Published March, 2005
 EMPLOYEES OF THE MONTH
This issue was written by people with mental illnesses from hospitals in London, Berlin, Stockholm and a day centre care program in Northfield, Illinois, USA. The place is called WilPower, and people spend their time there in groups doing things like dancing a...Read more |
  DOS & DON'TS
This is the truth: two LES officers busted some chief and confiscated his DOs & DON'Ts book. Then they noticed a cop from their precinct was made fun in it of for dressing like he played bass in Crazy Town. The book became an NYPD hit (except for the Crazy Tow...Read more |
 HANGING WITH HILLARY
The Best Day of My Life
My senior year was the best year of high school by far. I didn't rule the school, but I represented both Nutria East and West when I was on the air as a DJ at WNTH, 88.1 FM, the voice of Nutria High. This was from October of 78 to June of 79...Read more |
 VICE FASHION - THE MENTALLY ILL ISSUE
Photos by Tim Barber
Janie: She was one of the nicest people we met at WilPower (we even saw her at her group home in Skokie, Illinois, too). She isn't exactly a chatterbox, though. All...Read more |
 KILLING JOHN
The Worst Days of My Life
I obviously have some problems. Maybe you could call me mentally ill and I'd say, OK, that's fine. I do live in a group home.
I'm on four different psych meds. Depakoate is a mood stabilizer I take because...Read more |
 GROSS JAR
February was a good time to be the Gross Jar. After absorbing the full load of last month's ingredient and being returned to the windowsill, the jar's contents settled into layers and quickly froze, providing a clear cross-section of its constituent parts and ...Read more |
 MY MEDS
What I Have to Swallow
I'm 26, bipolar, and manic. I'm on four different medications. Clozaril is an anti-depressant. I take both 50- and 100- mg pills of it. I used to take Prozac, but it only worked for a little bit and then it plateaued. Then I tried Paxil, and it was the same th...Read more |
 LITERARY
Book Reviews - The Mentally Ill Issue
THE WU-TANG MANUAL
Have you ever wondered exactly why RZA was "perpendicular to the square" on "Triumph"? Or what the Wu's drug of choice was when they recorded their first album? Or...Read more |
 MOTHER KNOWS BEST
My Recipe for a Great Kid
My son Tim is autistic and he's five years old and can't communicate great. He only knows a little bit of talking. He echoes us a little bit. My husband and I learned sign language to talk to him. The other day he was on the couch and I said to him, "Mr. Kogen...Read more |
 OUT THERE
Just in case you haven't heard, grime music fucking rules England now and is soon to be huge in America. We were on it before anyone else over here, so we figured we'd best give you a Grime 101 now before it's too late and Grime Lite is all over McDonald's com...Read more |
 THE REAL WORLD
Does It Get Any Better?
The Real World is my favorite show of all time because it's very hilarious. On The Real World You Never Saw DVDs, you get to see more funny stuff you never saw from all the roommates of whichever season they are doing that DVD about. There's bloo...Read more |
 SHOVE THE DOVE
Getting Over the News
You know that Pink Floyd song that goes, "The memories of a man in his old age are the deeds of a man in his prime"? I sort of feel that way thinking back on my life. I've had electroshock treatment and been diagnosed depressed, bipolar, and schizoaffective. I...Read more |
 POCKETS DUMB FAT
June, 2002: We first met Turf Talk back when he was still Young, splayed out on the floor of Vallejo's 80 West Music like the eager kid that he was. In the main studio room was Jay Tee, lately of Latino Velvet but most notably of N2Deep (they of the lone hit "...Read more |
 GOD IS EVERYWHERE
I Know, He Told Me So
Psychiatry is only a 100-year-old science, and we're just starting to understand the brain. People might call me deluded for saying that, but I think things are a little too new. That's why I was misdiagnosed. I've been told that I have bipolar disorder and ma...Read more |
 HEY, COME HERE
I Want to Tell You Something
My name is Glori Anderson from Niles, Illinois.
I didn't want to come here. When I came here, I got scared. Everyone was sleeping-the whole place was sleeping. I think they were all overmedicated. My psychiatrist...Read more |
 SKINEMA
By Chris Nieratko
WILD ON X
What's up with black people being all into Ecstasy lately? Talk about being late to dinner. Has no one heard of a little thing called the internet? Did the entire rap community...Read more |
 LESSONS IN LOVE
No. 1, Don't Date Crackheads
When I went on Social Security/Disability, I had a lot of time on my hands. When I used to go through anxiety attacks or depression, it would last just about a week or two, but at that time I found myself in a severe depression, and I needed to start doing thi...Read more |
 TIDBITS
A Monthly Look At Things We Love - The Mentally Ill Issue
(A look at the things we found in a day program for the mentally ill in Chicago)...Read more |
 HOW I SPENT MY VACATION?
Going to Florida on a Whim's Notice
When I'm on a manic spin, I'm ridiculously impulsive and I'm barely conscious of what I'm doing. The part that makes it especially confusing is that I feel totally normal when it's happening, even though most people would look at me and see a derelict...Read more |
 THE VICE GUIDE TO ROB'S WALL
My favorite place is my room, because I like to come up here and have some privacy. This is my bedroom wall.
BASKETBALL
The whole house went to a Bulls game. This is Kirk Kinrich. He played for...Read more |
 GUNSHOTS AND DYNAMITE
Working Past the Visions
I liked alcohol right from the start, and I got drunk off my very first load. I was 12 or 13 then. I guess it was around 1973. Liquor really clicked with me, and I was drinking pretty heavily from 13 until about 23 years of age. I got to the point where I was ...Read more |
 HAVE YOU HEARD THESE GUYS?!?
The Beatles Saved My Life
I play the Beatles One CD over and over again. They called it that because every single song on it hit number one on the charts. "Help" and "In My Life" are my two favorites. I think my least-favorite is "Ballad of John and Yoko." I'm not that big of a Yoko fa...Read more |
 MEET AND GREET
Jessica Simpson is a Powderpuff
I'm one of those people who is a Whitesnake fan. I'm also one of those people who went to a Michael Jackson concert when I was in my teens. He came to Chicago around 1986, and I was very excited. But my very first concert was basically a Tiffany concert. And I...Read more |
 THROUGH THE FLAMES
Gang Gang Dance Rise Up
New York's Gang Gang Dance are a bird as rare and special as a phoenix-they're an avant-garde band that isn't boring, over-thought, or ugly.
Gang Gang Dance sound like music of the world-like, they aren't influenced...Read more |
 YOU SO KRAYZIE
Bone's Baritone Gets His Mind Right
If you're anything like me, you weren't a fan of Bone Thugs-N-Harmony when they first came out. We were too busy figuring out the lyrics to Bootcamp's "Leflaur Leflah" to care about these tongue-flipping Midwesterners with perms and funny shower caps. Truth be...Read more |
 MEXICO IS SCARY
Diamond Nights' Own Puppets
Every issue, we have to do at least three features on "music," and to be honest, it's usually a bit of a bummer. It's not terrible, it's just kind of whatevs, like writing a five-paragraph essay defending your thesis that "cereal is a food." Everyone knows tha...Read more |
 ANGER
Is An Energy
The counsellor at my anger management course once told me Britain is in a state of devolution. At first I didn't understand what devolution meant but he explained that as more teenagers leave school without qualifications (over 30%) and the number of young off...Read more |
 DEAR DIARY
Entry: Septemebr 11th, 2001
Today four Palestinian's hijacked US airplanes. Two went straight into The Twin Towers, one into the Pentagon, and one got shot down or something. New York City is chaotic. Everything is shut down. World Trade Center is gone. I saw a million people walking acr...Read more |
 TRIVIAL PURSUIT WITH JESUS
Just Another Day in the Ward
See the picture? That's not ACTUALLY Jesus, that's two psychotic inpatients playing Trivial Pursuit with an attendant. And they're beating him easily because they're so smart.
I painted this after I was taken into custody after trying to kill myself durin...Read more |
 ELECTRIC INDEPENDENCE
All my friends who live in Berlin say you'd have to be nuts to live anywhere else. Having spent a wild few days there recently, I'm inclined to agree, mainly because I was on holiday mode and pleasure was top of the menu. It's still one of the cheapest and mos...Read more |
 UP IN SMOKE
Skunk DOES Make You Crazy
Mental health is a very tricky phenomenon.
The reason I say this is because it is a thing the average person doesn't know much about.
I was the same until it happened to me about 10 years ago when I first put a...Read more |
 SCARY HOURS
Living With Demons And Cat Killers
A couple of years ago I was in a club in London and a couple of girls spiked my drink. I've never been the same since. I feel like I've recovered but my life has never been the same.
When they spiked my drink I started to hallucinate. I don't know what dr...Read more |
 GAMES
Project: Snowblind
PROJECT: SNOWBLIND
This is much like every other first person war shooter to ever exist except in this one they've come up with all these NEW! FUTURISTIC! ways to kill your enemies...Read more |
 MANIC DEPRESSION
A Frustrating Mess
My name is Rachel Western and I've got manic depression. Last year the familiar signs started to show up: "a lack of sleep, spending money way too much and being argumentative." Does that sound familiar to anybody?...Read more |
 GRIMEWATCH
In the same month Vice threw a huge party with D Double E, Ears and Jammer in Berlin, it seems like shit is finally coming together for the grime kids. The scene is moving in every direction. There's the Mitchell Bros breaking Grime onto MTV with the he...Read more |
 CABIN FEVER
Will Take Over The World
Have you heard of that Southampton indie band The Delays? They had a song on a mobile phone advert.
I used to be in that band when it was called Corky. But I left because they...Read more |
 BOUND FOREVER
Anthony And The Johnsons Break Free
Fruity New York warbler Antony has the craziest voice you'll ever hear. When he opens his mouth to sing, this freakishly beautiful force of nature gushes out of him, like he's possessed by Nina Simone and Diamanda Galas or he's being used as a conduit by a hig...Read more |
 WEST END HORROSHOW
Snow White Say No To Heroin & Crack
Snow White's "Bored Somewhat Detached" debut sounds like if crackheads with big scabs on the back of their necks had covered "Silver Machine" and changed the lyrics.
In reality, the band are four quite well-to-do indie kids who host the White Heat...Read more |
 DEEP IN THE JUNGLE
Afrirampo Get Tribal
With a moniker that literally means 'naked rock,' Afrirampo have a lot to live up to. And they're pulling it off. Their out-of-control, avant-spazz wildfire first hit the underground in Japan, then the cognoscenti in the USA, then the music nerds in Europe. In...Read more |
 I WANT MY DVDS
Movie Reviews - The Mental Illness Issue
CALIGULA
My friend's dad used to have the dodgy, porno paperback version of this film. I'd read it bit by bit at his house when he was asleep or taking a shit. Amazing, authentic filth...Read more |
 GRINDING METAL
Whitehorse Test Your Patience
How much you like Whitehorse will probably depend on the length of your attention span. If you can't hold out between chord changes on Black Sabbath's song of the same name then you're probably fucked. Whitehorse are the metal pulse slowed to two beats per min...Read more |
 SNAKES AND LADDERS
There's so much new music getting released every minute that at the end of each month we're basically bursting at the seams. It can get pretty ugly so we have gone into solution mode and decided to patch together a regular column to highlight some of these alb...Read more |
 DOOMSDAY DISCO
Of all twenty first century musical wackos I can think of, Londoner Nathan J Whitey is the one I'm most impressed with right now. He's the kind of fucked up basement rock star that A.R.E. Weapons dream of being. Whitey's story is that he used to be a journalis...Read more |
 ONLINE RAT JAR
An old intern found this disgusting dead rat on the yard next to our office. We weren't sure what to do with it, so we kept it in a bag outside our backdoor for a few weeks. But after the big amount of reader input on the gross jar 2.0 we decided the only resp...Read more |
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