Remember when Vice Magazine was funny? Yeah, me neither. I've always thought it was about as hilarious as a high school class clown who was held back two years in a row because he was too busy quoting the Simpsons and farting in zero period physics to ever bother learning Newtonian mechanics.  Just like neon rave accessories, Adam Sandler movies and Limp Bizkit, I never really got the class clown—or his sense of humor. I guess it's just one more thing that sets me apart from my generation.

It's not my intention to come off as a traitor to my age bracket, because I'm not. Really! I like a lot of things people in their early twenties like; drinking, casual sex, talking about the previous night's casual sex while drinking before meeting someone new to have casual sex with. Still, isn't it time Vice Magazine grew up, or at least evolved? It seems as though it's experiencing a literary state similar to that of Matthew McConaughey 's character in "Dazed and Confused" where the writers get older, but the jokes stay at the same grade school age level. Maybe after years of skewering everyone in their vicinity, Vice's blades have gotten—understandably—dull. Exhibit A: this posting satirizing Los Angeles style. Man, they really "gave it to us" by stating the superficial in a smug tone that was more dull than droll.

Above almost all else, Angelenos are blessed with the ability to laugh at themselves, so why not make us do just that? Why not paint a Todd Goldman-like portrait of us that thoughtfully and intelligently makes us think about what we wear and what it says about us, instead of just stating the obvious? Another issue I had with the posting is that the aesthetic choices it describes as specifically L.A. are just as—if not even more—common in many other parts of the world, including New York's East Village where I suspect this was written from. It reads like someone who wrote a review of a movie having only seen the preview. You can't just throw in references to Korea Town, A.P.C. and Echo Park and call it well researched or authentically L.A.   

Many other outlets execute the bitchy, "point and laugh" style of fashion writing much better than Vice, so I suggest it sharpens its claws—and wit—before it endures the same fate as so many other class clowns before it—cracking jokes as a weekend traffic school teacher in El Segundo. 

-Marcos Luevanos   

Some substances are bound to incite chaos. Scarce supplies of illegal drugs will do this. Excess gunpowder is also disruptive to calm. But until I witnessed hundreds of people climbing over each other's bodies and begging—shrieking—for grilled cheese sandwiches, I never knew that humans could be so feral.

The annual Grilled Cheese Invitational on Saturday was not for the weak-nerved or the lactose shy. I'd skipped not only breakfast, but lunch—and dinner—in anticipation of an evening filled with grease and regret. At a semi-secret location in Griffith Park, 140 competitors set up hot plates, lined up bricks of butter and brandished cheeses with unpronouncible names as the public clamored desperately for their efforts. The "missionary" category mandated that only cheese, butter and bread be employed, but the exotic "kama sutra" round allowed all manner of garlic pastes and French onion spreads and other substances that I would burp up later with both disgust and nostalgia.

As contestants in bawdy aprons, hats fashioned of cheese and in some cases, feather boas, scrambled with spatulas and piles of cheese curds, I hovered near a man in a kilt who offered me a bite-size sample of molten gruyere on the condition that I agreed to be hand-fed. My better judgment abandoned me. Before I knew it, in front of hundreds of strangers, I had a mouthful of toasted bread and cheese on my face. I had become an animal. Grilled cheese will do this to you.

Urging you to check yourselves before wrecking yourselves,