1967: The Summer of Love... San Francisco, Hippies, Flower Power, Peace, The Diggers, Haight Ashbury, LSD and the Grateful Dead. It certainly has been a Long Strange Trip. Congratulations to all those of us who have survived... One thing is for certain...

The culture of the United States was
radically different After the 1960's...

The conformism of the 1950's was blown away when LSD became widely available. Owsley made the chemical and made it available at Acid Tests with Ken Kesey and the Grateful Dead. He also gave it to the Beatles for their Magical Mystery Tour. The spirit lives on in a yearly camping trip called The Rainbow Gathering. It's like Woodstock but the performers are not paid and I'm in the Band.

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The Diggers of San Francisco were a street theatre company famous for their slogan "Today is the first day of the rest of your Life." They provided free food in Golden Gate park to needy Hippies during the Summer of Love. They also created a "Free Store" where all the merchandise was free. I suppose that they were skilled in getting donations. They also walked around Haight Street with a giant picture frame that passers by could step through in order to change their "Frame of Reference." The Diggers were part of the SF mime troupe, Bill Graham worked for them also as a benefit dance promoter/arranger to raise funds by having local bands play and selling tickets. He later became the most successful rock music show promoter in the USA.

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Currently, a peaceful village called Arcata, California thrives using the basic concepts of Flower Power. It's on Highway 101 near the Oregon Border... Home of Humboldt State University... If you want to experience the bliss yourself, take a loan from the Federal Department of Education and go to college at HSU. Arcata also is the center of Marijuana farming in the USA. The vast majority of the Grass is grown in Humboldt, Mendocino, Del Norte, Siskiyou and Trinity Counties... The extreme North Western corner of California. http://gvan42.blogspot.com/2017/06/did-you-ever-notice-arcata-california.html

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"Beyond Counterculture" Book is the History of the Hippies who fled The Haight Ashbury District of San Francisco and Moved to MATEEL in Southern Humboldt County to Earn their living farming Cannabis. Originally a Doctoral thesis.

Between the Eel and Matole Rivers, Garberville and the Lost Coast.
Mateel is a Sunny and Warm.
Once PALCO logged the area, the land was really cheap. Perfect for growing Marijuana Outdoors. This location is Not on Google Streetview.

Beyond Counterculture: The Community of Mateel
Paperback – June, 1990 by Jentri Anders.
https://www.facebook.com/jentri.anders

https://www.amazon.com/Beyond-Counterculture-Community-Jentri-Anders/dp/0874220602

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Cosmic Art Show - Absurdist Images created in Potatoshop by Greg Vanderlaan
http://gvan42.blogspot.com/2017/07/cosmic-art-show-absurdist-images.html

Free Psychedelic Art - Global Awakening is Real and Happening Now
http://gvan42.blogspot.com/2017/06/free-psychedelic-art-global-awakening.html

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Shredded Rainbow Spiral Business Cards For Sale.

https://www.zazzle.com/shredded_rainbow_spiral_business_card-256163553649539936 <--- Click on the Link!



MORE Shredded Rainbow Spiral Art


Link to Spiral Art Painted on Bling:
https://www.zazzle.com/store/gregvan/products?qs=spiral&st=Popularity

Link to Rainbow Art Painted on Bling:
https://www.zazzle.com/store/gregvan/products?qs=rainbow&st=Popularity

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Rainbow Gathering Idaho 2001: A Gathering
of the Tribes...
I went to the gathering with a specific goal in mind. I wanted to play my guitar and sing in public. Yes, mission accomplished. I was Living in Chico, California and working at the plastics factory. When there was a layoff, my wife suggested that I borrow the car and drive over to the gathering. My friend Mike Jensen wanted to go and so we checked the oil, brake fluid, transmission fluid and water and set out on a classic American road trip. We made it as far as Reno the first day and slept by the side of the road.... READ MORE:
http://gvan42.blogspot.com/2017/06/rainbow-gathering-idaho-2001.html

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Grateful Deadhead ART and MyStory... American History...

I first noticed the Grateful Dead in 1968 in English class at junior high school. Our teacher had put up posters on the wall of the classroom and we wrote essays about them.

He was attempting to stimulate creative WRITING but more importantly, creative THINKING.

One was an American flag made out of swastikas and another was a solarized/negative photo of 5 hairy men standing in front of "LITTLE BOXES" type suburban tract homes.

Our English teacher
stopped working for the school system that year and has never been heard of since. That has happened often to people that go to see the Dead... They change their lifestyle and start associating
with a different set of people... READ MORE:
http://gvan42.blogspot.com/2017/06/grateful-deadhead-art-and-mystory.html


Grateful Deadhead Tribute Webpage. Pictures and Stories.
Many thanks to all that made the Grateful Dead an American Miracle... Just remember, if our lives together were written as a fiction story, everyone would dismiss it as being unbelieveable... Yet it all really happened!
http://gvan42.blogspot.com/2017/06/grateful-deadhead-tribute-webpage.html


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Great Books: Project MKULTRA: CIA/LSD American History
"The Search for the Manchurian Candidate" by John Marks

MKULTRA: Was a CIA Mind Control Project in the USA during the 1950's and 1960's. They were looking for a way to use drugs as weapons of war. For example: LSD as a way to simply get the "enemy" to lay down their arms, voluntarily... like, too stoned to fight...

The project conducted tests on college students at Stanford University. Ken Kesey and Robert Hunter both were employed. Later, Ken started having "ACID TEST" parties where the participants took LSD and danced to the Music of the Grateful Dead. Robert Hunter wrote lyrics for the Dead.
http://gvan42.blogspot.com/2017/06/great-books-project-mkultra-cia-lsd.html






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Rainbow Gathering in California 2004. Photographs and My Story...Om...

What IS the Rainbow Gathering? To me, it is Woodstock with amateur musicians and I’m in the band… Thousands of people go backpacking for a couple of weeks… Every year during the end of June and the beginning of July… The location is different every year but it is always in a National Forest… It’s an intentional temporary village…

This is a description about my trip to The Rainbow Gathering in California 2004… I wrote this to help me remember… READ MORE:
http://gvan42.blogspot.com/p/what-is-rainbow-gathering-to-me-it-is.html




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

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Diggers_(theater)

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Haight-Ashbury

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

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

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

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

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Magical_
Mystery_Tour

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

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

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Arcata,_California

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Humboldt_State_
University

It appears That The Hippies were right.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iKEZoY-TMG4









http://www.zazzle.com/gregvan/
grateful+gifts

Click on a Word to See All Posts on That Subject. Search Box in the Upper Left Corner of Blog.
Peace - Love - Trippy - Hippy - Magic Mushroom - Question Authority - Arcata - Eureka - California - MKULTRA - CIA - NSA - FBI - DARPA - LSD - UFO - Ken Kesey - Grateful Dead - Jefferson Airplane - Beatles - Los Gatos - Travel - Bogus War - Vietnam - Summer of Love - Solar - Kinetic Sculpture

You may Read More Blog Posts by Clicking on the Handy LABELS Below!

Actors and Writers ON STRIKE! - They'll Have a Difficult Time because of the Millions of Hours of Reruns Available... I'd Like to See DALLAS Again or SNL the Early Years... Recent TV and Movies Actually SUCK!

I Wish the Actors and Writers the Best of Luck... What IF They are On Strike for a Year? Would Anyone Notice? or Care? Here at Home We Watch a Lot of TV and Almost ALL of it is Reruns... Ancient Aliens, Andy Griffith, Beverly Hillbillies, Addams Family, M*A*S*H, Green Acres, Hogan's Heroes, Gilligan's Island, Bones, House, Sons of Anarchy, but NOT Mayans... 

And My TV Gets 10,000 Movies... I Just watched ARRIVAL starring Amy Adams, Lifeforce, Meeting the Beatles in India, Blade Runner,  Total Recall, Men in Black 1, 2, 3 but not 4... Ghostbusters 1,2 and 3... Everything, Everywhere, All at Once 

(a Great Movie That Had Zero Hollywood Actors - Except Jamie Lee Curtis) and Now I'm Enjoying Monty Python's Meaning of Life... With the Song "Every Sperm is Sacred" - You Certainly Can't Write Jokes Like THAT Anymore!

Remember: Current Writers Produced the Movie AVATAR the Way of Water... Basically the Exact Same Movie as AVATAR but Wet... I Hope The Writers Stay on Strike for at Least a Year... Right Now They are Just Rewriting the Same thing Again and Again and Again and Again!  

I Hope AI Will be able to Write Better Stories...

Buy this Hat!

STRIKE! 

Embroidered Slogan Hat for sale at Zazzle Gregvan

Link to All My Hats!

The Last time I went to the Movie Theater was for Lord of the Rings... and We went to All Three Movies... SO... If the Hollywood Actors and Writers are Depending on ME to Finance their Lifestyle... they are Out of Luck... 

I DID Watch the Steven Colbert Show Last Night and It was a Rerun... The Monologue was Dated (2/1/2023) but Really Funny Anyway... I Guess He's Not Making New Shows Because the Writers are on Strike... BUT SO WHAT???

One Silver Lining to the Actor/Writer Strike is: after a Year of Unemployment they might have some Real Life Adventures to Make Shows About!

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Here's a Whole Buncha Memes to Share on Social Media... Mocking Republicriminals, QuackAnon FREAKS and TrumpNiks®

Those People Need to Wake The F*CK UP!

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and then I Read on FaceBorg:

Summer 1967, Los Gatos, CA, 50 Miles South of San Francisco...

As summer came to an end in 1967 so did the summer job, summer girlfriend, summer innocence and the Summer spirit that one has transitioning from 8th grade to high school. Not knowing what really lies ahead at high school, some kids with siblings would have heard stories, but my brother was 9 years ahead and well, not to interested in what I was doing or thought. End of summer end of going to Santa Cruz on the Greyhound bus for 35 cents and if there was no money at the end of the day, just get in the pick up (hitchhike) line at the Dennys at the Hwy 1 and 17 junction and try not to get into a car with a drunk.

Still walking and biking and getting parents to drive us to and fro, a driver license still a year or so away. If we knew some older kids with a car, who would want to be seen with a “younger Kid” we might get a ride…

All this makes me happy.... in many ways it was a small town. Yup... A Small town…now that has its ups and downs too there were a lot cultures in town, families from here and there, great folk, everyone was family, Lazzano, Malatesta, Yablonski, Craddock, if we did do something stupid we got in trouble right then, and again when we got home..…

Bocce ball courts at the top of Oak Meadow park were full on Saturday morning with the old guys telling stories in some language that we kids were not supposed to understand. Times they were a changing…..a fellow named Max Walden bought the old University Ave Middle School in 1966 and was slowly converting it into a Bohemian Shopping/Craft center. Max would throw lavish parties to woo investors and gain favor with the town folk as the “Hippies” were moving in he need to stay ahead of the rumors. Max Gave me my first job and For 2 summers (66 and 67) I worked cleaning up the construction debris and cleaning up after the parties. All the while seeing the transformation begin and getting to know the new commers. I had found a home! These artist and shop keepers were not the old guard, not the clicks and groups that exclude all but their own, they were friendly, open and loving. The stage was set for the summer of love just 48 miles northeast…SF. In 1968 after a stint working at Poly Prim Bakery after school cleaning the “kitchen”.. I Got a job at the Los Gatos Theater, gladly trading sticky messy aprons and jeans for slacks, shirt and tie. Yup..usher, ticket taker, candy sales and all the popcorn you could eat.

The Theater was an independent, so we never got the block busters but every once in a while an independent would make it big and we were the center of it all, Butch Cassidy, True Grit, Z, at the end of a 6 week run we knew every word and could recite the movies by heart.

Once again I was the youngest of the crew and was welcomed by all the others. This was the big time… working down town for over 3 1/2 years from 5:30 to midnight, and weekends you get to know the all the merchants, barmen, restauranters and of course the local cops and more. The fights, the make ups, the pranks and the odd. The Guys returning from Vietnam were starting to mix back in with the ones who managed to not go and the stories they all had started to make an extended Canada move, seem like a possibility.