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New York - Cleaning House


We just moved around our office here in Vice, and everyone knows that when you move you find a lot of crazy shit you didn't know you had. Along with the sex toys and kitschy enamel kitten figurines, we also found this weird picture and a giant stack of ridiculous letters--the best of which we'll post here for you to enjoy.

Dear Vice Magazine,

Hi, My name is Carlos Mercado. I am in prison in the state of Pennsylvania, I am a latino male, age: 32, That grow up in the Bronx, New York., I am in prison for a murder and I am doing 12.5 To 25 , years in prison, I been in prison 8,years and 3, months now. Well i been reading your vice magazine and is a phat magazine to read and the graffiti flicks in the vice magazine are all that and it takes me back to the bronx the oldskool graffiti back in the days.
I also like the stufff to read in the vice magazine it is real and all that. I like your vice magazine alot, I hope you can keep me on your mailing list and please send me a Sept. issue of vice magazine, I would also like some posters if you have some in your vice office and I would also like to ask if you can send ME a photo of all the staff in the vice magazine compy.
Your attention to this matter wiil be greatly appreciated.
Well take care your self and staff, Thank you for your time and attention.

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Respectfully yours, Carlos Mercado.
Sept. 1, 2000

Dear Vice,

Every day I enter the dark cesspool that is the New York City public school system. My school is as ghetto as they come….The student body is very diverse, 40% black, 50% Puerto Rican to Dominican, 9% Asian (not one Japanese person) and 1% Indian.

I dont fit into any of this cuz I'm snow white. There's only one whity in school and I'm her…the other kids are very aware of this and like to refer to me as "white bitch," "white trash," and just plain old "whity."

A few days ago this fat black girl came into the class yelling "that white bitch" repeatedly as she parked her fat ass down right next to me. Once she was through with her "she-white," "she devil" tangent she turned to me. The nearest white girl. I gave her the (I'm white so what) look. Shit. She turned her fat ass in her seat. I guess she wanted a fight. Then she said… "You're white! How come you don't go to private school. All white people go to private school."

I told her that I can't afford a private school. Suddenly this really dark black girl in the front of the room added her two cents to it and snapped, "Not all black people are crack heads." The fat black chick felt stupid hearing this from one of her own team members. She waddled up to the front of the room where she saw a leftover Chinese cake one of the Chinese boys brought for the english teacher's birthday. She stuck her finger in and tasted it. The next thing we heard out of her mouth was, "Why these chinese mutha fucka's gotta make they cakes so fruity?"

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Jill Borr

Dear Vice,

Here are my submissions for the Fill in the Dos and Don'ts Contest (note: these submissions were like a year late)

Do: Remember when you were young and your parents went away, and you and your friend stayed up all night drinking gin and Slurpees watching Frankenstein, then only to wake up walking smack-dab into this slab of weird science, forgetting you've made it. And she's saying, "Your laundry's done, what do you want me to do next?" And when you thought it couldn't get better than this, ZZ Top is the laundry house band forever. This is that.

Do: I'm with ya sister! A little Joan Jett goes a long way. Who needs shirts and pants anyway when all you need is a pair of aviators and some butterscotch 3/4 heels to accentuate those zoinks? It's like if Howard Hughes invented the cum-shot force field. Now we would have really had a movie.

Don't: Why, why, why Sausage Man? Don't you know redeemable cans is so passe? For all you know, Beer Bottle Drive Man's maxin' and chillin' at the free sprinkler park thinkin', "Fuck you and your hot dog light saber, fag," countin' cheese.

Don't: This just gives boners a bad name. What's this light saving homo up to anyway? Saving the planet from the aluminum invasion? He should fly back to Planet Nephew so we wouldn't have to see him parading around in his Italian underwear from planet Balls. For more info, contact planet-homo.don't.

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-Sean Barry

You're Just Oblivious

A Poem by Nic Irwin

Mellow yellow bullets exploded upon impact on the cocaine white porcelain curves.
The grimaced face let out a silent groan of simultaneous ecstasy and agony.
The shotgun style impact left the once clean and pure landscape scarred in this moment of time.
The antithesis of the goose that laid the golden egg.
The calm after the explosion was deafening.
A heartbeat thumped through the silent air.
Another bomb could drop at any time.

Inhale.
Exhale.
Inhale.
Exhale.
Oxygen.
Carbon dioxide.
Oxygen.
Carbon dioxide.
New.
Recycled.
New.
Recycled.

Contracted muscles relaxed.
Beads of sweat ran down his face.
Taut meat became flaccid.
A trance set it, not unlike a post orgasmic after glow.
Silence.
A whisper of breath.
Inhale.
A miniscule ripple in the void.
Exhale.
A state of lucid hallucinations sets in.
Stale hollow air.
Silence,
Silence,
Silence…

An explosion of energy.
A coil unsprung.
A guerrilla attack from the darkness.
With the stealth on an unspecting victim it strikes back.
The dance of the devil.
A howl and a roar shreds through the silent finite surrounds.
The killing of silence.
Cocaine curves become soviet stained.
Crystal to golden to blood in only moments.
The evolution absurd.
No peace without pain.
You encroach on my territory.
I'll encroach on yours.
Your ignorance and my stealth.
No unfilled moments devoid of sound.

A scream.
A growl.
A squeal.

A contorted face once a success.
Tear filled eyes of disbelief and loss.
Muscles spasm working for and against.
The loose skin hanging.
The red wine of life pouring forth to quench the thirst of conflict.
The meat of life spilling out to satisfy the appetite of conflict.
The last place you would have expected.
A murky mess of liquid remains.
One violent act in life's play.
The haunting sound subsided to whimpers of grief.
Gasping for air, pain ripped through the body with every breath.

Tears flowed.
Inhale.
Disbelief occurred.
Exhale.

The life-destroying rampage of a misunderstood creature.
Whatever the colour of pain is it stained that moment of time.
Whatever the sound of pain is it echoed in that moment of time.
He clutched at his wounds in vain.
Blood washed his hands.
Slipping out of consciousness.
His body slumps.
Slipping into consciousness.
Despair hits him as his body it's the floor.
Blood wraps around his body.

The attacker retreats.
Winning the battle in the never-ending cycle of war.
The rubix cube of peace and conflict unsolved.
Desperate fingers cup dangling shreds of skin and tissue.
An open wound.
A closed chapter.
The soup bubbles.
He looks down to his bloodied crotch.
The soup of blood and faeces bubbles.
The tests flay on the linoleum floor.
He blacks out never seeing his assailant.
The snake continues its frenzied journey through the porcelain plumbing in the search of escape.