Musings on the Most Ridiculous Band I Can't Stop Listening To
Nothing to add to this one: just like the picture. The high angle and swatches of yellow light in the fore and back grounds give the home team a grandeur that doesn’t come across in some photos.
Also, if you wanted to snipe the Grateful Dead, this would be the angle to do it from.
“Do we have any milk crates, Parish?”
“The plastic ones?”
No, the old, heavy wooden ones prone to splintering and turning into wooden knives.”
“I could get some. Why?”
“Gonna stack ’em up.”
“You got it, Precarious.”
“And get some fireworks while you’re at the store.”
“Duh.”
This is one of the shots that got rediscovered from the very, very, very first gig (actually the afternoon of, probably) in May of ’65, whereas we are celebrating the first gig under the name The Grateful Dead today, but it’s big enough to make your wallpaper, so I thought I’d pass it along.
One Halloween when I was young, my father walked to the door at around 8:30 and shouted to the neighborhood, “That’s it! Halloween’s over! All children home now!” Now, my father may or may not have been a dick (may) but his lesson was a good one: sometimes, someone needs to step in and declare something done; TotD does so now.
The 50th Anniversary is over. No more Grateful Dead 50th Anniversary, please. I don’t care if next week is the 50th anniversary of Garcia playing an entire set out of tune or whatever: leave me out of it. Today was another in a seemingly unending string of these days; over the past year, we’ve celebrated the 50th anniversaries of:
We’ve had a lot of fun this year and, you know: you don’t need an excuse to celebrate the Dead and the wonderful music they left us, or the silly stories we tell about them.
This now concludes the scolding. See you for the 60th.
“Hey, Bob. What’s happening here?”
“Oh, hey, Jer. Nothing much. Getting ready for the show.”
“Right. What’s with the makeup?”
“Oh, this? Well, you know: it’s 1976.”
“Sure. Now that you mention it, I know it.”
“And glam, well: it’s the thing that the kids love.”
“Glam? Like T-Rex and Bowie?”
“It’s my interpretation, but: yeah, sure.”
“That would explain the platform boots.”
“Eight inches!”
“Can you walk in those things?”
“Theoretically.”
“What about in practice?”
“No.”
“Well, buddy, that’s gonna make it tough to do the show, huh?
“Precarious Lee whipped me up a harness. Attached to the rigging.”
“And you’re not afraid Billy’ll creep up there and start marionette-ing you?”
“Small price to pay for glamour, Jer. Hand me those spandex pants, please?”
…
Click
Click
KABANG
“Do you always keep a shotgun in your briefcase or did you just get lucky?”
“Weir, you listen to me: wash your face, find your tennis shoes, and put on some normal clothes. And by “normal,” I mean a too-tight Izod and short shorts. So, not normal-normal. Weir-normal.”
“Mrs. Donna Jean gets to wear makeup.”
“Hop to it, Ziggy.”
![[PDF] 1971- Bob Weir and Jerry](http://thoughtsonthedead.com/wp-content/uploads/pdf-1971-bob-weir-and-jerry.jpg)
I’ve run this picture before; it’s appropriate tonight.
“Ya gotta see it, man.”
“Bobby looks like you?”
“Same kinda gestalt: not, like, a spitting image or anything.”
“Okay. Who’s you?”
“Kid. Pretty little fucker.”
“So…he’s the Bobby?”
“No, he’s the Garcia. Well, huh: maybe he’s kinda the Bobby, too. Good point, you may have something there.”
“Drummers the same?”
“Exactly.”
“Makes sense.”
“How’s Phil?”
“Black.”
“Makes sense.”
“President’s black in 2015; why not Phil?”
“Sure.”
…
“How do I look, Jer?”
“Huh?”
“Do I get fat?”
“Brent, we’re both long dead in 2015. You will have had died in 1990; I go in ’95.”
…
“Did you not know that?”
…
“Goddamit.”
“AAAAAAAAHHHHHHHH!”
“Brent, calm down.”
“AM I DEAD?”
“Parish?”
In which Garcia shoots, Bobby hoots, and Kurt Loder sits like a little girl (and not even a tough little girl.)
Also, Kurt Loder was the rock and roll Chris Berman. Discuss.
The oceans pity the land for being small and boring, and the land fears the oceans for being so big and dynamic; where they meet, they fight.
That is why there are jellyfish.
Hey, Enthusiasts?
Wanna win the Deadhead game? Make this your desktop. It’s an enormous picture and would fit most screens.
Sure, other people have Dead wallpaper on their screens, but it’s always Baron Wolman’s shots or the Boys (and Mrs. Donna Jean) bundled up and free of charge at Lindley. This desktop, however, proves your cred.
You gotta really like the Dead to look at this picture every day. I don’t think the family members of the people in the shot want to look at this every day: fat Phil, sad Garcia; then you look at the rainbow behind them.
Is that a child’s skeleton? The one on the right, that’s tiny and cute? What the fuck, Grateful Dead? I’m getting to the bottom of this.
Precarious Lee?
“Yo.”
Did you have anything to do with the backdrop?
“Painted the fucker myself.”
Of course you did. Is that just a bad job with perspective or–
“Dead kid.”
–is that a…dammit, man: why?
“You know, man: pot of gold, rainbow, dead kid.”
That third thing doesn’t belong.
“Might’ve been a little fucked up at the time.”
Well, yeah.
“Looking at this photograph, I do have regrets.”
Good.
“I wish there had been more road cases to leave strewn around the stage.”
Nope.
“Y’got that big one by Brent, but there’s so much more space to fill.”
The band’s filling it.
“Hey, man: band does their job; road crew does ours.”
That sounds like an efficient way to run an organization.
“Haven’t missed a show yet.”
Give ya that.
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