Just want to add that as a freelancer I had the worst experience with vice that i've ever had with a magazine. Just down-right evil, slimey business practices. But, that was just my experience.
I'd be more inclined to cut McInnes some slack if I'd seen him exhibit any evidence of being anything more than a hipster Pauly Shore. The level of air-sucking mundaneness he brings to everything he touches may be his single distinguishing trait. It's very sad. It isn't even fun to watch bad things happen to him.
@Freddie DeBoer: You might be right. I Googled around; wasn't aware of this. Ana Marie Cox apparently wrote something for In These Times in 2003 about it.
True, Vice magazine’s editors probably think of skinheads as being passé, but Vice editor Gavin McInnes’ ironic racism and in-your-face nationalism echo the sentiments of young white supremacists everywhere: "I love being white and I think it’s something to be very proud of," he told the Times. "I don’t want our culture diluted. We need to close the borders now and let everyone assimilate to a Western, white, English-speaking way of life."
It sounds like a stupid, jocular thing that VICE would write. But then again...
@Foster Kamer: There's a kind of reclaimed-manliness that happens with people like MacInnes, where when you finally grow up and discover some power, you perceive your childhood to be so "pussified" that you flip around and go the full on opposite direction and become a sort of mental bully, becoming basically a neo-con and a proud "individualist" because you feel that this is a satisfying way to be manly.
It's the same sort of insecurity that drove you to be picked on in the first place, but the converse of it. Where you're still at heart insecure, which is why you get such a fucking rush out of being "manly", and of getting beaten up in underground boxing matches and lionizing fighting like every Vice issue does (fighting is sort of fun, but once you lose part of a precious, irreplaceable tooth the gleam goes off the fucking rose real fast). Some people eventually get over that, and just start being men.
@Foster Kamer: The fucked part is that I generally think of "ironic racism" as a way to satirize racist attitudes (See Wondershowzen's "Immigrants Can Do Anything" bit or pretty much anything Wonkette has written about birthers). Then, there's using it as a tool to mock one's own accidental racism. However, Gavin McAltSteakhead has to fuck it up with this kind of statement. Either that, or the wink at the end is being omitted.
Throughout my 20s, when I was deeply into training in Japanese martial arts, I studied under a lot of very old men who have nothing left to prove to the world.
My conclusion from the whole experience is that "real men" of accomplishment and authority rarely have much to say about anything divisive.
I'm talking about men like Mikami ([www.lkakarate.com]), Oishi ([www.oishi-judo.com]), and Mori ([www.jkakarate.com]) -- witty, powerful, quiet, inscrutable, impermeable and always keeping the ethic and responsibility of power close to their hearts.
To me, the anti-hero worship of Vice, etc. (bikers, racists, terrorists, criminals, etc.) is just childish fantasy.
@SpyMagician: You guys all realize that McInnes' partner in crime is black, right? His bff, and the guy that co-owns "Street Carnage"? I don't think McInnes is racist at all...no more than any hipster, where race doesn't really matter, but someone totally 'different' does.
Also, he's Canadian, so I think a lot of that 'love being white' schtick has a lot to do with sticking it to Americans.
I worked with McInnes years ago. He's a genuinely friendly, hilarious, bombastic dude.
@Leila: I've just never been one to say, "He's got all these black colleagues/etc., so his explicit appeals for white power are A-OK. That's just me though.
@Leila: I'd like to hope this is true. That it's all just an act. Because I like what MacInnes writes, and think he's very funny. But the trouble with an act is that when you do it enough, people start to think that it's you. You have to remember to drop it once in a while.
@Leila: Ahh, so you are a neutral POV. Look, pointing out someone has a "black friend/colleague" means nothing. Racism is deeper than that. And McInnes doesn’t really seem to have any talent beyond the world of extreme publishing, and he’s a tad of a con, so I’m sure he’ll "partner" with anyone who helps finance his only way to make a living.
@Leila: Why is it that whenever Gavin McInnes' name is dragged out of the sludge into the light of day, people crawl out of the woodwork to sing about how he's got a whatever race wife, whatever race friends, and a college degree in whatever? Decent people who live their lives in a decent manner don't need to be defended like that.
(1) I knew no one in New York media when I took my first MB class. My first assignment for my first class was my first NYT byline.
(2) I met one of my best friends in that class - Glynnis MacNicol. She's now the editor of FishbowlNY. Actually, come to think of it, her first assignment for that class was her first NYT byline, too. Also another good friend of ours who now works at the New York Post.
(3) I took four MB classes in total - boot camp for journalists, humor writing for journalists, screenwriting and sketch comedy. Still have great friends and contacts from all those classes (tho my script, alas, languishes on). Also, one teacher, Lynn Harris, got me my first assignment at Glamour (plus a standing invitation to High Holiday services).
(4) I was recently on an MB panel about breaking into journalism, and invited audience members to contact me. Someone did, and he had a great idea, and so I went back into those MB "How To Pitch" and "So What Do You Do?" files and found him the guidelines for the NYT City section, and then passed on the name and email of a terrific editor there. She took the story.
(5) My first job in media was with Mediabistro, writing FishbowlNY. I can source 2.5 boyfriends to that gig. Oh god, 3.5. I have to stop thinking lest I come up with more. Or feel compelled to define "boyfriend."
Point being, MediaBistro courses and panels can be very useful.
Media Bistro wanted to hire me to do a series of workshops for them, modeled after the workshops my own organization *already* does.
They wanted to pay me a small hourly rate. The people who take my own, non-Media Bistro workshops, pay me several hundred dollars each. So, um, yeah. I would be taking a huge pay cut for no reason.
I think anyone who teaches for Media Bistro is a bit of a fool. Why give away your knowledge to make them money?
09/13/09
09/13/09
09/13/09
09/13/09
09/13/09
09/13/09
09/12/09
09/12/09
09/12/09
09/12/09
True, Vice magazine’s editors probably think of skinheads as being passé, but Vice editor Gavin McInnes’ ironic racism and in-your-face nationalism echo the sentiments of young white supremacists everywhere: "I love being white and I think it’s something to be very proud of," he told the Times. "I don’t want our culture diluted. We need to close the borders now and let everyone assimilate to a Western, white, English-speaking way of life."
It sounds like a stupid, jocular thing that VICE would write. But then again...
[www.inthesetimes.com]
09/12/09
... and @Foster Kamer beat me to the punch. You learn something new every day!
09/12/09
It's the same sort of insecurity that drove you to be picked on in the first place, but the converse of it. Where you're still at heart insecure, which is why you get such a fucking rush out of being "manly", and of getting beaten up in underground boxing matches and lionizing fighting like every Vice issue does (fighting is sort of fun, but once you lose part of a precious, irreplaceable tooth the gleam goes off the fucking rose real fast). Some people eventually get over that, and just start being men.
09/12/09
09/13/09
09/13/09
Throughout my 20s, when I was deeply into training in Japanese martial arts, I studied under a lot of very old men who have nothing left to prove to the world.
My conclusion from the whole experience is that "real men" of accomplishment and authority rarely have much to say about anything divisive.
I'm talking about men like Mikami ([www.lkakarate.com]), Oishi ([www.oishi-judo.com]), and Mori ([www.jkakarate.com]) -- witty, powerful, quiet, inscrutable, impermeable and always keeping the ethic and responsibility of power close to their hearts.
To me, the anti-hero worship of Vice, etc. (bikers, racists, terrorists, criminals, etc.) is just childish fantasy.
09/13/09
Also, he's Canadian, so I think a lot of that 'love being white' schtick has a lot to do with sticking it to Americans.
I worked with McInnes years ago. He's a genuinely friendly, hilarious, bombastic dude.
09/13/09
09/13/09
09/13/09
Not buying it.
09/13/09
09/14/09
[streetbonersandtvcarnage.com]
11/14/08
11/14/08
(1) I knew no one in New York media when I took my first MB class. My first assignment for my first class was my first NYT byline.
(2) I met one of my best friends in that class - Glynnis MacNicol. She's now the editor of FishbowlNY. Actually, come to think of it, her first assignment for that class was her first NYT byline, too. Also another good friend of ours who now works at the New York Post.
(3) I took four MB classes in total - boot camp for journalists, humor writing for journalists, screenwriting and sketch comedy. Still have great friends and contacts from all those classes (tho my script, alas, languishes on). Also, one teacher, Lynn Harris, got me my first assignment at Glamour (plus a standing invitation to High Holiday services).
(4) I was recently on an MB panel about breaking into journalism, and invited audience members to contact me. Someone did, and he had a great idea, and so I went back into those MB "How To Pitch" and "So What Do You Do?" files and found him the guidelines for the NYT City section, and then passed on the name and email of a terrific editor there. She took the story.
(5) My first job in media was with Mediabistro, writing FishbowlNY. I can source 2.5 boyfriends to that gig. Oh god, 3.5. I have to stop thinking lest I come up with more. Or feel compelled to define "boyfriend."
Point being, MediaBistro courses and panels can be very useful.
11/14/08
11/14/08
11/14/08
And I pissed on their door.
Then I walked over to Asian Pub with my fly down, where a kind bouncer informed me, "Yo, you got piss on your fly. And zip it up, man."
Moral of the story: it costs nothing (except possible jail time and a fine of $75) to piss on someone's shit.
11/14/08
11/14/08
11/14/08
11/14/08
11/14/08
They wanted to pay me a small hourly rate. The people who take my own, non-Media Bistro workshops, pay me several hundred dollars each. So, um, yeah. I would be taking a huge pay cut for no reason.
I think anyone who teaches for Media Bistro is a bit of a fool. Why give away your knowledge to make them money?
11/14/08
11/14/08
11/14/08
You might first want to check out my certificate program on how to start a blogging school.
11/14/08
11/14/08
I'm going to go smoke some cigarettes and vomit for a while so I can be ready for tonight's catwalk.
Afterwards, I'll be writing free articles for HuffPo.