I don’t expect to learn anything from MTV, other than the importance of “T-Shirt Time,” so when I saw the commercials for the news program The Vice Guide to Everything to say I was skeptical about the quality of the show might be an understatement.
Vice Magazine, started in Montreal but now based in my hometown Brooklyn, has been a cornerstone of hipster culture for years now. You can pick up copies of the magazine at American Apparel. I’m pretty sure I have one of their books The Vice Guide to Sex, Drugs and Rock & Roll around my apartment somewhere, which is entertaining and snarky but I wouldn’t exactly consider it informative in any serious way.
This show, however, is. Seriously. I watched an episode recently and now I need to see all of them. The news segments are brief — about six minutes — but all of them were extremely interesting. One involved a correspondent testing out bulletproof clothing. Another, the most interesting (and fucked up) segment of the four took the viewer to an Arms Convention in the Middle East where generals from all over the world and weapon makers (most of which are American companies) commiserate over the newest and most effective products for maiming, killing, destroying and blowing shit up.
I highly recommend checking out the show.