VICE Mail

REVENGE OF THE ZANILY MUSTACHIOED NERD

Dear Vice,



I was incredulous at all the bullshit literature illustrated on the cover of your Fiction Issue. Whose bookshelf was that? Some 19-year-old with a sweater complex who thinks he’s Holden Caulfield?

I thought you guys were cool but it turns out that you’re just a buncha nerdos. Tree of Smoke?! More like “trees to smoke,” as in, let’s get some trees to smoke over here, away from these gay and lame books. Jack Kerouac, Woody Allen, and Bret Easton Ellis? Let me teach you know-nothing know-it-alls a little something about a real shelf.

I’ve included a photo of one of the favorite levels of my bookshelf. Some of the other shelves in this bookcase have piles of Marvel comics, board games that are packaged to look like books, and CD box sets. This one has the most books on it so I figured I’d share it.

Here’s what’s on my shelf from left to right.

1. A shitload of Star Wars novels—People talk like these are an embarrassment, but Star Wars is the best movie so it’s no surprise that it is also subject of the best books. These are great because you can get them for a dollar or less at any Salvation Army or the dump. They are the kind of books you can buy by the pound and you get your money’s worth. If you want to know what Luke, Han, and Leia did before and after the movies you can read a book and it’ll tell you. I’d buy that for a dollar.  

2. Guns of the Third Reich—Nazis sucked and we kicked their asses bad, but everyone will relent and admit that they were superior in a lot of aesthetic ways. Mausers, Lugers—those are rad guns. Most guns are pretty cool, but Nazi guns were beautiful. Sorry.

3. NO by Boyd Rice—Some hear Boyd Rice’s name and instantly get angry and accuse you of being a bad guy and say, “How can you have this in your house?” He’s really funny, is how, and also has good stuff to say. Did you know he was visiting Charles Manson in prison on a regular basis? Not everybody got to do that.

4. How to Give Her Absolute Pleasure by Lou Paget—This book was written by a girl and she dedicated it to “My father, the first man I ever loved.” There’s no way that isn’t gross. This book was a gift from my first girlfriend. It’s inscribed to her older brother, from his girlfriend at the time. Most of it is pretty stupid, but there’s a funny diagram of a dildo that you strap to your head called “The Accommodator” and it juts out of your chin, making you look like a New Yorker caricature of Jay Leno.

5. Holocaust book—I got this at Dachau. It’s weird that a Holocaust museum has a gift shop. Looking back, it’s also weird that I was moved to buy a book so that I could remember it always.

6. Faces of the Enemy—It’s good to know who your enemies are. You get to the last page of the book and it’s a mirror. Not really. I can’t remember what this book is about and I am too lazy to look.

7. Guns of the Reich—This is another of my books about guns that Nazis used. I wish I could subscribe to a Nazi-gun-book-of-the-month club.  

8. Statuette of the devil with huge boner—I bought this from three homos in Hell’s Kitchen. They told me that they’d painstakingly scrubbed paint off of it and that I could use his giant golden penis to keep rings on.

9. Six issues of Playboy from the 60s in a Playboy binder—This is a big binder with old Playboys in it. I jerk off to women who are either dead or very haggard now. 

10. The New Encyclopedia of Handguns & Small Arms—I think it’s important to have this so that people see that I have some books about American guns too and don’t just think I’m a freak who’s totally into Nazi guns exclusively. This is my beard. I don’t care about most American guns.  

11. Marilyn Manson’s autobiography—The first half of this is awesome. The second half is just him cheating on his girlfriends and complaining about how it’s hard to get good coke in some towns. I’ve read this about five times.

12. Handjobs magazine from February 2002—This is a magazine for gays with daddy/boy fixations. It would be illegal to publish any of the content if it were real so it’s just drawings and stories about dads fucking their sons.

13. Sex in the Outdoors—Don’t have sex in the outdoors. Bugs will bite you on the balls.  

14. Copies of Penthouse and Playboy from a long time ago—I found these under my dad’s bed when I was little. I think he figured that my mom threw them away. I think if people have drugs or porn or something hidden in their room and it disappears, they tend to not ask around.

15. Get in the Van by Henry Rollins—Man, this book’s so good. This guy gets smarter all the time.

16. Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles collection of the first 12 issues—These are amazing. So much black blood.

17. Man, Myth & Magic, vols. 1, 2, 4, 5—Pretty much everything you need to know about the occult is in here. Satanic rituals? Druids? Crystals? Thrice, yes.

18. The Book of Erotic Failures—This book isn’t as funny as the cover and title might make you think. It’s mostly about people who died or were misinformed about how sex worked. It’s mostly incredibly sad or horrifying.

19. Scientology book—There are a lot of good points in Scientology. The only bad parts are where you give them all your money and the guy who runs it is possibly a violent maniac who is beating his underlings halfway to death before taking them the rest of the way there.

And there you have it. I hope you’ve learned your lesson.

Sincerely, 

NICHOLAS GAZIN
New York, NY