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…

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. Many…

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…

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…

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…

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…

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…

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 tumbleweeds blowing around the Mojave Desert. The biggest scam now is the…

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…

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 cloud of dust…

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…

Living in an abandoned neighborhood in an exurb way out on the edge of the California desert has its perks. There isn’t much in the way of nightlife in Victorville, California, and food options are limited, but it has one…

There are three animals to welcome me home to California: the ants, the grasshoppers and the mockingbirds. To meet them, you walk past the traffic walls to the trash desert. There’s a shortcut to RiteAid across the army-colored dirt, trails…

I’ve always taken it for granted that brokers disseminate lies through the media to tweak property values. But a couple of weeks ago, I became a small cog in the national real estate propaganda machine myself while reporting for the…

VICTORVILLE, Calif. — Ever since it became clear that Barack Obama would be our next president, there’s been an unprecedented run on guns ‘n ammo in America. Partly this is fueled by fears, some justified, some not, that Obama will…

A Predator C Drone Soaring Over Victor Valley, CA Last week, I found out that they got Predator drones flying just around the corner from my McMansion. A reader tipped me off to the fact that General Atomics, the company…

“It isn’t the heat, it’s the stupidity. Keep busy and don’t drink too many cold drinks and heat will never bother you.” —George “Mack” McCarthy, Victorville real estate promoter People have been asking me, “Hey, Yasha, what the hell is…

VICTORVILLE, CA—It was a clear bright day, but the desert wind was roaring, chilling the air to what felt like the freezing point, when I got to the Victorville, California, Tea Party protest. I arrived late for the noontime protest,…

My name is Yasha and I live in a McMansion. As far as I can tell, I have three bedrooms and a master bathroom with a Jacuzzi tub, which I’m now filling up for a bubble bath. But life wasn’t…

Last weekend, I took a drive up to Stockton to scope out a place I could call home for the next few months. My demands were very simple: I wanted to rent a house in a foreclosure nightmare, one of…