Thoughts On The Dead

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

Tag: donna jean godchaux (Page 11 of 15)

Hi Phil

April 22, 2014 / / 0 Comments

bobby phil hi mom donna jerry 78

Bobby’s hair just made the Kessel Run in less than 12 parsecs and, for this evening’s performance will be played by Gary Cole

Plus, if you’ve read Phil’s book, you’ll recognize this as their SNL appearance in ’78: Phil had that “Hi Mom” shirt made up  and he was ridiculously proud of it. Sawbuck says he still has it tucked away in a closet somewhere.

And, Garcia is–as usual–totally aware of where the cameras are and which one is on and is completely playing to it; he would later declare television “jive, man” and Dan Aykroyd would agree with him.

Mrs. Donna Jean is a pirate.

Why Is This Couch So Lumpy?

April 22, 2014 / / 0 Comments

band 1977 levitting donna

From left to right:

  • Billy’s clearly mid-fart.
  • Garcia is gently cupping two imaginary sets of testicles: it was something he did that tour and you had to put up with it. On the next tour, however, he progressed to resolutely milking two imaginary wangshafts and a meeting was called.
  • Bobby is staring at you like a gold digger eying gold, or a silver miner looking at silver, or a metaphor writer getting meta.
  • Keith needs to give my Aunt Yetta her sunglasses back.
  • Holy shit, Mickey. You look like the cashier at the supermarket whose line I don’t want to be in.
  • Mrs. Donna Jean is fine of fettle; she has a well-turned calf; a dewy lip and loamy of loins. She is mysterious and smells like expensive shampoo and Seconals.
  • Phil is going at himself two-handed over there.

April Foolish Heart

March 31, 2014 / / 1 Comment

There will be no April Fool’s Days shenanigans from these bloggings, for a number of reasons. I’ve hated the semi-holiday since my childhood. When I was four or five–and I remember this clearly–my parents pulled a “prank” on by telling me that The Muppet Movie was airing that night on TV. This was, of course, before Netflix or the internet: hell, it was before VCR’s were common, so every American living room had a TV Guide sitting on the coffee table, the shows you wished to see circled in ink. “Appointment viewing” wasn’t a catch-phrase: you watched things at a certain time or not at all. Maybe you could see an episode again during the summer, but you couldn’t bet on it.

And I loved The Muppet Movie. Not so much for Kermit and Miss Piggy; as a child, I couldn’t get enough of Charles Durning, so my little-kid heart exploded with joy at the thought of spending two hours with my furry friends: Fozzie and Gonzo and the scruffy, shaggy, slightly-sad piano player Keith Brent Rowlf the Dog!

Ha-ha, my parents cried after a few minutes. What an April’s Fool you are! The Muppet Movie isn’t on, just that comedy about the Korean War! (Sitcoms were allowed to be about proxy wars between us and the Commies back then, children.)

I pitched a conniption. Partially because of the disappointment, but mostly because of how shitty the joke was. Looking back, I can at least take solace in the fact that my parents weren’t doing it at the behest of a thoroughly untalented talk-show host, but still: this was the best they could do?

Pranks are the opposite of pizza or naps or boobies: even when they’re great, they still kind of suck.

The Dead never cared much for April Fool’s Day. Once, they opened a show on each other’s instruments. Garcia and Brent sat behind the drums, Billy strapped on Phil’s bass, and Mickey sang precisely as well as you would expect him to. When Bobby needs to help you remember the lyrics, something has gone horribly wrong.

[youtube http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HRKeLuCevRI&w=560&h=315]

 

That was about it as far as Dead-related celebrations of the Feast of Fools went. Billy had been legally enjoined from pulling any pranks because they always ended up with refugee camps been set up and Doctors Without Borders being called in. Bobby pranked Keith one year by sleeping with Mrs. Donna Jean, but in all honesty, Bobby had no idea what the date was; he can’t help it if he’s lucky. People would occasionally try to prank Mickey and then Mickey would fly into a rage and break their collarbones.

The Dead didn’t care for April Fool’s Day for the same reason alcoholics stay in on New Year’s: they were Pranksters, and everybody hates a tourist.

Vast Wasted Land

March 28, 2014 / / 0 Comments

My television broke a few months ago. I had already cancelled my cable service after realizing some harsh truths. First: Comcast is evil. Not in a hyperbolic internet kind of way, but actually evil: if you close your eyes and say “Comcast” into a mirror three times, a Satanic service technician will appear behind you. Of course, he won’t appear behind you until the Monday after next sometime between noon and seven, but still: evil.

Second, the ratio of worthwhile programming to soul-deadening offal is worse than the ratio of good to bad Vince shows. The supply of creativity has remained fairly constant over the years: there’s the same amount of entertaining fare now as when your channel changer stopped at 13 and everyone had a secret way of insuring good reception, from extra-large rabbit ears to tin foil to inserting the antennae up the rectum of your friend with all the piercings.

90% of every medium is shit, but TV seems to have taken that as a dare, filing the airwaves with racist buttermongers, blotchy-skinned fat people running pawn shops, and Anthony Bourdain smoking at you while sneeringly wearing a Dead Boys t-shirt despite being 50 years old and telling you how much better food is when prepared in a country where no one has ever washed their hands.

So when the TV gave up the ghost (which reminds me: Nostradamus made a prediction about an empire falling when a critical mass was achieved of shows about liars and idiots hunting spirits, chasing ‘squatch, and talking to the departed in a grating Long Island accent) I did the righteous thing and called a local charity to come pick it up. I might have neglected to mention that it didn’t work any longer and I was using their free donation service as a garbage pick-up, but in my defense, they didn’t ask. Plus. the place is entirely staffed my recovering junkies and alcoholics; exercise is good for them.

Nice rationalization.

I’m human: it’s kind of our prime directive.

It’s just me and the computer now. Got the Netflix and the Youtube and someone (not me, your honor) keeps sneaking into my house to torrent Archer and Hannibal and Top Gear seconds after they air.

Last night, though, I checked out the newest offering from Charlie Miller’s visual counterpart, Voodoonola, whom I can only assume is from Michigan. April 27th at the Capital Theater in beautiful, downtown Passaic, NJ, from the fabled Spring ’77 tour.

[youtube http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=y9Ft4O-qlSk&w=420&h=315]

It’s a multi-camera shoot and there’s just tons of nifty shit in here. Some highlights:

  • Garcia is fantastically entertaining. His eyebrows are more expressive than Rowan Atkinson’s rubbery mug and he’s having a great time. He’s trim and bopping around the stage, making eye contact with everyone and just generally looking like he wants to be there.
  • Billy is a revelation, slamming into his kit and loosing more beats than humanly possible. Check him out on Mississippi Half-Step, but be prepared to massage your aching face after the smile fades away hours later.
  • Mrs. Donna Jean’s hair is positively Rapunzel-esque. Keith would have climbed up it later that night had he not been completely immobile, wearing a ludicrous scarf, and sporting my Great-Aunt Helen’s sunglasses.
  • And for all my fellow Enthusiasts raised thinking paradise could only be illuminated by the dashboard light, the set break feature the legendary and much-missed dulcet tones of Scott Muni.

So watch it. Or turn on your TV and check out the latest wacky misunderstanding on Two Broke Girls. (That was a bad example: that show has two undeniable reasons to tune in.)

…

Just say it.

KAT DENNINGS’ GIANT BOOBIES!

There ya go, slugger.

Terrapin Playstation

December 12, 2013 / / 0 Comments

Readers with long memories (so: not my readers) will recall The Grateful Dead Game, which I will not link to out of fear of contamination. It is feculent and shoddy. Overseen by people who called computers “the machine,” it is the worst kind of Rapping Granny.

is this music worth preserving? Should it linger? Should these songs fill the air for another ten years? Another generation?

If the answer is ‘yes’, then the music–and the story of how it was made and what kind of country it was made in–must be sold. I believe that Grateful Dead music is like a 10-inch dong: any excuse to show it to the world is fine. We need to show how grateful our dongs are for the Grateful Dead! Who’s with me?!

Buddy?

Yes, friend?

Wanna get off the barricades for just this once?

It’s just so upsetting that an organization representing a group of men (and Mrs. Donna Jean) that did its best work in 1973 is so bad with the internet.

The Dead would be a great hook for a game. Open world, GTA kinda thing. Start off selling kind burritos, doses, and tuggers out on Shakedown Street. Quests to earn points, which come as little perforated squares that assemble themselves into a sheet of Felix the Cat blotter on the bottom of the screen. Earn a full sheet and level up; each level has its own historically great blotter-paper design.

You try to stay righteous and clean–meters for each thing, and if the former drops, no one will buy from you; if the latter drops, no one will make sex on you.

So you quest for stuff like a new air filter for the van, or putting bumper stickers on cop cars without being spotted. There are mini-games of hacky-sack and devil sticks and you’re having a great time when…

FIGHT SCENE! It’s you vs. the Nitrous Mafia. Their filthy Red Sox hats pulled low over their beady eyes, they encircle you, so you….push AA BB Up Up Down Down. (Or something. I do not actually play video games anymore.) But it’s a fight anyhow.

Assuming you’ve mashed the right sequence of buttons, you stand triumphant over the goons and all the hairy, dirty Deadheads cheer you.

CUT SCENE

You are now Squatch Johnson, an actual road manager for the Grateful Dead. From the early-morning load-in, to getting the band from the hotel to the show, to carding the underage daughters of politicians and judges, it’s all up to you to make sure the show actually goes on.

Is the fire chief being a dick about the regulations because he’s angling for a bribe or because he’s a dick? Can you keep Keith out of Garcia’s briefcase? Can you keep Garcia out of Garcia’s briefcase? All up to you.

And in the version for the Wii, you can play as Billy and punch dicks with the doohickey.

 

Skull And Poses

November 15, 2013 / / 0 Comments

band 1977 mops braids

  • Keith, dude…don’t put your face on the goddamn mop. Can’t even believe I had to tell a man in his thirties that, to be honest.
  • That look Garcia’s giving Bobby’s mop? That’s the look, that’s the look of love.
  • Billy’s a fucking Tom Waits song over there.
  • The skull cradled in Mickey’s arm wasn’t a skull the morning this photo was taken: it was a man, a man with a family and a wife and a mistress and a boyfriend who just happened to order the last bear claw at the coffee shop. Mickey loves his bear claws.
  • Good evening, Mrs. Donna Jean: would you care to join me for some wine and cheese and barbiturates?
  • Seriously, Billy looks like the first chapter of Flowers for Algernon.

 

Big Sky, Dark Star

October 29, 2013 / / 0 Comments

The new Dave’s Picks, number 9 of what I hope will be an infinite series, has been announced. The Dead’s only Montana show, and it is am all-time, but perhaps underrated great: 5/14/74 in Missoula. This is in Big Sky Country, which has earned its name by having nothing in the way of an immense canopy of blue. I’ve seen pictures, and if I were there and ventured outside, I would immediately drop to the ground, clutching at shrubbery in fear of shooting upwards: falling to death in reverse, ever upwards.

Billy’s deft snare work and light hand cymbal was always what separated him from the common, thundering horde. Billy put the ‘b’ in subtle, and that was evident on the cowboy songs at this show, and they played fucking all of them. Bobby saw that sky and screamed, “Bobby the Kid RIDES tonight!” And then he leapt on the back of a hefty groupie and put his spurs (Bobby was wearing his spurs; this would be the last time it was permitted) into her sides. Except, you know: she wasn’t a horse, so she just had the wind knocked out of her and collapsed. Bobby skinned his knee.

And listen to 3.18 into the Weather Report Suite, when Garcia’s guitar chokes back a tear…

The PITB (I always hated that shorthand: my brain insists on pronouncing it like a Bronx Cheer) from Montana is a masterpiece, with a the band stretching out for hours in between Mrs. Donna Jean’s wails. Keith stays on the down-and-dirty Rhodes piano and Bobby plays flamenco flourishes until they completely whiff on the transition back into the song, each of them stuttering and deferring to the others, like Englishmen arriving at a door simultaneously.

The Dark Star is a ’74 Dark Star, and if you don’t know what that means, then I hope Billy punch your mother right in her dick.

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