SAVE MONEY by NOT BUYING CHINESE JUNK! Thrift Store Treasures are "What's Happenin'" Now!

I See in the News That There is Trouble Unloading Cargo Ships from Overseas... Well, SO Freaking WHAT? 

I Already Have Everything I Want... The Secret Trick is NOT Wanting Much! That Way It's Easy to Get Everything I Want.

http://www.eurekarescuemission.org/Thrift_Store/Thrift_Shop.html Link to The Eureka Rescue Mission Thrift Shop on Highway 101 in Eureka, CA... I Bet with a Little Research You Could find a Similar Store in Your Town! Goodwill, Saint Vincent de Paul, Volunteers of America... 

Remember! Buying Used is 

Ecologically Friendly! 

I won't be Buying any of This...

When You Buy a New Product, the Corporation Has to Replace It. Their Computers Automatically Order another Product to Keep the Shelves Stocked... 

They Mine Raw Materials, grow plants (like cotton) using pesticides and herbicides, Log Forests, Employ Slave Laborers in the Orient, Burn Gasoline Shipping the Plastic Crap Here From China... and on and on and on... Used Products ALREADY EXIST and so Buying Stuff at The Eureka Rescue Mission Thrift Shop (my local store) does NOT Harm the Planet. Actually, They Hire Local People to Work as Clerks and Do Delivery. We Bought ALL our Living Room Furniture there. Three Chairs and a Sofa... and Men Delivered It Upstairs in Our Home. NO WAY could I Move those Heavy Objects Up That Staircase... I Tipped those Guys $10 Each... and they were really Thankful. Yes, I Could Have Spent a Fortune at Sears or KMART but... I Prefer to Keep The Money IN MY WALLET. I Like Employing Guys That Live At The Rescue Mission. The Mission Does Good Work Here in Eureka and I've Met a LOT of Real People That They Help. I did buy new Beds at Sears. Somehow, those were just too Personal to Buy Used... also, I Do Not Buy Used Underwear... BUT, Clothes? YES! It's actually fun to find thrift stores in Super Rich Neighborhoods and Live Like the TV Show "Lifestyles of the Rich and Famous..." A Great Place to Shop is North Shore Lake Tahoe... Snow Bunnies often Donate Extra Stuff When the Season is Over... and There is Also DUMPSTER DIVING in College Towns at the End of the School Year... FREE STUFF! 

~~~~~~ (~);-} ~~~~~~

On the Other Hand... You Can Buy Stuff that's Already Made in the USA... For Example: Zazzle/Gregvan offers Gifts that are Made in Reno, Nevada... and The Corporation Headquarters is Located in Fremont, CA... 

Rainbow Spiral - Logarithmic Button
by gregvan

Link to All My Custom Printed Neckties!

Rainbow Spiral - Logarithmic Neck Tie
by gregvan

A Cosmic Button...

Ezekiel's Wheel Spiral Mandala Button
by gregvan

Link to ALL my Buttons:

https://www.zazzle.com/store/gregvan/products?qs=Buttons&dp=252524020083386220

and Remember...

 

All my Royalties are Donated to Charity... 

No CEOs Addicted to Corporate Greed Here... 

~~~~~~ (~);-} ~~~~~~

It's the 50th Anniversary of Richard Nixon's Failed War on Drugs. June 17th, 2021... Doing the Same Thing Again and Again and Again While Expecting Different Results IS INSANE!

"Everybody" says that the Failed War on Drugs Has Caused Massive Incarceration of Black and Brown Men... While that is True... Is that a Bad Thing? YES, It's a Bad Thing. 

https://www.whitehouse.gov/contact/

https://www.senate.gov/general/contacting.htm

https://www.house.gov/representatives

Isn't the Failed War on Drugs Just a "Sneaky" Way to Perform Genocide? While those Men are Locked Up, They Certainly are NOT Fathering Children... Making Entire Generations of Americans Whiter... Because Women Select a Sperm Donor from the UN-Incarcerated Population... A KKK Dream Come True... 

Marijuana has become Legal in Many States... Over Half!

Psychedelic Plants have become Decriminalized in Many Towns... So... Nixon's Attack on Hippies Failed... HA HA... LOSER... 

Now I Read in the Newspaper that Black and Brown Men are Dying from Fentanyl Overdoses... Huh... Isn't THAT Convenient? 

An Absolutely Certain Way to Prevent Their Genes from Showing Up in Future Generations... 

Here's a Classic Sermon on this Subject: 

June 17, 2021, will mark 50 years since U.S. President Richard Nixon declared drugs to be “public enemy number one,” launching a national campaign to criminalize drug use. War on drugs policies have led to mass incarceration, civil liberties abuses, over-policing and mistreatment of people of color, and human rights violations in the United States and around the world. Meanwhile, nearly 500,000 people died in the United States alone from opioid overdose in from 1999 to 2019, with death rates still accelerating steadily. 

To mark this milestone, faith leaders, as part of Open Society grantee Faith in Harm Reduction’s sermon series, will memorialize the victims of the war on drugs and affirm that people who use drugs are deserving of life, dignity, and rights.

IS THAT TRUE? ARE THEY VICTIMS?https://www.opensocietyfoundations.org/events/sermon-series-50th-anniversary-of-the-war-on-drugs

It's Amazing that Within a Week of the Thousands of Haiti Refugees (Black People) were Spotted Living Under a Bridge in Texas... They Were Airlifted Right Back Where They Came From... 

That Same Week the Federal Government Allowed Thousands of Refugees from Afghanistan to Immigrate to The Good Old USA... 

Obviously Racist... 

ON 50TH ANNIVERSARY OF “WAR ON DRUGS,” POLL SHOWS MAJORITY OF VOTERS SUPPORT ENDING CRIMINAL PENALTIES FOR DRUG POSSESSION, THINK DRUG WAR IS A FAILURE... https://www.aclu.org/press-releases/50th-anniversary-war-drugs-poll-shows-majority-voters-support-ending-criminal

I Heard It Said That LSD Was Invented at the Same Time as the Atom Bomb... In Order to Balance the Universe... 

"War, Ungh, What is it good for? Absolutely Nothing... say it Again... Headline: After 50 Years Of The War On Drugs, 'What Good Is It Doing For Us?' https://www.npr.org/2021/06/17/1006495476/after-50-years-of-the-war-on-drugs-what-good-is-it-doing-for-us

America has spent over a trillion dollars fighting Richard Nixon's Failed war on drugs. 50 years later, drug use in the U.S. is climbing again. https://www.cnbc.com/2021/06/17/the-us-has-spent-over-a-trillion-dollars-fighting-war-on-drugs.html

You May Read More Blog Posts by Clicking 

on the HANDY LABELS Below!

"Channeling my Inner Chewbacca!" I used to Smoke Tobacco and Drink Coffee All Day Every Day for 47 Years... When I Quit, I Was No Longer Filled with a Slow Burning Rage... Who Would Have Guessed? That...

Smoking Causes Mental Health Problems TOO! I was finally able to quit USING FEAR. When my brother got Lung Cancer, I Was Scared and QUIT. I simply Suffered Thru the Month of Pain caused by Nicotine withdrawal... I have fount that Chewing Nicotine Gum Fails... The Patch Failed... "The Turkey" animated Commercials on TV have a Giant List of Side Effects.

My Cousin Quit using Hypnosis at a week long summer camp... Chanting, Dancing around a Campfire... and Focusing on a VISUAL MANTRA. Whenever he wanted to smoke, he thought of the artwork for the Oneill's Surf Shop.

READ MORE of My Autobiography: https://gvan42.blogspot.com/2018/03/growing-up-in-los-gatos-california-in.html

Typical Paragraph from my Autobiography...
I delivered the Los Gatos Times - Observer Newspaper. My Route was on University Ave between Highway 9 and Blossom Hill Road. I Remember Rolling Newspapers and My Hands Turned Black from the Ink. I wore a Big Canvas Bag - Delivered on my bicycle. Had to COLLECT the Money! I Hated That. and Had to go Solicit New Subscribers... One time on Summit Road a Dog Bit Me but I Didn't Bleed. I Can't Imagine NOWADAYS a Corporation Sending Children TRESPASSING to Sell a Product... Obvious Danger from Guard Dogs.

At Fisher Junior High School, My Favorite Teacher was Mr Fortier - He Made us Write Essays about Posters on the Wall. One was a Red White and Blue Swastika in a Flag Motif... another was The "Solarized" Photo of the Grateful Dead Standing in front of Little Boxes type Houses in South San Francisco. I chose the Flag Swastika because I did not know who the Grateful Dead Were... Maybe I'm Spelling His Name Wrong: Pronounced: For Tea Yeah... and... Isidro Maytorena...

****** (~);-} ******
All about Homelessness in Los Gatos:
Do you remember when... ...Los Gatos had one homeless guy? The "town bum" to be politically incorrect about it. I used to remember his name. He walked up to me once at LGHS and asked drunkenly, "Do you have the year?" ...the woods between HWY 17 and LGHS were called "'Nam"? ...two smoking sections... The upper one for artsy New-wavers, and the lower one for the Stoners? ..getting suspended by Mr McCloskey? ...Super Big Gulps at the 7/11 on LG Blvd were for some reason less expensive than a regular Big Gulp? ...S.T.A.N.D.? (the funniest think I ever saw scribbled onto a desk at LGHS would have been in about 1985.. S.I.T.D.O.W.N. - Students Into Total Destruction of the World Now) Steve Wells I believe the homeless guy died in a fire under part of 17 along the creek trail maybe 20 years ago. He was asleep and his sleeping bag caught fire. There was a homeless woman in the 80s named Joan. Steve Wells https://apnews.com/ed4722ce15a05208df9a41fa44d80272 Guitar Craftsman Dies in Homeless Camp Fire Steve Wells I was told by Tom at 7-11 (old guy with skin cancer on nose) that Joan had a PhD and somehow went downhill. I used to get her a bite to eat and a drink once in a while in the late 80s. Scott Peronto There were a few others in the late 70s besides Warren. Old Ed made his living painting portraits. He was a really friendly guy. I let him hang out at the magazine rack in the 7-11 during my shifts. He told me once he had been a Marine fighting in the Pacific during WWII. He was on an island hopping campaign on Sabu. He had a carton of cigarettes in his backpack and he was hiding behind a stump. They were firing at him with a machine gun and it was shredding the carton of cigarettes. They were flying every where but he never got hit. Don't know what ever happened to Old Ed. He was quite a guy. Jason Matthews Steve Wells I remember Joan vividly I worked downtown in 2005 at harvest home stores and she would say “ do you have a dollar for food” if u said no she called you stupid Jason Matthews Steve Wells I gave her a dollar once and she pulled out a fat wad to count it Steve Wells Jason Matthews think I had a similar response to generosity. Wes Tietzen In the fifties a number of men lived under the viaduct on 17 in the winter and camped on a meadow close to the creek in good weather.As kids we were a bit apprehensive but nothing ever came of it. Not a homeless man by any stretch, Pete the Hermit lived on the opposite side of the ridge overlooking Cypress.Ranch. He had a little cabin that was trashed after his death. Somewhere in the archives there should be mention of him. Did the police in LG give floaters to the transients? I suspect so but I may be wrong.Overall, those were bucolic times in LG.The last time I was in LG a woman living in a gated McMansion on Kennedy Road declared I had no right walking on a public road and causing her dogs to bark. That's just one of the reasons I avoid the Excited States. Evan Lloyd Indian Pete we used to call him. Urban legend of his fortune being buried up there under the remains of his cabin behind 4 trees. I never found it and I looked... lol Eric Sanders I wonder what happened to Lark Ave Louie he would sweep in front of Jiffy and Gremic while telling me wisdom. Yes i remember Nam and madness that went down in there. Smoking sections-use to skate from the upper one by art building down through the qu…See More Dan Koolstra Eric Sanders thanks for the reminder. I remember seeing him outside sweeping all the time . Eric Sanders Dan Koolstra Yeah Louie was a sweeping mastercraftsman. Hung out with him often and just listened to what he had to say. Dan Koolstra Eric Sanders im thinking late 70s maybe but definately through the 80s Jim Bond Eric Sanders I remember standing in the outside basketball court for P.E. and seeing your brother Phill doing a wheelie with a girl on the back of his bike!!! I thought how COOL!!!! He was on a Yamaha TT 500 or 250 not sure? Years later I got to know Phill better through Jon Felock.i also remember Phill on a Suzuki GSXR 1200..... it was fast!!!! I also remember doing a lot riding with Phill in Hollister.....your brother was a great friend!!!!!! Maria Webber Dan Koolstra yes definately in the 80s is when I remember 'Louie the bum' as we called him back then. My much older brothers knew him but I was little and he kind of scared me. They told me he fried his brain on acid...I don't even think I knew what that meant back then lol Lee Poland What's up Eric? It's been a long time. Sheldon Cooper Jim Bond Felick wa a fool, hung out with another loser, Willie Buhl whom I had the pleasure of pounding one day years later near Enco/Exxon. Sheldon Cooper Felock, that is. What a set of loser tools they were. Eric Sanders Jim Bond if memeory serves it was a GS1150ES Suzuki. And the other was his TT500. He would do wheelie's down Shannon from about the 7-11 to the firestation. Sure do miss him. He was a jokester and knew how to ride that bike. Evan Lloyd What about the guy we called Foot in the early eighties? Sheldon Cooper Evan Lloyd I remember Foote. Worked for my brother's landscaping co. Nancy Hill I thought there was guy named Dave that lived behind Fosters Freeze. They would pay him with food to sweep up back there. Circa 1978-81 Laura Whiteman Qanadilo Nancy Hill he smelled so bad! Holly Finelli Do you remember that guy came to the school that gave a presentation on Cocaine? He said he could put a cloth through one side of his nose and outside the other? I think they made a movie about him. Sean Rector I thought it was an episode of Baretta. Tony something... Bryan P. Lucey Holly Finelli I think his name was Toma. “Toe-ma”. I may have messed up the spelling. I saw that on a video after I graduated. Maybe mid to late 1980s. Holly Finelli Bryan P. Lucey yes! I was going to say Toga. Lol. We could probably Google it. The dude was pretty intense. Holly Finelli Bryan P. Lucey if memory serves me right, I think they had the big drug bust after he left in '86. We graduated the same year. I remember because you spelled my last name wrong on the shirts you made senior year. 🙄 Bryan P. Lucey Holly Finelli I graduated in 1981. I was (and still am) so uninvolved that there is no way I misspelled your name and I am not creative enough to be involved with shirts.With that said, my writing often contains misspellings and typos. Glad to be an accountant. Holly Finelli Bryan P. Lucey haha. Ok. You're off the hook. Bryan P. Lucey Holly Finelli I’m glad. When my name gets misspelled I hate it. Sandy Erickson I remember Toma. He came and did a huge presentation at LGHS, and we got out of class for it. He was kind of like that Chris Farley character on SNL who yelled about living in a van down by the river. At least, that's kind of what he seemed like at the time. Erin Gates Erin Gates Victor? Joko MacKenna I would remember that. Victor would be an odd name for such a person. I'm guessing that the -tor doesn't survive the tribulations of marginalization and they all end up as Vic's. Louie! That was his name. Gretchen Agner Erin Gates I remember Victor. Terry Laucher I knew Victor. He was not a bum or anything like that. I dont know where he lived, thought he spent a lot of time downtown. Very frrail, usually with some kind of straw hat, always clean. Usually a pair of khakis and nice sweater. Must have had a decent place to live. He was just an old man (in his 80;s) who walked around town cleaning paper off the sidewalk I'll bet he live in a home who gave him freedom as long as he did not get into trouble. He did have some mental frailty. I was 18 working at the LG theater and he passed by many times around 1961 Terry Laucher I am trying to remember another individual who walked around town, shovel ready, for a job. He carried a shovel over his shoulder and was usually seen in coveralls, and a straw hat. The joke was that he was ready to work, although mentally he may not have been. Guys like this were seen to be mentally challenged, or just different, instead of using a pejorative description such as bum. Pamela Dishman-Emard Terry Laucher Victor was always nice to me. He let me kiss him on the cheek one day, thanking him for being the town's steward. He might have been viewed as a 'nut case' by some, but I always thought he was the Town's indispensable "clean up man." He'd just die seeing them crap human waste on the streets now.🙃 Tim Mcguire Terry Laucher Victor was far from homeless. He lived on my street Fairview plaza in a big Victorian with his sister. He was a Los Gatos treasure! Gerhard Donner Greg Stokes Pamela Dishman-Emard I was an Artsy-Stoner who smoked wherever. Quit that shit a long time ago, not the Art.😎 Martin King I walked through "Nam" in Mr. Verkyle's class. Hung out with the smokers by the art wing.

Gregory Laan: I was Homeless in Los Gatos Briefly. It was the Summer after I was fired from my Job at Radio Shack for Drinking on the Job and Stealing Money. I moved to Chico and Lived in Cheap Motels until my money ran out. Then I spent 4 Months living in Bidwell Park and when The Money Came in from my Sale of Radi Shack Stock... I took a lot of Greyhound Bus Rides... Including a Trip to Santa Cruz and then Los Gatos... I did not want to Talk to my Parents so I slept Near the Baseball Field near the Freeway... However , I Preferred Chico so I back got on the Bus... I went to Three Alcoholics Anonymous Meetings A DAY for months... Quit Drinking, Met My Latest Wife and Eventually Moved to Amazing Arcata to Learn Computer Science at Humboldt State University... Got a Job at the Welfare Department Helping Homeless People... Hey, I Had Knowledge about the Subject, Having Been "House Free" myself... Ironically, Stealing Money from Radio Shack allowed me to have enough money to Invest in the Stock Purchase Plan... Yes, Crime Pays...

Addicted to Profit: A CURE for COMPULSIVE HOARDING OF MONEY SYNDROME... the Mental Health Disease that is Causing the Destruction of the USA. Exploration of "REGROOVING" - First Suggested by Satire Comedy Group "Firesign Theater"

Regrooving involves using Psychedelics and Brainwashing to Change the Worldview of Corporate-Corporate Greed Freaks to become more "Groovy." MIGHT WORK! Take for example the People that Made Oxycontin... They now plan to settle with consumers and the surviving relatives of people who died by paying $12 Billion Dollars in  Damages. Well, why did they continue to promote their drug after it was OBVIOUS that people were dying? 400,000 People... In Comparison: 58,000 People Died in the Vietnam War... So the Opioid Crisis is as Bad as 6 Vietnam Wars... Answer: They Were Addicted to Profit... 

Listen to the Comedy Routines... 
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2I2PjLna4C0  

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Waiting_for_the_Electrician_or_Someone_Like_Him


"Temporarily Humboldt County"
The first section runs 9 min 14 sec, and satirizes the displacement of the American Indians (David Ossman and Phil Austin), first by Spanish conquistadors, then by American frontiersmen, and finally by the US government forcing them onto a reservation, which it uses as a "cobalt testing range". The title comes from friends of the Firesign Theatre telling them that the local Indians in Humboldt County, California added "temporarily" to the name as a way of saying no one could really own the land. The section ends with a bomb explosion, followed by the sound of wind blowing.

"W. C. Fields Forever"
This 7 min 39 sec track continuously segues as the Indians wander silently through the desert and come upon Peter Bergman welcoming them to the "Lazy Ol' Magic Circle Dudes Ranch and Collective Love Farm", a hippie commune. The commune's spiritual leader, the perpetually drunk/stoned "Tiny Doctor Tim" (Proctor), is a parody of Timothy Leary. Philip Proctor's impersonation of W. C. Fields actually appeared on the first track, dedicating the cobalt testing range; this track title parodies the Beatles song "Strawberry Fields Forever".

"Le Trente-Huit Cunegonde"
This 7 min 19 sec track continuously segues into a future world in which the 1960s hippie counterculture has now replaced the mainstream cultural establishment. Police (Proctor and Bergman) patrol searching for "non-groovy" people not in possession of drugs, such as a grandmother (Austin) whom they arrest to be "returned for re-grooving". A teenager named Malcolm X John Lennon (Austin) is still being breast-fed by his mother (Proctor), and gets in trouble with his school principal (Proctor) for studying instead of hanging out and "relating" with his peers by smoking marijuana. A US senator who sounds like Robert Kennedy (Proctor) chairs a committee which also returns people for re-grooving, and the "Secretary of Peace" (Ossman) directs bomber aircraft to drop copies of Naked Lunch on Nigeria.

Side two: "Waiting for The Electrician or Someone Like Him" [1]
This single, 17 min 48 sec track begins as a Turkish language instruction record, and immediately follows its listener on a Kafkaesque trip overseas. An unnamed innocent (Austin) is manipulated by mysterious strangers and authority figures into situations beyond his control. (In the written script, the character is called simply "P." for Phil, a reference to Kafka's use of "K." in The Castle.)

A highlight of side two is the "Beat the Reaper" sketch, a mock game show in which the contestant (Austin) is injected with a disease and must guess what it is in order to win the antidote; if the contestant fails to self-diagnose, he is sent home with the disease. and Dies!

Politifact Truth-0-Meter: Is the U.S. economy working for everyone? What the data shows... Good for Some, Not Good for Men (in General) and Low Educated People (Especially Men)

https://www.politifact.com/truth-o-meter/article/2019/jul/02/Is-economy-working-everyone-what-data-shows/

Problem area: Men’s employment

The percentage of men between the ages of 25 and 54 and who are employed has dropped consistently since the early 1960s.

Problem area: Low-education individuals, especially men

Broadly speaking, people with higher education have done well in recent years, and people without college degrees have suffered. Once again, this is especially true for men.

Problem area: People wanting to own a home

The good news is the market value of the nation’s real estate finally climbed back past its pre-recession peak in 2016. It rose higher still in both 2017 and 2018.

The bad news is the percentage of Americans owning a home remains lower than it was before the Great Recession.

Problem area: Rural America

Certain portions of the country, largely rural areas, have suffered in an economy that tends to reward highly educated areas. 

These have suffered from the cumulative decline of manufacturing and their lack of proximity to faster-growing "knowledge industries" that are typically based near cities.

In a self-perpetuating cycle, economic distress in these areas has produced addiction and poor health outcomes, which in turn further erodes economic prospects.

GOOD NEWS! 

The unemployment rate is either at or near all-time lows, both overall and for major racial and ethnic groups. The economy continues to create substantial numbers of jobs on a monthly basis, and quarterly increases in gross domestic product, while not stratospheric, have been solid. Even wages, which had been stagnant overall in the first few years of the recovery following the Great Recession, have been increasing beyond the rate of inflation.

Indeed, there’s lots to celebrate, said Gary Burtless, an economist with the Brookings Institution.

Addiction to Money: Paul Manafort is Just the Latest of a Long Line of Greed Freaks that have Gone to Prison... Martha Stewart, Ken Lay, Jeffrey Schilling, Ivan Boesky, Michael Milken, Charles Hurwitz...

I remember that a Narcotics Agent offered Alexander Shulgin a Million Dollars if he would create a Pound of LSD... Shulgin declined repeatedly because he ALREADY HAD EVERYTHING HE WANTED. "What would I DO with a Million Dollars? " Said Shulgin...

Think about this... Shulgin was working as a Chemistry Professor at Stanford University... Teaching the Best and Brightest Students in the World... Shulgin also invented about 230 new psychedelic drugs and wrote two books about that research... and he ate each new drug, just to see what they were like... his wife also ate the new psychedelic drugs...

Contract that Lifestyle with Paul Manafort who broke the law in order to buy an Ostrich Jacket... Imagine someone so stupid that they would WANT a Jacket made out of the skin of a giant bird... PATHETIC!

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alexander_Shulgin

Alexander Theodore Shulgin (June 17, 1925 – June 2, 2014) was an American medicinal chemist, biochemist, organic chemist, pharmacologist, psychopharmacologist, and author. He is credited with introducing MDMA ("ecstasy", "mandy" or "molly") to psychologists in the late 1970s for psychopharmaceutical use and for the discovery, synthesis and personal bioassay of over 230 psychoactive compounds for their psychedelic and entactogenic potential.

In 1991 and 1997, he and his wife Ann Shulgin authored the books PIHKAL and TIHKAL (standing for Phenethylamines and Tryptamines I Have Known And Loved), which extensively described their work and personal experiences with these two classes of psychoactive drugs. Shulgin performed seminal work into the descriptive synthesis of many of these compounds. Some of Shulgin's noteworthy discoveries include compounds of the 2C* family (such as 2C-B) and compounds of the DOx family (such as DOM).

Due in part to Shulgin's extensive work in the field of psychedelic research and the rational drug design of psychedelic drugs, he has since been dubbed the "godfather of psychedelics".^[2]

http://time.com/5357236/paul-manafort-ostrich-jacket/

What I say at Alcoholics Anonymous Meetings. My "Share." ---> Hi, I'm Greg and I'm and Alcoholic... and then I say...

I got into AA in the year 2000. I was living in Chico, CA at a Motel after getting fired from my job and getting evicted in San Jose. On New Years Eve, I was drinking heavily and watching VH1 Behind the Music for hours. There seemed to be a standard story... The Band practices for years, has a hit song, becomes Rich and Famous, Starts Drinking and Using Drugs, Some Members Die, others get Clean and Sober... So, I thought, maybe I should stop drinking before I die. I started going to three meetings a day. I ran out of money and had to go live in Bidwell Park. I ate at the Jesus Center Free Meal and rode my bicycle all over town. I sold my Stock that I had bought while working but it took months to actually get paid. Eventually I did get paid just before Winter... and I moved back in to a Cheap Motel. 

I met many interesting people at those meetings. Some had very worthwhile advice. I found that by Listening to the G. O. D. (Group of Drunks) my life became much better. They suggested I move into an apartment that a member of the group had a spare bedroom. They Suggested that I Get a Job at the Factory where a member of the group was supervisor. They suggested that I Take a student loan from FAFSA and go to college, In Arcata, California. They Suggested that I quit smoking Marijuana, do my homework and attend class every time. They Suggested taking a Job after Graduation at the Welfare Office as an Eligibility Worker... So I worked there for 7 years and Paid off my student loan. When my father died, I quit work. He and I had become friends after I sobered UP. One of the reasons I continued working while he was alive was to make him proud of me. I remember one time we were driving around the neighborhood and he pointed at a house and said... "See, I Raised You Boys Right, That Man's Son Became a Merry Prankster." (A reference to Ken Kesey's Band of Merry Pranksters - who promoted the use of LSD Nationwide.) My Father was proud that I had a Good Job Doing Useful Work. We sold his house in San Jose for a Fortune. I was given a Trust Fund because my family was afraid that I would Smoke My Inheritance...   

I retired and had the freedom to do whatever I wanted to do. My "roommate" is self-supporting and she wanted to stay at home, play with her cats, go on the internet, talk on the phone, take photographs etc etc etc. For a decade I have been traveling by myself and taking photographs, then showing them to her when I got home... I was her eyes... That allowed her to go visit events without leaving home. I drove over to Chico and found my friend Mike. We went to the Rainbow Gathering in Utah. We had a wonderful time. I met a woman who was selling Self Help Seminars on the Internet. I Bought Admission for $5.00 a Week for a year. By that time I had learned Everything She Had to Teach. 

I spent the next couple of years traveling and publishing my photographs on a Blog. I wanted to provide Driving Directions to interesting places and events so people could go visit... and if they couldn't go visit (because they lived in Australia or something) they could see what I saw online. 

When the State of Oregon Legalized Recreational Marijuana I drove North 112 Miles and Bought some. I spent the next 8 months stoned 100% of the time. I used my Crazy Mind to write Absurdist Fiction... It was very popular on the internet and My Blog started to have 1,000 visitors a day... I believed that the increase in traffic was because I was doing interesting art and fiction... What I have come to realize is that My Success was mostly because I had FOOLED THE GOOGLE SEARCH ENGINE to display my webpage for almost any search term. GOOGLE NOTICED MY TRICK AND CHANGED THE ALGORITHM. It is true that I thought up the idea while stoned... Marijuana DID allow me to THINK OUTSIDE THE BOX. and fool myself into believing that my fiction writing was wonderful. 

In Alcoholics Anonymous There are Twelve Steps and Twelve Traditions. Tradition TEN states that AA has no opinion on "Outside Issues." For Example: AA has no opinion about Smoking Marijuana. That's an "Outside Issue." I have attended countless meetings while stoned. HOWEVER, I Personally May Have an Opinion, and I Personally Can USE the Twelve Steps to Quit Smoking Tobacco, Marijuana and Sugar.... 

That's all for now... Thanks for Listening.   



I learned a LOT by Listening to my G.O.D. Group Of Drunks. 

What about Actual Jail Time for Corporate Executives That do evil? Richard Sackler: Maker of Addictive Opioid OxyContin and Addiction Treatment Buprenorphine.

Richard Sackler and his billionaire family, who have been blamed for fostering the nation's ongoing opioid epidemic, own a second pharmaceutical company.

The Sacklers are the owners of Purdue Pharma, which created the addictive opioid painkiller OxyContin... The Sackler family was also recently found to be behind a new drug aimed to help treat opioid addiction known as Buprenorphine-water. First, get people addicted, then "cure" them... 

https://www.newsweek.com/sackler-family-oxycontin-rhodes-pharma-1112988  

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Richard_Sackler 

Psychedelic medicine: a re-emerging therapeutic paradigm... Canadian Medical Association Journal...

http://www.cmaj.ca/content/187/14/1054  In clinical research settings around the world, renewed investigations are taking place on the use of psychedelic substances for treating illnesses such as addiction, depression, anxiety and posttraumatic stress disorder (PTSD).

Legalize Medicinal Psychedelics

Two new studies show how marijuana can help fight the opioid epidemic. Choose the safer drug! Might save your Life...

https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/wonk/wp/2018/04/02/two-new-studies-show-how-marijuana-can-help-fight-the-opioid-epidemic/?utm_term=.de72a7b9c2f0 

Two studies published Monday in the journal JAMA Internal Medicine find that the availability of medical and recreational marijuana is linked to lower rates of opiate prescribing.

In the first study, Hefei Wen of the University of Kentucky and Jason M. Hockenberry of Emory University found that the passage of medical and recreational marijuana laws were followed by reductions in Medicaid opiate prescription rates of 5.88 percent and 6.38 percent, respectively.

“Marijuana liberalization may serve as a component of a comprehensive package to tackle the opioid epidemic,” Wen and Hockenberry concluded.

In the second study, Ashley C. Bradford, W. David Bradford and Amanda Abraham of the University of Georgia found that at the state level, medical marijuana laws were associated with an 8.5 percent reduction in the number of daily opioid doses filled under Medicare Part D, relative to states without medical marijuana laws. Reductions were even higher (amounting to 14.4 percent) for states that allowed medical marijuana dispensaries. States that allowed home marijuana cultivation had 6.9 percent reductions in opiate prescriptions.

When I started College I voluntarily stopped smoking marijuana. It's really easy to quit.

I realized that it would be impossible to learn computer programming and get stoned at the same time. I decided that learning was more important. Parts of the schoolwork was incredibly difficult to understand. Especially Oracle's Structured Query Language. I had to take that class twice in order to pass it. Calculus was very difficult also. I managed to pass that class but never understood why anyone would want to use calculus ever. As it turned out, I never used calculus in any class or in real life. Someone said that without calculus the atom bomb and atomic energy would have been impossible to design. So maybe calculus is not just difficult but actually evil...

My experience with smoking tobacco shows the difference between drugs that are actually addictive and drugs that are not. Tobacco is addictive and it's really difficult to quit because I felt pain when I did not smoke. With marijuana, I just wished I was stoned... I have a great sympathy for the people that took the Doctor Drugs and got addicted to painkillers... I meet a lot of them at my NA meetings.

It was easy to avoid Marijuana as a student in Arcata, California because everyone I knew was a student in the computer science department. In general, nerds don't smoke dope. Arcata is in the geographic center of the illegal marijuana farms of the Emerald Triangle. Some say that 90% of the weed in the USA is grown in the North west corner of California. Humboldt, Mendocino, Shasta, Siskiou, Trinity and Del Norte counties are famous worldwide for Marijuana farming. Southwestern Oregon too. It's the same locations that Bigfoot is said to inhabit.

Now that marijuana is legal in California, the underground economy of Humboldt County is undergoing a crisis. It used to be that a vast amount of cash came into the county due to the illegal farms... Now, that business model has changed... The last few decades have been difficult for the economy there. First, logging stopped when all of the really profitable trees were cut down. Lumber mills closed in Fortuna, Carlotta and Arcata. MAXXAM went bankrupt. Then the fishing industry fell on hard times because many of the fish had already been caught in the ocean. No work for fishermen when the catch is small. Now, with legal marijuana it makes more economic sense to grow it in vast plantations in the central valley. More sunshine, black dirt... The only reason people grew weed in remote mountain farms was to avoid the police. I grew tomatoes in Chico and that central valley dirt yields bountiful harvests...

Read more of my autobiography at: http://gvan42.blogspot.com/2018/03/growing-up-in-los-gatos-california-in.html