SPLA soldiers in South Sudan. Photo via Wikipedia Commons.

As dusk settled over Juba on Tuesday, citizens of the South Sudanese capital were hoping that the air would not be filled with gunfire for the third night in a row. Violence between rival army factions there is threatening to spread to other parts of the world's newest country.

Months of tension within the country's ruling party—the Sudan People's Liberation Movement, or SPLM—spilled over into the national army late on Sunday night. The sounds of a serious gun fight rang out from the direction of the main military barracks in Juba and further exchanges first thing on Monday confirmed this wasn't an accidental munitions explosion or another case of drunken soldiers brawling.

As you'd expect, rumors started to fly around town and President Salva Kiir chose to ditch his trademark cowboy hat for full military regalia to give a press conference. Kiir alleged that renegade soldiers were trying to seize power, announcing that there'd been a split in the presidential guard between those loyal to him and others whose allegiances lie with his former deputy, Riek Machar. Key military installations in Jonglei State’s Bor county were attacked, forcing soldiers loyal to the president and his fledgling government to flee.

President Kiir addresses a press conference on Monday Photo via official South Sudan Twitter.

An aid worker, who didn't wish to be named, told me by email that though tensions had calmed later on Monday, fighting erupted again early Tuesday morning. With phone lines only working intermittently, those with internet access have relied on social media for information.

Casualty figures, even from the government, vary considerably. The Minister of Information said on Tuesday that 72 soldiers had died, whereas Kiir’s spokesperson put the figure at over 40, denying there had been any civilian casualties. Today the reported death toll rose, with two hospitals counting between 400 and 500 dead and 800 wounded. These figures come from the UN.

The government of South Sudan took to its official Twitter account today to announce that "ten people have been arrested in connection with failed coup attempt," but that Machar and others are still "at large."

Juba, capital of South Sudan. Photo by Aris Roussinos.

What triggered Sunday’s fighting is still a matter of dispute. Machar, whose compound came under fire from the army on Tuesday, has categorically denied any involvement in the alleged coup, saying it was another undemocratic attempt by Kiir to rid himself of political critics in the party and government. There was no coup, Kiir's critics say, but a spontaneous fight, which broke out when some officers refused orders to arrest the president's political opponents. By Tuesday evening, it seemed as though Kiir had got his wish. More than ten senior SPLM members—including six former ministers and the party’s suspended secretary general—were in custody.

South Sudan’s army spokesperson, Philip Aguer insisted on Tuesday that the “security services have evidence” that the fighting constituted a coup, adding that “the attempt to occupy the headquarters of the presidential guard” could also be interpreted as such. “This is not a tribal war,” he told me, in response to reports that some of the fighting had split according to whether the soldiers were members of Kiir’s Dinka or Machar’s Nuer ethnic groups.

Frightened civilians flee the fighting.

However, by describing Machar as a “prophet of doom” and insisting that he “will not allow the incidents of 1991 to repeat themselves," Kiir has evocatively reminded South Sudanese people of perhaps the worst violence between the Dinka and the Nuer during the civil war. Eight years into the SPLA’s two-decade conflict with the Sudanese government, Machar attempted to oust Kiir’s predecessor—the late John Garang. But his accession bid failed to gather momentum and he only managed to convince fellow Nuer leaders and some others to join his faction. Although the differences between the two groups were originally political, the fighting on the ground took on an ethnic dimension, most notably with the 1991 "Bor massacre," where Dinka civilians were killed in an attack by Machar’s splinter group.

Machar rejoined the SPLA in 2002 after a dalliance with the Khartoum government—the government that, at the time, ruled all of Sudan—a move that few of his political opponents have forgiven him for. In August 2011, days after South Sudan’s independence, Machar apologized for the now-infamous attack on Bor at a private meeting at the house of Garang’s widow, Rebecca.

Over the last two years, Rebecca has become one of Kiir’s fiercest critics, positioning herself with Machar and the SPLM’s other internal discontents, who blame Kiir for taking the young nation in the wrong direction. By Tuesday evening, she was one of the few alleged ringleaders who had not been detained but was effectively under house arrest, with her home in Juba surrounded by soldiers.

Echoing his mother's sentiments, Mabior Garang has taken to Facebook to berate Kiir’s “inside job” which he said was “designed to foment tribal divisions." The political prisoners are “senior SPLM members that represent all the regions of the republic of South Sudan. They are not Nuer politicians as Salva Kiir’s propaganda is trying to depict,” he wrote.

President Kiir in his non-military clothes while meeting a Kuwaiti dignitary last month. Photo via official South Sudan Twitter.

Sudan expert Sara Pantuliano assured me that Machar instigating the current crisis would be “very uncharacteristic of how he operates," especially given his focus on acquiring the SPLM chairmanship in the hope that he may be the party’s preferred candidate for the 2015 elections. “Salva Kiir benefits from calling this a coup, but it looks more like spontaneous skirmishes within the presidential guard which were not brought under control and then escalated,” Pantuliano said. Any type of antagonism on the president's part would be a disappointment to those South Sudanese who had hoped that Kiir could reconcile South Sudan's political and ethnic groups. Pantuliano notes that Kiir has become "a very different political leader" in the last year, suggesting that this could be because his advisors have “isolated him from the reality of the country."

While Kiir was in South Africa attending Nelson Mandela’s funeral last week, the security services confiscated copies of a critical newspaper and arrested its editor. As well as attacks on the press, Kiir’s opponents say he has failed to adequately address corruption, insecurity, human rights abuses, and other issues of discontent.

The human cost of this crisis is already high, with 16,000 people seeking shelter in UN compounds in Juba. Pantuliano, who heads the Overseas Development Institute’s Humanitarian Policy Group, told me that the she was very concerned the situation could deteriorate further. Countries with longstanding engagement in South Sudan now need to help initiate a dialogue, she argued, as it is unclear whether national forces are in a position to do so. She also questioned why—considering the UN's strong chapter VII mandate to protect civilians in South Sudan—peacekeepers were not being deployed on the streets of Juba to maintain order. The head of the UN mission, Hilde Johnson, has called for restraint and asked for all parties to the dispute to work for unity.

@TomLawMedia

Photo by the Great Plains Tar Sands Resistance

Last Friday in Oklahoma City, Stefan Warner and Moriah Stephenson walked through the front door of Devon Tower, the headquarters of Devon Energy. The energy giant has plans to increase fracking, and its CEO is on the board of TransCanada, the corporation behind the Keystone XL tar sands pipeline. The activists walked to the second floor balcony of the atrium, and dropped a Hunger Games-inspired banner over the railing. It said, "The odds are never in our favor," and featured the series' logo—a mockingjay carrying a monkeywrench.

As the banner unfurled, some glitter fell to the ground. The whole thing was pretty boring, as far as protests like this go and when security guards asked them to leave, they did—Stefan had no desire to get arrested, plus Moriah had to finish her grad-school homework.

"I could have swept it up in two minutes if they gave me a broom," Stefan said. As they were leaving, he apologized to the cleaning lady. She smiled at him and said it's ok.

When police arrived, they arrested two other protesters with Great Plains Tar Sands Resistance who had locked themselves in the building's doorway. And when more cop cars kept arriving, the glitter-fabulous duo was detained because the cops wanted to investigate the substance. "I was like, 'What do you mean? The glitter?'" Stefan said. "You think glitter is a hazardous substance? You've got to be kidding me."

When they got to jail, they found out they were being charged with a "terrorism hoax," a state felony punishable by up to ten years in prison.

Their attorney, Doug Parr, has been involved in dozens of protest cases like this one in Oklahoma and Texas. In other arrests, protesters have faced trumped-up charges, but this is a radical escalation. "I've been practicing law since the 1970s. Quite frankly, I've been expecting this," Parr said. "Based upon the historical work I've been involved in, I know that when popular movements that confront the power structure start gaining traction, the government ups the tactics they employ in order to disrupt and take down those movements."

TransCanada has been putting pressure on law enforcement to do exactly that. In documents obtained by Bold Nebraska, the company was shown briefing police and the FBI on how to prosecute anti-pipeline protesters as terrorists.

In Ohio, the Athens County Emergency Management Agency recently held a training drill that involved a fake anti-fracking group. The scenario was meant to prepare emergency first responders for a terrorist attack. Focusing the training on non-violent environmentalists caused such an uproar that the county had to issue a public apology.

Accusing non-violent protesters of "terrorism" may have a similar effect in Oklahoma City—the word has a visceral sting in this town—the site of the most destructive terrorist attack in US history prior to 9/11. In 1995, the Oklahoma City bombings injured more than 600 people and killed 168.

Using that same language to describe environmentalists with a sparkly banner is only going to backfire, Stefan said. It's too soon to tell if these charges are going to stick. But either way, he said, “I don't think the police realize they might be making us a lot of allies."

Will Potter is a journalist and TED Fellow based in Washington DC. Visit his website and follow him on Twitter.

Hamburger Helper in its natural habitat, via Flickr user David_Jones.

Twitter is basically just a bunch of cannons firing confetti into a great abyss. As we’ve learned by observing the 140-character prose of everyone from Amanda “I Want Drake to Murder My Vagina” Bynes to 50 “You Look Autistic” Cent, celebrities, teenagers, and C-list comedians are all totally willing to barf out whatever half-baked thought floats thoughts float through their minds. Somewhere between a PR nightmare and a serious opportunity for audience engagement, it places fans, brands, and public figures in direct contact with one another in an endless banter of awkward conversations. Major food corporations like General Mills have decided to go rogue, jumping into the Twitter conversation with tweets from brand characters like Hamburger Helper, who is frequently tweeting about Lil B, referencing Kendrick Lamar lyrics, and making 140-character sexual innuendos.

Hamburger Helper—now simply known as Helper—has adopted the editorial voice of a 14-year-old 4chan B-tard and Odd Future fan. The face—or hand, technically—of the brand mascot is Lefty, an ageless, four-fingered, anthropomorphic white glove. His product personality used to be that of a cute, tame, Pillsbury Doughboy–like figure that resonated with middle-aged moms. These days, he’s casually calling followers “bae,” referring to Hamburger Helper's dinner-in-a-box as “swag,” and vibing out to the new Drake album.

Although the Hamburger Helper brand has been around since 1971, the @Helper Twitter account only materialized this past March. Lefty didn’t start posting regularly until late May of this year, but has since accumulated over 8,000 followers. With a slogan that boasts “trolling lame dinners since 1971,” @Helper can be found imploring the #HelperArmy to demonstrate their devotion to “his” products:

And converting Kendrick Lamar lyrics into Helper speak:

And making sexual innuendoes with a hyper-aware cultural vocabulary:

And then there’s the ongoing relationship with rapper Lil B and a shared kinship philosophy of #basedness:

All of this branding is sanctioned by a product line owned by General Mills. I can't help but wonder: Who the fuck is writing this? Is General Mills aware that the Twitter account for one of its products has been abducted by someone who sounds like Earl Sweatshirt? Does the president of General Mills know what “based” means? Who actually buys Hamburger Helper?

Desperate for answers, I hunted down Eric Johnson, head of digital marketing at General Mills, to get a better sense of what’s going on with @Helper. According to Eric, all kinds of people buy Hamburger Helper's products, including moms feeding their families and young men cooking for themselves for the first time. "With Twitter, we’re primarily focused on a slightly younger, male audience," Eric said.

The voice behind @Helper is a mystery moderator "personality," crafted by a marketing team that "has spent a lot of time with consumers, which has fueled consumer intuition on this." Eric believes that it is essential that members on the marketing team enjoy all the things that they tweet about, from hip-hop to TV shows to death metal.

When I asked him why a four-fingered glove is suddenly quoting Lil B, Eric explained that "our brand cares about the same stuff that our fans care about and we don’t want to take ourselves too seriously." Lil B came into the Twitter narrative when a member of the Based Fam asked @Helper what his favorite Lil B song was. According to Eric, "We naturally responded with 'I Am God,' but mentioned that we also really dig Clams Casino’s production work."

Obviously, everything that any major commercial corporation does is geared towards gaining market share—we’re not stupid enough to think that major food conglomerates just want to be our BFFs for kicks. And actually, other dinners in a box seem to be catching on to the idea of freaking out customers, with DiGiorno Pizza leading the way. The frozen pizza brand is hurling football-related all-caps insults at a random slew of followers that inexplicably includes Blink 182’s Mark Hoppus.

The weird part is that the origin of this kind of humor is part of Reddit and 4chan, sites that were once considered nerdy zones far from commercial interests. Is it a good thing that major corporations are loosening up in extremely tageted ways, or is it the equivalent of Drew Barrymore playing an undercover reporter in Never Been Kissed, trying to talk “the talk” in order to earn the trust of the cool kids?

Eric told me that, "Short-term revenue increase isn’t Helper’s number-one priority… We have long-term brand building goals in mind.” Could the next step in brand-building be a commercial with Lil B and his cat in a plume of weed smoke, scarfing Helper out of a Tupperware container while babbling gibberish at the camera?

Could be, bae.

Follow Hilary on Twitter: @jaggedlittlehil

American Apparel jacket

PHOTOS BY JILL BETH HANNES

Photo Assistants: Ashley Linder, Charlie Beaton, Daniel Beaton
Models: Ashlyn Holsinger, Ashley Linder, Daniel Beaton, Luis Angel Cancel

ASOS sweater

ASOS sweater; American Apparel sweatshirt; Betsey Johnson dress, vintage tights, vintage shoes; John Varvatos top, Bar III pants, vintage shoes

ASOS dress, vintage tights; ASOS sweater, Gypsy Warrior pants; ASOS sweater and skirt

Betsey Johnson dress

RVCA dress, vintage jeans

Vintage dress and sunglasses

ASOS sweater; ASOS sweater, vintage glasses

Hip-hop is having a renaissance right now in the city of New York, where it seems like every other day a new MC rises up out of the five boroughs with an even more unique style and approach to the music than what we thought was possible before. Motley crews like the A$AP Mob, the Beast Coast, and World's Fair have given us a reason to love rhymes again. We've written a lot about this stuff, but sometimes words don't do it justice. So, we've linked up with scene insider Verena Stefanie Grotto to document the new New York movement as it happens in real time, with intimate shots of rappers, scenesters, artists, and fashion fiends.

This week Verena spent a day with one of New York's most talented rappers—Mr. Muthafuckin’ eXquire. She snapped some rare, intimate shots with the Brooklyn-bred MC. Thankfully, given his passion for drunk driving, they took the train during their romp around the city. 

Photographer Verena Stefanie was born and bred in Bassano del Grappa, Italy. The small town is not known for hip-hop, but they do make a very tasty grape-based pomace brandy there called grappa. Stefanie left Bassano del Grappa at the age of 17 to go and live the wild skateboarding life in Barcelona, Spain, where she worked as the Fashion Coordinator for VICE Spain. Tired of guiding photographers to catch the best shots, she eventually grabbed the camera herself and is now devoted to documenting artists, rappers, style-heads, and more. She recently directed a renowned documentary about the Grime scene in UK and has had photo features in GQ, Cosmopolitan, VICE, and many more. 

Check out her website and follow her on Twitter and Instagram.

@VerenaStefanie

[See also: VICE's Top 50 Albums of 2013]

We live in a very uncritical artistic climate. Nowhere is this more apparent than in the nauseating world of music criticism. I've worked in this industry for a little while, and there's a prevailing sentiment that music critics who don’t have anything nice to say shouldn’t say anything at all, and that it’s more important to shine a light on the good in the world than call bullshit when you hear it. This is compounded by musicians, who are tiny babies who can't take the slightest criticism, opting for a fantasy world where they've never made a bad song in their entire pointless careers.

This may sound like a non-sequitor, but here’s a fun thought experiment a friend taught me—try to think of the most popular song in the country right now. Go ahead, try. You can’t do it, can you? That's because, as 2013 rounds to a close, no one ever has to listen to anything they don’t want to. We're encouraged to build a dumb little sonic cocoon, an insulated baby-bubble filled with all the perfect little albums and singles we can fit on our mobile devices. And when we don't need to rely on broadcasters like MTV or Power 105.1 for our new music, it becomes harder and harder to figure out what the hell we're supposed to rebel against. And I'm mad about it, dammit!

Anyway, there's not much anyone can do about this stuff. If I had to venture a guess, I'd imagine the quality of popular music will continue to plummet farther and farther down the toilet. All we can do on the way down is point out a stinker when we hear one, so here's a handy guide to 50 pieces of sonic lemur shit released (or reissued) in the past year.

50.

BLINK-182
Take Off Your Pants and Jacket (Deluxe Reissue Edition)
ShopRadioCast

A few weeks back, alcohol told my brain it’d be funny to make this Album of the Month, and right now I’m all about reevaluating shit I used to hate and realizing what an idiot I was. (To put things into perspective, I used to hate Nirvana.) Anyway, I was hoping that listening to this record after 12 years of avoidance would age it like a truffle rustled from the fertile soil of Montferrat by pigs bred solely for this purpose. Unfortunately the experience was more like spraying André Sparkling Strawberry on a pile of burning hair.

BENJAMIN SHAPIRO

49.

30 SECONDS TO MARS
Love Lust Faith + Dreams
Virgin/EMI

Last month, someone in digital marketing tried to “intro” me to a flack on 30 Seconds to Mars’s PR team. He wanted to discuss “potential opps.” In other words, VICE is looking for some bright and fresh faces in our marketing department. Résumés can be sent to careers@vice.com.

BONES JUSTICE

48.

YOUTH LAGOON
Wonderous Bughouse
Fat Possum

The guy in this band appears to be roughly 15 years old, which is so annoying it might just give me shingles. When super young people are ambitious, doesn’t it make you want to hit them in the face with a piece of driftwood? Youth is for eating snacks and getting fat, or, if you’re a terrible person, making babies while acquiring incurable STDs. Teenagers are NOT supposed to make music that literally sounds like nothing that you will ever remember past the amount of time it takes to eat a microwaved taquito. Congrats on being ambitious, young man, but maybe take it easy for a bit and try again when you’ve lived a little and have been disappointed a whole lot. You’ll have a lot more stuff to say.

INDIAN BUMMER

47.

BAD RELIGION
Christmas Songs
Epitaph

I really hate this. I don’t know what Bad Religion is thinking, but there’s no such thing as God. All this music and culture are distractions from the very real horror of human violence and depravity that squirms like a bed of writhing snakes under society’s civil veneer. Law and order is a collective dream we can awaken from at any time. Soon there will come a day when the poor and downtrodden will no longer be placated with food stamps; instead they will sup on your entrails and blood, boiling your premature babies in a cauldron of bullion and duck fat. You’re dialing 911, but I have different numbers: 9mm, 12 gauge, and AR-15. It’s gonna make The Turner Diaries look like The Wizard of Oz.

BRADLEY “DIRTBOMB” BANKS

46.

EXHUMED
Necrocracy
Relapse

I like thrashy, splatter-oriented deathgrind as much as the next guy, but I’m partial to bands like Blue Holocaust or early Regurgitate who at least had the sense of purpose to pitch-shift their vocals and degrade their recordings to the point where entire records sound like a flailing high-pressure vomit hose spraying inside a BDSM dungeon… forever. Exhumed came close on that one split with Hemdale, but by now they’re basically the Steely Dan of gore, the singer doesn’t sound like Butterball anymore, and you can probably fine-tune your sound system to this polished garbage.

BSHAP

45.

YAMANTAKA//SONIC TITAN
UZU
Suicide Squeeze

Our music site Noisey really likes these guys, but man, things must be straight-up apocalyptic in post-Grimes Montreal if you have to play Sino-Indian prog in Noh costumes just to get a publicist. Guess we have a difference of opinion here, and you know what they say about opinions: they’re like terrible bands these days, everyone’s got one.

SLEUTH “JUICY” LOOSELY

44.

LEGS
Pass The Ringo
Loglady

Oh, I see, you named your album Pass the Ringo because you audibly have theeeee BIGGEST boner for the Beatles and it’s so sensitive that even the very most distant glimmer of a bowl cut creates a creamy explosion in the front of your pants, right? I’m thinking that maybe you could have saved a shit ton of money on publicists and whatever else went into making this album, if you’d, instead, invested in a therapist. Or a girlfriend. Or personality lessons. I don’t like you.

HEY SALLY

43.

DOLDRUMS
Lesser Evil
Arbutus

As of late, Arbutus Records has been behind a lot of really incredible artists in Montreal. This album is the inevitable bummer. It’s the musical equivalent of seeing a box with air holes under the Christmas tree and opening it to find nothing but a handful of toilet paper crumblies that Grimes brushed out of the folds of her vagina lips and surrounding muff.

GIRL REPORTER

42.

CRYSTAL ANTLERS
Nothing Is Real
Innovative Leisure

The press release for this record mentions Los Angeles about 54 times, which is about 54 times too many (AY-OH!). But seriously though, it’s all about how they live in LA, signed to a great LA label, record in LA at the singer’s home studio, how they’ve played FYF Fest a bunch of times (in, you guessed it, LA), and they’re just crazy about the scene out there. Cool! Go choke on an avocado, fuck-os. This record has no teeth, and that’s probably because they live in… LA. Don’t get me wrong, the weather’s great, but the only people I like there have already lived and succeeded in New York for a substantial period of time. Those who haven’t and think it’s so great: I invite you to come out east and get shanked in the face when you take too long fixing your coffee at the milk-and-sugar station.

WILE E. CHODEY

41.

IGGY POP
Ready To Die
Fat Possum

Every few years, Iggy Pop makes a new record, and it gets promoted. So he goes and plays shows, and then it’s promptly forgotten. This one’s good but doesn’t break that pattern. A lot of these songs are really fun, but none of them have any sort of progression. Mostly they just begin and then repeat the same thing until the song’s over. Ultimately, this record doesn’t compare favorably with the Stooges’ early records, i.e., the greatest rock records ever made. If I were rude I’d say, yes, they sound ready to die.

BUTT TOWN

40.

FRANZ FERDINAND
Right Thoughts, Right Words, Right Action
Domino

Did you know Franz Ferdinand’s fourth album was a dub version of their third album? Did you know they even had four albums? Unbeknownst to those of us who aren’t teenagers from Glasgow, the Franzes have apparently been engaged in some soul-searching over the past decade. Aside from being an annoying throw to Buddhism, Right Thoughts, Right Words, Right Action is an angsty account of the band’s struggle with (you guessed it) mediocrity. There are a few tolerable songs, but the rest are obnoxious, and there’s a track called “Treason! Animals.” Pass, and then pass some gas.

GAVRILO PRINCIP

39.

MATT PRYOR
Wrist Slitter
Rory

Matt Pryor is the guy from the Get Up Kids, and this record is called Wrist Slitter. Low-hanging fruit, I know, so I’m just going to take the high road and say this album does not, in fact, make me want to slit my wrists. It kind of just sounds like another Get Up Kids record, which just makes me want to cut up this CD so I can stab the members of said band in the larynx so their creative afterbirth can’t hurt anyone else.

SALLY

37.

MILEY CYRUS
Bangerz
RCA

Come on. You really want VICE’s honest review of a Miley Cyrus album? Let’s cut to the chase: another review of Bangerz as phoned-in genero-pop. Defensive, sanctimonious contestation that review is more focused on Miley’s private cum public life than an “actually pretty OK pop album.” Rebuttal that just because someone can shamelessly throw enough money around to fart out a few undeniable hits doesn’t mean they deserve accolades. Abrupt, defensive outro citing the entire review as folly in and of itself. Smug self-satisfaction. There. Was that as good for you as it was for me? My tongue is turned sideways, wedged firmly in the crevice of a confused tween. Does that help?

LOU PEARLMAN’S PUBIC WIG

36.

TEGAN AND SARA
Heartthrob
Warner Bros.

Look. I’m a girl who likes to put her face on other girls’ faces and crotches. Does it even matter what I think about this album or if I actually listened to it? Sorry, Quin twins—I can’t hear you over my girlfriend’s inner thighs pressed against my ears.

BABY DOMME

35.

COMPLICATED UNIVERSAL CUM
Hello Exit Harmony
Questions & Answers

You know, I realize some bands think that including the word “cum” in their name is an easy way to get people to listen their music. But if I could offer these convoluted spermatozoa a lesson, it would be this: It’s a major letdown when you name yourself after jism and your music is so self-absorbed and jagoffy that it completely subtracts from its initial jizzy intent. Guys, soothing horn and 70s “space rock” have never made anyone come, ever. This was proved 40 years ago. Time to move on.

RYAN GOSLING

34.

MIC RIPZ
The One Inch Punch
Dead People Ink

If you’re a white rapper, you’d better have a “thing.” Eminem’s is that he is a terrible, fucked-up person. Bubba Sparxxx’s is that he is a redneck. El-P is pretty concerned about aliens descending from space and taking us over. I guess this MiC RipZ’s shtick is that he totally sucks ass? Doesn’t seem like a good move to me, but what do I know?

MIKE CHECK

33.

GUIDED BY VOICES
English Little League
Fire

I love the part in A Charlie Brown Christmas when Schroeder is trying to play “Jingle Bells” on his piano for Lucy, and she’s like, “Nein, nein. Ich meine, ‘Jingle Bells.’ Sie wissen, ‘Deck the Halls,’ und so weiter. Sie verstehen gar nicht.” It’s so damn funny because they are all the same (obviously), but she prefers the stripped-down, no-frills version, which, yeah, is the best. And it’s somewhat ironic because Lucy, like most of the other Peanuts characters, is informed by the status quo: the more money you have, and things you can buy at Christmas, the better. Her love for the atonal, minimal version of “Jingle Bells,” however, casts her in a Marxist light and, I think, reinforces how much of a pussy Charlie Brown is. Anyway, that’s what this album made me think of.

DREAD MORTIMER

32.

BATHS
Obsidian
Anticon

Listen up, Baths dude. Your lyrics sound like Robert Smith’s seventh-grade diary. “Where is God when you hate him most?” She’s probably stabbing herself in her God-dick for boning the earth’s vagina and creating your species. (What, you didn’t know the Almighty is a hermaphrodite?) Are you sure you want to be asking her questions like that? Because the truth is that she’s probably just avoiding you, wishing she could snag the instrumentals from this album—the ones that don’t involve you scat-singing—and sell that shit on eBay for a bag of weed.

TONY BARMAN

31.

oOoOO
Without Your Love
Nihjgt Feelings

Hey, oOoOO. It's me, Christian. Listen, I think you guys should really consider changing your name. The thing about language is that, most of the time, it's meant to be used as communication verbally, not to look cool in an instant-message conversation. When the people around me at the public library asked me what I was listening to at such a high volume, it was kind of awkward to look back at them, a dead look in my eyes, and simply say, "OoOooOOooh" (extra Os added for effect), mimicking a broken ambulance siren. It didn't help that your music sounds like something Buffalo Bill would listen to if his sex dungeon were in a Bushwick railroad apartment in 2007. Just a thought. Thanks!

CHRISTIAN STORM

30.

VAMPIRE WEEKEND
Modern Vampires of the City
XL

Taking a page out of the Mitt Romney Guide to Indie Rock (a future New York Times bestseller), the Young Republicans Club has done it once again with another sterile-sounding album made out of genetically modified cauliflower and goose-liver-pâté farts. Here is where I would embed that clip of George W. Bush attempting to “get down” with African dancers at a malaria-awareness event, but I guess this flimsy paper stuff is made by Apple and doesn’t support Flash or some bullshit like that.

GIRL REPORTER

29.

PORCELAIN RAFT
Permanent Signal
Secretly Canadian

Since your hard drive is already busting with illegally downloaded movies, illegally downloaded software, illegally downloaded video games, whatever results from searching “sloppy” on xHamster, and selfies, it’d be irresponsible for me to recommend you waste two minutes of your life stealing this. There are swirly distant atmospherics and a trumpet every now and then, so I guess it’s mellow indie rock that’s likable enough, but it’s not worth disk space that’d be put to far better use with a pirated copy of Leisure Suit Larry 4: The Missing Floppies. Oh, and another thing I’ve always wanted to say in print: Secretly Canadian secretly stinks. Except for early Scout Niblett, of course—Emma, we met backstage at the Knitting Factory once. Let’s tango.

ZOLOFT EMOTICON

28.

ODDISEE
The Beauty In All
Mello Music Group

If, after listening to this record, you can overcome the immediate and overwhelming desire to drop an elbow straight into Oddisee’s eye socket so that next time he doesn’t try quite as hard, you might find that this is one of the most winning and rewarding underground hip-hop albums you’ve heard in the current fiscal quarter. (“Q3” if you’re lame—ad guys, you realize that’s like saying “LOL” out loud, right?) Still, this motherfucker is one of the most beat-up-able bipeds to ever get stuffed into a locker, so at the end of the day I can’t in good conscience recommend his music in any form, and I’ve gotten a lot of black eyes from a lot of jocks.

GORGE CATANDAS

27.

CUT COPY
Free Your Mind
Modular

I remember sitting on a plush couch at a Cut Copy concert in 2005. I was about 20 years old, I’d been treating my body like a landfill for weeks, and I’m pretty sure I had a “dime piece” on each arm. I vaguely remember the frosty chill of the raspberry vodka in my hand, and the suppleness of kangaroo leather against the nape of my neck. Now I’m sitting in an office listening to a song actually, literally called “Walking in the Sky” off an album actually, literally called Free Your Mind, and you should really see my face right now. Just take one look at my goddamn fucking face.

ZARDOZ

26.

MASTODON
Live at Brixton
Warner  Bros.

You know when an idea or concept is so foreign to you that you can’t wrap your head around it, no matter how hard you try? Like the fact that they call traffic lights “robots” in South Africa? Well, in that respect, Mastodon are Canadian milk in a bag. They’re so milk-in-a-bag you start to wonder if it’s all a big joke and everyone who downloaded this 97-minute performance is lying to themselves. Think about all the beautiful simpletons who attended this show in hopes of being canonized among their fellow man on a rock ’n’ roll album for all eternity. Then think about their greatest common denominator: the ability to be sold the same fucking album for ten years straight.

RONNY J. HOLMES

25.

E-40
The Block Brochure: Welcome To The Soil, Vol. 1-6
Heavy On The Grind

E-40 was spawned from a time I like to call the Era of the Microsoft Zune (a.k.a. the late 90s/early 2000s) and has somehow managed to keep persuading people to give him money to make unmemorable music. The one thing he got correct is the realization that the days when a rapper was supposed to release one perfect album every couple of years are as dead as Eazy-E, which I guess is why he’s taken to annually releasing triple albums with 45 songs on them. It’s not like they’re completely awful or anything, but this record has a standard deviation of approximately zilch minus nil. If the E-40 of the 90s could have invented a time machine instead of coining indispensible phrases like “Captain Save a Hoe,” he’d zap into the future and Tase his own ball bag.

A THOUSAND-YEAR-OLD MAN

24.

KRTS
The Foreigner
Project: Mooncircle

Dear Berlin,
America would like to apologize for the following: flooding you with deadbeat “artists,” turning Berghain into Disneyland, snorting all your good speed, and all the American knob-diddlers who’ve decided your city is where every DJ needsto be. Like this guy, who was so touched by your beauty while riding the U-Bahn after raving for 14 hours, he decided to cut an entire EP about his super unique, awesome expat experience. Actually, let’s be real. It’s your fault for handing out visas like supermarket coupons.
Love,

DORK BREATH

23.

PEP
My Baby and Me EP
Self-Released

It’s impossible to find records to review for December because PR flacks don’t let bands put stuff out around the holidays because pedantic music critics are too busy focusing on year-end lists to give a single whitehead on an ass pimple about new records. So last month, when an email popped into my inbox with this album (which was made by the old drummer from the Starlight Girls), I was elated. Great, I thought. A record to review! I always sorta liked the Starlight Girls, and I’ve done too many bad reviews in this issue. So I put some Tiger Balm on my neck, threw this EP on, and immediately realized that nostalgic doo-wop is the sonic equivalent of a reverse colon explosion. On the bright side, I did come up with this joke that isn’t funny: I just farted in from the starlight, and boy is my asshole tired.

RENFIELD

22.

COCOROSIE
Tales of a Grass Widow
City Slang

Coco. Rosie. Have a seat, you two. There’s something I’ve been meaning to talk to you about. No, it’s not the smell; I know you’re on a crustacean-and-kale colon cleanse, you’ve told me a million times already. This is about your new album. Spoken-word pseudoraps? Beatboxing? Rosie, you’re still doing that psychotic demonic-baby-voice thing? I thought we went over this! “Don’t sign CocoRosie to City Slang,” they told me. “They’re not even good weird. They’re justweird weird.” Look, I took a big chance on you guys, and I really didn’t want things to go this way, but you’ve left me no choice—I’m going to need you to hand over your City Slang corporate Etsy credit card. And your corporate CSA membership pass. And your corporate vegan-certified pleather flog-and-harness set. Oh, you busked for those? Well, then you can keep them, I guess.

HALEY TRILLIAMS

21.

SMALL BLACK
Limits of Desire
Jagjaguwar

Although I’m a tiny little baby inside a teenager’s womb who’s too young to remember chillwave personally, my friend’s older brother and one of his golfing buddies are always sipping mai tais by the hotel Jacuzzi and talking wistfully about those hazy, nostalgic ice-cold wavy days of yore. In particular they were into this band called Small Black—one of the few in the “movement” (seriously, it’s in the liner notes) to brandish the genre’s tag with pride, even going so far as to print it alongside a hashtag (#tag) at the bottom of all their tote bags, which are then attached to a tag with a separate hashtag (#bag… lying about all of this, BTW). And now the almighty Black is back with a reunion tour and comeback album! Unfortunately after getting hyped up over all the tags and bags, I have to report that these guys are really showing their age.

JAYDEN LOGAN MASON IX

20.

XIU XIU
Nina
Graveface

Wow! An album of Nina Simone covers that obliterates all the profound and nuanced vocal work that makes me love Nina Simone, sucking her songs into a frilly vortex of Jamie Stewart’s depression profiteering! I haven’t thought about Xiu Xiu since high school (“I love the valley, OH!”), but I honestly thought this guy would be in jail by now for declaring jihad on fun.

BARNEY STAHL

19.

WOODEN SHJIPS
Back To Land
Thrill Jockey

While I listened to this album, I made a mental list of the dumb things that it reminded me of. Fast-forward to an hour before deadline, and since truly being capital-F Funny is harder than fisting a pigeon, I decided to cut out the middleman and present the list to you, unedited: the fake band from a commercial for dick pills played through a cheap reverb amp; a much more boring version of the Brian Jonestown Massacre with less money for drugs and gear; a weak, shitty fart on weak, shitty acid.

CHJRISTIAN STJORM

18.

MUSE
Live at Rome Olympic Stadium
Warner Bros.

There is no band on earth that thinks they’re more important and culturally significant than Muse, the poor man’s version of the poor man’s Radiohead (Coldplay). Yes, that’s correct: I am claiming, in writing, that Coldplay is better than another band, even though the superior band is led by a man who’s currently wearing a jacket with no fewer than seven front pockets and probably at least three epaulets and isn’t Michael Jackson.

GRACE HALEY

17.

THEIR/THEY'RE/THERE
New Blood
Polyvinyl/Topshelf

I like the various Kinsella family bands as much as the next guy with horn-rimmed glasses, but it’s rare that you find a band name so horrific that it reflexively puckers up your anus, siphons feces out of your lower intestine, and the shit geyser somehow makes its way up your throat and is ejected out of your nose and ears. In other words, I didn’t listen to this, and neither should you.

JACOB VOORHEES

16.

DEATH GRIPS
No Love Deep Web
Harvest

Death Grips are like that psycho girl you dated in college who was the first person to ever tongue your butthole. It felt better than being on ketamine in space, but it came with the price of explaining to your parents why the nice girl you’ve been spending so much time with puked in their imitation Mycenaean vase. The Grips felt like life-changers when they dropped, but by now, we’re kinda over it and are ready to date erudite women who are sweet and do yoga and shit.

JAWN F. KENNEDY

15.

THE NATIONAL
Trouble Will Find Me
4AD

When is Father’s Day? Shit. I always forget. I don’t want to tell my daughter what to get me, but that new compact disc by the National would be perfect to pop into the Highlander (limited-edition midnight slate, and had to drive all the way to Philly to get it with heated seats). I’ve got a handful of Match.com dates lined up all the way to Sin City, and if she buys me it, I’ll be able to drive around these fine, unassuming 36–48-year-old women I meet each and every week and play this “CD my daughter just got me” to “see what it sounds like.” Then, all casual, I’ll drop in, “Did I mention that my daughter works at a hip youth-media company in Brooklyn with a show on HBO?” Then I’m going to get fucking laid.

Y. R. DADDY

14.

JIMMY EAT WORLD
Damage
RCA/Dine Alone

I am 17, driving in my mother's Jeep Grand Cherokee, windows down, as I play "The Middle," feeling a little weird that I am relating so much to a song addressed to a "little girl." I am 22, a recent college graduate, very broke, attending a "pop-punk-themed" night at a bar, singing along to "The Middle" while some guy fingerbangs a girl in the booth next to me. I am 26, writing snarky record reviews that it is highly possible no one actually reads, racing to send an email back to my editor to get dibs on reviewing this record and then immediately questioning many aspects of my life. It took some time, little girl, but I think the Jimmy Eat World ride has finally reached the station and it's time to get the fuck off.

TONY BARMAN

13.

PETRA HADEN
Petra Goes to the Movies
Anti-

There’s this thing happening now, where kids have to find new sounds and music rebellious enough to shock a generation of parents with Black Flag and Wu-Tang records on their shelves. Going up to your room and thoughtfully blasting an album that sounds like your eighth grade drama teacher singing in the shower will just about do it.

DOB BOYLE

12.

SMITH WESTERNS
Varsity
Mom + Pop

Remember that time Smith Westerns' stage collapsed and killed a guy? And then the Smith Westerns guy tweeted bitchily about how their stage collapsed and almost broke one of their amps or something like that? Anyways, fuck this dick-jerkingly boring band and their roadkill cocktail of shitty twee, shitty classic rock, and shitty shoegaze. I thought we agreed like four years ago to stop letting horseshit like this get made. What gives, America?

EMILY DICKENSON

11.

AVRIL LAVIGNE
Self-Titled
Epic

People used to get all mad at Avril Lavigne because she didn’t know who the Sex Pistols were, but seriously, who cares? I can’t think of many things that are more punk than not knowing who the Sex Pistols were, and frankly, “punk rock” isn’t even a real thing. All I’m saying is that there are way better reasons to hate (or love, depending on your point of view) her, and one of them is the number she did on her ex-husband, that dude from Sum 41. Have you seen him recently? He looks like Richard Dreyfuss’s bloated corpse weeks after he was shot trying to escape a death camp, which makes her the Goebbels of the third floor of the mall.

VINNIE VANNUCCI

10.

THE BLOW
Self-Titled
Kanine

When I was a teenager, I was this weird art lesbian in a small farming town who became very good at the internet during those early, lonely days. One of my crushes passed Poor Aim: Love Songs to me, and it did that life-changey thing that music used to do to us when we were teenagers. But this self-titled album is all growed-up and super annoying. No warmth or tiny, secret vibes. I guess that girl is in a long-term relationship now or something. It’s chill, though. And remember, kids: all love dies eventually.

LINDSPEE LEONARDEE

9.

TALIB KWELI
Gravitas
Self-Released

I had a cool TA in college who helped reframe the way I thought about the world. He convinced me to express my disgust regarding the vague political issues I didn’t quite understand, like fracking, to anyone who would listen. In hindsight, I realize that guy only seemed smart because I was such a fumbling dickweed. I think I speak for all hip-hop fans when I say that Talib Kweli is the rapper version of that TA.

ART POPE

8.

WOODEN WAND
Blood Oaths of The New Blues
Fire

Imagine that barfy face is you, dropping chunks with cameras recording your every spew in 360 degrees like The Matrix. But instead of being a person barfing in a movie scene that somebody slowed down, the lethargic and time-lagged manner in which you barfed is just how it came out. So, like, you started out saying, “I think I’m gonna throw up,” and then you started to puke and it took 40 minutes. You were just stuck there going, “Oh man, this is gross, this is gross. I’m barfing, oh man, oh jeez. When’s it going to stop?” I imagine there’d be waves where for a little while you’re like, “OK, I’m OK, I can do this, I’m OK,” and then all of a sudden you get intensely re-grossed out until you realize that you’ve already been puking forever and it’s impossible to get more grossed out because what are you going to do? Puke because you’re puking while slo-mo puking? On the bright side, your neck would get really sore and after a while you’d just start playing Words with Friends. This album is like that except the barf is the vocals kicking in after you had accordions for dinner last night.

NU MONIE LOVE

7.

AUSTRA
Olympia
Domino

OK, so do you actually like listening to Austra? Or do you just like the idea of listening to Austra? Yeah, that's what I thought.

SUNOVA WITCH

 

6.

SURFER BLOOD
Pythons
Warner Music

John Paul Pitts (allegedly) throws women to the ground, pins them down by climbing on top of them, and shoves his fingers in their mouth, but his real crime is continuing to squeeze generic bullshit out of 2009's buzzy surf-pop trend. Just kidding. His real crime is (allegedly) assaulting women.

CRISTOF BRAUN

5.

WASHED OUT
Paracosm
Sub Pop

Come along with Washed Out on his five-album plan to transform his body into all four members of Coldplay with limbs that only know Peter Gabriel covers! It’s a brave venture, and I’m sure surgically quartering himself (Chris Martin is the left leg, obviously) will be painful and involve lots of rehabilitation. But at least we get to watch the operation happen in real time while ignoring this new record, which shifts from wobbly cassette hiss (which wasn’t even mildly interesting in 2008, no matter what they tell you) to utterly neutered smeary pap that would befit a hedge-fund manager’s Citi Bike ride to one of the three California Pizza Kitchens near his work to pick up a Barbeque Chicken Flatbread Chancho or whatever the fuck pieces of garbage are eating these days.

CHRISTIAN STORM

4.

KANYE WEST
Yeezus
Def Jam

Complete list of Kanye West's collaborators on Yeezus: Daft Punk, Rick Rubin, Chief Keef, Bon Iver, Kid Cudi, Arca, Young Chop, King Louie, Travis Scott, Hudson Mohawke, Mike Dean, Papa John, Johnny DiGiornio, Speedy Domino, Francois Pizza Hut, Lexus Sbarro, Little Caesar. The joke here is pizza. Also, this album blows.

KANYE VEST

3.

CULTS
Static
Columbia

If I were a big-time record-label executive, I’d have a biiiiiig desk and a cool old creaky leather chair. And if Cults came in to pitch me their demo, I wouldn’t get all starstruck. No way. I’d pour myself a tall, cool seltzer with ice while my secretary ushered them in. Then I’d lean toward them and take a sip from my drink. I’d sigh and say, “Listen up, gang! Your melodies are top dog! But the girl in the band stinks, and she’s got a voice like an old orangutan. Drop her like a bag of bananas!” Then there’d be a moment of sad silence and after that, Cults would get all mad at me, talk about how they played ATP when Portishead curated, and how they got a Pitchfork Best New Music. I’d just laugh and shake my head. Then I’d take a big swig of seltzer and write, NASALLY CHICK VOCALS TOO ANNOYING in red magic marker across their demo before scooting them out of my office so I could snort drugs off my midcentury teak desk and call up a bunch of escorts who I wouldn’t be able to get it up for.

DON RORITOR

2.

THE POLYPHONIC SPREE
Yes, It's True
Good

In the introduction to his Kickstarter-campaign video (I am SO sick of starting music reviews with this sentence), Tim DeLaughter explains, “Polyphonic Spree was born out of a personal vision of a sound in my head that I had to make real.” Whatever that sound was, it compelled him to develop a cult so violently repugnant that it makes plunging knives into Sharon Tate’s pregnant belly over and over and over seem like a victimless crime.

ROMAN SLOWMANKSI

1.

LORDE
Pure Heroine
Virgin

Have you ever pissed on your belt? I do it at least two times a year and it doesn’t exactly make me proud of myself. There are a lot of dumb things girls don’t know about male sex parts, and I say that because my policy, whether you realize it or not, is to only write reviews for women. Another one is this thing that happens after you have sex. Sometimes dried jizz collects on your dickhole, and when you try to pee the next morning, your urine stream hits the cum barrier and splits in half, spraying wee-wee all over the wallpaper in your girlfriend’s mom’s bathroom. Then you realize you also pissed all over the fresh towels, and that’s a major pain in the ass. Now that that's out of the way, time for some real talk: Fuck you for making this weird little shrew the must-hear breakout dark horse hit of the year.

TIM TOM

 

[See also: VICE's Top 50 Albums of 2013]

We have been making our food show, Munchies, for four years now. As much as we love it, it only gives us a few hours with chefs that we find extremely intriguing. We thought, fuck it? Why don't we make a full on documentary? That leads us to our first feature, Farang, with none other than chef Andy Ricker. 'Farang', the Thai word for 'white foreigner' is Andy's nickname around Thailand. When Andy opened his first Portland based Thai restaurant, Pok Pok, it was unlike any other in the United States. Today, he's chef and owner of seven restaurants nationwide, with a massive cult following. 

Farang explores why Andy's 25-year-old relentless obsession with a country, its culture, and food practices bridged the gap between regional Thai cuisine and Western palates, the struggles and issues within the American Thai restaurant community, and how authenticity is at the core value system of Andy's craft. 

We traveled with Andy from Thailand, to Portland, New York, and also watched him open his noodle shop, Sen Yai. 

Farang, the story of Andy Ricker, will be released in early 2014.

In our new film, we traverse the moonlit A-roads of Britain to embed with one of the most notorious and misunderstood youth subcultures of the last 30 years: the boy racer scene.

Since the trend of teenagers modifying their "affordable" cars with go-faster stripes, neon under-lights and dump valves really took off in the 90s, the media and public have been wary of boy racers. The government have attempted to force them out of town centres with CCTV, the cops spend their nights hunting them in unmarked cars and ASBOs have resulted in countless cherished Fiat Puntos and SR Novas being seized.

Understandably, this has driven boy racers to abandon the bright lights for the industrial areas, country lanes and car parks where they can blare happy hardcore, jungle and bassline and pull off handbrake turns to their hearts' content. Or at least until the police show up.

In the film, we follow the boy racers as they try with varying degrees of success to unify the scene in their local area. In Essex, we find car meets with hundreds of kids in kitted up cars, showing off luxury paint jobs and bass systems that ruin their girlfriends' hair dos. In the North, boy racers take to dual carriageways to find their own fun – which, in the past, has had grave consequences.

The summer brings with it super-sized car festivals, where everyone goes to race, get wasted and get their picture taken with pouting, bikini-clad promo models.

Cars get scrapped, street races get dangerous and things get wild in a B&Q car park. Boy Racer is a timely spotlight on what kids in souped-up cars are doing today – or tonight – in every town in the UK.

We don't need to tell you how much we like photographer Jason Nocita. You can just read about it here and here. What we do need to tell you is that he’s got another book out, I Heart Transylvania,and it’s amazing. Like his previous books Loads and WAS/IS, his latest is filled with photos that have that uncanny ability to make you feel nostalgia for moments that you’ve never experienced. While Jason has had tons of commercial success shooting campaigns for Nike and editorials for magazines like Spin, Bad Day and Dossier, it's still just getting out and clicking the button at whatever's in front of him that keeps him stoked. You can see proof of that in his printed work and prolific photo blog Loads Daily. That’s why we caught up with him while he was in Toronto to talk about his new book.

VICE: Are your books and zines often pre-conceived? Like did you know you were making I Heart Transylvania at the time?
Jason: Nah, that happened because I went to Vancouver in 2003 ‘cause my friend Tim Barber lived there, and he was graduating. I kind of had no place to live and things weren’t really happening for me workwise. I used to be a printer for a living, and I did that up until 2002 freelance. But I'd stopped doing that and it was kind of a strange year just doing weird odd jobs, then Tim suggested I go out there and we drive back to the states. So I was like, ‘Well I’ve got nothing else going on in my life,’ so I went out there to take photos and hang out. I'd never been there and I loved it, and then I met my wife Meghan.

We hung out a couple nights and had fun and then I talked to her occasionally after that. A couple years later another friend of mine got married in Vancouver, so I went back and hung out with Megan again and after that I just never stopped going back. We started this long distance thing and I realized the second time I was there that I kind of fell in love with her right away. She came and spent a summer in New York and then by 2006 we were engaged and then we got a little apartment together back in Vancouver. Work had been picking up for me so I was travelling a lot, but spending more time in Vancouver. It became a place where I was freed up from work and I could get out to fuck around. It was a place where I really got a chance to explore and take photos without any reason. It was a formative process for me. If I have a style, I would say it was a good time for developing in life, just a different experience, I was really able to shove off and turn on in a different kind of way there. That’s when the first book, Loads, happened. At some point I just realized I had so many photos and thought I could make a good book out of it. Some other shit happened in my life that didn’t work out and I was kind of bummed, so this was something to do. Then David from Dashwood got involved and it just happened.

What was the process for deciding on photos for the book?
Well, it was a love story. It's about my wife and our relationship. There’s tons of personal emails in there. Yeah, it's emo, but it's also gross and real and she’s a part of it in a big way, her personality is in it a lot. My friend, Michael Schmelling, is the one who really wanted to help so he and I edited it and he designed it.

How'd you meet Meghan?
Everyday she would walk by this gallery that Tim had his final show in. She would walk by and we'd be like “whoa.” Then, since Vancouver is super small, one night she was at a party and she kind of hit on me.

What was her pick up line?
I think she made fun of my t-shirt. I was wearing a Nausea t-shirt, which is a band.

Was it nostalgia for that time that inspired the book?
I still have nostalgia for that time. I had a bunch of photos and somebody wanted to make a book, so I did it. I never really thought of it, it’s just my life, that's all it is and that's all I really try to photograph. I like to take photos of where I am. I live in Chinatown in New York and there are a lot of puddles, so I'll take photos of puddles.

Does your wife ever get sick of you taking photos of her?
I’ve mellowed out, I mean I'll always take photos of her but I did that and I will be doing it for the rest of my life. In Vancouver it was so casual, like our lives were way more casual, in New York she works all the time as a nurse so we live a much different life. I’m on the road all the time for work and out taking pictures of other things.

Jason Nocito, shot by Aaron Wynia.

How'd you get the shot of the flies having sex on the cover?
It was just happening in front of me on the porch of my apartment. I was super stoned one afternoon and happened to have a macro lens in my bag and saw these flies buzzing around and was like 'okay'.

A lot of your personal images do look like they were taken by a stoned guy wandering around with a camera. Is that fair to say?
Yeah, I do a good job at that, but I don’t really get high anymore. I eat it now, but not all that much because I gotta keep my head in check and I hate that it's illegal. It's also a bit of a bore, I mean weed culture is a boring culture, I just like being out of my mind. Vancouver was a real cool place to do it.

Word. With the increased amount of images were subjected to on a daily basis, what does it take for a photo to get your attention?
Something that I can relate too. It's hard to say what I would be into to. Photography’s hard, I look at a lot of photos all the time. I like a lot of photographers but yeah, I don’t know. I was stoked on the Christopher Wolf show. The Gary Hume show too, Daniel Gordon’s cool too, I think he's pretty amazing. His stuff is relatable to the history of photography across the board, but it's not really like anything before.

Do you direct when you’re taking photos of people?
I try not to, but if I do I'll try and make it really fast and of the moment. It's totally different when you’re shooting models. I want to catch things as they're happening. If I had a choice I'd be a still life photographer…

So if not 'art' photography how would you describe your work?
Photography for non-commercial purposes. There are great art photographers, but really they’re artists who use photography. I can't relate to it when it's these huge gallery shows and everything’s a 'project'. I Heart Transylvania became a project but it wasn’t meant to be. Loads Daily became a book but it was a blog. I’m not doing like an Asger Carlsen where I'm mangling things or taking humans and making them non-human. Some of the puddles I shoot can be manipulated—not with the camera, but I'll fuck around with shit when I get there.

What's the best book in your personal collection?
Winogrand’s Women [are Beautiful]. Probably the best photo book ever made. I have a pretty crazy book collection.

Finally, what do you like about coming back to Canada?
The pizza! You get two slices! I like it cause it's different from New York and I like my slices like I like my women.

Lol.

All photos courtesy of Clowns Without Borders. Palestine, 2013. Photo by Baruch Rafiach.

In July 1993, a clown from Barcelona named Tortell Poltrona traveled to war-torn Croatia to do his act at a refugee camp. He had his doubts about how his performance would be received, but after an unexpectedly massive crowd of over 700 rapt children showed up to watch him, he left convinced of the value of comedy in crisis and conflict areas. That trip inspired Poltrona to found Clowns Without Borders, an organization devoted to bringing humor into lands where clowns usually dare not tread.

A year later, the internationally renowned clown Moshe Cohen, who had been bringing men and women with red noses and oversized shoes into dangerous places since 1990, opened an American chapter of Clowns Without Borders. Although it remains one of the organization’s smaller chapters (CWB has a presence in nine countries and is especially well established in France, Spain, and Sweden) and has only one part-time paid staffer, Clowns Without Borders USA now includes a board of 13 clowns, four logistical volunteers, and 30 active performers, some amateur and some professional.

Palestine, 2013. Photo by Baruch Rafiach

One of the earliest American Clowns Without Borders was David Lichtenstein, who had been clowning with Moshe in areas of Chiapas, Mexico affected by the Zapatista uprising since 1990. He went on to serve as a board member until, after returning from a tour in Palestine last October, he was promoted to president of the board—or the “Chief of Clown,” as he calls himself. He took over for Tim Cunningham, a graduate of the Dell’arte School of Physical Theater who got hooked on clowning when, at the invitation of fellow clown Rudy Galindo, he joined CWB on a 2003 trip to Chiapas. He later performed in Colombia, Ecuador, Haiti, Lesotho, Peru, South Africa, and Swaziland, and has promoted the organization in Brazil and America. In 2007, Tim became an emergency nurse and this year began research on the impact of clowns in crisis zones as part of a doctorate in public health at Columbia University.

Using juggling clubs and seltzer water to cheer up refugees who have lost their homes and family members is a pretty unique way to spend one’s time, so I called up David and Tim to ask them why they do what they do, and how.

Haiti, 2013. Photo by Bobby Kintz

VICE: Your organization is built around the concept of walking into places that have just suffered major disasters or are in the midst of armed conflict. As clowns. Isn’t that dangerous?
David Lichtenstein: We try to target the neediest people in the world. And yeah, a lot of these places are dangerous. Some of them are dangerous for the boring things like transportation issues—problems with cars and roads. Although we have been in war zones, we haven’t been too close to heated war. Still, there is often random violence in those places.

What are some of the most dangerous situations you’ve been in?
David: I’ve just been to Haiti, Guatemala, Palestine, and Chiapas, Mexico, during the [Zapatista uprisings].
Tim Cunningham: We’ve sent teams to work in Bhutanese refugee camps. I think [that we mainly ship clowns to] places that are proximal to war. In Colombia, we recently did a project along the Ecuador border and one of the towns we worked in was about 100 yards away from a FARC camp. But that [presence of violence] is in the background.
David: On that first trip to Chiapas, though, [Tim and another clown] were both robbed by Mexican police, or at least we thought they were police—we’ve been unable to find out whether they were real cops or thieves in uniforms. And during a show, Tim was lassoed by somebody and dragged by his feet on horseback. That was his first trip and he still came back for more.
Tim: I was hooked. I was like, This is real performance. This is engagement with my audience.

Haiti, 2013. Photo by Caitlyn Larsson

Why did the guy lasso you?
Tim: We were in a really rural area and he was known as the regional drunk. We were doing a slapstick piece where I was working with this other clown, this really beautiful, sweet performer. And you could tell from the beginning he had his eyes set on her. He followed everything she did and was laughing really loud. In the slapstick routine we hit each other with this newspaper. She takes it from me, hits me; I take it from her… we go back and forth. Really classic slapstick. I think he decided he needed to save her, so he let out a yell during the bit and reared back on his horse like the Lone Ranger. The crowd split and I guess I was too dumb to split with everybody else. I was like, Great, I’ve touched this guy. And he touched me with his lasso. And dragged me down the road.

A lot of the places you go are very rural and have had little exposure to foreigners, much less to foreign clowns. Do you consider security risks when you travel? Like guys with lassos? 
Tim: We go where we’re invited. If we have connections with other NGOs that have bases on the ground, that gives us some security. Or we have friends and family who are doing work in a place and know where we could do a show. We rarely say, “Hey guys, I think we should pack up and go to Ecuador this week and do clown work because we think it’s needed.” Haiti’s a good example of that. We’ve been working there since 2006 and wanted to go back down after the earthquake. As an organization we decided not to go until people started asking us to come. We didn’t think it was appropriate for us to go right after the catastrophe because people needed food, shelter, water… they needed life basics. We thought they would send for us six months, maybe a year later, but within a month of the earthquake we started getting calls.

It’s partially for security, but also I don’t think clowns are always appropriate. When we connect with other NGOs, where we’re welcomed and where people know we’re coming, I think it’s more ethical and effective.

Colombia, 2013. Photo by Mauro Rebolledo

Clowns must seem really trivial sometimes in such hard-hit areas. Are you ever criticized for what you do?
Tim: A couple of years ago I got an email from a donor who was very upset with us for what we do. He said, “You’re going to these places and you’re not bringing food, you’re not bringing shoes… what are you doing?”And I wrote back and said, “Hey, I appreciate your email and if you want to support those groups, here is a list of them that are doing exactly what you say.” But we’ve also met people who have had their minds changed after they see us with the kids, and see what a space is like when we come in, and then the change that has happened when we leave.

Is it trivial when you have people who are starving and have no medicine and you go in and clown for them? That’s a good question to ask. It’s a hard question and we certainly get a lot of pushback. We should, though. If everyone agrees with what you do, you’re probably doing something wrong.
David: As an aid group, we are a side dish. We come after medicine and water and food [aid] is underway. We’re also a volunteer-only organization. We just come in for a few weeks and do a few shows. We’re not affecting the economy. We’re doing ten major projects a year and a few small domestic projects on an annual budget of $40,000. We’re just a li’l guy in the aid world.

Haiti, 2013. Photo by Caitlyn Larsson

Have you had an experience where you were like, Oh, this is why I do this. This makes it all worthwhile?
Tim: In Haiti in 2006 we were working in a small, rural community called Torbeck. The kids there loved us, and one night when I was exhausted after a long day I suddenly felt this weight on my back. Before I could figure out what was going on this kid was standing on my shoulders. It was this clear night and we were looking up at the moon and I said, “Hey, hey, Jo-Jo, you and I, we’re going to go climb up to the moon.” And he laughed and looked down at me and said, “No no no, nous manger la lune [we’re going to eat the moon].”

So during this imaginary game it struck me that this kid was really malnourished. He was constantly asking us for food, but after the show and while playing with us he still had this fire of imagination that every kid in the world is capable of having. And to see his imagination explode like that just showed some really amazing resilience. I think we see that resilience with kids all over the world.

Haiti, 2013. Photo by Menley Mazile

I imagine a lot of the people you are performing for havegone through serious trauma. And while there are some universal comedy truths—I’ve been laughed at all over the world for falling on my ass—your particular brand of performance must be unfamiliar sometimes. Do your acts ever upset people or fall flat?
David: One of the fun things for us as performers is that we get to work on a very basic, elemental version of clowning. In the US, maybe people would want something more sophisticated, but basic clowning generally works everywhere.
Tim: For example, we’ve got a bit that involves a clown finding a balloon. The clown finds the balloon, picks it up, stretches it out, slaps himself in the face by accident, and tries to blow it up. He’s not able to do it and we do all these funny things trying to figure out how to blow up the balloon. Then the bit ends with the clowns bringing a child up on stage. One of the clowns is holding the balloon in his mouth and his arm is out to the side making a half-T shape. The kid pumps his arm up and down, and that blows up the balloon. So the kid keeps pumping the arm and everyone’s laughing, but then the balloon pops. All of the clowns look at these balloon shards that are on the ground and they start crying and bawling and we have this balloon funeral.

In Haiti, we were talking with one of our sponsors about the program that we do. We told him about this funeral bit and he said, “You know, this is how women cry.” And he showed us this little hand-waving thing that women do when they wail. So we said, “OK, we’ll add that into our crying bit.”

So at the performance the female clown starts crying like that, and the kids all giggle. Then the male clowns look over to the female clown and go like, Oh, OK, that’s how we cry. So the male clowns start doing it. But in Haiti, when a male does that it’s a symbol of being gay, which is taboo—but the crowd loved it. It was one of their favorite parts on that tour because they saw us as people who didn’t know these taboos, demonstrating them in a very safe way and allowing people to laugh at them. In a way, I think we have some license through the form that you wouldn’t have if you didn’t have the nose or the character or the situation that you’re in.

Haiti, 2013. Photo by Menley Mazile

Have you always been that lucky with taboos? Has it ever just fallen apart?
David: In Palestine last week we developed a little checkpoint clown piece, and that worked really well there because checkpoints are a part of their daily life—not being let through, not being let out. When we started the checkpoint clowning the crowd just went quiet, but then they would laugh at the gags. Also, it’s a Muslim area and we were a mixed male and female group of clowns, as usual. We had prepared for a Muslim audience, though. We took out a lot of touching and a couple of parts where there was hip-swinging dancing because we wanted to be safe. But then we wound up putting a lot of that back in because we realized that clowns can get away with breaking the rules. It’s OK for a male and female clown to touch each other, to bang into each other or whatever, in slapstick. Clowns have different rules.

Why do you think clowns can get away with breaking taboos in so many different cultures?
David: Making fun of life is a pretty universal phenomenon. I watched a video of a Brazilian clowning troupe that went into the Amazon jungle to clown for an indigenous group. The locals had a guy who was like a clown, who made his living just going around being silly and making fun of the daily tasks that everybody else did, and the clown troupe just went in and improvised with this guy.

Speaking of universal, have you ever had any issues with coulrophobia, the fear of clowns that’s such a trope in the West, during your travels?
David: It’s the big white face and clown costume that sets it off. We’re in fairly normal costumes—goofy clothes but natural faces, with perhaps a clown nose.

Tim: In Haiti we had a clown who wore stilts. We opened the show and the kids were cheering, but as soon as the clown on stilts came around the corner they freaked out—everyone was crying and trying to back away. So the clown kind of eased off and we quieted down the music. She got the stilts off in a really funny way. Then, after about three or four minutes, they were back to sitting there, laughing with us. So there was a fear of this big thing, but I wouldn’t call it a fear of clowns.

Haiti, 2013. Photo by Bobby Kintz

Tim, you recently started a project at Columbia to measure the impact of clowning fieldwork. What have you learned so far?
Tim: There is not a lot of evidence out there at all. People have explored clowns in hospitals and done somewhat rigorous studies looking at the benefits of stress relief for preoperative patients, as well as reducing the stress of doctors and nurses in some cases. But really very little has been done examining what Clowns Without Borders does in refugee camps, conflict zones, and zones in crisis.

There was one study where they were saying, I guess, that you can increase your chance of success with in vitro fertilization if you’re entertained by a clown while they’re doing the IVF. People say you’re less stressed and your body is more accepting of what’s going on.

Well, that’s an image.
Tim: Yeah, I don’t think I’d want to be watching a clown whileI… but I guess they’ll never do that to me.

What I’d like to see, though, is if you’d have lower levels of stress in conflict zones. I’d guess there might be better community adherence. We know that using performing arts and art therapy is a whole other way for people to work with psychological trauma and find creative spaces to do something positive. I’d like to build a body of evidence that shows that. Or doesn’t show that. Who knows? Maybe what we’re doing isn’t right. That should be examined as well.

Mugshot Courtesy of Norfolk PD, via

There's a hilarious story spreading across the internet right now about an idiot who asked for a McDonald's application at gunpoint. Either that or he took a gun to a job interview, or something. Either way, what makes it funny is that only a brain-dead thug would do it. After all, if you're going to risk arrest, why not hold the place up? When something makes this little sense, it should be a giveaway that it didn't happen the way the internet is reporting it. But why let that stand in the way of a good story when the public is "lovin' it"? See what I did there?

This all happened last week, but it didn't show up in the press until today. Thirty-one-year-old Tevin Kievelle Monroe walked into a McDonald's to try and apply for a job. He asked the manager for a paper application, and she turned him down, saying he'd have to apply online. When he asked a second time and still got turned down, he apparently lifted his shirt to flash a handgun. The manager, described as "quick-thinking" by the Virginian-Pilot, went into a back room and retrieved a paper application, but in the process, she called the cops. Next, "Monroe took a seat and began filling it out," according to the New York Daily News, and that was when the cops showed up. He's being charged with gun possession, brandishing a firearm, and disorderly conduct.

The McDonalds where it happened via Google Street View

As you do with an offbeat article, the writers filing stories on this are tossing in all the shitty jokes they can think of, and to some extent, I can't blame them; I shit on other people to pay the bills too. Inside Tidewater's story quips, "He'll have a Big Mac with a side of five to ten," although that sentence seems a bit harsh considering he was arrested on misdemeanor charges.

The trouble with all of these versions is that the Virginian-Pilot's original story comes straight from the cops. I do not trust said cops. Therefore, I will now attempt to spoil everyone's good time:

Cops: Man Demands McDonalds Job Application at Gunpoint: VIRGINIA - Police say they have charged 31-year-old T... http://t.co/FWNgPImeLG

— The Conversation (@BreitbartsConvo) December 18, 2013

First of all, as I said above, he didn't do anything "at gunpoint," which is how the story is getting spread. Cops said he flashed the gun, which they didn't see happen. It seems possible that the gun became visible for some other reason, and the manager saw it. The alternative is that Monroe threatened violence in response to a minor inconvenience, which sounds like a serious mental disorder. Some surveillance footage would clear this up, but in the meantime, why are we accepting the cops' version of events? Oh, right. Because it's funnier. Look how serious he looks in the mug shot! What a dumbass!

More importantly though, why wouldn't the lady give the guy a paper application when he asked? The stories all say he asked twice, and then flashed the gun, at which point she finally capitulated. What was stopping her before that? People applying at McDonald's are poor—41 percent of them don't own computers. Requiring absolutely every job seeker to apply online is becoming popular because it's a good way to prevent racial descrimination, but it does give a leg up to people with computers at home. Even still, if this is aimed at preventing racial descrimination, why exactly is the staff lying to people about not having paper applications in the store? Are they lying to everyone equally?

The McDonald's where this took place is less than a block from Tidewater Gardens Housing Project (pictured below), and while being in the ghetto doesn't excuse the crime of toting a concealed firearm around when you're job hunting, it certainly helps me understand the impulse. It also paints a more complete picture of the neighborhood this McDonald's manager was dealing with, and her possible reasons for being a little extra vigilant, and maybe having an itchy 9-1-1 trigger.  

via Google Street View

While the version of events that's currently for sale––in which a deranged thug went all Walter Sobchak at a McDonald's when the lady behind the counter made it hard to apply for a job––sounds humorous at face value, I don't see why we're all so eager to laugh. A 31-year-old taking a job that pays $7.50 per hour is seen by experts as a shrewd, "better than nothing" career move, even while people who already have that job are striking for better wages.

So even if you choose to believe what everyone is telling you about this story, I'm sure you'll agree that it's an example of a really sad kind of desperation. If, on the other hand, the cops embellished even the slightest of details, then the real story is seriously fucked up.

@MikeLeePearl

After clashes in Turin at the start of last week, members of Italy's "pitchfork" movement promised to march on Rome to have their demands heard. The movement is essentially calling for massive government reforms. No one's clarified exactly what those reforms should be yet, but the point is that they should be massive. A crowd of around 3,000 people turned up in the city's Piazza del Popolo yesterday to sing the national anthem, display placards reading, "Italy is rising up" and shout stuff about the coalition government being "parasites," "criminals," and "thieves."

According to the movement's leaders, that 3,000 was supposed to be 15,000. But thanks to a split within ranks—moderate supporters staying away for fear of the event being hijacked by the far-right, neo-fascist groups who've tagged on to the pitchfork protests—the other 12,000 didn't show.

There were a few scuffles, including an Italian TV crew that had their equipment damaged while protesters shouted, "Journalist! Terrorists!" but nothing on the scale of what happened last week in Turin. Besides that, the rally was uneventful, despite the attendance of several hundred members of the far-right Casa Pound group, which has become violent at protests in the past.

However, amid high unemployment and the growing feeling of inevitable social crisis, there are signs that the movement is beginning to scare those in the ruling coalition. Pietro Grasso, the speaker of the upper house of Parliament, warned that "those who seek to jump on the back of the protests" are playing "a dangerous game that runs the risk of blowing up an already critical situation."

However, Cardinal Angelo Bagnasco, the head of Italy's Catholic Church, said: "Politicians should listen to the cry of pain from the street, an unease that is real in our society." And it's likely that they'll have to start listening, as pitchfork leaders have threatened further action over the next few days.

We had no idea Newcastle had such an insane nightlife scene, until we went to almost all of the city's best parties in one night. With the help of a dude named Nigel, our lovably misguided host Adam Jackson dove headfirst into Geordie party culture with a whole wack of overly friendly Newcastle party-goers there to ingratiate him into the city—while aggressively asking why a giant camera was following him everywhere he went. Anyway, if you're at all curious about how people get loose in Northern England, you will enjoy this thoroughly.

Thumbnail photo via Flickr User bogeskov

A Florida man attempted to trade a live alligator for a 12-pack of beer, according to a story from Reuters. The Florida Fish and Wildlife Commission said the man, Fernando Caignet Aguilera, 64, trapped the 4-foot-long alligator in a park nearby, which also sounds like it was probably a delightfully comical sequence, and then he literally put that alligator in a box and said, off we go to a better life.

And for a minute, maybe that alligator believed in the man. Maybe the alligator thought, this man really is going to bring me to a new beginning. When Aguilera took him to a convenience store, the alligator must have thought, “OK, well we’re off to a weird start, but everything happens for a reason.”

Imagine the heartbreak from the alligator when he heard Aguilera try to trade his companionship for a dozen beers, probably not even very good beers. “Is that all I meant to you?” the alligator thought, probably. And what a hit to the alligator’s self-esteem when he overheard the convenience store clerk tell him the alligator wasn’t even worth that much.

From there, Aguilera took the alligator outside to see if anyone in the parking lot wanted to buy him, where he was met again with rejection. At that point, the convenience store clerks called the authorities. “Hey, I know this sounds crazy, but there’s a man trying to buy beer with an alligator.” And the authorities responding: “It’s not that crazy. It’s Florida.”

Aguilera was cited with possessing, illegally taking and attempting to sell the alligator, each of which is a misdemeanor charge that carries a penalty of up to six months in jail and a fine up to $500. Society, Aguilera perhaps thought in his exasperation, a set of customs literally impossible to navigate!

Jorge Pino of the Fish and Wildlife Commission told Reuters, “I think that anybody who would conceive this scheme is not thinking properly.”

According to CNN, the alligator was released back into the wild “in pretty good shape” by the FWC, likely with only a bit of emotional bruising. Pino also called it “a sad situation for the alligator.”

Perhaps even worse for Aguilera, there’s no word on whether or not he got the beer he so badly wanted, or tried to pay the fine with frogs or something.

@grantpa