George Carlin, one of the most prolific comedians of all time, has passed away. I’m sure most of you are aware of this, and it’s not like we’re doing any original reporting here, but as a blog that focuses on Counter-Culture we would be totally remiss not to put something here.

Plus, personally, I thought he was an amazing comic.

First, let me link you to two New York Times articles. The first is your boilerplate life recap and the other is more of an opinion piece.

Now that’s done with, I can move on to the point of this post…

For me, watching George Carlin was eye opening. It was the first time that I recognized a comic could be more than either cynical or slapstick, but an extremely insightful agent of social commentary.

This man was able to observe everyday life and make incisive observations on how America (and our 20th century mentality) operated. More than that, he was able to convey them in a way that made us laugh and realize just how absurd life can really be at times.

Beyond the tricky wordplay or the foul language, he will always be one of the most intelligent and iconoclastic people in modern entertainment. For that we should all thank him.

Rest in peace George, you funny motherfucker.

Update: Thought I’d throw some extra stuff into this post. First, a couple of classic Carlin quotes:

What if there were no hypothetical questions?

I have as much authority as the Pope, I just don’t have as many people who believe it.

Electricity is really just organized lightning.

Is there another word for synonym?

If a man is standing in the middle of the forest speaking and there is no woman around to hear him…is he still wrong?

Think of how stupid the average person is, and realize half of them are stupider than that.

Religion convinced the world that there’s an invisible man in the sky who watches everything you do. And there’s 10 things he doesn’t want you to do or else you’ll go to a burning place with a lake of fire until the end of eternity. But he loves you! …And he needs money! He’s all powerful, but he can’t handle money!

As a matter of principal, I never attend the first annual anything.

Death is caused by swallowing small amounts of saliva over a long period of time.

Next, there’s a great article by Jerry Seinfield about George and his mutual respect as a comedian.

So far, the responses have been great. We’ve gotten some funny ones, some weird ones and some reassuring ones. Turns out we’re doing a thing or two right as it stands, but we can definitely improve in other areas.

Let’s start off with something simple that I doubt will surprise anyone…

Yep, mind blowing right? A nice, round 100% of you think it is Ok to use marijuana for recreational use, with a slight caveat of 13% choosing the ‘It Depends’ option. Exactly zero people chose ‘No’ on this one. A real eye-opener right?

The next mixture of questions was designed to get your opinions on both features and content.

Let’s start with features, we created two major parts of the site - the tFS Headshop Locator and Feed Valley. We called them ‘Feature Elements’ and put them right below categories in the sidebar.

Turns out we either didn’t build them well enough or no one can find them, because the majority of responses were on the negative side. A whopping 14% of people use Feed Valley to grab news from other sites and an equally massive 22% of viewers used the tFS Headshop Locator (when it was still functional and not mangled by our hosting providers).

The amount of ‘Don’t Know What It Is‘ responses (54% for Feed Valley and 38% for tFSHL) really opened our eyes to how important navigation is and making it easy for all of you to spot the larger projects that we work on. You can bet the next featured aspects of tFS aren’t going to be as easy to miss. Count on it.

Next we wanted to get some ideas about our content. Asking which category you read the most was a no-brainer and the responses pretty much followed what our site stats show - you all love looking at Medical Marijuana. The MMJ category posted a 46% total, which is an impressive 20% difference between the next closest choice, News, clocking in at 20% of our responses.

Funnily enough, those responses totally contradicted how you felt about the next question - Marc Emery or Tommy Chong? Marc Emery is heavily involved with the legalization movement and seed cultivation. This would translate into readers being more interested with the deeper aspects of marijuana, both legal and structural. Tommy Chong, well known from his comedy movies, represents the lighter side of pot. Jokes, taking life easy and making fun of a few people or places along the way.

You guys favored Tommy by a pretty sizable margin - 65% to 35% - over Marc Emery. What does this mean to us? We’ll keep the news and strain info coming, but you also want to see some more humor and things to make you laugh. No problem, we can handle that.

There were some questions hard for us to put into graph form, but don’t worry, we’re paying attention to every one equally. The one consistent, major complaint has been over the lack of updates since the site last went down. We know you want to see more from us on the content front, and that won’t be an issue when we re-launch. Until then we have to keep quiet on the details.

So sit tight, know that we’re on top of it, and we look forward to dropping some development news in the coming week.

San Diego State just became home to one of the largest school-related drug busts in recent history. The final toll? Around 100 people were arrested, 75 of them students. The police confiscated 4 pounds of cocaine, 50 pounds of weed, 350 ecstasy pills, 4 guns and $60,000 in cash.

Considering this is front page news almost everywhere, this article going to be a simple news recap. Instead, we wanted to take a different angle, and talk to someone on the ground. It’s so easy to have an opinion made up by reading a single AP news article, but there are always other sides to a story.

Through a contact, we were able to interview an alumni from the most prominent fraternity involved in the drug sales - Theta Chi - and get a feel for what the local response is to this drug bust.

Let’s get on with it…

theFreshScent: This seems like an extremely serious issue and could possibly affect Theta Chi’s charter. Were these drug dealings completely common knowledge among house members, as the AP news article suggests?

Theta Chi Alumni: It would be safe to say that most brothers in a chapter know what the other brothers are up to, especially brothers who live at the fraternity house. If it is found to be true that drugs were sold on the premises, there is no doubt that their charter will be revoked. Theta Chi holds a strict no tolerance policy on drugs. Even alcohol is not allowed on chapter premises.

To see the rest of this interview, read on…

tFS: Did the people not involved in the drug operation ever speak up? Try to get things to stop?

TCA: My understanding is that the chapter was not involved in the dealing of drugs but merely a few careless members. The chapter was only 1 of the 9 places which Police searched with warrants. When an activity takes place in a fraternity house that is not liked by the other brothers, it is well known. Furthermore, legacies and older brothers have a much higher respect for the fraternity and normally put their foot down, especially if it jeopardizes the chapter or fraternity.

tFS: Do you know if any of the revenue from selling drugs went back into the fraternity or were just for personal gain?

TCA: No idea.

tFS: We all know people at SD State like to party, hell all of San Diego likes to party. Do you think this bust will really hold the market down for long?

TCA: Not at all, this appears to be a bust to address developing issues on the San Diego campus. The amount of arrests is simply astounding. The amount of cash and drugs ceased is nothing shocking if you take into account how many people and locations they had to raid to get it. It will probably send a scare through the buyer/dealer community, but unless they raid large distributers there will be no shortage of supply.

tFS: What’s the general campus reaction to this? I’m sure a lot of the students arrested were well know, is there any sort of community response happening right now?

TCA: I think it is too early to tell. I spoke with one of my friends which attends school there and his response was, “I don’t get the newspaper till Thursday…” so I think the news is still getting out.

tFS: Over 130 undercover buys, that means some serious evidence has been compiled against the sellers, any chance that some of them have been mistakenly linked (and arrested) to this operation?

TCA: It is unclear the involvement of the people arrested. I would not be surprised if some people were falsely arrested, or are being held liable for the actions of others.

tFS: Anything else you can share with me that I’m missing?

TCA: It is sad when things like this happen and the media jumps to throw in fraternity. Local news stations are known to send undercover girls with hidden cameras into fraternity parties to expose anything they can. The next thing you know a 20 year old drinking a beer is all they need to launch a story on a “underage drinking epidemic at frats”. This is greatly going to hurt the Greek system in San Diego. I am interested to see how many people were actually involved and what really happened where.

[Photo Denis Poroy/AP Photos]

The grandfather of psychedelic experimentation, Albert Hofmann, has passed away.

Best known for his discovery of LSD (or Lysergic Acid Diethylamide for you scientific types), Albert is also responsible for the synthesis of psylocybin. I don’t know how many of our readers have had mind-altering experiences, but they are the direct result of this little known man, his scientific skills and a small dash of luck.

After creating LSD-25 and leaving it alone for 5 years, Albert accidentally ingested a small sample while revisiting his work. Without that small mistake, he would never have taken 250ug of LSD on his bike ride home.

It’s a sad day for responsible people worldwide, not the morons who take 15 tabs and end up arrested by police while trying to catch the sun in their mouth. It took serious balls to be the first person to take a trip down Hallucinogen Lane and I salute the man.

If you want to learn more about Albert and his life, check out the most recent LA Times article (very descriptive) or his Wikipedia page.

[photo Walter Bieri / Associated Press]

Correction: Looks like I messed up, thanks to lsdboy and our other readers who caught the 250mg of LSD mistake. It has now been corrected to 250ug.

I hope you can all tell, but we’re starting to ramp things up here @ tFS. The v3 blog is under active development, and we’re really excited about the new features and technical set-up that’s being put together.

That said, our website is only as strong as the content on it. We want to know what you think about the current version of tFS and what you would like to see in Version 3. Nowhere in our About page does it say that we’re mind readers, so it’s time for you guys to step up and give us the news.

This quick survey, linked below, will go a long way in helping us map out and design posts and content that appeal to YOU. If you think something blows, let us know. If you think something rocked and you want to see more of it, let us know that too.

Take the survey! Take the survey! Take the survey!

So, bottom line, the more people who help us by filling this out, the better our content is going to be. I hope that it’s a good trade-off, 2 minutes of time for some killer articles to read & pictures/videos look at.

As always, if there’s anything missing, hit us up via the Contact page or via email.

Oh yea, fill out the survey!

Somewhere in the afterlife, Steve Irwin is crying. Why? Because ever since his Crocodile Hunter persona became popular, unoriginal people have been ripping it off. Unfortunately, the worst version I’ve ever seen has just surfaced.

CelebStoner, and a few other sources, tipped me off to one of the stupidest anti-drug campaigns in existence. I say ‘one of’ because after doing posts like these, it’s hard to be surprised anymore.

Suffice to say, this latest PSA plays on all of the weed smoker stereotypes that have been debunked again and again: lazy, no activities, no intelligence, unsuccessful, etc… It’s like getting the same shitty tasting sandwich wrapped in sparkling new packaging, the contents are still rotten.

If you want to waste some time, check out the Stoners in the Mist campaign. I suggest watching it while high, it’s extremely amusing.

According to the Super High Me staff, the experimental “Roll Your Own Screenings” approach to their movie release has been extremely successful.

With an expected total of 40,000 release-day viewers (both public and private screenings), Super High Me has done an impressive job of coordinating a grassroots promotion campaign.

Having seen the movie myself, I was thoroughly entertained. And, coincidentally, thoroughly high.

The Doug Benson documentary covered more areas than I expected, especially the physical & mental tests that he had to undergo during the pre-smoke and post-smoke months. Although not the most scientifically convincing, they show that a functional adult with a higher than average appetite for marijuana is at no significant disadvantage.

His comedy was great throughout both the sober and non-sober tests, and I’m bummed no tFS staff could make it to his 4/20 show at the Laugh Factory in LA. My only complaint might be that the ending was abrupt. Instead of a quick synopsis or a “what I’ve learned” piece, Super High Me cuts out right after the 31st day of smoking is finished.

Then again, if that’s my singular complaint about a movie, the director & producer have done a damn good job.

If you’ve seen Super High Me, let us know what you thought. Until we get Doug to do 30 days of Smoking for tFS, this is the best it’s going to get for one of our favorite comedians.

It’s an exciting day here at tFS because we finally get to give you a quick glimpse into what we’ve been working on for the past few months. Let’s dive right in…

First, we’re happy to announce theFreshScent Twitter account. If you’re not familiar with Twitter, it’s a microblogging service that uses instant messaging, SMS or the web to send people 140-character bites about what you’re doing.

Even if you aren’t seeing a lot of posts on tFS, we’re very busy working on some of the stuff that I’m about to show below. By checking up on our Twitter feed, you’ll be able to see what’s keeping us busy and away from writing.

We thought this would be a cool way to keep in contact with our audience, even when we aren’t able to post as much as we’d like. Also, expect some links to videos, images or news stories that we find funny or interesting to check out. You know, so you don’t get too bored with us.

It’s a great service that has really taken off, so head on over to the page and follow us, or sign-up, or just grab our RSS feed and you’ll be good to go.

On to the next news…

As everyone knows, the site has been really choppy, quality wise, and we find that unacceptable. We also find it a bit stale to be honest. This design has been live since September 20th, 2006. That’s almost two years, and it’s time for a face lift.

Above you is a quick look at theFreshScent v3. Our new take on what we want to deliver to the Counter-Culture world. You might wonder why it’s taken so long to put this together, but we’ve re-thought this site from the ground up and made changes accordingly.

I can’t spill all the beans just yet, but expect plenty of new features when launch day is announced. There is a lot of exciting news on the horizon for tFS readers and it’ll be here before you know it. Who knows, we might even have another sneak peek for you.

As always, if you have any feedback for us we’d love to hear it. Oh, and Happy 4/20!

Well, well, well. It looks like our friends over at Attack of the Show have forgotten a certain green-friendly blog during their 4/20 blog roundup.

No worries. We’ve been flying under the radar lately, but just wait until this time next year and tFS is going to be at the top of that list.

Also, 3 links? That’s all they could find?

I think these guys need to step up their game a bit and respect the tech-head smokers out there. We do exist (unless magic elf men created this site and I’m just too stoned to tell), so it’s time to put a voice to the movement.

Hey Everyone!

Didn’t expect to see something new here did you? Well, we’re here to change all that. I know it’s been almost year since we last dropped anything of significance, and we’re sorry about the all time it’s taken. We’ve definitely been off-the-job longer than we’d hoped, but there’s always tomorrow to look forward to and we’re working to bring it closer each day. Now, let’s get past the intro and on to the good news…

First, we’ve fixed most of the outstanding issues with the site. It ended up being the combination of old plugins and an out-of-date main database that really screwed everything up. With the introduction of WP2.5, some serious house cleaning and a bit of re-programming here and there - the current incarnation of tFS is back and ready to go.

The footer is currently being worked on, and there is still a hiccup with the tFS Headshop Locator, but other than that everything is in working order. Feed Valley is back and in full effect. If you have any suggestions for new feeds to add there, shoot us an email. Expect improvements on the site to be ongoing during the upcoming few weeks.

Next, we’re going to start updating a bit more frequently. Not just the tFS Debris, but also some comments on an article and a quick review here and there. We have plenty going on in the background (yes, I know you’ve heard that line before), but now everything is running smoothly we’ll be able to drop some news and updates along the way.

Last, we’re just looking forward to getting everything moving again. We’ve been away from the game for too long and copycats have tried to take our place.

Not happening.

Expect tFS to be the center of innovation in the Counter-Culture industry and stay tuned for the coming attractions!

+ the tFS Team

As it turns out, we’ve had to upgrade servers and remove some WordPress plugins (most notably the ‘recent comments’ plugin from the footer). I know the posts have fizzled out, but rest assured that we’re still keeping more than busy behind the scenes.

You can still add comments, they just won’t show in the footer until we find a plugin that doesn’t completely screw our MySQL database. We’ll be checking in frequently, so if you have any concerns or questions, drop them on this post and an answer will follow.

Tim and I apologize for the downtime. Keep checking back for updates, you should start seeing some more life around this place in a month or so.

Until then…

In case you haven’t already seen this, Drew Carey is one cool guy.

If The Farmacy looks familiar to some of you, it was in an episode of Entourage where Johnny Drama obsessed over an MMJ hat to impress his castmates. Good times.

Call it you what you want - vicious and delicious, delectable distress, tasty torment - just don’t call it unoriginal; cookie torture.

That’s right, after getting bailed on by his friends during a drug deal, some unfortunate kid got burned by fresh-out-the-oven cookies. He must have been so torn during the process, “Do I scream or take a bite?”

A helpful commenter wrote a precise re-enactment of how the scene played out… in his mind…

Dealers: I say, it appears my good chums have run off with your procurements!

Victim: You don’t say! Those filthy blighters! And you dare to remain, you cantankerous curmudgeon!

Dealers: It appears I have been thoroughly crossed!

Victim: I take exception to that! I shall have at you with these baked confections!

In unrelated (but just as impressive) dumbassery, it turns out that reporting 150 pounds of stolen marijuana to the police is not such a bright idea. Especially, when you’re an illegal immigrant, think twice before doing this.

On a side note, is it just really bad luck that gets random people in really deep shit over large quantities of marijuana?

For every carefully organized and executed drug raid, I read about 5+ accidental busts that net tons more product. It’s better to be lucky than good I suppose.

On the political front, be aware of your candidates and where they stand on decriminalization.

Seriously, it just makes sense.

We have some important battles on the horizon and supporting a candidate who continues to propagate arcane views isn’t helping any of us on the path to success. Progress and change come with inherent risks, just ask Gary Ross, who’s taken the good fight all the way to the California Supreme Court.

On the science front, there are some very interesting studies taking place.

Sea urchins? Really?

Well, if pot has surpassed opium as a premier crop in Afghanistan, I guess anything is possible.

On a final note, who says that blown glass dildos don’t have a place in our world? Not Rick Plank, the founder of Phallix Glass.

For a more hands on review, let Trina Michaels show you the goods.

Yes, we’re a little late, but partying hard on Halloween will do that to anyone. Let’s start this rehash with an ill Halloween performance from Devin the Dude exactly 1 year ago.

One thing we try to stay away from here at tFS are the insanely cheesy graphics that certain smokers like to make.

Consider this one a free pass, but don’t expect any rotating pot leaf .GIFs on this site any time soon.

I tried to get my roommate to wear this costume to work.

A wise career move? No. Hilarious? Most definitely.

Talking about costumes, where was the originality this year? Why not dress up as a a post-catfight, America-free Amy Winehouse. Or, Charles Manson’s little known son Zezozose Zadfrack Glutz. And no, that name is not a joke.

Considering the Governator’s recent comments, I’m surprised there weren’t more people dressed as numero uno himself.

I wonder if any trick or treaters hit the candy jackpot?

Last but not least, we leave you with one of the tastiest pictures I’ve seen in a long time. It even puts Grandma’s pumpkin pie to shame.

Well, maybe just your Grandma’s, and definitely not this wonderful woman’s.

Was that a little cold? I’m sorry. No I’m not.

It is truly sad to see Joe Torre go out like this, and even though Don Mattingly might end up getting the job and being a great coach, no one will replace Joe in the players eyes. It would be like Phil Jackson leaving the Lakers (again) or Bill Belichik leaving the Patriots. Just no good for everyone in general.

The law-heavy and litigious culture of America is definitely unique in this world. Slate’s Tim Wu, a Columbia Law School professor, has written an extremely thought-provoking examination of consistently broken laws.

This series explores the black spots in American law: areas in which our laws are routinely and regularly broken and where the law enforcement response is … nothing. These are the areas where, for one reason or another, we’ve decided to tolerate lawbreaking and let a law—duly enacted and still on the books—lay fallow or near dead.

The topics range from prescription drug abuse to copyright matters and isn’t for the light reader.

Obvious contrast between the new law (placed on the books in response to a specific cause) and the decaying law (slowly allowed to fade away without any fanfare) highlights how our founding fathers didn’t think of everything when piecing together our form of government.

I know we’re late, but the 7th Annual High Times Stony Awards were last week.

Here’s Tera Patrick talking about being a presenter.

Here’s the lowdown on all Stony winners and the attendee list.

While I’m on the topic of famous stoners, Marc & Jodie Emery just debuted their documentary on CBC Newsworld in Canada. The Prince of Pot is still taking on America and, as always, making sure the process is well documented.

I wish they’d stop documenting Amy Winehouse and her minor pot run-ins. I’m seeing a news article on this girl twice a week now, there has to be something more interesting to report on. Right?

Before you know it she’ll move to Manila and start getting taxi rides from this guy.

Don’t feel like traveling Winehouse style? No matter where you go, there will always be some worldwide marijuana information waiting.

Whether you want to smoke in Kazakhstan or Bernardsville, New Jersey the more information the better.

The major US cities have information on legality, smoking tolerance level, law enforcement, where to buy your pot and local area prices. Everything one would need to know when traveling into unfamiliar territory.

Fun Fact: North Americans are most likely to search the internet for pot.

I could have told them that.

Let’s hope that the author of the following blog isn’t being affected by the deadly San Diego fires.

In the meantime, he has written an honest, first-person experience of the San Diego medical marijuana system.

As I came to find out, San Diego county had previously shut down every medical marijuana dispensary in San Diego county saying they were influencing youth to take up dangerous drugs. In my area we have no readily available source for medical marijuana other than grow it ourselves (which is what I do) or go to a “dealer”. This needs to be brought to the publics attention as it is leaving many legitimately sick people such as me without the access to the medicine they need.

This illustrates the challenge that legitimate patients are having to get their medicine, and how even in big cities people are forced to go to the streets to get marijuana if they aren’t in a position to grow some. How this makes any of us safer is beyond me.

Luckily for all of us, the prohibition movement is nothing but a downhill battle. Mass incarceration just isn’t a sustainable solution.

In Canada, they are already turning the corner. A judge has just recently declared that “marijuana prohibition has no valid force or effect.” Read on to see the entire legal memorandums and why they might be important for a simple possession case to have an impact on a constitutional level. ]]> http://thefreshscent.com/2007/10/24/weekly-rehash-102407/feed/ http://thefreshscent.com/2007/10/10/weekly-rehash-101007/ http://thefreshscent.com/2007/10/10/weekly-rehash-101007/#comments Thu, 11 Oct 2007 07:15:45 +0000 Alex http://thefreshscent.com/2007/10/10/weekly-rehash-101007/ October is heading into full swing and everyone knows what that means. Lots of delicious beer marijuana arrests.

Everyone from college students to hardcore, drug trafficking gangsters are getting tagged.

I’m just happy that our tax dollars are getting spent responsibly. As long as my salary goes towards important stuff like minor pot arrests, and not wasteful things like outfitting our troops with IED resistant armored vehicles, I can sleep easy at night.

Might as well lighten the mood with a cross-dressing, English comedian talking about the stoned olympics. Wait, what?

The human brain sure is a mystery. Some people find new Eddie Murphy movies funny and others don’t like Dave Chappelle. Go figure.

(Interesting Side Note: Dave was offered the roll of Bubba, Tom Hank’s best friend, in Forrest Gump. He turned it down because he felt the part was too racially motivated.)

What we do know about the brain, and what’s also good for all of us, is that it’s built with marijuana in mind. Thank you cannabinoid receptors. Thank you.

That said, not everyone who decides to partake in the greenery has a brain built to function on it.

Some are complete fucking morons. No surprise, right?

Who’s sick of all the camo clothing coming out lately? Not me.

Even though I think this might be a base attempt at associating a product with a beneficial cause to increase sales, they’re still doing some good.

Politics and politicians are an interesting affair. Want to know how your candidate feels about medical marijuana?

Watch for yourself.

Want to see an unusual point of view? Listen to this guy.

While matters might not be moving forward as quickly as we’d hope in the states, things seem to be improving in the Czech Republic. Not exactly close to home, I know.