I've spent quite a bit of time in the Netherlands over the past ten years, and I have to agree with the local point of view that there is a drug tourism issue there, especially in the Red Light in Amsterdam. I'm all for people responsibly using drugs, but that isn't where the problem lies. It's when you get these juiced up American college kids fresh off the plane, who just start taking mushrooms, 2CB, smoking good weed for the first time and just losing it. I've personally witnessed young, tripping college kids throwing bikes into the canals, smashing windows for no good reason, and generally acting like base poltroons. I would be pissed if folks came to my city and starting making a mess of it.

Really, mushrooms aren't for everyone. Even Terence McKenna has had his share of total bug outs. They are especially not for 17 year old kids with mental problems in a city where they don't live, and are going about unsupervised. It really boils down to personal responsibility, and we all know that is sorely lacking in many folks.

As an aside, there are many psychedelic mushrooms you can get in the Netherlands at the Smart Shops. The psylocybin is just one type, which give you one type of trip. They also sell some mushrooms which don't contain psylocybin, but cause you to 'trip' because they are poisonous enough to cause changes in your body, but not toxic enough to kill you in a small dose.

The Freitag flagship store is made of shipping containers as well. I think this is something we'll see more of. You can put up decent housing really fast and quite cheaply with containers. There are tons them floating around, they are made to be easily moved, and the infrastructure to move them is already in place. There are many people working on ways to outfit them so they can be habitable quickly, and brought into disaster areas where people need shelter quick.

Actually there's nothing 'punk' about Barker Black. They were based out of an English cavalry regiment, and the skulls were on the regiments standards. I'm bummed these are on BB, they are my favorite item of clothing ever.

#4 Bob: Really astute, observations, especially about runway shows/couture being only a tiny slice of how fashion makes money. I think fashion is one of the most misunderstood businesses on earth, especially the economic side of it.

Fashion houses don't really make all that much cash from what you see on the runways or in the tents at Bryant Park. Very few people can afford those clothes, so very few of each piece are made. Granted, they are priced as luxury items, but if you're only making 50 or 100 pieces, that's a drop in the bucket compared to what it costs to design, manufacture, pay the models, pay the pr folks etc. It's basically advertising for the pret a porter stuff, which in the last 20 years, is how fashion really its' money. Dior Homme in NYC gets 4 of each suit each season, even at $2000 USD a pop, that won't even keep the lights on in Manhattan.

This is why fashion can exist without copyright, because even the 'big' fashion houses knock of their own items, and make cheaper versions to sell to a mass audience. Here's a good example. Two years ago Coach puts this gorgeous gray cashmere French Cuff Pea coat on the runway, priced way way up there. They probably don't sell too many of these. Now in the Coach stores this year, is a nice but much less expensive wool version. Coach probably sells tons of these because they are only $600 USD, and don't cost all that much to make. Now again, the Gap, has a very, very similar grey wool French Cuff Pea Coat for $99 USD, so the Gap will probably sell a billion of these this year. It works for everybody because the runway folks, the mid range luxury folks, and the Gap folks are not the same market. It's actually a pretty fair, non-selfish way of doing business.

Besides this tiered system, it's the lifestyle items that make money off the cachet of runway shows. Every fashion house makes glasses that Midwestern moms can afford and wear. Polo Sheets, Marc Jacobs canvas bags for $20 bucks, it goes on and on. You even see this model in streetwear. A Bathing Ape starts coming out with insane, flashy patent leather Dunk ripoffs that are $300 USD and up, plus they are extremely hard to get. Nike sees people go crazy for them, so it trickles down and Nike starts making patent leather dunks in nutso colors. Nike and Bape are both making money off the same idea. It's different markets.

And to #1 Jackgreg...Fashion is art. There's no question. Look at a Pucci scarf, a Valentino gown or a Paul Smith shirt and try to say otherwise. You don't have to be Patsy and Edina, but there's nothing wrong with appreciating beautiful things either. Long live Oscar Wilde!

#1: You're right on, but it's actually much, much sadder than that. My office window is directly across the street from the Louis Vuitton store in Manhattan, so I basically am forced to spend half my day watching what goes on in there. I don't begrudge people having nice things. I like nice clothes myself. It's one thing for some uber wealthy person to buy really expensive items, but what's really sad is I see people who are totally broke walking into Louis Vuitton and dropping money on things they can't afford, just to appear wealthy. To me that is much,much sadder because it shows how completely shallow and money driven our society is. Even worse, I see at at least 2-3 people per week getting pulled out of Louis in handcuffs for shoplifting. A few weeks ago, one of them was a Mother with her three kids with her. That one really bummed me out. Compound this with the fact that Canal Street is only a few blocks away, where they sell fake LV's every 10 feet, so then you have another group of people pretending to be wealthy by buying the fakes. It's a Sick Sad World, Daria! Seriously, some days I wish a sinkhole would swallow SoHo, along with LV,, Coach,Longchamp and all the rest and deposit them in the bowels of the earth.

In June of '02 back Jakob K. Boeskov, invented a weapon called 'The ID Sniper Rifle', which would allow protesters to be shot with a dart which would then tag them and allow them to be located by Chinese authorities. Now Boeskovs's weapon was fake, but he actually got a booth at one of the huge Chinese arms fairs and chronicles how much interest his 'ID Sniper Rifle' generated. It's scary how people on the other side of the coin think. His writings on the subject appeared in the Disinfo anthology 'Abuse Your Illusions' and in Black Box magazine. It's great stuff if you're interested in just how big big brother is and how enormous the Chinese security market is.

It seems The Outer Church has finally broken through. Someone call Mr. Six.

I've had the New Haven pizza at a few places,Grimaldi's,Lombardi's and Star Tavern as well, and I've also had pizza in Naples, Roma, Milano and Firenze, and it just doesn't compare to Difara's. Seriously, Dom DiFara is the Rilke of pie creation.

Michael, while I agree with your actions in spirit, and actually applaud you for standing up for your rights, I think you may be in a bit of trouble here. Sadly, I've been in retail management for more than 10 years, so I've been through this a million times. Basically, there's something usually referred to as 'Shopkeepers Privilege' which allows the proprietors of a store to take reasonable action to protect their property, employees and well being. Now 'Reasonable Action', can of course be interpreted many ways, but I've never heard of a judge who didn't side with the store owner over searching someone's possessions if they suspected the person of shoplifting. It's sad, absolutely, but that's the way the laws are written. The law is set up to protect people's property at the expense of their rights. The reason places like Circuit City check your bags as you leave is so that if they discover you are taking something with you without paying, they can deal with you in their own way (usually a Polaroid in the back room and being banned for life) because it isn't actually shoplifting until you leave private property. It is much less expensive to deal with shoplifters this way than to send someone to court.
Believe me, I wish we lived in a world where this wasn't the way it is, but there are plenty of selfish folks who will take anything that isn't nailed down. Blame them, don't blame the poor dupes at Circuit City who probably make minimum wage and hate searching your bag as much as you hate having it searched.
I realize you live in Brooklyn, Ohio - I live in Brooklyn New York. Cops ID me all the time, especially since 9/11. The gestapo undertones of 'Papers Please' bother me, but I'm willing to spend a day in jail on principle, so for that I applaud you. Good luck, I really hope this works out in your favor.