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Dispatch

housing crash

Here’s yet another depressing area in which Victorville excels: According to the latest Housing Hall of Misery stats released by the National Association of Realtors, the greater San Bernardino metropolitan area came in 3rd place in the race to the bottom of the biggest collapse in last quarter’s home prices. And while it’s not #1, the area did manage to edge out some pretty fast-crashing competition from the likes of Phoenix, Reno, Orlando and Fort Lauderdale. (more…)

Posted on: November 14th, 2009 | Comments (19)

Triumph Of Der Cheese: Berlin Throws Der Sheisse-est Anniversary Party Ever

This story first appeared on Alternet.org

It was immediately obvious wandering through Berlin last weekend that the celebrations of the 20th anniversary of the fall of the Berlin Wall were in trouble.

In Alexanderplatz subway station, the main eastern transport …

Posted on: November 13th, 2009 | Comments (12)

Mexican Drug War: The Narco-Welfare State . . . Drug Cartels Take Care of Their Soldiers Better Than The Government?

MONTERREY, MEXICO — Another day, another shootout. Forget about the tropical storm that hit the Pacific just now, it’s raining bullets in this biatch.

It seems that every day there is another firefight in this or that part of the city, and frankly …

Posted on: October 29th, 2009 | Comments (11)

Exposing the Media Bullshit Behind New York’s Supposed Heroin Epidemic

This article was first published in the New York Press.

HE WEARS A black hoodie to protect himself from the cold rain. The baby-faced guy is Dominican, probably in his early twenties. He rushes by me at the Graham …

Posted on: October 21st, 2009 | Comments (39)

Crime Extravaganza in the High Desert: Murders, Drive-bys and Bank Heists

We had ourselves one hell of a crime-filled summer out here in the greater metropolitan area of Victorville. And it’s only getting hotter as the High Desert transitions into the icy nights and gale-force winds of autumn that are starting …

Posted on: October 9th, 2009 | Comments (18)

DESERT DISPATCH: Cash Greases the Sleazy Circle-jerk of Small City Politics

This article was first published by Vice magazine.

We do not live in a democracy because America is all about serving the haves and the have-mores: a capitalocracy, where money talks and broke nobodies like you and me walk. …

Posted on: October 1st, 2009 | Comments (17)

The King and Thai: Global Recession, Political Warfare and Discount Handjobs

In front of Bangkok’s countless sex fronts—massage parlors, hotels and go-go bars—brown-skinned northern women clad in logo-stamped fast-food styled polo shirts still let out their trademark drawn out hiss. “Maaaaaahhhh-ssaaaaaggggee.” But the deepest global recession since the onset of cheap jet travel …

Posted on: September 27th, 2009 | Comments (35)

Pro-growth Shills Pop Up In Victorville To Boost Business Morale

VICTORVILLE, CA—Following the general trend seen all over the country, there’s been a push around these parts to convince people that the recession will soon be a thing of the past. Local papers have been publishing articles with laughable headlines …

Posted on: September 21st, 2009 | Comments (13)

TOWN HALL MEETING IN THE HIGH DESERT: A CIVIL DEBATE AMONG MURDEROUS RETARDS

This article was first published by Vice magazine.

It was a hot day, still 98 degrees at 6 PM, as I zoomed through gridlock on my freshly fixed 1979 Kawasaki KZ-400, squeezing between the monster trucks and lifted SUVs clogging one …

Posted on: September 10th, 2009 | Comments (52)

Dr Pepper’s Wet Dream: Water, Government Subsidies and Transfer of Wealth in the Middle of the Desert

VICTORVILLE, Calif. — On a sun-baked afternoon in October 2008, a group of soft-drink executives and city officials gathered for a groundbreaking ceremony at an old Air Force base on the outskirts of the city, 100 miles east of Los …

Posted on: September 9th, 2009 | Comments (27)

Memphis: Where Steve Jobs Goes To Eat His Fellow Americans

Memphis, Tennessee lives way outside any law. Black, Hispanic, and neo-Nazi street gangs control neighborhoods throughout the city with no cops allowed in, not that most people would want them around. The downtown area has a higher concentration of deranged …

Posted on: August 24th, 2009 | Comments (45)

DESERT DISPATCH: McMANSIONS FOR McDONALDS

I’ve been thinking about sleaze and corruption lately. It’s hard not to. Out here in windy, sun-baked Victorville, underhanded swindles are about as common a sight as the …

Posted on: August 12th, 2009 | Comments (26)

My Subprime Suburb’s Hidden Identity: How I Learned That My McMansion Was A Bastard Child of the 80s

The richness of Victorville’s fossil record never fails to surprise an amateur scam-historian like myself. See, all this time I thought I had been living in a brand new tract home development built on the virgin sands of the Mojave …

Posted on: August 11th, 2009 | Comments (10)

Border Wars: A Day in the Life of a Virtual Vigilante

This article first appeared in Vice Magazine

It is a sweltering afternoon in May on a patch of empty Arizona desert straddling the US-Mexico border. There is not a soul in sight, no one to mind the …

Posted on: August 8th, 2009 | Comments (32)

Are Subprime Cities On Their Way To Becoming America’s Very Own Gulag Archipelago?

It’s 5 AM in Victorville, California, and I haven’t slept in 48 hours. Outside my second-story window, the sun is rising up over the jagged mountains across the desert. In the three months I’ve lived here, I’ve seen more sunrises than I …

Posted on: July 21st, 2009 | Comments (62)