the eXile - classic or dud?

After reading the eXile, it sounds like Russia's a hellhole that I'm privileged not to have to live in-- tragically, after reading Mark Ames' recent stuff from Louisville, I'm forced to come to the conclusion that the US is a hellhole also.

the problem is, its all too easy to believe that the exile reflects the view exactly of every british/american expat in moscow, and therefore leads you to the conclusion that every last one of the fat, sally-o-brians-inhabiting, offensive, paranoid, boorish, exploitative fuckwits shoulkd be forcefully removed from the country and dumped in...moldova.

DUDE! i totally dont have a chip on my shoulder.!"?E>!"R{

but seriously, fuck the eXile.

Vanity Fair on the life and death of The eXile (long, worth reading)

Clearly the response to the Taibbi incident at the end was to be sitting at another table and asking the waiter "I'll have what he's having."

When I first contacted [Matt] Taibbi for this story, he replied unenthusiastically. “Ugh. No way I can talk you out of this, huh?” he e-mailed. “In the end nobody really wants to read about a couple of overgrown suburban teenagers writing about anal sex and the clap and then calling themselves revolutionaries when some third-world dictator gets bored of letting them stay published.”

He then fell out of touch, re-emerged a month later, and agreed to meet me for lunch at a Manhattan restaurant. I arrived late, and he was visibly annoyed. There was no boyish smile. “I just don’t see why you’re doing this story,” he said. When I told him that Ames was now living in New York he grew more agitated. I mentioned some of the Exile pieces of his I planned to write about, and he said, “That was covered in the book.” I told him yes, that was true, but the book had been published in 2000, and, frankly, I didn’t think it was very good.

“The book wasn’t good?” he said.

“No, I didn’t think so,” I said.

“My book?” he said.

“Yes, the Exile book. I thought it was redundant and discursive and you guys left out a lot of the good stuff you did,” I said.

At this, Taibbi’s mouth turned down and his eyes narrowed.

“Fuck you,” he snarled, and then picked up his mug from the table, threw his coffee at me, and stormed out.

The restaurant was packed with customers, and they all turned to watch as I sat there, stunned, coffee dripping from my face. The waiter arrived with the milkshake Taibbi had ordered. After wiping myself off a bit, I went outside, where Taibbi was putting on his coat, and asked him to calm down and come back into the restaurant. He walked up to me, glaring, beside himself with rage.

“Fuck you!” he yelled. “Did you bring me here to insult me? Who are you? What have you ever written? Fuck you!”

I tried to talk to him, but gave up when he walked away. I went back inside, paid the bill, left, and began walking up Sixth Avenue. Halfway up the block, I turned around, and Taibbi was behind me.

“Are you following me?,” I asked. He walked toward me, raising his arms as though preparing to throttle me or take a swing.

“I still haven’t decided what I’m going to do with you!” he said.

O_o