IKEA Monkey

Who's got your favorite look here? Liz Hurley, Kate Hudson, Constance Jablonski, Michael Kors, Vera Wang, Gayle King or Donna Karan?

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There are two things the Delta Gamma sorority's University of Maryland chapter refuses to tolerate. The first is Delta Gammas who are "LITERALLY being so fucking AWKWARD." The second is young ladies who are "so fucking BORING." More »

In news that will go largely unnoticed due to the ongoing manhunt for the Boston bombing suspects, a spokesman for the Boy Scouts of America announced that the organization is set to vote in May on lifting a ban on gays in the organization.

Reuters reports:

If the vote is approved, "no youth may be denied membership in the Boy Scouts of America on the basis of sexual orientation or preference alone," Deron Smith, the organization's spokesman, told Reuters.

Smith noted that the decision drew from three months of research, surveys and discussions and was "among the most complex and challenging issues facing the BSA and society today."

As The Washington Post points out, though, the statement stipulates that the organization will continue to ban adults “who are open or avowed homosexuals or who engage in behavior that would become a distraction to the mission of the BSA.”

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On Jimmy Kimmel last night, Gary Busey showed his audition reel for Mars One, a reality show that it being planned by a non-profit organization in order to create a settlement on Mars (for real). It’s basically a one-way trip to Mars, where apparently viewers at home can watch the participant expire. In space.

Good times.

Anyway, Busey’s audition reel is hilarious and kooky and everything you’d expect from a Gary Busey audition reel for a one-way trip to Mars. “I don’t let anything get me down,” he says, “because I am positive. If you’re not positive, don’t go to Mars, because you’ll get trapped in your own eating habits. When you find yourself eating part of your calf muscle, you should not be on Mars.”

Wise. Insane. Busey.

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Olympic gold medalist Ryan Lochte is probably the lowest-hanging fruit on the pseudo-celebrity tree, but darn it all to heck if I just don’t love the guy to pieces. With the commercial for his new reality show on E! in full rotation, Lochte is making the last second media rounds to promote What Would Ryan Lochte Do? and that included a visit via satellite to Good Day Philadelphia.

I don’t even really know how to describe what’s going on in this clip, because it starts with anchor Sheinelle Jones sporting serious lady boner for Lochte and it continues with the other anchor, Mike Jerrick, rocking the same kind of a-hole, smarmy composure that I’d probably have if I had to interview a guy who trademarked the made up word “JEAH”.

The important thing to remember while watching this is that Lochte aspires to be a serious actor, and he apparently still couldn’t talk his way out of a Taco Bell drive-thru.

Philadelphia News, Weather and Sports from WTXF FOX 29

The post Ryan Lochte Stars In The Most Awkward TV News Interview Of 2013 appeared first on With Leather.

Last week, 18 sex offenders in Bradford County, Florida, found large red signs outside their homes that read, "a convicted sexual predator... lives at this location." The Bradford County Police Department installed the signs.  

I spoke with Brad Smith, the department's Chief of Operations (pictured above left, looking least smug), to see what this new method of community notification was all about.

VICE: What's with the signs, Brad?
Captain Brad Smith: Florida statutes say that we must notify the public of any sex offenders in our jurisdiction. We already do that with Facebook and by going out into the area to notify people when the person first moves in, but we realized there was a possible issue with continued notification. For instance, if somebody moves in after we've gone around notifying people, then they're not aware that there's a predator there. We're just trying to do everything we can to make the public aware. And, in a certain sense, it protects the predator from having people, especially children, approaching their residence without being duly notified.

OK... So it's just sexual predators with child victims? Or is it all sexual predators?
It could be somebody who raped an adult or a child. In the state of Florida being a sex offender and a sexual predator are different things. A sexual predator is somebody who's been convicted of a first-degree felony that's sexual in nature or multiple second-degree felonies that are sexual in nature. 

Right. Any plans to extend this to other crimes? Like murderers or serial scam artists or whatever?
Only if the Florida statutes said that we had to. At this point in time, the only statute that's directing the sheriff to do anything is with sexual predators.

I know this information is available online already, but do you think the signs will invite people to harass the people at these addresses?
No. We don't expect that to happen, and if it does, we will do everything in our power to protect the person's rights. But I don't believe this will entice anybody to approach the houses. 

Are you not worried that these people will sue? This seems like something that goes beyond the statutory directive for notification.  
Well, you know as well as I do that people can sue anybody for anything these days. We're certain challenges wouldn't stand up in court though, because we're being directed by a Florida statute, and the statute specifically says, "the sheriff of the county or the police chief of the municipality where the sexual predator resides shall notify the community and the public of the presence of the sexual predator in a manner that is deemed appropriate by the sheriff or the chief of police."

Do you predict a rise in the number of trick-or-treaters these guys will get on Halloween? I feel you guys are really raising the bar in terms of "that creepy house in the neighborhood that all the kids dare each other to go to on Halloween."
No... As a matter of fact, for the past several years, we've gone out to the residences that these people are registered at and notified them that they need to make sure that they do everything possible not to entice any kids to their houses. Like, don't have candy to give out, don't have their porch lights on, and don't answer the door if kids do come knocking. 

But when you were a kid, wouldn't you have totally gone to a house with one of those signs and all the lights off?
I didn't even like going to the scary movies when I was a kid, let alone going to scary houses. Nobody had to tell me that I had to be careful. And in this day and age, kids are much smarter and heed warnings better than I did when I was growing up.

Right. OK, thanks Brad.

@JLCT

For college students, the end of the school year is near. Finals are being crammed for, summer adventures are being planned, job prospects are being explored, and move-out plans are being made. But, over the course of a year, in addition to collecting knowledge and memories, students have also accumulated a lot of stuff; stuff that many of them won’t take with them.

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Comedian Patton Oswalt has been all over TV lately, playing cameos in "Portlandia," "The Simpsons," and, tomorrow, he'll make an appearance on NBC's "Parks and Recreation" as an angry Pawneean who wants to block Leslie Knope's proposal to amend the outdated laws in the town charter. Using his public platform at a town hall, Oswalt's character launches into a filibuster to prevent the vote.

On set, the producers asked Oswalt to "ramble a bit about whatever subject he wanted." The result: an improvised, impassioned and totally bizarre 8-minute proposal for the plot of "Star Wars: Epsipode 7," which somehow merges Marvel comics and a pantheon of Gods into the Jedi world.

Only a few parts of the dialogue made it into the episode, "Article Two," which will premiere on Wednesday night, but NBC has released the full monologue below:

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R. Kelly Performed "Ignition (Remix)" with Phoenix and Almost Made Me Cry

KCAL's Serene Branson reports on a 63-year-old man who was set on fire while sitting in his SUV at a convenience store.

Zach Galifianakis is hosting "Saturday Night Live" for the second time on May 4, the NBC sketch show announced during its live broadcast on April 13.

This will be the second time that Galifianakis has hosted "SNL," his first being in 2011. He will be promoting "The Hangover Part III," celebrating his breakout role in the franchise that came after a notable career in stand-up comedy.

The musical guest of the episode will be the Icelandic group Of Monsters and Men. They have never appeared on "SNL" before, and their album "My Head is an Animal" has been met with much acclaim.

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Dinosaurs have come and gone, now they’re back to hold your corn. Brought to us by Lana Filippone, the ceramic Cob Holders were created to put the extinct bird lizards to good use — even T-Rexes with their comically short arms. See more here, even some other non-dino corn holders that are still in concept phase.

And, if you’d like to make your corn-holding a bit more magical, a few Unicorns are here to help.

[via The Awesomer]

Moooove over, flavored vodka, there’s a new ridiculous drink concept in town. Black Cow Vodka uses milk instead of grain to make the formerly Russian and respectable clear alcohol.

Using a process that separates the cow’s milk into curds and whey, the curds are then used for cheese and the whey fermented to make a beer. A special yeast converts the milk sugar into alcohol, then the milk beer is distilled and treated to a secret blending process. The vodka is then triple filtered and finished, before being hand bottled. But we still can’t explain Peanut Butter & Jelly Vodka.

[link, via PSFK]

We're feeling nostalgic today. This video went viral back in 2003. [ more › ]

via

 

By Tia GhoseLiveScienceA mysterious Viking sundial found in Greenland may have helped the ancient mariners sail at the same north-south latitude across the Atlantic, new research suggests.The study, detailed Tuesday in the journal Proceedings of the Royal Society A Mathematical and Physical Sciences, suggests that the raiding Norsemen might have been even more impressive sailors than previously th...

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A doctor in China couldn't help herself after she recently treated a man whose colon had been perforated by the eel he had stuck up his butt. More »

Rep. Joe Barton, a Republican from Texas, cited the Bible's Great Flood as an example of climate change that proves it's not necessarily man-made.

"I would point out that if you're a believer in the Bible, one would have to say the Great Flood is an example of climate change and that certainly wasn't because mankind had overdeveloped hydrocarbon energy," Barton said during a Subcommittee on Energy and Power hearing to discuss the Keystone XL pipeline, BuzzFeed reports.

He also said that it doesn't necessarily mean he doesn't believe that the climate is changing: "I think you can have an honest difference of opinion of what's causing that change without automatically being either all in that's all because of mankind or it's all just natural. I think there's a divergence of evidence."

Barton, one of Congress's top recipients of oil company campaign donations, is perhaps best known for apologizing to BP for what he called a White House "shakedown," after the Obama administration announced that it would set up a $20 billion escrow fund to benefit victims of the 2010 BP oil spill.

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[Photograph: Christopher Hirsheimer and Melissa Hamilton]

Shucking fresh peas is not a quick task, I'll admit. But if you can get your hands on some fresh peas in their pods at a farmers' market in the next couple of weeks, grab them and commit to an extra half hour of meal prep. Deborah Madison's unassuming Peas with Baked Ricotta from her new book Vegetable Literacy is worth it. The bright sweetness of the buttery peas matches perfectly with the creamy richness of fresh ricotta, and baking the ricotta with olive oil and fresh bread crumbs transforms cheese and peas into an actual meal.

Why I picked this recipe: Fresh peas are one of the greatest joys of spring (in my humble opinion).

What worked: Peas and ricotta are a match made in spring heaven.

What didn't: No problems here.

Suggested tweaks: Should you find yourself unable to resist the call of peas and cheese but are without fresh peas, this dish will work with the frozen variety. You'll only need to simmer them until they warm up (about a minute or so). Madison also suggests bulking up the dish with pasta should you want a more substantial dish. Shells, snails, or orecchiette would work well.

As always with our Cook the Book feature, we have five (5) copies of Vegetable Literacy to give away this week.

About the author: Kate Williams is a freelance writer and personal chef living in Berkeley, CA. She is a contributor to The Oxford American, Berkeleyside NOSH, and blogs at cookingwolves.wordpress.com.

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Looking for a statement piece that screams, "I'm a mom and I've thrown in the towel, aesthetically," because your faded stretch pants and the food stains on your promotional T-shirt just aren't getting the message across? Well, you're in luck. For just $64 - $125 you can have your breast milk encapsulated into a super creepy pendant that's virtually guaranteed to secretly gross out everyone who asks, "Oh, what's that you're wearing?"

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From Sweets

[Photograph: Yvonne Ruperti]

Yes folks, it's another installment of my never-ending cravings for chocolate and peanut butter. I couldn't help myself. It's been too long. In previous posts I've rambled on about my childhood adoration of Drake's Funny Bones. Waxy chocolate coating aside, it's a binge-inducing pop in your mouth of chocolate cake and creamy peanut butter filling. Though I'm really fond of my Chocolate Peanut Butter Cupcakes interpretation, I think I finally nailed it with this layer cake.

Years ago there was a popular chocolate and peanut butter pastry that I used to sell at my shop. I called it a peanut butter mousse bomb: a fist sized ball of creamy peanut butter mousse with a piece of chocolate cake on the bottom and a covering of bittersweet chocolate ganache. From time to time I'd also piece together a layer cake version, using extra chocolate cakes from my rolling racks and the giant bowl of ganache that I always had on hand. It's easy to be spontaneous and creative when you've got lots of excess cake components around all the time, but the stiff price I paid was never really knowing exactly what my food costs were. I'll just assume I made the money back.

To turn that creation into a structured recipe for a single cake, I finally did the math and cut down my big batch chocolate cake recipe to fit a 9-inch pan and also figured out the correct volume of peanut butter filling. What makes this fluffy peanut butter cream so amazing is the cream cheese. Plain sweetened peanut butter often lacks a certain something, and the slight tang of the cheese fills out the flavor perfectly. Combined with the moist chocolate cake and luxurious peanut butter-chocolate ganache, this is an uber rich, super tall cake that will have everyone swooning. Until next time, chocolate-peanut butter fans...

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Peanut Butter Chocolate Cake »

About the Author: Yvonne Ruperti is a food writer, recipe developer, former bakery owner, and author of The Complete Idiot's Guide To Easy Artisan Bread. You can also watch her culinary stylings on the America's Test Kitchen television show. She presently lives in Singapore working on her new baking cookbook, and as a recipe developer for HungryGoWhere Singapore. Check out her blog: shophousecook.com . Follow Yvonne on Twitter.

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Ryan Schuster begins our meeting with the comment, “My uncle’s a crazy man.” He means it neither as an insult nor a cop-out, but more of a point of pride… and one he keeps coming back to. “He’s a builder. He’s an entrepreneur.” And, Schuster adds, “he’s a craftsman in every sense of the word.”

Schuster is cofounder of Next Star vodka where uncle Steve Ross is master distiller. As the man on the ground promoting this relatively new company, Schuster understands that vodka is a crowded spirit category even on the best of days, but believes Next Star is a unique product created with care. Unlike most of the hundreds of other vodkas claiming the same thing, though, Next Star’s followers seem to agree; the vodka was recently picked up by South Loop’s Acadia, and it has replaced Tito’s as the house vodka at Logan Square’s Lula Café where fellow distiller Brent Engel of Letherbee oversees the bar.

Next Star’s South Bend distillery – the company has an eye on one day moving operations within Chicago’s boarders – is craft through and through, starting with local Midwest corn and wheat, and distilling on a traditional Austrian hybrid still. Their process judiciously keeps only the middle cut of the distillate – the so-called “hearts” – leading to an atypically flavorful vodka that is bold yet also sweet, round and elegant. Vodka strives of course to be neutral, clean and pure, but Next Star works within those constraints to remain distinctive.

The focus for the company at the moment is to release vodka and only vodka, but Schuster is sure there are other products down the line for the distillery. “I don’t know what my uncle’s up to,” he says, citing two dozen barrels of rye whisky that have quietly been aging in a corner as well as experiments with oddities like vermouth and limoncello. “My uncle’s a crazy man.”

—

Next Star is great for sipping. It’s clean and free from the harsh aftertastes common to cheap vodkas, and it has a complex nose and sweet, round taste. I rarely recommend vodkas to whisky drinkers, but this spirit has whispers of the characteristics I associate with young bourbons; I pick up (as bizarre as this might sound for an ostensibly neutral vodka) tropical fruits, banana, and even frosting faintly in the background.

Considering that it’s just these delicate details that set this vodka apart, it’d be a shame to bury them in a complicated drink. Try Next Star in the Flame of Love recipe here . This cocktail jazzes up the vodka a bit, but still lets the spirit’s character shine through.

Next Star is widely available around Chicago and retails for $24.99.

From Chicago

VIEW SLIDESHOW: 14 Cheap Eats We Love in Chicago's Bucktown

[Photograph: Nick Kindelsperger]

More than any other cheap eats guide, this one is personal. Bucktown was the first Chicago neighborhood I ever lived in, and I didn't have a whole lot of cash sitting around at the time. Fortunately, I was able to uncover a wealth of affordable spots, including a few of my favorite cheap eats in the whole city.

Since I left, that number has only increased. Whether you're looking for tacos, hot dogs, or Latin American/Korean fusion, Bucktown has so much to offer.

As I mentioned previously, figuring out the official dividing line between Bucktown and Wicker Park is a harder than it should be. While I considered combining the two, each had enough options that I realized they deserved their own post.

The Picks

Like the previous cheap eats guides, I set a strict $10 maximum on the dishes, and tried to only include ones that could function as a meal. I couldn't help but include a few sweets, which I clearly marked below.

Click on the slideshow to check out our picks, or see the whole list below.

• Mini Rib Tip Combo at Honey 1
• Steak Sandwich at Irazú Cafe
• Hot Dog with Fries at Redhot Ranch
• Hot and Sour Soup at Belly Shack
• Bibim-bap at En Hakkore
• Quarter Chicken at The Art Of Chicken
• Deep Dish Slice with Spinach at My Pie Pizzeria ($3.75)
• Pepperoni Slice at Santullo's Eatery
• Shrimp Jibarito at Joey's Shrimp House
• Carne Asada Taco at Las Asadas
• El Borracho Pozole at Estrella Negra
• The Reubenesque at Li'l Guys

Desserts

• Hot Chocolate at Hot Chocolate
• Texas-Sized Cinnamon Roll at The Bristol
• Margie's Candies

More Cheap Eats Guides!

• Cheap Eats We Love in Chicago's Wicker Park
• 32 Cheap Eats We Love in Lakeview
• 20 Cheap Eats We Love in Lincoln Park
• 21 Cheap Eats We Love in Chicago's River North
• 26 Cheap Eats We Love in The Loop

This little indoor gardening project might mean never having to buy celery again. Turn the base end of a bunch of celery (which you'd normally throw out or compost) into a celery plant, for an everlasting supply of the vegetable. More »

(Paxton Holley)

What’s the worst thing about fast food chicken? It’s just so difficult to eat, of course, with all those crunchy bones getting in the way. That’s why KFC is making over its Original Recipe Chicken and offering up a bucket of deep-fried boneless chicken pieces for those who can’t navigate the sharp world of breasts, thighs and drumsticks.

The new menu choice will show up on menus on April 14, reports the Associated Press, and the company says it may eventually push the bone-in version off the board forever.

The move comes as Americans persist in our desire to snack conveniently and often on the go. KFC notes that almost four out of five servings of fried chicken in the country are boneless. Pretty sure there are plenty of grandmas out there sniffing indignantly right about now.

These new boneless wonders are also skinless, about twice the size of KFC’s crispy strips and can be ordered in white or dark meat. Of course they’ll come as meal options with two pieces, a side, a biscuit and a drink for $4.99, as well as in four-piece buckets, which will cost the same as regular fried chicken.

A spokesman says it took between two and three years to get the bones out of the chicken, in what we can only imagine was an intense underground laboratory experiment involving chicken bone tweezers.

KFC to offer boneless chicken [Associated Press]

“Being powerful is like being a lady. If you have to tell people you are, you aren’t.”

- Margaret Thatcher (1925-2013)

There is a black cat on the stairs. She’s just sitting there staring. For 30 minutes.

Back in February, a “home free” hitchhiker named Kai (legal name Caleb Lawrence) became a viral sensation when he whacked a dude with a hatchet. That dude, who Kai was hitching a ride with, claimed to be Jesus Christ, then purposefully ran over a utility worker and proceeded to attack a woman who tried to help in Fresno, California. That's when Kai stepped in and with a “SMASH, SMASH, Suh-MASH!” stopped the guy. Then he gave an interview to a local television station that, as you can see above, defies easy categorization. Since then the 24-year-old wanderer has gained a cult following, appeared on Jimmy Kimmel Live, and claims to have a reality show in the works. Speaking of, he's looking for a drummer to join him for the show, if anyone is interested.

Kai's background is hazy. He speaks of a fundamentalist-Christian-cult upbringing that he describes as, “The scariest thing I ever saw.” He left his Christian background to live on a Native American reservation, where he earned the name Kai after a spirit walk. He says the one religion that has positively affected him is “witchcraft,” and he carries around a set of voodoo cards, which he told me he had dedicated to Sofia, the goddess of wisdom. He'd spent the two years prior to getting in the car with the man who unknowingly changed his life “living in sailboats, houseboats, going out surfing on islands, hopping in cars with people I didn't know, and traveling the country. Jumping off cliffs into lakes, going to music festivals, playing music in parks. Just random, spontaneous awesome all the time.”

Kai doesn't have a driver's license, a social security card, or a passport. I was told he was impossible to get in touch with, but through my incredible stalking abilities, we became friends. Kai called me up the other day from artist David Quadrini's house in Venice Beach to fill me in on life since moving into the public eye. Oh yeah, and he really wants to go sailing, if anyone has a sailboat they want to invite him on. He requested that I mention that.

As his skills with a hatchet might suggest, Kai has a violent steak. I asked him if he had any negative experiences post-internet fame, expecting stories along the lines of a TV producer exploiting him. Rather, he derailed into a tale of brushing his teeth in a bar bathroom.

VICE: What’s up with this other fight you got into, after the hatchet incident?
Kai: I was washing my teeth, and this dude's like, "What the fuck are you doing brushing your teeth in here?" I was like, "Uh.... When was the last time you got laid?" He was like, "Wednesday, how about you?" And I was like, "II can't call it." And then we got in a bit of a tizzle. He's a 210-pound douche-monkey looking at me thinking he can bully me around because I'm skinny. I weigh 160, 165 soaking wet. And, um, his face was split up to the point where I think he needed surgery. I guess brushing my teeth in a bar washroom just kind of attracts bullies, but whatever.

Tell me about that day you stopped the man with your hatchet. Did you have any sense about how your life was about to change?
I could sense that that dude was fucked up. And I didn't really know how to deal with that situation because I've never met anybody that fucked up before. Sometimes you get in rides, and you sense that the person's lonely or maybe they haven't been around people in a while, but he really changed how I go about things because it could have ended really differently when the cops got there. They could have shot me on sight. If it had been in Arizona or Texas, maybe they would have shot me.

He was on a trip of dominance and control. I think he had a poisoned psyche. I've heard some of the research that people have been doing about his life and apparently he was a high school basketball coach for girls. That is fucked up. That truly sickens me. When I hear stuff about him getting jumped by six guys in a Fresno County jail and getting his jaw broken, I'm not going to lie to you, I celebrate that. People like that need to be fucking stopped.

So he's in jail now? And you testified at his trial right? How was that?
He's in jail. There was this defense lawyer at the trial. She was trying to smear me. And I just threw roses, and she got hit by those thorns. She was like, "Is there PCP in this joint?" And I was like, "Is this Reefer Madness?" The judge had to call a recess. He said so the DA could inform me of the court process, but I secretly think it was because he needed to go to the backroom and laugh at how hardcore the defense lawyer was getting torn down. And at the end of me being on stand, he actually did laugh out loud right at the defense lawyer's face. She was trying to trick me up, and I said, "Excuse me, miss, please don't mistake my hesitation for weakness, I realize you're trying to trick me and I just need to consider what I am saying as not to allow you to trick me." And she said, "No further questions." The judge laughed in her face. So I'm just waiting for that transcript from the court reporter.

So what have you been up to lately? I can't begin to fathom how your life has changed since that viral video.
Yeah, it's been really excellent, I've met a lot of cool people who have been reaching out through the internet, mostly contacting me through Facebook, there is about 10,000 messages in my inbox from people all across the country. There's people from eco communities, there's people from surfing communities, there's people from Rainbow Gatherings, who just got classified as a gang by the Obama administration, who have invited me to come and meet with them.

A gang, really?
Well they've been deemed as “subversive” by the new CIA director, John Brennan. He could have just stuck to telling the army to prepare to destroy the Tea Party, um, that wasn't such a bad idea, considering the ideas and intentions they send out to the world, but then he kind of went and called the Rainbow Family and the Grateful Dead Family a gang, which is way over the top. 

So are you going to get involved with Rainbow Gatherings?
Well, I want to know what they're all about. I mean peace and friendly hugs are one thing, but motivation and consideration that there needs to be infrastructure to society is another thing. In order to create a sustainable community, the community needs to deal with things like shelter, food, clothes, and stuff on a regular basis in such a way that they aren't taking away from another community at the same time. So it's kind of just an exploration on how they work with that, you know what I mean?

I'm going to smoke this joint, just a second. Every day I pay the price to live in sacrifice. I love Kaya so much.

[coughs] Oh yeah. OK that's good, that's good.

What has it been like going from living off the grid to appearing in the public spotlight?
Well, I've largely succeeded in any effort to hide myself. I disappeared inside the Emerald Triangle for a couple weeks even.

How did you do that?
I just showed up. A friend came and picked me up, I lost both cell phones that the DA investigators had given to me, and disappeared for a week and then reappeared and did a few radio interviews and magazine interviews and then I disappeared again.

What do you do when you disappear?
I get in contact with a friend who contacts another friend and then show up in a car, I get into the car, change my appearance slightly, get in another car and then disappear off into the woods. I play drums and guitar. I head down to the beach and surf. I skateboard off hills into the countryside, and I walk around in the forest and identify new plants.

New plants?
Well, new to me anyway. I actually practice herbology in terms of medicine and stuff. I don't have health insurance or a social security card or a birth certificate or a passport or anything. Which is the thing about being home free, when you submit to the authority of pieces of paper, you lose your personal identity and the identity you find through nature. So I've been trying to integrate the market system into my life a little bit more now that there are people I'm interacting with all the time who are kind of obsessed and possessed by it.

Do you feel your “home free” mentality has reached others?
Yes, I'm so thrilled that this message is out there now! There's three and a half million people at least, and that's not counting the three million hits in the first day of the video being up that got to hear the message, that everyone, no matter what they've done deserves respect, that everyone that makes mistakes is still loveable, and that it doesn't matter your looks, skill, age or whatever, you're worthwhile, and that last one is something I've noticed that a lot of people in Los Angeles just haven't heard. In, like, a whole life of 53 years, have never heard that they're worthwhile. They've always been trapped into a mathematical function of the worth of their existence. And that just to me isn't right, I mean we're all divine in some aspect of our being, you know?

What advice would you give to people who aren't ready to go as extreme as you, but want to enter a more “home free” mindset?
Well conspiracy aside, I like what Rob Brezsny said about “pronoia” being the antidote for paranoia. So pronoia is agreeing that the universe wants to interject blessing into our life in disguise, so we choose to explore the mystery of the situation at hand and figure out in what way the universe is trying to grow our soul. Whereas paranoia is the mindset that everyone is out to take a piece of you instead of realizing that each situation is an opportunity to learn about everything that is, you know?

What do you see in your future?
I'd like to sail across the world. I'd like to visit countries that need change. If I could free just one sugar plantation in Haiti, I would feel like I have done something for all the sugar and coffee that I've drank in my life.

@TheBowieCat

More stories of internet fame:

The Web 1.0 Music of Jerome LOL

The Real Cat Ladies of Minneapolis

Cat Yoga with Feline Experts