This article first appeared in The New York Press. There was a strange moment last week during President Obama’s speech at Cooper Union. There he was, groveling before a cast of Wall Street villains including Goldman Sachs chief Lloyd Blankfein,…

A version of this article first appeared in The New York Press Ever since I got kicked out of Russia and forced back home, I’ve been collecting all kinds of news articles about fraud, in a document file titled “America…

As we explained in our last issue, the eXile has created this new feature, the Schopenhauer Award, to serve the spiritual needs of our readers. Concerned that some of you might be backsliding from pure Nihilism, we’ve come up with…

I came across this practical nugget of wisdom from Teamster’s Union mafia don Jimmy Hoffa, as recounted from the death bed confessions of the legendary Mafia hitman Frank “The Irishman” Sheeran: Jimmy said, “You always run away from a man…

This article was first published on Alternet.org “I would rather live under a bridge than live under socialism” —tea bagger slogan   Everyone knows that Tea Party revolutionaries fear and hate socialism about as much as the Antichrist. Which is…

Story first published on AlterNet Anyone interested in taking the pulse of the GOP base in 2010 has a few options. They can watch Fox News at any hour of any day. They can trot down to their local Tea…

Hey there drug war fans, I got some statistics to throw your way. While you gringos pay attention to the unemployment rate and foreclosure statistics, we here in Mexico track the national kill count—how many people died, who suffered the…

On February 17, 1967, the newspapers ran stories about a sensational new investigation into JFK’s assassination, headed by a New Orleans DA named Jim Garrison, who called into question the “lone gunman” theory laying all the blame on Lee Harvey…

Of course it goes without saying that you don’t watch Glee, you couldn’t care less about Glee, you wouldn’t touch Glee with a stick. It’s a teen musical on TV, for Christ’s sake, there could hardly be anything lamer than…

Lotta books on The Big Lebowski have come out recently, and I’ve slogged through them so you don’t have to: I’m a Lebowski, You’re a Lebowski by Bill Green, Ben Peskoe, Will Russell, and Scott Shuffitt The Dude Abides: The…

Mark Ames joins Vanity Fair writer James Verini for an interview on the NPR radio show “Here & Now” with host Robin Young in Boston. They talk about the incredible 11-year history of the Moscow newspaper “The eXile” which was the…

Faced!  Wheelchair-bound eXiled Editor Yasha Levine finds out that in Russia, provincial clubbing ain’t for cripples Editor’s note: We reprint this eXile Classic, first published in The eXile on September 25, 2007, to commemorate Russia’s recent triumph in the Vancouver Winter…

Imagine the devastating flooding of Hurricane Katrina multiplied by epic sandstorms, drought and economic collapse of the Dust Bowl. Now picture it happening an hour east of Apple’s headquarters in Silicon Valley and spreading all the way down to the Mexican border. It’s not as far-fetched as you think. A routine 6.7-magnitude earthquake would be enough to set it off…

This story was first published on Alternet. There is a fresh interpretive fad in the young field of Tea Party Studies: The New Right of 2010 as the New Left of the 1960s. According to this nascent meme, today’s conservative…

Every day I make the same mistake: reading other people’s errors. Today’s Error: “Zach Galifianakis is funny.” They’ve even named him the “2nd Funniest Actor In Hollywood.” Zach Galifianakis is not funny. And if you think he is, you must stop…

Mark Ames gets his thrombo on debating (by way of shouting) with right-wing radio host Chuck Morse and liberal radio host Patrick O’Heffernan on their AM radio show “The Fairness Doctrine.” Hear them reach for blunt, heavy objects as they…

Alex Chilton died of a heart attack a few hours ago. It’s a wonder his heart held out this long. Alex Chilton’s story always scared me more than the others–I’d figured he was already dead, for some reason–because in the…

See that trophy above, the one that looks like an upside-down bottle of VOSS designer water? That’s what the Western Publishers Association, a trade group for magazine publishers operating out in the wild west, wants to hand eXile Editor Yasha Levine…

So it’s that time of the year again. That time of the year when you put on the stupid, oversized green hat, get outrageously drunk, approach a young man/woman/shaved-ape in a bleary haze and ramble on about how your third-cousin’s…

I woke up for the second morning in a row with a vague feeling that something terrible had happened. Then I remembered I watched the Oscars.

I had just moved into a house in the northern suburbs of Colorado Springs, and was getting to know one of my new roommates, a very attractive female in her mid 20’s. This was promising. At some point though, the…

Today is March 8, meaning it’s International Women’s Day in the former Warsaw Pact nations. It brings back mixed emotions–gagging, for starters, just remembering the revolting cheesiness of those fat, vain Russian TV hosts showing off their toasting skills in…

Burton’s Alice in Wonderland is messed up in some ways—we’ll get to that in a second—but it’s seriously beautiful at intervals that command attention. There’s a war theme in it that’s pursued with surprising gravity. Example: the Mad Hatter (Johnny…

This article was first published in The eXile on March 6, 2008. In this post-Russian presidential election issue, while the righteous American editorialists wag their fingers at Russia’s farcical elections, we want to hold up a giant mirror (with loudspeaker…

I told you I’d be updating the situation if it got hot, so here I am, because some heavy shit went down yesterday, when the army ran into the Zetas north of Monterrey. I don’t think that any of your…