Tag: benjy eisen (Page 6 of 7)

Well, Enthusiasts: with the highs come the lows; thus, TotD begins what will probably become a running feature in this next week: Who Said The Dumbest Bullshit?

First entrant up is Billboard magazine, whose article this morning contains this paragraph:

The set ended with a 17-minute “Viola Lee Blues” that segued into a deep jam accentuated by a glorious rainbow encircling the venue in the sky. Said one longtime head: “This is the band that jams with God.” Alas, it was not Mother Nature that stepped in. Rather, the production sprang for the effect, at a cost of $50,000, according to an insider.

Here’s what billboard doesn’t know: TotD has inside sources, too, and one of them provides the context of that quote:

“Benj!”

“Yeah, Billy?”

“You see that reporter over there who looks like he’d believe quite literally anything you told him?”

“Uh-huh.”

“Go tell him we control the weather.”

“Okay, Billy.”

“Good boy.”

“You smell great.”

“What?”

“Nothing.”

I mean: it doesn’t even pass the laugh test. If the Grateful Dead could control the weather, we’d all be dead; it’s that simple.

“Okay, Benjy: you can come out of the box now.”

…

“Benjy, come out of the box.”

…

“Benj?”

…

“Aw, dammit, Billy: airholes. It’s the hamster incident all over again.”

“What..? Where..?”

“Hello, Father.”

…

“Goddamit, Benjy: did you drug and hypnotize me again?”

“Not Benjy, Father.”

“Stop that. I mean: thanks for the drugging, but you know the hypnosis doesn’t work.”

“I’m the Justin now.”

“I love you, Justin.”

“Family before all.”

“Family before all.”

“Let’s go to Ireland and get gay married.”

“Do…do…do you mean it, Billy?”

…

“You a fruit?”

“For you or for everybody else?”

“What?”

“Nothing?”

…

“It’s bad enough you’re a Jew: you can’t be a fruit, too.”

“Gotcha, boss.”

“Don’t call me that.”

• No eye contact.
• Billy will not sign boobies.
• Nor tushees.
• Obviously, he will sign no ding-dongs.
• Billy will not acknowledge your vintage ’87 Spring Tour shirt you spent all afternoon deciding on.
• Billy will also not do any impersonalized inscriptions, such as “Hey,”or “Go for it!”
• If you sneeze, Billy will not say “Bless you.”
• You may not touch Billy.
• You may not appear as if you were about to touch Billy.
• If you insist on speaking, these phrases are acceptable: “Thank you, Billy,” “You’re awesome, Billy,” or “Fuck Phil.”
• Anyone who thinks they’re cute and asks to be punched in the dick will be punched in the dick.
• By Benjy.
• That’s the worst of all possible worlds.
• No unposed photography.
• No hidden-camera photography.
• No kirlian photography.
• Those massive wooden boxes with the bellows and the canvas shroud you ducked under are not allowed.
• Especially if you have the sheaf with the gunpowder on top of it to use as a flash.
• Although, that’s an awesome sound.
• fla-SHWOOMPF.
• Whatever: do not be bringing that nonsense up in here.
• No x-ray photography.
• Unless you brought enough lead aprons for everyone’s genitals.
• No holding your empty hands up to your face like you have a camera and going, “Kah-Chik, that’s a good shot! Kah-Chik, another beauty!”
• No motion pictures.
• No motion capture. Seriously, do not even try to get Billy into one of those morph suits with the ping-pong balls all over it.
• He reacts like a cat who doesn’t want to be bathed.
• No high-fashion photography.
• No trick photography.
• None of that fake-Instagram-sepia bullshit.
• No tintypes.
• No calotypes.
• No camera obscurae.

None of these rules, it should be noted, apply to Benjy Eisen. Feel free to pester him and shine bright lights in his eyes

The problem with hanging out with rock stars is that you start to think you’re one, too.

This will not end well.

Hey, Billy. What’s that?

“Dick totem. Pray to it: find me dicks, guide my hand, heal my knuckles. That sort of thing.”

Really.

“Little Native American hoo-hah, some Asian animism, and a heaping dollop of crazy.”

I believe the word you’re looking for is “syncretic.”

“Ah, hell: I just get high and dance around Fang the Dickfish. No real reason.”

I figured. How high are you guys?

“Including Fang?”

No.

“Very.”

I figured.

“This is Benjy’s first acid trip!”

With you? A middle-aged human male is taking LSD for the first time? With you? With you?

“Yeah. I’m fucking with him. Chucked a mongoose at him a while ago, then told him “Mongooses only attack snakes. Wonder why he went for you?” Then I wandered away.”

On his first acid trip?

“Heh.”

That’s going to twist him right up.

“Gotta toughen up the boy. He’s prone to hero-worship – you read the foreword to my book?”

Yeah, it’s four pages about how good you smell.

“Basically, yeah. Kid digs me.”

He’s a Billy Booster. Question.

“Yeah?”

You letting him make the business calls?

“That’s what managers do.”

I’d pay a lot of money to hear him and Peter Shapiro yelling at each other.

“It’s incomprehensible. It’s like one of those British gangster movies: you know they’re speaking English, but you can’t understand a fuckin’ thing.”

Sure.

“You can make out the occasional “fuck” or “bro,” but beyond that it’s just a lot of nasal, gravelly vowel sounds.”

I would like a recording of this.

“Oh, you would, I know: it’s great. The part you would like is the Declaration of Headiness.”

What’s that?

“At least once every phone call, one or both of them will make their Declaration of Headiness, wherein they reiterate their deep and long-lived love for the Grateful Dead. Their voices will get low and sharp-edged and they will speak slowly. It always start off with ‘Dude? Bro?’ and then there’s the Invocation of the First Show. Usually after that comes the Mentioning of Garcia.”

Well, they’re fans.

“Yeah, they love us.”

Always a good idea to let fans run the shop. You ever listen to any Tejano music?

“What?”

Nothing.

“You wanna talk to Benjy?”

No.