Sascha Altman DuBrul, Sascha DuBrul or Sascha Scatter, (born 1974) is an American activist, writer, farmer and punk rock musician known as the bass player of the 1990s ska-punk band Choking Victim. He is also the co-founder of The Icarus Project, an international community support network and media project, which is attempting to redefine the language and culture of mental health and illness. He founded the Bay Area Seed Interchange Library (BASIL). He divides his time between the San Francisco Bay Area and New York City. Early life DuBrul was raised on the Upper West Side of Manhattan, the son of Anita Altman, the founder and deputy director of the ReelAbilities: NY Disabilities Film Festival. His father, Paul DuBrul, was a journalist and speechwriter who died the night before DuBrul's Bar Mitzvah. In an interview with the Village Voice, DuBrul described his childhood: "I was raised by democratic socialists who believed in electoral politics…but my political education happened amidst the Tompkins Square riots of the late '80s.” In his teens, DuBrul found community among punks and anarchist squatters on the Lower East Side. Early Education After attending Hunter College Elementary School and Bronx High School of Science, DuBrul graduated from St. Ann’s School in Brooklyn. He attended Reed College in Portland, Oregon for a year but dropped out after having a psychotic break. In a 2002 article for the San Francisco Bay Guardian, DuBrul wrote: "I was 18 years old the first time they locked me up in a psych ward. The police found me walking on the subway tracks in New York City, and I was convinced the world was about to end and I was being broadcast live on prime-time TV on all the channels.” He was diagnosed with bipolar disorder. Musical career and writing After dropping out of Reed, DuBrul played in the ska-punk band Choking Victim. In 1995, he co-organized a traveling punk circus, which he then wrote about in his first book Carnival of Chaos: On the Road With the Nomadic Festival, published by Autonomedia. For eight years, DuBrul wrote a quarterly column for the punk zine Slug and Lettuce. DuBrul has written and lectured about the perceived relationships between punk, activist culture, racial identity, oppression, and privilege. His memoir Maps to the Other Side was released in 2013 and focuses on DuBrul's navigation of the psychiatric system and creative mental health advocacy. In recent