The Knuckle Sandwhich Issue

FREE VOLUME 9 NUMBER 4

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PHOTOS: ATIBA JEFFERSON

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TABLE OF CONTENTS

Visitors at Venus Berlin, the largest sex trade show in the world, take souvenir photos of one of the exhibits: a young woman (out of frame) pleasuring herself with a giant dildo. From the series “Love Is a Battlefield.” © William Minke

VOLUME 9 NUMBER 4 Cover by Muir Vidler

GOD COMMENTS ON THE WESTBORO BAPTIST CHURCH PROTEST SIGNS . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 16

WHAT MAKES THE BEST PET? A Table, Turtle, or Steak? . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 30

SPACE IS THE PLACE Where We Send All Sorts of Weird Things . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 18

THE NEW LIBYANS Knee-deep in the Shit with Benghazi’s Unlikely Rebels. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 46

HERE LIES A BUNCH OF MEXICAN DRUG DEALERS Jardines del Humaya Is No Place to RIP . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 22 PUNK PATRIARCH JEFF the Brotherhood Have the Best Band Dad in the World . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 28

BUSTING UP THE KLAN AND STICKING IT TO THE MAN Stetson Kennedy Is Tyranny’s Greatest Enemy . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 56

12 Masthead 14 Employees 38 DOs & DON’T 68 The Learnin’ Corner 70 The Cute Show Page! 72 Reviews 10 VICE

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EMPLOYEES OF THE MONTH BOB ODENKIRK Do we seriously have to tell you who Bob Odenkirk is? OK, fine. He wrote, produced, starred in and elicited laughter for Mr. Show with Bob and David alongside David Cross. But that was a long time ago. Since then he’s done about a million other hilarious things (not to mention stealing the shit out of scenes in the TV series Breaking Bad), and he recently made a nonironic music video for Built to Spill’s “Hindsight.” You can probably find it on YouTube, but be careful because it has GENUINE EMOTIONS in it. In case you haven’t noticed, Bob has started writing a column for us each month about subjects of his choosing.

This month he sent us a conversation he did with a certain guy you may or may not have heard of called God. Now that’s some fucking journalism right there.

See GOD COMMENTS ON THE WESTBORO BAPTIST CHURCH PROTEST SIGNS, page 16

TREVOR SNAPP Trevor Snapp is an independent photographer based in East Africa who seems to be able to navigate his way through any and every dangerous situation on the planet. He first came to our attention by pitching us a piece about a remote group of warriors in Southern Sudan who subsist mostly on cow’s blood, which they drink through very long pointed straws. Coordinating with these types of folks is a pain so it didn’t work out, but just before this issue went to press he sent us an amazing feature about spending time on the front lines with Libyan rebels in Benghazi. Trevor’s photos have appeared in magazines like Stern, Geo, and Newsweek. He is currently working on long-term projects about Southern Sudan’s emergence as a new nation and about a massive rain-forest reserve in Guatemala that has been seized by cowboys.

See THE NEW LIBYANS, page 46

BOBBY DOHERTY Bobby is a precocious photo-taking peacock who has recently been spreading his colourful plumage. In May he will graduate from the School of Visual Arts, where he’s been working in the A/V department (which, according to his description, pretty much sounds like the most boring job ever) for the past three years.

One morning we told him, “You’re photographing God today,” and sent him to a hillside in Rochester where Bob Odenkirk asked Him questions about those fucked up Westboro Baptist protest signs. As if taking a picture of the Creator weren’t enough, the next day Bobby causally strolled into a house full of kitties with mesmerisingly adorable curled ears and shot them for this month’s Cute Show Page! What a showboat.

See GOD COMMENTS ON THE WESTBORO BAPTIST CHURCH PROTEST SIGNS and THE CUTE SHOW PAGE!, pages 16 and 70

BE THE NEXT HENKELL Feast your eyes on the cascading locks and noble bearing of Karl Henkell, one of the finest interns to ever grace our office. In his short time at Vice, Henkell coordinated a bunch of stuff including, but not limited to, things we couldn’t really be bothered doing ourselves. Anyway, he has an amazing job in Paris now (something we’re waaaay to modest to take credit for) and as a result, we’re looking for some bright young sparks to take his place. If you have an interest in either PR, publishing, events, digital sales, graphic design or writing, send us an email at the address below. Just remember to tell us in the subject line the field you’re most interested in. This could be your ticket into the glamourous world of publishing, which if you’re wondering, is pretty much exactly like the TV show Just Shoot Me! Tell us about yourself in an email and send it to stuff@viceaustralia.com

14 VICE

GOD COMMENTS ON THE WESTBORO BAPTIST CHURCH PROTEST SIGNS

BY BOB ODENKIRK, PORTRAIT BY BOBBY DOHERTY

16 VICE

have been called an atheist. I don’t describe myself as such, but now I have proof that I’m not—I spoke to God! He granted me an interview via his publicist, Chip Labow of Labow & Sons PR. I arranged an audience with the deity and got a photo of him. He even signed my cast. Why didn’t I give him something more permanent to autograph?! Oops!

In case you’re wondering, his signature wasn’t all that great—a big G followed by squiggly lines and a small dot for a flourish. It’s a mess. Oh, I should say, the interview had some strict limitations. I was only allowed to speak with “His Majesty” for 15 minutes, and I couldn’t tape it so I had to take written notes. He required that we meet at a place of his choosing: a hill called Cumorah in Rochester, New York (I asked him why, and you can see his answer below). I had to bring three chilled bottles of Yoo-hoo and antibacterial hand wipes. Whatever, it was all worth it. I wanted to ask him about the Westboro Baptist Church, particularly their incendiary protest signs. He answered all of my questions... well, sort of.

Vice: OK, let’s get right to it. The first sign I want to ask you about says GOD HATES FAGS. What do you think about that?

God: It’s colourful. Easy to read. It’s probably a bit too large to hold up straight, especially if it was windy— Yeah, but what about what’s written on it? Do you hate “fags”? Does it say that you “hate” gay people in the Bible?

I haven’t read that book in a while, so I don’t know what it says verbatim. They have included a reference number on the sign, so I don’t want to contradict them at this point. I’d have to do some research and get back to you.

What about this other one that says FAG FAMILY VALUES? [chuckles, then coughs] Sorry, I have a tickle in my throat. Uh, I don’t even know what that sign means. They have drawn two stick figures butt-fucking, but there’s no penis, so I guess the one guy isn’t very turned-on... it’s confusing.

You don’t think it’s trying to say that all gay people care about is anal sex, and they don’t have well-balanced lives?

I think you are reading into it. I can’t comment, because I don’t fully understand it. I have many followers and, uh, I, uh... appreciate all of them, and all the ways they worship me. Next question.

This one has to make you mad, though.

Should people really be praying for more dead soldiers?

Pray for their souls—that they are pure and accepted into heaven to worship me, maybe? Again, this sign

is unclear. Look, it’s not my job to tell my followers what to think. My job, here in heaven, is to listen to the people, and that’s it.

But isn’t that a bit fast and loose? After all, you are the leader of the church. You’re not willing to stand up to statements that are obviously meant to be hurtful?

I just outlined my relationship with my followers, as I understand it. I believe homosexuals are doing what they feel is natural and following me with their best intentions.

I believe these Westerbury [sic] people are expressing their understanding of, uh, my, uh, admittedly complicated, uh, directives. I have many followers and I take them all at their word.

But doesn’t this kind of ignorance concern you? They’re putting such ugly thoughts in your mouth.

I contain multitudes. Listen, the Westerbury yokels—and I say this with love because I NEED yokels—they have a right to think what they want. That’s free will, and it’s not my job to tell them they’re wrong. There’s a lot of information out there, and people read a lot of things into the Bible, but I— You don’t think you should stand up to people who might be misreading it, or…

I’ve made clear what I believe the facts to be. I’m just trying to do my job, which is to focus on spending cuts. [laughs] What? Spending cuts?

I’m trying to get the deficit down in heaven. No one needs wing wax, certainly not archangels who just sit on thrones and don’t even fly very much. I have a lot on my plate.

Sure, of course, but can I ask about one more sign? The one that says FAGS EAT POOP. Is that a joke? I suppose that has happened. But a lot of people eat poop. The way food is processed, handled, served... if anyone in the chain of delivery doesn’t wash their hands thoroughly after a bowel movement, well... everybody’s eaten poop. I don’t hold that against anyone.

It’s a fact of life. Certainly, no one should ever feel bad about it.

One more question, please: Why are we meeting here on this hill in Rochester? Is it because this is where Joseph Smith received the original golden tablets from the archangel Moroni?

So I DID leave them here! I knew it! Damn! Where are they now?

I don’t know. They must have disappeared.

Yeah, somebody probably melted them down and turned ’em into gold teeth for a rapper. Shoot! My bad. What a boob! Me, I mean. I’m the boob. [chuckles]

VICE 17

SPACE IS THE PLACE Where We Send All Sorts of Weird Things

BY HARRY CHEADLE ILLUSTRATIONS BY LALA ALBERT

or centuries, nerds have looked up at the night sky and dreamed of leaving this world, with all its wars, hatred, and “internet celebrities,” and traveling to distant stars. There, I—I mean they— could build a utopia where there is no such thing as money, energy is clean and plentiful, and greenskinned women who have human tits and vaginas want to have sex with them.

Over time, nerdmanity has scaled back its galaxyconquering ambitions, and now we use our most advanced technology to launch animals, human cremains, and pictures of naked people into space because, hey, we’ve got all these rockets lying around, so why not? Here’s a run-down of some of the latest crap we’ve been using explosions to fling into the horrifyingly colossal void we cutely call “outer space.”

F

ASIAN PEOPLE AND ASIAN ROBOTS As the US dismantles its space-shuttle program, China is picking up the slack. They’re planning to build a 60-ton space station by 2020 and launched a dozen military satellites into orbit last year. China has already sent some people into space and some unmanned thingers to the moon, making theirs the 18 VICE

most successful space program in Asia. India has the idea that they’re going to build a permanent moon base inside a giant cave they just found, but Indian rockets have a bad habit of exploding in midair.

Japan’s space program, meanwhile, is focused on sending a humanoid robot to the International Space Station that can communicate via Twitter, which frankly makes me question whether the Japanese are actually taking the exploration of the universe and humanity’s ultimate goal of colonising the galaxy seriously.

SUPER-SECRET SATELLITES THAT COULD BE LASER DEATH RAYS Last year the Air Force sent the charmingly named X-37B Orbital Test Vehicle on an unmanned test mission to circle Earth. The X-37B looks like a space shuttle crossed with a missile, and the Air Force refused to tell anyone what it was. So people asked things like, “Are you testing robotcontrolled space weapons?” and the Air Force replied, “Space weapons?! What?! Wherever did you get that idea?”

Whatever they were testing appears to have been successful, unlike another Air Force plaything called the Falcon Hypersonic Technology Vehicle. The HTV was conceptualised as a glider that would lurk in the upper atmosphere and have the ability to hit anything on Earth with a missile, but the dart-shaped test plane malfunctioned and crashed into the ocean. Don’t worry, it only cost about $43 million.

attempt to say, “Here’s where we are, here’s our hydrogen and sex organs, let’s party!” (The prudes at NASA decided not to include a line indicating the woman’s vulva, so it looks like she’s a Ken doll with tits.)

THE WORST ALBUM ON EARTH A few years later, when the Voyager probes were being launched, NASA and Sagan stashed a gold-plated record on board that contained a bunch of images, music, and sounds from Earth, including “Johnny B. Goode,” on the off-chance that aliens enjoy stolen guitar riffs. The record opens with greetings in 55 languages, then continues with nonverbal sounds like a cart being pulled by a horse and a dog howling, which raises the question, YOU ASSHOLE SCIENTISTS, HOW ARE THE ALIENS SUPPOSED TO KNOW WHAT PARTS ARE LANGUAGE AND WHAT PARTS ARE ANIMAL NOISES?

IRANIAN ANIMALS Iran joined the space race in February of last year, when they launched a capsule containing a mouse, two turtles, and a bunch of worms into space for 15 minutes, after which its payload parachuted to the ground. In President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad’s Holocaust-less fantasy world, this counted as a major victory for the country. According to him, “The scientific arena is where we could defeat the West’s domination.” Iran’s got a long game of catch-up ahead of them—their next step is to send a monkey into space, and the US was sending truckloads of simians into orbit way back in the 50s and 60s. I think some of them even came back alive.

PERFORMANCE ARTISTS What do you call sending one performance artist into space? A good start! Ha-ha! Get it? But seriously, this group of people called Inbred Hybrid Collective are raising money to send one of their members into space aboard the Virgin Galactic, which is a private spacecraft that caters to scientists and ultra-rich “space tourists.” I talked to someone from Inbred and asked specifically what the performance artist was going to do in space. They told me the piece was in development, adding, “It is intended to be one small step for art, and one giant wet dream for geek-kind.”

So… sex with a green-skinned woman in zero gravity, I presume. At the time of writing, Inbred had $100 of the $300,000 needed to execute the project. Good luck, guys!

HUMAN CREMAINS

GOLDEN PICTURES OF NAKED PEOPLE Back in the 70s, NASA launched a couple of space probes called Pioneer 10 and Pioneer 11 that cruised through the solar system, sending back data, and then drifting off into space. Carl “Get Hazed” Sagan and his scientist buddies, probably while high, wondered about the chance that the probes would encounter aliens and decided to put an illustrated golden plaque inside to communicate with them.

The plaque included a map of our solar system, a picture of a hydrogen atom, and a drawing of a naked couple in an 20 VICE

Burying dead bodies and marking gravesites with fancy rocks is so fucking boring. You know what’s not boring? Shooting the ashes of dead people into fucking space!

Zooooooosh! Yeah! A company called Celestis has been launching dead people into orbit for 14 years now, and they offer a bunch of different “services.” You can send a combined 14 grams of you and a loved one into orbit for $7,485 or you can shoot one gram of yourself to the moon for $9,995 or seven grams of yourself into the infinite reaches of deep space for $25,000. If you’re a real cheapskate, you can launch a single gram of your ashes into space for eight minutes for $695. I’d pick the deepspace option, because if your ashes are found by aliens, maybe they’ll be able to resurrect you, and perhaps they’ll even say, “Oh, you’re from that planet with the hydrogen, right? Hell yes! Here, let me introduce you to some of our sexy green-skinned women! We checked against that golden picture, and our sex organs should be 100 percent compatible.”

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Posters featuring photographs of the deceased are ubiquitous throughout Humaya.

HERE LIES A BUNCH OF MEXICAN DRUG DEALERS Jardines del Humaya Is No Place to RIP

BY JAVIER ANGULO PHOTOS BY GLADYS SERRANO

22 VICE

he tombs of Jardines del Humaya in the Mexican state of Sinaloa seem to have been inspired by the great pyramids of Egypt. Both sites were built to symbolise the ascent of powerful rulers to heaven, but in Humaya’s case most of the departed oversaw a kingdom of illegal drugs and extreme violence.

Located on the outskirts of Culiacán, the largest city in Sinaloa, this cemetery is the site of grandiose mausoleums that resemble one-bedroom apartments with gaudy elevated domes. Land is sold in blocks of 3.6 by 7.4 feet, the standard size of a Mexican coffin. A popular purchase is three blocks, which sells for about 30 thousand pesos (approximately $2,500).

Some of the larger properties even include recreational areas where children can safely play during family visits. Those who commission these structures are willing to spend whatever it takes to ensure that their patriarchs—some politicians and businessmen but mostly Sinaloa’s most infamous traffickers of

T

narcotics—spend the afterlife in a place that reflects their unsustainable lifestyles. If this requires installing central air conditioning and a kitchenette, so be it.

According to Walkyria Angulo, the only expert in the funerary architecture of the region, the eccentricities of these constructions have a very logical explanation: People are bringing the city to the cemetery. “In Culiacán, those building mausoleums tend to copy what they see with the local houses,” she said. “The mix only exists here. It defies categorization.” About five years ago, a hodgepodge minimalist trend began that embraced austere forms and rounded ironwork. The only common theme is the use of marble and acrylic domes, and spending exorbitant amounts of money on the finishing, sculptures, and lighting. Walkyria estimated that one of the more expensive gravesites cost at least 5 million pesos (around $420,000).

The most impressive and elaborate memorials are located deep within the burial grounds, and from the outside the site resembles a modern suburb inspired by chapel architecture. It’s common to spot luxury SUVs parked in front of mausoleums or roaming the streets that divide the structures. The tombs are both garish and thoughtful, prompting one to ponder the gruesome and myriad ways in which these individuals lost their lives and visits to gawk at their legacies.

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One-upmanship has gotten out of hand in Humaya. Families continually try to build bigger structures than their neighbours, a morbid version of keeping up with the Joneses.

Some might find it excessive to entomb a loved one inside a two-story edifice covered in plants—roses, dahlias, daisies, and other decorative flowers are frequently arranged along the perimeter—but the celebration of overabundance is precisely the point. Mexico has a rich history of commemorating the dead by celebrating life, and it’s no exception here.

Parties with live music that last for days are frequent occurrences on birthdays, novenas, and the Day of the Dead. The festivities are so abundant that local event planners offer to decorate tombs and coordinate truly Dionysian gatherings for the average cost of 35,000 pesos (approximately $3,000), which includes lighting, landscaping, altars, and customised themes. If the departed was a gambler, for instance, his parties might be casino-themed and include a roulette wheel and a craps table. If he particularly enjoyed a certain dish, his family and friends will serve a plate for him at the altar and replace it whenever it becomes stale. But even these indulgences cannot ensure that the residents of Jardines del Humaya will ever be able to rest in peace.

One of the few cemetery watchmen, who refused to give his name, said that while visitors are usually respectful there is always the threat of danger. He experienced this firsthand when hit men arrived at a burial service to seek retribution on the family of the deceased. The watchman had agreed to help with the service because the graveyard was short-staffed, and as he was opening the coffin a woman yelled, “All men should run!” Before he had a chance to look up, a group of armed men forced him to lie facedown on the ground.

24 VICE

In recent years, mausoleum architects have imitated the minimalist trend of modern homes, but extravagant elements like enclosed stairs define a style that is only found here.

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Some of the structures include interior features such as portraits of the deceased and air conditioning.

“We just came to perform the burial services for this man,” the watchman told his assailants. “We’re workers here. We don’t know what sorts of problems you guys had.”

“I told you to lie down, old cabrón,” the hit man answered before he and his crew abducted eight people who are still missing.

Another incident at the cemetery made headlines in January 2010: A beheaded body was found near the tomb of one of the most nefarious drug lords of the past decade.

At the opposite end of the cemetery, close to the mausoleum of yet another important drug figure, the victim’s head was purposefully placed, a decorative flower tucked behind his ear. A worker told the watchman about these findings so that he could inform the police, but instead he chose to keep quiet, which is what most Mexicans do in these situations.

“I told them I couldn’t get involved in those things,” the watchman said. “I’m not interested in that. They’re going to get me involved, and then what am I going to go around saying? I didn’t see anything.” The watchman insisted, however, that the type of incidents he described were rare during his four years of employment at the cemetery.

Jardines del Humaya is at once peaceful and full of unresolved conflict. In some ways, the people buried here are immortal because their existence will continue to affect the lives of others long after they are covered with dirt. But there’s one thing that’s unquestionable: The people who have built this place care about their dead in ways that most of us can’t comprehend.

26 VICE

Some of the tombs in Jardines del Humaya house children who died before their time. They’re easy to spot because most are decorated with cartoons or imagery from movies the child enjoyed in life.

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Robert was more than happy to send us some childhood photos of his sons. We hope they aren’t too mortified!

PUNK PATRIARCH JEFF the Brotherhood Have the Best Band Dad in the World ROBERT ELLIS ORRALL AS TOLD TO BENJAMIN SHAPIRO PHOTOS COURTESY OF ROBERT ELLIS ORRALL

If your father doesn’t kick you out of the house for joining a band, chances are he’s one of two things: the Joe Jackson type, who will break your ribs for dropping out of 4/4 time, or the Billy Ray Cyrus type, who buys his child’s fame and assured psychological implosion. Then there’s the rare third breed who is just happy that his kids are doing something creative and nurtures their talent without ruining their lives. Robert Ellis Orrall is one of these dads.

His sons, Jake and Jamin, are JEFF the Brotherhood, a poppy and raw two-piece punk band from Nashville who’ve been touring and releasing records nonstop for the past few years. Robert is their secret weapon, biggest fan, manager, and he helps run their record label, Infinity Cat Recordings. We called Robert and demanded that he tell us embarrassing stories about his boys. Because he’s a good dad, he was a little sheepish at first, but eventually he caved and gave us the goods. rowing up, the boys always stuck together.

They were constantly playing in the woods and finding coyote bones and building forts. Jake was intense, confident, and curious—almost magic in a way. His brother looked up to him. When Jamin was little, he wore a different costume every day, always doing characters like Luke Skywalker or Batman, and they had to be perfect. Anything he set out to do, he mastered. One day he wanted to be a magician, and the next he decided he wanted to play music. He was the most brilliant little-kid musician I’ve ever seen. Then, all of a sudden, he lost interest

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for a bit and started with the yo-yos. But he got back into music quickly.

Jamin got his first drum set when he was eight.

We set it up and he started playing in perfect rhythm—like it was just beating inside him. He became obsessed, sleeping with the sticks under his pillow. Funnily enough, he tap-danced his way into the Nashville School for the Arts but spent his entire time there drumming instead.

Their first real band was called the Sex. They were maybe 15 and 13 years old at the time. I remember going to see them at the Muse, which was this weird all-ages club that served alcohol. I was standing in the back of the room and it was obvious that Jake’s guitar was horribly out of tune. I asked the sound guy for a tuner, walked up to the stage, waved it at him, and said, “Jake! Your guitar is way out of tune!” I slid it over to him and he just looked at me like, “Why are you up here?” Then he kicked the tuner off the side of the stage and kept playing.

I decided from the beginning that instead of trying to teach the guys about the music business, I should just shut up and learn from them. I’ve never written a song with them. I’m perplexed by the way they do it. It just seems to happen. But I’m still making music too. Singles pay the bills, but I have fake bands that I’m in and we make entire albums. My band Monkey Bowl used to be on our label, Infinity Cat, but I got dropped. So the next Monkey Bowl record is coming out on a subsidiary, which I started. [laughs] I’ve had discussions with friends at parties who say, “I feel sorry for kids today. They’ve got no good music. It’s crap!” I’m like, “Are you kidding me?” I think it’s better than it ever was. You just have to go to the right shows. I saw the unfortunately named Diarrhea Planet for the first time a while back because the kids had been raving about them. They blew my mind.

Watch a live set from JEFF the Brotherhood and tons of other bands at our new music site, Noisey.com.

WHAT MAKES THE BEST PET? A Table, Turtle, or Steak?

BY WOLF HALEY PHOTOS BY TERRY RICHARDSON

Tyler, the Creator recently called Vice out via Twitter for ignoring that video of him eating a cockroach and hanging himself that got 50 million views or whatever. So we said, “OK, bub, if you feel neglected why don’t you write something for us. You don’t even have to physically put it down on a piece of paper. You’re saying weird shit all the time. Just come up with an idea, walk around with a tape recorder for a few minutes, and get someone to type what you said into a computer or phone. We are a magazine, after all.” A week later he emailed us the rumination below and said he wanted to write captions for photos Terry Richardson took of him and some of his Odd Future buds.

We happily obliged. hich is a better pet? A turtle, table, or steak?

Some turtles are really fucking evil. They want to take over the world and keep all the water to themselves. I recently saw this documentary called Rango, with some nigga named Johnny Depp narrating it, explaining how corrupt land turtles are. Sea turtles are usually cool (example: Finding Nemo), but those land muthafuckas are shit. Look at Super Mario—they tried to kill the princess! And Bowser is a big-ass stank nigga.

So, no, overall turtles don’t make good pets. They will try to kill you in your sleep and doo-doo in your sneakers.

Tables are really nice. They listen to your worries, hold things for you, and you can boo-boo on them and they will not complain. The first table I had was named Hemphrey. He couldn’t speak English too well, but Hemphrey was the nicest table I’d ever met. He died from a heroin overdose. So, yes, tables make great pets, just keep cool shit like heroin away from them.

Steak. So good. Well-done steaks are well mannered.

Raw steaks are just like the people who eat them. Musty.

So, steaks can be good or musty pets. Choose one and choose wisely.

Overall, tables are the coolest pets.

Golf Wang, bitch!

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This is Damien. ’Nuff said.

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This is Syd. She loves penis. She would never turn gay.

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This is Domo, hands down the skinniest member of the group.

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This is Left Brain. That is his nose.

VICE 35

This is Tyler. He’s buff as fuck and has one of the smallest bottom lips EVER.

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This is Terry Richardson. He fucks bitches and does real nigga shit. He recently bought some rims.

VICE 37

DOs

Take a week off from work and when your boss calls to ask where you are, you tell him, “I’m celebrating the midget.”

I was at the grocery store a few months back buying baby carrots and they were playing Bob Seger’s “I Love to Watch Her Strut” on the radio. Now whenever I eat baby carrots I think of Bob in an old folks’ home eye-raping the staff’s assholes.

What is it about chicks who’ve had a stroke that makes them so incredibly hot? If you’ve ever jerked off to Picasso’s Guernica you already know the answer to this.

Fuck Steve Jobs! This son of a bitch just invented the Spermtini!

38 VICE

When pictures of the handsome stud who shot that senator in Arizona started popping up on TV all the girls were like, “I would love to feel this lunatic’s insane cock thrusting inside of me!” Maybe someday there’ll be a female assassin superstar that us guys can whack off to, but I’m not holding my breath.

DON’Ts

Three hot babes, Jenga, and a bottle of water. This looks like one of those legendary Mötley Crüe parties I’ve read about.

“Welcome, my weight-watching children of the night, to my Warehouse of Horrors and Unbeatable Savings, where you can experience the gut-shredding terror of Slim Fast Nightmare Milk, specially brewed inside an evil witch hat and stirred by 666 giant demon boners on Halloween night.”

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People like this make me wonder if Osama bin Laden takes requests.

Ha ha ha! That’s really funny, guys! How about next Halloween you paint your faces black, wear Afro wigs, and carry around a banjo since making fun of downtrodden minority groups is so hilarious.

Maybe you should forget about the lap dance and start thinking about a LAP BAND! In all seriousness though, take care of yourself. Obesity is a killer. RIP Nate Dogg.

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DOs

Finding a girl who thinks Benny Hill is funny is rare enough, but finding two best friends who are not only unabashed in their love for the Sultan of Sax but came up with their own “reaching for the popcorn” gag in His honor is like winning the human being lottery.

It’s cute to force your religious beliefs on your pet, but just remember what happened to another wiseguy who tried to do that by the name of Dr. Moreau. He wound up getting his balls ripped off by a pack of raging manimals, and I don’t even think he was Jewish.

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The next time you buy Tupperware, remember that there is a 99.9 percent chance that somebody got fucked on it.

Remember when Sarah Silverman said, “When life gives you AIDS, make lemonAIDS?” Well, leave it to the Germans to take that shit literally.

You might think you’re a big fan of Chicken Pussy, but this guy just put you to fucking shame.

Out Now from SUB POP LOW C’mon CD/LP J MASCIS Several Shades of Why CD/LP THE HEAD AND THE HEART S/T CD/LP FLEET FOXES Helplessness Blues CD/LP Out April 29

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DON’Ts

Once I was at a Vagina Monologues cast party and I blacked out. The next morning I woke up in a tub of ice with my balls missing and a letter that said, “Dear John, Fuck you. Sincerely, Your Balls.”

You know that feeling you get the second after you finish ejaculating in/on/thinking about a girl you hate? Yeah? Well, this is what that feeling looks like. Not so victimless now, is it?

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I want to see this tattoo put to the test. I want to put a knife to his throat and a cup of Sanka on the table. If he dies we’ll know he was fucking hardcore. If he drinks he will forever be branded as the guy who lied about his coffee preferences.

Sure, they’ve banned smoking in public places, but when are they gonna ban blowing douche bubbles?

Dear Jesus, I promise from now on I will be a good person. I promise to stop masturbating to preggo porn and to say 1,000 Our Fathers every night. Just please please please don’t let the monster eat me.

Amen.

BLACK BENATAR DRESS

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THE NEW LIBYANS Knee-deep in the Shit with Benghazi’s Unlikely Rebels WORDS AND PHOTOS BY TREVOR SNAPP The Friday after former Egyptian president Hosni Mubarak fled Cairo, I strolled through the postrevolution euphoria in Tahrir Square: men and women on their knees reciting thankful prayers, cheering teenagers, and giddy, hopeful children. It was a brand-new world, and the people’s revolution seemed unstoppable, which proved to be the case as insurrections and protests spread through Libya, Bahrain, Yemen, Saudi Arabia, Djibouti, Syria, and God knows where else by the time you’re reading this article.

46 VICE

A man holding an AK-47 gathers his children together for a family portrait as rebels tear down the road toward the latest battlefront. Most fighters took up arms to protect their families from Gaddafi’s vengeance and because they didn’t want young people to grow up under the same conditions they experienced. “I want freedom for my children,” this man said.

VICE 47

A man reads an army file in the looted ammo-storage facility of the Al-Katiba army barracks in Benghazi. Behind him, two men pick through the remains of boxes in which thousands of AK-47s and munitions were stored before locals swiped everything. Although the rebels were well armed after this breach, they excitedly shot much of their ammo into the air following their successful raid.

few days later, I left for the Libyan border. According to Twitter, it was open for the first time in decades.

Even more than in Egypt, uncertainty counterbalanced jubilation as generations of repressed tensions were only beginning to uncoil. Would Colonel Muammar Gaddafi gracefully forfeit his country and leave peacefully, or would he ensure its destruction by stubbornly refusing to abandon his self-appointed post? All bets were on the latter, and soon the world knew his answer: “I will die as a martyr at the end,” Gaddafi said in a televised statement. “I have not yet ordered the use of force, not yet ordered one bullet to be fired... When I do, everything will burn.” When I arrived, however, the Libyan people were still celebrating the victories they had achieved—it was a joyful calm before a brutal storm with no end in sight.

Above the crashing waves of the Mediterranean, the road to the border post wound up a dune-covered plateau. A fierce wind whipped up walls of grey dust while hundreds of opportunistic taxis and buses waited for fleeing refugees.

Inside Egyptian immigration offices, hundreds of Nepalese workers waited for the cogs of bureaucracy to turn and safely deliver them from Libya. They were the earliest of an estimated 300,000 refugees who fled to neighbouring Tunisia and Egypt over the next few weeks as the situation approached pandemonium.

The Libyan side of the border was quieter—just a few men, tall in black trench coats, smoking cigarettes, holding

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AK-47s, and waving everyone through. No forms, no passport checks, no interrogations. Instead I found a waiting minivan eager to carry myself and a half dozen other journalists into a new Libya—a nation of rebels and dissidents that had formed literally overnight.

“Welcome to Free Libya,” our driver exclaimed as we sped past drab concrete houses and makeshift checkpoints. In each town we passed the mark of revolution, black scorches that licked out the windows of every government building. Like other journalists diving headlong into a country on the verge of a revolution, I was jolted by the realisation that none of us knew the first thing about our destination. Then again, maybe it didn’t matter much because everything was changing right before our eyes.

The only thing I knew for certain was that Gaddafi was fucking crazy. Around the same time as my arrival, he began addressing his citizens as drug-addled rats. “Libya is leading the continents of Africa, Asia, and South America,” he screamed from a building bombed out in an earlier assassination attempt by the US. “Anybody who lifts an arm shall be punished with a death sentence.”

During his tenure as leader, Gaddafi was one busy little totalitarian beaver, arming almost every rebel group you can imagine and many you’ve probably never heard of: Charles Taylor, Idi Amin, the Japanese Red Army, the Chadian rebels, the IRA, and many others. He thought Miloševic´ was

Inexperienced rebel units hoist their newly acquired weapons next to an antiaircraft gun in Benghazi before moving out to confront Gaddafi’s troops.

a stand-up guy and single-handedly propagated numerous wars across sub-Saharan Africa. Yet he did little for his own people, especially here in the east, our driver remarked as we pulled up to a gas station. But after listing all the bad deeds his former leader had committed, he seemed to backtrack and said, “Gaddafi isn’t that bad. He has done some good things for us.” At first I thought this was because he had just filled up his tank for eight bucks. Gaddafi has always kept gas prices low to keep the people happy.

I soon realised that the revolution was still blossoming, and many were wary that it would be short-lived. They had experienced Gaddafi’s reprisals following previous uprisings, and those reprisals were stone-cold brutal. Retributions have included bounties placed on the heads of Libyan dissidents living abroad, which resulted in dozens of assassinations, according to Amnesty International. In London, the colonel’s diplomats had gone so far as spraying bullets into a crowd of unarmed protesters in front of the Libyan Embassy, injuring ten and killing a police officer. It was even worse for local critics of the regime. Thousands were imprisoned or went missing, and in 1996 Gaddafi killed at least 1,600 alleged Islamist prisoners.

We were dropped off at Central Square in Tobruk, the first large town on the road from Egypt. A few dozen men were camped out in tents, drinking tea. Bullet shells littered the ground, and a charred police station loomed over what was now a rebel base camp. A boy led me on a tour through

the police station, pointing out dozens of windowless, gutted rooms and piles of still-burning files. He peered through the tiny flap of a solitary-confinement cell, illustrating the former prisoners’ limited view of the outside world. “It’s really dark in here when they shut the windows,” he said as if it were the worst thing he could imagine. The reality was much worse. Gaddafi believed torture to be one of the most effective forms of punishment, and much of the country grew up watching the executions of alleged dissidents on state TV. When I stepped back outside, more protesters and jour-

Gadda thought Miloševic was a stand-up guy and propagated numerous wars across sub-Saharan Africa. nalists were rapidly arriving. The demonstrators chanted, holding pictures of wounded countrymen; they climbed buildings, waved flags of Libya’s last ruler, painted their faces like warriors preparing for battle, and displayed countless revolutionary posters and banners. As the sun set and the protesters marched into the night, cheering their successes now confirmed by the Western media, the scene looked a lot like Egypt with one major difference—many of them were holding guns.

VICE 49

The hacked-up cranium of an alleged foreign mercenary killed by rebels during the uprising in Benghazi. Many of Gaddafi’s hired henchmen are poor sub-Saharan Africans, not Libyan nationals.

Bullet shells littered the ground, and a charred police station loomed over what was now a rebel base camp. ater I arrived in Benghazi, Libya’s second largest city, after driving across a massive desert and over the green mountains. Here the celebration was even more exultant, and the weapons much more plentiful. More than 200 people had already died there, gunned down by pro-Gaddafi forces while protesting, or killed when they charged the military base in the center of town. After the Friday prayer I wandered into a destroyed concert hall decorated with the charred imprints of three fists, the symbol of Gaddafi’s own revolution, which was completed in 1969. His people have now appropriated it for their own cause.

A posse of young men approached wearing a patchwork of denim, military uniforms, berets, and baseball hats.

“This is Gaddafi’s place,” they said as we walked past rooms still ablaze and gushing water from burst pipes. “But not anymore,” they continued before busting up in laughter. They then led me to streets full of craters, lined with trees blown apart by tanks. “This is what we were fighting against,” said Ahmad, a 25-year-old engineer-turned-rebel who looked simply dashing in his officer’s cap.

“Check this out,” he said as he pulled a cell phone from his pocket in what would become a Libyan rit-

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ual I now refer to as Dude Shows Stranger Sickening, Gory Videos on His Cell Phone. Ahmad played a clip of a mashed-up sedan being run over by a tank—random body parts were strewn across the landscape as men tried desperately to rescue the car’s passengers. He played another clip featuring a man walking through a hail of bullets shouting “Allahu Akbar” as Gaddafi-hired mercenaries walked across a field and shot protesters crouched behind parked cars. “Look at how strong Allah is,” the posse exclaimed.

“The guy is untouched.”

Gaddafi pulled the plug on Libya’s internet early in the revolution, but this only forced the flow of information to take a detour. Evidence of atrocity swiftly spread across the country, the video passed via Bluetoothenabled devices and memory cards. Another video, by far the most popular and widespread, showed guys who were far from “untouched”—bodies chopped in half by tank rounds or ground up like hamburgers from other explosions. “What the hell happened here?” I asked. Their response was to take me to Al-Katiba.

Al-Katiba is a military base located in the middle of Benghazi. It’s where Gaddafi stockpiled his weapons, housed his

THE

A kitted-up volunteer fighter poses for a photo moments before he and his unit charged down the road toward Gaddafi’s forces. The next evening he was recuperating in a field hospital, his face covered in ash, unable to speak, and shell-shocked from an air strike at sunset on the road to Tripoli.

The rebels’ battle dress was as diverse as their armaments. This man appears to have acquired a Beretta. It’s not much of a match against tank shells, but it is fantastic for shooting at the clouds. Some rebels went to war without any guns at all.

secret police and mercenaries, and jailed enemies in a clandestine underground prison. Before the uprising, it was the kind of place you didn’t notice. And if you did, trouble was sure to follow.

When I visited, it was a wonderland full of families curiously poking through torture chambers and ogling vast halls of recently pillaged ammunition cartons. As I clambered over tanks, I couldn’t help but feel the same glee everyone else must have been experiencing. We were all thinking, “Man, Gaddafi would be so pissed if he knew we were doing this.”

Initial protests in Benghazi began on February 15. Within two days, soldiers and mercenaries stationed at Al-Katiba began shooting into the crowds. They aimed for their chests.

When that didn’t work, they utilised Gaddafi’s trademark tactic of driving around town, shooting at random civilians.

The goal was to scare people into staying off the streets, but it didn’t work. The people’s secret weapon was their funerals. Islam dictates that a dead body must be buried as soon as possible, and usually this involves a large public march.

When a dozen kids are shot, there’s a damn big march.

out of the driver’s seat. Others commandeered small tanks and drove cars stuffed full of TNT (typically used by local fishermen) into the structure. But nothing worked.

“All day long we tried to rush the base,” Ahmad told me. “Seven men died trying to drive a car full of TNT into the walls. Snipers kept shooting them down, and someone else would take their place.” Finally, a middle-aged oil executive, infuriated from days spent carrying the bodies of young people to the morgue, loaded up his black Kia with propane canisters and dynamite. He proceeded to drive his makeshift car bomb through the entrance, blowing apart the gates and allowing his comrades to drive out the soldiers and claim the armory.

Abdullah, a Libyan American from Denver who helped to take over Al-Katiba, described the scene to me: “You should have seen it. It was crazy, everyone taking guns, RPGs, missiles. Five-year-old kids were carrying guns, and now we all have one. I got an AK-47.” The protesters also broke into the supply room, which was filled with revolutionary berets and varieties of camouflage gear. Afterward, young men stood next to arbitrary checkpoints throughout the city and showed off their RPGs and new duds. Others flashed missiles and victory signs. Everyone was wearing a beret, and many were in fatigues. Libyan fashion had been changed forever.

Even though they were armed and dressed for war, it still took a while for the new rebel army to coalesce and co-

nraged Libyans—especially young ones—continued to flood the streets, increasingly targeting Al-Katiba in an attempt to breach its walls and stop their opponents. Protesters attempted to drive a bulldozer through the base’s fortifications, but rebels were repeatedly shot clear

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PANDA BEAR TOMBOY “Animal Collective boy-wonder Panda Bear authored an unexpectedly influential LP with Person Pitch (Mistletone, 2007); his mix of watery electronics, reverb-riddled Beach Boys vocals, and hazy summery nostalgia inspiring not just imitators, but an entire new genre, chillwave. Four years on, with Animal Collective having gone from cult act to festival behemoth in the interim, Lennox returns to claim his throne as king of the washedout beach.” - THE BIG ISSUE (4 stars)

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A young man who couldn’t have been a day older than 17 stands guard at his post in front of a bombed-out military base. A commanding officer did not order him to do this; he arrived here of his own volition. It was just one small part of the most disorganised rebellion in the world—people did whatever they thought would help.

For new rebel volunteers, going to war can be a blast: big guns, no rules, and endless cookies. But it quickly turned into a nightmare when Gaddafi’s troops started to drop mortars on the opposition. The fighters were mostly groups of friends, and many said they were driven by the need to avenge the deaths of their brothers.

ordinate their next move now that they had liberated half the country. Cities in the west followed suit, but it quickly became clear that the youth of Benghazi wouldn’t be able to institute real change unless they took Tripoli. It was an onerous task even for a well-trained army, let alone a group of ragtag insurrectionists who had mostly been civilian engineers just a few days ago. But they were steadfast and eager, which everyone hoped would be enough.

ready been killed. Libyans and the rest of the world were quickly realising that turning back was not an option.

The youths and a few units of soldiers who defected pushed west for a few days before they were driven back by Gaddafi’s superior troops and artillery. From what I experienced, the newly formed rebel army spent a lot of their time firing into the air or, optimistically, in what they thought was the direction of the enemy. It was almost as if they were still protesting, as if shooting the sky was enough to make the Gaddafi loyalists and mercenaries realise the folly of their actions and make peace.

Meanwhile, the bombs kept dropping, and young bodies filled the morgues all along the highway to Benghazi. But for every young person killed, others rose up to avenge their deaths. Judging by what I saw, they were not afraid to die.

“He will have to kill every last one of us,” a rebel told me after blasting off a few live rounds from the antiaircraft gun mounted on his friend’s Toyota Hilux. “We are fighting for freedom. He is fighting for nothing.” Then, before tearing off down the road for the latest skirmish, he held up his index and middle fingers in a V, which the movement has claimed as a symbol of their struggle. “They think they invented it,” explained a young Libyan American who had returned to support the revolution. “It looks a lot like a peace sign, but it means something very different. The first finger means victory, the second finger means death: It’s victory or death.”

It was a wonderland full of families curiously poking through torture chambers and ogling vast halls of recently pillaged ammunition cartons.

When Gaddafi attempted to take an oil-production facility a few hours west of Benghazi, the young men stormed west toward the colonel’s well-armed and experienced troops.

With unflinching courage, the rebels challenged a despotic dictator who ruled without compromise for generations.

As waves of rebels raced off to war, I could see the country’s future in their eyes. The glory of death along with the fear of it, and the cruel reality that the only way forward was war. Hundreds, if not thousands, of civilians had al54 VICE

“A testament to how far this band has come in three short years, with their sound slowly evolving from brea kneck garage rock to a modern twist on sunny, ‘60s girl-group jangle-pop.”

- NPR

recent “Of all the indie upstarts to miniaturize the Spector aesthetic in these Coast, Best to Girls Dum Dum to Girls to ettes years, from the Raveon Brooklyn babes might come closest to earning it.” - SPIN

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BUSTING UP THE KLAN AND STICKING IT TO THE MAN Stetson Kennedy Is Tyranny’s Greatest Enemy INTERVIEW BY BILL BRYSON PORTRAITS BY JASON HENRY Archival photos courtesy of Stetson Kennedy

Stetson Kennedy is perhaps the most tenacious and neglected champion of human rights currently roaming this godforsaken planet. Throughout his career he has fulfilled the roles of author, activist, folklorist, journalist, “nature boy,” poet, and the first man to infiltrate and expose the Ku Klux Klan. His is a line of work that requires the kind of mettle forged in a bygone era—a time that fostered individuals with brains and balls so big it was physically impossible for them to stand idle as black people hung from trees and the poor ate dirt.

orn in 1916 in Jacksonville, Florida, Stetson isn’t entirely unsung but he is certainly undersung. His accomplishments arrived so early and frequently in the struggle for equality that they were also some of the first to be buried by the scoundrels of history. The man’s endless crusade against injustice makes it seem like there has been a secret army of Stetsons roving the country for the past 94 years, surely and steadily rectifying the worst aspects of the human condition.

As a member of what he dubbed the “vanguard generation” of the early and mid-20th century, Stetson played a leading role in the abolishment of the poll tax and white primaries, mechanisms that made it virtually impossible for blacks and impoverished whites to vote. In 1942, Stetson wrote Palmetto Country, a definitive sociocultural history of Florida based on the discoveries he made while working on the WPA-funded Florida Writers’ Project. He ran for the US Senate in 1950 on a campaign based on “total equality” (Woody Guthrie even wrote three campaign songs for it), and a few years later released I Rode with the Ku Klux Klan (later retitled The Klan Unmasked). The exposé stemmed from a year of undercover work inside the Invisible Empire and wasn’t published in full in the States until 1990. What’s more, Stetson has been patiently and shrewdly holding a “ticking time bomb” close to his chest since his reportage—a mother lode of unpublished information about the KKK that includes top-secret ritual books, signs, countersigns, passwords, oaths, details on the organisation’s chain of

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command, and even a “blueprint” of how to assemble a fiery cross (which sounds like the most redundant thing imaginable). It’s set to be published on the Stetson Kennedy Foundation’s website (stetsonkennedy.com) and viceland.com around the time this issue hits the streets.

Stetson said that he considers releasing the aforementioned information about the KKK on par with his testimony as an expert witness in Geneva before the United Nations Commission on Forced Labor, which was such a big deal that anyone who wasn’t present has no chance of fathoming its implications. It was also this sojourn that led Stetson to an unplanned detour, traveling throughout Europe for the next eight years, where his work caught the eye of Jean-Paul Sartre, who published Stetson’s Jim Crow Guide to the USA in France in 1956 when no one else would touch it with a ten-foot pointy hat.

Today Stetson spends a great deal of his time tending to the Stetson Kennedy Foundation, a nonprofit organisation dedicated to “championing human rights, social justice, environmentalism, and the preservation of folk culture.” The foundation is based out of his homestead Beluthahatchee, a very special place near the St. Johns River in Florida—a modern-day “Shangri-La, where all unpleasantness is forgiven and forgotten,” according to renowned anthropologist and folklorist Zora Neale Hurston. It was here that this interview took place. Unfortunately, the possibility of meeting and speaking with a person like Stetson is growing increasingly rare. Soak it in while you can.

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Vice: Ever since Obama became president, some people have been claiming we now live in, or are headed into, a “postracial” era. What do you think about that?

Stetson Kennedy: The struggle for human rights is a continuum with no beginning and no end. I don’t think there’s any such thing as “postracism.” Racism is a phenomenon that exists not just in America but also throughout human society and history, almost without exception. But the progress of race relations in America has been very appreciable. It has turned out better in many ways than even I dared to hope for. In France, in the middle of the 20th century, I saw mixed couples with their baby carriages in the parks and no one paid attention. I was the only one who noticed, so to speak. At that time, I thought that it would be 1,000 years before Americans didn’t care about this type of thing. But it hasn’t taken that long, and it proves that society can make profound changes and sometimes quite rapidly. We not only stopped saying nigger, we stopped using spittoons and honking [car] horns nonstop. You used to not be able to sleep in Manhattan because people were all blowing their horns simultaneously. Change can happen.

“We not only stopped saying nigger, we stopped using spittoons and honking horns nonstop. Change can happen.”

Like the Obama type of change?

The Obama election was, of course, won by a narrow margin, so indeed the country is divided along those lines.

Prior to the election, a friend of mine was hanging out in the Carolinas with the good ol’ boys. He came back with a message: The Klan was working for and supporting Obama in the election campaign because they wanted him to win so that they could assassinate him and start a race war. From my personal experience since the 40s, the Klan has always been intent on provoking a race war, and this was a motive behind child murders and a series of church burnings that occurred across the South during that time.

It’s true that the country is divided on many issues besides Obama’s politics and having an African American in the White House. Some are political or social or religious, but I’m most concerned by the fact that the Klan mentality has, in my opinion, been transformed, or perhaps I should say transplanted.

How do you mean?

There’s been a change of uniform. The history of the Klan has consisted of changing uniforms. They started with Confederate grey, and then they put on their bedsheets. Then, once white rule and segregation had been reestablished, the uniform changed to police blue and deputy khaki. For a while, it was so-called law-enforcement officials who were ensuring white rule, but the robes eventually came back. I personally witnessed discussions and debates after WWII as to whether the returning veterans should go for the bedsheets or not, whether it was too passé. Then you began seeing these men in army fatigues showing up in Klan meetings and parades. The seed for militia activity, which has taken root in so many states across the country, goes all the way back to that period after WWII. They took their mentality and agenda with them.

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It says volumes about your personality that you were able to interact with these people who were doing such awful things for so long and not lose your cool even once. How was it possible to act friendly toward them for so long while you were undercover?

I’ll put it this way. One time, my phone rang and a voice said, “This is the Klan.” I hung up. The second time it happened I said I was the “counter-Klan” and let the guy talk. It turned out to be the chief Klan officer for the congressional district over in Stark, Florida. Instead of threatening me, he wanted to know if I could please help him flesh out his family tree. They called this guy the Great Titan. Both his father and his grandfather were indicted for the murder of Joseph Shoemaker in Tampa back in the 1930s. Shoemaker was arrested, and the police took him out of jail and handed him over to the robed Klansmen on the courthouse steps. They castrated him, dunked him in a bucket of hot tar, and beat him to death.

This guy’s father and grandfather had been indicted for being a part of it. He wanted me to help complete his lineage. I sent him some clippings.

At what point did patriotism and racism become so intertwined? Is it so deeply ingrained in American culture that it can’t be excised?

House Un-American Activities Committee member John E. Rankin of Mississippi said that the Klan was as patriotic an institution as apple pie. I did, many times, try to get them to receive evidence, and they always declined or didn’t answer at all. Once I took a bus over to Washington. After I arrived I got in a cab and put my robe on. The driver was looking at me in the rearview mirror and almost wrecked the car. We got to the House Office Building, and I went in wearing my robe and carrying my briefcase full of so much evidence that it wouldn’t close—it was sticking out the top. I knocked on the door, and the women clerks inside started screaming and ran out. I just sat down and thumbed through my papers. Some man cracked the door to the next room, peeked through, and then slammed it in a hurry. A squad of six Capitol policemen came up and took me into custody. I was flattered that they sent six.

They took me down to the basement, and after I explained myself the lieutenant ordered me to take off the robe and never come back again while wearing it. That’s as far as I got with them, but I did succeed in getting the attention of the public.

Does the Klan still have relevance?

The militias are, in my opinion, the modern manifestation of the Klan’s tradition of violence and white rule.

The militia agenda, in some respects and in many areas, is far more drastic than the Klan could have ever conceived. The Klan, by and large, was considered patriotic and supportive of the US government, whereas the militias want to overthrow the American federal government by force and rewrite the Constitution so that only Caucasian whites would have citizenship. Many of these militias talk about such things as a global holocaust, the expatriation of blacks to Africa, and the reinstitution of Jim Crow segregation for those who weren’t sent overseas. It would be, in effect, a 100 percent fascist, Nazi concept of America. In my view, the Tea Party people are the counterparts of the first Nazi Germany storm troopers when Hitler had only a handful of them.

They’ve got the same sort of psychology and personality and potential for evil.

Despite numerous attempts, the House Un-American Activities Committee refused to consider Stetsonâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s substantial and thorough firsthand evidence of terrorist activities perpetrated by the KKK. Fed up with the situation, he traveled to Washington with a briefcase full of documents to present his case to the committee in full Klan regalia. On his arrival, police officers were quickly called to the scene to detain and question him.

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Do you have any ideas about how we can check these groups?

Is there any way to stop them without resorting to violence?

Well, it goes without saying that the tendency of so-called law enforcement was—and this is municipal, state, county, and federal—to smile upon militias as good ol’ boys letting off steam who don’t mean anyone any harm. But one could imagine what would happen if the NAACP or Anti-Defamation League or B’nai B’rith or La Raza started wearing fatigues, carrying military weapons, and practicing warfare with live ammo. They’d all be behind barbed wire by sundown.

Of course, gun advocates point to the Constitution’s guarantee of the citizenry’s right to bear arms. But then they stop short of the phrase “a well-regulated militia.” I’m quite sure that what the writers of the Constitution had in mind were well-regulated state militias, not purely private armies.

The prohibition against private armies is in there, it’s just not being enforced. I think we’re putting our nation in grave peril by allowing it to continue. I was saying things like this on a local radio station a while back, and the head of the area militia called in. I asked him, “Well, do you consider yourself well armed?” And he said, “Well, I certainly do.” Then he recited every weapon in his arsenal and was very proud of it. I asked, “Who are you planning

“My concern is not just racism—these people are large-scale counterrevolutionists, and by that I’m referring to the American Revolution. They are terrorists simply biding their time.” to kill?” And he said, “Anyone who tries to take away my guns.” If the incumbent national administration happened to impose the constitutional statutory laws against private armies, I don’t know if we’d have a virtual civil war on our hands or not. These people are fanatics. My concern is not just racism—these people are large-scale counterrevolutionists, and by that I’m referring to the American Revolution. They are terrorists simply biding their time.

Have you ever requested your federal file through a Freedom of Information Act search or elsewhere?

Yes. It cost me $40.45, at five cents per page, and it was 809 pages. It became apparent early on in my work that the FBI looked upon anyone opposing racial segregation as being subversive. They would write these reports about me saying, “He’s undoubtedly going to continue to write about segregation and pro-labor articles.” Can you imagine? They were correct that I was trying to subvert white rule, so they weren’t all that off base. That’s the way it was.

In the media and elsewhere, we are now referred to as consumers instead of citizens. You’ve watched this happen.

How has this affected the American dream?

During the Great Depression, the American dream, the ultimate goal of society, was to have a “chicken in every pot.”

Now it’s owning two automobiles and a runabout boat and all sorts of other things. During the middle of the 20th century, the US Chamber of Commerce’s slogan was “Build the Middle Class.” That is something worthwhile. Now, a half century later, we’re face to face with the phenomenon of the 60 VICE

middle class being precipitously plunged into something less than middle class. And the flight of industry and capital to other low-cost labor markets in the world has left America to wither on the vine, so much that instead of worrying about “rust belts” we would do well to start worrying about a “rust continent.” To my mind, that is nothing less than high treason. Capitalists decided they were going to escape from two centuries of bloody, painful struggle to improve labor conditions. They packed it up to go to places where they didn’t have to worry about child-labor laws, workman’s comp, unemployment insurance, retirement insurance, safety regulations, or environmental protection. This means the Industrial Revolution is starting over again with no holds barred. What that means for the future remains to be seen. I think it has the potential of making us a third-world debtor, flash-in-the-pan, has-been nation.

You don’t think America can take another Great Depression? We were able to rebound from it last time.

The absconding of capital and industry represents something far more portentous than any transient depression.

All that capital was created by American labor out of American resources. The Great Train Robbery was a pickpocket spree by comparison. So many millions of Americans today have had a taste of affluence and are living in comfort. Before the Great Depression, millions and millions of people were already living very close to poverty, so they knew what it was like and how to cope with it and deal with the transition. Abject poverty was not as traumatic as it’s going to be for this affluent middle class of ours when they find themselves on the street. They’re totally unskilled in coping with poverty. I won’t be surprised if suicides increase dramatically as the meltdown continues to trickle down. It has just now begun to be felt, I’m afraid.

The doomsayers don’t know the half of it in terms of both the environment and economy.

One of your great friends and advocates was Woody Guthrie, and he was a tremendous influence on folk music and especially Bob Dylan. What was it like to meet Woody for the first time?

Woody first came to the attention of the public because of Alan Lomax. Alan had come to Florida and employed me as a consultant while he was doing some CBS broadcasts during the war. He apparently gave Woody a copy of my first book, Palmetto Country, which was published in 1942. Some time later Woody sent the jacket of the book back with a note of praise—how most books made him feel like dirt and this one made him stand up like a longleaf pine, and if I should continue on following my own free will then there would be no end to the earthly service I could perform. He also said not to be surprised if he came staggering up to my house someday with his guitar to have some good, long talks.

It didn’t exactly happen like that. One day Woody called me from a Greyhound Bus station and asked me to come pick him up and bring him out here to Beluthahatchee. I was living in an abandoned Florida Motor Line bus from the 30s at the time, but I had a full-length porch and a lean-to kitchen. Woody elected to sleep in a jungle hammock outdoors, under the oak trees. He spent considerable time here, off and on. He was frequently accompanied by Ramblin’ Jack Elliott, who did the driving. Some years after Woody’s first visit he came back with a 21-year-old girl named Anneke. Woody was 41, and she had left her actor husband to come with Woody to Beluthahatchee. After they left, one of my black neighbours said, “What kind of

Stetson showing off one of his favorite t-shirts.

One of Stetson’s most unattractive articles of clothing.

people were they?” I said, “What do you mean?” And she said, “Well, me and my husband came out here one Sunday morning and asked permission to fish, and him and her come out of the bus buck naked. What kind of people you call that?” I said, “It’s just Woody.”

You ran for the US Senate in 1950, and Woody wrote a campaign song that caused you to garner a lot of negative attention from people who did not want your crusade against racism to gain steam. In fact, some historians and writers have claimed that you moved to Europe because of threats from the Klan and others.

There were any number of reports that said I left the country because of the Klan and the ensuing witch hunt. None of them were true.

So what was your motivation for leaving?

I was out here [in Beluthahatchee] digging a 20-acre lake, came inside covered in mud, and saw a little notice in the paper that read “United Nations Commission on Forced Labor Adjourning in New York.” No witness had been forthcoming about any type of forced labor anywhere in the Western Hemisphere. So I rushed to the telegraph office and offered to fly up a planeload of forced laborers from the turpentine, cabbage, and potato plantations in my neighbourhood.

They replied saying they’d already adjourned, but if I could get to Geneva, Switzerland, in ten days, at my own expense, they would hear me as an expert witness. I was stone broke, but I rushed to a nearby plantation with my wire recorder.

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Soon I had enough of the nitty-gritty to present to the UN. I told them again that I could bring over a planeful of slave laborers, but they said no, just me. I raced around to immediate neighbours here, who were black, and raised enough for a one-way ticket with $8 to spare. That’s why I went to Europe. I stayed for about eight years.

And while you were there you wrote one of the defining books of your career: The Jim Crow Guide to the USA, which no one in the States would publish.

Jean-Paul Sartre published it in France, and soon after, this dapper young CIA agent came to me waving a copy of the first French edition and said, “This thing hurts like hell!

If you will repudiate it and say it was a put-up job, we will make you financially independent for life!” I said, “If you can point to anything that’s incorrect, I’d be happy to correct it for free.” He left in a huff without pointing to anything, so I called a press conference and exposed the CIA’s effort to bribe me. After that I went on down into Rome and they happened to be having an election. The CIA has a habit of putting millions into European elections, supporting certain parties and trying to start new ones. In Rome there was some party that had CIA backing, and I happened to see the workers putting up big posters with glue on them. I came along with a stick after they turned the corner, and I took the posters off while they were still wet. One time I didn’t wait long enough until they were around the corner, and they saw me and took me to the police station and so on.

Klansman “John S. Perkins” lifts his mask to reveal his true identity, Stetson Kennedy, during a 1947 press conference at the national office of the Anti-Defamation League of B’nai B’rith in New York.

I also wanted to touch on your work as a folklorist. Most people don’t really understand what folklore is, never mind its importance to culture. How do you define it?

Zora Neale Hurston came up with probably the best, most everlasting definition: “Folklore is the boiled-down juice, or potlikker, of human living.” If you don’t know what potlikker is, it’s the liquid left over after cooking turnip, collard, or mustard greens with smoked ham hocks.

Tolstoy said that when he wanted to talk about anything serious he went out to the illiterate peasants because their minds hadn’t been obfuscated by any formal education. It was a category of folklore we called “folksay,” which are basically one-liners. I made a special effort to compile these wherever I went, such as an old black man who said, “When you in Rome, Georgia, you got to act like it.” I thought that summed up the Jim Crow system like nothing else. Or the black domestic servant saying, “I feed white folks with a loooong spoon.” Those are examples of what I’m talking about.

You once asked, “Can only centuries of fraternity erase centuries of enmity?” But how do we get to a point of unfettered solidarity? Do you have any ideas for practical solutions that could speed things along?

People have asked me throughout my life what the solution is to end violence between groups and cultures and peoples, some of which have been going on for millennia. I don’t believe it’s practical to say, “Kiss and make up,” because it won’t work. I don’t know what will put a stop to it. Maybe we need to put together some sort of international force to 64 VICE

deal with it. That said, I don’t think that law can put an immediate stop to it, and I don’t believe enmity will evaporate overnight, because they can’t eradicate centuries of bloodshed by anything other than living as good neighbours and fellow citizens. I’ve been looking for an answer all my life, and that’s the closest I’ve come to it. Enact laws, enforce the laws, and then live together, like it or not, until you begin to like it. Martin Luther King and others spent years speaking about tolerance, and I think that’s the incorrect word because it implies there’s something wrong with you that I have to tolerate. We need a better way of saying it, something like mutual esteem. Tolerance has all the wrong connotations.

Some would say that it’s the powers that be that won’t allow society to move forward and embrace true equality.

We think of government as being all-powerful, but in reality there is something else out there called the private sector, which is all too dominant. In my opinion, it’s not too much to say that it has subverted democracy in the halls of government to the extent that I don’t know where the trend of privatisation will end. It’s almost already reached the point that it seems like a good idea to privatise all government and move from Pennsylvania Avenue to Wall Street, where the real power exists. Woody Guthrie used to ask the question, “What went wrong here, anyway?” I think the one-word answer would be “greed.” I think it’s become obvious that humankind cannot afford to leave greed unchecked, or we are headed for a series of meltdowns.

Autumn Winter theacademee.com

TOUPEE: HIPPO MARY’S VENDETTA

BY BRETT GELMAN, PHOTOS BY JANICZA BRAVO

This is the first installment of the novel Toupee by Brett Gelman, which Vice will be serialising through the remainder of 2011. The manuscript was discovered inside an empty toilet tank in an abandoned apartment in Joshua Tree. The current whereabouts of its author are unknown.

There’s a fat woman who wants me dead. Buried and rotting in the cold desert sand. Every time I close my eyes I smell her fucking odor. She stinks like someone left a bologna sandwich on a radiator for a week and then took a shit on it.

They call her Hippo Mary. I guess she’s my pimp or madame or who gives a shit. She’s been pissed at me ever since I told her I won’t fuck anymore. Walked into that greasy bitch’s office and said flat out, “This asshole is closed.”

It was a fine way to make cash for a while. Nothing easier than fucking for money. I ain’t gay or nothin’, but the shit was easy. Actually I imagine it would be harder if you were gay. Somewhere in your mind you’d probably be wondering if the guy ass-crammin’ yuh maybe could possibly be the one. The one you’d get the whole pink picket fence and dog named Cher with.

For me it was cake, though. I’d be so fucking wasted you could’ve launched a nuke up my brown star and I wouldn’t have felt nothin’. I quit because of the sight of the thing. I was starting to get a back package and could feel my asshole kissing my undies. Not a pleasant sensation. I’d look at it in the mirror and the fucking thing was a smear of mustard away from being pastrami on rye.

I started worrying that I wouldn’t be able to hold my shit anymore, and then I couldn’t. They would slide down my colon and fall out of my ass like a goddamn racing horse.

Don’t get me wrong. I’ve shit my pants plenty. Ain’t no 66 VICE

shame in it. But it always happened because I was having a good time. A small price to pay for getting beautifully brain-fucked on whiskey, blow, meth, and nachos.

But shitting my pants because my asshole didn’t work anymore? That’s just embarrassing. Might as well have been in a fucking wheelchair with a fucking colostomy bag hooked up to my belly button or however the fuck they do that shit.

So anyway, I tell Hippo Mary that my brown eye’s retired and she throws a fucking fit. “No goddamn way!

You’re my best whore! You ain’t quittin’! You do and you’re not only quittin’ ass peddlin’, you’re quittin’ living, motherfucker!” And that’s where that’s at. Bitch wants to kill me. Fucking tumor in my side. I got enough fucking problems. Little Joe still owes me 15 George Washingtons for the crack I slung him last week. It was really just glue balls rolled around in baking soda, but his stupid crackhead ass don’t know the fucking difference. So what do I have to do now? I gotta go see if I can get my gun back from the goddamn pawnshop. Ricky won’t like it. That’s three times he’s loaned it to me. Fucker owes me though. I saved his miserable life once. Guy loves meat, and loves not chewing it even fucking more. Who chokes on a whole rib?

I mean come on, I get it, you’re a fat piece of shit, but even my scum-fuck ass has a line. Anyway, I think I saw the Heimlich done in a movie or some shit once, and I lucked out. More like he lucked out. Got behind his blubber back and jabbed my bony fists right between his man tits. The fat fuck owes me. If he doesn’t give me my gun back I don’t know what the fuck I’m gonna do. I guess I’ll buy a box cutter and rust it up. Nothing like having a rusty box cutter held right up to your eye. That’s a fucked-up thought: “This might be the last thing I ever see. This tiny rusty wannabe knife might be the last image this eye will ever be able to make out.” That must be close to what you think right before you kick it forever. If you’re lucky to

fucking think anything before you die, that is. But I need that 15. I need all the 15s I can fucking get to stuff in that fat bitch’s mouth when she shows up with her sawed-off, thirsty for my dirty blood.

I wonder if Hippo Mary would eat me. I once saw a guy eat another guy. Claimed to be a Satanist, but really he was just a fucking asshole. Not even sure if it was an actual human this prick chowed on. Met him at the Red River. The night before I had just smoked the best crack I’d ever seen in my life, and I guess I felt like bragging. He bought me a Maker’s and said he had some crack back at his pad that would make the stuff I smoked look like a fuckin’ bedtime story. Next thing I know I’m sitting on the guy’s beanbag chair, listenin’ to Rage Against the Machine, and smokin’ this prick’s supposed “super-rock.” It was good, but it was nothing to make your heart stop over.

He’s giving me as much as I want, and I can’t tell if he’s trying to fuck me or kill me. Before I know it, fuckhead disappears for a minute and comes out eating the weirdestlooking piece of raw meat I’d ever seen. The shit was bright purple and it was stuck on the end of this big knife he was holding, acting like he was Genghis Khan or something.

Guy tells me that he cut it out of his fucking neighbour.

He tells me that one night he was watching When Wives Kill or some stupid piece of garbage like that, and his neighbour knocked on the door and asked him to turn it down. So this asshole slits his neighbour’s throat, and he’s been eating him for BLD for the last two weeks.

That’s when I pulled out my gun (it was the second time Ricky had loaned it to me). I pointed it at the sicko’s dick and said, “Look, Hannibal Dahmer. I don’t know if you really are a fucking cannibal or what, but either way my ass is off the menu.” Then I smashed him in his dumb fucking nose with the butt. Freako-deako was knocked out cold, but just to make sure he wasn’t getting back up I kicked him in the stomach a couple times before I left.

Never saw him again. Figure I would have heard if the guy died, though. The pigs probably would have tried to pin it on me, and besides, you always hear about it when someone dies in this godforsaken desert. It’s the only thing there is to talk about.

I hope nobody’s gonna be talking about me soon ’cause that monster chick is comin’ and she’s got good ears. And, yeah, I know what you’re thinking: “Get the drop on her first! Take care of her before she kills you, ya dumb bastard.” Nah. Couldn’t do that. I’ll never be able to kill Hippo Mary. She’s the closest thing I’ve had to a mom since mine told me to fuck off for good after I pawned all of her stupid pots and pans. When it comes to murder, there’s gotta be a code. Without one you’ll really lose your fucking mind. Then you’re a psycho, and there ain’t no room in this world for psychopaths. That’s what Uncle Sam’s motto should be: “If you’re a psycho or pussbag get the fuck out of my fucking house, fuckface.” By “house,” of course, I mean this shitty toilet of a country. But I guess that’s what Uncle Sam is too, a piece of shit. I don’t know.

I’ve never been too much of a reader. No time. Gotta make those George Washingtons so I can keep the ol’ cock hard and rockin’. Fucking money. What a pain in the ass. Things would be so much better if we could go back to bartering pebbles or whatever the fuck we used to do. Seemed better. Simpler. Nothing simple about money.

On the back of each bill it should read, GET READY FOR A FUCKING HEADACHE . Thinking about it makes me want to light a fucking bank on fire.

Shit. Think I just heard a knock on the door. Not sure.

Had two bottles of Nyquil for dinner. Hopefully no one’s there, and if someone is outside I’m praying to that big prick in the sky that it’s not Hippo Mary. If it is, maybe I can convince her that blowin’ me will make her feel better than blowin’ me away. Either way, I guess I’ll see.

Is my toupee straight?

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THE LEARNIN’ CORNER: DETECTING THE SHADOW BIOSPHERE CAROL CLELAND AS TOLD TO ALEX DUNBAR, ILLUSTRATION BY KAMRAN SAMIMI

Carol Cleland is a philosophy professor at the University of Colourado, Boulder. She has written extensively on the nature of life in general and has authored numerous articles about the shadow biosphere for the International Journal of Astrobiology and Astrobiology Magazine. In fact, she coined the term shadow biosphere.

It’s not crazy to think that Earth may be home to descendants of an alternative biogenesis, one that produced organisms current technology is unable to detect. These potential life forms are would-be residents of what has been termed the shadow biosphere— alien life forms of unknown origin and unfamiliar construction that have been thriving on this planet since its formation.

The word shadow is used to describe this phenomenon because the only clues that an ancillary biosphere might exist are the traces left behind by its potential inhabitants on environmental features that are measurable with currently available technology. This is why proof of shadow microbes is so elusive.

Under a microscope, many simple organisms we understand to be different, such as archaea and bacteria, appear remarkably similar. Finer distinctions are drawn, however, by using more sophisticated tools. For instance, microbiologists can now use genome shotgun sequencing methods and staining techniques like DAPI to 68 VICE

discover more novel life forms than ever before. But these tools are still limited in scope. Another dilemma is that we can currently cultivate less than 1 percent of recognised microbes in the lab, and microbial communities are extremely diverse.

Considering how life is thought to have initially emerged on Earth, it makes sense to think that there are multitudes of life forms yet to be discovered.

There’s extremely strong evidence to support the theory that all life on Earth descended from a common ancestor. All biological matter is basically made up of proteins containing long strings of the same 20 amino acids, but there are more than 100 amino acids that could have potentially sparked life under the right conditions. We also know that all familiar life on Earth was spawned by the same genetic code, phosphate backbone, and four nucleotide bases for RNA and DNA. It is also a fact know that meteorites have supplied Earth with amino acids that are never used by familiar life. In fact, out of the 80 amino acids that have been identified

in meteorites, only eight of them are used by life on Earth. With so many potential amino acids out there, it’s amazing that life restricts itself to 20.

So why does life rely on this particular sequence of sugars, amino acids, and nucleotide bases and not some other configuration? The most reasonable explanation seems to be that the chemical conditions of early Earth dictated these restrictions: They have nothing to do with the general nature of life.

Additionally, we have evidence that life on Earth was formed fairly quickly once the correct conditions arrived. If this was the case, there’s a good possibility that nature experimented with different amino acids and nucleotide bases before the right combination clicked. As I said before, using current methods, we wouldn’t be able to detect life forms that were potentially created by other combinations. What we do know is that microbes dominated life on Earth until approximately 600 to 700 million years ago, so they are likely to be much more common throughout the universe than multicellular life. This speculation is bolstered by the fact that every time we look into the microbial world, we discover new things that we never thought possible. There may even be microbes of alternative life origins mixing with familiar microbes, but we have no way of knowing.

The question of whether or not the shadow biosphere exists is twofold, because if so, how might we go about detecting unfamiliar forms of microbial life? The ability to identify completely novel—and potentially microscopic—life forms could be of crucial significance as humans scour Mars and other planets and moons in our solar system for extraterrestrial life.

The current tools used by microbiologists to explore the microbial world would never be able to detect anything very dissimilar from the forms of life we’re accustomed to on Earth.

But what good would an earthbound tool be on other planets? Not much is right. But then, how does one go about designing a tool to detect life of unknown origin and unfamiliar construction? By searching for the alien at home, on Earth.

THE CUTE SHOW PAGE!

BY ELLIS JONES, PHOTOS BY BOBBY DOHERTY

Procurl Harem (clever, eh?) is the name of Caroline Scott’s cat-breeding company. Caroline has spent the past 25 years surrounded by bouncing, furry, heart-melting American Curl kittens. We tried to interview her about these peculiar cats with dainty, curled-back ears but on entering her apartment we were bombarded by such sublime adorableness that we found ourselves blissedout on her floor for the next hour. Here’s a few questions we managed to ask.

Vice: What’s your favorite thing about these cats?

Caroline Scott: They’re the Peter Pan of the feline world because they keep their kitten personalities throughout adulthood—in playfulness, companionship, and spontaneity.

And your cats are in the Laser Cats SNL skits, right?

Yes. All these kittens you see here are going to be on the shoulders of Andy Samberg one day!

Neat. Can you tell me some of your favorite cat names?

Of course. We have here Madeline Curlbright, You Go Curl, and Curl Hand Luke.

I want one!

Check out viceland.com for an extended interview with Caroline and some more cute cat pictures!

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THE HI FI

TUESDAY

AUG 9

BRISBANE

THE HI FI

tickets and info at livenation.com.au funeralpartymusic.com

FEATURING TRACKS:

New York City Moves To The Sound Of L.A. Finale and Just Because

REVIEWS

BEST ALBUM OF THE MONTH: PANDA BEAR

OSCAR & MARTIN

a jillion-dollar house that makes Versailles look like a stack of shipping pallets.

ALEX DUNBAR

YOUNG DRO

STANTON WARRIORS

I Co-Sign Myself

The Warriors

Self-released

Central Station

2

Young Dro never took much interest in music until his buddy Chris “Daddy Mac” Smith went platinum as the darkerskinned half of Kris Kross. These days, Young Dro still sounds like he’s rapping to get a paycheck: One minute he’s doing a middle-era Juvenile impression, the next he’s mimicking friend and Grand Hustle labelmate T.I. Also, he’s got a forthcoming record titled P.O.L.O. (Players Only Live Once). It’s enough to make you ralph! [rim shot] GEDDIT?

4

Every artist has a place in the world.

Unfortunately for ones who insist on telling you their name at least fifteen times in every song, that place is an underage nightclub where everybody’s screaming “Crooklyn Clan” as you’re trying to finger-bang some girl in a pink boob tube with and matching miniskirt. Except this is cheesy dub-step, so the girl has dreadlocked green pubes and keeps stealing all your ketamine. Not as much fun.

GELG

Instrumentals Self-released

COLLARBONES Iconography

9

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Two Bright Lakes/Remote Control

7

This is more like it! Enjoyable, sweet, bouncy songs that are also just weird enough to keep me entertained while I fold my laundry. Ok, so the singing sounds a little like the guy from Dirty Projectors but that isn’t a bad a thing. These guys also sort of look like twins and wear matching floral shirts with baseball caps, which scores them a few bonus points from me.

KING ALFRED

TIKI TAANE In the World of Light Stop Start/EMI

3

CLAMS CASINO

You may know Clams Casino as the guy who sampled Imogen Heap and made one of the best rap beats ever, Lil B’s “I’m God” (aka Soulja Boy’s “2 Milli”).

Clams has a penchant for chopping up songs by wacky female pop stars (Björk, the aforementioned Heap) and working with gremlin-voiced male MCs. This combination makes for a truly awesome male-female tension that will change the way you think about rap music. In case you think I’m laying it on a little thick: Clams will be one of this decade’s best and most influential producers and will live in

For You

It’s not really a new album if you just re-release The Mortal Combat Soundtrack at half-speed is it? But shit I can’t wait to go and play laser tag after a bottle of cough syrup with this blasting in the background.

BENJAMIN THOMSON

Two Bright Lakes/Remote Control

STACCATO DU MAL Sin Destino

5

This album is a piece of sonic noodling from a part-Adelaide/part Sydney duo who worked back and forth on tracks via the internet. Sounds like it too.

Disjointed and repetitive to the point of mild irritation, this album comes off sounding like two dudes discovering Fruity Loops for the first time. Catch them at an underground warehouse party soon. Stencil art guaranteed!

KING ALFRED

Wierd

8

A rather dark, more abrasive example of electronic postpunk from New York minimal-synth stalwarts Wierd, this time courtesy of Miami resident Ramiro Jeancarlo, who is seemingly out to prove that the warm states do it even colder.

Pieced together from primitive synths and bits of sheet metal and shrapnel salvaged

REVIEWS

WORST ALBUM OF THE MONTH: YOUNG DRO

from the bottom of Cabaret Voltaire’s toolbox, it’s lonely and abject even by the oppressively downbeat standards of this stuff, but pulse-racing in its brutish, roughshod simplicity.

CHARLES HANSON

COLD CAVE Cherish the Light Years Matador

bourbon-addled rage just to make people think they have some cojones. Weedeater actually are that band, and yes, Dixie Dave did really did blast his own toes off once. This is another platter of festering, misanthropic sludge from one of the genre’s few true practitioners. If you are suffering from Eyehategod withdrawal, look no further.

BONG HITZ

BEASTWARS

6

Maybe it’s the difference between recording an album on your laptop all on your lonesome and piecing together a record with folk like Daryl Palumbo from Glassjaw and noise barbarian Dominick “Prurient” Fernow at your beck and call, but Cherish the Light Years is a big step up from Cold Cave’s debut in terms of both confidence and skull-cracking intensity.

Surging synths and S&M dungeon beats rub sex organs with big choruses, and even without being able to see any of the participants you are quite clear that absolutely no one is smiling, or has smiled for a very long time.

WALTER DA SOFTY

S/T Destroy Records

8

Listening to this album makes me mad.

Partly because so much piss-weak indie keeps being excreted by little boys looking for a girl’s hand to hold; but mostly because it reminds me of a time when drop tuning my axe to D was about all I had on the agenda. It’s also got me wondering if Beastwars are some kind of time-lords because the record’s giving me the distinct impression they’ve seen a glimpse of the future, and that shit wasn’t pretty. Turn this primordial ooze up to eleven and blow your eardrums in a prolonged sonic orgasm—before the bombs hit.

PAM-TERA

effortlessly crammed with whistle-along hooks. They’re like the Leiber and Stoller of Brooklyn slacker pop.

JACK THE SIPPER

HUNX & HIS PUNX Too Young to Be in Love Hardly Art

6

I’m a liberal, so gay love songs are OK with me. I am happy for Hunx to flaunt his so-called alternative musical sexuality in front of impressionable teenagers who might easily be seduced by all these whip-snap doo-wop melodies and nagging little riffs. It’s not for me to judge whether or not he’s added anything to this territory that the New York Dolls and the Grease megamix haven’t already excavated. I just think he shouldn’t be allowed to adopt these outrageous faux accents. I don’t care how horny things get, there are still limits to acceptable behavior.

ELLIOT ROSEWATER

THE KILLS Blood Pressures

CRYSTAL STILTS WEEDEATER

In Love with Oblivion

Jason… the Dragon

Slumberland

Southern Lord

7

Most bands spend years spinning bogus yarns and shaggy-dog stories about things like how their lead singer shot himself in the foot with a shotgun in a

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Crystal Stilts seem to be able to whack out shimmering, lo-fi postpunk gems on demand. This album sounds like they made it hungover after a three-day whiskey and speed bender, and it’s still

Domino

5

I’ve always secretly liked The Kills, even in their more mediocre Midnight Boom moments. That said, the fact that they are both incredibly fuckable excuses a lot of things. But by the time track three rolls around and little pearls of hideousness such as “Looking in the

DAN N BEJAR of THE NEW PORNOGRAPHERS returnss under hiss acclaaimed DESTROYER moniker.

PITC TCH HF FOR ORK 8.

8.8/ 8/110 8/

“K Kaputt feels wise... funny, trragic, artful, and ultim matelyy true.”

BEST T NE EW W MUS SIIC C

www ww. w.in .in ineertiia-m mu usi sic ic. c.coom c.co

AVAIL AVA ILABLE ABLE B ALL A LL STORES S RES S

I would probably subscribe to Vice if I didn’t work here and I think I have pretty good taste. So yeah, take my advice. For added incentive this month, we’re giving away three pairs of Palladium boots (new to Australia) to new subscribers. How many reasons do you need?

Subscriptions cost $44AU for 12 months. You can subscribe online at viceland.com in the shop section. Or you can pay via credit card over the phone by calling +61 3 9024 8000. Or you can send a cheque for $44 (payable to Vice Australia) to PO Box 2041, Fitzroy VIC 3065. Please allow 6-8 weeks for delivery of your first issue.

REVIEWS

BEST COVER OF THE MONTH: BEASTWARS

mirror / Looking back / A look of wild living / Bound to crack” leak out of my speakers, my ears are embarrassed to the point of having to open my door to make sure my housemates aren’t home. Then I look at the photo again and all sins are forgiven. Damn.

SLIM KEITH

halfway between Brett and Germaine from Flight of the Concords. I just can’t get past thinking that all these songs are elaborate parodies, sorry Wagons.

MATTHEW RIDGE

ADALITA

ing through practice amps running into a computer. It doesn’t threaten to melt your speakers anymore, but it isn’t so bare that it’s challenging either. Instead you just notice that it wouldn’t sound so thin if they got a bass player.

BONIN’ ORION

Adalita

ARCHITECTURE IN HELSINKI

Liberation

TEETH & TONGUE Tambourine Inertia

7

It must do your nut in something chronic to be constantly compared to another artist—no matter how shit-hot that act may be. That T&T’s Jess Cornelius has weathered so many PJ Harvey comparisons must have her wound super tight. Damn, even we’re angry about it.

Angry because we think she’s great and that great bands don’t deserve the ‘tastes like chicken’ approach. The review then?

This record sounds like it was laid down in a Cold War-era satellite orbiting the earth by a lonely duo with only protools, zero gravity and microwave dinners for company.

MAJOR TOM

WAGONS Rumble, Share and Tumble Spunk/EMI

5

Like it or not, album covers are intrinsically tied to your perception of the music that lies within. For example, a dark cover always makes the music feel more spacious and mysterious. Unfortunately on this album cover, the singer looks exactly

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Moment Bends

6

Adalita is constantly referred to in things like The Age as a “rock chick” as if it’s so incredible that there are women that exist who would rather be in a band than in the Pussycat Dolls or make some kind of internet sex tape. This is a really good set of moody songs, sparingly arranged without evoking any of the obvious comparisons. Overall, it feels a lot more honest and confident than anything by Magic Dirt, who let’s face it, were no Garbage.

KEN DUNE

TIMES NEW VIKING

Modular

6

This band always sounded like a barrel of musical monkeys being pushed down a series of hills of varying height and grade. You got the sense they were seconds away from falling into a giggling heap but they somehow never did. Having seemingly lost some that chaos, the band that remains sounds more accomplished musically, but less like a party you’d kill to be at. Having said that, the first song has been stuck in my head for three days. It’s fucking catchy as shit.

FART GARSPUNKEL

Dancer Equired

BELLES WILL RING

Merge

Crystal Theatre Remote Control

4

When a band shits out like 20 records all recorded on blown-out thirdhand cassettes full of fuzzy gunk, you kind of get used to hearing their songs played through a thick wall of hiss and warble.

You kind of love it. And it’s kind of a big fucking surprise when said band decides to “get crazy” and record a normal studio album. Times New Viking might have really released a shocker on the world if they went totally clean, but this just sounds like they’re in a nice studio sing-

6

You know who I wish would go to the bush to make a record? Someone who does rap music. Or dancehall or dub-step.

That to me would be interesting. As for a solid outfit like Sydney’s Belles Will Ring, disappearing into to the countryside and coming back with an impressive suite of haunting, pretty psych-folk songs like these ones is kind of a total fucking snore fest.

FISH MAGNET

THE DEBUT ALBUM FROM XXXCHANGE’S NEW PROJECT (PRODUCER BEHIND SPANK ROCK, THE DEATH SET & AMANDA BLANK.)

featuring Spank Rock, Alexis Taylor (Hot Chip), Lizzi Bougatsos (Gang Gang Dance), Blaqstarr, and more!

Includes the critically acclaimed singles, RELEASERPM and INTERLEAVE

AVAILABLE AT THESE STORES: NSW: Abicus Selections / Fish / Hum / Music Bizarre / Redback Music / Redeye / So Music / Stop ‘n’ Rock ACT: Lamdspeed Records QLD: Rockinghorse / Sunflower TAS: Mojo Music VIC: Blockbuster / Leading Edge Traralgon / Polyester SA: Krypton Discs / Muses WA: 78’s / Dada’s / Junction Records / Mills Records / Planet Video / Rockeby Records / Trax / Urban NAT: JB HiFi (All Stores)

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REVIEWS

WORST COVER OF THE MONTH: WAGONS

ARBOURETUM The Gathering Thrill Jockey

PANDA BEAR

8

Baltimore’s most grizzled sons lose a little of the Grateful Dead/Crazy Horse-isms this time around as they shed one of their guitarists in favor of some shiny new keys and Mellotron, but everywhere else it’s business as usual.

Thunderous chug and Dave Heumann’s delightfully austere melodies abound, and true transcendence is achieved when the uncannily handsome cover of Jimmy Webb’s karmic cowboy classic “The Highwayman” starts to kick in. Stay Jung and beautiful.

TONES VAN ZANDT

BILL CALLAHAN Apocalypse Drag City

4

What the fuck happened? Smog used to knock me out with heavy-as-shit lyrics like “Every girl I’ve ever loved has wanted to be hit” or even “Oh dress sexy at my funeral my good wife, for the first time in your life.” But now, on this new record, he sounds like a majority of his songs were written while he was washing the dishes. At one point he goes, “And the punk and the lunk and the drunk and the skunk and the hunk and the monk in me all sunk, sunk, sunk, sunk, sunk.”

That’s five sunks for six unks. Dude, I can deal with trading Bukowski for Dr. Seuss, but this kind of general sloppiness is unforgivable.

ASONNA NEWSOM

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Tomboy Mistletone/Inertia

in-jokes that have boiled down from actual sentences to a sublty nuanced clicking sound. Shit, maybe all the songs on this record are in-jokes. I think I’d be intimidated if i was one of the guest stars on this album. Oh yeah, the song with they made with the Boredoms dude is pretty good.

PERCY MONTGOMERY

SONIC YOUTH

9

Since Panda Bear released Person Pitch in 2007, blogger-types with time on their hands and calendars have wasted endless paragraphs speculating the release date of a follow-up album. These greedy fuckers have spent four years marking each day’s passing with their pink, glittery jumbo pens and then whinging about it with other like-minded, runny-nosed kids with profile names like ‘Indie Sage’.

For people such as myself who have to ask what day of the week it is, I actually haven’t noticed how much time has passed between albums, especially since I still give Person Pitch a good spin every so often.

Guess I’m just happy to say that Panda Bear got us a shiny new BMX for Christmas and not underwear.

TYPE CAST

BATTLES Gloss Drop Warp

8

Even if you coudn’t give a fuck about the music of Battles, you should still be interested in them on an anthropological level. This is what happens when 3 men spend thousands of hours in a dank, dark cave, communicating with each other exclusively through song. They probably give each other mole checks and have complex

Simon Werner A Disparu OST Remote Control/Woodsist

8

Oooohhhh. Sonic Youth do the music for a French thriller about sexy high school students disappearing that’s instrumental and with none of the dialogue snippets that so often ruin soundtracks. It’s number nine in their catalogue of weird releases but really it’s not that weird at all.

It’s got piano for chrissakes.

SLIM KEITH

THIS GROWNUP NOISE This Time with Feeling Self-released

3

Berklee College is the largest independent college of contemporary music in the world. This distinction also makes it the world’s biggest factory for Technically proficient, stuffy-butted musicians on planet Earth—like founding members of the Grownup Noise, Adam Sankowski and Paul Hansen. Their Band fills every inch of this record with delicately arranged parts played on every instrument known to man, all of it unbelievably boring.

LILY MIRANDA

JOHNNY RYAN’S PAGE

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VILLAGE SOUNDS AND SECRET SERVICE PRESENT THE 11TH ANNUAL ARTS & MUSIC FESTIVAL

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