I feel like the results of this study might be a lot less shocking to some folks in my generation. As an ’88 baby, I feel like I must have just barely missed soaking up a lot of the Reagan-era stigma that used to be so pervasive. The longitudinal study in question, conducted by researchers at Cardiff University’s Centre for the Development and Evaluation of Complex Interventions for Public Health Improvement tracked just over 7900 individuals, starting in 1970, and taking a broad survey of both men and women who had taken IQ tests at ages five and ten.

In addition to other questions, researchers polled the participants about adult drug use (marijuana, cocaine, ecstasy and amphetamines, among other things), and found a consistently positive correlation between high IQ scores early in life, and drug use as teens and as adults. Naturally, words like “stimulation-seeking”, “openness” or “willingness to experiment” all figured into the researchers’ discussion, given the seemingly paradoxical results. With that said, yeah, there are still plenty of stupid people doing drugs, and plenty of intelligent people staying sober. But suffice to say, conventional wisdom isn’t always that wise.

Below is a brief summary of the study, from The Journal of Epidemiology & Community Health:

Abstract

Background

Recent reports have linked high childhood IQ scores with excess alcohol intake and alcohol dependency in adult life, but the relationship with illegal drug use in later life is relatively unknown.

Methods

The authors used data from a large population-based birth cohort (1970 British Cohort Study) with measures of lifetime cannabis and cocaine use, parental social class and psychological distress at 16 years; cannabis, cocaine, amphetamine, ecstasy and polydrug use (more than three drugs) in the past 12 months; and social class, educational attainment and gross monthly income at 30 years. All members of the cohort with IQ scores at 5 or 10 years were eligible to be included in the analyses.

Results

Of the 11,603 (at 5 years) and 11,397 (at 10 years) cohort members eligible, 7904 (68.1%) and 7946 (69.7%) were included in the analyses. IQ scores at 5 years were positively associated with cannabis (OR (bottom vs top tertile) =2.25, 95% CI 1.71 to 2.97) and cocaine use (OR 2.35, 95% CI 1.41 to 3.92) in women and with amphetamines (OR 1.46, 95% CI 1.03 to 2.06), ecstasy (OR 1.65, 95% CI 1.15 to 2.36) and polydrug use (OR 1.57, 95% CI 1.09 to 2.26) in men at 30 years. IQ scores at 10 years were positively associated with cannabis, cocaine (only at 30 years), ecstasy, amphetamine and polydrug use. Associations were stronger in women than in men and were independent from psychological distress in adolescence and life-course socioeconomic position.

Conclusion

High childhood IQ may increase the risk of illegal drug use in adolescence and adulthood.

It’s always nice to get the opportunity to see two brilliant folks reminisce about how they got to where they are now. In a lot of cases, it’s like a free buffet of game to be put up on. Shane Smith and Spike Jonze are both mavens of culture in their own right, having made some distinctly original contributions to the zeitgeist through various media. Spike, after establishing himself beyond a doubt as the definitive music video director of the ’90s MTV era, went on to produce Jackass, and helm three feature films: Being John Malkovich, Adaptation and most recently, Where the Wild Things Are.

Shane on the other hand, is the co-founder of Vice, the now ubiquitous brand behind Vice Magazine, a pillar of hipster culture, as well as VBS, The Creators’ Project and Noisey, among other things. Needless to say, a Saturday with these two is bound to be interesting On the way to talk to Al Qaeda rebels in Yemen, Spike and Shane took a brief detour to a gorgeous island off the coast of Somalia, to discuss the history of Vice, sex, drugs, and the legend of Shane Smith.

Now that a few million eyes are tracking the Odd Future collective’s every move, it seems only appropriate that a few folks not named Tyler or Frank take their turn in the spotlight. Aside from a few remixes surfacing over the last few months, Syd the Kid has been pretty quiet thus far. As introductions go though, “Cocaine” is pretty much all you could ask for. A trippy, great-looking video, a lesbian love affair, some serious hard-drug use, and a delightfully groovy piece of futurist funk. While Tyler’s been grabbing VMA’s and Frank Ocean’s been rivaling The Weeknd for the indie R&B crown, it’s become increasingly clear that the rest of the crew — Left Brain, Hodgy, and Syd in particular — are poised to do some damage in their own right. The Internet, Syd and Matt Martian’s collective moniker, is scheduled to drop Purple Naked Ladies this December.

For many of the folks that have dabbled in psychedelic experiences before, this may not come as much of a surprise. But it’s always nice to have the evidence to back up or validate your intuition. A recent study led by researchers at Johns Hopkins found that psilocybin, the active chemical in magic mushrooms, when administered in an appropriate dosage, often led to a number of long-lasting psychological and therapeutic benefits. Among participants, aged 29 to 62, many even reported their drug experience as one of the most spiritually significant of their lives, with their newfound insight often leading to positive changes in relationships and behavior. Not to get on the after school special hype, but the choice is always up to you. Just try to stay informed.

From Raw Story:

Scientists at the Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine claim to have determined the proper dose levels needed to create positive changes in attitudes, mood, life satisfaction, and behavior that persist for more than a year with the psychoactive substance in so-called “magic mushrooms.”

The findings are the latest in a series of experiments done at Johns Hopkins to investigate psilocybin, a psychedelic substance contained in certain mushrooms. The findings were published online this week in the peer-reviewed journal Psychopharmacology.

“In cultures before ours, the spiritual guide or healer had to discern how much of what type of mushroom to use for what purposes, because the strength of psychoactive mushrooms varies from species to species and even from specimen to specimen,” said Roland Griffiths, Ph.D., a professor of psychiatry and behavioral sciences and neuroscience at the Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine and the study’s lead scientist.

“In our laboratory, we?re working with the pure chemical psilocybin, which we can measure out precisely,” he added. “We wanted to take a methodical look at how its effects change with dosage. We seem to have found levels of the substance and particular conditions for its use that give a high probability of a profound and beneficial experience, a low enough probability of psychological struggle, and very little risk of any actual harm.”

The researchers said 94 percent of the study’s 18 participants rated their experiences with psilocybin as among the top five most or as the top most spiritually significant experience of his or her life at a 14-month follow-up. Eighty-four percent also reported positive changes in their behaviors, changes like improved relationships with family and others, increased physical and psychological self-care, and increased devotion to spiritual practice, which were corroborated by family members and others.

“I feel that I relate better in my marriage,” one participant reported. “There is more empathy – a greater understanding of people and understanding their difficulties and less judgment.”

The participants, ages 29 to 62, were screened to include only those who were deemed psychologically and physically healthy. Each participant received five closely-monitored, eight-hour psilocybin sessions a month apart. Each session had a different dose of psilocybin, with one session using a placebo, and was “blind,” meaning neither the participants, the monitors, nor the scientists knew how much psilocybin – if any – had been given during any session.

At higher doses of psilocybin, nearly a third of the participants experienced great fear or had delusions, but with gentle guidance from researchers, those reactions did not outlast the psilocybin session or harm the participants. Those who received lower doses of the psychedelic before the higher doses were the most likely to have long-lasting positive changes in attitudes and behavior.

Potential psychotherapeutic value of ‘magic mushrooms’

“The Hopkins psilocybin studies clearly demonstrate that this route to the mystical is not to be walked alone,” Jerome Jaffe, M.D., who served as the first White House “Drug Czar,” commented. “But they have also demonstrated significant and lasting benefits.”

“That raises two questions: Could psilocybin-occasioned experiences prove therapeutically useful, for example in dealing with the psychological distress experienced by some terminal patients? And should properly-informed citizens, not in distress, be allowed to receive psilocybin for its possible spiritual benefits, as we now allow them to pursue other possibly risky activities such as cosmetic surgery and mountain-climbing?”

A similar study published in the Archives of General Psychiatry in January found psilocybin can safely improve the moods of patients with advanced-stage cancer and anxiety.

The study was headed by Dr. Charles S. Grob, a professor of psychiatry at the Los Angeles Biomedical Research Institute at Harbor-UCLA Medical Center and found a significant improvement of mood and a reduction in symptoms of anxiety up to six months after receiving psilocybin-assisted therapy.

“We are working with a patient population that often does not respond well to conventional treatments,” said Grob. “Following their treatments with psilocybin, the patients and their families reported benefit from the use of this hallucinogen in reducing their anxiety. This study shows psilocybin can be administered safely, and that further investigation of hallucinogens should be pursued to determine their potential benefits.”

Although some may be concerned that a relatively unstudied and illegal substance such as psilocybin could pose health risks, a study published in the Psychopharmacology in 2004 found there is “no cause for concern that [psilocybin] is hazardous with respect to somatic health” in healthy adults.

The only physiological side-effects the study found was a brief increase in blood pressure and a small increase in levels of thyroid-stimulating-hormone (TSH), prolactin, cortisol, and adrenocorticotropic hormone. None of these side-effects were considered dangerous to healthy adults.

“Typically, the experiences after [medium and high doses of psilocybin] were rated positive, with retrospective statements ranging from ‘pleasurable’ to ‘ineffably beautiful,’ ” according to the study. One volunteer had a fearful experience after being given a high dose of psilocybin, but his anxiety was resolved without the need for pharmacological intervention.

“We know that psilocybin is remarkably non-toxic to the body?s organ systems,” Matthew Johnson, Ph.D., an assistant professor of psychiatry and behavioral sciences at Johns Hopkins and lead author of an earlier Hopkins paper on hallucinogen safety remarked. “But there are indirect risks: if someone experiences high anxiety, fear, or paranoia during a psilocybin session, it?s not hard to imagine them behaving in ways harmful to themselves or others.”

“These risks appear to be minimized when volunteers develop a trusting relationship with a skilled monitor, who remains present with them for the duration of the substance?s primary effects, and who is available afterwards for consultation.”

Watching this one now, it’s hard not to draw parallels to Charlie Sheen. I suppose Charlie’s been living out his own gonzo fantasy of sorts, if you want to call it that. And yet, Fear and Loathing on the Road to Hollywood, despite the similarities, offers a portrait of a figure not only decadent and depraved, but also deeply talented and fascinating in every way Sheen isn’t. Filmed in 1978, Fear and Loathing was director Nigel Finch’s attempt to capture Hunter S. Thompson in all his glory, revisiting the sites of some of his most storied works. Rampant and varied drug use, odd humor and incoherent mumbling abound. If slightly unflattering, it’s a pretty fascinating portrait of one of the 20th century’s most peculiar and revolutionary journalists.

I don’t want to say this kind of art wouldn’t be made without drugs. But this kind of art wouldn’t be made without drugs. Probably. Combining inspiration from ’60s counterculture and the acid house music of the ’80s, The Golden Sun Movement fused those influences into a distinct aesthetic. Drawing on classic album art, philosophical and musical traditions, and other mixed media, each of the collages speaks in vivid color. As far as I know, I won’t be in London any time soon, but ON, an exhibition showcasing Golden Sun Movement’s work, looks it’s not one to be missed. For the rest of us, there are always pictures of pictures.

It was a sunny afternoon when we got together. We always had fun, our adventures knew no limits. The magic of our youth making it all seem so trivial. She was mature for her age. A worldly girl, I found myself trying to act cooler than I was in her presence. So content with herself, who she was, her place in the world. I thought it was sexy.

With her feet on the dashboard she reached out to me, resting her hand on my neck, her fingernails introducing themselves to the back of my hair line. She looked me in the eye, fully aware of the experience she was offering and asked, “Wanna try?”

Download: Escort – “Cocaine Blues”

In talking about a figure like Owsley ‘Bear’ Stanley, it’s hard to separate the man from the myth. For one, he’s credited with producing and distributing literally millions of acid tabs, the quality of which was pretty much unquestioned. Add to that the fact that he was one of the primary sound engineers of the late ’60s, creating the first P.A. system specifically designed for music, and a host of other high end equipment. Other stories have it that his acid was the subject of Hendrix’s “Purple Haze”, that Steely Dan’s “Kid Charlemagne” (See: Yeezy’s “Champion”) was a tribute to him and that both the dancing bears and the skull emblem of Grateful draw a direct line back to him.

In essence, the passing of Owsley yesterday from injuries sustained in a car crash, marks the death of one of ’60s counterculture’s most mysterious icons. In any case, my knowledge on Owsley was hazy at best, until I did a little research. In 2007, the SF Chronicle, well, chronicled the man behind the myth, taking a closer look at Stanley and his enigmatic life story. Read on for an introduction, and check here for a full obituary.

For the unrepentant patriarch of LSD, long, strange trip winds back to Bay Area

Written by Joel Selvin, and published in The San Francisco Chronicle on July 12, 2007.

The small, barefoot man in black T-shirt and blue jeans barely rates a second glance from the other Starbucks patrons in downtown San Rafael, although he is one of the men who virtually made the ’60s. Because Augustus Owsley Stanley III has spent his life avoiding photographs, few people would know what he looks like.

The name Owsley became a noun that appears in the Oxford dictionary as English street slang for good acid. It is the most famous brand name in LSD history. Probably the first private individual to manufacture the psychedelic, “Owsley” is a folk hero of the counterculture, celebrated in songs by the Grateful Dead and Steely Dan.

For more than 20 years, Stanley — at 72, still known as the Bear — has been living with his wife, Sheila, off the grid, in the outback of Queensland, Australia, where he makes small gold and enamel sculptures and keeps in touch with the world through the Internet.

As a planned two-week visit to the Bay Area stretched to three, four and then five weeks, Bear agreed to give The Chronicle an interview because a friend asked him. He has rarely consented to speak to the press about his life, his work or his unconventional thinking on matters such as the coming ice age or his all-meat diet.

Sporting a buccaneer’s earring he got when he was in jail and a hearing aid on the same ear, he keeps a salty goatee, and the sides of his face look boiled clean from seven weeks of maximum radiation treatment for throat cancer. Having lost one of his vocal cords, he speaks only in a whispered croak these days. At one point, he was reduced to injecting his puree of steak and espresso directly into his stomach.

“I never set out to change the world,” he rasps in recalling his early manufacture of LSD. “I only set out to make sure I was taking something (that) I knew what it was. And it’s hard to make a little. And my friends all wanted to know what they were taking, too. Of course, my friends expanded very rapidly.”
By conservative estimates, Bear Research Group made more than 1.25 million doses of LSD between 1965 and 1967, essentially seeding the entire modern psychedelic movement.

Less well known are Bear’s contributions to rock concert sound. As the original sound mixer for the Grateful Dead, he was responsible for fundamental advances in audio technology, things as basic now as monitor speakers that allow vocalists to hear themselves onstage.

Says the Dead’s Bob Weir: “He’s good for a different point of view at about any given time. He’s brilliant. He knows everything.”

Bear, whose grandfather was a Kentucky governor and U.S. senator, grew up in Los Angeles and Arlington, Va. He was thrown out of military school in the eighth grade for being drunk and dropped out of school altogether at 18. He managed to get accepted to the University of Virginia, where he spent a year studying engineering. By 1956, he was in the Air Force, specializing in electronics and radar.

Later, Bear studied ballet, acting and Russian, worked in jet propulsion labs as well as radio and television, and then entered UC Berkeley in 1963, but lasted less than a year.

Then he discovered acid.

He found the recipe for making LSD in the Journal of Organic Chemistry at the UC Berkeley library. Soon after, Bear began to cook acid.

The Berkeley police raided his first lab in 1966 and confiscated a substance that they claimed was methedrine. When it turned out to be something else — probably a component of LSD — Bear not only walked free but successfully sued the cops for the return of his lab equipment.

By the time he made a special batch called Monterey Purple for the 1967 Monterey Pop Festival — Owsley Purple was the secret smile on Jimi Hendrix’s face that night — “Owsley” was an underground legend.
In December 1967, agents arrested him at his secret lab in Orinda. The “LSD Millionaire” headline in The Chronicle prompted the Dead to write the song “Alice D. Millionaire.” In 1970, after a pot bust in Oakland, a judge revoked Bear’s bail, and he served two years at Terminal Island near the Los Angeles Harbor.

“If you make some, you’ve got to move some to get some money to make it,” he says now. “But then you had to give a lot away to keep the street price down. So anyway, I’m sort of embedded in this thing that I’m tangled up in. … Just as soon as it became illegal, I wanted out. Then, of course, I felt an obligation.”

Bear, chemist to Ken Kesey and the Merry Pranksters, was involved with the Dead almost from the band’s beginnings at Kesey’s notorious Acid Tests. Bear was the Dead’s first patron and, briefly, their manager. He bought the band sound equipment and began to use the Dead as a laboratory for audio research.

“We’d never thought about high-quality PAs,” says the Dead’s Weir. “There was no such thing until Bear started making one.”

Bear made the first public address system specifically dedicated to music in 1966. If he was the first concert sound engineer in rock music to take his job seriously, his habit of making tape recordings of the shows he mixed also gave the Dead an unprecedented archive of live recordings dating back to the band’s first days. Many of Bear’s tapes have been turned into albums.

Bear has always lived in a quite particular world. “He can be very anal retentive, on a certain level, on a genius level,” says Paul Kantner of Jefferson Airplane. “I’ve seen him send his eggs back three times at Howard Johnson’s.”

His all-meat diet is a well-known example. When he was younger, Bear read about the Eskimos eating only fish and meat and became convinced that humans are meant to be exclusively carnivorous. The members of the Grateful Dead remember living with Bear for several months in 1966 in Los Angeles, where the refrigerator contained only bottles of milk and a slab of steak, meat they fried and ate straight out of the pan. His heart attack several years ago had nothing to do with his strict regimen, according to Bear, but more likely the result of some poisonous broccoli his mother made him eat as a youth.

As a sound mixer, Bear holds equally strict viewpoints, insisting that the most effective rock concert systems should have only a single source of sound, his argument quickly veering into the realm of psycho-acoustics.

“The PA can only be in one spot,” he says. “All the sounds have to come from a single place because the human brain is carrying around the most sophisticated sound processing of any computer or living creature. It equals the bats that fly by echo. It equals the dolphins. It equals the owls that hunt at night without any daylight at all. It is a superb system for locating and separating one sound from everything else.”

Bear left Northern California in the early ’80s, convinced that a natural disaster was imminent. He predicted at the time that global warming would lead to a six-week-long ultra-cyclone that could cover the Northern Hemisphere with a new ice age. Determining that the tropical northern side of Australia would be the most likely region to survive, Bear made a beeline for Queensland and says he felt at home the moment he set foot on the new continent.

“I might be right about the ice age thing,” he allows. “I might be wrong.”

Old friends express shock that Bear would ever even admit to that possibility, but, if not exactly mellowed in his old age, he has found room to accommodate other points of view.

“He’s come a long way,” says Wavy Gravy, who visited Bear in Australia this year. “He used to be real snappy and grumpy. Now he can be actually sweet.”

His four children are grown. He has five grandchildren, and his oldest son, Pete, in Florida, just became a grandfather, making Bear a great-grandfather for the first time. His other son, Starfinder, a veterinarian, hosted a party for him last month at his Oakland home attended by the old Dead crowd, a tortoise and a caged iguana. He has two daughters, Nina and Redbird, and maintains his own Web site (www.thebear.org) where he sells his sculpture and posts various diatribes and essays.

He keeps up with the music scene — he singles out Wolfmother and the Arctic Monkeys as new bands he likes. “Any time the music on the radio starts to sound like rubbish, it’s time to take some LSD,” he says.

Owsley Stanley (he legally dropped the “Augustus” 40 years ago) has also not joined the ranks of the penitent psychedelicists who look on their experiences as youthful indiscretions.

“I wound up doing time for something I should have been rewarded for,” he says. “What I did was a community service, the way I look at it. I was punished for political reasons. Absolutely meaningless. Was I a criminal? No. I was a good member of society. Only my society and the one making the laws are different.”

At the hilltop San Anselmo home where Bear had been house-sitting, pretty much all available space was taken over with his belongings. He squatted over the piles, trying to figure out what to ship and what to take with him. Two days before his flight, it looks like he’ll need every minute.

This time, he was extending his stay to catch his old friends Jorma Kaukonen and Jack Casady of Hot Tuna play at the Fillmore. But when he left for the airport the next day, he got as far as Sausalito before he discovered that he had left the briefcase with the tickets back in San Anselmo, and the trip home was postponed for another week.

“I even said, ‘I wonder what I’m leaving behind this time?’ before I left,” he says, somewhat sadly.

Taboos are a funny thing. Some have clear, logical or practical reasons behind them. Others don’t. Sometimes, they’re based on fear or tradition, and other times they’re just based on the best evidence available at the time. In any case, I got love for those open-minded scientific researchers out there who continue to push the boundaries and collect the evidence we need to make informed decisions. For those of us who grew up with the post Reagan-era, “ice cream scoops out of your brain” rhetoric, this one might come as a surprise.

A recent study, conducted by Harvard Medical School professor John Halpern, concluded recently that no evidence supported the long-held belief that ecstasy causes brain damage. The study, recently published in Addiction, showed that the subjects who took ecstasy (and no other drugs) showed no significant difference in cognitive function over time. Criticizing past research on the subject, Halpern asserts that “too many studies have been carried out on small populations, while overarching conclusions have been drawn from them”. As always, read this one carefully. At the end of the day, you get to choose how you get down. But it never hurt anyone to be informed. Full story below via The Guardian.

From The Guardian

There is no evidence that ecstasy causes brain damage, according to one of the largest studies into the effects of the drug. Too many previous studies made over-arching conclusions from insufficient data, say the scientists responsible for the research, and the drug’s dangers have been greatly exaggerated.

The finding will shock campaigners who have claimed ecstasy poses a real risk of triggering brain damage. They have argued that it can induce memory loss, decrease cognitive performance and has long-lasting effects on behaviour.

But experts who have argued that the drug is relatively safe welcomed the new paper. “I always assumed that, when properly designed studies were carried out, we would find ecstasy does not cause brain damage,” said Professor David Nutt, who was fired as chair of the Advisory Council on the Misuse of Drugs by Alan Johnson, then home secretary, for publicly stating alcohol and tobacco were more harmful than ecstasy.

The study was carried out by a team led by Professor John Halpern of Harvard Medical School and published in the journal Addiction last week. Funded by a $1.8m grant from the US National Institute on Drug Abuse, it was launched specifically to avoid methodological drawbacks that have bedevilled previous attempts to pinpoint whether or not ecstasy users suffer brain damage.

Ecstasy – or 3,4-Methylenedioxymethamphetamine, or MDMA – came into widespread use in the 1980s when taking it was linked to raves and the playing of dance music. Its symptoms include euphoria, a sense of intimacy with others and diminished anxiety and depression. In the US alone, more than 12 million have taken it.

But the taking of ecstasy has also been linked to damage to the central nervous system and research in recent years has suggested that long-term changes to emotional states and behaviour have been triggered by consumption of the drug. Possession of it has been made an offence in most western nations.

However, Halpern was sharply critical of the quality of the research that had linked ecstasy to brain damage. “Too many studies have been carried out on small populations, while overarching conclusions have been drawn from them,” he said. For a start, some previous research has studied users who were taken from a culture dominated by all-night dancing, which thus exposed these individuals to sleep and fluid deprivation – factors that are themselves known to produce long-lasting cognitive effects. Non-users were not selected from those from a similar background, which therefore skewed results. In addition, past studies have not taken sufficient account of the fact that ecstasy users take other drugs or alcohol that could affect cognition or that they may have suffered intellectual impairment before they started taking ecstasy. In Halpern’s study only ecstasy users who took no other drugs and who had suffered no previous impairment were selected.

The resulting experiment whittled down 1,500 potential participants to 52 selected users, whose cognitive abilities matched those of a group of 59 non-users. “We even took hair samples of participants to test whether they were telling the truth about their drug and alcohol habits,” said Halpern. “Essentially we compared one group of people who danced and raved and took ecstasy with a similar group of individuals who danced and raved but who did not take ecstasy. When we did that, we found that there was no difference in their cognitive abilities.” In other words, previous studies highlighted problems triggered by other factors, such as use of other drugs or drink, or sleep deprivation.

But the drug still posed risks, he said. “Ecstasy consumption is dangerous because illegally made pills often contain contaminants that can have harmful side-effects.”

Propaganda’s a trip. Watching shit like this, it’s tempting to be like, “damn, I’m glad we don’t get manipulated like this anymore”, but honestly, who knows? Yeah, information’s probably more free than it’s ever been, but a little skepticism is always healthy. This educational gem, recovered by Vice, was put together by the DEA, along with the San Mateo High School District back in the late ’60s, and runs through the horrific, insanity-inducing dangers of tripping on acid, with narration from the character of LSD himself. Like most dated anti-drug propaganda, this video actually doubles as great drug entertainment, partly because it’s stupid, but mostly because it’s full of trippy sounds, scenes and colors. If you’re looking for a good example of irony, here’s a solid place to start.

Dicks. Boobs. Lines of coke. Orgies. Sex, drugs and rock and roll. These kinds of things are inherently interesting, considered in and of themselves. The other day, Owen alluded to a sort of destructive instinct we feel as humans; a sort of pull toward that which is wild, unrestricted and dangerous. If anyone’s work encompasses that feeling as effectively as Dash’s Polaroids, I haven’t found it. With these pieces, some created or taken by Dash, and others simply showing snapshots of his life taken by friends, the line between art and simple documentation isn’t always clear. Whether you decide Dash’s short journey was wasted on vice, or a life well-lived is up to you. What’s important to me is simply that it was a real life, and a life well-documented.

via hrstudioplus

]]> http://www.wineandbowties.com/art/dash-snow-the-lost-collection/feed/ 22 http://www.wineandbowties.com/inspiration/ted-williams-an-overnight-sensation/ http://www.wineandbowties.com/inspiration/ted-williams-an-overnight-sensation/#comments Fri, 07 Jan 2011 00:52:06 +0000 Max Gibson http://www.wineandbowties.com/?p=21621

These are crazy times that we’re living in. Just think, the speed of communication made it all possible. This video came out like a week ago, and now he is famous. Literally an overnight sensation. For those just hearing about this, a viral video spread across the internet this week as Ted Williams, a homeless man living in Columbus, Ohio was discovered by a passing driver for his extraordinary voice. With the voice of a stadium announcer, the short video captured Ted’s innate talent in its entirety. Shortly after, the video hit Youtube, and it reached the tipping point. And now we’re here.

If nothing else, I think this story speaks to the incredible power of the internet as a medium for communication. These sort of things were not possible 20 years ago, and now it’s at our fingertips. Literally. It’s all happening so fast, but we need to be aware of the power we hold.

]]> http://www.wineandbowties.com/inspiration/ted-williams-an-overnight-sensation/feed/ 4 http://www.wineandbowties.com/life/weed-for-food-an-unusual-promotion/ http://www.wineandbowties.com/life/weed-for-food-an-unusual-promotion/#comments Sun, 02 Jan 2011 08:45:35 +0000 B. Williams http://www.wineandbowties.com/?p=21371

The way we read the news is a little strange to me. It’s not that we shouldn’t be concerned with floods, wars and other things that happen on a grand scale internationally. But it seems like we tend to take for granted the things that happen in our own backyard, which are often more substantial than we give them credit for being. I don’t know. Maybe this one isn’t mindblowing, but I think it’s a cool example of how clever people can pull off something really meaningful and helpful to their community.

Over the past month, the small town of Soquel’s Granny Purps Dispensary managed to to collect over 11,000 pounds of donated food for the hungry, all with a simple initiative. For every four cans of donated food, the “patient” (let’s be real, customer) received a free joint, with a maximum of three joints per person, per day. With just eight employees, Granny Purps was able to collect as much food for their holiday season drive as a company five or six times their size. Sounds like a win win to me. Check out the full story here, from the Santa Cruz Sentinel.

]]> http://www.wineandbowties.com/life/weed-for-food-an-unusual-promotion/feed/ 1 http://www.wineandbowties.com/music/the-beatles-lucy-in-the-sky-with-diamonds/ http://www.wineandbowties.com/music/the-beatles-lucy-in-the-sky-with-diamonds/#comments Tue, 23 Nov 2010 05:21:35 +0000 B. Williams http://www.wineandbowties.com/?p=20500

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