Let's talk about Vice Magazine

I don't know if I should even get involved but Jess, I guess my point was more something like "Well, do you like the magazine otherwise?" Because there are other things going on in the magazine, with or without the smartass diction they use, which never struck me as the main point of the magazine. Some of the reviews and interviews are brilliant. The Andrew WK review was one of the main things that got me interested in him. The debate about using these slurs is relatively uninteresting to me - sometimes I talk like that with people who know me and think it's funny, mostly with my sister. If it offended you a great deal I probably wouldn't around you. I don't think it's that much worse than making jokes about dead babies or something - I don't take the latter as condoning child murder. It's not a big deal to me either way but I can understand why it could offend someone. If it offends you, fine, understandable, that's a general point about using these slurs that applies everywhere, not just Vice. But if we're going to talk about Vice, I think there's a lot more to talk about even if the vocabulary does offend you. I'd be more interested in talking about the reviews, interviews, articles, and columns. Unless you're so turned off by the use of words like "homo" that you never read further, in which case HOW DO YOU PEOPLE EVEN SIT THROUGH YOUR EMINEM AND G'N'R ALBUMS? It reminds me of the time I lent my sister a Public Enemy CD. She gave it back after only reading the lyric sheet and complaining about some of the attitudes towards women. All this said to me was that she had no interest in listening to the music itself.

stockbroker. beautiful. divorced. fat. busboy. German. singer-songwriter. rockist.

as i said before, i am friends (or at least "friendly") with almost everyone who has expressed a "dissenting" opinion from my own on this thread. including geeta, who tried to paint me into the reductionist "you disagree with jess" = "you are wrong" corner. if i had to stop liking them because i disagree i think i'd surely be limiting the enrichment of my life. but if my friends were as juvenile and purile as vice with little redeeming value, i'd feel no shame.

i like big black too, that doesn't mean i don't think steve albini is an idiot.

The problem is that the word has historically meant not just "you are a person of these particular inferior characteristics tied to your race" but also "you deserve according treatment, as do all such people" which is a great deal to go into a word, and that doesn't even begin to address the "-a" issue.

know what I'm saying? the use of the n-word in huck finn tells me more about the characters of tom and huck than it does about jim, right?

imagine that same book which is great and anti-racist and powerful and all thrown into a crowded integrated inner-city classroom already rife with racial tension -- some gang related, much not -- and kids being asked to read out loud passages including that word. it's like throwing a bomb into the room.

context is everything.

Home Truths thread to thread! Or just d00mie.

You want examples of why I hate Vice? This article got mentioned on some blogs a few months ago. I'm sure this magazine is very proud of its CANON SMASHING SHOCKAH, and I'm not like offended that they're dissing bands I like, I just think the writing here is really puerile and annoying. (And ooooooh, "venereal warts" -- these guys are PUSHING BOUNDARIES. WHOA.)
And I quote:

3 The Fall
Great band, right? “Mr. Pharmacist” is the jam, right? What about the other 99.9% of their songs? Have you ever heard that album they made up on the spot? The one where he goes, “I am curious orange, curious oh-rawnge”? What the fuck is that? Those guys suck. They’re one of those bands your big brother totes because nobody’s ever heard them before and they seem like some heavy shit. Like Brian Eno. Or Roxy Music. How gay are they? All these groundbreaking bands like The Residents or Throbbing Gristle or Captain Beefheart or Pere Ubu or Cabaret Voltaire are essentially nonexistent. Music critics always cite them as a huge influence but nobody’s ever heard them play a note. I wouldn’t be surprised if none of them even have any albums. I’m not going to look into it, though. I checked out Gang of Four, Love, and Frank Zappa after hearing how influential they were and all I heard was a bunch of gay weirdos going “pajama people, pajama people.” Fuck that.

just sorta had to swing into a thread gettin' as long & unwieldy as this one -- everybody sit back now and wait as Momus thinks up another postmodernism-by-numbers response

as regards to the article on jody's post: i remember we discussed on ILM Jody and it was dumb but not shocking and it's just your annoying oyunger brother talking (mine does, he believes i can't possibly like burse with wound and I'm just 'faking it' to show how 'tough' i am).

and if they keep mentioning how the fall and other bands are shit ppl might check them out.

I'm people, and I find it frustrating that their articles are so short and unfulfilling. The writers give themselves just enough space to drop the appropriate names, talk about all the coke the artist does or how poor the artist is, and maybe add one sentence about why the music is good. A glossy magazine should try harder, y'know?

Do you want your annoying younger brother to run a magazine, though? (BTW, I know plenty of people who like and actively listen to Nurse With Wound.)

same with the mag.

momus, since you seem to prop up your lame arguments with this one quite a lot, it might help to actually READ the adorno passage i assume you got it from: after the bit about how philosophers should try to be wrong he qualifies it with "but in such a way as to convict their opponents of untruth." which i've yet to see you do.

Your pal,
http://members.aol.com/dubplatestyle/mase.jpg
Ma$e.

http://media.guardian.co.uk/presspublishing/story/0,7495,804547,00.html

Gotcha. Sorry.

Nah, I think they're just picking at their own scabs, and by doing so, they make themselves look even uglier.