by Abe Sauer

3 year old learning to shoot.

Small child shoots AK-47

Restaurant’s Appeal Seems Predicated Upon Its Controversial Appellation Rather Than The Quality Of Its Comestibles

“But while the name will get you in the door, the food won’t necessarily keep you coming back. ‘Supa Fly Ho with Cheese’ was not especially juicy — or fatty, as the restaurant’s name would suggest — and the patty itself was almost charred.”
New Waco, TX eatery Fat Ho Burgers — where menu items include “the Bad Mamajama, the Fat Chicken Ho, the Sloppy Ho brisket sandwich and, curiously, A Fat Ho Named Bertha” — has been receiving widespread publicity since its recent opening (and inspiring the classic bit of local news you see above), but the actual cuisine leaves the experts unimpressed.

Dear aliens arriving for the first time from outer space, or caveman, unthawed and revived after being frozen in a glacier for 30,000 years, please disregard the label at the top of the new video from recent Cash Money Records signee, Porcelain Black. This is not what rock n’ roll actually looks like. Or sounds like. For that, please reference the new song from Toronto’s Fucked Up. From their forthcoming rock opera (!?), David Comes to Life, which is due in June. It’s the bomb.

Julian Schnabel’s Painting Encapsulates the Entire History of Painting, and Some Other Stuff Julian Schnabel Told Me In His Ex-Wife’s Living Room Last Night

by “David Shapiro”

right now, me and mike and nate are drinking white wines at a party in the living room of Julian Schnabel’s ex-wife’s townhouse on 11th street and mike’s chewing on a leg of lamb that he says is the manliest hors d’oeuvre he’s ever eaten. there are huge pieces of art lining the walls in here, like fifteen-foot-tall paintings and sculptures, and also a tribal headdress balanced on a stand in a corner. the room is uncomfortably crammed with really beautiful people who are ready to party, mostly like 28-year-old millionairesses in wispy gowns with French accents who can look down and see the top of my head

Naomi Campbell is here too and i go up to her and say “hi i’m david — can i ask you a quick question please?” and she says “sure!” and i ask “what’s your favorite record?” and she says “hmmmm… i’d have to say Bob Marley!” and then i say “…but which record?” and she thinks for a second and goes “whichever one the…” and then cuts herself off and goes “LEGEND!!” and i wanna tell Naomi Campbell i love that record too but she has already disappeared

i go back to mike and nate and tell them the stock joke about Bob Marley’s Legend, which is that for anyone who only has 10 CD’s, Legend is one of them. then Julian Schnabel walks in, fat like my dad, wearing a shirt unbuttoned about halfway down with his chest hair billowing out, and a brown blazer and athletic pants that look very stretchy and comfortable, and red slip-on Vans. his hair is slicked back with gel and his eyebrows might be too.

Julian Schnabel pushes through the crowd trying to get to the room behind us and he gets right up near me and the people he’s trying to push through won’t budge so he decides to wait until a path clears. he stands there because he can’t move and he looks around and then looks at me and shakes my hand and says “how are you?” and i look at him quizzically and think for a second and say “stable, how are you?” but then he doesn’t answer me because he’s finally pushed through the people he wanted to push through. when he’s gone, mike and nate look at me incredulously and mike says “do you know him?” and nate says “why did he shake your hand?” and i say “i’ve never seen him before — i guess i was just the nearest person to him who he hadn’t met yet?”

then we go downstairs because the living room is too crowded with people trying to talk to Julian Schnabel, and i get a Pellegrino at the bar because i shouldn’t drink on my medication, and we stand around admiring the art. even the art in the bathrooms here is really sick i think. mike interviews a socialite who apparently popularized the hipster headband. Rolling Stone founder Jann Wenner’s son Theo Wenner is here too and he walks near me and i say “hi!” because i interviewed him one time (i don’t think he liked me but what do i have to lose by just saying hi you know?), but his mouth is full of food so he makes the sound that “muhhghgh” sound people make when their mouths are full of food but they’re trying to say “hi david!” and then he looks away and keeps walking. a few minutes later, nate looks across the room and sees Theo Wenner smoking indoors and says “wow, Theo Wenner’s smoking inside! that’s going in the notes!” and he takes out his notepad and jots it down. then we walk past Jacqueline Schnabel on our way to the bar, who’s also now smoking inside, and as we pass her, she says with mock-indignation “where is the MUSIC down here?!” and raises her arms and puts her palms out inquisitively. i want to be like “yo Jacquelin lemme just throw my iPod on” but it would be inappropriate, like she doesn’t even know i DJ parties

then me and mike go back upstairs for mike to interview Julian Schnabel. they talk for a while and Julian Schnabel tries to spoonfeed mike some chocolate mousse out of a little bowl during his interview, but mike declines it. then mike is finished interviewing him and i go up to Julian Schnabel and introduce myself to him, although we already met he probably doesn’t remember, and i ask him what his favorite drug is and he says “painting” because it takes him to another place or something like that. Julian Schnabel is like a big cuddly hairy bear, and he’s really nice to me but talks to me like an adult. when cameras flash around us, i can see that the lenses in his glasses are tinted yellow, perhaps literalizing the idea that he sees the world differently from regular people

i also notice that he has buttoned up his shirt so that now, less than 20% of his chest is exposed and i ask him why he buttoned it, “like is it because someone opened the door and there’s a draft in here [which there is]? or a style thing?” and he says mysteriously “i like to be comfortable.” i ask him what kind of occasion would compel him to wear dress shoes (everyone else here is dressed formally except us, and i just found out about this party like an hour ago, when mike invited me, so he’s the only one without an excuse) and he says that he used to wear dress shoes more but they’re uncomfortable. i nod and point to my sneakers and try to avoid thinking about the only Julian Schnabel-related thing i can think of, which is the Das Racist line where Victor says “more than a plate — paintings / Prodigy, more Picasso than Schnabel” but he pronounches it SCHNAY-ble so it rhymes

Julian Schnabel says he used to paint in a blue suit, because it made him feel more formal, and then go outside in pajamas (what a topsy-turvy world he was living in!!!), and people would always give him weird looks because he was wearing pajamas outside/in social situations. then i tell him i had a flannel i really liked but then one day someone pointed out that it was a pajama top and i realized they were right so i gave it to elizabeth and now she wears it

then some old dude interrupts Julian Schnabel as he’s talking to me and Julian Schnabel shakes the dude’s hand and then gets back to talking to me even though he has no real reason to, which is nice. he asks me if i like the painting behind him, which is made of 2 panels and depicts a crouching man with a turquoise aboriginal face on the right panel and some broken plates held together by auto-body paint/putty on the left panel. i tell him “i don’t know? i don’t really know anything about art…” which is true and then i say “did you make it?” and he nods

then he tells me to stop taking notes and spends 26 minutes (the amount of time between when i put my phone away and when i took it back out) leading me around his daughter’s house and trying to explain his paintings, which mostly have broken plates all over them, which are are hung up all around the rooms on this floor, and also one of Dan Colen’s paintings

at some point as we’re talking, i notice that every other guest at the party has migrated downstairs so it’s just me, Julian Schnabel, and two cocktail waitresses standing in his daughter’s living room as he explains his paintings to me. i notice the cocktail waitresses try to listen in and so i guess they’ve come to this Julian Schnabel party with some preexisting knowledge of Julian Schnabel. as we’re walking around and talking about art, i catch a glimpse of the permanent bump on my forehead, which my mom has been telling me to see a dermatologist about, in the reflection of a glass door leading out to the patio. i should get that removed soon

anyway so what i remember about the Julian Schnabel art tour (because i couldn’t take notes) is that Julian Schnabel says that painting is its own language, and i would be able understand his paintings if i understood the larger language of painting, and that all of his paintings are connected to each other and to all the paintings that have preceded them. he says that his paintings “take into account and encapsulate the entire history of painting” and, essentially, improve on it (i think he stated that point a little more delicately than i just did, but probably not much more delicately — Julian Schnabel loves his paintings. and why wouldn’t he?! based on the information i have, i can tell you they’re fucking awesome!)

he says some paintings are illusionistic and some are allusionistic and his are often both. i offer him an Ativan and he declines it. he tells me to read a book called The Recognitions by William Gaddis, which is apparently “a thick volume” but a worthwhile read. he speaks to me warmly and like a professor, like he cares whether i am listening and if i will remember what he’s saying, which i mostly do but learning about art is hard and i can’t remember everything. if you ever come across this Schnabel and you wanna talk more, i’m pitchforkreviewsreviews@gmail.com

the second-to-last painting he shows me is a Dan Colen painting that looks like bird shit but isn’t actually bird shit. i guess this one is just illusionistic. he speaks in a derisive tone about the painting but doesn’t say anything actually negative about it. he touches Dan Colen’s painting with his fingers, moving his fingers over the birdshit lumps, and looks unimpressed. he asks me if i’ve heard of Dan Colen and i say “yeah because i read a lot about Dash Snow after he died.” as we’re standing next to the bird shit painting, i tell Julian Schnabel about the tiny Pacific island nation of Nauru, which is the fattest country in the world (97% of men and 93% of women are overweight or obese), because, re: the birdshit painting, the island’s chief export is guano, which is the excrement of bats, birds, and seals. the island got really rich off selling this shit to the rest of the world for fertilizer, and then the rest of the world repaid Nauru by making it the fattest country. Julian Schnabel is entertained

the last painting we look at is a painting that he told mike had never been publicly exhibited. here is a picture (taken later in the evening) of me, mike, and New York Magazine’s Jessica Pressler standing in front of it:

after he explains the paintings, he tells me to see his new movie MIRAL and i say “okay maybe” and he asks if i’ve seen any of his other movies, which he reels off in chronological order i think, and he gets up to Basquiat and i say “i saw that! that one was good” and he tells me to see MIRAL again, because if i liked Basqiat i might like it. he asks me if i’ve seen The Diving Bell and Butterfly and i tell him “no, it seemed really depressing”. he looks dismayed and tells me to see that one too

then we say goodbye because he has other party guests to attend to, some of whom have come upstairs to talk to him, and i go downstairs again, into the basement, and notice that a woman who mike has pointed out as a famous socialite is wearing a onesie jumpsuit and has a really deep wedgie. she must be thinking of ways to surreptitiously dislodge the wedgie right now.

then me and mike sit down at a table near a stately French female stylist who looks about 50 years old and she leans over to me and starts drunkenly telling me that people my age are changing the world right now and that i should follow my heart. mike takes that as his cue to slip away and then later says that drunk old rich women are always telling people our age to follow their hearts because that’s easy to say when you’re drunk and rich and old. i think about telling the stylist that in my estimation, stylists are like DJs but with clothes instead of music. like fashion designers are like bands because they make the clothes and then the stylists are like DJs because they choose the clothes people should wear. i know this isn’t really like a mindballer observation, i’m just saying

then i politely slip away from the stylist and find nate, but he’s leaving to go see LCD Soundsystem, so i find mike and Jessica Pressler again. Julian Schnabel walks past us with an old dude in a funky tan skullcap-like hat and he offhandedly tells me to see MIRAL for a third time and i say “can you give me like a DVD screener copy though?” and he says “come on, just go to the movies, it’s like $7 or $11” (it’s like $13.50 in NYC dude) and Jessica Pressler says to Schnabel “but look at him!” and gestures to the holes in my shirt. i know she didn’t mean it in a mean way, i think she just thought Julian Schnabel should have given me a DVD of MIRAL if he wanted me to see it so damn much

then me and mike and Jessica Pressler get our coats and take that picture that was up there and leave. a chauffer sits in a big Audi outside, the car idling, reading a book on his iPad, and i’m thinking “damn, even these peoples’ drivers read books!” then we split: mike walks home and Jessica Pressler gets in a cab and i go into the subway, the 14th Street A/C/E/L stop, the one with those weird little bronze sculptures, and i notice one of the sculptures (near the southernmost entrance to the Downtown A/C/E platform) has an unexpected little penis!, which i will leave you a picture of to cap off a night of artistic discovery:

Sent via BlackBerry

David “Shapiro” is 22 and lives in New York City and has a Tumblr.

A Guide To Richmond, VA, By a Guy Who Lived There from ’93 to ‘97

by Jason Linkins

Thanks to the college basketball championships, in which both Richmond, Virginia-based teams (Virginia Commonwealth University and the University of Richmond) performed admirably, we had cause to ponder, “Not sure why people are so into Richmond, Virginia.” That’s a reasonable question! Richmond is a mostly busted-ass city on the banks of the James River that’s played host to such luminaries as George Allen, and also George Allen’s wife — what’s her name, the one who married George Allen. It’s best known as the capital of the Confederacy, and, as many of the old-school Richmondites — by which I mean the “racist” ones — will probably tell you, that’s basically where the city peaked.

But I attended Virginia Commonwealth University for just as long as was humanly necessary, and I have to say, I have a fondness for Richmond that just won’t quit. So I thought I’d share some fun facts about a place I lived while I was getting an MFA that I pretty much don’t really use anymore!

Richmond loves them some confederate heroes! And they celebrate them all on a road called Monument Avenue. There, you’ll find all the greats: Robert E. Lee, Stonewall Jackson, J.E.B. Stuart, Jefferson Davis. Also, there is some guy named Matthew Fontaine Maury whose importance is a mystery to me. He did something with sextants, I think?

Also, Arthur Ashe! Arthur Ashe was a tennis playing hero of Richmond who won three Grand Slam titles, which was more Grand Slams than the entire Confederate Army put together! But when it came time to put his statue on Monument Avenue, man… people really freaked out! A lot of people didn’t want Ashe on the Avenue because they looked him up and saw that he was a black dude. The whole tennis part threw them for a while, but they sussed it out eventually. And so: racism. But a lot of otherwise nicer people didn’t want his statue on the street because they didn’t want Ashe associated with a bunch of Civil War losers. Whatever! That’s where they put the statue, so everyone loses!

To be honest with you, have you seen the statue? It kind of looks like Ashe is about to cold whoop some kids upside the head with some books and/or his tennis racket. I always thought it looked weird, anyway, but I never said much about it, because my wife was friends with some people who were friends with the sculptor, so you never knew who you were going to be in the room with at any given time that you were at a party and felt the urge to just start straight up making fun of the statue.

There are some appreciable differences between the student bodies of Virginia Commonwealth University and the University of Richmond. VCU students fell into several categories: heroin users, meth users, people with multiple tattoos, people with multiple piercings, people with multiple piercings that you didn’t realize were there until you were in the middle of having sex with them and discovered that you had all this shrapnel to navigate around, and also some people who weren’t in the art school. By contrast, students from the University of Richmond were basically “like UVa. students, only dumb.”

The Ku Klux Klan’s number was in the White Pages! Is that normal? I never noticed it in the White Pages of any other place I’ve lived. And I haven’t checked any White Pages since. It was more like one night I was like, “Damn, I bet the Klan’s phone number is in this town’s phone book or something,” and lo, there it was! It was just an answering machine, though. (A thoroughly racist answering machine.) Me and Justice, my coworker at the record store, would call and leave messages that graphically depicted us in the middle of some “hardcore miscegenation.”

There are no left turns in Richmond. Or, at least there were a surprising amount of streets in our neighborhood where they were disallowed.

Also, all the prostitutes that you were likely to encounter around VCU were cross-dressers. There were no exceptions to this.

Both of those facts (the left turns, the crossdressers) were immortalized in a song called “No Left Turns In Richmond” by my friends’ band, but you probably never heard that song because their other song was named “I Shot Michael Jordan’s Dad (And I’m Glad)” and people just weren’t into that. Too soon.

We sometimes hung out with this dude named Ivo whose brother was in Bio Ritmo. Talking to him was just like talking to someone who had committed himself to doing a lifelong, “Saturday Night Live”-style John Travolta imitation. But he was cool, though. I’m pretty sure he sold one of my friends a gun.

Someone once approached me about possibly “fiancee swapping.” Except it was this middle-aged grad student who was grey and sweaty and who didn’t have a fiancee, or a girlfriend even, for that matter, to swap. Not that I would have done it if he had, he was gross! And get this: he pitched this idea to me at the Carpenter Center during the intermission of Kiss Of The Spider Woman. I mean, of all the places!

VCU now plays basketball at a place called the Siegel Center. It wasn’t there when I was a student. But it’s two blocks from my old apartment, in a neighborhood that VCU long coveted and finally overtook. Gone now is the terrible strip club down the street from me, the decent comic book store and the converted movie theatre where I saw the Jon Spencer Blues Explosion leap around to the light of a single maddening strobe.

My friends Jessica and Sarah lived in a haunted house on Grove Avenue. For realsies! This poltergeist was all up in their shit, constantly!

My wife got fired from the Body Shop while we lived in Richmond. The Body Shop! What do you have to do to get fired from the Body Shop? (The story of how my wife got fired from the Body Shop is really not that interesting actually.)

Here’s an interesting story. One night, while I was up working on my thesis, I started hearing this strange, repeated noise out my window, coming from the back alley. I went down the back stairs and outside, and the noise became more clear: it sounded like someone yelling some loud gibberish, followed by this epically confident laughter, like, “Garbhlegharg bafulliblah. [pause] HEH. HEH. HEH.” Over and over again. I walked out into the alley, seeking to identify the source of the noise. I discovered that it was emanating from the fifth floor of the retirement home that backed onto the alley shared by my apartment. Upstairs, there was some old codger in a grey t-shirt, with the window open, just yelling out into the night, some drunken blather punctuated by this cocksure HEH-HEH-HEHs. People all up and down the street were howling at this guy to shut the hell up already, it was after two in the morning and people were sleeping, etc. But he didn’t give a shit. Those catcalls just fueled him further. And so he stood at his window, pulling on a bottle, howling his nonsense into the night, and letting everyone on the block know that tonight, he just DID NOT GIVE A FUCK. For one night, he was going to forget the life that passed him by, that had brought him to this ramshackle retirement home, and just give the world outside his window a piece of his goddamn mind until someone finally busted down the door and stopped him. I stood out there in the alley for a few minutes more, craning my neck to get a better view of the gaunt figure in the window, raining down indecipherable epithets upon my poor, broken-down Southern town. In a world of perfect honesty, that guy would have a statue on Monument Avenue.

Jason Linkins’ life was saved by some truly great ER doctors and nurses at the Medical College of Virginia, and he wishes them the best.

Photo from Flickr by rvaphotodude.

The Van Harinxma thoe Slooten family’s “friend books” (really, autograph books) have been on display at the Koninklijke Bibliotheek, in the Hague, and much is being made of the 16th and 17th century custom of alba amicorum in terms of our current devotion to Facebook. The April issue of World of Interiors writes: “The fashion for these albums began after the Reformation in German universities, where they were called Stammbücher… [Note: the Reformation, history buffs will note, did not happen in German universities. Sorry! Pedantic!] Students would ask classmates and teachers to sign their personal copy of the Bible as a souvenir of their academic career; from the 1550s, books of blank pages were specially produced for the purpose. An album was a record of one’s friends and acquaintances, to be displayed and admired, and a method of exchanging messages and images.” Also, back then it was really hard to get rid of people who constantly left messages on your “friend book” wall. There are marked differences with how we do this now: for one, historically this was often less a diary than a big pile of social credentials. Anyway, the pictures are very pretty!

You can basically go three ways to get out of New York City, and in every direction, you can find outdoor adventure. Hey, guess what? It’s spring! This is when you throw your bike on a train or in the back of a car, pack yourself a lunch and get the heck out of dodge. Winter is sort of, kind of over! April is here! Let us go outside together. I have some hot tips for you and your bike.

Fire Island: Let us do the obvious disclaimer. Many of you are confused and think that Fire Island is all-gay. That is incorrect: there are two gay towns on the island, and the other 18 or so towns on the 31-mile island are for the most part very very straight! You will know that if you have ever been to Ocean Beach (reachable by ferry from Bay Shore, Long Island), which is very… post-college fun times, let’s say. The awesome thing about Fire Island is that most people do not really travel between towns there!

The best bike ride on Fire Island goes from the lighthouse to the forest beyond Point of Woods — that is, from west to east. You can get on the island at Robert Moses State Park!

The island is very bike-friendly on the western end, but after you pass through towns like Ocean Beach (which has a bike shop by the way, if you need air!), it thins. Then you hit Point o’ Woods, which is the land that time forgot, and is also called Point o’ Whites. (Note: You may have to get through a locked fence to get in! You can also go to the beach.) If their general store downtown is open, you will find snacks and also there is an ice cream parlor. After Point o’ Woods (which really is magnificent! It is a wondrous monoculture, a remnant of the era of “Mad Men”) come a quite impressive nature preserve. There are two loops: one paved, that leads all the way to Cherry Grove (WHICH IS GAY! And which also does not allow biking), and one that is a boardwalk in the forest, designed for hiking, which you can riskily ride on. At your own risk!

The best part of biking on Fire Island? You cannot possibly get lost! The island is like a sliver.

Ringwood State Park has a great trail, but sad times: Ringwood Manor, the crazy awesome house on the property, has been closed to the public since a burglary. (The grounds have reopened since.) But you can still visit the still cool if less-interesting Skylands Manor, if you like to see how rich people used to live! And who doesn’t? And the mountain bike loop is 7.5 miles of “difficult”-grade biking. Fun!

Or? Can you resist something called the Cheesequake State Park? It’s the Prince song he forgot to write. There’s good biking and decent fishing, in a six acre lake — and a crabbing bridge, which is called the Crabbing Bridge, which, rad.

Someday, the Jersey section of the Appalachian Trail (which, overall, is the country’s “longest marked footpath”!will have biking — but for now, it’s all hiking, if you dare.

Upstate

The Harlem Valley Rail Trail is still under expansion, but much of it is up and running: it’s currently fifteen miles through Dutchess and Columbia counties, and I suggest starting at the south — that’s got the Wassaic Metro North station — and going up to Chatham or Ghent for lunch, then looping back. (Note! If you go up to Old Chatham, you can visit the home of the world’s best yogurt! It’s worth it! There are sheep and cats everywhere, and it’s in the middle of nowhere!) Also: That top half of the trail is still “in development,” which means that at some points you may want to have big thick tires and/or take to local roads! Fun. Outdoor fun!

The Borscht Belt: There’s a great biking trip to be constructed on the south side of the Catskills. All these towns, from Liberty to Monticello and so on, are at the edge of vast forests with fabulous roads. And also it’s probably still hamantash season, and the bakeries up there are incredible!

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Sponsored posts are purely editorial content that we are pleased to have presented by a participating sponsor, in this case the Dial; advertisers do not produce the content.

by Mélanie Berliet

In his striped shirt and conservative suit, Eddie Einbinder doesn’t embody the kind of dishevelment that PSAs like to project onto drug users. But as the author of How To Have Fun And Not Die, which won the New York Book Festival’s grand prize in 2008, Einbinder is a staunch proponent of drug use — the safe kind, that is. The book’s second edition will be released May 1, and in November, Einbinder will debut a related documentary at a Drug Policy Alliance conference. Both the updated book and film incorporate lessons Einbinder culled while observing (and sometimes participating in) the young-adult party scene as he’s traveled and lectured across the country over the past few years.

Tell me about this trip you just got back from.
I was in upstate New Hampshire, somewhere really rural, for six days at a gathering for people to just, well, do drugs in peace. There was a lot of DMT, MDA, acid, mescaline…

What are DMT and MDA?
DMT is as serious a hallucinogen as acid, but it only lasts ten to 15 minutes. MDA — also known as “sass rocks” — is like MDMA, but less emotional and more hallucinogenic and stimulating.

Sounds fun.
It’s hard to draw the line sometimes, you know, between work and play for me.

I can imagine. So did you do a little bit of everything while you were there?
No, no, no. I was watching a lot of people doing things. I did try Ether for the first time. Ether gives you a horrible headache. It’s useless. Don’t do it. Oh, and I numbed my gums with some sass rocks. Other than that, I was just drinking, getting high on hash, and playing dominoes a lot.

How old were you when you had your first drug experience?
That’s oddly not a common question. I tried cigarettes the summer I was 11. That was probably one of the more emotional drug experiences I’ve had. My 12-year-old girlfriend introduced them to me. That year I also started dipping. I was in that palace in the woods kids make for themselves as a retreat to hook up, do drugs, and eat deli sandwiches, when I packed a lip for the first time. I probably weighed 90 pounds and I was given no guidance, so I kept it in way too long — 30 minutes maybe — and I passed out. I was totally unconscious. I woke up and thought, I’m definitely never dipping again.

Did you ever dip again?
Yeah. In the summer of 2003. There were 80 of us living in the woods in conjunction with a minor in Environmental Studies in the Northwest.

How’d take two go?
I remembered why I don’t like dipping much.

What other memorable drug initiation experiences come to mind?
Trying acid for the first time at 19 was a big deal. I tried coke at 20 in college at Lehigh. I have a pretty mindful approach to trying things. I believe in moderation, and knowing your limits. And doing something with a purpose rather than out of habit, or to get a fix.

Can pleasure be a purpose?
Sure. It’s about having good relationships with drugs.

So what inspired you to pursue your special brand of drug education?
It was on that trip to the woods in 2003 I mentioned that I realized that my friends and I were not putting the necessary amount of thought into our drug use. I thought to myself, why haven’t I Googled “most common ways kids are going to die today,” and put it up on my fridge? I was right that there are some blanket rules that can seriously up your odds of surviving. If you can take one sentence from the lecture I give, it should be that the vast majority of overdoses result from two or more substances at once in your body. That right there, on top of keeping in mind that what’s billed as either heroin or coke or ecstasy includes multiple substances — whatever they’re cut with for profit — is key. When people do a drug respectfully, in the way it’s meant to be done, they rarely die.

What have been the best resources for researching the new book and making the movie?
ER doctors are great. I realized that in 2006 when a girl I dated ended up hospitalized. She’d been doing a lot of coke that summer, as well as Ambien, and Valium. And drinking. I’ve since developed several relationships with ER doctors who keep me informed about what kids are overdosing on. Watching drug use firsthand is important, too. Oh, and dentists. You should talk to your dentist about meth mouth. They have the most horrible stories.

Are you ever treated like an outsider by the kids you observe?
Nope. I only ever get to observe because I’m welcomed in the first place. The participants are people who understand that my message is to educate.

And these people want to be on camera taking drugs?
They sign contracts six weeks prior to filming, when sober. This is not Girls Gone Wild. No one’s face will be fuzzy.

Are you ever an active participant during filming?
No, not while filming. Things would veer off track. It’s a more structured setting.

What do your parents think about what you do?
As long as I’m working hard, they’re fans. They realize — like most rational teachers and doctors and people I speak to — that this is absolutely necessary. I’m trying to promote honest, open health education. They understand that.

What are your thoughts on addiction?
I feel lucky I’ve never been addicted to anything. I think it’s probably genetic. Only 1.3% of Americans are addicted, though. It’s the minority. Most people are just casual drug users who might accidentally overdose, which is what we’re trying to prevent.

Do you get any backlash? If so, where from?
Institutions. It’s one of the most upsetting issues to me. Colleges are running businesses. They’re trying to ensure the safety of the school’s reputation more than the welfare of their student body by refusing to acknowledge that drugs are being done and refusing to educate kids on the safest ways to handle drugs.

Do you think people are naive to the differences between black market and prescription drugs?
People think prescription drugs are much safer. Though the misuse of prescription drugs is black market. There’s a dealer at most high schools nowadays. And kids steal them from their parents. Prescription pills have replaced weed in a lot of areas because they’re so accessible and there’s nothing easier than swallowing a pill. It’s like vitamins! It’s everywhere, and it’s causing a lot of problems. I talk a lot about how marijuana is not at all a transitional drug. People like to label weed as “the gateway” drug, but that’s a farce. I think it’s actually prescription pills that make for a smooth transition to other drugs. Adderall to coke. Oxycontin to heroin.

If you were charged with designing an effective drug awareness campaign, what would it look like?
It certainly wouldn’t have an awful, misleading slogan like “Hugs not drugs” or “Drugs are bad.” Those messages don’t work for the same reason abstinence sex-ed is ineffective. You have to be open and honest. Educate. I’d create a mandatory year-long course based on the lecture I give with a textbook version of my book. And I’d show my film, which depicts real situations supplemented with dialogue about safety measures. It also incorporates commentary from lawyers and doctors about legal and medical ramifications. We’re looking to get some interviews with people in positions of extreme opposition, too.

Like the dude who prosecuted Paris Hilton for cocaine possession and was then caught purchasing crack?
Yes. Exactly.

At what age would you educate your own kids about drugs?
Most professionals say by middle school it’s advisable, so at least by then. I don’t think I can say without knowing my child. It will have more to do with his or her behavior and level of curiosity.

What’s your favorite drug?
Alcohol’s the easiest thing to continuously have fun on and not get too crazy.

How about other than alcohol? Weed?
No. I’m useless on weed. Hash is a favorite. It’s an incredibly chill high and I’m still able to have a good time and be social. On the other extreme of alcohol, I think LSD can be one of the more rewarding experiences one can have.

How about uppers?
I’ve been into them before.

Is there a drug you haven’t tried?
Heroin.

Me neither! Want to do it together when we’re 75?
Maybe 90. After nicotine, heroin is the drug with the most potential to become addictive. And who wants to trust themselves injecting something?

So when’s the last time you purchased a drug?
Truthfully, since I’ve gotten into this work more formally, I haven’t purchased a drug.

Are they given to you?
If I am doing something, it’s because I’m going with the flow. So yeah, it’s usually given to me.

So you’re not a frequent drug user?
If you leave me alone to write for a week, the only thing I’d do is tea. I’m really into tea these days.

No coffee?
[Laughs] You’re mocking, but tea is a drug. And it’s a good one.

What do you think compels a person to try a drug?
Boredom, and because it’s the cool thing to do.

What’s the coolest drug to do right now? What’s trending on college campuses?
Alcohol will probably always be the biggest problem on college campuses because of its social acceptance. As I was traveling west in 2009, I heard more and more about Salvia and DMT. But your traditional popular drugs are still prevalent, like cocaine, mushrooms, and acid. And weed is absolutely everywhere.

One of the strategies you suggest to marketing representatives hired to sell your book at schools is to throw a Celebrity Overdose party where people dress up as dead celebrities. Who would you dress up as at such an event?
I’m pretty sure it’s never happened. But I think John Belushi would be the most fun to portray.

How come?
Cause he was a party animal. I’m just picturing Animal House.

Do you think you’ll encounter a problem continuing this work as you age?
I’m able to do whatever the fuck I want right now, which works well. But I’m well aware that as I get older, I might not be able to blend into the college crowds as much. I’ll figure it out. There’s a lot to be done.

Who funds your work?
The work funds the work. Speaking fees. The book. There are some private investors in the film.

Any parting words?
Yeah. I think cocaine’s a bigger issue for 20-somethings in finance than it is on college campuses. The social scene surrounding finance in general lends itself to those drugs more than any other environment I’ve witnessed. Like certain religions use psychedelics. Oh, and the people trying to pass legislature for random drug testing on campuses in New York state are moronic.

Mélanie Berliet is a New York City based writer with an appreciation for s’mores and caffeine, but not heroin — yet.

We were thrilled by the response to our announcement about the “Classic Trash” book discussion, but we were also on the receiving end of several irate complaints that one week was not sufficient time in which to both procure and consume the first selection, Peyton Place. Being not unsympathetic to this argument (we all have lives), we are therefore extending the period in which you can devour the book in question — tech freaks, take note, it’s available on Kindle! — by an extra week. We will gather together in this spot on Friday, April 8th, to discuss. Also, if we may, a brief note of congratulations to our moderator, who is launching a whole other, more significant project simultaneous to this one.

Here you will find a house that resembles Adolf Hitler. [Previously in “things that look like Adolf Hitler”]