The most exciting fuckers on the planet right now. Upping the ante. Zeftastic!
 

 
In 1967, an older poet friend of mine, Zoltan Farkas, gave me a copy of Bukowski’s Crucifix In A Death Hand and my life was changed forever. Imagine discovering Bukowski at 16, well before he became a hero to millions. Opening the pages of Crucifix opened up a whole new world to me, where writing was accessible and real, not a mystic art but a blunt weapon, a blackjack of words upside my head. He rescued poetry from academia and the bardic tradition and brought it down to earth, from marble halls to the sidewalk, from the bards to the bar. And he made it look so easy…but it isn’t. Taking the energy of language from where you got it, thu the poem to the reader, is tougher than it looks. Bukowski inspired me to write by making me feel it was possible. He taught me that poetry, great poetry, takes not only passion, it takes guts. Rimbaud, Henry Miller and Bukowski: the big 3.

Bukowski was directed by Taylor Hackford in 1973 and broadcast on KCET in Los Angeles. Hackford’s film was responsible for bringing Bukowski to a wider audience. It was said to have been lost forever, but remastered clips from the film appeared in the recent Bukowski documentary Born Into This. So, there must be a good master somewhere. Until an official version of this is re-released, here’s the best that is available.
 

 
Dangerous Minds pal, Michael Backes (who named the above strain) writes:

“Most books about marijuana are hampered by shoddy research and threadbare science.  As cannabis legalization and decriminalization approaches its tipping point in the US, it’s refreshing that Dr. Julie Holland has published, The Pot Book, the most comprehensive overview available of cannabis, its medical uses and societal ramifications.  What makes “The Pot Book” truly significant is the depth of its coverage and the breadth of its fifty contributors.

Dr. Holland, who spent a decade as an ER psychiatrist at Bellevue Hospital in New York City, is also the author of The Ecstasy Book, the standard work on MDMA and its medicinal applications.  For The Pot Book, Holland has convened a who’s who of esteemed contributors, ranging from Dr. Raphael Mechoulam, the discoverer of THC, to contemporary social critic, Douglas Rushkoff.  The book covers everything from the latest on cannabis botany from Dr. Lyle Craker, the UMass professor that is attempting to break the US government’s monopoly on research-grade cannabis to Dr. Marsha Rosenbaum’s essay on how to speak to kids about marijuana.  The book is supplemented by a website with additional articles and interviews that didn’t make the cut for the book, plus a collection of excellent links to cannabis science and sociology.  All proceeds from sales of the book go to support research into cannabinoid medicines.”

Dr. Julie Holland writing on The Pot Book website:

After three years of putting this book together, I’m convinced that cannabis can be re-introduced to physicians and patients as the multifaceted medicine it once was.  I think what we will see in the next decade or so is an explosion of research into the therapeutic use of cannabinoids as medications. If you’d like to donate to the Holland Fund for Therapeutic Cannabinoid Research, please click here.

Before pot was illegal, it was a medicine used for thousands of years to treat everything from muscle spasms to insomnia.  Cannabis has powerful anti-inflammatory activity, it can act as a free-radical scavenger, and most importantly, cannabis has anti-cancer activity. Cannabinoids can kill cancer cells by apopotosis (triggering programmed cell death) while sparing healthy cells, and can also prevent tumor blood supplies from forming, which is called angiogenesis.

Cannabinoids also have a pro-metabolic effect, meaning they may be helpful in stopping the progression of diabetes (partially through its anti-inflammatory action on the cells of the pancreas), as well as helping to normalize blood sugar and cholesterol levels.

Cannabis is a medicine that can slow the prevention of atherosclerosis (hardening of the arteries, the cause of many heart attacks and strokes) and can modify autoimmune diseases including arthritis, Chron’s disease, and Multiple Sclerosis. (Cannabis doesn’t just relax the spasming muscles and bladders of MS patients; it actually seems to modify the course of illness and may slow neurodegeneration through its neuroprotective effect. The United States has taken out a patent on the use of cannabis as a neuro-protectant, though they continue to keep the plant in Schedule I, reserved for drugs with the highest potential for abuse and no medicinal use. Groups of physicians and nurses including the American Medical Association have requested a review of this scheduling.

But there are other important uses of this plant. Cannabis seeds are a complete vegetarian protein and can be used as food for people, livestock, and birds. Hempseed oil not only provides the exact ratio of essential fatty acids our bodies need, but it can also be used as a fuel. Hempseed oil is a renewable fuel source, which could decrease our reliance on foreign oil.  Hemp (the non-psychoactive stalk of the cannabis plant) can make many consumer goods including paper (decreasing deforestation that complicates our climate maintenance) rope, canvas, and clothing more absorbent than cotton.  Importantly, with compostable cellulose, hemp can replace our current plastic bag and Styrofoam “plastic vortex”/landfill crisis.

Cannabis is an ancient medicinal plant used for thousands of years until it was made illegal in 1937, soon after alcohol prohibition was repealed.  We are currently imprisoning more people than any other country on the planet, with nearly half of our prisoners serving time for drug offenses.  New York City, where I practice medicine, arrests more people for marijuana offenses than any other city in the US. Although Caucasians constitute the majority of pot smokers, African-Americans and Latinos experience a disproportionate number of marijuana-related arrests.

Renewable bio-fuel, food, rope, canvas, clothing, paper, medicine, and relaxant, and America can’t have any of it.

Because it make them laugh. As a psychiatrist, I have to tell you: This is insanity.

The Pot Book
 

See more animated GIFs after the jump…

 
Rightwing radio dolt, Bryan Fischer, the same idiotic asshat who said last month that the US should handle Muslims the way Germany handles neo-Nazis and who compares gay sex to terrorism, opened his big, dumb mouth again yesterday. Fischer declared on the American Family Association’s blog, after posiing the “What would Jesus Do?” question regarding the firefighters in Obion County, TN who let a family’s house burn to the ground, that JESUS WOULD HAVE DONE THE SAME THING!

Is Fischer saying that the central figure of Christianity is a cold-hearted sociopath like he is… or what??? I do not recall anything in the Gospels about Jesus liking privatization or being a Rush Limabugh-listening “dittohead,” but maybe I fell asleep that week in Sunday school…

I’m not even going to put a link to his blog because I don’t want to send a complete dickhead like Bryan Fischer a lick of traffic, but the comments were, as you might’ve guessed, kinda priceless:

10/6/2010 2:05:46 PM
You’re as dumb as a box of hair, we get that. But do you really think Jesus would have stood by rather than lend his help, especially considering there were innocent pets inside? Everything you write flies in the face of what Christ taught, so it would seem you are not in any way qualified to determine what is Christian and what is not.

10/6/2010 1:52:42 PM
The truly Christian act would’ve been to take two pieces of wood, one approximately 8 feet long with the other being slightly shorter, and attach the smaller piece perpendicular to the longer piece about 1/4 of the way from the top. Then plant it in the their lawn and use the conveniently located flames of their home to ignite the newly constructed “T” shaped device.

10/6/2010 1:45:42 PM
Whom Would Jesus Burn Out?

10/6/2010 1:41:09 PM
Yes, he failed to pay. Yes, that was foolish of him. That said, fire protection is such an important part of local government’s role that it’s unethical to offer the service on a pay-to-play basis. It runs against the very purpose of society - Christian or otherwise - for a municipal crew of trained professionals in possession of the resources to fight a fire to refuse to do so over a mere $75.

10/6/2010 1:40:10 PM
No. You are wrong. Period.

10/6/2010 1:35:21 PM
Who is my neighbor? I’m sure glad Jesus told a story about personal responsibility when asked that question.

10/6/2010 1:23:45 PM
Your argument assumes that, if one person chooses to behave irresponsibly and the mature, responsible, intelligent, compassionate people of the world help him, then, suddenly, those people will become stupid and think that it’s OK if we all make the same mistakes that the first guy did.

10/6/2010 1:05:18 PM
If secularist means caring for your neighbor as you would yourself, then sign me up.

10/6/2010 12:50:35 PM
Yeah, Jesus would have let the place burn. You’re a moron.

10/6/2010 12:48:49 PM
Mr. Fischer; I think you are Rightly Insane in trying to propose WWJD and quoting Mr. Cranick Have you interviewed both? BTW, this FD has made exceptions to this no-fee rule before.

10/6/2010 12:46:20 PM
Somehow, I get the feeling Jesus preached charity a lot more frequently than he preached “it’s your own fault, suck it up.” But no, I guess not. I must be thinking of Mohammad, or one of those other crazies. As a side note, I like the feminine/masculine comparisons going on in this piece. I bet you feel real manly right now, Broseph.

10/6/2010 12:36:51 PM
Bryan, I believe you are the one that has adopted a worldview that is in fact not Christian but rather is American. I wish you would simply admit you love America more than you love Jesus Christ and stop using the name of Jesus Christ to push your distorted view of Christianity. Read the Sermon on the Mount, read the parable of the Good Samaritan, read James 1:27. Your interpretation of the parable of the ten virgins is wrong at best and blasphemous at worst.

How much longer can people like Bryan Fischer, Sharron Angle, Jim Demint, Glenn Beck, Michele Bachmann, Rand Paul, Joe Miller, and people who “think” like them share the same country with the rest of us??? My lovely and perceptive better half, Tara, has been saying for years that a distinctly uncivil war was coming, and I always laughed that off, but I’m not so sure anymore. What’s going on in our society today is ROTTEN and if you take certain things to their logical conclusions, it’s not very pretty. Not at all.

 
Former Siouxsie and The Banshees’ co-founder, bass-player and all round musical genius, Steven Severin is currently touring the U.K. with his brilliant score for Jean Cocteau’s 1930 debut film Blood of a Poet

Since 2002 and the demise of The Banshees, Severin has been writing soundtracks for TV and cinema, including superb scores for London Voodoo and Richard Jobson’s The Purifiers.  More recently, Severin has composed and toured with his compositions for The Seashell and The Clergyman and The Cabinet of Dr. Caligari. His four treatments for Caligari was one of the highlights of last year’s Edinburgh International Festival.

Now, having successfully toured with Blood of a Poet across America and Canada earlier this year, Britain has the chance to catch one of the must-see events of the year.

It is always possible to subvert, to rebel.  A strong idea can be a salve, an inspiration to some whilst the very same idea is an irritant, a disruption to others.  I just try to do things that move and excite me and hope I am capable to transmitting those emotions in the most eloquent way possible.

                                                          -  Steven Severin

York CITY SCREEN 7th. Oct.
Bradford PLAYHOUSE 8th. Oct.
Leeds HYDE PARK 9th. Oct.
Liverpool FACT 10th. Oct.
Norwich CINEMA CITY 12th. Oct.
Kensal Rise LEXI 15th. Oct.
Southampton HARBOUR LIGHTS 16th. Oct.
Brighton DUKE OF YORKS 17th. Oct.
Brixton RITZY 19th. Oct.
Greenwich PICTUREHOUSE 21st. Oct.
Derby QUAD 28th. Oct.
Cardiff CHAPTER ARTS 29th. Oct.
Oxford PHOENIX 30th. Oct.
Exeter PICTUREHOUSE 31st. Oct.
Bath LITTLE THEATRE 1st. Nov.
Bristol WATERSHED 2nd. Nov.
Inverness EDEN COURT 4th. Nov.
Croydon CLOCKTOWER 8th. Nov.
Sheffield SHOWROOM 11th. Nov.
Nottingham BROADWAY 12th. Nov.
Birmingham ELECTRIC 14th. Nov.
Leicester PHOENIX 15th. Nov.
Edinburgh CAMEO 18th. Nov.
 

 
Steven Severin’s ‘Cesare Variations’ after the jump…
 

 
You can be sure that the next chapter of media star Christine O’Donnell’s career—the one that starts after she loses her bid for a Senate seat—will be even bigger than the one she’s writing with the media’s help now.

But her campaign evokes the limits of populist-driven politics, which is where your man Jay Smooth comes in. Jay is the founder of NYC’s longest-running hip-hop radio show, WBAI’s Underground Railroad. He’s also a hip-hop generation activist and has also made a name as a grassroots common-sense political commentator for both his own Nil Doctrine and the Giant magazine blog.

It’s for the latter that he gives his perspective on why “I’m you” falls flat as a political meme.
 

 
Tom Snyder interviews Divine, Andy Warhol superstar Holly Woodlawn and playwright/director Ron Link in July of 1979. Link wrote “The Neon Woman” which starred Divine and ran off-Broadway in 1978.

This is wonderful. Part of the fun is watching Snyder struggling to fathom the whole thing. By the end, Snyder seems ripe for a lifestyle change.
 

 
Parts two and three after the jump…

 
Looks like it’s mid-60’s day at Dangerous Minds. So be it ! Here’s both sides of this moody/self-loathing/noisy/lysergic 1967 single from Minneapolis band The Calico Wall. Looks like there’s next to no information about this anywhere, but have a listen to this glowering beast. It’s perfect for the rainy day here in Los Angeles
 

 
Even wilder B-side after the jump…

 
Sixties Japanese garage band The Cougars perform “Aphrodite” in this beautiful black and white video. Go go heaven. This looks like it could have been directed by Seijun Suzuki.