Build Date: Wed Jan 15 09:20:19 2025 UTC
If there's one thing Christianity is all about, it's sexy names.
-- Crackmonkey
McKenna, 1990s Dying Real Bad
1999-08-15 17:32:18
Damn. Well, sure, of course it was going to happen sometime, but I wasn't really sure that the 1990s were really going to end until I heard that Terence McKenna was super dead sick.
Like, I dunno if anyone else remembers this stuff, but the 90s came on REAL STRONG here in San Francisco, around 1989 or so. It was this really weird, optimistic yet cynical, bad crazy time. There were basically 4 planks to the 90s platform: electronic music, computers, green politics, and Terence McKenna.
Terence is the world's foremost expert in ethnobiology -- in other words, he knows all the best plants to get you fucking HIGH. But unlike a lot of cynical drug advocates, Terence BELIEVES in drugs. He thinks they're IMPORTANT -- that they're a gateway to the IMMORTAL and INEFFABLE world. He thinks that the Shadow People that you meet in Mushroom Land have something to say to you. That all those guys in loincloths with blood coming out of their ears in remote Amazon villages are doing something right.
Anyways, he was the spectacular godchild of early 1990s SF. Like, people would quote him all the time and stuff. Even long after all that THING that made the 90s cool and interesting and important kinda got dashed on the rocks by venture capitalists and W I R E D and whoever, even after that, Super Terence was still making the rounds, telling people about s. divinorum or whatever. He's been putting in the time to make the Dreamtime happen.
Well, now, he's dying. Check out the info at the site below, and take an extra cap tonight in honor of the Mushroom Man, eh? Tell them the Shadow People sent you.
T O P S T O R I E S
The Future Ain't What It Used To Be
Ideas have taken horrifying shape and rooted into our modern reality. (More...)
The Once & Future King of Dust
Only The Onion could have acquired Infowarts. (More...)
Another Nobel Prize-Winning Author Describes Drunkenness
This book won a Pulitzer Prize. Here's its famous paragraph on getting drunk... (More...)
Why I'm pretty sure JD Vance had sex with a couch
True or false? The answers await us in that magical land where all truths are revealed -- the internet. (More...)
In 2010 Dr. Cheng-Huai Ruan discovered a way to cause a patient with an abnormal heartbeat to get back into a normal rhythm by sticking a finger up the patient's ass. (More...)
WKRP in Cincinnati aired from 1978 through 1982. Howard Hesseman played Dr. Johnny Fever, a DJ from Los Angeles who was fired from his previous job for saying the word "booger" on the air. In the show Hesseman would do some dialogue, introduce a song, and start the song. You'd hear a few notes, but never the whole song. (More...)
C L A S S I C P I G D O G
It was the night of the Leonid meteor showers -- the perfect opportunity to break out the evil opaline liquor, get madder than hatters, and test wireless ethernet hardware... Would the plunging meteorites interfere with the 2.4GHz band? What about our delicate brain waves? (More...)
Report from Spiritual Machines
Arkuat gives you the inside scoop on the "Spiritual Machines" panel and conclave. Wacky excitement ensues! (More...)
I just came across this coolio essay by Pigdog Journal Science Editor binky wedged between two staves in the back corner of the submissions barrel. It's on the origin of the cyberbilly and is definitely de rigeur for any serious student of this fascinating sociological movement. (More...)
Still Up For the Party? America's Dance Floors Are Graying
Raving over 30 doesn't have to be embarassing anymore. (More...)
Skunk School -- Learn Why Not To Keep Skunks As Pets
There is an alarming trend in pet purchasing habits this fall. People inspired by the WWII film, "Life is Beautiful" -- the one with that annoying Italian guy -- are buying descented skunks by the millions. (More...)
Poor Metallica. All they want is to continue to put out the same weak "Heavy Metal" they've been churning out since the "And Justice For All" days? and make gooey wads of cash in the process. The problem is, people aren't buying their bound for the heavy metal scrap heap, over-produced, uninspired, tired crap. And let's face it, their various commercial endorsements won't pay for the lifestyle they've become comfortably accustomed to. Resorting to lawsuits makes perfect sense, when you need spending money. But just one lawsuit isn't going to pay their bills. So, to aid Metallica, I've composed an open letter to the boys in the band, with suggestions as to whom else they might sic their lapdog lawyers on... (More...)
