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

Tag: donna jean godchaux (Page 9 of 15)

Stairway To Seven

band 77 steps bw

Clockwise from top:

  • This version of Billy–the Dickpunching Caballero– was short-packed and snatched up by collectors upon hitting the shelves.
  • Mrs. Donna Jean is thrilled to be there, but has to get back to gym class.
  • Mickey is the living embodiment of cocaine. Like, if there were a God of Cocaine–like Zeus or Ganesha or whomever–and he had to interact with humans, that is the form he would assume: cocky, wearing a ridiculous hat, and bearing the shirt of the band he’s in.
  • Back to Billy for a sec: he’s farting on Mrs. Donna Jean, isn’t he?
  • Luckily for all, Keith happened to have been in the park when everyone else showed up for the photo shoot. He had been chasing squirrels, and being chased by squirrels, and pressed into service in the squirrel navy fighting off the mighty war machine of the King of the Geese, Featherbeak the Younger. Having a human on their side decisively shifted the balance of power to the squirrels and it looked like victory would be theirs, but to an average citizen–or a cop–it just looked like Keith was half-naked in the pond strangling geese and there were children there, man. He tried to explain, but then everybody showed up and Rock gave the cop a twenty and no one mentioned the incident and someone found Keith new pants.
  • What the fuck, Mushroom Head?
  • Nice nips, Bobby.
  • No joke: Keith berseker-murdered at least eight geese; the chilling thing is that his heart beat never went above 70. In fact, his heart stopped twice that afternoon, but that’s completely unrelated to the goose massacre.
  • Jesus, Garcia.

Sigil Vigil

donna 9:26:73 upshot

“Do not fear the Abandoned Gods: take up their study and lead yourself to the fire of knowledge. See it glow in Abbadon the Unforgiving, feel it burn from Stac’yy the Supercute (but Terrible.)

“Once is a coincidence, twice a pattern. Three times is coordinated action, but to what end?

“You’re so clever for asking. Clever people always have happy endings, sugar.

“My part in Playing was never just a melismatic wail for effect.

“It was an invocation of containment.”

Hair-archy

bobby donna jerry 78 wold

Garcia was not usually a jealous man: he always had nice things, or no things, to say about his rivals and contemporaries. He was not vain, nor did he generally covet others’ women.

But he always wanted straight hair. How he envied Mrs. Donna Jean’s rapunzelian locks, geometry-class straight and swaying in time with her white-girl easy skank. To and fro it went; Garcia’s big bush just sat there. It would wiggle a little. Vibrate along with speakers.

It was coarse and low-class hair, Garcia cried at night. Dammit, it was Dollar Store hair, two-week extension on the utility bills hair! His hair had no privilege: it had clawed and scraped its way up the dark and bloody streets of the Tenderloin, down the hungry back alleys of the Wharf. His hair could never be presented to society.

Someone called Garcia’s hair “nappy” once, and Garcia hit him, meaning Garcia had Parish hit him.

Sometimes late at night in a hotel room still smoldering, Garcia would tie a white towel around his head and fend off imaginary suitors for his blonde charms.

1977: The Year Punk Broke

The Grateful Dead

From left to right, as usual:

  • Keith’s hair and head are as wide as one another.
  • Billy is…Jesus, Billy. You don’t always have to make my point for me.
  • Garcia is not wearing his glasses and has no idea what’s going on. Immediately before this photo was taken, he tried to cop from a fern, and then burnt down a stranger’s hotel room. (It was not a stranger: it was Phil.)
  • Mickey has been drafted by the Pittsburgh Penguins.
  • Look at Mrs. Donna Jean: she’s clearly being held hostage here. If this were a video, you’d see her blinking out “COME GET ME” in Morse code.
  • Bobby looks like when Superman first comes out of the phone booth.
  • The only thing Phil was able to save from his hotel room was that tie and he is not happy about it.

There Wolf

bobby glasses mickey

For most of the Spring Tour in ’78, Bobby insisted he had become a Were-Weir. That is, every full moon, he would “Weir out” and be SOOO MUCH MORE BOBBY and they should probably lock him up for everyone’s safety. Grrrrrr. Everyone ignored him except Mrs. Donna Jean, who porked him.

Also, getting him out of his room on those couple days was tedious:

“Bobby?”

“Bobby?”

“Say it like I told you.”

“Bobby.”

“SAY IT!”

“Where Were-Weir?”

“Here!”

It was enough to drive a man to drink.

Me And The Boys’ll Be Playing All Night

bobby phil donna sitting

Hey, Mrs. Donna Jean. Whatcha doing?

“Just settin’ a spell while them silly ol’ boys noodle and doodle they lives away. Havin’ myself a sip o’ tea.”

Um. Okay.

“Maybe gon’ smoke me one o’ dem funny cigarettes, hoo boy.”

I am positive you are not from Louis–

“Dis just like t’porch we had back on the bayou-prairie-farm d’warm wind blowing your chiffon all over da place, roll tide and praisin’ dat Jesus.”

Ok, this is just offensive now. Plus there is no such place as a–

“My momma would set down ness t’me and I’d say, ‘Mrs. Momma Jean Godchaux–”

THAT WAS NOT HER NAME.

“–will I ever find a man to love? And will he play piano and like narcotics and scarves? Will he be lumpy?’ and she’d answer back, ‘The lumpiest! For you, sweet child, only the very lumpiest will do!’

None of this happened.

“Stop being a pedant, sugar: you’re the one having a conversation with a photograph from the previous century.”

Your hair looks wonderful.

“Bless your heart.”

PLUS: Bobby’s everything.

« Older posts Newer posts »