PREMIERE: "The Vice Guide to Everything" on MTV! Tonight @ 11PM EST

When Vice magazine first started, all we cared about was sex, drugs, and rock 'n roll. But as we started traveling around the world, we got more into politics, culture, fashion, art, the environment. Basically, everything.

That's the motto of Vice's newest venture -- their MTV program premiering tonight at 11PM EST. Say what you will. We personally love sex, drugs and rock 'n roll and don't see any need for a departure from this lifestyle, but we understand why it is happening. From the trailer above, you can see they haven't deviated too far from the SDRR model though. Since the shows' initial premiere at The Landmark Sunshine last week, and subsequent raging after party at Lit, consider us ready for and on-board with the MTV showing tonight. Let us know how it goes for you.

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Weekend BlogReel: Dinosaur Jr., Empire of the Sun, Soundgarden?

We leave you this weekend with a few new videos to tickle your rods and cones. First comes from cock-rockers Dinosaur Jr. who ride bikes quite well while in the midst of melting faces. Next, Empire of the Sun -- crisp colors, back-beat boggy and creepy swordfish-human hybrids...yeah, you know WE are Standing on the Shore. Finally, we leave you with Soundgarden. Ha! Gotcha. "Black Hole Sun" was on constant loop during the 90s MTV era. Kurt Loader? Come on. Ten-to-the-hour this. Get on my level MTV. Dig this classic.

Dinosaur Jr. - "Over It"

Empire of the Sun - "Standing on the Shore"

Soundgarden - "Black Hole Sun"

Oh Yeah, The Real World: Brooklyn Starts Tonight

Happy Medium is a new weekly feature where we get the chance to blog about an entertainment medium other than music, like television or cinema. Not that we don't like you, music...we just need a break.

Real World: Brooklyn - MTV Shows

Okay, so while the producers of MTV's The Real World didn't follow our advice and send its newest young cast to Brooklyn's McKibbin Lofts, we're still pretty excited for the return of the network's reality staple tonight. It's turning 21, which should in theory mean an excess in debauchery, even for a show that prides itself on such a thing, but from the all-too-dramatic trailer above, this season actually looks like it's short on the sex and alcohol and heavy with some good old-fashioned conflict. 

It hearkens back to the early seasons in the 90s, when the show didn't feel like a 24/7 Mardi Gras and instead focused on real human emotions. But who are we kidding? The DREAM typecast includes a punk rock Mormon, an Iraq war veteran, a gay dolphin trainer, a manic depressive DJ, a bisexual artist, a fitness freak, a former Miss America Teen and, in the most inspired role of all and a first for the taboo-breaking show, a transwoman. 

The icing on the cake is that all of the drama unfolds in Brookyln, one of Stark's makeshift HQ's, home to several of our writers and mecca to hipsters. We can't wait to see what clubs the cast goes to, what street corners they throw up on and which musicians they bump into. (We're hoping for a Tunde Adebimpe spotting.)

The Real World: Brooklyn premieres tonight at 10 p.m. (When was the last time we were stoked for something on MTV? The Tom Green Show?)

Hipster Artists v. MTV Blockheads - Round 1: McKibbin Lofts

This week I learned that MTV plans to film the 21^st season of The Real World in Brooklyn. Like most shows on MTV, Real World seems almost exclusively populated with some combination of attention-seeking/racist/arrogant/homophobic/drunken/sexist /painfully stupid excuses for human beings. (I generalize, but if you’re over the age of 17 and you’ve watched this program or any of its asinine spin-offs lately, I suspect you’ll agree.) They haven’t picked a location yet, but The New York Observer speculated about both Carroll Gardens and Williamsburg as possibilities.

Gawker was quick and clever to outline their own plan, calling for the series to be filmed in the McKibbin Lofts, which brings me to my point. Profoundly uncool non-hipster that I am, I first read about McKibbin last week in The New York Times, which presented the two-building complex as a squalid haven for New York’s most recent generation of struggling artists, akin to “Greenwich Village 60 years ago, or SoHo 30 years ago, or the East Village in the 1990s.” Fascinating, I thought, scanning the related slide show of artsy black and white photos depicting the trendy, creative-looking folks who live in these sprawling industrial relics.

Then I read the story. According to the Times, these kids are effectively sleeping in cubbies, sometimes windowless, often with bedbugs. It’s loud, and occasionally people steal your stuff or piss outside your door. There are lots of parties, but some of them are lame. This is the new Utopia for starving creative types? The music/art/film that defines my generation may be spawned in these massive former industrial buildings barely suited for human habitation? I mean, I get it – artists are supposed to starve and this probably just a stop along the way and fodder for the craft, but it all seems a bit homogenous to me.

Together, the McKibbin buildings house about 600 of what the Times terms “mostly white hip young things.” Located in East Williamsburg, Brooklyn, the surrounding neighborhood is a rough and different demographic. These buildings are effectively islands, and one resident interviewed in the Times story says: “You don’t have to leave this building, with the exception of food. I don’t really speak to the locals.”

If art is borne of originality and imagination and McKibbin is home to a bunch of carbon copy hipsters who don’t see much reason to leave the compound, just what brand of creativity does this environment foster? I’ve never been to the lofts, and surely a few Gawker posts and a Times article don’t tell the whole story. Based on what I’ve read though, I’m all for tossing the next group of Real Worlders into McKibbin and seeing what happens. Even if no one learns anything from their differences, hipster artists v. MTV blockheads would make for damn entertaining TV.

Ashley Herriman - Stark Contributing Writer

Photos: Christian Hansen for The New York Times