This girl maybe shouldn't have done so much acid at the rave:

And this guy definitely shouldn't have got so high before going to work at the factory:

Now I am off to have some weird nightmares. All the best!

We had heard about a drug in Colombia that essentially eliminates free-will in humans. It is called scopolamine and it seemed to us to be so completely out there--like a plot device in an awful Jack Black movie. In fact, it sounded so horrible and strange that we wanted to go down and try it out. So the producers and I compiled a laundry list of embarrassing chores for me to complete while under the influence and, chuckling hysterically to ourselves, got on a plane and headed for Bogota, Colombia.

Once we landed in the Colombian capital, it took all of about 60 minutes to realize there wasn't going to be any more laughing. The fear that the mere mention of scopolamine struck in the locals was palpable and startling. As we dug deeper into this drug's story, following the evolution of the plant and its uses, we began to appreciate the gravity of ingesting it. And we became fearful.

Seriously? People flew to Bogota in order to try scopolamine on purpose? Because "we heard about it"? Really?

The video is hosted on CNN.com, with this disclaimer:

The reports, which are produced solely by VICE, reflect a transparent approach to journalism, where viewers are taken along on every step of the reporting process. We believe this unique reporting approach is worthy of sharing with our CNN.com readers.

Apparently the "reporting process" for learning about the effects of scopolamine starts with "sending a video crew to Bogota" instead of "using a search engine." Hilarious! Anyway, despite the fact that CNN.com just re-ran this with a date stamp of April 7, 2010, the original VBS video was published and widely covered back in 2007 - but apparently the scourge of scopolamine zombies is a story as timeless as the girl who could fly on LSD but didn't think to try it while standing on the ground.

As most of you know, I wrote the lyrics (and played a sarcastic bullhorn-wielding bunny named Bulldada) for the Burning Man-inspired rock opera How to Survive the Apocalypse. Now we are trying to raise money from the community to produce the studio CD of the show. Help us!

By the way, it was the original cast recording, and not the show itself, that made Jesus Christ Superstar a hit. We are Jesus Christ Superstar with fishnets, clown noses, and very obnoxious machines.

We have already done most of the professional recording, and the money will allow us to edit the music, produce the package (including a booklet with libretto), print the CDs, pay the studio to finish the product, and promote the thang. We’ve set up a project on Kickstarter, which is a very cool micro-funding mechanism—if you’re not familiar with it, check it out! People can contribute as little as $30 and get a copy of the CD; more ramps up the goodies! (Plus no one pays anything unless the project gets completely funded.)

I made it down to SF to see a performance and I have to say I cannot wait until I get a CD and hopefully someday a DVD. The music was stellar, the performances appropriately over-the-top and engaging - as someone who has become a Burning Man grump over many years of attending, the Burning Opera was like walking onto the playa for the first time all over again.

Here are some YouTube highlights:

All the students are clear on the drug's effects. "Modafinil increases my enthusiasm for studying," says Perera. "It makes me feel that lazing around is the last thing I want to do." Price agrees: "Modafinil gives me the motivation I would otherwise lack." Makepeace, who clearly doesn't lack motivation, instead takes modafinil to stay alert. "Once I've taken a pill I can stay up all night without stopping. It just works so well," she says. "I need it."

Concerned workers at the National Primate Research Center said Bobo, a 5-year-old chimpanzee participating in a 16-month cocaine study, was observed this week lying to the faces of friends, family, and staff.

"Our goal was to determine how large doses of the stimulant would improve or impair the chimpanzee's ability to perform memory and language tasks," said primatologist Daniel Martin, the project's lead researcher. "What we found was that cocaine not only disrupted Bobo's concentration and recall, but it also caused him to lie, cheat, and emotionally manipulate those around him."

Continued Martin, "Essentially, Bobo has become an asshole."

[Thanks Jim!]

Silicon Valley's rise as the hub of the technology industry in the 1960s coincided with LSD's explosion on the cultural scene. Within a few miles of Stanford Research Center (SRI), where Douglas Englebart was envisioning the personal computer as a mechanism to "augment human intelligence," three organizations were then legally administering LSD to guinea pigs. The Veterans Administration Hospital in Menlo Park and the Palo Alto Mental Research Institute were studying LSD to better understand schizophrenia. Meanwhile, the International Foundation for Advanced Study, founded by a former engineer, sought to give credibility to LSD's mind-expanding properties. These organizations offered leaders of the counterculture (Ken Kesey, Allen Ginsberg) and some of the personal computer industry's founding fathers their first communions with acid. No doubt, their mind-blowing experiences influenced the communal ethos of the early personal computing industry and later the open source software movement.

For those of you who don't know Douglas Englebart, see The Mother of All Demos, a 1968 telepresentation where Englebart demonstrates the first PC, mouse, word processor, e-mail, and everything we have come to love about computers. Yes, he dropped acid.

[Thanks Mason!]

An initiative to legalize marijuana in California will appear on the November ballot and both sides of the debate are wasting no time trying to smoke out the opposition.

But in an interesting wrinkle, California's pro-pot proponents are gaining support from some unlikely allies.

"We're definitely getting more support every day from people who haven't supported us in the past," says Richard Lee, the businessman and activist who led the effort that collected 690,000 signatures to get the initiative on the ballot.

A new nationwide poll by Pew Research Center suggests that opponents of legalized pot still comprise the majority (52 percent), and include the usual suspects: older Americans, conservatives and mothers of teenagers. In California, the state Republican party and the California Police Chiefs Association are just saying No to the ballot initiative.

Supporters of the Regulate, Control and Tax Cannabis Act (note the careful omission of language such as "legalize" and "marijuana") say that this could be one way to help solve the state's crushing budget problems. The initiative would make it legal for anyone 21 and older to possess an ounce of marijuana and/or grow whatever can fit in a 5-by-5-foot plot. It would permit cities and counties to decide whether to allow sales and tax the proceeds.

This detail has won over surprising bedfellows, including members of the organized labor community, the state's chapter of the NAACP and some in the law enforcement community.

Lee credits the economy -- California's debt is up to 37 percent of its economic output, according to one calculation -- with providing a boost to his campaign. "It's history repeating itself," he tells ABC News. "Like [the repeal of] alcohol prohibition during the Great Depression, we now have the Great Recession."

Published in 2010 'The Mad Artist -- Psychonautic adventures in the 1970s' is a novelistic memoir by Roger Keen. Set between 1975 and 1979, the book explores his experiences of psychedelic awakenings -- trials and tribulations -- against the backdrop of his time at art college. The novel manages to combine the best elements of biography and literary flair and carves for itself an exhilarating picture of psychedelic Britain in the late 1970s.

The novel is split into three sections. The first, titled 'Pounds, Shillings and Pence' an old name for LSD, chronicles Keen's first acid experiment and his search for an art college to attend. Several characters are introduced, most importantly Henry, whose relationship with Keen forms the psychedelic gravitas to the novel. The interplay of ideas between the two is a fascinating post-modern insight, wherein their own literary adventures in psychedelic literature creates a rhizome that informs the 'The Mad Artist' as a psychedelic work itself.

Fernet Branca's intense effect on the palate is largely due to its extreme bitterness, though the drink also contains, among other exotic herbs, myrrh, gentian root, saffron, zedoary, chamomile, cardamom, aloe, and something called cinchona (the exact formula is kept strictly secret). San Francisco Weekly called it "black-licorice flavored Listerine," Robert Misch, the former head of the Wine and Food Society of New York called it the "liqueur of Hades" and wrote that drinking it is "like hitting yourself on the head with a hammer," and Betsy von Furstenberg was suspended from Actor's Equity in 1960 after secretly putting it into Tony Randall's onstage drink.

At a recent dinner party, I served up a basic Fernet Branca cocktail - FB, gin, and sweet vermouth - and it was the surprise hit of the bar. The moral of the story is: if it is called "liqueur of Hades," get behind it, people.