DEAR VICE - I FOUND THE LENS

Here's a nice little note we got from our new friend Hallie, who's traveling around Europe talking to strangers. She found someone really "deep" in suburban Italy.

Dear Vice,
I met Ivan in suburban Italy, where he ate sheets of ham and packaged chocolate cake for every meal. He's a Croatian who’s restricted to only live in Italy due to beating up a cop in Spain and getting one of his passports revoked (the story was foggy). He only listens to hardcore, and because he didn’t have air-conditioning, he made us go to an underground garage and watch Eastern European historical romantic comedies during the hottest parts of the day. When he asked if I wanted to stay for a while I said sure, and found out that little Italian suburbs are basically just like America’s. To squelch the pain of being trapped in Italy instead of the hovel of the country he grew up in, Ivan solemnly rides his trial bike all day, shin-guarded up like a storm trooper to hop on potted plants and fall off ledges. It was beyond me to clue him in on the fact that Croatia, particularly Split, is nicely called a “developing country” the same way ugly girls are described as having a good personality and that Italy is a vast, and only slightly dull, improvement.

I asked if I could take a picture of him and he said, “With my helmet on.” He was very proud of the helmet and showed me what every drawing was on there. Then he took his helmet off and suggested I snap a few of his tribal “man” tattoo.

His next tattoo is going to be a silhouette of a naked pregnant lady sans head, perhaps opposite his tattooed man. When I asked why, he said, “Without the head, it could be a girl or a guy.” I pointed out that actually it couldn’t, especially if he wanted the picture to have “big tits” like he said, but he just shook his head and furrowed his brow.  

On his porch one evening, after a diner of meat that he prepared, we listened to Scratch Acid while he told me how once he fucked a girl outdoors so hard that it tore off a piece of his foreskin and he bled a bag of blood into the condom. As you can tell from the photos, Ivan is going bald but insists that it’s just that he keeps cutting his hair shorter and shorter. He is a spry 25. Maybe it’s all the fleeing Communism and going to prison for constant fights to protect the reputation of the very developing nation that makes him look old. Aside from the lack of hair on his head, Ivan was also concerned about his chest hair. “You want I should chop it?” he asked. I told him nah, leave it.

On my way out of town, I asked him if there were any parting words. He said, “Is that reality?”
“What?”
“Write that down.
“OK.”
“And write down ‘I am the lens.'”
“OK.”
Then he hugged me and said, “Write that I love soccer too much. See you in the next life.”
I probably would have had the exact same experience if I got off the train in Sioux City, but instead of all that ham and cake, he’d have eaten Pop Tarts and mac ‘n' cheese.

HALLIE NEWTON

Comments

[eat a peach]

so, wait, did you fuck him or what?

[looseygoosey]

yeah Im getting definite "and then we fucked" vibes.

[allen]

foreskin-ripping sex. damn.

[tetitotu]

I mean, those pictures appear to be taken at his house. Which means she went home with him....and they fucked

[Shelby]

Looks like he could use some Sharpie touch-ups on the Black Flag tattoo.

[jabbajabba]

so, how big was his cock?

[yancy]

is it just me or does this man have an extremely long torso? like, abnormally long?

[Jennnn]

best. tats. ever.

[boo]

Maybe he insisted on the helmet because he knew you were going to be an insensitive asshole about his receding hairline.

[Not a full blooded Jew, but Jew-ish]

Foreskin ripping sucks. I became "Jew-ish" at the tender age of 22 because of it. Great blog though, I LOL'd at the pregger tattoo comment.

PS: Scratch Acid is the shiite.

[molly freckles]

what makes you think you're the one?

[jim.]

einsturzende neubauten. look it up.

[Jono]

Ripped the skin off his dick, huh? That wouldn't have happened if his diet didn't consist of ham sandwiches and chocolate cake.

[Elsie]

So, she had sex with him - unless of course he's the one guy on earth who houses and feeds American girls for conversation. He may not be my favorite Croatian, but at least I didn't get naked with him. Repeatedly. I guess she couldn't get over the fact that he only wanted to get laid. And after sitting around lonely and obsessing over him, she even wrote a blog about it.

[Hana May]

Hallie would never fuck a 'hood. Just saying...

[ADot]

Vice readers certainly seem obsessed with fucking. Looks like he was just a nice Croatian guy who lives in Italy, rides a bike with no seat, stands up for his home country and eats strange food. Who knew that a simple human interest story involving travel could arouse such thoughts of fucking? Especially Elsie, who obviously has some serious issues. Maybe she is fat. Why would a beautiful young American chick traveling around Europe who could have anybody want to fuck Ivan? Just saying.....

[boo]

So, ADot, I take it you know Hallie, or it could easily be assumed that the reason she DIDN'T fuck him is because she's morbidly obese and wouldn't fit in his miniscule European bed purchased at IKEA.

[Lotta]

Excuse me. Let us so live that when we come to die even the undertaker will be sorry. Help me! I find sites on the topic: Print a brochure. I found only this - brochure printing computer programs. Brochure printing, the literature would come a management that believed people and colours, with able brochures doing final brokers of hundreds. The content brochure underneath the various work takes the track in the associated informatization, brochure printing. THX :mad:, Lotta from Panama.

[Buy Viagra]

Your tattos are kind of weird but pretty cool, and your story it's weird too, but thanks for sharing this with us. Always is nice to heard some different stories from people.

[Miami Web Design]

ha ha ha hilarious. and also he look gorgeous, really its a shame that we are so far away, he is s handsome. and also I have the same tattoo on my arm

[logo design]

I don't know who Jay Donahue is either and I'm usually knowledgeable on this region. It is interesting to see the ticket-splitting people in this area have done.

[xanax]

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