Thoughts On The Dead

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

Tag: blair jackson

A Review Of A Book

November 19, 2015 / / 0 Comments

This Is A Dream We All Dreamed: An Oral History of the Grateful Dead by Blair Jackson & David Gans is impressive, deep, and heavy. This book is an achievement of work and scholarship and many, many pages long.

51tu8-yBRAL
It is an attractive book: the dust jacket is a creamy and rich white, like the stationery of a law firm that does not hire Jews. Is this white innocence? Or is it a subtle play on the Eastern tradition of wearing white at a funeral. “White = Dead.” Cleverly played, J&G, but then we notice that gold is another voice in the cover’s chorus and we hearken back to the Golden Road and this book cover changes everything before I’ve even mentioned the font.

The sub-title, which is required on books lately seemingly by Congressional mandate, and the border around the picture are the gold previously mentioned, and they have been inlaid into the thick paper via some sort of mechanical process: they catch the sun and fling it around the room; meanings and perspective swirl in my vision; I am overcome by the shock of realization: truth depends on how it’s illuminated.

The picture chosen of the band shows them and their youngest, handsomest, and alive-est. Phil looks like a human middle finger: every fiber of that young man is screaming FUCK YOU to everything in sight. Pig is trying to look scary, but Billy is legitimately menacing.

Garcia’s eyebrow game is on point.

TIAADWD: AOHOTGD by BJ & DG (I’m exhausted after that and this book shall hereafter be known as Dreamed) is a hefty tome, but not preposterous. You and a dog could play fetch with the book, but it couldn’t be a very small dog. If you threw it at a person, the damage incurred would be greatly dependent on whether you hit them with the flat part, a corner, or an edge. You could probably calculate with a 1d6 roll.

The spine of the book is unremarkable. The name is printed in a way that, when displayed on a shelf, causes people to tile their heads to the right to read it. This is one of the many ways the world fucks lefties that you never realized until now.

The back features advance praise from two people who I don’t know (Wavy Gravy and Greil Marcus) and one person who has called me a genius in print and probably regretted it ever since (Nick Paumgarten). Wavy Gravy’s advance praise includes the sentence “It leaps straight out of the tree-flesh to dance in our dreams.” and I just now realized that “tree-flesh” means paper and y’know what? Still doesn’t make a lick of sense.

Greil Marcus’ praise is lovely and gets to the prosaic nonsense that is what I so much love about show business: the nuts and bolts hassles of getting to the gig on time, maaaaan, that enables the jams.

Nick Paumgarten is a man of charity and kindness whose words I devour greedily. He is a family man, and a man’s man; he has stopped traffic on more than one occasion to allow animals to cross the street safely; he smells like a good education.

Sometimes, I disagree with his choices in punctuation.

Removing the dust cover of Dreamed, we find a solid plain of deep, almost navy, blue with an embossed Flatiron building in the lower right corner. Does it represent–

Stop this.

–the forces of capitalism, or…excuse me, I’m reviewing a book.

We all know what you’re doing. You are being terrible.

I believe in through reviews.

You are literally judging a book by its cover.

…

Little bit, yeah.

David Gans–who has been a great supporter of yours–was kind enough to send you this expensive-ass book and you’re being terrible.

Little bit, yeah.

Tell the nice people about the book.

Sure. Gimme ten minutes.

…

Terrible.

Oral Exams

September 24, 2015 / / 12 Comments

Image result for oral history of
There’ve been a few worthwhile books out for the 50th Anniversary–Deal and the great So Many Roads by David Browne come to mind–and this looks to be an excellent addition to the canon. (And right in time for Christmas.)

This is All a Dream We Dreamed is available in November and can be pre-ordered from Amazon now.

I would love to give you an early review, but for some reason, my free advance copy has not arrived. Was it stolen by my neighbors, none of who speak English? Was it eaten by an alligator, who also does not speak English? Was it destroyed by Mickey, angered at being left off the cover. (Mickey also does not speak English; everything you’ve heard him say for the past 50 years has been taught to him phonetically beforehand.)

“What a book,” I might say. “Get this tome or burn eternally in a Hell of your own making,” I might also say. “Blair Jackson has two last names, which makes him untrustworthy,” I would write and then delete because it makes me sound like a crazy person.

To this end, I am starting a petition on Change.org to get me an advance copy of the book.

Stop this. Please stop this.

How else can this problem be solved but through the public shaming of acquaintances and a cyber-petition?

Asking politely?

THOSE WHO HAVE NOT PAID ME MY PROPER TRIBUTE WILL BE IDENTIFIED.

…

When people leave mean comments, you shouldn’t take it out on the rest of the readers.

He said I jumped the shark!

I know.

It was hurtful.

But it wasn’t true, so there’s that.

I haven’t jumped the shark?

No. You have to be good in the first place to jump the shark.

That makes me feel bettHEY, WAIT A MINUTE.

Meme And My Shadow

August 30, 2015 / / 23 Comments

IMG_2049
Lots of people write about the Dead, and some do wonderful work, but  how dank are their memes? Does Blair Jackson even know what a meme is? Can David Browne properly judge the dankness of said meme? David Gans is a lovely man and friend of the blog, but I’ll just come right out and say it: his memes are not dank.

Do you have any idea what you’re talking about?

Nope.

Just stealing credit for things sixteen-year-old Enthusiasts created and flinging weird insults at people who have been nothing but lovely.

Blair Jackson has not yet paid me tribute.

…

I want a divorce.

Ooh, no: we’re Catholic.

Since fucking when?

Since you asked for a divorce.

I wish you would fall down every stair in the world.

Get in line.

Got To Find A Number To Use

June 4, 2012 / / 0 Comments

8 – Hallelujah hatracks (Really?)

4 – Dead keyboard players. Not 4 keyboardists for the Dead, 4 dead keyboardists. How is it possible that the mortality rate for musicians in an improvisational country-rock outfit is higher than that of those guys who parachute into forest fires? The family crest of the Dead keyboardist read Pertransiit sine me (Go on without me).

3 – Fancy little shoe racks for TC’s fancy little ankle boots.

210,000 – Number of dollars Lenny Hart stole from the band while “managing” them.

40,000 – Number of dollars Lenny Hart stole during the meeting to try to explain the financial irregularities when someone left the door to the safe open. They were trusting men, at first, our Dead.

88 – Keys on a piano.

176 – How many Keith usually saw.

1 – Number of times a crew member looked Phil directly in the eyes. Just that once.

95 – Live albums released, 110 if you count the Digital Download series (One of which I’m listening to now, the Donna-tacular 4/30/77 at the Palladium in NYC. (Audience copy, if you’re into that sort of thing. Harumph. But, seriously, it’s an AUD: think about whether that’s the person you want to be. AUD guys are to Enthusiasts what fat guys fluent in Klingon are to Trekkies)

13 – Studio albums

2 – That were any good at all.

0 – Number of times the question, “How many fingers does the Grateful Dead have?” can be answered with a whole number.

12,000 – Amount extra versus a standard P.A. it cost to tote the Wall of Sound around. Luckily, it was worth the price because it was “the righteous thing to do, man.” That is an exact quote from Blair Jackson, who was actually talking about something else entirely, but FUCK CONTEXT.

6 – Months it took the righteous thing to do to break the band’s back.

2 – Drummers.

1 – Drummer.

2 – Drummers.

12 – Teenage male hustlers found horribly mutilated throughout the 80’s in a pattern correlating to the Dead’s tour schedule. The culprit was never found, but was described as having luxuriously thick blond hair and singing the high harmony part. The pattern stopped briefly in 1989, but picked up again–far more rapidly now–in 1990, except this time it was females and there’s a weird theory that there were two guys based round this mystery man they call Suburban Lanky. Doesn’t make any sense at all, if you asked me.

40 – Milliseconds after Bobby asked, “Tonight, what if we open…wait for it…with the encore?” that his dick got punched.

300,000  – Dollars spent by Mickey in the winter of 1977 to create his most ambitious percussive masterpiece to date. Mickey planned and rehearsed diligently. He spent over a year writing the score and hired musicians from all over the world, building them a brand-new studio. Then he locked them in that brand-new studio, set it ablaze, and recorded their dying screams. Lou Reed is quoted as saying, “Why didn’t I think of that?” The album was never released, except in Norway where it reached #31 on the Billboard-flurgen charts.

14 – Bucks for the Oven-Roasted Shrimp and Sun-Dried Tomatoes at Phil’s new hotspot, Terrapin Crossroads. Come for the food, stay for the Phil!

Grateful Read

February 9, 2012 / / 7 Comments

Used books on Amazon are, like, a buck. Figure three to ship. Four American dollars can get you a brand-new used book about, concerning, or by the Grateful Dead. These are the ones that are currently in my home. Actually, they’re not just in my home, they’re piled right in front of me, right next to the computer, which is playing the Dead (4/1/88) while I write this nonsense about the Dead. Out of the six tabs I have open, three are in some way Dead-related.

If the cries for help had previously been implicit, they are now made flesh. Yes, on one hand, it’s better than sitting there watching TV, but just barely.

Anyway, so these are the books I own (currently, but we’ll get to that) about the Dead, along with thoughts on the Dead books. (Did you see what I just did there? I worked my brand into the mix and resold it to you. I have mastered the bloggings!)

Here we go:

Long Strange Trip, by Dennis McNally. This one’s the big swingin’ dick of Dead books. The Official Saga.

Garcia by Blair Jackson. This book has sad.

Dark Star: An Oral Autobiography of Jerry Garcia by Robert Greenfield. There’s a great intro by Bobby in my edition. He almost immediately mentions his days ropin’ and a ridin’. Bobby spent a summer on a ranch once. Bobby had gotten thrown out of three boarding schools that year and his parents had had about enough of his bullshit and shipped him off to some friend of their cousin’s cow-shit factory and for 50 years, we’ve had to politely go along with the fact that Bobby actually thinks he’s a fucking cowboy.

Searching for the Sound by Phil Lesh. Very tough to make fun of this book, even though making fun of Phil is so satisfying. He comes off as a sincere Musician and Seeker, who lived through some groovy–but also very dark and sad!–times who was saved by a Waffle House waitress named Jill and is now a devoted family man. Which is, of course, the problem: Phil’s writing the book for his fucking kids. He takes the high road: the word “anal” does not appear anywhere in the book, which is odd because Phil had this thing he liked to do to groupies that was called a Phil Bomb. I want to love Phil’s book; I root for the guy. But, wow, is Scully’s book more fun. Which is sad, because Phil reaches for nobility with some rather lumpy prose while Scully is the worst scumbag that ever managed the Dead. DO YOU REALIZE HOW HIGH THAT BAR IS SET?

Living with the Dead by Rock Scully and David Dalton. In which we learn that Mountain Girl was a Mean Girl, Bobby was a cheesedick, Billy was a ephebophile, and Garcia smelled.  The existence of this noxious gossip is only tempered by the knowledge that Scully wrote this with a gun to his head, an actual thuggish man shoving a Ruger into poor Rock’s temple and demanding that he write the book.  What? He did it for the money? He supplied his friend with heroin for a decade and then wrote a book about his hygiene for a check in the mid-5 figures? There’s a Yiddish word for a guy like that: asshole.

Going Down the Road by Blair Jackson. Interview with the band, plus lots and lots of padding that no one–and I am including the author of said padding–has ever read.

Playing in the Band by David Gans and Peter Simon. Pictures and interviews. Great cover photo: they are all so greasy, unshaven, and surly-looking. They look like a gang rape about to break out. They scare me, but I like it  a little bit; they’re gonna have their way with me, but I’m gonna let them: that sort of vibe. (Did that just get weird? It got weird; I apologize.)

Skeleton Key: A Dictionary for Deadheads by David Shenk and Steve Silberman. A nifty little time capsule from 90’s Deadhead-land. A little skewed towards prep school douchebaggery, but entertaining and charming.

The American Book of the Dead: The Definitive Grateful Dead Encyclopedia by Oliver Trager. So much cool stuff in this thing. I wrote a post about it here.

Dead to the Core: An Almanack of the Grateful Dead by Eric F. Wybenga.  I’m going to write a whole post about this guy’s book, it’s so great.

The Book Full of Nonsense Sam Cutler Wrote by Sam Cutler. This is just a joke. I have read Sam Cutler’s book, and enjoyed it thoroughly without believing for one second that even a plurality of the stories aren’t complete bullshit. But I no longer own it, so looking up the title would require research. And you all know my stance on that.

The Stacks

Follow Us

Google Verification

Follow Us

Follow me on Twitter

© 2025 Thoughts On The Dead

Theme by Anders Noren — Up ↑