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An interview with David Foster Wallace who would have been 50 years old today
02.21.2012
04:40 pm
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Had he not taken his own life in 2008, David Foster Wallace would have been 50 years old today. Perhaps, in the prime of his creative life. We’ll never know.

In this 1997 interview with Charlie Rose, Wallace talks about writing, fame, drugs, depression and David Lynch.

A the end of the interview, while discussing his depression, Wallace remarks “I’m not getting ready to jump off a building or anything.” “Anything” happened 11 years later when he hanged himself, leaving a brilliant trail of words behind him and a big hole in the heart of modern literature.
 

 

Posted by Marc Campbell
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02.21.2012
04:40 pm
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He blew his mind out in a car: Short film on ‘A Day in the Life’ inspiration Tara Browne from 1966
02.16.2012
06:27 pm
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tara_browne_1966
 
He blew his mind out in car, he didn’t notice that the lights had changed. These are the lyrics from The Beatles’ “A Day in the Life”, which immortalized the death of sixties socialite Tara Browne.

On the night of December 18th 1966, Browne, together with his girlfriend, Suki Potier, drove through the streets of South Kensington in his Lotus Elan. The couple had just left a friend’s apartment at Earls Court around 1am, and were now in search of food. Browne sped through a stop signal at the corner of Redcliffe Square and Redcliffe Gardens. As he swerved to avoid an oncoming vehicle, Browne crashed his car into a parked van. His last minute actions saved Potier from certain death, but left Browne fatally injured, and he died in hospital the following day. 

Browne was 21-years-of-age, a member of the Irish aristocratic family Oranmore and Browne, and heir to the Gunness fortune. He looked like a cross between Paul McCartney and Peter Cook (more of which later), was said to be barely literate - having walked out of a dozen schools, lived with his mother, Oonagh Guinness and her boyfriend a “show designer” Miguel Ferreras, drank Bloody Marys for breakfast, smoked Menthol cigarettes, and according to his friend Hugo Williams lived the life of a “Little Lord Fauntleroy, Beau Brummell, Peter Pan, Terence Stamp in Billy Budd, David Hemmings in Blow-Up.”

‘Tara could hardly have failed to be a success in Swinging London. While I was wandering around the globe in ’63 and ‘64, he embarked on the second and last phase of his meteoric progress. He got married, met the Stones and the Beatles, opened a shop in the King’s Road and bought the fatal turquoise Lotus Elan in which he entered the Irish Grand Prix. He let me drive it once in some busy London street: ‘Come on, Hugo, put your foot down.’ I had just got my first job and our ways were dividing. His money and youth made him a natural prey to certain charismatic Chelsea types who turned him into what he amiably termed a ‘hustlee’.

He reputedly gave Paul McCartney his first acid trip. The pair went to Liverpool together, got stoned and cruised the city on mopeds until Paul went over the handlebars and broke a tooth and they had to call on Paul’s Aunt Bett for assistance. There is still a body of people — and a book called The Walrus is Paul — who believe that Paul is dead and is now actually Tara Browne with plastic surgery.’

A month after his death, January 17th 1967, John Lennon was working on a song when he read a newspaper article on the coroner’s report into Browe’s death:

‘I was writing “A Day In The Life” with the Daily Mail propped in front of me on the piano. I had it open at their News in Brief, or Far and Near, whatever they call it. I noticed two stories. One was about the Guinness heir who killed himself in a car. That was the main headline story. He died in London in a car crash.’

Lennon further explained his inspiration in Hunter Davies’ biography of The Beatles:

‘I didn’t copy the accident. Tara didn’t blow his mind out. But it was in my mind when I was writing that verse.’

However, more recently, in the authorized biography, Many Years From Now by Barry Miles, Paul McCartney added his tuppence worth:

‘The verse about the politician blowing his mind out in a car we wrote together. It has been attributed to Tara Browne, the Guinness heir, which I don’t believe is the case, certainly as we were writing it, I was not attributing it to Tara in my head. In John’s head it might have been. In my head I was imagining a politician bombed out on drugs who’d stopped at some traffic lights and didn’t notice that the lights had changed. The ‘blew his mind’ was purely a drugs reference, nothing to do with a car crash.’

Whichever version is true, Tara Browne is still the man best associated with lyrics. Here is Tara, and his Lotus Elan, in some incredibly rare footage from a short French TV feature, where the aristocrat drives around London and mumbles in French about his car, art, fashion, music and life. There are no English subtitles, but they’re not really necessary as the film is easily understandable. Appearances from Paul McCartney, Marianne Faithfull and famed gallery owner Robert Fraser.
 

 
With thanks to Simon Wells
 

Posted by Paul Gallagher
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02.16.2012
06:27 pm
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Worst acid trip: ‘Skeletons Having Sex on a Tin Roof’
02.15.2012
11:33 am
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Or the best fucking acid trip. Not sure.

The song is “Skeletons Having Sex on a Tin Roof” by Icelandic group Orphic Oxtra from their album Kebab Diskó. I’ve never heard of Orphic Oxtra until today, but from what I’ve listened to so far, I really, really like them.
 

 
Via The Stranger

Posted by Tara McGinley
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02.15.2012
11:33 am
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How do I love thee? Let me smoke the ways
02.14.2012
01:11 pm
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I’ve never been a big fan of Valentine’s Day. In fact, I kinda despise it, it’s just some dumb made up “holiday” to sell stuff, although if my special someone presented me with a glorious heart-shaped box of weed like one of these, it just might change my mind…
 

 
More after the jump…

READ ON
Posted by Tara McGinley
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02.14.2012
01:11 pm
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This one’s for the hippies: Greenwich Village in the 1960s
02.12.2012
03:10 am
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Cool film footage of Greenwich Village in the Sixties.

The Village has always been a vortex for cultural energy and you can see it in these images. Soulful young longhairs, wide-eyed teenyboppers and angel-headed hipsters cruising the streets looking for something, not sure what it is, but knowing there was something magic in the air and if you walked along MacDougal or Bleecker street long enough you’d connect with it.

Music: “Summer In New York” by The Imaginations.
 

Posted by Marc Campbell
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02.12.2012
03:10 am
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$4 billion worth of meth seized in Mexico
02.10.2012
02:04 am
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A soldier stands guard in front of “chemical reactors” used in the manufacturing of the meth confiscated in yesterday’s bust. Tlajomulco de Zuniga, Mexico.
 
15 tons of pure methamphetamine worth $4 billion were seized yesterday at a ranch outside of Guadalajara in the Mexican state of Jalisco.

The superlabs in Mexico are operating on a scale that is mindboggling. This haul alone was enough meth to get 13 million people wired to the gills.

The size of the Jalisco bust stunned Steve Preisler, an industrial chemist who wrote the book “Secrets of Methamphetamine Manufacture” and is sometimes called the father of modern meth-making.

“I have never seen quantity in that range,” Preisler wrote. But he added: “The amounts of precursors they were importing would produce multi-tons of product.”

Preisler was referring to the dramatic increase in seizures in Mexico of chemicals used to make methamphetamine, usually imported from countries such as China.

In December alone, Mexican authorities seized 675 tons of a key precursor chemical, methylamine, that can yield its weight in uncut meth. All of the shipments were headed for Guatemala, where the Sinaloa cartel is also active. Officials in Guatemala, meanwhile, seized 7,847 barrels of precursors in 2011, equivalent to about 1,600 tons.”

Guadalajara is the capital of the western state of Jalisco and has until recently been spared the horrible violence that plague other areas of Mexico. But in the past few years drug-related murders in Jalisco are an epidemic, with more than half of them in Guadalajara. Six gangs are fighting for control of Jalisco: the Sinaloa Cartel, the Jalisco Cartel New Generation (CJNG, for its initials in Spanish), the Resistance, the Caballeros Templarios, the Familia Michoacana, and the Beltran Leyva Organization.

Guadalajara, the vibrant cultural and economic heart of Mexico, is under assault and the “Pearl of the West” could literally be destroyed in the drug turf wars. With an economy built on the tech industry, Guadalajara is rapidly losing ground to China in the tech wars while China is the source for most of the methylamine that is used in the Mexican meth labs. As above ground industry falters and fades, business goes underground. This is what happens when crime does pay. Diabolical.

My gums are receding and turning black just looking at this photo. This is to Breaking Bad what the Titanic is to the rubber ducky in my bathtub.
 

 
As is pointed out in the video below, the drug cartels are ramping up the production of meth because of the crackdown on marijuana farming in Mexico, which is another strong argument for the decriminalization of marijuana. What’s healthier, an economy built on primitive and toxic forms of meth production or one built on the ecologically sound and scientific cultivation of marijuana? And unlike computer chips and hard drives, China won’t be competitive in the ganja trade. Let China have the silicon, we’ll take the sativa.

The best way to get the motherfucking gangsters out of the picture is to legalize all drugs, including methamphetamine, heroin and cocaine. Make it pure, make it available like alcohol and make it affordable. I know the notion of providing legal over-the-counter pharmaceutical quality meth for adults sounds potentially dicey but could things really get any worse? By making methamphetamine legal, we eliminate the gangster trade. By making it clinically pure, we eliminate the toxic bathtub variety flooding the drug marketplace and significantly minimize the health risks. What do you think? Can society handle a culture of meth heads who buy pure crystal at the Tweak Boutique at Walgreens?
 

Posted by Marc Campbell
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02.10.2012
02:04 am
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Gorgeous glass ‘marijuana nugget’ weed pipe
02.07.2012
03:29 pm
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Pacific Glass Gallery designer “Mr. Gray” will be unveiling his latest glass pipes in the next few days, including this insanely intricate marijuana nugget puffer.

I don’t think I’ve ever seen a bowl quite this elaborate. I wonder if it’s difficult to clean?

It’s not listed on Pacific Glass Gallery‘s website yet, but if you’re interested, keep checking the website under “Mr. Gray.” (If you just can’t wait for this puppy to go up for sale, Illuzion Glass Galleries in Colorado has similar designs).
 

 
Via reddit

Posted by Tara McGinley
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02.07.2012
03:29 pm
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‘Breaking Bad’ Valentine’s Day cards
02.06.2012
02:55 pm
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Not your traditional Valentine’s Day card… Butthorn, the guy or gal who created these says, “I made Breaking Bad valentines because I couldn’t find any that expressed my love for my friends and the show.”
 

 
(via Super Punch)

Posted by Tara McGinley
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02.06.2012
02:55 pm
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Everything must glow: ‘Bad Rave Flyers’
02.02.2012
08:37 am
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Bad Rave Flyers is “a blog dedicated to showcasing the worst and most lazy in graphic design for club and rave flyers.” Says the anonymous author:

I spend a lot of time looking at event listings on messageboards. I’ve always been fascinated by how bad most rave & club flyers are, especially ones for events with mostly local DJs. As a testament to this, I’ve decided to compile my favorites into one place.

Indeed, some of these flyers are terrible. But before we go laughing ourselves into a false sense of superiority, it has to be stated that EVERYONE who has been involved in djing or club promoting has at some point created their own bad rave flyer. I still have mine lurking at the back of a closet somewhere. It may not be as bad as these, but consider it a rite of passage every club industry professional must go through.
 

 

 

 

 
With thanks to Michael Kushnir and Shallow Rave.
 
More Bad Rave Flyers after the jump…

 

READ ON
Posted by Niall O'Conghaile
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02.02.2012
08:37 am
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Newt Gingrich’s PRO-medical marijuana letter to the editor, 1982


 
Well, well, well… Look who was PRO-medical marijuana—actually went out on a limb for it—way back before he wanted to behead people and cut off their hands for possessing it…

Here’s what Newt Gingrich wrote to the Journal of the American Medical Association in 1982:

Legal Status of Marijuana

To the Editor:

The American Medical Association’s Council on Scientific Affairs should be commended for its report, “Marijuana: Its Health Hazards and Therapeutic Potential” (1981;246:1823). Not only does the report outline evidence of marijuana’s potential harms, but it distinguishes this concern from the legitimate issue of marijuana’s important medical benefits. All too often the hysteria that attends public debate over marijuana’s social abuse compromises a clear appreciation for this critical distinction.

Since 1978, 32 states have abandoned the federal prohibition to recognize legislatively marijuana’s important medical properties. Federal law, however, continues to define marijuana as a drug “with no accepted medical use,” and federal agencies continue to prohibit physician-patient access to marijuana. This outdated federal prohibition is corrupting the intent of the state laws and depriving thousands of glaucoma and cancer patients of the medical care promised them by their state legislatures.

On Sept 16, 1981, Representative Stewart McKinney and I introduced legislation designed to end bureaucratic interference in the use of marijuana as a medicant. We believe licensed physicians are competent to employ marijuana, and patients have a right to obtain marijuana legally, under medical supervision, from a regulated source. The medical prohibition does not prevent seriously ill patients from employing marijuana; it simply deprives them of medical supervision and access to a regulated medical substance. Physicians are often forced to choose between their ethical responsibilities to the patient and their legal liabilities to federal bureaucrats.

Representative McKinney and I hope the Council will take a close and careful look at this issue. Federal policies do not reflect a factual or balanced assessment of marijuana’s use as a medicant. The Council, by thoroughly investigating the available materials, might well discover that its own assessment of marijuana’s therapeutic value has, in the past, been more than slightly shaded by federal policies that are less than neutral

Newt Gingrich
House of Representatives
Washington, DC

Fourteen years later, as House Speaker, this same hypocritical piece-of-shit would introduce the Drug Importer Death Penalty Act of 1996, which called for executing any person caught importing just an ounce or two of high-grade marijuana (“100 usual doses” is how it was written in the legislation, which obviously didn’t pass).

What’s more, when challenged about his own admitted use of marijuana in the past, Gingrich had this to say to Wall Street Journal reporter Hilary Stout:

“That was a sign we were alive and in graduate school in that era. See, when I smoked pot it was illegal, but not immoral. Now, it is illegal AND immoral. The law didn’t change, only the morality… That’s why you get to go to jail and I don’t.”

“Okay for thee, but not for me,” sez rich, well-fed white guy. Thanks for the succinct explanation, mean old man!

Now, if you’re looking to make sense of this stuff don’t even try. He’s a Republican, ‘nuff said.

Here’s what Gingrich said at a fundraiser for fellow Georgia GOP pol Rep. Charlie Norwood in 1995:

“If you import a commercial quantity of illegal drugs, it is because you have made the personal decision that you are prepared to get rich by destroying our children. I have made the decision that I love our children enough that we will kill you if you do this.”

“I have decided”???

Imagine this asshole being allowed to decide anything of importance!

Gingrich, unable to help himself, continued:

“The first time we execute 27 or 30 or 35 people at one time, and they go around Colombia and France and Thailand and Mexico, and they say, ‘Hi, would you like to carry some drugs into the U.S.?’ the price of carrying drugs will have gone up dramatically.”

Ethan Nadlemann, the executive director of Drug Policy Action, a bipartisan advocacy group for ending the drug war called Gingrich “basically a nightmare” when it comes to drug policy issues. “For a guy who’s supposed to be an intellectual and intelligent, the quality of the argumentation on his part is embarrassing.”

As one wag quipped on the topic of Drug Importer Death Penalty Act of 1996 at The People’s Forum:

Fortunately didn’t pass. His other proposed acts, the Serial Adultery Death Penalty Act and the Congressional Influence Peddling Death Penalty Act, unfortunately failed as well. And he reportedly killed the Fat Loudmouth Pandering Pseudo-Intellectual Death Penalty Act before it could be introduced.

Republicans whine and Republicans bitch/Our rich are too poor and our poor are too rich.

Below, Newt Gingrich shooting his big mouth off about the drug war and how the US should emulate Singapore(!) on The O’Reilly Factor as “Papa Bear” nods with approval.
 

 
Thank you Mr. Michael Backes of Sacramento, CA!

Posted by Richard Metzger
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01.26.2012
07:01 pm
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