An endlessly entertaining and informative look at how musicals have both reflected and adapted to America's changing mores

What led scientists to have acrobats copulate inside an MRI machine? Why do wordless patterns of sound send shivers down our spines and tickle ancient parts of our brains? How did a chemist's quest to create a drug to ease the pain of childbirth result in the creation of LSD? And did it change our understanding of the brain forever? From tortoiseshell condoms to superstar athletes on hallucinogens, science writer Zoe Cormier dissects these and other burning questions, amplifying them with insights from some of the world's bravest, cleverest, and downright weirdest scientists. Sex, Drugs, and Rock 'n' Roll explores science at the edge, where scientists ask big, strange questions -- and sometimes experiment on themselves to find answers. It shines a light into the lesser-known corners of scientific research to gain insight into the nature of consciousness, happiness, and humanity. Not to mention our parties. Here are stories of unconventional scientists, innovative inquiries, hedonistic impulses -- and how the renegades of science have illuminated the secrets of our baser impulses.

Welcome to heavy metal rock 'n' roll, circa 1980, when all you needed was the right look, burning ambition, and a chance. Stephen Pearcy and supergroup Ratt hit the bull's-eye. Cranking out metal just as metal got hot, Ratt was the perfect band at the perfect time, and their hit single "Round and Round" became a top-selling anthem. As Ratt scrambled up a wall of fame and wealth, so they experienced the gut-wrenching free fall, after too many hours in buses, planes, and limos; too many women; too many drugs; and all the personality clashes and ego trips that marked the beginning of the end. Pearcy offers a stunningly honest self-portrait of a man running on the fumes of ambition and loneliness as the party crashed. His rock 'n' roll confessional, by turns incredible, hilarious, and lyrical, is a story of survival--and a search for the things that matter most.--From publisher description.

Over 60 gripping accounts tracking the dark side of rock 'n' roll from the early days of the drugs-and-drink culture, and the birth of rock 'n' roll, through The Beatles, Stones, Sex Pistols, Madonna, Kurt Cobain and Oasis, to Amy Winehouse, Pete Doherty and other stars of the current rock-music scene. From trashed hotel rooms to cars in swimming pools, all rock 'n' roll's excesses are here, including murder and sexual deviancy, surprising brushes with the law that the stars thought they'd kept quiet, early and tragic deaths, drug overdoses, robbery, mis-marriages and groupies by the truckload

Comic monologues Characters: 1 male Bare stage This non-stop tour through some oddball minds by the author of Talk Radio and Drinking in America enjoyed a lengthy run Off-Broadway. Originally performed as a one man show, the hilarious, riveting and often disturbing monologues can be presented by several actors or actresses. "With this brilliant show, his funniest and scariest yet, Mr. Bogosian has crossed the line that separates an exciting artist from a

Text and Drugs and Rock'n'Roll explores the interaction between two of the most powerful socio-cultural movements in the post-war years - the literary forces of the Beat Generation and the musical energies of rock and its attendant culture. Simon Warner examines the interweaving strands, seeded by the poet/novelists Jack Kerouac, Allen Ginsberg, William Burroughs and others in the 1940s and 1950s, and cultivated by most of the major rock figures who emerged after 1960 - Bob Dylan, the Beatles, Bowie, the Clash and Kurt Cobain, to name just a few. This fascinating cultural history delves into a wide range of issues: Was rock culture the natural heir to the activities of the Beats? Were the hippies the Beats of the 1960s? What attitude did the Beat writers have towards musical forms and particularly rock music? How did literary works shape the consciousness of leading rock music-makers and their followers? Why did Beat literature retain its cultural potency with later rock musicians who rejected hippie values? How did rock musicians use the material of Beat literature in their own work? How did Beat figures become embroiled in the process of rock creativity? These questions are addressed through a number of approaches - the influence of drugs, the relevance of politics, the effect of religious and spiritual pursuits, the rise of the counter-culture, the issue of sub-cultures and their construction, and so on. The result is a highly readable history of the innumerable links between two of the most revolutionary artistic movements of the last 60 years.

"Mr. Bogosian is a hilarious wit: there is one line after another that you will quote to friends. He is a born storyteller with perfect pitch for the voices of various ethnic, racial and economic backgrounds. Using every powerful means available to a theatre artist, he shakes the cages of a complacent country engulfed by homelessness to ask just exactly who, if anyone, is home." -Frank Rich, New York Times "Greatly and bilaterally talented... spiky, stinging, caustic without cauterizing. And funny." -John Simon, New York Magazine "Scabrously funny... a dervish of a performer, ricocheting off the walls of the male psyche." -Boston Phoenix Eric Bogosian is one of our most innovative and provocative artists, with a unique gift for portraying the currents and idioms of contemporary society. The monologues in Sex, Drugs, Rock & Roll form a composite picture of the complex, sometimes alarming state of American culture in the 1990s. One of America’s premier performers and most innovative and provocative artists, Bogosian’s plays and solo work include suburbia (Lincoln Center Theater, 1994; adapted to film by director Richard Linklater, 1996); Sex, Drugs, Rock & Roll, Pounding Nails in the Floor with My Forehead; Griller; Humpty Dumpty; 1+1; Skunkweed; Wake Up and Smell the Coffee; Drinking in America; Notes from Underground and Talk Radio (Pulitzer Prize finalist; New York Shakespeare Festival, 1987; Broadway, 2007; adapted to film by director Oliver Stone, 1988). He has starred in a wide variety of film, TV and stage roles. Most recently, he created the character of Captain Danny Ross on the long-running series Law & Order: Criminal Intent. In 2014, TCG published 100 (monologues), a collection that commemorates thirty years of Bogosian’s solo-performance career.