Thoughts On The Dead

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

Tag: brent mydland (Page 8 of 14)

Stuck In The Middle With You

January 19, 2015 / / 1 Comment

 

band 88 bw

Randomly:

  • Phil is roughly 1.29 Mickeys high.
  • Brent is straight-up jingling his keys. doing his Hanon exercises, counting his change, milking his shake, shaking his milk, putting away his toys, stroking the place that makes him a bad boy.
  • Bobby and Garcia heard you been talking shit.
  • Things Mickey does because it is his nature: drum, physically assault people, wear Dead stuff, assume superhero poses whenever a camera’s present.
  • Phil wants to show you his imported tentacle porn.
  • Or his van.
  • Or his deathnipples.
  • Billy never had these feelings before. Especially not about Mickey: Jesus, he was the man’s brother drummer! That would be like getting wood from your sister and banging her in the closet of Uncle Al’s 60th birthday party. (After Uncle Al walked in on the incestuous closet-banging, he had a massive heart attack, so the theme was quickly changed to “wake.”)
  • But there it was: that tingle in his dingle which meant Billy’s heart had a boner. And Billy’s boners weren’t like the dumb boners of old, just chucked out of the trousers in vain hopes of hitting the ground; no, Billy’s boners were like today’s smart boners: steerable, programmable, and deadly accurate; one made it down a chimney once. This boner had a name on it, and the name was Mickey.
  • Billy was desperate: perhaps Mickey had secretly been a stone-cold teen fox all this time? Like a Mrs. Doubtfire deal? Billy rejected that one on the grounds that he had seen Mickey naked 18 billion times. That’s a conservative guess.
  • A potion? Voodoo? Santeria? Any other of the ethnic magics? A curse from an ancient Eastern European, one of those places where everyone there is an 85-year-old woman? Had that goddamn Time Sheath technology spawned another zap gun that turned people gay? (Again.)
  • No matter: Billy’s hand was creeping towards Mickey’s crotch, that heaping bowl of potato salad, and creeping slowly but steadily and then Mickey…
  • “HIYA!” and smacks Billy’s hand.
  • “You were up to your no-good dickpunching ways, William.”
  • “Huh? I wasn’t…YES, I was going to punch you in the dick. Because I’m Billy and that’s hat I do to dicks. Punch them.”
  • “But I thwarted you with the Judo that America taught me while I served in her Air Forces!”
  • …
  • “Why are you talking like Superman?”
  • “It’s a photo shoot thing. I stand like this, and sometimes–“
  • “Oh, right: you get into it.”
  • “–I get into it and kinda get all Clark Kenty. What were we talking about?”
  • “I don’t remember.”
  • No joke: Garcia and Bobby are sending some folks to the hospital tonight.

Alpha

December 17, 2014 / / 0 Comments

brent jerry bobby BG headbandEveryone had fun throwing the towels until Brent got a bit out of control and chucked one at Garcia, who straight-up backhanded him.

“Why do I always end up having to teach the keyboardist lessons?” Garcia said, as he advanced on Brent’s slumped body.

Bill Graham, being a street kid, had already made himself scarce. Bobby watched and cried as Garcia undid his belt and taught his terrible lesson.

I’m going to need this to stop. Right now. Right the fuck now, please, asshole.

What? This is the usual thing: pictures and japery and magical realism with dick jokes.

Yeah, this is not that. This is you describing a beloved entertainer as asserting his dominance through sexual terrorism.

…

Have I found the line?

I believe so, yes.

79-And-A-Half Just Won't Do

November 24, 2014 / / 0 Comments

Here’s a double-play for the evening: an early Brent-era gem recommended by Ministry of Information for the Cascadia Liberation Army Mr. Completely: 11/23/79 from San Diego–specifically a set-ending beginning Music Never Stopped>Sugaree that was so powerful that it temporarily de-stabilized the Deutschmark, the Franc, and the Kroner. (TotD officially misses all the old money.)

The Perks Of Being A Keyboardist

November 16, 2014 / / 0 Comments

brent backstage

One thing I have learned from rock documentaries and concert films is that one of the sine qua nons of being a big-time rock star is the guy that points out your way with a flashlight. Going to and from the stage, the true major league rock star’s path would be illuminated.*

Usually, it would be by a teamster with a professional-grade flashlight. Sometimes, it would be one of the classic red jobs with the white switch. The Dead chose to go with one of those cheapie deals that fit in your hand like a gun and lasted four minutes tops. After that, you might as well fill a toilet paper roll full of fireflies and point it at people for all the light you were going to get.

*I mention the flashlight guy because he’s always the same: one man, one torch. True rock star afficiandos will remember that there were multiple configurations of the towel/limo process.

Sure, every band needed a towel when they came off the stage. (Elvis needed his towels onstage, hence Charlie Hodge, but I digress.) Some bands had one towel guy with a stack of the things, while others chose to combine the towel hand-off with the water disbursement. The rule of thumb for this is two people passing out stuff for every band member, or you’re going to get a pile-up coming off the stage and that’s how the guy from Styx died.

True superstars get robes, spectacular and fluffy, scads of swaddle. These robes resemble nothing other than a Four Seasons suite in clothes form. They are softer than Neil Patrick Harris at Hooters. They were so soft that you couldn’t put them in the same sentence as “Nixon” and “China.” The robes were so soft they often got mistaken for Drake.

Robes were soft. We’ll note that. Move on.

Once you have your towels/robes (and let’s be honest: if you’re getting a robe, you’re getting a towel to go with it,) then it’s time for the escape. The truly class move is lining the limos up–one per person–in the arena or stadium’s loading dock. Even though you’re inside possibly the most secure location in the country that the president isn’t currently in, large men with bristly mustaches patrol your path. They snap their gum and swivel their heads left and right. Terrorists, groupies, process servers: no one’s getting through.

“They’re in. Coming out,” on the walkie-talkies and the huge metal gate slides up; the police already have their sirens on. Before the cheers have fully dies down, you’re on the access road to the highway. 12 minutes to the hotel. If you rolled the window down, you could hear the cars honking for you. Keep it up.

Thoughts On Shirts

November 15, 2014 / / 1 Comment

Through much of the 70’s and 80’s, rock stars treated shirts as sketchy fees at a used-car lot, or a camisole on a stripper: they existed only to be taken off. The 1970’s star generally paired his skinny torso with blue jeans: if it was a summer show, that’s how 75% of the crowd would be dressed. (The other 25% were fat or women.). In the 80’s, muscles abounded: big capped shoulders tapering down into skintight leather pants.

(It should be noted, of course, that all rock stars alluded to are male. Lady rockers didn’t take off their shirts. This is partially based upon women generally not preferring to strip down in front of an audience, but mostly based on the fact that all of our opinions about women’s breasts were thought up by men and are obnoxiously stupid.)

(For instance: there is a parallel dimension just exactly the same as ours, except they consider the nipple to be the non-objectionable part of the female breast. That’s what they blur–after all, they figure, both men and women have nipples, so it can’t be the nipple that’s the salacious part. It must be the non-nipple portion since that’s only possessed by women, so on TV, all you can see is the nipple poking out like a little pink (or brown) eye from a big (or small) blurry face.)

(The Germans have a word for the part of the breast that is not the nipple: BoobenFleschen.)

Get on with it and cut the shit with the parentheses.

(One last one: there is a lady rocker that used to take off her shirt–Wendy O. Williams from The Plasmatics. She actually proves my point, as quite literally the only thing remembers about her was the shirtlessness. However, in a blow against patriarchal views on nudity, it should be noted that their music was dreadful.)

The Dead were most certainly not a bare torsoed kind of band. Where as some guitarists might respond to the heat by popping their shirts off, Garcia handled it a different way: refusing to leave his air-conditioned trailer. None of them went to the gym on a regular basis, except for Phil, who enjoyed jazzercise and stealing towels.

Brent was covered in prison tattoos.

Keith never removed his shirt (nor his scarves) for fear someone would see his belly button. It was an outie. But, more so: it was four inches long and an ashy pink; Keith couldn’t move the thing, but if you flicked it with your finger, it would go “wobbadobbadobba” and shake back and forth like one of those coiled doorstops that kids like playing with. He and Mrs. Donna Jean tried on several occasions to introduce it into a lovemaking situation; Mrs. Donna Jean was giving and game, but it was just too weird for her.

Another reason you’ll never see Garcia without a shirt: he was born without armpits. Very rare.

Six Appeal

November 14, 2014 / / 2 Comments

band 88 bw bobby rose

Breaking with tradition and in honor of our Muslim readers, who will–in accordance with the will of Allah–spend the next month in Ramada Inns all over the world, we shall go right to left.

  • Brent has been drinking.
  • Bobby’s just straight-up lost his fucking mind. Is he on The Bachelor?
  • That monogram on the satin jacket with the elastic cuffs and waist is the best part about the satin jacket, but the stripes on the elastic cuffs and waist finishes a strong second.
  • Garcia and Billy are there, but I want to talk about Bobby some more. What’s the message? Is the Dead as a whole offering their fans a rose? Does the rose symbolize something? If so, is that something the Nipples of Eternity. (Long story short: they built the Wall of Sound a companion like in Bride of Frankenstein and named it the Nipples of Eternity and the initial meeting went poorly. Much longer story short: Chernobyl was the cover story.)
  • “Hi, I’m rock and roll’s Bob Weir and I present to you a rose. Pulsing with scent and luster but covered with thorns, the rose is captivating to look at, but dangerous to touch, much like the women most of us seem to prefer.”
  • Mickey is a little teapot.

Six Part Harmony

November 13, 2014 / / 5 Comments

band 86 bw

 

From left to right, as is the custom:

  • Billy is modelling the latest from the newest name in shirts to get drunk in the afternoon in, St. Pete’s. Apprenticing under legendary clothiers to the grizzled Sammy Miami and Tampa Ray, St. Pete promises the highest quality in shirts that tell the world  “I don’t have fucks to give, but I almost surely have a knife.” Going to the races? Moving at midnight? Sitting in a folding chair in a public place randomly? St. Pete’s has what you need.
  • Garcia’s pooping. Everyone who’s spent more than ten minutes with a baby knows this face: Garcia is making a boom-boom.
  • “Hiiiii, Bobby.”
  • Mickey’s arms look like he’s in a horror movie and this is the part where he reveals he’s actually a Pod Monster From Uranus by swiveling them around and then a giant spider eats its way out of his skull. Mickey is not, however, wearing a Grateful Dead shirt. Which is suspicious.
  • “Christ, the bullshit I gotta deal with. Fuckin’ keyboardist telling me ‘I sing the high harmonies now, so it’s my turn to have you.’ Whatever the fuck that means. Is he still staring? Don’t look, Bob. Don’t–fuck, he is definitely still staring. Well, Bob: you wanted to half-ass the solo albums, so now you’re stuck with these mutants. Oh, good, guess who shit himself?”
  • Once again, Phil tried to teach the band the pleasures of a good old-fashioned barbershop quartet session, and once again no one wanted to play except Brent, whose voice was just about the opposite of barbershop quartet, plus Billy insisted on “helping,” and damn near every barbershop quartet song is hideously racist.

The Things Weir Carried

November 8, 2014 / / 3 Comments

In recent interviews, Bobby has mentioned being Garcia’s bagman–holding the Persian and giving him just the daily dose. As usual, Bobby and the rest of Big Dead are telling only a small portion of the truth: Bobby carried many things, for many people, for many different reasons.

  • Garcia’s wallet.
  • Garcia’s car keys.
  • Garcia’s trousers. (One time in Michigan.)
  • The blueprints to Front Street detailing the building’s security weaknesses. (Stolen by Bothan spies, many of whom were killed by Billy and/or the road crew.)
  • A hardcover copy of Finnegan’s Wake for Phil, who swears that he’ll actually read it this tour.
  • Mickey’s hockey bag full of raccoons. He always needed it in the middle of the night, plus: they’re raccoons. They can get out of a hockey bag in seconds and then they coordinate their attacks. They would invariably break out and head straight for Garcia’s room (Garcia and Bobby always had adjoining rooms in case they wanted to gossip) while Garcia nodded off on a smoldering bed, steal the remnants of his chicken parm sub, put out the fire (raccoons are nature’s first responders,) and scurry into the night.
  • And then Mickey would burst into the room and be all, “Garcia, what did you do with my raccoons?” as if he were somehow complicit in this, like he planned it, and it wasn’t entirely Mickey’s fault for stuffing a hockey bag full of raccoons and leaving it in a hotel room. Everything that happens as a result of that is on you, Mickey.
  • The key to Brent’s chastity belt, which he wanted Bobby to unlock “only when I been good, ‘kay, Bobby? Judge me harshly and dole out your sweet rewards and your just punishment.” Bobby took the key, backed out the room slowly, lost the key, called a locksmith, went to the hospital.
  • Billy’s briefcase containing $10,000 in Kruegerands, a forged passport, and a fake mustache. (“They’ll be looking for a guy with my mustache, but I’ll have this mustache!”) Billy called it “the football” and tried handcuffing it to Bobby a number of times, but Bobby’s quick and could easily dodge the attempts.
  • Everybody’s gum. (Bobby was actually an awful bagman w/r/t gum. Bobby’ll chew your gum right up.)
  • Two or three extra livers for Phil, plus an extra kidney for Mickey, who was both in perfect health, and hesitant to explain his need for the organ.
  • Phil made Bobby hold Ned Lagin for him one tour, but Bobby put his foot down after three or four shows. “There are some things I simply won’t cross state lines with,” and then Phil corrected Bobby’s grammar and then Bobby accused Phil of being a Prescriptivist and then Billy, who had been eating ribs and not bothering anyone, called both of them Bolsheviks, and everyone was yelling at everybody, and once again: Ned Lagin ruins everything.
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