Showing posts with label grateful. Show all posts
Showing posts with label grateful. Show all posts

Photos of the All Species Samba Parade at the North Country Fair in Arcata CA - and the Wake The Dead Concert. Celtic Music and Grateful Dead Songs. EXCELLENT!


Official Website: http://sameoldpeople.org/

The North Country Fair is an annual two-day festival held on the Arcata Plaza in Arcata, CA the third full weekend in September.
Samba Parade at the North Country Fair in Arcata - Arcata, California - Dancers, Drummers, Music, Art, Celebration and Parades - Photographs by gvan42 Greg Vanderlaan

Samba Parade at the North Country Fair in Arcata - Arcata, California - Dancers, Drummers, Music, Art, Celebration and Parades - Photographs by gvan42 Greg Vanderlaan

Samba Parade at the North Country Fair in Arcata - Arcata, California - Dancers, Drummers, Music, Art, Celebration and Parades - Photographs by gvan42 Greg Vanderlaan

Samba Parade at the North Country Fair in Arcata - Arcata, California - Dancers, Drummers, Music, Art, Celebration and Parades - Photographs by gvan42 Greg Vanderlaan

Samba Parade at the North Country Fair in Arcata -Arcata, California - Dancers, Drummers, Music, Art, Celebration and Parades - Photographs by gvan42 Greg Vanderlaan

Inflatable Dolphin at the All Species Samba Parade in Arcata CA - Arcata, California - Dancers, Drummers, Music, Art, Celebration and Parades - Photographs by gvan42 Greg Vanderlaan

The Mothers of Pearl in Arcata All Species Parade - Arcata, California - Dancers, Drummers, Music, Art, Celebration and Parades - Photographs by gvan42 Greg Vanderlaan
The Mothers of Pearl in Arcata's All Species Parade 

Arcata, California - Dancers, Drummers, Music, Art, Celebration and Parades - Photographs by gvan42 Greg Vanderlaan
Arcata, CA Samba Parade with Dancing Skeleton Puppet

and that same night... Wake The Dead Concert... 

Celtic arrangements of Grateful Dead Songs... Quite Good.
Arcata, California - Wake the Dead Concert - Dancers, Drummers, Music, Art, Celebration and Parades - Photographs by gvan42 Greg Vanderlaan
Wake the Dead Arcata, California Sept 2015
http://www.wakethedead.org/
Arcata, California - Wake the Dead Concert - Dancers, Drummers, Music, Art, Celebration and Parades - Photographs by gvan42 Greg Vanderlaan
Wake the Dead  at the Creamery Building Arcata Playhouse.
http://www.wakethedead.org/events/
Celtic Grateful Dead Music in Arcata Sept 2015
Wake the Dead Celtic Grateful Dead Music in Arcata Sept 2015


Wake the Dead Celtic Grateful Dead Music in Arcata Sept 2015

Wake the Dead Celtic Grateful Dead Music in Arcata Sept 2015

Wake the Dead Celtic Grateful Dead Music in Arcata Sept 2015
Wake the Dead Celtic Grateful Dead Music in Arcata Sept 2015

the All Species Parade, Arcata, CA - Arcata, California - Dancers, Drummers, Music, Art, Celebration and Parades - Photographs by gvan42 Greg Vanderlaan
All Species Parade in Arcata, CA
the All Species Parade, Arcata, CA
The Sign says KAPOW! Un-Dam the Klamath
Note the Hardhats and Dynamite Blasting Plunger.


the All Species Parade, Arcata, CA - Arcata, California - Dancers, Drummers, Music, Art, Celebration and Parades - Photographs by gvan42 Greg Vanderlaan

Arcata, California - Dancers, Drummers, Music, Art, Celebration and Parades - Photographs by gvan42 Greg Vanderlaan

the All Species Parade, Arcata, CA

the All Species Parade, Arcata, CA - Arcata, California - Dancers, Drummers, Music, Art, Celebration and Parades - Photographs by gvan42 Greg Vanderlaan

Arcata, California - Dancers, Drummers, Music, Art, Celebration and Parades - Photographs by gvan42 Greg Vanderlaan
Stilt Walking Kids in the All Species Parade, Arcata, CA

Arcata, California - Dancers, Drummers, Music, Art, Celebration and Parades - Photographs by gvan42 Greg Vanderlaan

Arcata, California - Dancers, Drummers, Music, Art, Celebration and Parades - Photographs by gvan42 Greg Vanderlaan
Inside the Parade... I was compelled to Dance...

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


Virtual Tour of Eureka and Arcata, California - Humboldt State University - Redwood Forests - Beaches - Six Rivers - Highway 101 - Kinetic Sculpture Race - Samba!

 Fun Things to do in Eureka and Arcata, California

In Northern California Near Oregon.

Humboldt State University Samba Parade Band performing Live On Campus in Arcata, California
Samba Parade on Campus

My Brother and I at the Old Fisherman Statue in Eureka, CA
My Brother and I at Woodley Island Marina in front of The Maritime Memorial for Sailors Lost at Sea.

The Madaket was a ferry boat that retired when they built the bridge to Samoa... Now it has narrated cruises exploring Humboldt Bay... The captain tells us the history of what we see.


Other places to visit:
The North Jetty. Breakwaters that Protect the Channel into Humboldt Bay From the Pacific Ocean. Bring sensible shoes so we can walk to the end where the dolos are... be aware that sometimes the waves are so large that it would be dangerous to walk on the jetty... but you can watch from the top of the sand dunes.


Mount Saint Mercy Retreat
Located Way Out In the Woods on
Highway 211 Between the Avenue of the Giants and Historic Ferndale. 


LINKS TO MORE BLOG POSTS:

Psychedelic Poetry - "CEREMONY AND RITUAL" - a story - Fiction - written by Gregory Vanderlaan about a Trip to Philadelphia - Grateful Dead at JFK Stadium and The Spectrum Arena - deadheads: stories from fellow artists


OUR MINDS HAVE BEEN FUSED INTO ONE SHIMMERING
COLONIAL ANIMAL…
FLOWING IN THE
CURRENTS OF THE MUSIC…
adrenaline, serotonin, synapses on fire !

IN THE SHADOWS,TORCHES FLICKER IN THE BREEZE.
THE ORACLE BEGINS TO SPEAK,
FEEL THE HEAT…
adrenaline, serotonin, synapses on fire!

WE DANCE OUTSIDE OF THE TRADITIONAL
REALM OF TIME AND SPACE.
THE CROWD ERUPTS IN OUTBURSTS OF FREE-FORM MOTION
AS THE INTENSITY OF THE JAM PEAKS
adrenaline, serotonin, synapses on fire!
MY BODY IS TRANSFORMED INTO A PINBALL AND
I RICCOCHET AROUND THE SPECTRUM
ARENA BOUNCING OFF THE FLASHING LIGHTS.
A CROWD OF DEADHEADS
SURROUND ME INTENT ON TELLING ME STUPID JOKES…
THEY JUST…know… THAT I WILL LAUGH…
adrenaline, serotonin, synapses on fire!

THANK YOU DR. ALBERT HOFFMAN
***************************************
This was written after attending a Grateful Dead concert in JFK Stadium in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. I was sitting up above the crowd in the bleachers and could see the dancers move more enthusiastically during peaks of the music… less motion during gentle passages… as the dynamics of the improvisation ebbed and flowed, the dancers moved accordingly… like sea anemones moving in the currents of the ocean… I also mention the Spectrum in Philadelphia… It has many blinking advertisements for Atlantic city casinos in the area where refreshments were being served…





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.

Bob Weir and John Perry Barlow
Bob Weir and John Perry Barlow


Governments derive their just powers from the consent of the governed. You have neither solicited nor received ours. We did not invite you. You do not know us, nor do you know our world. Cyberspace does not lie within your borders. Do not think that you can build it, as though it were a public construction project. You cannot. It is an act of nature and it grows itself through our collective actions.

You have not engaged in our great and gathering conversation, nor did you create the wealth of our marketplaces. You do not know our culture, our ethics, or the unwritten codes that already provide our society more order than could be obtained by any of your impositions.

You claim there are problems among us that you need to solve. You use this claim as an excuse to invade our precincts. Many of these problems don't exist. Where there are real conflicts, where there are wrongs, we will identify them and address them by our means. We are forming our own Social Contract. This governance will arise according to the conditions of our world, not yours. Our world is different.
Cyberspace consists of transactions, relationships, and thought itself, arrayed like a standing wave in the web of our communications. Ours is a world that is both everywhere and nowhere, but it is not where bodies live.
We are creating a world that all may enter without privilege or prejudice accorded by race, economic power, military force, or station of birth.

We are creating a world where anyone, anywhere may express his or her beliefs, no matter how singular, without fear of being coerced into silence or conformity.
Your legal concepts of property, expression, identity, movement, and context do not apply to us. They are all based on matter, and there is no matter here.
Our identities have no bodies, so, unlike you, we cannot obtain order by physical coercion. We believe that from ethics, enlightened self-interest, and the commonweal, our governance will emerge. Our identities may be distributed across many of your jurisdictions. The only law that all our constituent cultures would generally recognize is the Golden Rule. We hope we will be able to build our particular solutions on that basis. But we cannot accept the solutions you are attempting to impose.

In the United States, you have today created a law, the Telecommunications Reform Act, which repudiates your own Constitution and insults the dreams of Jefferson, Washington, Mill, Madison, DeToqueville, and Brandeis. These dreams must now be born anew in us.

You are terrified of your own children, since they are natives in a world where you will always be immigrants. Because you fear them, you entrust your bureaucracies with the parental responsibilities you are too cowardly to confront yourselves. In our world, all the sentiments and expressions of humanity, from the debasing to the angelic, are parts of a seamless whole, the global conversation of bits. We cannot separate the air that chokes from the air upon which wings beat.

In China, Germany, France, Russia, Singapore, Italy and the United States, you are trying to ward off the virus of liberty by erecting guard posts at the frontiers of Cyberspace. These may keep out the contagion for a small time, but they will not work in a world that will soon be blanketed in bit-bearing media.
Your increasingly obsolete information industries would perpetuate themselves by proposing laws, in America and elsewhere, that claim to own speech itself throughout the world. These laws would declare ideas to be another industrial product, no more noble than pig iron. In our world, whatever the human mind may create can be reproduced and distributed infinitely at no cost. The global conveyance of thought no longer requires your factories to accomplish.

These increasingly hostile and colonial measures place us in the same position as those previous lovers of freedom and self-determination who had to reject the authorities of distant, uninformed powers. We must declare our virtual selves immune to your sovereignty, even as we continue to consent to your rule over our bodies. We will spread ourselves across the Planet so that no one can arrest our thoughts.
We will create a civilization of the Mind in Cyberspace. May it be more humane and fair than the world your governments have made before.
Davos, Switzerland
February 8, 1996

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

Birthday Remembrance to John Perry Barlow (October 3, 1947 - February 7, 2018)
One of the best ways to honor Barlow (and other humans as well as yourself) is to remember his 25 Principles of Adult Behavior.
1. Be patient. No matter what.
2. Don’t badmouth: Assign responsibility, not blame. Say nothing of another you wouldn’t say to him.
3. Never assume the motives of others are, to them, less noble than yours are to you.
4. Expand your sense of the possible.
5. Don’t trouble yourself with matters you truly cannot change.
6. Expect no more of anyone than you can deliver yourself.
7. Tolerate ambiguity.
8. Laugh at yourself frequently.
9. Concern yourself with what is right rather than who is right.
10. Never forget that, no matter how certain, you might be wrong.
11. Give up blood sports.
12. Remember that your life belongs to others as well. Don’t risk it frivolously.
13. Never lie to anyone for any reason. (Lies of omission are sometimes exempt.)
14. Learn the needs of those around you and respect them.
15. Avoid the pursuit of happiness. Seek to define your mission and pursue that.
16. Reduce your use of the first personal pronoun.
17. Praise at least as often as you disparage.
18. Admit your errors freely and soon.
19. Become less suspicious of joy.
20. Understand humility.
21. Remember that love forgives everything.
22. Foster dignity.
23. Live memorably.
24. Love yourself.
25. Endure.


"Throwing Stones"
Words by John Perry Barlow; music by Bob Weir
Barlow has posted the lyrics to his songs.
Copyright Ice Nine Publishing; used by permission

Picture a bright blue ball, just spinning, spinnin free,
Dizzy with eternity.
Paint it with a skin of sky,
Brush in some clouds and sea,
Call it home for you and me.
A peaceful place or so it looks from space,
A closer look reveals the human race.
Full of hope, full of grace
Is the human face,
But afraid we may lay our home to waste.
There's a fear down here we can't forget.
Hasn't got a name just yet.
Always awake, always around,
Singing ashes, ashes, all fall down.
Ashes, ashes, all fall down.

Now watch as the ball revolves
And the nighttime falls.
Again the hunt begins,
Again the bloodwind calls.
By and by, the morning sun will rise,
But the darkness never goes
From some men's eyes.
It strolls the sidewalks and it rolls the streets,
Staking turf, dividing up meat.
Nightmare spook, piece of heat,
It's you and me.
You and me.

Click flash blade in ghetto night,
Rudies looking for a fight.
Rat cat alley, roll them bones.
Need that cash to feed that jones.
And the politicians throwin' stones,
Singing ashes, ashes, all fall down.
Ashes, ashes, all fall down.

[Bridge:]
Commissars and pin-stripe bosses
Roll the dice.
Any way they fall,
Guess who gets to pay the price.
Money green or proletarian gray,
Selling guns 'stead of food today.

So the kids they dance
And shake their bones,
And the politicians throwin' stones,
Singing ashes, ashes, all fall down.
Ashes, ashes, all fall down.

Heartless powers try to tell us
What to think.
If the spirit's sleeping,
Then the flesh is ink

History's page will thus be carved in stone.
And we are here, and we are on our own
On our own.
On our own.
On our own.

[Instrumental]
If the game is lost,
Then we're all the same.
No one left to place or take the blame.
We can leave this place and empty stone
Or that shinin' ball we used to call our home.

So the kids they dance
And shake their bones,
And the politicians throwin' stones,
Singing ashes, ashes, all fall down.
Ashes, ashes, all fall down.

[Bridge two:] Shipping powders back and forth
Singing black goes south and white comes north.
In a whole world full of petty wars
Singing I got mine and you got yours.
And the current fashion sets the pace,
Lose your step, fall out of grace.
And the radical, he rant and rage,
Singing someone's got to turn the page.
And the rich man in his summer home,
Singing just leave well enough alone.
But his pants are down, his cover's blown...

And the politicians throwin' stones,
So the kids they dance
And shake their bones,
And it's all too clear we're on our own.
Singing ashes, ashes, all fall down.
Ashes, ashes, all fall down.

Picture a bright blue ball,
Just spinnin', spinnin, free.
Dizzy with the possibilities.
Ashes, ashes, all fall down.
Ashes, ashes, all fall down.
Ashes, ashes, all fall down.
Ashes, ashes, all fall down.
Ashes, ashes, all fall down.

Grateful Dead... My Story... American History... and Original Deadhead ART... deadheads: stories from fellow artists


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 Dead Photo by Seidelman


The first time I went to a concert was 1972. It was a double date with friends. There were three bands playing that night. The Sons of Champlin, The New Riders of the Purple Sage and the Grateful Dead. We all smoked marijuana during the first act and the other couple fell asleep in each others arms on
the floor of the Winterland Arena (San Francisco).

We let them sleep until the last song of the night. Casey Jones.

All that I really remember about that show was that the last song kept on getting louder and more intense and I felt that it was impossible for it to get any more powerful, and then it did...

The next year I went to Chico State College. At That Time...my opinion was that the people who were fans of the Dead were too obsessive. I tried to keep out of that scene because the people were just fanatic... I was more into Johnny Winter...

However,

In 1974 a group of us kids got into a Van and went to see the Dead at the University of Reno. I was in the back playing harmonica with my friend Jimmy on guitar. We spent the night at a cabin at Lake Tahoe. We all bought some 4-way windowpane acid. This turned out to be a mistake. The quality was
frighteningly bad. The next morning we went to the football stadium at 10 AM. We took the LSD and it made us feel anxious and upset all day. Lucky for me, I gave away 3/4 of the gelatin square to some ladies. I apologize to them for their own nightmare experiences... Hey, I just didn't know... sorry...

The Dead were using a sound system called "The Albatross" or "The Wall Of Sound". They NEVER got it to work right. It was a huge sound system that was so complex that it turned out to be impractical to use on the road. They would play half a song and then something would go wrong and they would stop. At 8 that night they finally gave up and we left. By then, the fear caused by the acid had gone away and I had a good time looking at the flashing lights in downtown RENO. There were some sculptures of Showgirls that were 40 feet tall. They were very impressive. I took some photographs at that show. I also had borrowed a Halloween mask from my roommate.  I lost the mask when some kid borrowed it to wear and then ran away thru the crowd...
During my trip I realized that it was way too much stuff to have to keep track of. From then on I carried very little with me on trips... Intentionally dressing for an adventure, with carefully selected supplies...

Eventually, I went to 39 Dead Concerts. What a blessing...

The Wall of Sound did function wonderfully at San Francisco's Winterland... The shows documented in "The Grateful Dead Movie" were spectacular... During the song "Truckin" I realized that "if the roof blew off the building and I could see the stars, I would not really be amazed because what was happening on stage was already the most unbelievable event possible... another unbelievable event would just be trivial"

I was amused by one peculiar action... often, the cameramen would film a lightbulb on a stand... this seemed like odd behavior. 10 Years Later, I was told what they were doing... they were filming a flipboard with a NUMBER written on it lit up by the lightbulb to be used to index the reels of film... for editing... 

They had live fire on stage and
ladies with silk ribbons dancing in front of the band...
and the LSD that night was of excellent quality... THANKS!

It became apparent that there was something ELSE going on in addition to "rock and roll/show business". Some times I would not bother to buy a ticket to the concert at all but was happy to play music in the parking lot. Many people DID NOT attend the concerts. They went to experience the scene that surrounded the DEAD. There was a philosophy that the band was not the center of attention.
Dancing at the Rainbow Gathering in California... Dun Dun Village...


The Rainbow Gathering is the logical outgrowth of this feeling. The people from the audience (and other like minded individuals) meet in a National Forest and have a wonderful camping trip. At this level, the band does not even attend at all.

REBUS PICTURE PUZZLE:
What do the webdings spell?

answer to the rebus picture puzzle:
You can call this song "The United States Blues"


During the late 1970s the band had become unpopular with the general public and I got to see them in smaller places... like the boys gym at the University of Maryland. The baby boomer generation seemed to be embarrassed by their hippie behavior during their youth and those were lean years for the band. Bad for them, but good for me because it was easy to get a ticket...

Then tastes changed and they started playing
huge football stadiums.


One fine show was at Pittsburgh's Three Rivers Stadium... 80,000 seats... The Dead played with Crosby, Stills and Nash. They played "Wooden Ships" and "Teach Your Children" which featured a pedal steel guitar solo by Jerry Garcia... such a sweet introduction to that song on the CSN record... The people came from Canada, NY city and Washington DC... an interesting group of people to meet... there was a great violin based gypsy jazz band playing by a bus after the show... then the police made everyone leave the parking lot and drive on down the road. I ended up stopping at a McDonald's restaurant with a playland that was just PACKED with other deadheads... Big fun playing on the toys.

I never went "on tour" with the Dead but it took very little effort to drive one day to see a show... So, when I lived in Maryland, I went to many shows in Philadelphia, Baltimore, Columbia MD, DC, Norfolk
VA and NY City... Like, why NOT?

Madison Square Garden is built directly above Pennsylvania Station... it's quite convenient to ride the train to and from the show...


The 6 shows I saw at Columbia Maryland's Merriweather Post Pavilion were a high point for all... The venue is in an ideal location. It is located in "Symphony Woods", a forested park in downtown Columbia. Across the street is a giant shopping mall. Convenient access to supplies (groceries,
batteries, liquor etc.).

The shows were outdoors in the summer and one night there was a thunderstorm. Lucky US! Many people left and that relieved the overcrowding on the lawn area... Thanks for going away!

The band kept on playing and the lightning flashes seemed to be timed to the music... During the drum/space part of the show, Mickey Hart timed drum rolls to have the thunder play the last note... on a tom-tom fill it would go... from high to low... da da da, du du du, de de de, kaboom!

Sadly, the town of Columbia requested that the Dead play somewhere ELSE... The rumor is that there were too many fireworks in the parking lot and the fans were a danger to the forest... I believe this to be true because there WERE a lot of explosives flying into the air... flying explosives are legal "south of the border" in the Carolina states... a VERY short drive on highway 95... so the DC area always has had a lot of fireworks... and M80 firecrackers.

The next year the Dead moved to a basketball arena... and then eventually ended up at RFK Stadium in Washington DC.

A concert at RFK had Another fantastic thunderstorm... the football field turned to mud with people sliding... In the summer, the weather often gets to 99.99999% humidity and 100 degrees Fahrenheit... It's just miserable... they, when the rain comes at nightfall, it is a relief... a blessing... the people started to cheer when the thunderstorm started...

MORE GRATEFUL DEAD INSPIRED ART...



Poetry inspired by Dead Concerts at JFK Stadium and the Spectrum Arena in Philadelphia.

ceremony and ritual: a story...
OUR MINDS HAVE BEEN FUSED INTO ONE SHIMMERING
COLONIAL ANIMAL...
FLOWING IN THE
CURRENTS OF THE MUSIC...
adrenaline, serotonin,synapses on fire !

IN THE SHADOWS,TORCHES FLICKER IN THE BREEZE.
THE ORACLE BEGINS TO SPEAK,
FEEL THE HEAT...
adrenaline,serotonin,synapses on fire!

WE DANCE OUTSIDE OF THE TRADITIONAL
REALM OF TIME AND SPACE.
THE CROWD ERUPTS IN OUTBURSTS OF FREE-FORM MOTION
AS THE INTENSITY OF THE JAM PEAKS
adrenaline,serotonin,synapses on fire!

MY BODY IS TRANSFORMED INTO A PINBALL AND
I RICOCHET AROUND THE SPECTRUM
ARENA BOUNCING OFF THE FLASHING LIGHTS.
A CROWD OF DEADHEADS
SURROUND ME INTENT ON TELLING ME STUPID JOKES...
THEY JUST...know... THAT I WILL LAUGH...
adrenaline,serotonin,synapses on fire!

THANK YOU DR. ALBERT HOFFMAN

***************************************




Self Hypnosis story. written to entrance the reader.

Imagine that you are floating in a tub of warm water...
every muscle in your body is completely relaxed...
your mind drifts and contentment blooms like
a time lapse film of a rose...

you leave your body and rise up to the ceiling...
you look back and see your body...
it is resting with a cup of tea in it's hand...ahh...mint...

as you watch your body,
your mind seeps thru the ceiling and you see the world.
there is a forest...it is for...rest...

on the shore of a lake a spiral of deadheads dance around a fire.
the flickering light seems to be perfectly synchronized to the rhythm of the drums... alas...the reversal
of entropy is merely an illusion.

one of the deadheads reaches into the shadows and lifts
a five gallon can of gasoline.
it is tightly sealed.he places it on the fire...
they all move back...

it will take time for the gas to expand enough to burst the can...
a slender woman with strawberry blond hair raises a conch shell
to her lips and draws a deep breath.
she blows a long note signaling
the beginning of a new era of mankind.

everything is dripping with meaning.
significance saturates every leaf of every tree ...
then a tiny hole appears in the gas can and
a cone of fire reaches for the sky...

you contemplate metallurgy,welding and strength of materials...
then the gas can resigns itself to fate
and a ball of fire searches for oxygen and of course finds it.
the spiral of deadheads emit a massive yeah! and you drift on...




One fine thing about the Grateful Dead:

They often played three nights in a row at the same location,
without repeating any songs. It is truly amazing that they
were able to remember that much material.
Most performers practice one show and then when they have
learned it, they go on the road...
It makes me wonder if there is a song memorization
enhancing property to the chemical LSD.

How ELSE can we explain what happened?

Each night had a different texture to it.
The first night had more extreme improvisation and more
dissonant chord structure.
The second night was mellow and the third night
was straight ahead rock and roll.

I believe that this was intentional.
Many of us would buy tickets to all three nights and spend
the daytime as tourists exploring whatever town we were in.
On the first night, we would take LSD
and enjoy the spaciness of the jams.
The second night we would be tired out from the previous
night's adventure and were in the mood for those sad old ballads...
By the time the third night rolled
around, we just wanted to party with our new found friends.



 The ART below is based on the fine graphic design
of  Bob Thomas... and a superb redwood sculpture by an
unknown Humboldt County artist...

It is easy to see far when you stand on the shoulders of giants!
Bob also did the Lightning Bolt Skull with
artist, sound engineer and
LSD manufacturer Owsley Stanley...
nicknamed "Bear"

 The back cover of History of the Grateful Dead, vol 1 (Bear's Choice) showed multi-colored marching bears. Bob's inspiration for the bear came from a 36 point lead slug of a generic bear that was a standardized figure from a printer's font box.
The desire to document the LSD experience is strong...
witness this man trying to photograph an Hallucination...

MLULTRA... WHERE IT ALL BEGAN
Both Ken Kesey and Robert Hunter were paid research subjects...


The ultimate winners of this voyage...
Kid dancing with dad as a Grateful Dead Cover band plays...
Let it Grow...
in beautiful Arcata, California... we can have fun forever... Tribute Bands may be playing Dead songs for thousands of years... after all, people still perform Mozart, Beethoven, Mussorgsky...
 "The Miracle Show" concert. A Dead Tribute band that
re-incarnates themselves as "The Fickle Hillbillies"
to play original tunes.

Playing for free in Arcata. No cover charge, we are all just friends that love to play and dance...

SAMBA! at the all species parade...

FYI... Arcata, California is an entire TOWN
of people that GRASP the concept...
Like the students pictured above...
Come and VISIT anytime... Take Highway 101 North from San Francisco or 101 South from Oregon... Highway 299 leads to us from Redding and the central valley...
Plenty of Guitar pickers and artists here...

READ MORE: 
https://gvan42.blogspot.com/2017/06/grateful-deadhead-tribute-webpage.html

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 unbelieveable... Yet it all really happened! ART, Poetry and MyStory... I'm Gr8ful












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*Tree Sitters Protest Lignite Coal Mine in Hambach Forest, Germany

*The Passage of Roe v Wade Led to Fewer Unwanted Babies Being Born... and 20 Years Later, Less Violent Crime... Because Unwanted Babies Grow Up to Become Violent Criminals...

*FREE COLORING BOOK: Print The Drawings and Color Using Felt Pens, Pencils or Potatoshop... American Indian

*HEADLINE: Deadline for "Real ID" for Air Travel Postponed AGAIN Until May 7, 2025... WONDERFUL!

*My Music Video: FREE ALL THE CANNABIS PRISONERS - A Mockery of Nancy Ray Gun... Jest Say KNOW

*Bubble UP! Economics. Raise the Minimum Wage, Social Security and LOWER Taxes on 99% of Americans. Actually Collect Taxes on the Top 1%... We The People Will Spend that Extra Money in Our Paychecks and it will BUBBLE UP! Throughout The Entire Economy...

*How to Escape the Cult of Trump: Deprogramming by Family Members of the MAGA MORON is Essential... If Someone you Know has been Brainwashed... RESCUE THEM!

*The Best Five Restaurants Near Eureka, California - Eat a Fish, Watch the Boats...

*Trump: "The Art of the Failed Deal" Book. Every Deal in that book LOST MONEY. That's why He declared Bankruptcy SO MANY TIMES. Will his Business Stupidity cause the ENTIRE COUNTRY to Go Bankrupt?

*Photographs of a Journey to the Headwaters Forest - Now a State Reserve... Near Eureka, CA - Plus The Story of How It Came To Be!

*Rainbow Gathering July 1-7, 2024 Will Be In CALIFORNIA... Exact Location To Be Revealed June 15th... and As Soon as I Know, I'll Post Driving Directions and Maps Here... What IS The Rainbow Gathering? For Me, It's Woodstock with Amateur Musicians and I'm in the Band... It's a Week Long Backpack Trip for Thousands of People...


*Add THIS to Your Bucket List: Swimming at Bear Hole in Upper Bidwell Park, Chico California. Crystallized Black Lava Rocks - Basalt from the Eruption of Mount Lassen.

*Numbers have Cultural Meanings... A list from Zero to Infinity and Beyond... For example: 007 Means James Bond. 420 Means Marijuana. 5150 means Insane... and... 420 + 5150 = REEFER MADNESS!

*"Conspiracy Theories" that are ACTUALLY TRUE. MKULTRA, Cointelpro, CIA-Contra-Cocaine, Donald Rumsfeld Selling Weapons to Saddam Hussein, UFOs are Real... Sometimes people dismiss Truth as "Just a Conspiracy Theory" because they Don't LIKE THE TRUTH.

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...



*American History: "The Thunder Machine" was a Giant Sheet Metal Sculpture that you Got Inside and Played like a Drum. Made by Ron Boise and used at Ken Kesey's Acid Tests.

For Maximum Effect, Don't Read This Book. Write Your Own! --- "Lessons Learned" by Gregory Vanderlaan. A Lifetime of Trial, Error and Survival Yielded These Words of Wisdom...

My Biff Rose Trip: Driving To a Cabin in the Woods - down The Coast of California from Arcata thru Ft Bragg to Mendocino... An Excellent Adventure!

How To Remove Smoke from Indoor Air. Tape a Filter to a Box Fan. During Wildfire Season the Air Indoors is Bad to Breathe...


Pretty Soon the Filter Turns Brown
from Smoke, Pollen and Dust.

Who WAS Ram Dass? In the Sixties, He was a Psychedelics Researcher and Promoter at Harvard with Dr. Timothy Leary. (LSD, Magic Mushrooms and Peyote) Then He went to India Looking for Enlightenment and Met a Guru. Changed His Name and Published a Great Book... "Remember: Be Here Now" - It Has His Autobiography and then Many ART Drawings Explaining Eastern Religion. Real Name: Dr. Richard Alpert...


Who WAS Ram Dass? In the Sixties, He was a Psychedelics Researcher and Promoter at Harvard with Dr. Timothy Leary. (LSD, Magic Mushrooms and Peyote)


My Autobiography: Growing Up in Los Gatos, California in the 1960s by Gregory Vanderlaan - and Living in San Jose, Washington DC, Chico, Eureka and Orangevale, CA.

I Was Born in 1954. We lived Near the San Jose Airport until they Started Landing Jet Airplanes and We had to move... We went to Los Gatos in 1960. I lived there until graduation from Los Gatos High School in 1972... an Ideal Childhood... FYI: Los Gatos is about 50 miles South of San Francisco on the edge of the mountains between San Jose and Santa Cruz.

I Went to West Valley Jr. College, learned electronics drafting and got a job at System Industries in Santa Clara... I feel blessed that not only did I grow up in a great location but I also grew up at a great time. I missed the Vietnam War by ONE Year and Silicon Valley Was Hiring Like Crazy When I Needed a Job.
Peace Sign Pie Chart
History of the Vietnam War. 58,000 Americans Died for Nothing... Something They Don't Teach in School Now... "Too Controversial" -

During the 1950s Americans went into a Mad Panic about Communists taking over the world. We built thousands of Nuclear Missiles and Fallout Shelters. The US Congress had witch hunts (Joe McCarthy-HUAC) to expose "Commies" who worked in The Hollywood Movie business and blacklisted folksingers that were leading our young people astray with Labor Union Organizing songs.


During the height of this hysteria Vice President Richard Nixon went on Television and explained "The Domino Principle" while pointing to a map of Asia. His theory was...

READ MORE: https://gvan42.blogspot.com/2017/11/a-brief-history-of-vietnam-war-58000.html

Who Won the War? DOW CHEMICAL AND HUGHES AIRCRAFT. Selling Napalm, Agent Orange and Helicopters...

Military Death Chart USA

AMERICA'S BOGUS WARS - Since 1945, The US Military Has Never Defended The USA, Not Even Once.

Ever since Victory in Japan, All of Our Wars have been Marketing to Sell Weapons for the Military Industrial Complex.







Free Coloring Book Art by gvan42 - UFO and Alien Hieroglyphics