One time when I was laid off from a Drafting Job, I was Loafing around the Condo in Oxon Hill, Maryland and Eating a Lot of Domino's Pizza. The Guy Delivering the Pizza offered me a Job as a Driver. When Unemployed, The Correct answer to that question is Yes...
I worked there for 5 years at The Fort Washington Store run by a Black woman, Angela Powell. An Air Force Brat that Lived on Andrews Air Force Base with Her Sister and another Black Lady. There were other Store Managers... for example: Stosh, a Russian Immigrant.
There was a Giant Map of our delivery area on the Wall so We Could Find the Exact Location we were driving TO. We wrote instructions about how to find houses that were tricky... For Example, Many Houses Had no House Numbers on them or some people wanted you to go around back and knock on the basement door... Because the Landlord Lived in the Upstairs House and they were renting out the basement. We had a Rule that the Pizza had to be Delivered within 30 Minutes or the Customer Got $3.00 Off. The Delivery area was designed so every home was within 20 Minutes of the Store. There were some areas in the Forbidden Zone... Places we would NOT deliver to because of the Danger from Armed Robbery. We Would meet those customers in front of the 7/11 on the corner...
In General, it was a High Pay Job. We Got Minimum Wage, 18 cents per Mile and Tips. That added up to about $15.00 an Hour. What the flaw with this way of earning a living is... You Wear Out Your Car and Can't Work Anymore after it Breaks Down... The 18 cents a mile is supposed to pay for Gasoline and Repairs... But it Does not Pay for replacing the entire Car... OR... If you get in a Car Wreck, You Can't Work Anymore because Your Car is wrecked... and you are Unemployed, in the Hospital and in General... F*CKED... All these UBER Drivers Nowadays are in the Same Boat.
We had Two Armed Robberies When I Worked There. One Trouble with That Business is PILES OF CASH! Maybe $3,000 a Night. The Drivers were all given a Locked Box on the Wall of the Pizza Parlor for us to Drop any Extra Cash after a Delivery. Supposedly, We were Never to Have more than $20.00 in our pocket during a delivery... to make Change from a Cash Sale. Everything was Cash at that time... Late 1980s... No Cellphones, No GPS.
One Night, When I was NOT There, A Man Came Up to the Front of the Pizza Parlor Waving a Pistol. The Manager Quickly Locked the Front Glass Door. The Robber Fired the Gun and the Glass VANISHED! into a Pile of Broken Glass on the Floor. The Robber asked for Money and the Manager Gave Him Everything in the Cash Register... Help Yourself! What the Robber Did not Know was the Vast Majority of the Cash was still in our individual lock boxes... SO, Obviously, The Robber was NOT a Former Employee...
Another Night, The Manager took ALL the Money and Drove it to The Bank where he Planned to Put it in the Wall... a Masked Man with a Gun said... Give me that Bag... and Took Off... Every Night at about 3:00 AM the manager Drove the Deposit one Block to the Bank... That robbery was Probably Committed by a Former Employee... Because He Knew The System.
On a delivery I Met a woman named Betty-Lou and She Moved Into my Condo and we lived together raising her daughter. She was an Obese White Woman with a Half Black Child.
Eventually I quit that job due to Murders of Delivery Drivers at the Capitol Hill Pizza Parlor... I delivered in a suburb that is populated by Black Government Workers and other Black Professionals. We Did Have a Yacht Club. Many of the Homes Had Waterfront Access on the Potomac River. Vast Wealth. G Gordon Liddy (of Watergate Fame) Lived in Our Delivery Area but Always Came Into the Store to Pick up his Pizzas. We were all warned to Never Accidentally Get lost and Turn down the Long Driveway to His Home.
On Most Mornings I Smoked Marijuana before Going to Work. I did win a Safe Driver Award. $500.00 for No Accidents, No Tickets... On Friday and Saturday Nights I Would Often Work 13 Hours... Lunch, Dinner and Past Midnight...
After the first Murder I switched to delivering in Mount Vernon, Virginia and Fort Belvoir. A Safer (Whiter) Neighborhood.
Delivering to the Secret Army base was interesting. On sunny days they enforced security protocol and I was not allowed into certain buildings. However, if it was snowing, the guards just ignored security because it was cold outside... After the Second Murder I drove to California... Crack Cocaine caused insanity among the residents of Washington DC and there was a lot of Gun Violence. I abandoned the Condo and the Mortgage company foreclosed.
READ MORE of my Autobiography at:
https://gvan42.blogspot.com/2018/03/growing-up-in-los-gatos-california-in.html
"The Path Forward" - Simple Suggestions for Making the World a Better Place to Live... Hey Joe! Ya Listening?
BRIEFLY: Tax the Rich, Cut Taxes for the 99%. All that Extra Money in People's Paychecks Will Bubble UP Thru The Entire Economy; The EPA=Enable Polluters Agency. Let's FLIP The Mission to Protecting the Environment; Legalize Marijuana Nationwide, Tax It and Free All Cannabis Prisoners; Legalize Medicinal Psychedelics; End The Electoral College; Overturn Citizens United; Cut Pentagon Spending in Half; Build Solar Powered Desalination Plants - We Need Fresh Drinking Water!
If YOU Have Any Ideas, Tell Me and I'll Include them in this eBook. gregvan[at]yahoo[dot]com
A Declaration of the Independence of Cyberspace by John Perry Barlow. He passed Away on 2/9/2018. Co-Founder of EFF Electronic Frontier Foundation. Lyrics for The Grateful Dead.
Governments of the Industrial World, you weary giants of flesh and steel, I come from Cyberspace, the new home of Mind. On behalf of the future, I ask you of the past to leave us alone. You are not welcome among us. You have no sovereignty where we gather. We have no elected government, nor are we likely to have one, so I address you with no greater authority than that with which liberty itself always speaks. I declare the global social space we are building to be naturally independent of the tyrannies you seek to impose on us. You have no moral right to rule us nor do you possess any methods of enforcement we have true reason to fear.
It must be Horrible to Work at a Climate Change Denier Think Tank. Imagine going to work and writing false studies designed to make the world a worse place to live.
Headline: A MAJOR COAL COMPANY WENT BUST. ITS BANKRUPTCY FILING SHOWS THAT IT WAS FUNDING CLIMATE CHANGE DENIALISM. The documents in the court docket show that the coal giant gave contributions to leading think tanks that have attacked the link between the burning of fossil fuels and climate change, as well as to several conservative advocacy groups that have attempted to undermine policies intended to shift the economy toward renewable energy.
Grateful Dead... My Story... American History... and Original Deadhead ART...
My Sugar Cube Painting...
like the cover of
"The Electric Kool Aid Acid Test"
by Tom Wolfe.
~~~~~~~~~~my Gr8ful story~~~~~~~~~
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...
Grateful Deadhead Tribute Webpage. Pictures and Tall Tales. 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 unbelievable ... Yet it all really happened! ART, Poetry and MyStory... I'm Gr8ful
Grateful Dead psychedelic art files for your viewing pleasure...
The wonderful Winterland Arena in San Francisco was the home to many Grateful Dead Concerts... It was the ONE PLACE where the Wall of Sound really worked! They had days to set up the equipment and tweak it to perfection... The Movie with the cartoon at the beginning was filmed there... and it was a fine show! They included fire on stage and ladies dancing with silk scarves...
Golden Gate Park, site of the Human Be In
One thing that happened surrounding the Gr8ful Dead was an Intentional Community of people that followed the band around... They earned a living by selling things in the parking lot of the show during the daytime... There were vendors selling tie-dye shirts, bumperstickers, illegal drugs, legal drugs and food...
But it was not all capitalism for currency...
A group called the Diggers founded a free store/free meal in the Haight Ashbury district of San Francisco and many of their IDEAS were carried along with the Deadheads on tour. Somehow, just giving away gifts to friends is a practical alternative to cash retail sales... If everyone just shares, we can all just bliss out and have a fine time... So, I tried to bring things to give away... and miraculously, people gave me stuff too! and we didn't worry about keeping score with money.
At RFK stadium in Washington DC, I was showing a person some rainbow glasses that I had made. The Air and Space Museum sold diffraction grating by the sheet and I would cut out small pieces and scotch tape them to paper eyeglass frames... this caused the viewer to see rainbows surrounding every light... quite magical... so this fellow asked me "Would you like to break bread brother?" I said yes and he gave me the center square off of a round loaf of Sourdough French bread... I let him keep the glasses and we parted ways... about an hour later I realized that I was tripping on acid... I guess the bread was dosed! That show involved a terrific thunder and lightning storm and dancing in the mud on the football field. Near the end of the evening I decided to practice a Carlos Casteneda type POWER WALK. I took a step and then waited a moment to thoroughly experience that precise location and then I took another step. Then I waited until I had "GROKED" fully that location and took another step... So the ultimate effect was extremely slow walking in a crowd of dancing people... I walked like that for an hour... all the way out to the parking lot where I left my car... This caused some fellow Deadheads to satirize me by making mocking statements... "Watch out for that guy! He's moving so fast he might run you over" I often found a feeling of family at these events... that guy could make fun of me because he was a relative of mine... and after all... "We are all one beneath the Infinite Sun"
Dead Related Events...
Since many people who like the band have learned to play musical instruments, quite often they feel like being IN the BAND instead of being in the AUDIENCE.
In 1972, a friend of mine went to San Francisco and went to the Fillmore West and came back to our high school and said... LET"S BUILD OUR OWN.
I Believe that The Internet Has Allowed Me to Live Longer. Traditionally, Men Would Retire From Work, Fail to Find anything to Occupy their Time and Die... Boredom is a Killer...
However... NOW, I Can Chat with People... Debate Important Issues... Publish my Words of Wisdom, My Songs and My Artwork...
and RESEARCH Forbidden topics... The very first thing I Looked up online was the CIA Project MKULTRA... I Have Since Concluded that I WAS A PARTICIPANT in that Mind Control Experiment...
The CIA Wanted to Find Out IF Drugs Could Be Used as Weapons of War... Could Enemy Soldiers be Convinced to Talk when under the Influence?
Would Enemy Soldiers Simply Surrender When Dosed With LSD? Lay Down Their Guns Voluntarily Quit Fighting?
Well, There is only One Way to Find Out... Dose a Million People and Watch the Results... and That's How "Conveniently" Ken Kesey was able to Steal LSD from the Storage Locker at the Stanford University MKULTRA Testing Facility He Was Participating In... Really... How was It Possible that the Doctors FAILED TO LOCK THE MEDICINE CHEST?
I Believe it was Intentional... The CIA Just wanted to See What Happened if LSD was Distributed in an Uncontrolled Manner... WHAT IF?
and then Kesey Hired the Grateful Dead to Play at the Acid Tests... and Then the Grateful Dead went on tour for 50 years and "Magically" People Drove around with them selling T-Shirts, Veggie Burritos and LSD... Somehow, LAW ENFORCEMENT Failed to Notice the Trend and Did Not Have Mass Arrests... Even though there was Mass Law Breaking...
Was That all Part of the CIA MKULTRA Mind Control Experiment?
https://gvan42.blogspot.com/2020/05/the-cia-project-mkultra-was-wildly.html
CIA LSD MKULTRA meme - gvan42 - Psychedelic Art
My Logo Designs: Many Worlds for Ram Dass, Heart Art for Breast Cancer Awareness Month, Rainbow Spiral Diamond in the Forest for "Out in the Redwoods" TV Show...
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