Must Not See TV

One of the first cliches they teach you to rid yourself of at all costs in Journalism 101 is to never begin a column with the dictionary definition of a word. It’s hack, it’s played out and almost as unoriginal as opening with a quote from Bartlett’s.

That said, I would be remiss not to start things off by pointing out that I commented to co-workers at the bookstore I work at that “going rogue” would make an ideal sexual euphemism. Yep, you guessed it: somebody else already stepped on my punchline.

As I’ve stated before in previous posts, I work selling books and coffee for a chain that rhymes with Barnes & Noble. (Shhh!) One of the many curious things that happened the day Sarah Palin’s biography was released was that we got a call or two about two separate parodies with the same title: “Going Rouge.” One is a coloring book, one is not. Both look hilarious in their own right; great title either way. What made this interesting to me personally is that it was impossible for us to order these books. One might even go so far as to posit this was done on purpose.

Which isn’t that paranoid a thought to think, believe it or not. After all, this is sadly not a tactic even confined to the right wing side of the political spectrum. I distinctly recall not being able to place any orders for Al Franken backstock after he secured the DFL nomination for Minnesota Senator. Being a fan of Franken’s comedy, this was more than a tad disheartening. That is the sort of cowardly behavior I would expect of pathetic Ann Coulter types.

And speaking of complete idiots, I wrestle now with the notion that even discussing Sarah Palin gives her more legitimacy than she actually deserves. Like my Mom always said: if you ignore them long enough they’ll leave you alone. After all, that’s the same rationale Richard Dawkins and Stephen Jay Gould employed by making the formal decision to never formally debate a creationist/intelligent designer. The more attention is paid to Palin, the more it appears she has something valid to contribute to political discourse. And IMOHO, she simply doesn’t have what it takes for heavy intellectual lifting.

But upon serious reflection, this is simply too juicy to ignore. The comedic possibilities are literally endless. It gets better every day. I’d stop just short of Dr. Hunter S. Thompson’s famous proclamation that it’s “better than sex.” Certainly not better than “going rogue.”

*rimshot*

I am he as you are he as you are me

It’s like you’re standing outside a fancy steakhouse just staring into the window, hungrily licking your chops while holding a pink slip and the personification of everything you believe is wrong with America offers you their leftovers. What’s a man to do, provided he’s not a vegetarian of course?  And where the hell is this nonsensical metaphor heading, you may ask? It’s leading you to news that the same man responsible for a quickie Palin election season parody helped edit her book. I mean, c’mon people! How in the Sam Hell did that happen? And why was I not contacted first? *sigh*

Now I realize it’s 100% unfair to automatically assume that if some of the people responsible for the book happening are unapologetic racists, that makes the Palin constituency automatically closet racists by proxy. That’s not the claim I’m trying to make here, not in the least. Hell, I’m sure a certain amount of hard core racists held their nose and voted for Barack Obama last November.  But the amount of backpedaling and censoring and video-taking-down and lawsuit-filing and such does make you wonder if these nagging allegations are substantive after all.

Credit DitchWalk for asking the question no one else seems to have the necessary cojones to ask: did Palin actually write any of this? Seriously, aside from submitting all the gory hunting party photos she happily posed in, what credit can she take for any of this?

Who cares, right? We’re pretty sure Teri Hatcher wrote hers and anything is better than that. I’d rather plod through Japanese stereo instructions than suffer through that that festering bowl of dog snot.

Wrong. Dead wrong with your Devil’s Advocate argument, dude.

It cheapens the definition of “truthiness” but that’s a boring barroom philosopher exercise. More importantly, it cheapens what I’m doing right now: writing.  The reason why my Journalism degree is worthless, the reason why the media industry has all but collapsed, the reason why I work 5 part time jobs without health care…it’s all because nobody’s figured out how to get paid to write after the Interweb Tubez up and changed the game. (With the noticeable exception of Vice.) If you say writing doesn’t count, it won’t count. If you say writing is a more of a hobby than a “real” job, than it will stay a hobby. If you believe writing doesn’t matter, it won’t matter. And where does that get us as a culture? Writing blogs no one reads, just another lonely dreamer’s voice in the wilderness that will never properly be heard.

Wow, that got a lot heavier than I originally intended. Sorry about that, everybody.

Schizopolis 4-Evah

Per usual, FunnyOrDie is THE clearinghouse to visit if you really want to beat a dead meme horse into the ground with a minimal amount of effort. My three current favorite Palin parodies are as follows:

1. Pageant tape with snarky MST3K commentary.
2. The Sarah Palin Show, with very special guest Sarah Palin. Only on Fox!
3. Godwin’s Law states, as we all hopefully know by now, that any position of strength is immediately negated the nanosecond you play the Hitler card. However, this sly spoof on the amazing-in-it’s-own-right 2004 German film “Downfall” is for the win, as the kids say nowadays.

No, I'm Spartacus!

In other news: the rumors of my demise have been greatly exaggerated. Also, apparently treating white kids like they are black kids works about as well as asking men to pretend to feel what it’s like to be a woman. Let’s see, what else? Oh yeah, my bio-fuels project is apparently moving along swimmingly. And in case you were looking for inarguably the worst commercial of all time, I already went to the trouble of finding it for you so you didn’t have to. But hey, things could always be worse: you could have gotten called onto the carpet to explain why exactly you green-lighted this bad boy to everyone in corporate.

This just in: Kanye West is a gay fish. Which is way better than Mormon vampire teen romance novels any old day of the week.

I’m out like Seacrest.

Faris Badwan van The Horrors werkt aan een nieuw soloproject, genaamd Lumina. Vodafone volgden hem terwijl hij zijn eerste videoclip aan het regisseren was. Uit enthousiasme had hij al twee dagen niet geslapen. Je kunt hier zien hoe het hem is vergaan:

July as an extra in “The Godfather.”

Proof that VICE still has the chance to redeem itself is this awesome photo essay by Miranda July and Roe Ethridge.

]]> http://patiolimetree.wordpress.com/2009/11/19/the-wodka-wars/ Thu, 19 Nov 2009 04:04:06 +0000 NB http://patiolimetree.wordpress.com/2009/11/19/the-wodka-wars/

“The Wodka Wars” is Vice documentary about the origins and rightful claim to our favorite alcoholic beverage that is commonly known as Vodka with a “V”. See more at VBS.tv.

Vice Magazine Night

Flashy stuff, eh? Well, it’s gonna be that kinda night. Vice Magazine are throwing a shindig in the Bernard Shaw this Thursday 19th November so chaos and camera flashes are confirmed guests. Also confirmed are Robotnik, who will be doing what he does in the smoking garden at 9pm, and myself, who will be doing what I do while hiding behind the big, blinding lights surrounding the DJ booth, hoping none of the Vice crowd take any pictures of me! If you’re not familir with Vice, you could get an idea of what they’re about with a brief perusal of their website. “Irreverent” would barely begin to cover it. They specialise in the kind of spewing the kind of journalistic vitriol that made The Slate and Mongrel such popular publications in Ireland. It’s sure to be quite a wild night in the only pub in Dublin where you can really do whatever you want. Expect many hilariously-captioned photos on the Vice website the next day.

Earlier in the evening I’m gonna be dropping in to check out the launch of Ormond Studios, a new space near Capel Street bridge. The sprightly young NCAD & IADT graduates are inviting everyone in to have a peek at their studios and enjoy some food and wine from 7pm. If you want to see what’s really going on in this city of ours, then this is a fantastic opportunity to check out one of many positive developments from inside rather than through a Sunday supplement article.

Here’s a look at jewelry designer Tiffany Lee’s line Kidviskous.  While attending Art Harvest LA on Saturday night, which was awesome btw, I saw her “camera necklace” and HAD TO HAVE IT.  The only way that could be done was by being picked via raffle ticket.  Buying $30 dollars worth of raffle tickets was well worth it.  HAHA!  Her jewelry has been featured in magazines and blogs such as Flaunt, Audrey, PIG, Futureclaw, 944, Onion, EastWest, Papermag, URB, Vibe, VICE, MTV Buzz Worthy, and Refinery 29.  Pictures of her line and the winning necklace on me below.  You can purchase her jewelry here at KIDVISKOUS . Enjoy!

It was LA’s turn to celebrate Vice Mag’s 15th Anniversary last Friday and we celebrated with free tequila, a live band (they covered The Breeders!!!) and of course by transcending time and space into…1994:




For all the FB&Twitter addicts.



Free tequila aftermath:


I looked like I was from Blossom.

I have lost a slipper. It’s a dire situation to be in for anyone but especially for a girl who lives in a student house where drafts, cold laminate flooring and a fear of heating bills are standard. Things are really quite miserable if you have only one warm foot.

 Recently, in times of strife and impending hypothermia I’ve been turning to the magic that is RUBBISH Mag. It is super pretty but super expensive to buy so I peruse the RUBBISH blog. Anyone who decides to dress a jacket potato in a denim jacket has my vote. And they make finger puppets.

(Images photoshopped together from Rubbish's homepage)

Henry Holland (he was building an actual House of Holland for Vice mag the other day according to Twitter), Topshop and London Fashion Week all help out. They are the perfectly dysfunctional, quirkily dressed, mad house of a happy family. I would swoon if swooning was cool and not so stalkerish.

N.B. If you have seen a lone leopard print slipper sloping about looking suspiciously like he’s on a runner, please nab him. He is greatly missed.

(Sur)prize decadence in the form of big money on Hallows Eve.

Just when i thought i missed Vice (sort of- not really) they came out in full angry hipster, blood thirsty writers and pissed off artists. CALL THAT style in Williamsburg (just when you thought that place was really out of control)Vice Mag style per their dirty-cool beer bash.  My favorite of the snaps comes in the form of Samuel L Jackson via Pulp Fiction.

The party, according to a well written article via the $250K party complete with Foster Kamer’s Gawker piece—read here.

Just mentioned Gawker excerpt: “Lots of tequila, lots of Colt 45. Now do you know whose party you’re at? Then take a deep breath. Cigarette and weed smoke clouded the air. Now you do. No wonder they didn’t pay for fog machines.

The second floor: bangers, blasting. In line with their 15th anniversary theme, almost all 90s hip-hop could’ve kept an awesome, dancy, sweaty, drunk, Blue States Lose: All-Stars crowd of costumed hipsters dancing, if not for the bands interrupting them. Jersey post-garage youngsters Titus Andronicus got screamy, seminal afropunk band Bad Brains got punky, and almost every other band was unanimously heckled in some regard. Two more bars upstairs kept the booze freely flowing. Beers were beginning to get tossed across the room. I resisted the urge. It was difficult.”

———

Off the wheels of my earlier post, well,  perhaps I spoke to soon.  Vice nastiness still lives; or it was just a wicked reunion.  Still, I post a prop.

II

LABELS

Balmain- 

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Balenciaga

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Belstaff

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Bensimon

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Be You K

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BCBG

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Bill Tornade

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BIRIBELLE (dmv)**

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Box Fresh

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Buddhist Punk -

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Bruno Pieters-

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PUBLICATIONS

WWD- I know I said Vogue is the fashion bible. But let me clarify, Vogue is great and always will be…but its like the old testament and WWD is the New Testament. This magazine seems to be carrying on torch…whether Vogue likes it or not. WWD is always thorough.

W – I love how big this magazine is. Sure its not the easiest to carry around but the photography (esp the covers!) are amazing. Great fashion too! Its definitely more European than most other mags we are use to, but thats what makes it so worthwhile.

Frank151- The complete opposite of W. These miniature magazine-books are always based off of a specific theme that is carried out in all aspects of the issue. Great friend of mine introduced me to this mag and its definitely grown on me over time. I was resistant to the size and thickness of the paper. But its effective and I do like that you can carry them everywhere. And they have interviews, anecdotes, fashion and music.

DOTCOMS

Bread & Butter-Website dedicated to urban fashion. Pretty thorough.

Vice Magazine-A friend of mine put me onto this site almost 3 years ago. I am grateful for that to this day. Raw and real articles. Great images. And I LOVE their dos & don’t section. Just hope ya never turn up in it though. yikes

Format Mag – Another friend of mine told me about this great site last year. Beautiful images, layout and graphics. Music, Fashion and Art online magazine.

This is THE LIST for this month. If you are a designer/label in the area(dc/md/va) or from elsewhere in the world, please contact me editor.shademagazine.com to be considered.  Every month you’ll get a new set of labels, designers, sites, publications and so forth added to THE LIST. Hope you enjoyed this set, please leave comments and tell me what you think!!

-Selamawit

Hier soir, petite balade dans Montmartre :  je me suis rendue à l’exposition du magazine VICE.

Très en vogue pour le moment à Paris et ailleurs, ce magazine de toutes les tendances traite de mode, photo, art, cinéma, graphisme…

Pour la petite histoire :

” Le magazine VICE est publié depuis octobre 1994. Originalement appelé Voice et imprimé en format fanzine, son ton intransigeant a immédiatement séduit les Montréalais anglophones dès sa première publication (oui, VICE est Montréalais d’origine). Aujourd’hui le magazine est distribué dans plus de vingt pays et son imprimé a atteint une circulation mondiale d’un million de copies. La version française de Vice magazine, lancée en Mars 2007, est tirée chaque mois à 80 000 exemplaires, distribués via un réseau national de 500 points (boutiques, galeries d’art, magasins de disques, bars, clubs…).” [1]

VICE est également très polyvalent sur la planète multimédia puisqu’il a récemment crée sa chaine de télé, son label de musique et son département édition pour les gros ouvrages.

Bref,  Vice est dans la place ! En l’occurrence hier c’était à Montmartre qu’avait lieu l’exposition-photo du magazine. Située tout en haut de la rue Chappe, la galerie, du même nom, possède un joli espace sur deux étages.  Arrivée un peu en avance,  je me fais gentiment prier de repasser plus tard…

Pas de souci, c’est toujours un plaisir de se balader dans Montmartre, surtout le soir où les touristes sont un peu moins envahissants…

Je m’arrête dans une petite buvette car  je trouve le nom de l’établissement tout a fait opportun : L’ESCALE. Mon instinct m‘a, une fois de plus, bien guidé. L’adresse est tout simplement super. Musique, décor et ambiance des îles Caraïbes, on se croirait à Cuba. Un tout petit bout de femme toute souriante bat le pilon de manière énergique et enchaine les cocktails sans relâche. Les mojitos sont énormes, l’accueil est parfait et les prix plus qu’abordables, ce qui est rare dans le quartier ! Vraiment une adresse à recommander !  Bon le seul ‘hic’ c’est les toilettes. Elles sont bien décorées mais à la limite du praticable. Passons ! L’escale est terminée, je repars vers mon objectif premier, la galerie Chappe.

Ma deuxième venue à la galerie se fait avec beaucoup moins d’enthousiasme. Je n’aurais jamais dû m’éloigner. En une demi-heure de temps l’espace a été totalement envahi par une foule de jeunes fashion-victimes. C’est purement et simplement blindé ! Impossible de circuler, impossible de voir les clichés tranquillement. Et pourtant le monde ne cesse d’affluer. C’est la cohue, c’est très désagréable. Victime de son succès le vernissage est très mal organisé et ne gère pas du tout l’abondance de visiteurs.

Je me faufile avec peine jusqu’aux photos qui sont toutes très belles mais les sujets sont trop différents. On observe des portraits d’enfants, des nus sadomasochistes, des paysages, en passant par des scènes électro-trash gays et des montages abstraits.

Bien que cela soit une exposition collective, la scénographie manque tout de même d’homogénéité. De toute façon il y a vraiment trop de monde ! C’est dommage mais je m’enfuis, en gardant à l’esprit que j’ai tout de même fait une chouette escale ;-)

THE 2009 VICE MAGAZINE PHOTO EXHIBITION
Dal 30 ottobre al 30 novembre 2009

RICHARD KERN
PHILIPPE GERLACH
PETER SUTHERLAND
TIM BARBER
DANA GOLDSTEIN
MARTYNKA WAWRZYNIAK
JAMIE TAETE
MAGGIE LEE

VERNICE: VENERDÌ 30 OTTOBRE 2009
Vice Gallery, Via Giacomo Watt, 32 – 20143 – Milano

www.viceland.com

Sponsored by:
Four Roses Bourbon
adidas Originals

CMJ is kicking my ass, and it’s only day 2. It feels like fashion week all over again, just with music.
There is so much going on, I don’t even know where to start. I need to clone myself so I can be in 2 or 3 places at once. I’m literally getting a new email every 10minutes with some type of event flyer.

A small sampling of this week’s best offerings. Most of these are free!

Except this one. Not free.
Flavorpill’s CMJ Guide.
My Open Bar has a list of the events with free booze.

The after parties and some shows:

Did you RSVP? The list is now closed.

Vice parties are always interesting.

Tonight!

Free show Saturday! RSVP!

If you don’t care about CMJ, go to this:

Food and Booze. All. Day. Long.

Don’t even get me started on Halloween. Leave event suggestions here!

Did this for VICE’s 15th year anniversary. Nothing came close to this in 1994.

http://www.viceland.com/blogs/en/2009/10/16/the-klf-burned-it-all/

I’m sure many  of you have heard about Vice Magazine by now. The magazine was recently launched in South Africa with issue number two available at selected outlets. Vice Magazine, which is free, takes the terms ‘alternative magazine‘ and ‘alternative culture‘ to a new level with its controversial and blunt approach to its content.

Founded in 1994 in Montreal, Canada, Vice was first known as the Voice of Montreal. Vice Magazine has since then expanded across the world and has settled down with their headquarter in New York.

This month is their 15th birthday and how appropriate for the magazine to still be in its teens – still rebelling, still mischievous and still experimenting with sex, drugs and rock and roll!

The magazine’s UK editor, Andy Capper, has said that “we are bored and disenchanted by what is served up to our generation,” and in this way Vice has taken up this daunting challenge of tackling what it is that their reader really want. It seems to be that they simply want honesty, and they achieve this by taking a satirical look at everyone – no one escapes their reach.

The magazine features articles and photography that cover a variety of obscure and obscene topics and issues – everything ranging from tattooed  pigs to phallic-looking magic mushrooms. They also include music reviews of established and lesser-known artists as well as their famous DOs and DON’Ts section which features pictures of people and then either praises or criticises their looks and fashion. Yip, that’s right – no one escapes their reach. In fact, the DO’s and DON’Ts section did so well that it was compiled and published into a book.

Vice Magazine
Vice magazine has a worldwide readership of 900, 000 and has transformed into a media conglomerate over the years, branching out into television (VBS.tv – online) and film, music (Vice Recordings – a record label), clothing (Vice Retail) and books (The DOs and DON’Ts Book and The Vice Guide to Sex and Drugs and Rock and Roll).

So while you are checking out my blog you should click on some links located on the left of your screen. I have lots of interesting things to link up with over there. Funny stuff, serious stuff, other blogs, and mustache type links. I have advertisements for friends and foes alike.

Check out:

Found Magazine

Red Sea Tattoo

Vice Magazine

Index Skate Shop

Myspace’s

Facebook’s

Flickr’s

Sexy Blogs

Rad Blogs

I want my blog to be a good time and possibly help you have a good time someplace else. So browse about, check out older blogs, and less popular ones have a great time!

VBS.tv did an interview with Production Designer KK Barrett. It’s a very cool look into the production behind WTWTA, or even just production design in general. It’s interesting when he talks about controlling emotional and visual balance in scenes. Peep it.

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