How to Reduce Plastic Waste. Simple Actions Anyone Can Do. #1. Never Buy Bottled Water. Filter Tap Water Instead.

Here's the Consumer Reports Guide of Filters that Remove Pollution from Tap Water... : 

https://www.consumerreports.org/home-garden/water-filters/

Did You Ever Notice that Water Bottled in Plastic TASTES like Plastic?  That's Plastic Going Into Your Body... 

Of Course, If You Shower in Toxic Waste Water... That's a Problem too... Your Skin Absorbs the Poison... That's Why a Whole House Filter is Best... Contact Your Local Plumber for advice and installation... or MOVE to a Safer Neighborhood. 

#2. Stop Drinking Coke... It's often packaged in Plastic Bottles... So is Pepsi, RC Cola, Mountain Dew and Generic Cola... I personally LOVE the HIGH I Get from Caffeine and Sugar... Especially when driving a car long distances! That's FUN! 

However... It is Possible to Simply Take Those Two Drugs without Dissolving them in a Flavored and Carbonated Beverage... TRY COFFEE... I Remember putting Brown Sugar and Nutmeg in a Cup of Coffee at the Coffee Shop and I FELT OPTIMISTIC! Buzzing Like a Bee and Enthusiastic About Life! Whee! 

Or Drink TEA... Or Drink Fruit Juice Made from a Concentrate... Avoid the Plastic Bottles!

Of Course, Caffeine is sold at the drug store in PILL Form... Especially Interesting is the Combo Pills with Aspirin, Acetaminophen and 65 mg Caffeine... Pain Relievers and Stimulant... Keep taking those and You'll end up driving from San Jose to Seattle... Whoosh! Whoosh!

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The Myth of Plastic Recycling... 

For many, recycling feels like a tangible way to personally combat climate change and to positively affect the environment. That's partially because of decades of public environmental campaigns, advertisements and even school education aimed at increasing recycling. But the reality is that only a small fraction of plastic is ultimately recycled...

https://www.npr.org/2022/12/08/1141601301/the-myth-of-plastic-recycling

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Exorcism at the US Capitol 1/3/2023. Surround the Building and Blow Whistles, Beat Drums, Dance, Chant. Burn Sage and Welcome the GOP House Members... 
https://gvan42.blogspot.com/2022/12/exorcism-at-mar-loser.html

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I recently Got an Email showing me the Ecological Awareness Artwork of Benjamin Von Wong...

 https://blog.vonwong.com/turnofftheplastictap/

https://www.vonwong.com/

"There’s something really interesting about the idea that someone can make a living off of creating something that has no value except the value people associate to it." 

https://phlearn.com/magazine/ben-von-wong-creates-powerful-images-to-help-the-environment/

#3. Notice the Plastic Crap you consume and Simply Buy Less of it. I own an iPhone 6 and It Does Everything I Want a Phone to Do... "THEY" Keep on telling me to Buy a NEW IMPROVED Model... TV Ads Promoting the iPhone 14 and YET... I'm Already Happy... Why Buy More Plastic Crap? 

I own a Toshiba Laptop but the Hard Disk Drive Failed and... It made more sense to Replace the Entire Machine with a Chromebook than have the Hard Drive Fixed or Replaced... and the Chromebook Doesn't Have a Hard Drive so it's Impossible that the Hard Drive will fail... 

#4. Stop buying music CDs... Everything is available online for Free on Youtube... so... stop buying Plastic Ware! 

https://youtu.be/qMaJWESoZlk

#5. Buy High Quality Tools that Last a Lifetime... I Have an Yamaha Acoustic Guitar and It Will Still be Wonderful 50 Years from Now... Look at Willie Nelson's Trigger... 

#6. I watch Kids Cartoons on TV and The Advertisements Aimed at Children Promote Endless Streams of Plastic Crap...  My Grandfather Make a Toy Train Set out of Wood and My Brother and I Both played with it... His Daughters Played with it... and His Grand Daughters Played with it... 

The Plastic Crap Toys are designed to break, be thrown away... and then the Parents need to buy MORE MORE MORE!

#7. Plastic Knives, Forks, Spoons, Plates and Cups... REALLY! Simply Use Real Utensils and Wash 'em... My Great Grandmother Got Engraved Silverware for her Wedding and We Still Have It... 

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Please Email Me Your Ideas for How to Reduce Plastic Waste... gregvan(at)yahoo(dot)com or leave a comment below... 

"Every Bottle Back" is Classic Greenwashing. About 8.7% of the Plastic Bottles in the USA are Actually Recycled... But That's Not the Fault of the Corporations That Make the Plastic Bottles... SO THEY SAY:

They Have an EveryBottleBack.com Program Set Up to Handle Recycling of Plastic Waste... and If YOU Throw Their Bottles in the Garbage, That's NOT THEIR Fault... 

The Environmental Protection Agency says that just 8.7 percent of the plastic that was discarded in the U.S. in 2018 was recycled...

and I Don't Buy ANY Plastic Bottles because I Drink Coffee, Green Tea and Water Right from the Tap. I use Real Glasses and Cups and Wash Them and Use Them Again Tomorrow... None of that Single Use Plastic Crap for Me!

and then I was thinking about my total plastic consumption... The Fruit Juice comes in Big Plastic Jugs... maybe Two Liter Bottles... Pork Chops and Chicken is Packaged on a Styrofoam Tray covered in Plastic Wrap... Ice Cream Comes in a Plastic Tub... My Groceries are Packaged in Whatever CostCo Uses... 

Plastic Food Packaging - Fruits and Nuts

I don't use Plastic Spoons and Forks... I don't eat Fast Food at Taco Bell, Jack or McDonalds... All of those Places are Heavy on the Plastic Crap!

My Laptop is Made of Plastic... My Phone is Made of Plastic... and I Replace them About Every Five Years... But the Corporations That Make That Plastic Crap Wants You to "Upgrade" Every Freaking Year! Whazzup With That? I can Still Order a LYFT with my Current Phone... and I Can Make a Phone Call... and That's all I Ever Do... No Chatting on Social Media on my Phone because it's Really Difficult to Enter Text... I Type a LOT on my Laptop and The REAL Keyboard is Easy to Use... In Fact, When I'm Lost in thought Deciding what to Say... I forget about the keyboard entirely... THAT would never Happen on an iPhone!

anyway... When I see that Every Bottle Back TV Advertisement I'm Glad I Don't Buy Their Plastic Crap! 

I know a Lady that lives near Beale Air Force Base and She has to Buy Plastic Bottles of Water because the Tap Water is Polluted With Jet Fuel from the Airplanes... Some Fuel Spills and Then Gets into the Groundwater... SO... For Health, She Drinks Plastic Bottled Water... What She Fails to Realize is that SHOWERING in Toxic Waste is Just as Bad as Drinking it... I told her to Move away but she's poor and Moving to a High Rent district is not possible... DEEP SIGH... 

What is truly Tragic is that Beale Air Force Base Has Never Been Used to Defend the USA... Not Even Once... Even During World War Two the Only Attacks on the USA Were Pearl Harbor and the Battle of Los Angeles where a UFO Supposedly Attacked... Or Maybe Nothing Attacked and the Soldiers manning the Anti-Aircraft Guns were Firing at NOTHING... Could Happen... Sadly, that Air Force Base Near Sacramento, California Has Never Been Used...

and Of Course... Since 1945, The US Military Has Never Defended the USA. NOT EVEN ONCE!

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Drama Free Zone Buttons & Free Drama Zone Gear Too! For Sale on Zazzle gregvan

https://www.zazzle.com/store/gregvan/products?qs=drama

Zazzle gregvan

Drama Free Zone & Free Drama Zone Gear!

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Backstory (~);-} The Origin of Grateful Dead Artwork, Logo, Icons - Skull and Roses, Dancing Bears, Steal Your Face, AoxoMoxoA... Mouse, Kelley, Owsley, Bob Thomas, Rick Griffin, Wes Wilson, Victor Moscone, Bob Seidemann

Stanley "Mouse" Miller said: We [Miller and collaborator Alton Kelley] would go to the San Francisco library and peruse the books on poster art. They had a back room full of books you couldn’t take out with great references. We were just going through that and looking for something. And found this thing and thought, “This says Grateful Dead all over it.” I hate to say this, but Kelley cut it out with a pen knife. I always say that we Xeroxed it, but there weren’t Xerox machines then. I finally found it about two years ago, the actual cut-out piece, and I went, “Oh, my God.” It’s from the book of poems “The Rubaiyat of Omar Khayyam.” The edition was done by an artist called Edmund Sullivan. And the poem that goes with this illustration is fantastic. It’s short and sweet and had to do with wine, women and song.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/E._J._Sullivan

Skull and Roses Album Cover - Grateful Dead Record Cover

Oh, come with old Khayyam. and leave the wise to talk;

one thing is certain, that life flies;

One thing is certain, and the Rest is Lies;

The Flower that once has blown for ever dies.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Grateful_Dead_(album)

Steal Your Face Logo (~);-}

Designed by Owsley and Bob Thomas

Owsley Said:  http://www.thebear.org/GDLogo.html

In 1969 the Dead were renting a warehouse in Novato, California. I was sound man for the band at the time, and lived in Oakland. Bob Thomas, an old friend of mine had just moved from LA to the Bay area and needed a place to stay, and we needed someone to look after the warehouse, which had had a problem with break-ins.

Bob was a superb graphic artist whose work is now familiar to most Deadheads in the form of the Live Dead album cover and the Bear's Choice cover, on which the popular Dancing Bears appeared.

The Dead in those days had to play in a lot of festival style shows where the equipment would all wind up at the back of the stage in a muddle. Since every band used pretty much the same type of gear it all looked alike. We would spend a fair amount of time moving the pieces around so that we could read the name on the boxes. I decided that we needed some sort of marking that we could identify from a distance.

I was in the habit of driving from Oakland to Novato in a little MGTF which had plastic side curtains, which were not very transparent, due to aging of the plastic. One day in the rain, I looked out the side and saw a sign along the freeway which was a circle with a white bar across it, the top of the circle was orange and the bottom blue. I couldn't read the name of the firm, and so was just looking at the shape. A thought occurred to me: if the orange were red and the bar across were a lightning bolt cutting across at an angle, then we would have a very nice, unique and highly identifiable mark to put on the equipment.

At the warehouse I told Bob the idea that I had, and he made a quick sketch. A mutual friend, Ernie Fischbach, who was visiting with Bob, said "Give it to me, I'll show you an easy way to put it on the boxes." 

Whereupon he proceeded to cut holes in a couple of pieces of stencil paper. One was a circular hole, about 5 1/2 inches in diameter, and the other was a part of a circle 5 inches in diameter. But it was a half circle with a jagged edge. Then he held the stencil to an amp and sprayed a circle of white paint. Then with one side up, the red half circle went on top of the dried white paint and after wiping off the red and turning the stencil over, the blue was applied. This was the first version, and we put it on to all our gear. It helped make it easier to find our stuff in the crunch. I still have an old toolbox with one of the stencils on it.

A few days later I was talking to Bob and suggested that perhaps the words "Grateful dead" could be placed under the circle, using a style of lettering that would appear to be a skull if you saw it from a distance (I guess I was influenced by too many posters of the time). Any way a few hours later he came down from the loft with the design we know and love.

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The Song "He's Gone," as originally written, referred to the disappearance of Mickey Hart's father, Lenny Hart, who was acting as the band's manager, with a good deal of money. 

The first verse has a line... Steal Your Face Right off you Head...

This line was lifted out as the title of the ill-fated album issued under duress. The Song "He's Gone" Does not appear on the Steal Your Face Album... What!

Since the cover of the album featured the logo designed by Stanley Owsley with the grinning skull and lightning bolt inside the circle, that logo has since been identified primarily as the "steal your face" logo, perhaps incorrectly.

 

http://artsites.ucsc.edu/gdead/agdl/gone.html

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

The album was recorded October 17–20, 1974, at San Francisco's Winterland Ballroom... The Same Concerts were Filmed for The Grateful Dead Movie.

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Back when Newspapers were made using Moveable Type... If a Printer wanted a Bear... this was part of the set of Icons... 

or is it part of the Travel Lodge Motel Logo? 

https://extrachill.com/2020/11/dancing-grateful-dead-bears-meaning.html

Whether or not you consider yourself a Deadhead, you’ve certainly seen the iconic Grateful Dead “dancing bears” a time or two. Initially designed by artist Bob Thomas to appear on the back cover of the band’s 1973 release, The History of the Grateful Dead, Volume 1 (Bear’s Choice), the bears have become deeply ingrained in the culture surrounding the Grateful Dead, and have taken on layers of symbolic meaning over the years.

Before you understand the full meaning behind the Grateful Dead bears, you have to look at the man who they were designed for: Owsley “Bear” Stanley. In addition to being the band’s sound engineer in the early days, Stanley was also the chemist behind the creation and distribution of a large portion of the LSD that was being consumed in the United States in the 1960s and beyond.

AoxoMoxoA - Rick Griffin 

https://www.britannica.com/topic/grateful-dead-folklore

grateful dead, in folktales of many cultures, the spirit of a deceased person who bestows benefits on the one responsible for his burial. In the prototypical story, the protagonist is a traveler who encounters the corpse of a debtor, to whom the honour of proper burial has been denied. After the traveler satisfies the debt, or, in some versions, pays for the burial, he goes on his way. In another version of the story, burial is prescribed for religious reasons but prohibited by civil authorities. It is this version that forms the theme of the apocryphal Book of Tobit in the Old Testament.

The hero is soon joined by another traveler (sometimes in the form of an animal, or, in the story of Tobit, an angel), who helps him in a dramatic way. In some stories the companion saves the hero’s life; in others he helps him gain a prize. In many versions, the companion offers to aid the hero, but only on condition that they divide the prize. Then, as the hero is about to comply, the companion reveals himself as the grateful spirit of the deceased whom the hero helped to bury.

http://linesandcolors.com/2007/10/02/rick-griffin/

As I mentioned in my article about Peter Max, there were several less widely known artists who were actually much more instrumental in the creation of that unique blend of Op, Pop, Surrealism, Dada and Art Nouveau that came to be known as Psychedelic Art in the 1960’s.

Rick Griffin was one of the major contributors to this style, and is considered one of the “big five” along with Alton Kelley, Stanley “Mouse” Miller, Wes Wilson and Victor Moscoso.

Wes Wilson - Psychedelic Lettering

Victor Moscoso - Master of Putting Extremely different colors next to each other so the image VIBRATES - especially under Blacklight... 

The canvases of the psychedelic artists were concert posters, record album covers and comix (underground comics). Griffin was a standout in all three areas.

Griffin came out of the California surfer culture and created an influential comic strip character called Murphy, whose adventures he chronicled in Surfer magazine.

In Los Angeles he fell in with a group of artists and musicians called the Jook Savages, and was a participant in the legendary Watts Acid Test held by writer and psychedelic pioneer Ken Kesey and his Merry Pranksters.

At the time LSD was legal, and the influence of psychedelic (meaning “mind manifesting”) drugs was integral to the explosion of artistic and musical experimentation and creativity that marked the era. (To separate the impact of consciousness altering chemicals on creative individuals from the anti-drug hysteria that followed, see Aldous Huxley’s The Doors of Perception.)

There are a Number of Horrible "Jokes" 

Explaining the Meaning of the Ice Cream Kid... 

I will not repeat them here... 

Not That Funny 50 Years Later. 

Europe '72 Triple Live Album... Three LP Records!

Wes Wilson Poster

https://www.bobseidemann.com/

This photo was made by having five people 

behind the camera hold mirrors pointed at the faces... 

Note the Shadows on the Road... 

"Little Boxes" type Houses in South San Francisco

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The Annotated Grateful Dead Lyrics.

http://artsites.ucsc.edu/gdead/agdl/gdhome.html

By David Dodd,

1997-98 Research Associate, Music Dept., 

Univ. of Calif. at Santa Cruz

Dark Star Orchestra -
Surfing Bear with a Rick Griffin
Flying Eyeball and Roses... 

Ancestral Memory, It's Real by Sonya Sophia EFT

Insight I Gained from a Sonya Sophia 

Guided Meditation...

Suppose that the Wisdom/Knowledge of My Ancestors was passed on to me in my DNA... 

ABSURD! But Let's just take that as a Possibility... as if we were Doing a Mathematical Proof and that's an Assumption... 

I was doing the tap "Ancestral Memory - It's Real" and... 

I Had to think of what fear my ancestors worried about... and the fear that was passed on to me in my DNA... Well, My Ancestors Feared Starving to Death in the Winter. We Lived in Holland, Scotland and British Columbia... a Very Valid Fear back then... However... 

That's no longer a Valid fear because NOW we have technology to help us... Refrigerators, Central heating systems with a thermostat, grocery stores... ETC... 

 My ancestral fear manifested itself in Always Eating All The Food on my plate... Hundreds of years ago no one knew if they were going to get their next meal... 

 I realized that at dinner, it's OK to simply NOT Eat Everything on the Plate... It's Really Likely that We Will Have Food Tomorrow... Don't worry about it! It's even OK to Throw Away Food into the Garbage Can... 

 The danger of Obesity is a greater threat to me than the Danger of Starvation... 

 SO... That's a deep insight I Got from a Tapping Session... Thanks! Sonya Sophia...

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I wonder who made That Four Way Windowpane LSD We ate in the early 1970s... It was a brown square of geletin and if I cut it into four pieces, four people could trip... So... maybe 80 Micrograms times 4 = 320 Mics... That's a LOT! I figure it was Owsley or the Brotherhood of Eternal Love out of Laguna Beach... I don't know any other names at that time except SANDOZ... and I'm certain they were not selling SANDOZ to High School Kids... or maybe it was made by some unknown chemist that didn't get arrested and wasn't famous... Just a Guy who said... "Hell, I Can Make That and The Kids Will Buy it!"

often it was of very poor quality and caused body cramps... people said it was strychnine but I don't believe that... usually I cut mine into four pieces and ate one Just too see if it was any good... and then if it WAS good, I realized that I didn't want to take any more so I'd give it away... Grateful Dead at UN Reno 1974 was one of those times... The Wall of Sound was not working properly... or at all... and the concert wasn't really that fun... but exploring downtown Reno that Night was EPIC! Giant Statues of Showgirls outside in Casinos... Blinking Lights!

Relax and Enjoy... Every Grateful Dead Cover Band Has its own flavor... Even the Cover Band that employs Bob Weir and Mickey Hart... and when I go to a public park and play Grateful Dead Songs on my Acoustic Guitar... for free... I'm a Cover Band... I played the Rainbow Gathering In Idaho and Had a Great Time... Me and a Kid Played Uncle John's Band for a Couple of Hours at the "Relaxation Station" - The First Place people pass by from the Parking lot... and you COULD stop and get a Tarot Reading, or Drink Ephedrine Tea... or Just Do Nothing! Many People Had Just Driven 10 hours... so... Sit Down... We will provide all from now on! Hey You Made IT! Relax and Enjoy!

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I'm Glad I took a couple of elective ART classes at Humboldt State University... I was a Computer Science Major and as an alternative to THAT... I Took Acrylic Painting, Black and White Film Photography (darkroom, Chemicals) , Adobe Photoshop and Advertising Layout for Magazines or Book Covers... I'm Glad... We took a Field Trip where we Took Canvas, Easel, Paint and Brushes to The Marina on Humboldt Bay... and that was FUN! I'm also really Glad to meet the Women in those Classes... Organic Earth Mothers...

AIDS Was Spread by Gay Men Sex. Remember the Quilt When You Choose Your Lifestyle... LEARN FROM HISTORY! -and- Corporate Greenwashing Propaganda by ExxonVadez and Coke, Pepsi & Keurig/Dr Pepper...

 

AIDS Quilt - Dead Gay Men
Magically... Women Did Not Spread AIDS

It's A Bad Choice...
But Go Ahead, It's YOUR Choice!

GBLTQ+ Stands For:
Great Bacon Lettuce and Tomato
Quack, Quack, Quack!

and Now I see a Lot of TV Advertisements for
HIV Drugs... They Give the Un-Said Impression
that Being a Gay Man is Somehow "OK"
Don't Worry about Dying from AIDS...
We Have a "Cure"

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Corporations are ALSO Publishing Bogus Propaganda... Look at all the Advertisements on TV showing ExxonValdez's New Logo - A TREE! Nope... They aren't Killing the Planet with Global Warming Caused by Burning Fossil Fuel... How Could they be EVIL When Their Logo is a TREE!

Coke, Pepsi & Keurig/Dr Pepper have Realized that People Hate Plastic Garbage... So They Make A TV AD With Smiling Healthy Clean Cut Americans... Telling YOU That YOU Can Recycle Their Plastic Garbage! SEE? We're Doing OUR PART... It's YOU That's Causing Massive Plastic Pollution Worldwide... 

Remember Keurig? They are the People That use a tiny plastic cup to hold coffee grounds... so every cup causes massive plastic pollution for 10,000 years... My Parents Made Coffee using a Percolator that Had NO Disposable Parts at ALL... We put the Grounds in an Aluminum Basket with Tiny Holes... and Washed it When We Were Done... Just like We Washed our Coffee Cups... 

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