strangebrew

On Living Black next week SUN 4.30, MON 5.30(Rpt), also shown on SBS1 a couple of times, there's going to be a story about the aboriginal locals in Nhulunbuy, Arnhem Land challenging the Federal Government's ban on drinking kava.

Interesting what?

Ah the Weedseed EP was a wee ripper! Was a fan of the instrumental on it called Fritz. It used to be worth quite a bit on the secondhand market. I know I sold it for more than I paid for it way back when. Can't remember Tumbleweed opening for Nirvana though but maybe they didn't do Adelaide. Speaking of which I think the Weedsters got back together for a tour just recently.

Channel 73 at 10.30. Supposedly quite bad but there might be a laugh in it....maybe.

I thought it was pretty amateur at the time but compared to that aya piece that was on dateline recently it's pure gold. I've still got the last 15mins on a tape. Sue Taylor was the executive producer. Two guys, Russell & Paul, were the other "producers" who ended up taking it to Sue to clean up. One of their bro's - Simon, does the music/guitar work at the end.

Good find centipede, looks like a match. Whatever it is the branching habit is nothing like Australia's scopulicola.

LOS ANGELES (Reuters) - Owsley "Bear" Stanley, a 1960s counterculture figure who flooded the flower power scene with LSD and was an early benefactor of the Grateful Dead, died in a car crash in his adopted home country of Australia on Sunday, his family said. He was 76. The renegade grandson of a former governor of Kentucky, Stanley helped lay the foundation for the psychedelic era by producing more than a million doses of LSD at his labs in San Francisco's Bay Area. "He made acid so pure and wonderful that people like Jimi Hendrix wrote hit songs about it and others named their band in its honor," former rock 'n' roll tour manager Sam Cutler wrote in his 2008 memoirs "You Can't Always Get What You Want." Hendrix's song "Purple Haze" was reputedly inspired by a batch of Stanley's product, though the guitarist denied any drug link. The ear-splitting psychedelic-blues combo Blue Cheer took its named from another batch. Stanley briefly managed the Grateful Dead, and oversaw every aspect of their live sound at a time when little thought was given to amplification in public venues. His tape recordings of Dead concerts were turned into live albums, providing him with a healthy income in later life. "When it came to technology, the Bear was one of the most far-out and interesting guys on the planet," Cutler wrote. "The first FM live simulcast could be, in part, attributed to his vision, as could the first quadraphonic simulcast on radio." The Dead, a fabled rock band formed in the San Francisco Bay Area in 1965 known for its improvisational live concerts, wrote about him in their song "Alice D. Millionaire" after a 1967 arrest prompted a newspaper to describe Stanley as an "LSD millionaire." Steely Dan's 1976 single "Kid Charlemagne" was loosely inspired by Stanley's exploits. 'COMMUNITY SERVICE' According to a 2007 profile in the San Francisco Chronicle, Stanley started cooking LSD after discovering the recipe in a chemistry journal at the University of California, Berkeley. The police raided his first lab in 1966, but Stanley successfully sued for the return of his equipment. After a marijuana bust in 1970, he went to prison for two years. "I wound up doing time for something I should have been rewarded for," he told the Chronicle's Joel Selvin. "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." He emigrated to the tropical Australian state of Queensland in the early 1980s, apparently fearful of a new ice age, and sold enamel sculptures on the Internet. He lost one of his vocal cords to cancer. Stanley was born Augustus Owsley Stanley III in Kentucky, a state governed by his namesake grandfather from 1915 to 1919. He served in the U.S. Air Force for 18 months, studied ballet in Los Angeles and then enrolled at UC Berkeley. In addition to producing and advocating LSD, he adhered to an all-meat diet. Cutler, speaking on behalf of the family, said in an interview that Stanley and his wife, Sheila, were driving to their home near the city of Cairns along a dangerous stretch of highway when he evidently lost control during a storm. He died instantly; his wife broke her collar bone. Stanley is also survived by four children, eight grandchildren and two great-grandchildren. (Reporting by Dean Goodman, editing by Peter Bohan and Todd Eastham) © Copyright 2011, Reuters http://www.publicbroadcasting.net/ksfr/news.newsmain/article/0/0/1774857/US/Psychedelic.icon.Owsley.Stanley.dies.in.Australia

They're odd hey, I don't dream about other shrooms. No joke for me the 1st is always in March/April and I might have a couple more in season & then that's it until next year. This last was a beauty - I was flying over the roadsides with my eyes peeled.

I think his body should be donated to science if there were no other plans. He'd probably be about the only westerner to ever be obsessed enough to follow an all protein/fat diet for just about their whole lifetime.

Yes this is true. I've read before that the majority of South Australian aboriginals were hit by small pox even before whites arrived. It travelled quickly down the Murray River from the east.

Might have been on Saturday. "the Queensland Police Service issued a media release referring to "a man in his 70s" who died when his car went off the Kennedy Highway and crashed into trees between Davies Creek and Koah, inland from Kuranda" http://www.theaustralian.com.au/news/nation/owsley-bear-stanley-dies-in-north-queensland-car-crash/story-e6frg6nf-1226021149610

Amazing! I had my 1st dream of the year in the past week too! "Same for SA" I dunno man, I think things maybe a little earlier this year. There's been some low night temps in a few hills locations already & I've had shaggy manes popping up in my compost bin!

Re the McCandless suicide theory. It all seems to stem from a letter he sent that contained the following - "If this adventure proves fatal and you don't ever hear from me again, I want you to know your a great man. I now walk into the wild."

McCandless was a bit odd I'm sure. Too self-absorbed and seeming to lack the ability to make emotional connections. Probably not schizophrenic like some have guessed but possibly somewhere on the schizophrenic spectrum. I think hanging around the bus is what killed him. If he hadn't had that to shelter him he probably would have realized he was out of his depth sooner. Not fishing was also puzzling. People in the know said there was fish aplenty around there.

A recent interview with James Kent - http://www.realitysandwich.com/discussion_james_kent

Anyone got any ID tips for distinguishing between these two?

I think what I've been thinking of as a horse mushroom probably isn't according to my books which say a horse mushroom should be pure white with a double ring. The local one can be a bit brown and scaly and only has a single ring and can get quite large before the veil breaks but tastes really mild and delicious. I just go by the bugs now, they're never wrong. If they've attacked it it'll be nice to eat, if they've left it alone it'll be a yellow stainer.

Nah not the same, mine turned out to be yellow stainers yet again. The 1st I picked must have been up awhile and lost their smell and changed colour, I've never seen any that red before but new ones coming up now in the same place are definately ys's. Too bad they hadn't changed their taste as well.

As far as I'm aware all Agaricus are edible except for the ones that contain phenol i.e. yellow stainers, & I've even eaten them. I think the red colouring appears with age, younger ones are white.

Do you think this is the same? Usually all I find around here are yellow stainers but I came across a massive amount of these today, also in S.A. Older specimens have black gills. This was the whitest one, most were quite reddish. Agaricus campestris maybe?

My faves - Walkabout The Man from Hong Kong Long Weekend (1978) - if you can find it. Think it's just been released on DVD

I thought The Hills Have Eyes(2006) which was shown on TV on Halloween was pretty good, it definately had it's moments and I'm not easily scared. I remember liking the original as well. American Werewolf in London is always about the top of my list, watch it with the lights off.

This Opit character seems like a magnet for Yowies! It's an interesting essay. Yowies - Fact or fiction? http://www.yowiehunters.com/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=898&Itemid=148 Former National Party Senator Bill O'Chee even saw one on a school camp as a kid! http://www.yowiehunters.com/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=1185&Itemid=131