Musings on the Most Ridiculous Band I Can't Stop Listening To

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On The Roam Again

What the hell is this?

“What?”

I thought you were going on a journey to find David Lemieux and make him your sensei.

“I am, I am. But I got waylaid. And then I got way laid.”

You had that it your pocket.

“I did. I almost put it on Instagram, but thought better of it.”

Good decision-making, John. Is this a real human being or one of those Disney animatronics?

“She’s a wrestler. It’s stage makeup.”

You should tattoo your face.

“I’m not gonna do that.”

All the kids are doing it. You could have a guitar on your forehead. DOUCHE KING written under your eyes.

“Hey!”

Ah, I’m sorry. That was uncalled for.

“You’re aggressive and unpleasant. It’s not fun being with you sometimes.”

Sometimes?

“It’s never fun to be in your presence. Not ever at all.”

John, bubbe, you’re nothing without me. Take me out of the equation and it’s just guitar solos and disastrous interviews.

“I was doing fine before you. Banging famous chicks and making the Top Ten. Did not need your help for one second.”

But now you need my help to get to David Lemieux.

“No, I don’t. I’m just gonna get in the Earthroamer and point it north. No trick to it.”

There’s a little trick to it.

“John, thank you for joining me. It’s the Radio Randy Show and we’re here live with John Mayer, who has just pussed down super-hard with a gorgeous lady of wrestling. John, thoughts?”

“What now?”

“Oh, Goddammit.”

I put you on the Earthroamer, John. And I sent Radio Randy along.

“Why?”

He was in the picture.

“John, explain to the listeners what they can expect from grapple-coitus.”

“Grapple-coitus?”

“Wrestler sex.”

“Radio Randy, I don’t know if that’s really the area I want to get into. It never ends well.”

“Describe Jennifer Aniston’s sex musk.”

“Fruity with a strong whiff of vanilla. Like if a banana split just got fucked really hard.”

“Fascinating. We move on to the Avital Ronell controvery.”

“Why does everyone keep asking me about that person? Is it even a person? That sounds like a Star Wars name. I can’t even figure out how to spell it well enough for Google to know what I mean.”

“Where do you see Dead & Company next year?”

“Uh, we have the Mexico shows in January, and then we’ll figure it out from there but I’m pretty positive that another tour is in the cards. We’re learning how to play and there’s a wonderful magic to the band now. It would be stupid to stop. Nothing’s set in stone, but there’s gonna be a tour or two.”

“That’s good news for all the fans out there. Where do you see Dead & Company in 800 years?”

“Not touring as much.”

“You’re suggesting a residency?”

“No.”

“Let’s get back to the googoo.”

“The what?”

“The smush that ladies keep down there. You know. Down there.”

“Hey! You!”

Me?

“Yes. What’s wrong with Radio Randy?”

He’s randy.

“These are the cheapest fucking jokes I’ve ever heard, man.”

Just go talk to him.

“Or what?”

CLIP CLOP CLIP CLOP

“Is that a horse outside the Earthroamer?’

“THE FIRST AMENDMENT SAYS YOU NEED TO LET MY USE THE BATHROOM IN YOUR RECREATIONAL VEHICLE!”

“Goddammit.”

“I GOT A POWERFUL LOG WAITING TO BE SET FREE, MEYERS! LEMME TURN ‘ER LOOSE IN YOUR COMMODE!”

“Hard pass. Hundred percent no on this one.”

“THIS IS CENSORSHIP!”

“How is not letting you shit in my bathroom censorship? It’s an RV. No one’s supposed to shit in the toilet.”

“THE MARKETPLACE OF IDEAS REQUIRES THAT YOU LET ME SHIT IN YOUR VAN, JOSH MEYERS!”

“It does not. I’m gonna drive away now.”

“THIS IS HOW COMMUNISM STARTED! WHEN PROUD, SHIRTLESS MEN WERE FIRST DENIED ACCESS TO MOBILE POTTIES, THE GULAGS WERE SURE TO FOLLOW!”

“I wasn’t the best history student, but I’m pretty sure that’s not how it happened.”

“YOU LOVE GULAGS!”

“What? No. No one loves gulags.”

“YOU’RE THE GULAG-MAN! LEMME DOOKY IN YOUR CAR!”

“Hey!”

Why do you keep bothering me? Just deal with the situation at hand.

“I don’t want to. Look at him.”

That’s peak male performance, John. You may not like what it looks like–

“Yeah, yeah. I’ve been on the internet. He looks like a bear fucked a moron. Get him out of here.”

Anything’s better than him, huh?

“YesNO, WAIT!”

CELL PHONE NOISE

“Goddammit, you tricked me.”

It’s easy. And these are old tricks. You should know them.

“David Lemieux is gonna  become my sensei, and then he’s gonna to teach me how to walk out of posts whenever I feel like it, and then I’m gonna never speak to you again.”

Gonna, gonna, gonna. Phones’ ringing now, pal. Answer it or deal with the Mounted Man-Wolf Of Liberty up there.

“Hate you.”

“Hel–”

“I KNOW IT WAS YEW, JEWBOY, AN’ AH’M FIXIN’ T’ SKIN YEW ALIVE.”

“Goddammit.”

“CONFESS! Damn yew, confess! Ah’m gonna get mah sling blade an’ re-circumcise yew if yew don’t admit t’ writin’ that filthy lie of a letter t’ th’ yellow dog Jew York Times.”

“Sarah, I’m not Jewish. Not that any of that would be okay if I was. And obviously–”

“JEW LIES!”

“–I didn’t write the op-ed in the Times.”

“We done used our computer machines, Jew Mayer! They-a” got t’ whirrin’ and fizzin’ an’ analyzin’ the words of th’ dickless ass-cheese what so horribly run down th’ fine reputation of Trumpident Trump.”

“Trumpident?”

“That’s the new word. No more Presidents. We gonn’ have Trumpidents from now on.”

“Um.”

“Yew know what that computer machine done tol’ us, Dreidel-Dick?”

“Not Jewish.”

“It done tol’ us that th’ language in that there op-ed was exactly th’ same as in your lyrics! Whatchoo say t’ that, yew treasonous cockslammer?”

“Then you’re using the computer wrong. I didn’t write the op-ed. It was from a senior staffer in your administration. I don’t work in the White House.”

“Due t’ shortages in the HR office, we don’ who does an’ who don’t work f’r the Trumpident, so we jus’ assume ev’ryone does.”

“That is sad and not shocking. It is sad that it’s not shocking, though.”

“How could yew do this t’ your country, moneylender!?”

“I’m hanging up.”

“FIRST TH’ ROSENBERGS, NOW YEW!”

“Not Jewish.”

DIAL TONE EVEN THOUGH PHONES NO LONGER DO THAT

“You’re a lousy wretch and once David Lemieux teaches me his secrets, I’m out of here.”

Anything can happen.

Stroker Ace: Everything You Need To Know

Does Burt’s character have an absurd name? Clearly.

Driving? So fucking much.

Pretty lady? Loni Anderson.

Bar brawl scene? Duh.

Who plays Burt’s sidekick? Jim Nabors.

Ned Beatty in it? Yup.

Does he get raped? Nope.

What award-winning film did Burt turn down to do this piece of shit? Terms of Endearment.

The Jack Nicholson part? Uh-huh.

He would have killed that. Yes, but he did Stroker Ace.

The Daily Recounting, 9/6/18

I assume you’ve seen it, and yes it is completely unprecedented. Some of you are foreign, or confused, and so you might think that this sort of bullshit had happened before. At no point did any of Lincoln’s Team of Rivals send an unsigned letter to the Washington Gazette claiming that Abe had lost his mind. No, this is new; we stand before unsailed shores like Balboa.

And we could, all-serious and beetle-browed like David Frum, humpher and burble about “Consitutional crisis” this and “25th Amendment” that, but far more fun is to ignore the end of the world and wager heavily, while drinking.

(Seriously: if you haven’t started drinking – why not? You’ll never find a finer excuse than 2018’s fuckery.)

Who wrote the note? Offtrack Betting on the Dead (OtBotD) hereby presents the current odds.

John Kelly 1,000-1 Why was the op-ed written, Enthusiasts? Are we to believe the author that it was conceived from sheer patriotism, spurred on by the example of the late John McCain? Maybe. Could it have been intended as a spark in a paint factory a way to hasten the inevitable ugly end? Also maybe. Was it a highly-cyncial (and effective) distraction from the Kavanaugh hearings? No; that would be like putting your Queen in danger to take a rook. How about someone trying to get someone else fired? Could be, definitely could be.

What all of those explanations require are the author to give a fuck, and John Kelly does not, not any longer. The man’s at least a year past his last fuck, and he spends most of his days in a small graveyard four or five blocks from the White House taking pulls off a pint of banana schnapps and talking to the gravestone for a guy named Chippy Barbuster, who died in 1841. Sometimes, John Kelly takes a nap right on top of Chippy. The groundskeeper tried to chase him off the first time he came by, so John Kelly broke that groundskeeper’s jaw. The two men have reconciled, and John Kelly will on occasion share his banana schnapps.

John Kelly doesn’t give a fuck about his job, his country, himself, anything. The old soldier has faded away. The last thing he wrote was his signature on the credit card machine at the liquor store. He is not the author.

Kellyanne Conway 12-1 Self-serving, deeply cynical, and codependent, the op-ed does fit Kellyanne to a tee; she’s also a prodigious leaker. BUT if she had written the piece, her loudmouth husband would’ve tweeted out some cryptic bullshit already.

Ace Frehley 200-1 Almost certainly not the Spaceman. Don’t even know why he’s on the list, quite frankly.

Jeff Sessions 7-2 PRO: Hates Basketball Head with a fury he had previously reserved for minorities, homosexuals, and dopers. CON: The words y’all, swee’tea, and octaroon appear nowhere in the document.

Steve Mnuchin 10-1 Not Jewy enough.

Betsy Devos 10-1 Too Jewy.

Paul Stanley 200-1 I don’t know who keeps adding members of KISS to this list, but I’m simply positive none of them are involved.

Mike Pence 3-1 Imagine a rat. Now stop imagining. That’s Mike Pence. A scrabbling, unboned shit-eater. But smart and possessed of a great nose. It takes a certain skill to fail upwards as heroically as Mike Pence is and, while he’s dumb as a squirrel’s dick, he’s not stupid. Pence has been reading the polls, and he sees a romperstomper coming up in November. Maybe Mike even believes (as I do) that the GOP will lose the Senate. This will be the moment the emperor’s dong reveals itself to the assembled crowd: they will turn on him like methed-up hyenas.

And Mikey is trying to get out in front of that.

Alternately, it could not be Pence because of this “lodestar” bullshit. The op-ed contains the word towards its end, and it struck most readers as a shiny button on a dull coat. The rest of the writing was boilerplate governmentese, indicating a speechwriter or staffer that was responsible for press releases, but there was that fancy word: lodestar. Just lying there like a killer in the sun.

It turns out that the only person to use that particularly attention-seeking word in the entire administration was Mike Pence, in several speeches over the years. Fuckface certainly doesn’t go dropping “lodestar” into his spiels when he goes out yelling at yokels, and Sloppy Eyes Huckabee doesn’t, either. Stephen Miller said it once, but he thought it was a slur for Guatemalans.

So it’s Pence–or, more correctly, one of his staffers/writers operating at his command–right?

OR did the true author throw in that “lodestar” to incriminate Pence, having done a Lexis/Nexis search for oddball phrasing in the Veep’s speeches? The creator must have known that the word choice and syntax would be analyzed for precedent and pattern, so why include such an obvious tell? Therefore, we can clearly not choose the wine in front of you.

James Mattis 8-1 There would have been a story about the battle of Salamis or something. That guy’s, like, obsessed with the military.

Peter Criss 300-1 Whoever keeps suggesting KISS members needs to stop it.

Topo Gigio 100-1 This is a mouse puppet from a million years ago. Maybe ten people remember who Top Gigio is. Who is in charge of adding names to this list?

The Babadook 20-1 IT IS NOT THE FUCKING BABDOOK! And definitely not at 20-1!

Boudica of the Iseni 150-1 Okay, I’m outta here.

A rather cunning bluejay 80-3 

Hello?

Where’d you go?

You can just leave?

I Am Part Of The Resistance Inside The Grateful Dead

Throughout their storied career, the Grateful Dead faced tests that no other American band had to weather.

It’s not just that bankruptcy and destitution loomed large. It’s not just that the country was divided on whether or not they sucked. Nor was it the constant in-fighting and rampant substance abuse of the bandmembers.

The dilemma is that a select number of men and women within the organization were working diligently from within to frustrate parts of their agendae and their worst inclinations.

I would know. I was one of them.

The root of the problem was the Grateful Dead’s irascibility, and belief that someone else paid for things. And the drinking and coke. The problem was a tree with many roots; let’s leave it at that. Their impulsive ways needed to be headed off at the pass, or pointed towards healthy alternatives, or fed downers, and that was out job. We were the Resistance.

When Bobby ordered a roller coaster from room service, we canceled the delivery. When Garcia set another bowling alley on fire, we re-supplied the lanes with ugly shoes. Neither of the drummers ever saw footage of Tommy Lee’s rotating kit, and that was because of us. Don’t get me wrong: there were bright spots. For example, they once played The Other One for 45 minutes. But these successes have come despite the group’s interpersonal style, which was both jejune and rococo.

Rehearsals, when they happened, veered off track as the musicians tackled one another, bought bulldozers for no reason, infested the room with ladybugs, and chased teenagers, resulting in half-learned arrangements and statements that often had to be walked back, if they were even capable of walking by that point in the rehearsal.

So there were two tracks of communication within the group: one between the boys in the band and us, and one between us and the world. If the phone rang, we answered it so Phil didn’t start screaming German expletives at a random promoter. When a letter came in, we didn’t give it to Garcia (he would lose it) or Brent (Brent didn’t know how to read). To the outside world, it seemed like we had things under control, even when in reality we were a grody collection of junkies, dickpunchers, and walking hard-ons.

To conclude: John McCain and America. God bless both of them.

Sincerely,
Sue Swanson Anonymous

 

 

Somewhere In Vancouver, On A Back Porch In July

Hey, David Lemieux. Whatcha doing?

“Enjoying the glorious Canadian summer.”

I can see that.

“Friday is Thigh Day at the Lemieux cottage.”

I can see those, too.

“We’ve been out here for a fortweek.”

Fortweek?

“I believe you Americans call them ‘months.’ Am I pronouncing that right?”

I’m ignoring your obvious bait.

“It’s blistering out here, eh? Almost 22 degrees.”

That’s really cold, Dave.

“David. And I meant Celsius.”

That’s only 71 degrees.

“You had to ask your phone, didn’t you?”

Don’t worry about that. Like I was saying: 71 is not hot at all. It’s 90 here.

“Right. But how cold does it get in the winter where you live?”

Gets down to around 71.

“There you go. It gets chilly here, so our internal thermometers are set lower. Last year in Winnipeg, it got so cold that a Bose-Einstein Condensate formed in a Tim Hortons.”

Sure. Hey, the new box set is coming out tomorrow.

“Yeah, and it’s got some of the most beautiful artwork and design we’ve ever done. I think it’s up there with the Europe ’72 trunk.”

That’s a bold claim, DL.

“I make it! I make it and I stand by it! You calling me a liar!?”

Hey, hey, hey! Settle down! What’s gotten into you?

“Ah, I’m sorry. Been drinking a bit. Had a couple bags of beer.”

I thought you kept your milk in bags.

“All Canadian fluids are bagged: milk, beer, brake fluid, all of it.”

Not true.

“Oh, yeah. Law just passed. Prime Minister DBP signed it a couple fortweeks ago.”

DBP?

“Dumb But Pretty.”

Not inaccurate. Family enjoying the cottage?

“My wife, Regina, and our children Gordie, Girl Gordie, Jean-Luc, Northstar, Fleece, and the twins Billi and Micki?”

Yeah. Your family.

“They love it. We go on nature hikes every day. All the children have fought their moose. A perfect summer.”

What about the moose?

“Each summer, every Canadian child must fight a moose. They don’t have to win, but they have to put in a good showing. You should’ve seen Fleece: he bit the sucker on its nose, wrapped his skinny legs around the antlers, and held on until the beast got tired. And then he took his knife out of his pocket and held it up to the moose’s eye. But you know what he did?”

What?

“Put the knife back in his pocket. Fleece just wanted it to know he was in charge. Hell of a boy right there.”

None of this happened.

“Both Gordies got living shit stomped out of ’em, though. But they didn’t run, so I was still proud and they won’t be cast out of society.”

Nope. Nuh-uh.

“DAD!”

“DAD!”

“Yeah, Billi? Yeah, Micki?”

“THE WIND!”

“IT”S PICKING UP!”

“Oh, that’s my cue. Got a video to make. Thanks for stopping by, eh?”

It’s usually my call when these end.

Wow, he really left.

“YOU CAN JUST LEAVE? HOW DID HE DO THAT?”

Oh, why are you here?

“How the fuck did he just walk out of the post?”

I dunno.

Don’t hunt down David Lemieux–

“I will hunt down David Lemieux and make him my sensei.”

–and make him your…dammit, John, that’s just stupid.

“All of this is stupid.”

Good point. Go get him, tiger.

A Partial Transcript Of Bob Woodward’s Phone Conversation With Donald Trump

OVAL OFFICE – AUGUST, 2018 – MORNING

“Kellyanne?”

“Here, sir.”

“Kellyanne? Where’s my Kellyanne?”

“Standing right next to you, Mr. President.”

“Kellyanne?”

“Why are you looking straight up? How could I be up…sir, I’m just going to lay my hand on your shoulder.”

“Oh, there you are. Kellyanne, we’re gonna call this Bob Woodward and I’m gonna be really, really, really tough on him. Sleazy guy, Bob Woodward, everyone says it. Was he the Jewish one?”

“No, that was Bernstein, sir.”

“The Jew rubs off on you! Look at Ivanka. She was normal! Couple years of Jarred and now she’s Jewish as hell. Maybe it happened to Woodward, we’ll never know. We could test him. Kellyanne, what’s the Jew test we use?”

RICTUS GRIN NOISE

“I have Bob Woodward on the phone for you, sir.”

“No one–and I mean no one–works those phones like the people I hire. Remember when I met you, Kellyanne? I had you show me you knew how to use the phone so well, and I was really, really impressed. Not one missed digit, not one. Obama’s people would misdial constantly. Constantly. Maybe that’s a thing with those people. I mean: they can’t swim, so who’s to say they understand phones?”

“He’s on the line, sir.”

“Woody!”

“Bob is fine, Mr. President.”

“Which one were you, The Sting or Michael Corleone?”

“Um. Are you referring to All The President’s Men, sir?”

“The documentary they made about the rats who brought down the great patriot Richard Nixon, who people were very unfair to.”

“Right, documentary. I guess I was The Sting. And the other guy was Dustin Hoffman. He didn’t play Michael Corleone.”

“Kay. Just this once. Just this once, Kay. Are you talking to me, Kay? I don’t see anyone else in here, so you must be talking to me, Kay.”

“You’re getting, like, nine movies all mixed together, sir. I’m going to turn on my tape recorder with your permission.”

“Tape recorder. I should call you Omarosa!”

“Yes, sir.”

“Because she was in here with the bugging and the taping, horrible stuff.”

“I understood the reference sir.”

“Real sleazy woman. Maybe that’s on me I thought she was a good one like Jim Brown. You ever meet Jim Brown? Such an impressive man. Mind’s always working, bing bang boom, and he always says to me, ‘Mr. Trump, thank you for all the good you do for the blacks.’ Because the blacks won’t help themselves! I give them the lowest black unemployment in 43 years, and most of them are incredibly ungrateful. But Jim Brown gives me credit. Great man. He was a running back.”

“Mr. President, did you have a specific reason in placing this call to me?”

“I hear you have a new fake book coming out about me, and I’m amazed. I say to Kellyanne, ‘Why hasn’t Bob Woodward reached out to me?’ We had such a lovely talk in Trump Tower when you were going to write about me, and I thought we had that special something. I sensed loyalty, but now I hear about this fake book and I haven’t been called.”

“I actually spoke to Kellyanne several times and requested that she ask you about a meeting.”

“Never. I never heard that.”

“I did, sir.”

“Yeah, she said something to me. But did you speak to Sean Hannity?”

“No, sir.”

“That’s the best way to get me a message. How do you write a fake book without speaking to the subject? I’m very busy, probably the hardest-working president of all time, but I remember our lovely talk in Trump Tower and I think you had a Whopper. Were you the Whopper? Whopper is okay, but they used to do something called the Whopper Junior that was maybe the greatest sandwich out of all of them. Discontinued it! You had the Whopper, right?”

“Mr. President, I would have to look at my notes to agree or disagree with that statement.”

“We could have discussed so many wonderful things, but you didn’t get to me. I didn’t hear you wanted to see me!”

“Senator Graham told me to my face that he spoke with you about meeting me.”

“Sure, Lindsey said something, but who can get past that voice of his? You talk to everyone, Bob: he’s a fairy, right? Swishy boy?”

“I do not know anything about the Senator’s private life, sir.”

“I’m just going by the vibe, but I can spot those. When I did The Apprentice, which was so successful for NBC and now they’re so jealous of me that they lie about everything, there were gays everywhere. Makeup, wardrobe, all the things they do. And each one of them would tell me, ‘Mr. Trump, no one spots gays like you.’ Gaydar. They called it gaydar. I can walk down the street, bing ding dong, pick ’em right out of the crowd.”

“Sir.”

“Name names.”

“I’m sorry, sir?”

“Who did you talk to in my office? You have to tell me who you talked to. It’s like when you ask a cop if he’s a cop. Rudy Giuliani says that’s not really the law, but he’s a goddamned idiot. Only person dumber that works for me is Sessions. I should make those two fight to see who keeps their job.”

“Yes, sir. I need you to know that I put forth maximum effort trying to get an interview with you. It’s not good, if I may say, for my business not to give you a chance to respond.”

“Well, no one ever told me anything. Lindsey said something, but nobody ever said anything. You should have talked to Kellyanne.”

“I did. Is she still there, sir?”

“Lemme check. Kellyanne? Kelly–”

SKINNY AMORAL WOMAN SNATCHING A TELEPHONE HANDSET FROM A FAT AMORAL MAN NOISE

“I’m here, Bob. Right here. How are you?”

“Wonderful.”

“Kellyanne, did you send my request for an interview to the president?”

“When did you make a–”

“We met at Occidental Grill & Seafood on January 7th, 2018. I arrived at 12:53, and you followed at 1:09. You had the Occidental Chopped Salad; I ordered the Jumbo Lump Crab Cake. We discussed, among other topics, my desire to interview the president about domestic and foreign policy. You told me that you would speak directly with the president about the matter. I recorded the conversation, and there are photos and receipts documenting the entire encounter.”

“You’re not dealing with Michael Wolff anymore, Kellyanne. I’m Bob fucking Woodward.”

“I’m putting the president back on the line.”

“Mm-hm.”

TINY FINGERS SCUTTLING OVER A TELEPHONE HANDSET NOISE

“Sean?”

“No, sir. It’s not Sean Hannity. It’s Bob Woodward.”

“It’s gonna be a fake book, Bob. We could have done something so beautiful together, but you never reached out to me and the fact is that everyone is recognizing what a great job I’m doing, probably the best ever, and over the years more people will come to see it. A lot of people feel that way, Bob.”

“Your time in office will be studied by scholars and students for a long time, sir.”

“What a lovely compliment, very kind and true. That’s what I like to hear.”

“Mm-hm.”

DIAL TONE NOISE EVEN THOUGH PHONES NO LONGER DO THAT

 

(You know I’m not making this shit up, right?)

Thoughts On Englishtown Without Research

  • Name is a lie.
  • The town is an American one.
  • Has been since 1776.
  • I mean, the town was only incorporated in 1888, but the parcel of land has been under control of American authorities since 1776.
  • Some rich drunkards wrote it down on fancy paper–All this shit is ours now, King George, you little bitch–and that was that.
  • And the name is a lie in a second way: the Dead’s Englishtown show did not take place in Englishtown.
  • Technically, Raceway Park is in Old Bridge.
  • AHHHH-hahahaha HA! Raaaaaaceway PARK!
  • That was the sped-up and demonic voice on the radio advertisements, and it was a piece of life’s soundtrack in New Jersey as Watch the tram car, pleeeeeease or Double-yoo-SEE-bee-ESS…ehhf emm
  • They mostly had drag racing, which is the most gentile way to spend time or money, and so Young TotD has never been to the site.
  • (Brother on the Dead has been to a monster truck rally. It was right after Prince died, and so the producers played Purple Rain while one of the trucks spun around the course doing what BotD described as “interpretational dance with really big tires.” That’s about the entirety of the family’s involvement with novelty motorsport.)
  • This is down in Monmouth, which is South Jersey.
  • You may in your travels come upon a quick-tongued stranger who pours honey in your ear about a mythical land called “Central Jersey.”
  • HE IS A ROGUE!
  • Do not trust that stranger, for “Central Jersey” is as real as Yoknapatawpha or Middlemarch or Little Aleppo.
  • There’s North Jersey.
  • And there’s South Jersey.
  • That’s it.
  • The dividing line is the queue for Fat Sandwiches at the Rutgers New Brunswick campus.
  • And Monmouth County is South Jersey; this means the shore (which inhabitants of lesser states might know as “the beach”), horse girls, cursed swamps, overwhelming greenery, and a couple cities where you die if you get lost.
  • TotD grew up in the other Jersey.
  • Remember the intro to The Sopranos?
  • There.
  • I grew up in the intro to The Sopranos.
  • That’s North Jersey.
  • Anyway, Raceway Park is in South Jersey and the concert promoter who owned South Jersey was named John Scher, whose voice is second only to Bill Graham on the “recognizable announcer” list.
  • Both voices are deeply Jewish.
  • If John Scher wasn’t a Jew, his voice would be racist.
  • And now you’re hearing him in your head, aren’t you?
  • Mizzus Donna Jean Got-Chow!
  • The rock and roll promoter business was just like the wrestling racket: you had a bunch of territories and each one had a king. (They were always men.)
  • Bill Graham controlled San Francisco, and Barry Fey owned Colorado, and Harvey “Mr. Fun” Weinstein ran Buffalo for a while.
  • They had control of the venues, pull with the unions, and–most importantly–the power to fuck you bloody if you encroached on their turf.
  • A manager booked a band for someone else in my city?
  • No one that motherfucker is associated with plays for me ever again.
  • And John Scher had Jersey.
  • He opened the Capitol Theatre in Passaic in ’71 and started making friends in the music business, chief among them the Dead and Bruce Springsteen.
  • Who are wonderful friends to have if you are in the music business in New Jersey.
  • John presented the Dead at Roosevelt Stadium a bunch of time and y’know what?
  • Corry over at the indispensable Lost Live Dead tells the whole story better than I do, and his version is With Research.
  • So, John Scher calls up Garcia and goes,
  • “Jerry, bubbeleh, let’s do the show in a field and a million, billion kids will come.”
  • And Garcia is like,
  • “Yeah, all right, man.”
  • It happened just like that.
  • It was a thousand degrees and the Dead hadn’t played in almost three months because Tweedle-Drum drove his Porsche off a cliff.
  • This is what it looked like:
  • See the perimeter?
  • Those are empty railroad cars in an unbroken circle that measured a certain amount of miles.
  • Anytime you had one of these mondo-sized shows, gate-crashers would show up and bust through the fence; this was fine for Woodstock, but it was 1977 and that hippie shit didn’t play in Jersey: John Scher was getting your twelve dollars.
  • Fences don’t work, even if you top ’em with barbed wire and that is not a good look for a rock show, anyway.
  • What you need to do is–God forgive me–build a wall.
  • You may make your own joke about who will pay for it.
  • The cars worked, too: they’re too sheer and vertical to climb, plus semi-employed drunks and disgraced cops were atop them waiting to fuck some teenagers up.
  • (And do you know what it took for a cop to become disgraced in 19-fucking–77? In New Jersey? I can’t even think of anything. Maybe forcing the governor to blow you at gunpoint. And you’d have to do it in public.)
  • So no one snuck in.
  • The New Riders, whom no one cared about by 1977, and the Marshall Tucker Band, whom no one cared about ever, opened.
  • And then the Dead killed it for the whole damned show.
  • Put soup on your nuts.
  • That’s not the phrase.
  • Excuse me?
  • “From soup to nuts” is what you were going for. If something maintains consistency throughout the entirety of its existence, it does so “from soup to nuts.” I have no ifea what the fuck you’re talking about.
  • PUT SOUP ON YOUR NUTS.
  • I’m just gonna let you continue.
  • There is no film or videotape of the show, which seems ludicrous given that John Scher recorded nearly every act that played for him, but the whole of the footage is some boring “setting-up” bullshit and a few soundless minutes of the performance.
  • Which is a shame, because Englishtown was the debut of Fat Phil, who was several months into the Heineken Years.
  • The show was also the near-debut of this nightmare:
  • Oh, Bobby, what is you doing?
  • The Grateful Dead is not a double-neck guitar band, Bobby.
  • You are gonna play slide on both of those necks, aren’t you?
  • Put the stunt guitar away, young man.
  • The Boys were going to play the At A Siding section of Terrapin.
  • Or maybe it’s called Alhambra.
  • Terrapin Flyer?
  • I have no idea what it’s called: the weird part of Terrapin that’s on the record but they don’t play live.
  • Tragically, but predictably, the band voted “Let’s not try so hard” and stuck to the arrangement they knew.
  • They ended up not needing the cherry on top; the show is on everyone’s Best EVAR short-list.
  • I could review it, but fuck that noise.
  • Go listen to it; you own it; hell, you might have been there.
  • But keep in mind this: there is no “Central Jersey.”

Dem Ol’ Kayfabe Blues

You’re 40.

“I’m young at heart.”

Hey, it’s Paul Scheer! I love that guy. He’s funny as hell. Why don’t you have more friends like him instead of Steve Aoki?

“There’s nothing wrong with Steve Aoki.”

Steve Aoki is human polio.

“He is not.”

If you swim in the same pool as Steve Aoki, you’re crippled for the rest of your life. Steve Aoki puts people in iron lungs.

“Well, he’s not here.”

No, Dullverine is. Jesus, Mayer, I cannot ask you again to just get a drug problem like a proper Grateful Dead.

“I like experiencing life, man.”

What you’re doing is not experiencing life. Shooting coke and running through a plate-glass window? Now that’s a life experience.

“Afraid of needles.”

Then hire a guy and do your coke Stevie Nicks-style.

“I don’t get what you’re–”

Boof that shit, bro.

“Ew.”

Mix in a little bit of oxy and call it a speedboof.

“Can I go back to the wrestling?”

Is it still going on?

You do there’s such a thing as gay porn, right?

“I do, yes.”

Just watch the real thing, man. Do these guys even fuck each other?

“Of course not.”

Wow. Y’know, I’m finding this whole spectacle rather heteronormative.

“I don’t want to have this conversation.”

John, what’s your position on the Avital Ronell scandal and the ramifications it may have for the #metoo movement?

“I have no position on whatever the hell you’re talking about.”

Are you the only famous person there?

“No way, dude. Tons of celebrities in the house.”

Like who?

“Hello.”

“I’m Taboo from the Black-Eyed Peas.”

Yes, you are.

“Red is my power color tonight.”

I’m going to talk to anyone but you.

“Have a blessed day.”

John, this is absurd.


Stop talking to Craig Finn and talk to me.

“I told you that he’s not Craig Finn.”

Make him dance. I’ll be able to tell if I see him dance.

“He’s not Craig Finn!”

“BROTHER! That there is the Craigest Finn the Hulkster’s ever seen!”

“Huh?”

“Ah, shit.”

“LOOK AT THE HULKSTER’S POTATO SALAD, LITTLE POTATO!”

“Oh, Hulk, I’m looking! I’m looking!”

“Not you, Liberace!”

“Call me Lee. Or call me Daddy. Whatever: just call me!”

“Hey! Can I talk to you over here, please?”

Me?

“Yuh-huh.”

Sure.

You look sad.

“I just want to leave my house without getting sucked into an incoherent vortex of narrational slop.”

Well, I thought you might want to meet Mean Gene Okurland.

“I kinda do.”

Go talk to him, champ.

“This doesn’t mean you won.”

Sure, buddy.

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