Long Live Punks.

Whether you love or hate it, Vice Magazine has picked up the mantle of gritty, playful, but often important writing that was 2000 and Punk Planet. The content crosses deep over the line into raunch territory and skewers politically correct prudishness whenever it can, and is reigned in only by a dark, sharp wit that glances at readers sidelong as if to say, "Yeah, we could reserve our scathing attacks for politicians and public figures rather than poorly-dressed homeless folks and retarded-looking hipsters. But whatever." And usually, you'll be able to find some pretty interesting journalism in each issue – articules exploring Haiti's vast ghettos to the politics of opium produciton in Afghanistan. It's no doubt sensationalistic, but its also a kind of balls-out, stripped-down, unself-righteous journalism. Curious, intelligent, tragically-hip folks going to dangerous places with the sole goal of getting themselves in trouble and getting a story out of it.

Along with an adolescent humor worthy of a 13-year old skate rag (Tits, ass, and skin of all sort features heavily in each issue. One monthly series describes tucking the most disgusting ingredient possible into a jar of putrifying muck – vomit, decomposing rat, menstrual pad, etc – and chronicling its change since the last check-in), Vice has a distro strategy that looks completely different from most mags of its kind. First off, it's incredibly well designed, glossy, clearly well-funded. Second, it's free. Third, it discourages subscriptions-- even paid subscriptions. Finally, unencumbered by an outright anti-corporate philosophy, it's a virtual catalog of full-page ads for designer clothing, cars, skate accessories and porn.

& now it's got its own internet TV series. & guess what? It's pretty fucking good-- VBS TV. Spike Jonze is the creative director and, word has it, MTV has a major stake (sadly). Remember when MTV first began and the potential seemed enormous? Well, neither do I, but at some point it must've. And if VBS can keep its content from skirting too far into fart joke territory and too close to network schmaltz, while holding off the ire of its advertisers, the format could be something incredibly new and powerful. I would almost say it's where the independent press, with the right resources, could be heading. Check out its series on Sudan for starters or view their Mission Statement.

Punk is dead.

Yesterday was a sad day for the indie press. Punk Planet has gone the way of many of its most cherished stagemates, and bit the dust. Over the years, PP took some pretty big risks in what and how it published, pissing off its readership at times, other times its advertisers, but always remaining true to its own independent efforts. Early on, many of its readers were pissed when the magazine went from a staple-bound rat's nest of barely-bound newspaper (a la Maximum Rock N Roll) to a perfect-bound, color-covered, well-designed magazine. Not long after, it further upset some of its unaligned rawker audience when it announced that, in the face of the suffering caused by the first Gulf War, it could no longer restrict itself to publishing band interviews and scene reports, and headed off – spiny jacket and all – into the world of dissident journalism. Since then, the magazine was one of the few that was unabashedly progressive, and still managed to cover underground culture better than its punken colleagues.

And even as many charge that it was the death of punk that ultimately keeled Punk Planet – and though that might be partly true-- the real, immediate cause was the demise of its distributor, Big Top, and its sponsor The Independent Press Association. I know I've blogged this topic to death, and there's no use beating a dead bureaucracy, but I just can't help it. (For more, see the old Indiepressing). We'll be feeling the repercussions from that bankrupcy for a long time to come. | Read Punk Planet's editorial farewell

Speaking of, McSweeneys put out a call last week for help, in the wake of the demise of its distributor, Publishers Group West. They went out owing the small SF-based company $130,000. Not easy for a small publisher to recapture...

Moving on over...

Well, it took some time, but I've decided to move over from Berkeley's captive electronic ivory tower-- uh, it's server-- and begin posting on blogger instead. Until I can get everything migrated from the Jschool's server, you can check out past postings at http://journalism.berkeley.edu/projects/citmedia/zassenhaus. It's an urlful, i know.