheese, bread, potatoes, and black tea. Marina, communicating through Nina, gives us the lay of the land: where to find the outhouse, shower, and headlamps that will help us get to those places at night. I ask Nina why Vissarion requires his followers to adhere to a vegetarian diet (strict veganism was practiced in the earliest days of the community, but underwhelming crop yields and complaints of babies getting sick prompted the Teacher to change dietary restrictions). She says it’s because meat contains “information of death,” and I quickly change the subject. We wind up talking about her family. “I have a son here in the monastery, on the temple peak,” she says. “He’s 18, and I used to visit him all the time but…” She also tells me a little about herself—that she used to translate Stephen King’s books into Russian before moving to the community many years ago. She likes fantasy novels. “That’s what this place is,” she says. “It’s like stepping into a fairy tale.” I try to finish my bowl of soup but can’t, handing it back to Marina and hoping she takes no offense. A man who introduced himself as Slava appears, seemingly out of nowhere, smiling widely, and tells Nina and me to meet him outside Marina’s at 7 PM sharp if we wish to attend tonight’s liturgy. We do. The liturgy consists of a few hundred people praying and kneeling around something that resembles an ankh from afar. When I get closer I realise the shape is that of a standard Christian cross, but with a circle around the crux. Statues of angels surround it. Nina tells me the circle represents the all-encompassing nature of their faith and then makes what appears to be the sign of the cross, ending with the additional

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motion of tracing a clockwise circle around her head and upper torso. She also points out the 14 roads of varying prominence that radiate out from the city center. “Thirteen was a number of significance in the New Testament,” she explains. “And so, we have 14 because it is the beyond.” A bell then tolls 14 times while everyone closes his or her eyes to pray. After the last toll I’m handed a thin yellow candle from a stranger who lights it for me. Darkness falls, and even the most steadfast atheist would have to admit that the scene here is pure and beautiful in a way few things are in this world. After about an hour of hymnals and blessings, I sit down on a rock and nod off with my head in my hands. Nina soon rouses me, and we return to Marina’s for the night. I sleep like a dead dad. awake at sunrise. Today’s the big day, the Holiday of Good Fruits, and the reason that thousands of followers from all over the world have come here—to catch a glimpse of their lord as he gives his annual address on the mountain. Many of these people converted after meeting Vissarion on one of his many missions throughout Russia, Europe, and other parts of the world during the early and mid-2000s. American visitors, however, are a rarity. By 8 AM we’re back at the circle-cross, as if last night’s liturgy never ended, but this morning there are at least three times as many people surrounding it, and more keep streaming in through the gates. I stare at the trail to the temple mount—and Vissarion’s home—in the distance and leave the liturgy to take a stroll around town. Quite a few journalists have visited the community throughout the years, many of whom made the place out to seem like it was primitive and full of hardship. And while I’m sure the brutal Siberian winters suck in ways I can’t imagine, looking around the place it seems almost entirely self-sufficient. Most of the houses appear to be solar powered, and some have satellite TV and internet. Freakishly huge vegetables grow in meticulously manicured gardens that dot the landscape. I’m beginning to understand the allure of this place, and so far, everyone I’ve met seems to be extremely happy and at peace with his or her decision to drop out of a world they consider beyond hope and start anew on this virgin plot. For whatever reason I get the impression that some of its inhabitants are more into the lifestyle than the faith, but considering that one cannot be had without the other, they happily go through whatever motions are required to stay. Most, however, are wholeheartedly devoted to Vissarion and his teachings. I also consider that they might have it right—perhaps humanity can’t sustain itself in its current, self-destructive state, and we should throw the whole thing out and start over. Also, if the end-times are coming soon, you’d be hard-pressed to find a better place to wait it out than on the top of a mountain in Siberia. Nina tracks me down to let me know that the procession to the Temple Mount will begin in 20 minutes, and we make our way back to the gates, where the congregation is growing by the minute. Around the perimeter, musicians—many of them children—tune their violins and blow notes from wind instruments. Soon it’s time to start walking, and I watch as a couple thousand stream through the gates and join them. We halt when the front of it reaches the entrance of the path up the mountain. It begins to rain about halfway up, but it’s still a beautiful day and no one seems to mind. By the time we reach the monastery it’s sunny again, and we continue on to a small temple tucked away inside a clearing. And it’s more of the same: singing, bells, incantations, and lots of white robes. I try to stay engaged, but I’ve never been one to enjoy mass.

Afterward I’m invited to tour the monastery, an impressive two-story cabin in which Vissarion used to live before donating it to the headmaster, Andrey, and an inaugural class of eight teenage monks. Andrey tells me he always felt out of place in life before his first visit to the community, which instantly felt like home. I ask him about the movement’s earliest days, soon after the fall of the Soviet Union. “The universe was preparing this place before the collapse of Communism,” he says. “It stayed preserved from development.” He then details the boys’ daily routine, which seems to include nothing but chores, prayer, academics, and lots of physical fitness. Later he asks me how I feel about the community, and whether I would ever consider moving here. I tell him it seems like a very interesting place but I’m not sure what a city boy like me would have to offer. “You are a writer,” he says. “It’s a profession that is fascinating to us because we strive to create new works where negative characters do not exist.” Trying to change the subject, I ask whether I can perhaps speak with one of the young monks. He agrees and takes me upstairs, to the room Vissarion had formerly used as his painting studio. I meet John, a third-year student who seems better adjusted than most 16-year-olds I’ve met, but that may be because he doesn’t know much outside of this community, and for the first time I imagine what it must be like to be born here (even though John tells me he was not—his parents moved here when he was nine). I ask him to name his favorite subject or daily activity. “To be helpful to others,” he replies, almost reflexively. After a bit of prying, I get him to admit that he enjoys construction and using “power tools and gas-powered equipment.” He’s reluctant to answer anything too personal, and the hour of Vissarion’s holiday sermon is fast approaching, so we exchange good-byes and I head about halfway down the mountain with Nina to a massive stage carved out of rock where thousands of followers await a few words from their teacher. Suspense mounts, and the crowd pushes forward as one of Vissarion’s high priests (there are only two) appears on the stone platform a few minutes before sundown. He preps the crowd, revving them up with an extended homily. Then he sits in a chair off to the side, and everyone grows silent with anticipation for the Teacher’s grand entrance. Vissarion appears in the distance, and walks slowly, like a good showman, before pausing to scan the crowd. Then he takes a seat in a kingly throne covered by a red umbrella that appears to be made of velvet. He swings the microphone toward him, audibly breathes into it for 20 or 30 seconds, and begins. I can’t understand a word, but whatever he says only takes ten minutes before he pushes the microphone away, slowly rises, and walks back up the path from which he came—disappearing around a bend. Nina gives me the gist of what he said: “He told us that he was happy to see us all together and that we are all staying on the path. And that we have to stay cautious and determined so that we can celebrate another anniversary together.” She relays a few more things, but they all seem like circular statements without a point. But maybe that’s my problem, because everyone in the crowd is radiating with happiness. I stop a few people at random, asking them what they think about Vissarion. It’s all more or less the same: “When I saw him for the first time, he is the one I had been looking for all my life.” “I feel he is my close friend.” “I have a feeling that he has his own state of being.” “Everything he says gets into my soul.” Was I missing something? Slava, the guide who greeted us on arriving at the Adobe of Dawn, joins Nina and me on our walk down the mountain, back to Marina’s house. He tells me that one night a few years ago he looked into the night sky and saw three glowing

spheres in the shape of a triangle. “Extraterrestrials?” I ask. But after that he drops it, saying that the subject matter doesn’t interest him. He tells me that my meeting with Vissarion—which has already been rescheduled twice—will take place tomorrow morning, at the Teacher’s house on the mountain. I wish him good night and walk upstairs, where I fall asleep almost instantly.

The procession to the Temple Mount on the Holiday of Good Fruits.

he next day Slava arrives at our scheduled time and escorts Nina and me through a usually off-limits back road, where machinery and supplies are stored. The walk is taking longer than planned, so we pick up the pace, and I start sweating like I was on the train in Moscow. Nothing like showing up to meet a person many consider to be a deity looking like a total slob. We arrive at his house, which is covered in stucco and features a different style of architecture from the rest of the village. It throws me for a loop; the place looks like something you’d find inside a gated community in Florida. We are greeted outside by Vladimir and brought up to the porch, where we meet Vadim, the Teacher’s official biographer, who apparently will be including the answers to my questions in some sort of official literature.

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Vissarion addresses his followers in a sermon on the Holiday of Good Fruits.

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Vissarion steps out from his patio door. I was half-hoping he’d be wearing loungewear, or maybe pajamas, but of course he’s in a white robe. He eschews the drawn-out posturing of yesterday’s sermon and holds out one of his hands, which are massive and seemingly bloated. Up close he’s a bit older and heavier than I anticipated, but he seems to have a gregarious way about him. We sit down and get right to it, Nina translating our exchange for the group. “Why did you agree to meet with me today?” I ask. “I know that you have been refusing interviews for a while now.” “I am not sure.” “Are you regretting it now?” He laughs. I tell him that I am 29, the same age at which he experienced his spiritual awakening, hoping it will prompt him to talk about it. “It’s extremely hard to express in words,” he says. “I’m not even sure how to do so.” Over the course of our 45-minute conversation he reveals that his “feelings” first guided him to this land, that my residence in New York City is “not life,” that every object has a “unique energy,” that “outer-space minds do not have a soul,” the pitfalls of modern science, and that he can “feel a person” in my soul but its features are “undefined.” At one point I watch in awe as a fly lands on his sleeve, where he begins petting its wings. It doesn’t fly away. Perhaps the most poignant thing he says has to do with his supposed knowledge of a doomsday event: “The less truth a human knows, the fewer responsibilities he carries on. A human is safer to make a mistake without knowing the cause of it, instead of consciously making that mistake in response to wrong guidelines.”

Vladimir signals me that it’s time to wrap things up, so I take a risk and ask Vissarion a couple personal questions: his favorite food and whether he likes the Beatles. He doesn’t bite, skirting the question by saying, “I don’t have preferences for anything. It would be hard to explain how it works with me.” he following day I leave Petropavlovka, and Ruslin drives me back the way we came. I wonder how many times a year he has to make this trip, and whether he minds. After checking into the Hotel Siberia in Abakan, I manage to get my laptop to work with Russian internet and catch up on all I’ve missed over the past week. I’m greeted with headlines about violent upheaval around the world, more than 750 emails from work, a credit-card bill, and a Gmail message from my roommate, telling me that my alcoholic Polish neighbour dropped dead the day before from delirium tremens. I close my laptop and lie down. For a few minutes, I seriously contemplate what life would be like as a member of the Church of the Last Testament. Could I hack it? Probably not. But then again I don’t have much of a problem with the way the world is right now. Sure, it’s nowhere near perfect, but things like indoor plumbing and chicken wings make it worth it—at least for me—and I’m lucky enough to have access to them, so why not enjoy? I close my eyes and feel myself drifting into sleep, chuckling as I imagine what I’ll say the next time I hear someone complaining about how everyone is corrupt, money is evil, and our problems are unsolvable: “Well, there’s this place you can go in Siberia…”

Watch Rocco traverse Vissarion’s Siberian Kingdom on a new episode of The VICE Guide to Travel, this month on VICE.com.

THE CUTE SHOW PAGE! BY ELLIS JONES, PHOTO BY REN NETHERLAND

Dog Grooming Expo Watch a brand-new episode of The Cute Show! to see Koby the dino dog destroy the competition later this month on VICE.com.

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Whoooooo! What a relief. You’ve finally made it to the Cute Show Page! Release the heavy burden and sad vibes the rest of this issue has heaped upon you and just R-E-L-A-X as your brain is both confused and entertained by this fact: Recently a bunch of dog lovers congregated at a convention center in Hershey, Pennsylvania, and groomed their pets to resemble everything except canines. We saw a dinosaur, that orange falcon thing from Harry Potter, Rainbow Brite, Eeyore from Winnie the Pooh, and even a hippie. Admittedly it’s a bit ridiculous, and most likely participation in an event like this is a pit stop on the road to Loserville. But c’mon—it’s pretty adorable. Our favorite was the dinosaur (aka poodle) named Koby. His owner told us how great the breed’s hair is for this sort of competition because it sticks straight out, making it easy to sculpt. Turns out they were right! Koby was crowned the winner and went home with a cash prize, an enormous trophy, and eternal glory.

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TOUPEE: MEDICINE MAN BY BRETT GELMAN, PHOTOS BY JANICZA BRAVO Guest Starring Jon Daly as the Medicine Man

Janet’s licking my hands while I drive Mandela’s car. It’s cute as shit. Don’t want to think about what I just did. Don’t feel good about it. Not one bit. Murder’s not a fun thing, no matter how much you think the piece of shit you erased and sent to devil’s asshole deserved it. Mandela is still the sweetest trim I ever had, and I remember, somewhere in the rotted-out recesses of my brain, that we even laughed together a couple times. That’s nothin’ to snub. Who do you find that with? Not many. But the bitch had her lover—my fake son—shoot me, so she had to die. Speaking of being shot: Fuck! I’m bleeding! Gunshot wound! This hole ain’t gonna fix itself. Not like I can go over to the Home Depot and ask for a bottle of wound glue. No, what I have to do is much worse. I gotta go see the Medicine Man. That’s what a crazy asshole in the desert calls himself when he practices medicine but doesn’t have a fucking degree. It’s this particular guy’s name, too. That’s how much he’s into his pseudo-herbal bullshit. And his only “patients” are people like me. Cocksuckers who were in the wrong place, and by “in the wrong place” of course I mean living the wrong life. Don’t get it twisted. This Medicine Man ain’t no indigenous type. He’s as white as I am. But he’s read a couple books about the Mayans, and somehow that’s all the qualifications you need to call yourself a witch doctor, wear a bone necklace, and pop peyote like Tylenol. He’s a real fuckin’ asshole. Rumor is when he isn’t doin’ backdoor surgeries, he’s hangin’ out at the park and lookin’ for kids to molest. Me and Janet pull up to the Medicine Man’s little house. Looks as shitty as any other place around here, except for the dream catchers—the fucking things are everywhere. How many dreams does this asshole need to catch, and once he catches them what does he do with them? To me a dream catcher has got to be a practical joke played on the stupid white man by some indigenous prick; trick us into thinking that we’re being spiritual when really we just got a bunch of dirty bird feathers hanging over our stupid fucking heads. I walk in. “Hey Man!” I call him “Man,” because if he was a doctor I’d call him “Doc,” but he’s the Medicine Man so I call him “Man.” He comes out, and the guy’s fucking naked. “You still owe me a blowjob for when I took your appendix out!” Shit! Forgot about that. Don’t know why I promised him a blowjob. This old fuck would have gladly taken a hand job. “I know. I’m sorry. I’ve been busy, but look, I’m shot. I’m losing blood. Probably too weak to give you a solid one, so stitch me up and I’ll give you two in a row.” “What if I don’t want two in a row? Maybe I want one now and save the other one for later.” “Sure, that’s fine. However you want to do it.” “Fine, but after I cum you gotta watch a movie with me.” “A movie? What movie?” “That Owl Ga’Hoole movie.” I agree. I’d agree to anything at this point. Shit, I’d agree to getting shot again. He puts me out. Janet’s sitting by the door. Little nervous about leaving her around this asshole, but she can take care of herself. I’m getting really sick of being unconscious. I come to and, sure enough, the Medicine Man is beating off his weird mystical prick over my head. God knows for how long. “Jesus, Man. Can’t you wait?” He can’t. He wants to make sure I don’t back out on the deal. So yeah, I suck his dick. His cum stinks like a rotting corpse. I’m covered in it. This guy must have been saving his nut for something special. I go to take a shower, and there’s a fucking dream catcher in the shower. I’m careful not to get water on the stitches, or his cum for that matter. We sit down to watch the fucking cartoon owl movie. He puts his hand on my lap. I take it off. He looks at me. “Thanks for that.” “No problem.” Truth be told, I feel bad for the guy. Alone in his hut, poppin’ peyote and fixin’ gunshot wounds. He’s alone. We’re all alone. But at least I have Janet. “I know who did it.” “What?” “I know who set you up.” My stitches sting. I wince and look at Janet. She doesn’t like the fucking owl movie either. Check VICE.com for previous installments of Toupee, Brett Gelman’s novel about baldness, disgusting depravity, and being on the lam.

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2012 SYDNEY FESTIVAL PREVIEW: VINCENT MOON Vincent Moon (real name: Mathieu Saura) claims to be a really bad director. We call bullshit. His spontaneous approach to filming began with La Blogothèque’s Take-Away Shows—a series of single-take, off-the-cuff shorts of performances by indie bands. Since then, Vincent has churned out an endless amount of films, documentaries and music videos and most of it is available on the internet for free. They’re lively and unruly, miles away from the usual sterile music coverage. VICE caught up with the man as he languished in a Hong Kong hotel after only three hours of sleep, nine floors away from the nearest cup of coffee. VICE: Tell us about your new label, Petites Planetes. It’s a simple evolution of my work and my life. I’m going towards more travels, going towards more various types of music, musicians and cultures and so I need to have my own label, to have my own website where I can present my new works in a different way. Vincent Moon: Has this move to nonWestern music called for a different approach to filming? Probably, in a way. I think it’s a very natural, organic evolution. Because I don’t plan my films, I just improvise. Recently, I was in Indonesia for two months filming some rituals in Sulawesi. I was in some various places and obviously your approach to film and the way you move in the space— that itself lends naturally to the people and the music you are filming. Why do you hate planning so much? I’m just a really bad director. I’m not a film director, you know. I just react. You just throw dice somewhere and then you react to how people react. One other reason is that by not planning, I guess I’m never disappointed because I don’t have any expectations. I’m like a kid, always surprised. Everything is really cool when you don’t plan. If you plan, you have an idea in mind and you try to make it happen. It’s really painful. You can really lose yourself trying to reach that. But I love just being in the moment. I don’t make films for the films, I make films because I like to meet people and have a really good time and just do something I’ve never done before. That’s why I love the idea of improvisation. I’m a huge fan of improvised music. I just wanted to see how it would be to do improvised cinema. You mentioned working in Indonesia and I’m guessing this was for your upcoming film Jakarta Jakarta. But why Jakarta? Why does Jakarta get a film? Why Jakarta? Well I guess I made a film about Jakarta because I was in Jakarta.

Was there a special appeal? It’s really massively insane. When you live in such a big city, you can imagine that there are a lot of different people and cultures. That’s what I felt before going there. I’m like: “I’m gonna go there and look at those various cultures,” because they’re all represented in Jakarta. Indonesia is not a country in itself—it’s just an assemblage of various cultures. Approaching Jakarta, my idea was to research all those levels of the society without any borders. So there is more indie pop stuff, bands like White Shoes and The Couples Companion (which is probably one of the best bands in Asia now). There are also a lot of street musicians. I think it’s the most important city in terms of street music. It has a really massive community of people playing music in the street, everywhere. It’s incredible. What’s going on with the tattoo on your arm? What is it? Have you seen it? That’s a funny question. It’s a poem by Omar Khayyam. He was from Persia in the 12th or 13th Century, a genius of his time. He was not only a poet, he was a mathemati-

cian, a scientist—an extremely bright character who, even being part of a very strong Islamic culture, was very critical against it on some points and just basically praised the love of everyday life. What does it actually say? “You will never know what’s going to happen tomorrow. We will never understand anything in this world. Maybe one day you will, but then you will die. So from now, enjoy life and drink some good wine.” It ties in with everything else you do. Yeah, I think so. Thanks for that. Pleasure. I’m totally out of my mind now but I think I have to go out as soon as possible. I’m gonna go see a big Buddha. There’s a massive Buddha statue in Hong Kong and I’m going to try to connect to him as soon as possible because I’m just really fucked this morning. I have to connect to Buddha. Holy shit. Fuck. My brain is destroyed. Vincent Moon will be appearing at the 2012 Sydney Festival. For details, visit sydneyfestival.org.au

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THE LEARNIN’ CORNER: THE GREAT CURVE JOHN C. STILLWELL AS TOLD TO HARRY CHEADLE, ILLUSTRATION BY KAMRAN SAMIMI

Readers of H.P. Lovecraft know non-Euclidean geometry as the basis of the architecture of the nightmare corpse city of R’lyeh, but to mathematicians, non-Euclidean geometry is simply another way of dividing up angles, planes, and shapes, and totally doesn’t cause anyone to go insane. We’re Lovecraft readers, not mathematicians, so we called up John C. Stillwell, a professor of mathematics at the University of San Francisco, to learn something about non-Euclidean geometry. Most people have a rough idea of what Euclidean geometry is. It’s the geometry of flat surfaces such as a blackboard or a table. The typical features of these surfaces are parallel lines, triangles whose angles add up to 180 degrees, and rectangles—figures whose angles are all right angles. It’s a kind of geometry that’s orderly and very simple, and we take many of its properties for granted, such as the ability to make scale drawings—plans of a house, say, that are smaller than the actual house, but exactly the same shape. There are many other types of geometry, however. Perhaps the one that people can understand most easily is the geometry of the sphere, because we live on a sphere. Geometry is different on a sphere. There are “lines” on a sphere; namely, the great circles, such as the equator. These lines are straight from the viewpoint of creatures living on the sphere, but they behave differently from lines in the plane. The angles of a spherical triangle add up to more than 180 degrees, and lines are not infinite— they come back to where they started. Also, the shape of a triangle depends on how big it is; the bigger the triangle, the bigger the sum of its angles. So that’s one kind of geometry you might call non-Euclidean. Non-Euclidean geometry arises because of curvature. The convex kind of curvature exemplified by spheres is called positive curvature, but there’s also negative curvature, which is the curvature that you have on a saddle-shaped surface. If you imagine trying to join a whole lot of identical saddle-shaped surfaces together to form an infinite surface, you find that it gets crinkly and crumpled; it doesn’t fit easily in Euclidean three-dimensional space. But in principle, such surfaces can exist. Hyperbolic geometry is the geometry of an infinite surface of constant negative curvature. It is what people usually mean when they speak of non-Euclidean geometry. Hyperbolic geometry is closer to Euclidean than spherical geometry is, because in hyperbolic geometry the lines

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are infinitely long. The crucial difference is that every line can have many parallels, and some of them are lines that get closer and closer together but never meet. In Euclidean geometry, parallels just stay the same distance apart. The property of having many parallels causes hyperbolic geometry to diverge from Euclidean geometry in other ways, too. In particular, the angle sum of a triangle is always less than 180 degrees, and the circumference of a circle grows exponentially with the radius (instead of being proportional to radius, as in the plane).

Thanks to exponential growth, the circumference of a modest-size circle in the hyperbolic plane can be huge. This is why a surface of constant negative curvature becomes crinkly as it grows larger. Euclidean three-dimensional space is not a good environment for exponential growth. Sadly, this is bad news for the human population, which also tends to grow exponentially. If we live in a Euclidean three-dimensional space—which seems to be very nearly the case—population growth will always be curbed by geometry.

REVIEWS BEST ALBUM OF THE MONTH: BRIAN ENO

YELAWOLF Radioactive Shady/Interscope

Since Yelawolf’s “people” figured it’d be a good idea to build hype around this turd by not releasing it for review, I’ve been left with no choice but to imagine what it might sound like if I forgot I took Ambien an hour ago and started listening to the Sparks album Whomp That Sucker instead: Dude, “That’s Not Nastassia”? Fucking dope. NELAWOLF

TENDER FOREVER Where Are We From K

Where Are We From sounds a little like the soundtrack to the popular children’s film 3 Ninjas, but that’s awesome, actually. I’ve always been a big fan of what they’ve got cooking over at K Records. They keep me young, you know? In that “I might be too old to be a senior in high school, but I’ll never be too old to break up with my girlfriend with a mix CD-RW packaged in a decoupaged wooden box” sort of way. TEDDY TOILETTSON

THE ROOTS Undun Def Jam

The Roots released three of the best hip hop albums ever made in a row (Phrenology, The Tipping Point and Game Theory). So even if they just recorded ten tracks of them doing shitty jams with Lou Reed talking on top, I’d still have to give it a 6/10 and blindly recommend it to friends without even listening 72 VICE.COM

to it. It’s kind of like if one of your best mates suddenly became a Dad and got a real job or something really boring but you still felt you had to hang out with them once every now and then because you had so many good times making cocktails out of whatever was in his Mum’s pantry and starting fires and shit. I’m glad to finish writing this review so I can listen to something else. Unless I have to review the new Drake album, would rather cut my eyes out and stick them in my ears. Z.Z. McZZZZ

DOOMTREE No Kings Doomtree

What the hell is going on in Minneapolis? I don’t think I’ve heard an album out of this city I’ve disliked. The entire Doomtree lot is perfectly balanced here, with no one hogging the limelight or being hidden away. This is easily one of the best rap records I’ve heard all year. I think I’m crying. JONATHAN YOST

DANNY BROWN AND BLACK MILK Black and Brown Fat Beats

Yeah yeah I know, this is basically a glorified single with four and a half songs you can’t find somewhere else, but fuck it, the soundcheck at the start of this has more vibe than 99% of the shit that’s come out this year. A couple of years ago, Danny Brown was the guy that rapped over a couple J Dilla beats, whilst Black Milk was kind of just a poor mans J Dilla, but now neither of them are boring. I had a really bad sleep last night, pretty sure if I pushed pause on this album I’d just fall asleep at my desk and then wake up in the dark at like 9pm and be like “Hey, where is everybody?”. Then I’d probably go back to the thai place i went to for lunch, it was pretty good. BENJAMIN THOMSON

BLOUSE S/T Captured Tracks

This is the soundtrack for a séance-themed slumber party. Wandering, synthed-out gloomsday tunes with lifeless echoing lady vocals and songs that never end. Ever. Help meeeeee! “In the Black” will make the Ouija go apeshit until suddenly flour-faced Robert Smith hovers above and pushes the pointer to spell “c-o-p-y-c-a-t.” Remember Berlin’s classic track “The Metro”? “Time Travel” is a lukewarm rip-off… kind of like the water you dip someone’s hand into when you want them to pee the sleeping bag. JENNIFER DARLING

THE BIG PINK Future This 4AD

Here’s a band that made a record. It’ll sound good on your run, it’ll sound good on a dance mix, it’ll sound good while you’re waiting for your HIV test results at the free clinic. One time I had a blister on my vagina; this will not sound like that. The name of this band does make me think of vaginas though, which is probably the point. Hey guys, what should I get for lunch, nachos or a Subway sammie? Hmmmmm? BLONDE CAMERO

GRIMES Visions Arbutus

Claire Boucher describes the music of her Grimes project as “post internet.” I don’t know what that means, especially considering I read that quote on a blog. I do know that Visions, Grimes’s sophomore LP, is

ALLISON DRESS

WORN BY ALLISON MELNICK

SHOT BY ELIAS TAHAN

BACKSTAGEPRESENTS.COM

REVIEWS WORST ALBUM OF THE MONTH: LOU REED & METALLICA

an important record because it succeeds where nerds like How to Dress Well have failed. Because of the hype, needle-dick critics will want to take this Canadian import down a notch by rattling off her blatant influences—Björk, Beyoncé, the Knife… but those people can go fart in a sock and then smell it. WILBERT L. COOPER

THE BIG SLEEP Nature Experiments

EX COPS White Women Self-released

A GENDER Imagine my surprise when this wasn’t X-Cops, the all-GWAR thrash band, but Ex Cops, the reverb-heavy, mellow-as-shit band. Now, even despite my disappointment, I have to say: They’re not too shabby. Perfect for those times when you’re trying to bang an American Apparel model (I mean sales associate) and are trying to show how sensitive you are. Plus, the cover of this album has some boobies. JONATHAN YOST

French Kiss

CLOUD NOTHINGS Attack on Memory These lazy motherfuckers finally filled their Adderall prescription and gave us a glimpse of their potential. There’s still a lethargic element to the psych-rock, but they’ve forsaken the filler instrumentals we’ve seen on past albums for intelligent lyrics and haunting hooks. Next year for Halloween I’m not gonna dress up, and when people ask me what I am I’ll say, “A ghost in a body.” Then I’ll go all apeshit hipster on them like, “What, you didn’t listen to the Big Sleep’s third album? Pssshhh.” BOWIE CAT

Self-released

A Gender is Romy Hoffman of Macromantics and Heavy Mental. Self(en)titled is her shredding through nine ball-tearing punk songs in twenty minutes. Some of it sounds like cats fighting their way out of a burning suitcase. Other parts sound like what bikies might fuck to. Each of these things sound way better than they look (and smell) in your head. ROYCE AKERS

A BAND OF BEES Every Step’s a Yes Anytime you’re given an album and told some backstory about a teenage man-child who started making music in the womb, and then given this look like “you’re gonna LOVE IT,” your first instinct should be to make that obscene jerk-off gesture with your hands and then spit on something, but this 19-year-old manchild screams real good and made me think aggressive thoughts. So that’s pretty nice. FLIPPY FLAPPY

Fuck Death

LOU REED & METALLICA

Dead Oceans

Lulu Vertigo

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Self(en)titled

Carpark

BLACKOUT BEACH

If Carey Mercer had a real band that backed his horrible lyrics, they’d tour directly into the hell-catalogue of late indie rock; if he’d just released the backing tracks, they’d be boring bedroom instrumentals in the age of Bandcamp. But as it is, the sashaying man-poet gives unusual foreground to meandering, reverbed-to-fuck tracks, and the tracks create enough tension with the operatic, ridiculous vocals that you can forgive them. So, surprise, I guess; this’s kinda not bad?! LITTLE LOCKY

without ever hearing the music he was supposed to be singing with. PASTOR OF PUPPETS

God, Lou Reed sounds brittle. He sounds like an old man who wandered into a recording session where other old men were trying hard to remember what it felt like not to be super comfy all the time. The sound of Lou Reed’s voice clashed with the music so much that I thought that maybe multiple pieces of media were playing at the same time inside my computer. There are a couple tracks that really rip, but Lou Reed’s singing is so off-putting that I am certain he came in and recorded all his vocals in one day

ATO

Sure, Paul Butler, you’ve been off getting enlightened on ayahuasca in the Amazon with a shaman, but you’ve still got a lotta nerve. The idea of stomaching this album on the way to work while being farted on in the subway is a bit much. The US “deluxe” version of what was originally released in the UK back in October of 2010 comes with five new tracks, including a live version of the unfortunately Jason Mraz– esque single “I Really Need Love.” Unless the vinyl takes me to Narnia when I lick it, I’m not buying. BOWIE CAT

APACHE DROPOUT “Shot Down” b/w “Sister Burnout” Trouble in Mind

The garage revival of the late 00s and 10s is way better than the garage revivals of the 80s and 90s. Those guys were mostly squares trying to be wild men, especially the Dandy Warhols and Brian Jonestown. So corny. Apache Dropout are only slightly

REVIEWS BEST COVER OF THE MONTH: GRIMES

landed in my hands on a bleak day, so I took it out for a stroll. Walking around listening to this made me feel like some postapocalyptic protagonist of a sci-fi cult film. KRISTEN K.

corny, but in the same way that showing real emotion can feel slightly corny. TRELLIS GROANS

PERSONAL & THE PIZZAS

CANT

Diet, Crime & Delinquency

Dreams Come True

Oops Baby

Warp/Terrible

This is a three-song seven-inch by a band from Jersey that are so Ramonesy I am pretty sure they just changed a few words to preexisting songs. It’s good, though. You can hardly do better than being wholly unoriginal in every way and completely ripping off a band that lots of other bands also rip off. Honestly I don’t really give a fuck about any band that isn’t Ramones-core. JEFFY HIGH MAN

I wish that at least one rogue soloist shoot-off from a freak-folk powerhouse would walk by an analog synthesiser and not make an album with it. Analog synthesisers and the people who use them aren’t bad, but when are we going to stop calling things “bedroom pop solo albums” and start calling them what they are: “masturbation in your studio apartment”? A. WOLFE

BORIS HAMMER DAMAGE

New Album

“Automatic Lips” b/w “Laugh”

Sargent House

Last Laugh

This is a re-pressing of a classic obscure punk track that most people probably know from the appearance of the song “Laugh” on Killed by Death #9. It’s a song about laughing at normals and then them laughing back at weirds. The chorus is “Ha! Ha! Ha! Ha!” Awesome song for people who hate people and love drugs. BURNY MAC

KETAMINES

I’ve learned to expect genre orgies from Boris, the Japanese power trio who have released more than 20 albums exploring the vast nexus of heavy music from experimental noise to stoner metal, but on this they venture out to the final frontier for headbangers—pop. These catchy hooks and synth and string flourishes make this album sound like a new direction for a band that already seemed to have a pretty great direction, and despite the toned-down axe-sludge, Wata’s guitar hijinks still makes me burst my dorsal veins. WILBERT L. COOPER

BRIAN ENO Panic of Looking Warp

When it’s 9 PM on a Saturday night and you’re in your sweatpants dicking around in your room, and then hear your roommate’s key in the door and panic like “Oh crap, she’s gonna think I don’t know how to party and aren’t living my life,” put this album on and then it’ll just be like you’re in there doing deep shit. Brian Eno making brainy noises over, around, and in between Rick Holland’s poetry? Whaaaaat? I bet these guys have never even HEARD of an OkCupid profile. KAYLE MACLUE

SHE & HIM A Very She & Him Christmas Merge

What’s the difference between God and Santa Claus? Who gives a shit, ZDUBS IS SINGLE AGAIN!!!!!! BING FLAWSBY

Line by Line HoZac

HoZac makes a lot of records for a label of their size. Most are forgettable, but when they make a good one, oh boy, is it good. This one sounds good. That’s the limits of my descriptive power. “Sounds good.” Lots of sound effects like when a person materialises in a He-Man cartoon. BREAD CROSS 76 VICE.COM

THE SOFT MOON

COUM TRANSMISSIONS

Total Decay

Sugarmorphoses

Captured Tracks

Dais

When it starts getting cold out and Williamsburg starts looking like an industrial wasteland, I like to listen to some spooky shit while power walking through these stomping grounds in a black coat and combat boots like I own the motherfuckin’ place. This EP

Back before Psychic TV and inventing the idea of techno, before Throbbing Gristle and inventing the entire idea of dark music, Genesis P-Orridge was in this performance-art group with Cosey Fanni-Tutti where they’d cut themselves up nude onstage and spray bloody

REVIEWS WORST COVER OF THE MONTH: CANT

enema water all over one another’s (nude) bodies while all their contemporaries were busy saluting the sun at Glastonbury. This is a recording from 1974 that incorporates a broken piano being played along with a scratchy reel-to-reel of Genesis’s voice. The music was recorded at the Coum Transmissions headquarters, known as the Ho Ho Funhouse, and there’s an explanation of what the whole deal was like written by Gen in the liner notes. Getting to hear Genesis’s stories is a real pleasure, so this record is boss for two reasons. Also, there are only 1,000 of them, so get on it already, Shylock. NICK GAZIN

But This Train wouldn’t stop. It just won’t stop. Why won’t it stop?! I looked left. I looked right. I took a bite of my egg fried rice. Wait, did David Lynch just gurgle, “You lookin’ so glamorous / Large heart-shaped diamonds”? I reached a hand to my face, realised my mouth was moving. Oh my god. I was Chrysta Bell the whole time… A. WOLFE

RUINS ALONE

OK, so this is just a fuller band with Yoshida Tatsuya playing in it. I’m not going to sit here and go through the whole spiel again. If you like it, you like it. OK? Cripes. T.H.

S/T Skin Graft

Boredoms were great, but something about the whole quasi-spiritual aspect and hippie monk chanting always lamed on my parade. Ruins on the other hand were perfect. One chimp-faced Japanese nerd on drums and a guy who looks like the personification of being stoned on bass playing the most barely coherent, just-came-up-with-this cartoon madness this side of Spike Jones (the old one). Yoshida Tatsuya (the nerd) has been cycling through replacement bass guys for the last 15 years and last time he played in New York it was just him bashing and yodeling into the mic with a boombox playing beside him, but it’s still the only music I would ever sincerely praise as “goofy.” To this day, I can tell that I’ll get along with someone if the nervous songs they make up in the car sound like a track from Refusal Fossil. And that it’s probably been a while since they last got laid. TERRY HAND

KOREKYOJINN Tundra Skin Graft

THE PSYCHOPATHS “Till the Stroke of Dawn” b/w “See That Girl” Mighty Mouth Music

This is a reissue of a gloomy psych single that was originally released in 1966. Probably a good song for paisley people to kill themselves to, I bet. They’re both good post-break-up songs. Oh my goodness, I’m so fucking lonely. Please brush your fingers across this review. I need your touch. THIS IS A CRY FOR HELP

KING DUDE

La Rose Noire

I heard a whisper behind me. What was that? I turned and found no one, just rippling blue velvet drapes. Shit, what happened to my damn bamboo curtains? I clicked “stop” on my iTunes. Again. Again. 78 VICE.COM

“(I’ve Got) Trouble in Mind” b/w “Je M’en Vais” Trouble in Mind

Would you like to get this record? Don’t bother looking for it, it’s not for sale at your record store. It’s a limited-edition tour record. I mean, I have a copy. The songs are in the style of 60s French garage and it’s great. I’d put this in VICE’s music bragging column but they refuse to make one so it’s in the reviews. BONEY BEEDLE

PLASTIC FLOWERS Strange Neighbors Wierd

This seven-inch is the perfect soundtrack for a quick make-out session with empty-eyed goth girls, too detached to admit they’re actually thinking about their cheating bisexual ex while you’re too selfinvolved to realise or even care. Congratulations to this guy for getting the fuck out of Tallahassee and moving to Brooklyn. Next step is to realise that a black-and-white headshot of looking miserably disaffected does not a record cover make. My ass hurts. JEW MAKES THE NAZIS?

VARIOUS ARTISTS Camp Skingraft: Now Wave Vol. 1–3 Skin Graft

Love Dais

CHRYSTA BELL This Train

THE LIMINANAS

Usually when goth kids pick up the acoustic guitar it sounds like some sort of corny Hitlerjugend singalong, but this is nice and Western-y in a Warren Ellis, cracked-black-leather duster sort of way. Which will probably still piss off King Dude or his label whenever they read this for being the wrong reference or whatever. Goths are so fucking prickly. BOONY

Before those nerds on the Troniks board turned all noise music into the same shade of hateful, squalling Nazi worship, shit was fun. Come on, Flying Luttenbachers? Quintron, pre-Miss Pussycat? Granted there were some unfortunate forays into slap bass and everybody dressed like they were auditioning for an Urge Overkill video, but at least I could leave the album covers lying around my bedroom without finding my Jewish mother quietly sobbing with the lights off when I got home. Well, most of them. JULIUS ROSENBERG

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JOHNNY RYAN’S PAGE

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