Author: Thoughts On The Dead (Page 1 of 1031)

Hey there Enthusiasts!  After a successful weekend at “The Grateful Dead Experience” (aka D&C at The Sphere), I figured there was no better time for a surprise book drop.  While not new, I finally got around to putting Rick’s Little Aleppo stories together in a relatively easy to digest format.   I hope you enjoy it as much as I did.  Rick had such a unique voice that I felt like we were together again.  It was what I needed.

Amazon forces me to charge but if you’d like a free Kindle version, please email me and I’ll send it to you.

All my love, BoTD

Hey there Enthusiasts-

Dreamflower here. With Dead & Company’s tour starting next week, I’m sure we’re all going to be thinking of Rick and missing his one-of-a-kind commentary. In light of that, myself, Mr. Completely, and a few others wanted to find a way to show our love for Rick and connect with other enthusiasts out there. 

So, in collaboration with Rick’s wonderful family, we’ve cooked up some ToTD commemorative merch! We got t-shirts, hoodies, hats, mugs, and a few other goodies, in multiple styles and colors, for all genders and for kids. Each item sports the infamous blog header on the front, and says “Enthusiast” on the back. 

100% of the proceeds will go to a charity that Rick’s family chose, and/or to help out fellow enthusiasts battling cancer. 

You can get your ToTD swag here:

https://bit.ly/3yMzMWS

Since Rick’s Twitter page was personal, we’ve also made a new Twitter account, @TOTDEnthusiasts . We’ll be reposting some of the bloggings from Thoughts On The Dead there, and might get up to some other shenanigans too. We hope to see all the familiar faces from the “Comment Section” over there, and hopefully create some new fans as well. 

We’d also love to see your beautiful faces, so feel free to tag that account in pictures of you & yours in ToTD gear. 

Rick brought so many of us together. It’s our hope that through these small efforts, we can keep this wonderful community alive and do some good in the process. 

One last thing: Thanks to the generosity and support of Rick’s family, the original blog will remain in perpetuity so that we can all revisit our favorite posts whenever we want to. Family On the Dead, we couldn’t do this without you, and we’re all so very grateful. 

That’s about it for now, so thanks in advance for any support you’re able to give, and we hope to see lots of you swag-clad Enthusiasts in the wild this tour!  (Ed. Note from BoTD: Please wear your masks.  I may go crazy if i have to build any more train sets while being stuck home with NoTD.)

Morning Enthusiasts, one last indulgence if you don’t mind.  Rick will be laid to rest on Friday.  There won’t be any service, I’m sure you all know he would have hated that.  Unsurprisingly, Rick didn’t have that many friends IRL.  Most of his friends were those he met on this site.  Rick was the voice of our family and without him there just isn’t that many people to speak on his behalf.  I’ll do my best but its just not the same.

I thought it would be nice if his extended family knew about this community so I wanted to ask if anyone wanted to say a few words and send me an mp3 I can figure out a way to have it played that morning.  All the emails and comments that we’ve received have really touched my mom and me (in a non-sexual way ya perverts.  Rick was right about all of you).    For all those that have reached out to me the last few days, I promise I will respond.  I just haven’t had the energy to do much at all.  I hope you understand.  If you have my email, reach out there. Otherwise, I have access to thoughtsonthedead@gmail.com.  Still happy to receive nudes of Billy.

Here are a few pictures of Rick that I wanted to share. He worked hard on his anonymity but now that’s he gone I want everyone to know about him and how special he was to me.   Thanks to Chris for the first one.  So glad to see him so happy.

All my love and gratitude, BoTD.

Morning, Enthusiasts, BoTD here with a sad guest post.  Our esteemed captain, ToTD, Rick Harris, passed away this morning at the the terribly young age of 46. Cancer is a savage beast and it took him quickly and, at the end, brutally.  He left here surrounded by his family and embraced by the love we have for him.  I wish he had left behind a draft post so that you could all hear his voice one last time and have more to remember him by.  I’m not as good a writer as my brother, nor am I as good a poet, thinker, musician, or, well, anything.   He was better than me in all the ways a big brother should be.

Rick had plenty of troubles in his life and found it difficult to find his path.  When he started this site and joined the community of deadheads he finally found a place that welcomed him and took him in just because of the person he was with no judgements or questions asked.  I want to thank all of you on behalf of my family for the support and love you’ve showed him over the past 10 months and in the many years before that.  My future will be dark but it will someday lighten again.  There will always be a piece of my heart missing, the part that I will bury with my brother in the hard dirt of New Jersey, home, where he belongs.  I know tonight he’ll be with Jerry and giving him shit for being the choogliest motherfucker.