Death or Disco? Preserve Your Loved Ones as Their Favorite Vinyl Record

(ZURICH) — Tupac Shakur ended up as a joint. The long-circulated rumor was recently confirmed by two members of his former band Outlawz, EDI Mean and Young Noble. In 1996, the two musicians actually mixed the ashes of the assassinated hip-hop star with marijuana and smoked it just like Tupac had asked in his song Black Jesus: "Last Wishes, niggas, smoke my ashes."

Of course, Tupac's last wish is hardly common. Still, it isn't as unusual as one may think. The number of people choosing an alternative to the peaceful coffin or urn of ashes is increasing every year. If fate has already gambled away half of your battle, the reasoning goes, you should at least be able to organize your departure entirely on your own terms.

In Switzerland, natural burials are very popular, due in part to the "ash freedom" laws: anyone who chooses to be cremated may also decide where the ashes are cast. Scattered under a favorite tree? Along a favorite trail? In the river, on whose banks you stole your first kiss? Basically everything is permitted. (See the top 10 unsolved hip-hop murders.)

Such "gone with the wind" burials are undoubtedly very poetic and moving moments of farewell. And yet there's a catch: once the ashes are gone, all is gone. The memory of an individual is reduced to a thought, without a fixed place of remembrance or a tangible symbol in which the remains can be preserved.

Nature lovers can work around this problem elegantly by asking that their ashes be turned into fertilizer for a newly planted young tree. As the tree grows, it absorbs the ground cover in its roots, its branches and foliage soon flourishing into a natural grave.

Diamonds and drinks
The pan-European company Algordanza (meaning "memory" in Romansh), founded in 2004, offers a relic particularly well-suited for widows: it converts the ashes of dead loved ones into faux diamonds. The synthetic stones are manufactured in a laboratory in Neuchatel; depending on how much boron has been deposited in the body, the diamonds have a weaker or stronger blue shimmer. The process from order to delivery usually takes two to four months, and the price depends on the carat weight of the gemstone — between 4,800 and 10,000 Swiss francs ($5,300 to $11,085). (See why happens to your social networks when you die.)

An eternal end as a tree or a piece of jewelry? Dandy's and rock 'n' rollers laugh at the idea. Their perpetuation should of course be staged according to the way they lived their lives: unconventional, loud, hedonistic. Actor James Doohan (Scotty in the TV series "Star Trek") and LSD guru Timothy Leary had particularly cool send-offs. They both had their ashes attached to a rocket and sent into space. The price tag? Around $10,000.

Another original — but far more sustainable — offer comes from the British company And Vinyly, who rewrote the well known RIP (Rest in Peace) to RIV — Rest in Vinyl. Specifically: the ashes of the deceased are processed into a working vinyl record. The simplest version costs $3,100, but that will get you 30 vinyl copies (enough for friends and relatives) onto which music or a recorded message can be pressed. One particularly spooky option: opt against a song or message and leave only the eerie crackling of ash to be heard on the blank disc. (See TIME's video, "YouTomb: Where the Rich and Famous Spend Eternity.")

Of course, it can all get much more extravagant. For $786, you can get a custom tune composed; and for a bit more cash, you can circulate your records in shops around the world. Or choose the ultimate option, which will run you $5,500: James Hague, a painter at the National Portrait Gallery, will use residual ash and acrylics to paint your face in gorgeous pastel colors onto the album covers.

Unlike Algordanza, whose diamond offer is strictly limited to human ashes, And Vinyly will also process your pet's ashes onto a record.

Those for who want to take Tupac's joint solution to the next level, should head on over to Thailand. There, a new drug concoction called "Tai Hong," in which cooked leaves of the Kratom tree are mixed with freshly cremated ashes, is quickly gaining popularity. Supposedly, not only does the drink have an exquisite flavor, but it also elicits a heightened state of consciousness — usually not for too long, but just enough time to share an unforgettable farewell.

See a greener alternative to cremation.

See if we're heading to an American without cemeteries.

The Death of Kid Sports: Is Our Obsession with Winning Making Us Lose the Point?

Sports A recent survey shows — surprise! — that the more seriously we take youth sport the less fun they have

Glanville's first book The Game from Where I Stand: A Ballplayer's Inside View was published in 2010.

At the age of 7, I put on my first baseball uniform as a member of Joey’s Children’s Wear of Teaneck Western Little League. From that day forth, I would continue to wear team colors through high school, college, and until I retired from major league baseball in 2005. Even in between seasons or off the field, I would find ways to adorn my baseball attire, from my Phillies’ Halloween costume in the early 1980s to my “acting” on the movie Summer Catch in the late 1990s.

Looking back, I realize that my first uniform housed a pristine state of what sport meant to me. I was able to see baseball as a blank canvas, the art of the game fusing color and imagination on a field of green without boundaries. Yet with experience and time, I realized that an innocence flaked off this uniform, layer by layer. Maybe it started with an unfair benching, a particularly rambunctious teammate’s parent fighting for his son or daughter, or an angry manager berating an umpire for a suspect call on the field.

Today, as my molting has come to its end, I see the time coming for me to pass the torch on to my children and I worry about the negative elements that are accelerating the process of an innocence lost. To respond to that concern, I joined the United States Anti-Doping Agency, where I am on their research committee, to study youth sports in America. What we found was both reassuring — and troubling.

The reassuring part is that our country loves sport, with the vast majority of kids in our nation participating. Coaches have wide and great influence over our youth, in fact, they even have more influence than parents. But what the data of our study also showed is that there is often a parasitic relationship between winning and how the game is taught and celebrated. This obsession forges unhealthy expectations on coaches, on the professional aspirations of these young athletes, or on efforts in how we invest in sport as a nation. Winning at all costs is costly.

(MORE: Should a Gene Test Decide Which Sport Your Kid Should Play?)

This study also showed that early specialization — focusing on just one sport above all others — leads to diminishing returns for those who participate. Playing a variety of sports reduces the stress of prematurely having all eggs in one basket, which can lead players to desperate measures to excel and make them enjoy the game less. Having “fun” was important to young people — once they stopped having fun, they lost an interest in playing. And when parents are fighting in the stands, or coaches have to recruit to fortify a Little League team, or when a child is not allowed to enjoy sport because he or she is not “good enough,” fun often goes out the window.

My oldest child is only three, so for now, I will enjoy the window that I am in before I inevitably sign him up for soccer and Little League. Right now, the only uniform my kids will be wearing are their Halloween costumes — my son as James from Thomas the Tank Engine, and my daughter a color-rich rainbow. And I hope that when the time comes, my daughter’s rainbow costume truly can symbolize what sport will be — something that everyone can enjoy at any level and allows young people to fly high above the clouds of their greatest potential.

Ominous Signs: Track Conditions Questioned Before Wheldon's Death

Drivers complete five memorial laps in honor of Dan Wheldon at the Las Vegas Motor Speedway

Robert Laberge / Getty Images

One of the saddest, most jarring aspects of the 15-car accident that took the life of reigning Indy 500 champ Dan Wheldon on Sunday: before the race, some drivers saw bad things coming.

Remarks on IndyCar's own website, posted on Oct. 16, were particularly ominous. An article said the season finale at the Las Vegas Motor Speedway “could be the wildest race of the season.” The story, headlined “Hot Spots on hot Las Vegas Track,” noted that “while a hot spot is generally one portion of the racetrack, at Las Vegas it's the entire race course.” Said James Hincliffe, a rookie driver: “The hot spot is every inch of the 1.5 miles. It's such a grippy track. A place like Kentucky there are bumps and the cars move around a little bit. Here, they aren't doing that and we are race car drivers and will take every inch that we are given and you have just eliminated all the margin. The racing is so close and when something goes wrong it can really go wrong.”

Another driver, Ryan Hunter-Reay, echoed Hincliffe's observation. “Hot spots here are every corner, every lap the whole time,” he said. “All it takes is one mistake by one driver and it could be huge consequences. This should be a nail-biter for the fans and it's going to be insane for the drivers.”

(PHOTOS: Dan Wheldon Dies in Fiery Crash)

Among the other more pointed remarks by drivers, before and after the accident:

—“More than any other track we go to, this track is like an engine dyno,” said Will Power on IndyCar.com. Power's car, like Wheldon's, went airborne during the crash (Power complained of upper back pain after the accident, but was released from a hospital Sunday night). “I'll have to have a mistake-free day," Power said. "The action will be everywhere. It's going to be a very tightly-packed race, more than any one we've done over the years."

—“You can run anywhere,” said Paul Tracy on IndyCar.com. During the accident, Tracy appeared to slow down while trying to avoid debris: Wheldon's car crashed into Tracy's from behind, at full speed, sending Wheldon into the air. Wheldon's car crashed into the “catch fence” above the speedway barrier. “You can run against the wall," said Tracy. "You are going to see 3 1/2 wide racing here. It's going to be a wild race  ... There is the potential for a big wreck so we hope to stay out of that.”

—"We all had a bad feeling about this place in particular just because of the high banking and how easy it was to go flat," Oriol Servia said after the race, in a statement. "And if you give us the opportunity, we are drivers and we try to go to the front. We race each other hard because that's what we do. We knew it could happen, but it's just really sad."

—"It was just a chain reaction, and everybody slowed down, got bunched up again and there were more crashes that started behind it," said Scott Dixon, who won the 2008 Indy 500, after the race, according to SI.com. "It's unfortunate because everybody knew it was going to happen. You could see from Lap 2 people were driving nuts. It doesn't even matter the speeds — you can't touch with these cars."

—"We have too much grip for these cars because it's just too easy," said Ryan Briscoe before the race, on IndyCar.com. "It's going to be a wild race and it will be fractions of inches apart from each other the whole race. It's going to be very intense." Afterwards, Briscoe said on SI.com: "It was like driving through a war zone. We all predicted something like this would happen. It was inevitable. ... These open-wheel cars, there is no room for error."

In 2007, the Las Vegas Motor Speedway changed the banking of its turns, from 12 degrees to 20 degrees, which increased speeds on the track. As The St. Petersburg Times pointed out, in 2000 — the last time IndyCar raced in Las Vegas — Mark Dismore won the pole with a speed of 208.5 mph. This year, Tony Kanaan's pole speed was 222 mph.

Also, the drivers said the surface is particularly smooth, which gives them more confidence to “go flat” – in other words, floor the accelerator. The track is also wide, inviting cars to race side-by-side, “three-wide and four-wide.” When cars are racing in close quarters, at high-speeds, any slip-up can put many drivers at risk.

On Sunday, the chaos unfolded after the cars of Hinchcliffe and Wade Cunningham made slight contact.  The field of 34 drivers was the largest of the IndyCar season. The Indianapolis 500 has 33 drivers, but they are spread out on a 2.5 mile track. The Las Vegas Motor Speedway is 1.5 miles long. The large field, and shorter track, inevitably leads to more crowding.

Dario Franchitti, who clinched his fourth IndyCar title on Sunday, cried uncontrollably before he and fellow drivers saluted Wheldon by driving five-laps around the Las Vegas track. Franchitti said on SI.com: "You know I love hard racing, but that to me is not really what it's about. I said before we even tested here that this was not a suitable track for us, and we've seen it today. You can't get away from anybody. There's no way to differentiate yourself as a car or a driver. People get frustrated and go four-wide and you saw that happened."

NewsFeed offered IndyCar officials and the Las Vegas Motor Speedway a chance to respond to the comments from drivers.  An IndyCar spokesperson said no officials are available to comment at this time. The Las Vegas Motor Speedway deferred comment to IndyCar.

Sean Gregory is a staff writer at TIME. Find him on Twitter at @seanmgregory. You can also continue the discussion on TIME's Facebook page and on Twitter at @TIME.

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