Pasture-raised pork schnitzel with overwintered vegetables and Og Kush butter
 
As pot begins its slow (but hopefully steady) move towards legality, we are faced with a wild new frontier of drug commodities. As far as I know, the plant itself has yet to be cultivated into super-costly strains—or at least… so I’ve heard, but that doesn’t mean pot extravagance isn’t springing up everywhere. There’s been an explosion of stealth bongs, vape pens and vaporizers all in the tony price range, but when a pipe can just as easily be made from an apple, “luxury weed” can be kind of a hard sell.

Enter the world of fine-dining edibles! The gorgeous foodscapes below (from photographer Justin Walker) depict the sorts of meals served at Sinsemil.la, an underground fine dining club with chapters across the US that specializes in high-end food expertly combined with pot. From the website:

The meal is a carefully calibrated experience from start to finish. Marijuana varietals are tested not just for their organic qualities, but specifically to balance the flavors of each dish and for their psychoactive properties throughout the flow of the dinner.

Sinsemil.la isn’t about getting high — it is about haute cuisine.

Uh-huh. Sure dude. I’d argue that this concept is about novelty, first and foremost—if not taking care of getting high and the munchies in one fell swoop—but who cares? Enjoy your meal, and enjoy your high (where it’s legal, of course). Be careful though! Edibles can knock you on your high-class ass if you’re not expecting it—just ask The New York Times!
 

Potato gnocchi with White Widow buttered wild mushrooms and fresh Diesel
 

Roasted local ribeye with Maui Waui baked potatoes and spring vegetables
 

Warm Girl Scout Cookies Chocolate Cake with Rhubarb and Grand Daddy Purple Ice Cream
 
More after the jump…

 
Many of you reading this site who also lived through the 1970s as an adult probably have share your of wild stories involving cocaine. That subset of readers is probably aware of the quirky way that McDonalds inadvertently created a piece of cocaine paraphernalia and even became almost synonymous with cocaine in certain contexts. The rest of you, maybe not so much.

In the late 1970s, McDonalds introduced a combination coffee spoon/stirrer that had the company’s name on the handle and a tiny egg-shaped bowl or scoop on one end, while the other end was proudly crowned with the company’s double arches logo. Basically this spoon was, quite by accident, absolutely perfect for use as a coke spoon. The scoop could hold precisely 100 milligrams of cocaine, some have claimed, which made it an ideal measuring device in addition to providing an easy way for coke addicts to snort the stuff. And America’s largest corporations had just deposited countless millions of them all across the country. It was inevitable that cheeky cocaine users would adopt it.

Inadvertently, McDonalds had created the People’s Coke Spoon. 
 

 
Remarkably, the adoption of the McDonalds stirrers as a helpful cocaine device was not limited to the product’s user base. Far from it. According to Barbara Mikkelson at snopes.com (which has confirmed the story), “The practice of using these implements in such fashion became so widespread that at least in some cities, a dose of cocaine was dubbed a ‘McSpoon’ because it came packaged in the tiny coffee stirrers from McDonald’s restaurants. ... In 1992 an undercover detective in Columbus, Ohio, said McSpoons were commonly sold ten to a bundle in that town and twelve to a bundle in Detroit” (emphasis added).

Understandably, McDonalds wasn’t thrilled to see their fine name being used as shorthand for one of the most widespread Schedule II controlled substances as defined by the Drug Enforcement Agency. Eventually the McDonalds spoon became a flat coffee stirrer. According to snopes.com, a spokesman for McDonald’s Corp. named Doug Timberlake stated at the time that the fast-food chain had chosen to redesign its spoons because “It has been brought to our attention that people are using them illegally and illicitly for purposes for which they are not intended.”
 

Three of the McSpoons alongside three of the redesigned flat version
 
According to a pretty entertaining reddit thread about the “McSpoon,” it was common for coke users to “break away the long middle section and melt the little spoon end to the McDonald’s logo.” When another user asks why on earth anyone would go to so much trouble, the response given is, “You did it so it would fit in a cigarette box.” If you click here you can see what I believe is a Photoshopped image representing what that would look like, I don’t think it’s a photograph of such a stirrer.

Understandably, the “McSpoon” has become the nostalgia artifact for some people. Right now you can buy a lot of 50 McSpoons for $60 on eBay.

In 2005 the artists Tobias Wong and “Ju$t Another Rich Kid” (founded by Ken Courtney) teamed up to create Coke Spoon 02, from “the Indulgent series,” which is described below. Coke Spoon 02 is a version of the McSpoon made of gold-plated bronze, while Coke Spoon 01 is a ballpoint pen cap made of the same expensive material. You can see pics of these items at the San Francisco Museum of Modern Art website. Wong unfortunately died in 2010, but he endeared himself to me by calling his own body of work “postinteresting,” which is hilarious.
 

 
Predictably, McDonalds sent out a cease and desist letter with alacrity.

As Fox News reported at the time:

“The piece was part of the pair’s 2005 ‘Indulgences’ collection, inspired by the luxury goods market and designed to be the ultimate gift for the wealthy bachelor who had it all, said Courtney of Ju$t Another Rich Kid. ‘Indulgences’ featured gold-plated Playboy swizzle sticks, 24-karat gold pills meant to be swallowed, golden dumbbells and another golden coke spoon cast from the cap of a BIC pen.” Wong was quoted as saying, “It’s kind of the pop culture of today with a bling twist.” Philip Wood, the creative director of CITIZEN:Citizen, which had been showing the piece, said, “I think it’s a shame because I don’t think there’s any intent in damning anybody’s reputation. ... It really is a comment on how these objects change shape when they get into culture.”

 
Here’s a short video documenting the, er, aftermath of a post Fantazia rave event that occurred on December 31, 1993 in Hungerford, Wiltshire. According to Wikipedia, over 16,000 people attended the event.

Much like the 1986 video documentary Heavy Metal Parking Lot, you get a brief—and kinda hilarious—glimpse into the lives of some of the folks who were at the Fantazia rave. Trust me on this, the video is all about the girl wearing the black hat and plaid jacket. She never stops. She’s like the Energizer Bunny on the best E ever!

Interviewer: Are you guys going to stop ever or are you going to keep dancing forever?

Girl: I can keep dancing forever, me. Well, at least till I remember where I put my car.

This is well worth the watch for shits and giggles. I just wish it were longer.
 

 
via WFMU on Twitter

 
The artist Chemical X turns ecstasy pills into art.

Arranging the pills by their color, Chemical X then uses the “disco biscuits” to create mosaics of doves, smileys, rising suns—those associated logos of ecstasy tablets—and skulls. Chemical X says his art allows the viewer to re-examine their relationship with “an old friend or perhaps a feared enemy.”

Known for designing the original Ministry Of Sound logo, Chemical X has previously collaborated with Banksy and Damien Hirst. His last exhibition in London was closed down over fears about thousands of MDMA-laced beans on site. Now, Chemical X is exhibiting his most recent work at The Ark in London, as part of a group exhibition organised by Bear Cub Gallery between 26th September and 2nd October.

I suppose the only way to find out if these pills are genuinely ecstasy is to lick the art works and see.
 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 
More art and ecstasy, after the jump…
 

Christopher Cross goes sailing in the cosmos, 1980
 
If you’ve spent much time waiting in a room with piped-in music—in a Walgreens or Duane Reade, let’s say—you may have had occasion to wonder: just how does a person get “caught between the moon and New York City,” anyway? Wouldn’t such a person be suspended roughly 100,000 miles above the Earth’s surface, suffocating in the vacuum of deep space? Wouldn’t falling in love be the last thing on his or her mind? Yet the singer insists on telling you about the transformative experience he had among the stars and, above all, the mystical vision vouchsafed him there of the power of love: “I know it’s crazy, but it’s true,” he pleads, sounding more and more like Coleridge’s ancient mariner with every refrain.

It turns out that Christopher Cross is a true cosmonaut of inner space, the kind of performer who had to live the psychedelic nightmare of “Arthur’s Theme” before he could sing it. Last year, in an interview with songfacts.com, the singer revealed that he was frying super hard on tons of high-quality acid when he wrote his first hit, “Ride Like the Wind.” (Okay, I am probably exaggerating the quantity and quality of the dose.)

And all this time, you thought it was the least mind-expanding song in your parents’ record collection! Here’s Cross’s story of the lysergic inspiration for “Ride Like the Wind”:

Well, the interesting thing about that tune is that we had a band and we’d play every night. We were doing this Paul McCartney tune called “Nineteen Hundred And Eighty Five,” and we’d get into this big jam in the middle of it. It’s funny, I just saw McCartney and I didn’t tell him this, but in this big jam on “Nineteen Hundred And Eighty Five,” in the middle of it I did that “ba da da da, da da, da da.” I did that part.

So I thought that felt really cool. I thought it felt like it had something, some magic, so I built the song around that. That was the first part of the song, and then I built the rest around it.

It didn’t have any words. We were living in Houston at the time, and on the way down to Austin to record the songs, it was just a beautiful Texas day. I took acid. So I wrote the words on the way down from Houston to Austin on acid.

And I grew up with a lot of cowboy movies. Serials and stuff, like The Lone Ranger and these cowboy serials where they were always chasing the bad guy. And I lived in San Antonio near Mexico, so there was always this anarchistic allure about if you could get to Mexico, you could escape the authority. Also, Mexico was a place where you could go down there and drink and do all this debauchery that as a kid, you think sounds really cool. So getting to the border in Mexico was a fascinating thing to me.

And here’s the full, unexpurgated text of the cosmic cowboy epic Cross brought back from his psychedelic odyssey, which I trust the heads among you will scrutinize for hidden meanings:

It is the night
My body’s weak
I’m on the run
No time to sleep
I’ve got to ride
Ride like the wind
To be free again

And I’ve got such a long way to go
To make it to the border of Mexico
So I’ll ride like the wind
Ride like the wind

I was born the son of a lawless man
Always spoke my mind with a gun in my hand
Lived nine lives
Gunned down ten
Gonna ride like the wind

And I’ve got such a long way to go
To make it to the border of Mexico
So I’ll ride like the wind
Ride like the wind

Accused and tried and told to hang
I was nowhere in sight when the church bells rang
Never was the kind to do as I was told
Gonna ride like the wind before I get old

It is the night
My body’s weak
I’m on the run
No time to sleep
I’ve got to ride
Ride like the wind
To be free again

And I’ve got such a long way to go
To make it to the border of Mexico
So I’ll ride like the wind
Ride like the wind

Sounds like a real bummer, man. . .

To refresh your memory of “Ride Like the Wind,” take a look at this classic SCTV sketch, in which Rick Moranis shows how Michael McDonald might have recorded his backing vocals:
 

 
So the folks over at Bowery Boogie seem sure that these four anonymous citizens are partaking of hallucinogenic drugs, but I’m not totally convinced. In these trying times of flash mobs and Improv Everywhere, one cannot discount the possibility of a staged event. Or perhaps it’s just a misunderstanding?

One could argue that the stretching lady is just doing some early-Monday-morning calisthenics! And the lady staring at the pillar could simply be quietly reflecting. The person shaking the chains could be testing their structural integrity, and the guy humping the trash can…well… nevermind, they’re probably just all on drugs.
 

 
Via Bowery Boogie

 
Dammit, I knew I shouldn’t have clicked play on this clip of a bizarre anti-drug PSA from the 80s. Any song titled “The Chicken Club” is a sure-fire recipe for an all day earworm. You can tell from a distance, can’t you? I’ve been humming and tappin’ my toes to this catchy lil’ tune all day. I hate myself for it.

The message I’ve taken away from this video and song is, if you don’t do drugs you can do some awesome variations of “The Roger Rabbit” / “The Cabbage Patch” and, you know… you just gotta join the “Chi-chi-chicken Club!”

Are you a “chicken” for not doing drugs? That’s a bit of a mixed message, yeah?
 

 
via Death and Taxes

Let us toast to animal pleasures.—Hunter S. Thompson

I know, I know it’s a “cute animal” post on Dangerous Minds, but it’s Hello Kitty as Hunter S. Thompson! I just want to “squee” at those teeny-tiny shades “Gonzo Kitty” is wearing.

The sculpture is made by Portland-based artist Eloah whose shop on Etsy is called All Seeing Cat. “Gonzo Kitty” is selling for around $150.00.

But my real question is: does Gonzo Kitty start its day with Chivas Regal and cocaine?!

via Cherrybombed

 
This clip is great: TV reporter Charlo Greene of KTVA in Alaska, quit her job live on-air after revealing she was the founder of the AK Cannabis Club.

Via the Sydney Morning Herald:

Her announcement followed a story on the Alaska Cannabis Club, a “collective” that “connects medical marijuana cardholders in need to medical marijuana cardholders with green.”

The aptly named Ms Greene revealed at the end of the story that she was the club’s owner and, as such, was left with little choice but to leave her job.

“Now everything you heard is why I, the actual owner of the Alaska Cannabis Club, will be dedicating all of my energy for fighting for freedom and fairness which begins with legalizing marijuana here in Alaska.

“And as for this job, well, not that I have a choice but, f—- it, I quit.”

Details are scant at this point and the whole clip has yet to surface, but good for her.
 

UPDATE: Greene posted a video explaining what happened on YouTube:

“Who is willing to take a stand? I’m not afraid, clearly. But if you are, I don’t judge you or any other man. Nearly a century of marijuana prohibition and stigma have stained America, the land of the free and home of the brave. But we have a chance to start taking back the right. Today it’s marijuana prohibition and, once we get that done nationally, we the people will realize that we are stronger than ever and you will feel empowered to take up what you choose to fight. Advocating for freedom and fairness should be everyone’s duty. I’m making it my life work, to uphold what America stands for truly: life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness — ideals that now need to be defended.”

Again, good for her. Passionate. Articulate. Committed to doing the right thing. I like her style!
 

George and George, both lookin’ foxy
 
When I saw this little video of Sir George Martin giving martini-making lessons (an excerpt from his 2011 BBC profile documentary, Produced by George Martin), a few things struck me—besides, of course, his obvious foxyness, even at the age of eighty-goddamn-five.

1) A martini is made with gin. There is the (laughable and pale) variation, the “vodka martini,” but anyone ordering simply “a martini,” with no qualifiers, should expect gin. Complaints to the contrary will result in a face full of vermouth.

2) The bolder choice in mixing technique and the not-so-cliché garnish—always keep ‘em guessing, George!

3) Always—and this is pertinent—end with a dirty joke, as George does here. Stay charming! Prurient poetry, wit and wordplay can be the only difference between an insufferable drunk and an enchanting lush!

I hereby declare we rename this particular cocktail (with the lemon rind) the “George Martini”—who’s with me?