Red-dirt Marijuana and Other Tastes


Book Description

Before the "new journalism" of Wolfe, Talese, and Kubrick, before the Brave Gonzo World of Hunter S. Thompson, there was legendary cult writer Terry Southern. This widely recognized underground classic is a collection of Southern's short pieces--two dozen hilarious, well-observed sketches which expose the hypocrisy of American social mores.




Now Dig This


Book Description

DIVDIVAn unforgettable chronicle of an era by one of America’s wildest—and most brilliant—comedic and literary minds/divDIV /divDIVEdited by Nile Southern and Josh Alan Friedman/divDIV Starting with his landing at the Battle of the Bulge, Terry Southern showed a knack for winding up in the world’s most interesting places. He spent the fifties on the Left Bank of Paris, the sixties in mod London, and the seventies touring with the Rolling Stones. When the Beatles rolled out their famous pantheon of movers and shakers for the cover of Sgt. Pepper, Terry was the only guy wearing shades. When police broke heads during the ’68 democratic convention in Chicago, Southern was there to bear witness. And when Stanley Kubrick needed someone to make Dr. Strangelove funny, there was only one man qualified for the job. /divDIV /divDIVAs the golden age of rock ’n’ roll wound down, Southern never stopped writing, and his prose never lost its trademark intensity. Filthy, fierce, and relentlessly dazzling, these letters, essays, stories, and interviews are an electric testament to one of the keenest wits of the twentieth century./divDIV /divDIVThis ebook features an illustrated biography of Terry Southern including rare photos and never-before-seen documents from the author’s estate./div/div




Texas Summer


Book Description

DIVAn evocative, poignant coming-of-age novel set in rural Texas in the 1930s/divDIV /divDIVThrough events small and large, thirteen-year-old Harold Stevens grows up during a pivotal summer in the red-dirt backcountry of West Texas. With his friend C.K. Crow, the black field hand who works for Harold’s father, he shoots deer and quail, fishes for catfish, mends fences, grows and learns about marijuana, and tests his emerging manhood against bullies, bulls, and the irresistible charms of his horse-riding older cousin. During a hysterical trip to a circus sideshow, Harold and a buddy sneak backstage to see “The Great Hermaphrodite” and the “funny little old Monkey Man,” whom they try to buy a beer. But danger waits on the fringe of this innocent time. When C.K.’s brother, Big Nail, appears after escaping from a chain gang, an inevitable and violent confrontation between the brothers is set in motion—a confrontation that will mark the end of Harold’s childhood. /divDIV /divDIVThis insideview of Southern’s roots in Alvarado, Texas, where pastoral innocence belied an undercurrent of racism and violence, brings this novel of a boy’s transition to maturity vividly alive. /divDIV /divThis ebook features an illustrated biography of Terry Southern including rare photos and never-before-seen documents from the author’s estate.




Blue Movie


Book Description

DIVA darkly hilarious, wildly erotic satire of Hollywood/divDIV /divDIVKing B., the world’s most admired filmmaker—winner of a string of Oscars and awards from Cannes to Venice—takes on a new project: the most expensive, star-studded, high-quality, X-rated film ever made. He joins forces with producer Sid Krassman, who’s made a fortune with B movies, and Angela Sterling, a misunderstood sex symbol who longs to do “serious” work. After convincing the principality of Liechtenstein to host the production in exchange for a distribution exclusive to boost tourism, King B. and Krassman arrive with cast and crew to make The Faces of Love. While keeping the nature of the film secret from American bankers, King B. lines up a host of European and American big-name stars. But word leaks out to the local religious groups and possibly even the Vatican. Between the Cardinal’s attempts to sabotage production and the big egos and even bigger libidos behind the scenes, the enterprise plummets into hilarious anarchy./divDIV /divDIVBlue Movie is comic eroticism at its best—populated by over-the-top characters, memorable dialogue, and perverse vignettes, and colored by razor-sharp insights into the film industry./divDIV /divDIVThis ebook features an illustrated biography of Terry Southern including rare photos and never-before-seen documents from the author’s estate./div




Trippin' with Terry Southern


Book Description

This award-winning memoir about "the hippest guy on the planet" recollects novelist/screenwriter Terry Southern's highs and lows, his association with the Beat Generation, and his movie cult classics Dr. Strangelove and Easy Rider. In 1964, Terry Southern met actress Gail Gerber on the set of The Loved One. He was enjoying his success from co-writing the risque novel Candy, a satire of Candide, and the movie Dr. Strangelove; she had just co-starred with Elvis Presley in Girl Happy. Though they were both married, there was an instant connection and they remained a couple until his death 30 years later. In her memoir, Gail recalls what life was like with "the hippest guy on the planet." It documents their life together and contains numerous photographs of Terry and Gail with friends both famous and notorious. The wickedly gifted satirist, who had a stint writing for Saturday Night Live, kept company with the likes of Lenny Bruce, Dennis Hopper, Ringo Starr, William Burroughs, George Segal, Harry Nilsson, George Plimpton, David Amram and Rip Torn. It also reveals what went on behind the scenes of Gail's movies (including The Girls on the Beach and Village of the Giants), and Terry's movies (including The Cincinnati Kid, Casino Royale, Barbarella, The Magic Christian, End of the Road, and Easy Rider).




Humboldt


Book Description

In the vein of Susan Orlean’s The Orchid Thief and Deborah Feldman’s Unorthodox, journalist Emily Brady journeys into a secretive subculture — built on marijuana. Outside the United States, the words ‘Humboldt County’ mean little. Inside the United States — the home of the war on drugs — those words might prompt a knowing grin. For many people, the name is infamous, and yet the place and its inhabitants have been nearly impenetrable. Until now. Humboldt is a narrative exploration of this insular community in northern California, which for nearly 40 years has existed primarily on the cultivation and sale of marijuana. It’s a place where business is done with thick wads of cash, and savings are buried in the backyard. In Humboldt County, marijuana supports everything from fire departments to schools. As legalisation looms, the community stands at a crossroads, and its inhabitants are deeply divided — some want to claim their rightful heritage as master growers and have their livelihood legitimised, while others want to continue reaping the inflated profits of the black market. Emily Brady spent a year living with the highly secretive residents of Humboldt County, and her cast of eccentric, intimately drawn characters take us into a fascinating alternate universe. It’s the story of a small town that became dependent on a forbidden plant, and of how everything is changing as marijuana goes mainstream.




Dying to Get High


Book Description

Investigates one community of seriously ill patients fighting the federal government for the right to use physician-recommended marijuana. This book tackles the broader, complex history of medical marijuana in America. It asks what distinguishes a legitimate patient from an illegitimate "pothead," and "good" drugs from "bad".




The Magic Christian


Book Description

DIVDIVIn this uproarious and wicked cult-classic, Southern skewers American greed and pomposity /divDIVGuy Grand, an eccentric billionaire prankster, is rich enough to do whatever he likes. And what he likes is to carefully execute projects where he can cauterize by ridicule what the rest of the world ignores: complacency, greed, corruption, and idiocy. Determined to “make it hot for people,” Grand spends his billions staging a series of hilarious, sometimes bewildering stunts, lampooning along the way the American holy cows of money, status, power, beauty, media, and stardom. Concocting deliciously perverse mayhem, he throws a million one-hundred-dollar bills into an enormous vat of steaming offal, proving just what people will do for money, and he promotes a new silky shampoo that turns hair to wire and a deodorant that becomes a time-released stench-bomb. He inserts subliminally suggestive and perverse images into well-loved classic films, takes a howitzer on safari, and brings a panther to a kennel club dog show. His most elaborate adventure is an ultra-exclusive cruise aboard the S.S. Magic Christian, where elite passengers are treated to a series of madcap indignities./divDIV /divDIV The Magic Christian is a hilarious and savagely satiric view of American commercialism, rich in Southern’s deft handling of detail, dialogue, and delightful deviancy./divDIV /divDIVThis ebook features an illustrated biography of Terry Southern including rare photos and never-before-seen documents from the author’s estate./div/div




The New Chardonnay


Book Description

“The inside scoop on how marijuana landed on Main Street . . . and why it’s coming soon to a city near you.”—Katie Couric From gleaming dispensaries stocked with elegantly wrapped edibles to the array of CBD lotions and oils for sale at your local drugstore to tastemaker Martha Stewart cooking up marijuana munchies on prime-time television, one thing is clear: Pot has fully shed its stoner image. In this deeply reported journey into the new world of legal cannabis, award-winning reporter Heather Cabot takes readers on the road with Snoop Dogg and his business partner Ted Chung as they roll out the star’s own brand of bud; to California wine country, where chefs and vintners are ushering in a new age of elevated dining; on wild adventures with marijuana mogul Beth Stavola, for whom fending off shady characters is just another day at the office; and to rural Canada to meet the Willy Wonka of Weed. Drawing on exclusive interviews with some of the biggest names in the world of cannabis, Cabot’s book explores the confluence of social, economic, and political forces that have brought marijuana into the mainstream. Among them, outrage over the racial injustice of U.S. drug laws, the booming self-care industry catering to stressed-out professionals and busy parents in search of better sleep and more sex, seniors clamoring for natural alternatives to opioids to manage their aches and pains, and tens of millions of investor dollars fueling a frenetic “green rush” mentality. The story of an astonishing rebranding, The New Chardonnay explores how a plant that was once the subject of multimillion-dollar public service announcements came to spark new culinary trends; inspire new uses for health, beauty, and wellness; and generate hundreds of thousands of jobs and untold tax revenue—all while remaining federally illegal in America.




Home Baked


Book Description

FINALIST FOR THE NATIONAL BOOK CRITICS CIRCLE AWARD FOR AUTOBIOGRAPHY A blazingly funny, heartfelt memoir from the daughter of the larger-than-life woman who ran Sticky Fingers Brownies, an underground bakery that distributed thousands of marijuana brownies per month and helped provide medical marijuana to AIDS patients in San Francisco--for fans of Armistead Maupin and Patricia Lockwood During the '70s in San Francisco, Alia's mother ran the underground Sticky Fingers Brownies, delivering upwards of 10,000 illegal marijuana edibles per month throughout the circus-like atmosphere of a city in the throes of major change. She exchanged psychic readings with Alia's future father, and thereafter had a partner in business and life. Decades before cannabusiness went mainstream, when marijuana was as illicit as heroin, they ingeniously hid themselves in plain sight, parading through town--and through the scenes and upheavals of the day, from Gay Liberation to the tragedy of the Peoples Temple--in bright and elaborate outfits, the goods wrapped in hand-designed packaging and tucked into Alia's stroller. But the stars were not aligned forever and, after leaving the city and a shoulda-seen-it-coming divorce, Alia and her mom returned to San Francisco in the mid-80s, this time using Sticky Fingers' distribution channels to provide medical marijuana to friends and former customers now suffering the depredations of AIDS. Exhilarating, laugh-out-loud funny, and heartbreaking, Home Baked celebrates an eccentric and remarkable extended family, taking us through love, loss, and finding home.