I’m addicted to VBS.TV.

Believe it or not, I used to hate Vice magazine. Oxymoronically, the only place I knew to pick it up was from the Vespa dealership in The Beach (AKA – East end of Toronto). “Hipsters can barely afford to drive the fixed speed bikes they’ve got in the first place. What the fck do they want with a Vespa?” I used to think each time my ex-boyfriend, then a culinary arts student at George Brown, would insist on picking up the mag. I should’ve known it wasn’t going to last when he could remember Vice’s publishing schedule but had problems remembering if he was going to a BBQ or breaking up with me.

I started to self identify as a sub-class of hipster. A faux-hemian, if you will; a child who maxed out mommy’s credit card at Urban Outfitters on ironic t-shirts and Nylon magazines.

Truth is, I didn’t get it. I found the whole publication to be so arrogantly grotesque that I couldn’t give it a second glance even if it was my only source of bathroom entertainment. Then something happened and it was cool. Maybe around the time that I started to self identify as a sub-class of hipster. A faux-hemian, if you will; a child who maxed out mommy’s credit card at Urban Outfitters on ironic t-shirts and Nylon magazines.

Rehabilitated as a writer, Reado showed me an old scuffed up DVD that read “Vice Guide to Travel” etched across the top of it in Sharpie. Then it was any Vice video I could get my hands on. “Heavy Metal in Baghdad” is still a favorite and anytime I hear Shane Smith’s voice I get pumped. It confirmed that I was meant to be a writer, I’m dry, sarcastic. I want to hit the road and have an infallible sense of immortality! Then it dawned on me:

I’m a girl.

There doesn’t seem to be a lot of girls on VBS.TV. Especially going into the heart of Liberia (for example). But, then I wonder if girls would get the same story as the guys or if they would be putting themselves needlessly in danger. How would I get to film secret tribes of men, rocking out in their testosterone filled enclaves where they drink palm wine and bitch about their wives? Realistically, how could I, as a journalist, transcend cultural stereotypes based upon my gender to get the best bits of a story? Is it even possible? Or would I be stuck with the played out tale of crying children who are starving in refugee camps or the story of women gatherers of the Congo? Sweet… more edible roots. I had no idea… *yawn*

I want to shoot guns. Climb things. Drop F-bombs in clusters, you know play with the boys!

Well, I’m working on it.

Photo: If you don’t know that’s Dennie Hopper and you had no idea that’s “Apocalypse Now” then you are terribly uncool. Do you know who Kubrick is?