27 Jan 2012 - When French existentialist and writer Simone de Beauvoir first tried to smoke marijuana, she did not inhale. It was 3 May 1947 and she was as new to New York City as she was to the drug. Friends taught her how to breathe in the smoke, but she was immune to it's effects. "I feel guilty," she wrote in her diary. "No angel bothers to lift me from earth." She added, "I turn toward the bottle of bourbon."

Beauvoir’s unrequited love for marijuana is among the highlights of "New York Diaries: 1609-2009". This new book is the most festive and unorthodox history of New York City one is likely to come across. It's editor, Teresa Carpenter, a longtime Village Voice writer and lifelong diary enthusiast, has had the ingenious idea to comb through hundreds of diaries, written by the famous, the infamous and the unknown in New York, and to liberate these chronicles of their crunchiest and most humane bits.

Starting on January 1 and traveling day by day through the year, these journal entries are selected from four centuries of writing—from the early 1600s to the present—allowing New York natives and visitors, writers and artists, thinkers and bloggers, to reach across time and share vivid and compelling snapshots of life in the Capital of the World.

26 Jan 2012 - Oscar Nominee Brad Pitt confessed during an interview with The Hollywood Reporter Magazine that his marijuana smoking got out of control in the late 90's because he was trying to escape the pressures of fame.

He told The Hollywood Reporter magazine: "I got really sick of myself at the end of the 1990's. I was hiding out from the celebrity thing, I was smoking way too much dope, I was sitting on the couch and just turning into a doughnut and I really got irritated with myself." It's not the first time Pitt admits he was smoking too much and that he became very sheltered and bored. In 2009 he admitted to Parade Magazine that he was smoking too much cannabis.

This time Pitt admits he wanted to get away from it all. The publication's executive features editor Stephen Galloway revealed the actor blamed his drug use to a small depression. "He said it's like he had a semester of depression," Galloway said. "He hasn't had that in this decade, but he definitely wrestled with it in the past."

Last year, the 48-year-old Hollywood star - who was nominated for the Best Actor Oscar for Moneyball this week - even quit smoking regularly cigarettes after being caught puffing by two of his children, daughters Zahara and Shiloh.

26 Jan 2012 - Rapper The Game posted a photo of himself on Twitter on Monday with five large bags of marijuana boasting "Fresh kut. Fresh kush." Kush refers to a subset of strains of Cannabis Indica. The origins of Kush cannabis are from landrace plants mainly in Afghanistan, Northern Pakistan and North-Western India with the name coming from the Hindu Kush mountain range.

It isn't the first time that a tweet from The Game, who's real name is Jayceon Terrell Taylor, led to controversy. Last fall The Game posted the emergency line for the Los Angeles Sheriff's Department on his Twitter account, urging his followers to call for a chance to intern with him.

After an investigation due to the lines being jammed, the LASD decided not to seek criminal charges and The Game later issued an apology saying, "My sincerest apologies to the Sheriff's Department, it was a joke gone wrong."

21 Jan 2012 - Legendary Rhythm-and-Blues singer Etta James has died at the age of 73, from complications with leukemia. The Grammy-award winning singer and Rock and Roll and Blues Hall of Fame honoree had many hits, such as "I'd Rather Go Blind" and "Don't Tell Mama," but she was best known for her soulful rendition of "At Last".

Etta James was born Jamesetta Hawkins in Los Angeles on Jan. 25, 1938. At the age of 5 she began singing at the St. Paul Baptist Church in Los Angeles and as a teenager she turned to secular music, forming a vocal group with two friends. She made her first record, when she was 15.

In 1960 Etta James was signed to the Chicago label that was home to Chuck Berry, Muddy Waters and other leading lights of black music: Chess Records. She quickly had a range of hits, including “All I Could Do Was Cry,” “Trust in Me” and “At Last,” which established her as Chess’s number one female star.
She remained with Chess into the 1970s. Later in the late ’70s and early ’80s she was an opening act for The Rolling Stones.

Despite all her accomplishments, Etta James had an up-and-down career, partially because of changing audience tastes but largely because of drug problems. As described candidly in her autobiography "Rage to survive" written with David Ritz (1995),  Ms. James liked a smoke: "We'd smoke weed in rolled-up old newspapers, stinking up the bus with these fat joints until everyone was coughing and falling out" and " We were all pretty much involved with weed. We kept our marijuana in a Prince Albert Tobacco tin".  But later on in the 1960s she developed a heroin habit and after she overcame it in the 1970s, she began using cocaine. Even though her life had its share of troubles Etta James said she wanted her music to transcend unhappiness rather than reflect it.