LA on Vice

Nocturnal Submissions

Nasty All Over

Turning onto Wilde Street from South Central Avenue, the surface is crackled like red veins across an alcoholic’s nose. Only a single block long, Wilde looks nothing more than mundane in the daylight image on Google Maps, but at five AM in the dark outskirts of my low beams, desperate silhouettes stumble about, forever in decline. Full story

Nocturnal Submissions

Goodbye, So-Long, Motherfucker

1987. It’s summertime on Victory Boulevard, 101 degrees, dry and windy. I’m in the Camaro with the air conditioner on, playing in traffic. I’ve got $200 and I’m on my way to buy some cocaine. At a light I see a working San Fernando Valley girl. She’s got mean eyes and her hands a… Full story

Nocturnal Submissions

All Alone at Four in the Morning

I’ve just photographed a tall thin naked transvestite whore in a MacArthur Park motel room, and I’m in a good mood. The air is misty and cold. I’m walking the wrong way back to the car, trying to maneuver with my cane and camera down a blacktop hill past a motel corridor. A door… Full story

Jeff Goldblum Is a Six-Foot Pianist

Every Wednesday in Los Angeles, Jeff Goldblum plays jazz tunes for free. It sounds like a joke, but it's not. It probably isn't very LA cool of me, but when I saw that Dr. Ian Malcolm tickles the ivory right in my backyard, well, sorry, but my honky, Midwestern-transplant ass cou… Full story

Meet the Nieratkos

Patrick O’Dell’s Skateboard High School

Patrick O’Dell is having an art show called 'Skateboard High School' tonight at LA’s Known Gallery. I wish I were flying to LA this weekend so I could see it, but I'm not, so instead I made him send me a copy of the limited-edition book from the show and emailed him some question… Full story

Nocturnal Submissions

Cats Fucking

1988. I’m on Central Avenue about a mile south of wise decisions. A warm wind is blowing through the desert that is Los Angeles. It's 4:00 AM when I spy a skinny wreck in spike heels, short-shorts, and a halter top. She gives a wink and a wave, and I pull into an empty lot next t… Full story

Nocturnal Submissions

Sticking a Used Condom to the Wall

1989. Harbor Boulevard in Santa Ana. I’ve only been here twice, both times to buy drugs. I’ve got a premonition I’m going to find love and affection as I drive toward a group of motels near Anaheim. I know exactly what I’m looking for, and when I find her, she climbs in the car,… Full story

Meet the Nieratkos

LA Pizza That Doesn’t Suck?

All pizza in Los Angeles sucks. It’s a law written in blood. And yet former pro skater Salman Agah believes he is above the law with his eatery Pizzanista, which churns out miracle pies. I chatted with Salman to find out what the secret of not sucking in LA is. Full story

Nocturnal Submissions

Close to the Goodyear Blimp

1986, I’m somewhere off the 110 freeway close to the Goodyear Blimp in Gardena. I’m dodging potholes, spinning yarns in my head, thinking about all the things I’m gonna be someday. I drive slowly looking for models in the shadows, but what I see is a clump of mean- and bitter-loo… Full story

Nocturnal Submissions

Big Motherfuckin' Boobies

Scot Sothern is a Los Angeles-based photographer and a big prostitute fan. Over the past two decades Scot has slept with and/or photographed a plethora of LA’s sex workers. His photos invoke such a visceral reaction in the viewer, and raise so many questions, that we decided to g… Full story