The Latest Underground News, Articles, Features, Stories

Have you ever been to Michigan in the middle of the summer? It’s retarded. I grew up in the pollen-choked flatlands of the Bible Belt so I thought I knew from heat and humidity, but Detroit, a city widely believed to reside in “the North,” completely put me through the wringer. If you’ve ever spent a full day working(/talking to people while some poor asshole points a 20-pound camera at your greasy mug) outside in 95-degree direct sunlight, it does this thing to your body that basically turns beer into gatorade. Anyways, not to put too fine a point on it, but it might add to the viewing experience of “today’s chat”: if you shotgunned a couple Millers before hitting play and maybe hung out in a gas station parking lot with the Nation of Islam’s mayoral candidate for the afternoon or something.

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MEMORIES OF MEDELLÍN: PABLO ESCOBAR’S PERSONAL PAPARAZZO

August 20, 2009
by VBS Staff

VBS Meets

Edgar Jimenez

Edgar Jimenez, aka El Chino, was a puny classmate of Pablo Escobar’s at Antioqueño junior high school in Colombia back in the 60s. While Escobar used the ensuing years to become his generation’s greatest murderous narco superstar, El Chino slunk off to a dull life as a local wedding photographer.

But after a chance reunion in the early 80s, Escobar recruited El Chino to become his personal picture taker, documenting his political campaigns, his private parties, and the various goings-on at Escobar’s outlandish 4,500-acre estate, Hacienda Nápoles. El Chino spent the next decade in Escobar’s employ, enjoying total access and fussing over which of the drug lord’s associates was open to having his picture taken. This continued until the CIA, Los Pepes, Delta Force, Search Bloc, and a bunch of other people who wanted Escobar’s head on a platter converged to dismantle the Medellín Cartel.

Recently Jimenez invited Vice out to his home in the Aranjuez neighborhood of Medellín, where he let us rifle through his archives. These are our favorites.

Do not miss our not-to-be-missed interview with El Chino.

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VBS FLIPS THROUGH THE ESCOBAR FAMILY PHOTO ALBUM

August 10, 2009
by VBS Staff

VBS Meets

This week VBS heads to Colombia to meet with El Chino, ne Edgar Jimenez, a photographer from Medellin who just happened to grow up with one of the country’s most colorful statesmen, animal lovers, and, incidentally, murderous, world-changing druglords. After simultaneously rising through the ranks of the world’s most wealthy businessmen and the FBI’s most wanted list, Pablo Escobar hired Edgar to document his home life. You know, just basic family-portrait type stuff, birthdays, quinceañeras, visits to the home exotic-animal menagerie, Christmases, the construction of enormous dinosaur statues, weddings, etc. Don’t let the fact that these pictures involve the most notorious criminal of the last 50 years or that Edgar had basically unfettered access to the kingpin of a $25-billion drug empire throw you: These are same boring, run-of-mill family snapshots you’d see magneted to anyone’s parents’ fridge. Honestly, we’re not even sure why we’re running this. Click below for a taste of what’s to come (if you aren’t already asleep).

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DARIO ARGENTO'S VILLA OF EVIL

July 14, 2009
by ANDY CAPPER

VBS Meets

Hello fright fans! This is me in the San Lorenzo area of Rome, on the way to meet one of the “Masters of Horror,” Dario Argento.

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COFFIN JOE TAKES BRAZIL'S LOVE OF ASS-EATING TO STRANGE, EXCITING NEW PLACES

June 09, 2009
by DAVID FEINBERG

VBS Meets

There’s a scene in José Mojica Marins’s 2008 film Embodiment of Evil in which his Coffin Joe character dissects a chunk of a drugged, hapless young lady’s gluteus maximus (butt cheek) and then proceeds to feed it to her. Sadly this clip did not make it into “VBS Meets Coffin Joe.” However, there are plenty of others to make you feel good on your lunch break.

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