Celebrity chef and author Anthony Bourdain recently premiered his new show on CNN. The title of Parts Unknown references both the remote locations the show seems to focus on as well as the odd bits of fruits, veggies and animals that make their way into the more exotic dishes Bourdain puts on display. The title also has a hint of ominousness to it and it’s these dark overtones that tell you Bourdain is really on to something, here.

Fans of No Reservations will find plenty to like here, but fans of particular episodes of Bourdain’s former, famous Travel Channel show will be especially pleased. For me, No Reservations was at its best when the places were gritty and the stories Bourdain uncovered were dark and deeply human – episodes from Columbia, Laos and Lebanon all leap to mind.

The first handful of episodes from Parts Unknown are packed with Bourdain at his edgy best: He recalls the destructiveness of the L.A. Riots in an episode focused on the city’s Koreatown neighborhood; he illuminates the violence and oppression in present-day Myanmar; he returns to Columbia.

In my favorite episode yet, Bourdain visits Morocco, comparing the present-day country and the city of Tangier to their counter-cultural legends, illuminating the lives and works of artists like Paul Bowles, William Burroughs, Brian Jones and the Master Musicians of Jujuka along the way. Oh, yeah! Bourdain even schools you on how to make homemade majoun. If you don’t know what majoun is, you really need to watch this video.

Be sure to subscribe to my YouTube Channel to access an archive of all the videos I curate on the blog.

Stay Awake!

I haven’t read this new book yet, but after hearing this Coast-to-Coast interview with Dennis McKenna, I can’t wait to read The Brotherhood of the Screaming Abyss – Dennis’s new memoir about his psychedelic adventures with his brother Terence.

Is there a more eloquent spokesperson for the psychedelic experience than Terence McKenna? For me, McKenna even eclipses early enthusiasts like Leary and Kesey in his message-making and no one since his passing has even come close to filling his shoes. But, what about his brother Dennis?

McKenna’s readers will know that Dennis was a vital part of the early experiments with mushrooms, marijuana and DMT that eventually lead to Terence’s formulating of the Timewave Zero mapping – a novelty-tracking formula that finds human history diving into a seemingly-limitless space of unlimited potential newness in less than a month on December 21, 2012.

Dennis doesn’t exactly agree with Terence’s Timewave ideas – or with many of Terence’s other takes on the psychedelic experience. In short, he’s his own man and he’s got a unique story to share. But, one thing he shares with Terence is that low, reverberating Kermit-the-frog-esque McKenna drawl and – just like with his brother – it’s a pure pleasure to listen to the man and consider his ideas.

Enjoy the interview!

This is a travel piece about Amsterdam’s banning of psychedelic mushrooms in 2008 and the resulting rise of a new industry offering truffles inoculated with psilocybin.

Meeting with the affable and opportunistic “Truffle Brothers,” this HAMILTON’S PHARMACOPEIA episode traces the recent history of magic mushrooms in the Netherlands, questions the dubious claims that lead to their banning – including the murder of a dog with a pair of kitchen shears – and illustrates the entrepreneurial tuck-and-roll that finds former mushroom marketers emerging as truffle traders.

As a bonus, here is a truffle trip diary I found online. It’s hilarious. Enjoy!

2.5 grams (dried) – P. tampanensis

I’ll definitely be doing magic truffles again.

Stay Awake!

A few weeks back I was flipping through a Southern culture magazine at a drug store when I found out that Harry Crews had died at the end of March. The novelist, short story writer and memoirist was one of my literary heroes and -since we’re not doing a Coincidence Control Network podcast this afternoon – I felt it was my responsibility to slip in at least one pop-culture obituary here at the blog.

Here’s a nice bit from the obit Margalit Fox wrote for the New York Times:

“…Crews’s novels out-Gothic Southern Gothic by conjuring a world of hard-drinking, punch-throwing, snake-oil-selling characters whose physical, mental, social and sexual deviations render them somehow entirely normal and eminently sympathetic. . . . His ability to spin out a dark, glittering thread from this tangle of souls gave him a singular voice that could make his prose riveting.”

Harry Crews: Survival is Triumph Enough is a great short documentary that finds Crews waxing poetic on: orange soda, being boiled alive, his 12 rehab visits, his tattoos, growing-up poor in the rural South, Dylan Thomas, the virtues of rage, George Orwell, suicide, Shakespeare, polio, William Faulkner, the death of his young son, Freud, motorcycles, drinking and women.

Stay awake!

Watch this performance of my OccupySong at Occupy Congress in DC!

Junky is William S. Burroughs’ first book and also his most readable. While many readers may have already cracked the cover on this dusky treasure, I recently found a fine gem that washed up on the cyber shores of this here late night lookout. This YouTube offering is an abridged audibook version of the classic that features the man himself reading his foundational work.

Junky is a great read in its own right, but it also offers a window into all of the work that Burroughs was later to conjure. In the book we are introduced to a typically Burroughsian cast of characters:

“The Beagle”
“The Sailor”
“Joe the Mex”
“George the Greek”
“Luis the bellhop”

The book is also saturated with the Hammet-meets-H.P. Lovecraft phrase-crafting that would be developed in the novels, essays and performances to come:

“There is a junk gesture that marks the junkie the way the limp wrist marks the fag.”

“There was a gentleness to him, common to many old time junkies…In the anonymous city crowd he stood out sharp and clear – as though you were seeing him through binoculars.”

“Luis was a shoplifter who had lost what nerve he ever had. He wore long, shabby overcoats that gave him the look of a furtive buzzard; thief and junkie stuck out all over him.”

If you’ve already read the book, this listen is a fine revisit. If you are new to Junky, let this ashen elocution serve to stoke your appetite.

Stay awake!

Watch this performance of my OccupySong at Occupy Congress in DC!

Cures what ails ya

In an early episode of the Coincidence Control Network podcast, co-host Joseph Matheny and I commented on federal threats to crackdown on California’s medical marijuana dispensaries. As this new article in Rolling Stone points out, this is the kind of arrest-the-sick policy we’d grown to expect from George W. Bush, but which we never dreamed of from Barack Obama.

Framing the Obama administration’s new approach, drug czar Gil Kerlikowske famously declared, “We’re not at war with people in this country.”

Reporter Tim Dickinson continues:

With more than 100 raids on pot dispensaries during his first three years, Obama is now on pace to exceed Bush’s record for medical-marijuana busts. “There’s no question that Obama’s the worst president on medical marijuana,” says Rob Kampia, executive director of the Marijuana Policy Project. “He’s gone from first to worst.”

Read the full article here.

Stay awake!

Watch this performance of my OccupySong at Occupy Congress in DC!

Have you ever noticed that Oscar the Grouch looks like he’s made outta weed? Seriously. Of course, I don’t think this is intentional. Frank Oz probably had a run of the green shaggy stuff laying around and the rest is history.

Along with groovy music and the kind of social awareness that came of age during an era when battles for equality were being fought on the racial, sexual and gender fronts, Sesame Street was also influenced by the drug culture of its time. I don’t have any specific info about who was doing what when, but its likely that the dynamic, young artists who created that magical place sought inspiration – as most artists will – wherever they could find it.

Here are a few funny SS videos that teach kids about letters and numbers while simultaneously goofing on a the lingo of the drug buy…

Just for good measure, here is one of the better psychedelic/mystical scenes from the show:

Keep learning, kids! If you know of any other videos that fits this bill, please leave your links in the comments section!

Joe Nolan <3

The pretty girls gather

around

cameras

and small

dogs;

fat-faced babies and

graceful

grandpas.

I’ve seen them crowd

around

crudites.

I’ve seen them dance

with only themselves -

the whirling wonder

of it all.

All the pretty girls

dream

in color

and plot

their days

by those breeze blown

banners that

sag

and then

snap

in the space

behind

their eyes.

All the pretty girls,

like

all the bright-burning flowers,

slowly, slightly

turning

toward

death.

Joe Nolan <3

Amouse Bouche

I went on a Hunter S. Thompson binge recently. No good reason, just got a little carried away. I read a couple of biographies and discovered a lot of great videos in the process.

Although this is not an official Sleepless Film Festival post, I wanted to share this video.

"On some days you just want to beat the living shit out of someone, and then have the cops come and clean them up"

The Crazy Never Die was produced by the Mitchell Brothers. The Mitchell’s owned the infamous O’Farrell Theatre strip club in San Fransisco. They also produced the revolutionary, mainstream-porn hit Behind the Green Door. Thompson was a sometimes-doorman at the O’Farrell while he was researching his still-unpublished book, The Night Manager.

Here is a run-down on the film from the good people at Bunch of Nerds:

In the late 80s, the Mitchell Brothers, owners of the O’Farrell Theatre in San Francisco, produced a 30 minute long documentary on Hunter S. Thompson’s college campus tour. Entitled “The Crazy Never Die”, the documentary covers Thompson’s visits in Oregon and Kansas, including some interesting insight into his childhood, the amount of speakers he has in his living room and much more.

Without further delay, The Crazy Never Die:

This video is hosted on our YouTube Channel – Joe Nolan’s Imagicon. Check it out and subscribe!

If you are an inveterate Gonzoid, you’ll also be pleased to discover this limited-edition publication:

A large-format photo/bio about the man himself. The printing is limited to 3000 copies. It comes in a cellophane sealed, hand numbered box. The book is inside in a box of its own. The book box is sturdy and linen bound with the Gonzo dagger boldly stamped on the front. The book is print numbered on the rear cover. Lovingly edited and designed, and lavishly printed, this extraordinary package includes a limited edition gallery-quality photograph by Thompson.

An edition of the set is listed in a Nashville boutique for bank, but I added it to The Sleepless Bookstore where you can get it for much less than that arm and that leg.

Stay Awake!

Joe Nolan <3

She walked through the kitchen on bare feet in the middle of the night searching for the knife in the dark. She touched the blade of the chef’s knife and slid it back down into the block. She touched the blade of the bread knife and pulled it all the way out.

The open refrigerator illuminated the dark kitchen, its blue light bouncing off of the hard, shiny, concrete floor. In many parts of the world, the blinding blur of all of this electric would take on the glow of a metaphysical revelation: a miracle.

A sun inside of an ice cold box.

She pulled out the rest of the chocolate cake and cut a thin slice before bisecting that same slice into two pieces of sugary architecture that she could pick up with her fingers. She touched the side of the decanter and then poured the still-warm-enough coffee into the mug. The entire nation of Ethiopia rose and roared from the ceramic bowl. Hailie Sallassie prayed to his great, great grandfather – old Solomon himself – while the coffee wafted from the bowl in waves of wisdom and bitterness alike.

She slid back the door. The light, white curtains blew in, taking the shape of the night air. She tugged her short robe together at her chest and sat on the sleek white chair overlooking the avenue and the intersection at the boulevard down the block. The streets were quiet, the occasional car whispering to itself as it slid by seven floors down.

She broke the first, small piece of the moist, dark cake and dipped it into the coffee making sure to get as much of the bitter, black liquid into the cake before it became too full and broke of into the cup in soggy defeat. She held the cup near her mouth as she sucked the chocolate in.

Some scientists say that chocolate stimulates a woman’s brain in a way that replicates the experience of falling in love. White people first had the privilege of tasting chocolate after the Spanish conquered the Aztecs. The Europeans in their desperation for love enslaved the Mesoamericans on cocoa plantations so that women a world away could pour the dark liquid into their powdered faces. The brown people in South America had been given the gift of the cocoa bean by Quetzalcoatl, the great, feathered deity who had been banished from heaven for sharing the Food of the Gods with mortal men. It seems the people themselves were also banished from Heaven within the boundaries of their own land, and that the Gods -everywhere- favor might over love.

She left the second piece of cake on the saucer, on the steel table next to the sleek chair and held the mug in her hands, warming her pink palms as the chocolate mellowed her expression into a somnambulant gaze focused on some distant desire. She rushed back into her own eyes when she heard the crash.

She could make out one of the cars – on the far side of the boulevard – and could see some kind of steam or smoke rising from the place where the sound came from. The white plume rose above the shop at the corner of the boulevard and then above date tree glowing green beneath the grey moon before she heard the first voices – desperate, scared and angry – disrupting her perfect love with noise and metal and the sound of an ambulance just now wailing in the distance.

At the very first, mushrooms had been served…They ate no more food; they only drank chocolate during the night. And they ate the mushrooms with honey. When the mushrooms took effect on them, then they danced, then they wept. But some, while still in command of their senses, entered and sat there by the house on their seats; they did no more, but only sat there nodding.

Use this player to listen to my new CD. Purchase a song or two at your favorite digital outlet and help us stay awake here at Insomnia!

Find the archives to my Sleepless Film Festival, and more at my You Tube channel: Imagicon

Listen to my earlier releases, and enjoy free downloads here!

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Love,

Joe Nolan