Gavin Vicious
Jul. 22nd, 2004 05:30 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
imomusI meet V*ce magazine founder and publisher G*vin McIn*es at Cafe Chanoma, Nakameguro.
G*vin immediately lives up to, exceeds, and pushes into self-parody everything I've heard, read and feared about him. He's wearing a Skrewdriver T shirt. His arms are covered in tattoos. It's his first time in Tokyo (he's here to set up a Japanese edition of V*ce, something I've been arguing against ever since the idea was mooted, but might end up assisting in some capacity). When I ask how he's finding Tokyo he says 'It's completely demented. It's great, though, you can shout 'White Power' and nobody knows what you're talking about!'
G*vin does a great Rab C. Nesbitt impersonation (his parents are Glaswegians, by the way, Big Man). He seems disappointed that I'm so well-spoken and un-Scottish. I'm also a much slower drinker than he is, and not much help when it comes to knowing stuff like whether coke and heroin are available in Tokyo. 'My Tokyo is a sort of twee and tender-minded place where pretty girls sit in cafes eating very high quality cakes and talking about their cats,' I explain. I wouldn't be much help in a rumble with Shinjuku yakuza. Perhaps it's beer and post-Scottish bravado talking, but G*vin seems really keen to go there, find the nearest tinted limo, and shout into it 'Hey little guy, you with the permed hair!' Oh shit.
Despite his 'controversial' views -- he likes Japan's immigration policies, and came to Machiavelli by way of Tupac Shakur -- G*vin's actually rather likeable. Something about him reminds me of Iggy Pop. What we have in common is a love of provocation and unreliable narration -- oh, and a belief that human nature is essentially good, which means (somewhat paradoxically) that you don't have to tout some 'responsible' moral line every time you say anything. You can let people draw their own conclusions. (Oh, and can I mention that V*ce has good art direction, great photography and interesting writing.)
I have the feeling that G*vin's White Power schtick is really all about wanting to be 'beyond the pale', and what I like about V*ce is that it's consistently and boldly 'beyond the pale'. It absolutely doesn't allow you to trust it (G*vin says that he's making the pseudonyms more obvious these days, to show the mag is written by fictional characters), and it makes you re-examine your political convictions. V*ce gets up people's noses, and its eagerness for a fight goes beyond the call of duty for a style magazine. That's refreshing in a world where product cycles and marketing imperatives are the real fascism. I still doubt whether V*ce will fly in Japan; this is a country where youth is liberal but not 'politically correct', so I doubt the shock taboo humour of G*vin's Dos and Donts captions will amuse Japanese kids, who tend to be sweet, idealistic, naive and polite. And, in fact, if V*ce does succeed here, becoming some sort of barometer of changes in Japanese culture, I'll be rather sad, because I love the way Japan renders irrelevant all the western dialectics which are V*ce's battleground -- perhaps I should say playground. Well, let's see.
As our meeting wears on I sense I'm being categorized as somewhat fagé (G*vin's term -- faggy, pronounced with a french accent). That's fine, though. There's a place for fagé in V*ce, a magazine which often seems to me to be supplying White Trash fancy dress for the values of urban creative elites. (When I describe another V*ce strategy -- Canadians arriving in the less-liberal US and parodying its obsessions theme by theme -- G*vin nods conspiratorially.) Hidden beneath the macho swagger, the sex, drugs and rock and roll of V*ce, there's something reassuringly fagé about the magazine. I work with editor J*sse Pears*n, concocting stories about laptop girls, homeless people with Hello Kitty curtains, and cuddly Russian teddy bears. J*sse himself will be in Tokyo next month. He's curating an art show at Rocket Gallery, Aoyama. According to G*vin, the show is all about pussy cats, because 'J*sse's into all that kind of stuff'. Now that's what I call reassuringly fagé. Or, as Rab C. Nesbitt would put it, 'Ya wee fucking j*sse!' Maybe V*ce Japan can fly after all.
G*vin immediately lives up to, exceeds, and pushes into self-parody everything I've heard, read and feared about him. He's wearing a Skrewdriver T shirt. His arms are covered in tattoos. It's his first time in Tokyo (he's here to set up a Japanese edition of V*ce, something I've been arguing against ever since the idea was mooted, but might end up assisting in some capacity). When I ask how he's finding Tokyo he says 'It's completely demented. It's great, though, you can shout 'White Power' and nobody knows what you're talking about!'
G*vin does a great Rab C. Nesbitt impersonation (his parents are Glaswegians, by the way, Big Man). He seems disappointed that I'm so well-spoken and un-Scottish. I'm also a much slower drinker than he is, and not much help when it comes to knowing stuff like whether coke and heroin are available in Tokyo. 'My Tokyo is a sort of twee and tender-minded place where pretty girls sit in cafes eating very high quality cakes and talking about their cats,' I explain. I wouldn't be much help in a rumble with Shinjuku yakuza. Perhaps it's beer and post-Scottish bravado talking, but G*vin seems really keen to go there, find the nearest tinted limo, and shout into it 'Hey little guy, you with the permed hair!' Oh shit.
Despite his 'controversial' views -- he likes Japan's immigration policies, and came to Machiavelli by way of Tupac Shakur -- G*vin's actually rather likeable. Something about him reminds me of Iggy Pop. What we have in common is a love of provocation and unreliable narration -- oh, and a belief that human nature is essentially good, which means (somewhat paradoxically) that you don't have to tout some 'responsible' moral line every time you say anything. You can let people draw their own conclusions. (Oh, and can I mention that V*ce has good art direction, great photography and interesting writing.)
I have the feeling that G*vin's White Power schtick is really all about wanting to be 'beyond the pale', and what I like about V*ce is that it's consistently and boldly 'beyond the pale'. It absolutely doesn't allow you to trust it (G*vin says that he's making the pseudonyms more obvious these days, to show the mag is written by fictional characters), and it makes you re-examine your political convictions. V*ce gets up people's noses, and its eagerness for a fight goes beyond the call of duty for a style magazine. That's refreshing in a world where product cycles and marketing imperatives are the real fascism. I still doubt whether V*ce will fly in Japan; this is a country where youth is liberal but not 'politically correct', so I doubt the shock taboo humour of G*vin's Dos and Donts captions will amuse Japanese kids, who tend to be sweet, idealistic, naive and polite. And, in fact, if V*ce does succeed here, becoming some sort of barometer of changes in Japanese culture, I'll be rather sad, because I love the way Japan renders irrelevant all the western dialectics which are V*ce's battleground -- perhaps I should say playground. Well, let's see.
As our meeting wears on I sense I'm being categorized as somewhat fagé (G*vin's term -- faggy, pronounced with a french accent). That's fine, though. There's a place for fagé in V*ce, a magazine which often seems to me to be supplying White Trash fancy dress for the values of urban creative elites. (When I describe another V*ce strategy -- Canadians arriving in the less-liberal US and parodying its obsessions theme by theme -- G*vin nods conspiratorially.) Hidden beneath the macho swagger, the sex, drugs and rock and roll of V*ce, there's something reassuringly fagé about the magazine. I work with editor J*sse Pears*n, concocting stories about laptop girls, homeless people with Hello Kitty curtains, and cuddly Russian teddy bears. J*sse himself will be in Tokyo next month. He's curating an art show at Rocket Gallery, Aoyama. According to G*vin, the show is all about pussy cats, because 'J*sse's into all that kind of stuff'. Now that's what I call reassuringly fagé. Or, as Rab C. Nesbitt would put it, 'Ya wee fucking j*sse!' Maybe V*ce Japan can fly after all.
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(no subject)
Date: 2004-07-21 02:00 pm (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2004-07-21 02:04 pm (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2004-07-21 02:13 pm (UTC)Have you read die letzten tage der menschheit, or any of his other plays? I got a gorgeous old copy of it this fall and am just now starting it(and am fascinated).
(no subject)
Date: 2004-07-21 02:16 pm (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2004-07-21 02:30 pm (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2004-07-21 02:33 pm (UTC)http://www.google.com/search?q=giles+havergal+last+days+of+mankind&ie=UTF-8&oe=UTF-8
(no subject)
Date: 2004-07-21 03:28 pm (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2004-07-21 03:37 pm (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2004-07-21 03:45 pm (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2004-07-21 03:57 pm (UTC)http://www.gothamist.com/archives/2003/09/28/vice.php
"For middle-class kids just out of university and living in Williamsburg. the closest thing right now to bad-ass culture is blue-collar culture, so you have hipsters play-acting blue collar. Instead of saying, `I'm a PlayStation-reared, e-mailing-all-the-time Friendster loser,' they're getting lots of tattoos and drinkingPabst Blue Ribbon and listening to theYeah Yeah Yeahs."
(no subject)
Date: 2004-07-21 04:16 pm (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2004-07-21 04:40 pm (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2004-07-21 05:12 pm (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2004-07-21 06:47 pm (UTC)me cringe with embarrassment.
That guy sounds like he will fit right in in Roppongi.
Maybe better to steer him clear of there. Why not turn him on to maccha, the Japanese LSD?
Re: Vice magazine
Date: 2004-07-21 07:00 pm (UTC)so these guys are from Montreal? Did they study engineering
at McGill by chance? When I was at McGill there used to
be rag put out by the engineers called the "Plumber's Pot".
It was disgusting, but with a warped sense of sexual perversion
worthy of a postmodernist philosopher. They were for ever
having battles with the humourless Marxist-Feminist crowd
at the McGill Daily.
(no subject)
Date: 2004-07-21 07:36 pm (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2004-07-21 07:50 pm (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2004-07-21 08:19 pm (UTC)I was invited to a "white trash party" last year by someone oblivious of my background. I was curious how privileged, sanctimonious hipster types might go about lampooning my extended family, so I thought I might peek in for a moment (was interesting being the only appalachian in the place as well as the only person there who ever read Saki for pleasure). While I successfully navigated the stereotypical costumes and incest jokes, I took comfort that unlike other designated "downtrodden peoples", poor rural whites had yet to elicit the condescending pity of the fobomonocult hive mind.
Then I thought of my mother recalling one memorable Christmas during her childhood when she got an orange.
I left.
W
(no subject)
Date: 2004-07-21 09:29 pm (UTC)ah, sir, as always talking about the stuff that's running in my head when nobody else around is doing it.happy to read this. vice has become one pilar of my thought in a way - i love the way that in between all that fullmouthed (and boring)naughtyness there's always a piece that takes it that one step further, like that article about bussiness women regreting not having childs which was antifeminist on surface but not in substance, your pieces, that wonderful one about the great things of friendship or (you should have mentioned it momus!) the list of the cutest things ever - which, interestingly, marked japanese people trying unsuccessfully to speak english as 'cute', but mexican inmigrants trying to do the same as 'depressing' (i think)
(no subject)
Date: 2004-07-21 10:18 pm (UTC)I don't.
Et Tu, Nick?
Date: 2004-07-21 10:41 pm (UTC)Eshew their crude, fashionable idiocy, before your swanlike neck thickens!
W
(no subject)
Date: 2004-07-21 10:58 pm (UTC)this month's issue cover is soooo beautiful
(no subject)
Date: 2004-07-22 12:45 am (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2004-07-22 01:19 am (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2004-07-22 02:36 am (UTC)I'm embarrassed that there's any Scottish DNA in that knobber. Living in Glasgow, riddled with racism as it is, I don't find McInnes' white power schtick particularly original, daring, hilarious or 'ironic'. I don't think the West African folk who're packed like sardines into the tower blocks opposite the Citizen's Theatre would either. Maybe you have to be a bored middle-class intellectual pseudist looking to out-cool your peers to appreciate it. It's not like he's going to run into anyone who'd complain about a Skrewdriver T-shirt - as these days it would appear Japanese people are the only non-whites it's "cool" to be seen with.