minikomi

pu1.pu2.wav.noi
Has anyone seen relax magazine from japan? I'd really like to see an english style mag with writers this lovely, in love with nice design for the hell of it, articles about abandoned amusement parks and interviews with guys who invented board games.. and next to no advertizing at all. I would PAY for a magazine like this. . . no sense of irony, hipsterness or tongue-in-cheekness at all, just genuine enthusiasm with strange niche foci.
The photography is awsome too..
 

henrymiller

Well-known member
"its irreverent pisstake towards race issues in America is refreshing."

yeah amid tell-it-like-it-is blowhards like rush limbaugh it's so... refreshing, isn't it?

"Personally I think MacInnes argues a strong case that conservativism has actually become the progressive movement at this moment in history, while liberalism is stagnating."

personally i think this is horseshit. how 'progressive' is environmental vandalism, rollback on abortion rights, global war, ruination of all public services in favour of market domination?

"Fuck over-earnest muesli-knitters who don't get it."

richard. fucking. littlejohn.
 

Woebot

Well-known member
never been that keen on it myself. makes me feel a little sick. i like a bit more meat in my music writing, you know a few more facts a bit of sympathetic analysis and a bit less personality from the writers especially when they're quite as plastic as they seem to be (whines, is it too much to ask for?) i do see the same hipster-tendencies in myself sometimes, and i'm not especially proud of them...
 

monkeysblood

born to cry
i have read it a lot and can even find it pretty uplifting sometimes (eg. the 'you're not punk - and i'm telling everyone' piece from penny rimbaud and the 'tim yo is dead' one in the same issue by (eek!) mr mcinnes) despite the general nihilism. it's full of wanky lifestyle ads but it's free and as someone already said it can make you think a bit for yerself, wether it's being offended by it or whatever, rather than just washing over you in a diluted pissy way like most other publications. it's turned me on to a few bits of music too - sunburned hand.. for example.

they have been increasing the amount of paki, nigger and fag type references which definately makes me feel uncomfortable but it hasn't made me start using those terms (apart from now!). i get the feeling they are just baiting to increase notoriety and profile (see photos of coke snorted off nut sacks etc) and mocking it all at the same time.

is it really worth getting all sweaty worrying about a mag read by a few skaters and record shop loafers? or is that what gavin wants me to think. damn.

but it makes me laugh a lot.
 
henrymiller said:
"Fuck over-earnest muesli-knitters who don't get it."

richard. fucking. littlejohn.

I'm sorry, but there is definitely a sizeable constituency of really very annoying, precious left-wingers and far-greens who take all the fun out of life and who take offence at everything, often on behalf of people who couldn't care less. I suppose 'Guardian-readers' is the catch-all. If I was trying to scrape a living in an ice-scarred, post-apocalyptic wasteland, I'd rather be in the company of Vice readers than Guardian readers - I'd die drunk and laughing, listening to better music. Over in the Guardian-reader camp it would be all cous-cous and Erykah Badu.
 

AshRa

Well-known member
They ran an article a couple of years ago which used some pseudo-scientific nonsense to 'prove' that all America's economical problems would be 'cured' if they had never let any immigrants into the country!! The following issue, they actually defended it in the letters page...!

I was working at a record shop at the time and I was so mad I phoned up their distributor and actually told them to stop sending us this borderline-Nazi rubbish, which they did. I got a lot of stick from other people in the shop once they found out - calling me a wimpy liberal and stuff, but i'm NOT a liberal, i'm just an anti-conservative!

Anyway I now work in a clothes shop which *does* get Vice delivered and I do have a sneaky look now and again :D I like the pages with polaroids and catty comments!
 
AshRa said:
borderline-Nazi rubbish!

The Nazi immigration policy was remarkably open - millions of workers from all over Europe found 'jobs' and accommodation in Greater Germany during the war. It's fair to say Nazi Germany would have ground to a halt had it not been for migrant workers. The Nazis were even good enough to provide free transport, albeit at gunpoint and shepharded by barking dogs. Then, in the final stages of the war, the Nazis pretty much opened up all their borders to foreigners, and tens of millions of young men looking for ways to occupy their time (andd perhaps a fraulein) streamed into the country and stayed for decades.

So I think you have the Nazis all wrong on immigration, at least.
 

AshRa

Well-known member
Sorry it was a bit of a flippant word to use I know! :eek:

I was using it to make a point about white supremacy ideas.
 

jenks

thread death
nice to see lazy thinking regarding huge swathes of the population are alive and well on this thread.

guardian reading liberals - all very ben elton 1980s dontcha think?

all eating cous cous and listening to Erykah Badu ??????

read your adolescent rag if you want but let me read my paper without dismissive narrow comments which bear no realation to my reality.

as for the nazi comments, i sometimes wonder if someone is trying to wind me up.
 

Noah Baby Food

Well-known member
I really, really like VICE, though I admit it can get a little wearing sometimes.

The point is, I think, as they say in the Illuminatus Trilogy, "THINK FOR YOURSELF SCHMUCK!". The Dos and Donts Special Issue actually had on the cover, something to the effect of, "WHAT TO DO ABOUT EVERYTHING, EVER". And yeah, some people perhaps do swallow every little thing they write and take it as gospel. But fuck, that's their problem! Some numbskulls didn't see the satire in the Dead Kennedys either. Should Jello have kept it a bit simpler, explained everything really simply, to appeal to the "lowest common denominator"? Would have ended up like those dogmatic lecturing bores Conflict. Coz that's WAY more offensive and patronising in my book - not giving your audience the credit that they might be able to think for themselves...it's the censorship argument, and it stinks.

I'm all for the slaying of sacred cows myself. I grew up under humourless, severe 1980s feminism and New Marxist kinda schtick, misguided "experimental parenting" - certain things could NEVER be questioned....there was a "party line" on a lot of issues, e.g. pornography. There's no way this is a healthy state of affairs. VICE plays Devil's Advocate, and there's NO OTHER widely available magazine doing that and they should be commended. The irony is, coz it's free a lot of folk probably don't even read the articles and just look at the (very good) photography.
 

AshRa

Well-known member
Noah Baby Food said:
The irony is, coz it's free a lot of folk probably don't even read the articles and just look at the (very good) photography.

...of boobies.

Sorry for causing any offence by my use of the N-word.
 

owen

Well-known member
henrymiller said:
"its irreverent pisstake towards race issues in America is refreshing."

yeah amid tell-it-like-it-is blowhards like rush limbaugh it's so... refreshing, isn't it?

"Personally I think MacInnes argues a strong case that conservativism has actually become the progressive movement at this moment in history, while liberalism is stagnating."

personally i think this is horseshit. how 'progressive' is environmental vandalism, rollback on abortion rights, global war, ruination of all public services in favour of market domination?

"Fuck over-earnest muesli-knitters who don't get it."

richard. fucking. littlejohn.

on the fucking money. i mean when did being 'anti-p.c' become twice as tedious as p.c itself? sometime in the mid 90s, was it not?
 

dominic

Beast of Burden
not sure whether i should comment here or over in the miscellaneous section where there's a nick kilroy thread

anyway, a friend came by my apartment today and had a copy of the latest vice magazine with him, which i then read -- the "drugs issue"

and i must say that on the whole i enjoyed the articles

what i don't like is: (1) all the ads -- but that's unavoidable, isn't it? -- and (2) the fact that they don't acknowledge any "spiritual" aspect of drug use -- i.e., some of the pieces are top-notch in the "tell it like it is" way (such as the article on rehab, the article on purity of drugs, etc) -- which is good -- but others are so aggressively cynical and seem to revel in degradation/desecration

not to sound like a sentimental hippie, but i suppose i see the ins-and-outs of drug use as having a post-xian religious dimension -- i.e., they get you out of your body and are a medium in which everyday social identities don't matter (as with music) -- and they also enhance the power of music -- which is not to say that i advocate using drugs all the time (though something within my hates the notion of advocating moderate use -- though i'm in fact very moderate and, indeed, strictly occasional in my own current use)

so i guess applaud the realism of the vice magazine drug issue, but think it a bad thing when this realism gives way to a thorough-going cynicism and misanthropy

it's why i'm not entirely down with martin amis -- i find it amusing in small doses but ultimately false and think the overall effect of such literature and magazines is to exacerbate the ills of our times -- i.e., the irony, the knowingness, the misanthropy
 
S

simon silverdollar

Guest
Noah Baby Food said:
I'm all for the slaying of sacred cows myself. I grew up under humourless, severe 1980s feminism and New Marxist kinda schtick, misguided "experimental parenting" - certain things could NEVER be questioned....there was a "party line" on a lot of issues, e.g. pornography. There's no way this is a healthy state of affairs. VICE plays Devil's Advocate, and there's NO OTHER widely available magazine doing that and they should be commended.

the Sun, The Daily Sport, The Mail, and The Express slay all those liberal, left wing 'sacred cows' on a regular basis.

magazines such as Nuts and Zoo and Loaded also do this, to some extent.

if you want right wing journalism yr spolit for choice, really.
problem is that, it being right wing, it's a bad thing. like Vice.
 

3underscore

Well-known member
HMGovt said:
there is definitely a sizeable constituency of really very annoying, precious left-wingers and far-greens who take all the fun out of life and who take offence at everything, often on behalf of people who couldn't care less. I suppose 'Guardian-readers' is the catch-all. (cut) Over in the Guardian-reader camp it would be all cous-cous and Erykah Badu.

I have seen some misconceptions in my time, but the idea that the average Guardian reader is the type that complains about things like vice magazine is almost laughably misguided. The Guardian may be cous cous and Erykah Badu - that I can understand - but are more likely to be highly supportive of Vice, even if they don't personally like it.
 
3underscore said:
I have seen some misconceptions in my time, but the idea that the average Guardian reader is the type that complains about things like vice magazine is almost laughably misguided. The Guardian may be cous cous and Erykah Badu - that I can understand - but are more likely to be highly supportive of Vice, even if they don't personally like it.

You're right, I often read the Guardian/Observer myself and enjoy Vice. But the Guardian is more annoying and infinitely more preachy, particularly on matter of lifestyle and consumerism, than Vice.
 

Noah Baby Food

Well-known member
Silverdollar - dude, I don't want "right wing journalism". Don't insult my intelligence man. I fucking loathe the Mail and the Express. My personal politics are far-left libertarian. How is VICE "right-wing journalism" if they're printing articles by Penny Rimbaud? I just like the fact that the magazine inspires a bit of thought and debate. You don't see Dazed & Confused and the like inspiring threads like this on forums do ya? And it's FUNNY.

VICE has nothing in common with Zoo or Nuts. I'm not some fucking car-obsessed virgin with a Hollyoaks haircut and a Keane album. Any magazine that publishes writing by William Bennett deserves praise in my book.
 
S

simon silverdollar

Guest
Noah Baby Food said:
Silverdollar - dude, I don't want "right wing journalism". Don't insult my intelligence man. I fucking loathe the Mail and the Express. My personal politics are far-left libertarian. How is VICE "right-wing journalism" if they're printing articles by Penny Rimbaud? I just like the fact that the magazine inspires a bit of thought and debate. You don't see Dazed & Confused and the like inspiring threads like this on forums do ya? And it's FUNNY.

VICE has nothing in common with Zoo or Nuts. I'm not some fucking car-obsessed virgin with a Hollyoaks haircut and a Keane album. Any magazine that publishes writing by William Bennett deserves praise in my book.

ok, fair enough. but then i'm not sure what you meant by 'slaying sacred cows' of liberalism.

is the fact that Vice uses words like Paki the slaying of a sacred cow? or do you mean something else?
 

Noah Baby Food

Well-known member
I came across a bit aggy there, I apologise...

I don't like the use of the words "Paki", "Chink" and suchlike, I must admit. However, perhaps using these words in the flippant, satirical context that VICE do can make people question their prejudices? I really don't think it's done to inspire hatred. I guess that's why I'm comparing the magazine to the coal-black satire of the likes of the Dead Kennedys. Plus, they'll give space to some white supremacist, an Islamic Fundamentalist London hip-hop crew, the mentally handicapped, militant gay groups - I don't they judge or have an agenda, they put it all out there in an "irreverent" manner, which I don't see any other big-distribution magazine doing.

Slight tangent: I've got a Reagan Youth t-shirt which features a photo of a hooded Klansman patting a kid on the head, with the heading "Youth Anthems For The New Order". RY were one of the most fiery, defiantly left-wing punk bands around, but that imagery? It's uncomfortable for sure (I was wearing this shirt in the pub last night and I got some fuckin funny looks I can tell ya...).

The nastiest kind of prejudice is the covert, intellectualized kind - the kind that you DO get in the likes of the Mail and the Express, in the context of asylum seekers for example. Building-site type banter is a lot less offensive in my eyes, a lot easier to deal with. "Coloured" is WAY more offensive than "Paki" in my book - and people still do say this shit! (especially in my currently adopted Yorkshire - a hotbed of racism, it seems).
 

D84

Well-known member
owen said:
on the fucking money. i mean when did being 'anti-p.c' become twice as tedious as p.c itself? sometime in the mid 90s, was it not?

I've been meaning to weigh in on this point for a while: wasn't Political Correctness invented in the early 90's by someone like Auberon Waugh in the Spectator? (notwithstanding Mao Tse Tung etc)

Having been brought up in a mildly political family I have never experienced this phenomenon except as a shibboleth, a straw man of the right wing press. It's a classic argument ad hominem. What does invoking political correctness have to say about the validity or otherwise of left wing views? Nothing. (I agree with Mark Latham btw: it's not about Right and Left anymore, but rather Insiders and Outsiders).

I have uncles and cousins who are conservative and that doesn't make them any more interesting or funny... Where I work there are heaps of people with refined, excellent tastes in music but that doesn't mean that I agree with their office politics or have to respect them - these are separate matters.

I gave Vice a chance (hey, I'd still read it if I was in the pub/cafe waiting for my mates to turn up) but it just strikes the wrong note for me... For example I read an article called "Mandela's Hellhole" written by a white female South African "refugee" talking about how she had to leave the country due to the violence - fair enough - but implicit was the suggestion that the problem was black majority rule rather than the hang-over of a corrupt colonial system which fucked up the black majority for generations.

Another thing that irks (at least from what I've read) is this focus on the cult of the trashbag. I've been a trashbag off and on for a while now and I don't need any advice or pointers, thanks ;) It's not difficult, unique or glorious. Like golf the fun is more in the doing rather than the relating.

I'll give them points for digging up Al Jaffee though.
 
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