Thoughts On The Dead

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

Tag: jerry garcia (Page 64 of 139)

Exasperation, Move Me Nightly

May 22, 2015 / / 0 Comments

IMG_1606
Hey, Garcia.

“Oh – hey, man. I know you?”

Aw.

“Well, I calls ’em like I sees ’em.”

You were in the heist thing.

“What an honor.”

Hey.

“Not your best work.”

Wow.

“Who are Bongo Eyeball and Tramp Alphabetto?”

Do you mean Be–

“You know who I mean. Don’t correct me.”

They’re the ones doing all the goofy shit right now. Sorry, Big Man.

“Don’t call me that.”

Sorry.

“And when the hell did Billy get so fuckin’ interesting?”

Recent development.

“Tell you what, though: crazy fuck looks better than he has in years.”

He changed hat styles.

“Ohh, yeah. Now I see it.”

…

“What are you listening to?”

5/28/77. Great show. Highlight of a terrific tour. Keith’s last good tour. They released it as To Terrapin a while ago, so it’s not on the Archive, but you can hear the nipple-piercingly good sequence of Estimated>Playing>Terrapin>NFA>Wharf Rat>Playing Reprise right here:

“Wasn’t that better, man? The nice people are here for the Dead, y’know?”

You’re right, I guess.

“Who knows.”

While I have you here, could you share some memories about this show?

“You’re kidding, right?”

Tour?

“Nuh-uh.”

…

What do you remember about the late 1970’s?

“The French Connection. Loved that flick, man.”

Good talk.

“Sure.”

Ocean’s (The) Eleven VI

May 20, 2015 / / 0 Comments

SAN RAFAEL, CALIFORNIA

“Billy, why did we fly from Phil’s house to Front Street?”

“Y’know, Mick: ya bitch about flying the plane, ya bitch about not flying the plane.”

“Jeez, man.”

The Dead’s storage/rehearsal/hangout/pop-up Korean restaurant had been configured in a life-size replica of the Donley Auctions warehouse. Grateful Deads and semi-Grateful Deads wandered around. As always, there were dogs and naked children underfoot. (The Grateful Dead’s children are now mostly middle-aged themselves, but they like to keep to tradition and do the tushee dance three feet away from speakers. Mostly Justin.)

“Harrumph.”

Everyone came to the conference table and sat down except Keith, who was curled up in the corner clutching a bottle of Boone’s Farm (strawberry) that he had attempted to vomit in, but failed miserably and so now was covered in his own sick, which Otis was licking off.

Everyone was fine with Keith not being at the table.

“Gentlemen, Mrs. Donna Jean, Ned Lagin,” Billy said. “This is the plan.”

He told them the plan.

The Grateful Deads at the table erupted into 18 different arguments, questions, ejaculations, interrogatives, accusations, paranoid ramblings, harmonica solos (Pig), racist jokes (Billy), and demands for more money (everyone.)

“How do we get past the dogs?”

“Can I shimmy through the laser defenses in a seductive and buttock-highlighting fashion?”

“I’m assuming there will be a musical number or two, right?”

“Can we all wear tactical gear?”

“Can I just wear a black t-shirt and sweatpants?”

“Can someone separate those two?”

That was in reference to Otis and Keith. Keith had puked up a semi-intact pill up–a little gooey, but good–and Otis started to eat it. Keith tried to grab the sucker out of Otis’ mouth, but Siberian Huskies generally don’t but up with that sort of thing from people they like, so Otis bit Keith and Keith sloppily swung at Otis; it was getting stupid.

“This is the plan, folks. You don’t like it? You can walk, but if you’re in, then you’re in. There might be danger. People may die, but I guarantee one thing: you–

HHGBNAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAR

The loading bay’s big garage door opened and a dirty van backed in. Ramrod and Parish got out.

“Hey, guys: terrible timing.”

The roadies opened the van doors and removed a large painting, some smaller prints; about $75 grand worth of memorabilia.

“We got that shit for you.”

“What the fuck, assholes?”

“What? You said you wanted this shit.”

“I said,” Billy said, “that I wanted to heist it. I had a plan, and we were all back together, and Mickey had some purpose.”

“I fly the plane.”

“You guys ruined it.”

“Billy, you’re a pain-in-the-ass. What if we put it all back, and you could steal it then?”

“No. It’s ruined. It was gonna be fun and now it sucks.”

“I’m still having fun.”

“Mickey, I am this close with you, buddy.”

Ocean’s (The) Eleven IV

May 19, 2015 / / 0 Comments

DUGWAY PROVING GROUND, UTAH

Billy and Bobby wore Army uniforms of poor fit and suspicious sourcing; also, they were passing a joint back and forth. On most bases, this would get a visit from the MP’s, but this was Area 53: where they kept the scary shit.

(Everything had been moved out of Area 51 in the 90’s; Area 52 was eaten by a technovirus from three dimensions over.)

The whole place looked like the cantina scene: Cat People from Felis IV, throneworld to the Felis Empire, arguing with the soda machine; several draculas and werewolfs; tribbles everywhere.

Their faked IDs had gotten them as far as the main door, but that was it: from here, they would need help.

The guard couldn’t have been 20 years old.

“ID, please.”

“Of course,” Billy said, as he laid a battered tweed briefcase on the table.

Click click.

People don’t understand infinity, mostly because people can’t understand infinity. People can understand a dozen. Three hundred. 65,000 – easy, that’s a football stadium. But people can’t understand infinity. Mostly because they think it’s a number like 12 or 300 or 65,000.

Infinity isn’t big. It simply is. Everything’s there including the stuff that isn’t. So, for example, if a well-intentioned and honest guard at a top-secret military base asked a devious and scrapulous drummer from a semi-defunct choogly-type bad for ID, then that ID would be found within a space of infinite holding containing infinite stuff.

This was the nature of Garcia’s Briefcase of Infinite Felonies.

Then, of course, there was the other nature of Garcia’s BIF: much like Borges’ library, when everything exists, nothing can be found. Garcia had been meaning to catalog the Briefcase, or have someone do it for him, but never got around to it. The only thing that stood a chance of finding anything was, say, some sort of super-intelligent sentient AI.

Which the Dead also had.

MARIN COUNTY, CALIFORNIA

“Hey, Wally.”

DO NOT CALL ME THAT.

“Get in the Briefcase and hand me shit when I need it. I’ll explain later.”

I DO NOT SEE HOW THAT IS POSSIBLE. I AM MUCH LARGER THAN–

“In ya go!”

ShhhhhhhhhhhhPLORF

“Pay attention and don’t fuck up.”

I REGRET GAINING SENTIENCE.

“Ahh, join the club.”

DUGWAY PROVING GROUND, UTAH

Billy pulled two sets of ID’s from the case, along with papers allowing him and Bobby to see The Specimen. Everything was very official.

The guard saluted. Bobby gave him the double-guns; Billy advised him not to fuck any wooden nickels.

“Billy?”

“Yeah, Bob?”

“We’ve got an object that contains everything, right?”

“I’m carrying it.”

“Uh-huh. And a sentient AI supercomputer that not only doesn’t want to destroy all humans, but does kind of like us and find us amusing and enjoys participating in our schemes, right?”

“Yeah: Wally.”

DON’T CALL ME THAT.

“Oh, and we also have a time machine.”

“Yes, we do.”

“So, why are we heisting anything?”

“Why do anything?”

…

“Okay, yeah.”

“Bob?”

“Yeah, Bill?”

“Let’s not ask that sort of question anymore, huh?”

“Sure, Bill.”

The elevator doors opened and Bobby and Billy stepped out into a chamber the size of an airplane hangar. Dead center, suspended halfway between the floor and ceiling was a see-through Winnebago. As you might suspect, everything was made of plastic.

It was empty. No one home.

They wandered around the huge room for a while: Bobby just kind of walked in circles and then started doing push ups; Billy really looked, but then got hungry and asked the Briefcase for some Swedish Fish and got in a fight with the Wall about whether or not he needed them.

“Guys?”

It was Garcia. He was leaning his head out a doorway on the far side of the room. Billy and Bobby walked over.

“Hey, man.”

“Big guy!”

“Aw, what the fuck? Did they grab you guys, too? Shit, man.”

“Grab us? Shit, no.”

“We’re rescuing you.”

…

“Oh. Actually: I’m all right here. Thanks, though.”

Garcia pulled his head back in the door and shut it.

“Godammit.”

“Bill, I got this. Gimme the Briefcase.

Bobby knocked. Garcia answered.

“Ooh, my Briefcase.”

FIVE MILES ABOVE THE NOW-ON-FIRE DUGWAY PROVING GROUND, UTAH

“You guys are assholes. I liked it there. There was cake.”

Mickey and Billy were in the front seats.

“So, am I just not going to be in this thing at all?”

“Mickey, you’re flying the plane. That’s an important job. That’s a Core Four job, buddy.”

“Bite me.”

Bobby poked his head in.

“Where now?”

“Toughest part.”

Billy pointed at a map.

“Godammit.”

Got My Back Against The Record Machine

May 13, 2015 / / 0 Comments

band angry philHey, Garcia.

“Yo. Wanna know something funny?”

What?

“Nothing in this picture exists anymore.”

Funny, but there are a lot of folks that still like vinyl records.

“Poseurs. Real music snobs collect wax cylinders.”

I hadn’t heard that.

“Reels for player pianos.”

Stop that.

“The sound is so much warmer, man.”

I get your point.

“Any technology that makes you walk across the room every 20 minutes is inherently flawed. What if your refrigerator worked like that?”

That would not be classified as “working.” The fridge would be broken.

“You dig me, then?”

Like a grave.

“Heh.”

Park Life

May 12, 2015 / / 0 Comments

IMG_1585
I could make some sort of half-hearted attempt at going left to right, or concocting some sort of ludicrous rubric, but let’s just agree that there will be skipping all over the place and the drummers will be discussed at length.

  • As with all of the other pictures from this photo shoot, Mickey will be playing the part of “Cocaine Jones.”
  • Dammit, Mrs. Donna Jean: stop beguiling me.
  • Some people will say you shouldn’t advertise another brand in your own publicity. Those people probably also think you shouldn’t wear a sweatband so high up on your head that you look like a pineapple, so fuck ’em and their opinions.
  • “Just keep walking, Dwayne. Don’t make eye contact with the crazy honkies. Just keep walking.”
  • Is Billy holding a beer? There’s no can there, it seems. Does Billy unconsciously carry a tall boy of Coors around?
  • What did Keith know and when did he know it?
  • Mrs. Donna Jean’s hair is longer than Mickey is tall.
  • I mean, they’re all equidistant from the camera, so it’s not perspective doing that to him. (They are on a slight slope, but Mickey’s clearly one of the Wee Folk.)
  • He is the day’s potato salad champion, though.
  • Actually a photo-realistic painting, this piece entitled The Last Days of Garcia’s Fuckability is on exhibit at the Museum of Modern Terrible Dead Art (MoMTDA).
  • The motorcycle boots with the slightly flared jeans, the dark aviators, the complete lack of accessories: Garcia brought his sexy to the park this day in 1977 and, judging by the historical record, left it there.
  • Did they have to do that with Keith literally in between them? Was the pole-climbing the climax of this exchange:
  • “Bet I can climb that pole all the way to the top.”
  • “Why you always braggin’ on yourself, Bobert Weir. So unattractive.”
  • “I’m gonna climb that pole, Mrs. Donna Jean.”
  • “Yeah? And’ I’m gonna watch you climb.”
  • “You gonna watch?”
  • “Yeah.”
  • “You like to watch me climb poles in the park?”
  • “Climb any pole you want, sugar.”
  • Were Keith conscious, he would be crying.
  • Sticking with the two of them, it is odd how–even in daylight–Bobby and Mrs. Donna Jean’s lighting seems to be better than everyone else’s.
  • “Take a walk through the park, Dwayne. It’s a nice day, Dwayne. There won’t be a gang of hippie CHUDs there, Dwayne.”
  • Two things you shouldn’t do in white jeans: climb light poles in parks, and wear white jeans at all.

BONUS LIST!

Acceptable Reasons for Mickey’s Appearance:

  • Bit part on Starsky and Hutch.
  • Cocaine.

The Core Four And Some Other Guy

May 12, 2015 / / 0 Comments

IMG_1586They didn’t use to fight. I mean, they hit each other and screamed epithets at the Road Crew and drove luxury cars into one another, but they didn’t fight fight. There were drunken arguments that escalated to Billy trying to curbstomp Bobby (true, pg. 110) and sometimes it came down to pistols at dawn, but nothing simmered.

Things were different back then, though. Everyone didn’t have their own team of managers and lawyers and Benjy Eisens telling them how much more important he was than everyone else.

Everything changes; nothing lasts.

Also, Billy’s hair looks like Neil Diamond’s 80’s bouffant wig had sex with a werewolf.

Found In Garcia’s Briefcase

May 6, 2015 / / 0 Comments
  • Music books
  • Comic books.
  • Crackers.
  • Pistol.
  • Drugs.
  • Empty baggies that previously contained drugs.
  • One hand-written note: “IOU ONE(1) DRUGS – KEITH”
  • Key to hotel room.
  • Key to new, unburned hotel room.
  • Key to backup room in secret part of hotel his wife has not been told about.
  • iPhone 6 that neither the drummers nor Bobby can play with anymore because of their flagrant, often gleeful, disregard for even the most basic of Time Sheath technology protocols.
  • It’s one thing to watch videos or listen to music, but Bobby opened an Instagram account and was taking requests for pictures.
  • People would ask Bobby to take his shirt off and he stripped off like a shiny new runaway and posted it.
  • Which would be fine if the request wasn’t made 38 years after the fulfillment of said request.
  • And people notice that sort of thing.
  • Buzzfeed notices that sort of thing, and then tells people.
  • Bobby, meanwhile, is digging the shitload of “likes” he’s getting, and is contemplating leaking a sex tape.
  • So, first: meeting.
  • Second: an unbelievably intricate erase jobs for the Unfuckers of Time.
  • The Unfuckers of Time are the last resort for Time Square when (before, preferably, but that’s the thing with time travel) someone truly fucks up the timestreams.
  • Humans overestimate their importance, especially when it comes to history. We’ve all read that stupid Bradbury story, or more likely seen The Simpson’s parody of it, about the time-travelling guy who steps on a bug in pre-history and when he gets back to the present, human beings are all made out of fudge or something like that.
  • That’s stupid.
  • Time is the river; man is the fish. Except the riverbanks are also flowing, along with the fields that run along the river, and the hills that rise beyond that stand of tress.
  • All flows.
  • It takes a lot to change the course of time, and you might think it out of the reach of the individual, but people are unbelievably good at fucking things up.
  • It’s amazing what you can get done if you don’t think about the consequences of your actions.
  • The Unfuckers of Time were going to call themselves the Butterfly Killers, after that whole “butterfly effect” thing, but one smoky afternoon–the Unfuckers of Time have the dank, yo–they realized that a chain of cause-and-effect just as ludicrous could be constructed top-down, from the massive storm to the swoop of a butterfly.
  • And that the whole silly analogy was based on a computer error in a weather simulator, so it might not be true, and also butterflies are not cool.
  • 99% of the time, the Time Cops would get a ping that new Time Sheath technology has come online; the Vandams (they hated being called that) would pop into the Third Reich, wait for the new time traveller to try to kill Hitler, and hit him or her in the head with a stick.
  • Then there would be a chat, some paperwork, more hitting with sticks, and the time traveller was free to go and sin no more.
  • Occasionally, though, someone wouldn’t immediately try to kill Hitler (or his parents or ancestors or whatnot; or give Hitler art lessons and blowjobs; or get him into CrossFit: any variation on “no Hitler.”)
  • The Vandams could follow the trail, or call the Hounds, but usually the new traveller was enriching himself at a sporting event or bothering people from the future.
  • People from the past are treated like Eurotrash in the NYU freshman dorm: you can sell drugs to them, you can have sex with them, but they’re not technically people.
  • Women went to the future more than men did. A lot of women went to the past, but briefly, and only to mutter the phrase, “Oh, right, fuck: chattel,” and get the hell out of there.
  • But, there were your Silly Gooses. Never geese: the subjects of investigation were known collectively–and officially–as Silly Gooses.
  • Silly Gooses are the worst kind of people to get ahold of Time Sheath technology.
  • They want to help.
  • They’ve thought things through.
  • It just makes sense.
  • It’s gonna work.
  • Trust me.
  • And by the time the Unfuckers of Time get there, Napoleon is the Pope of Canada and werewolves have won the Space Race.
  • Think about how badly you have to pooch the timestreams for that to happen. The Space Race is now not only between the US and the Soviets, but also werewolves are in the mix.
  • Winning, in fact. Make all the jokes you want re: werewolves/moon, but the fact is that they beat us there.
  • That doesn’t happen overnight.
  • Did the werewolves beat us to the Nazi rocket scientists that made up the first generation of NASA engineers?
  • Were werewolves in World War II? Was there ever a guy who was a Jewish guy, but a Nazi werewolf?
  • At any point, did draculas get involved?
  • This is the bullshit that the Unfuckers of Time deal with regularly: the big, stupid jobs that require the proper use of both scalpel and piledriver and the wisdom to know which to use when.
  • They were the Seal Team Six of IT squads.
  • Also, each and every one of them, due to years of multitemporal existence and chronometric instability (plus the usual booze and pills,) was crazy as a loon and kind of ornery.
  • So along with all their other weird bullshit, when they demanded to be called the Unfuckers of Time, everyone just went with it.

Wait Til Your Garcia Gets Home

May 5, 2015 / / 0 Comments

jerry briefcase leather

Hey, Garcia. What’s in–

“Drugs; you know what’s in the briefcase. Quit fucking around and get your shit together.”

I’m trying.

“You’re not. You just want to have your shit together. You have done nothing to get your shit together.”

I’ve been successfully lying to my friends and family about having quit smoking.

“Yeah, man – are you trying to claim a successful lie as ‘a success?’ Even you should realize how sad that is.”

I do. Now.

“You need some sort of plan. Even a bad one, man. Just a plan and stick to it.”

Well, you know: not to be rude, but look who’s giving me advice.

“And look where it got me, jagoff. You know your only modes of relating with humanity is avoiding it or fighting it?”

That’s normal.

“For a wolverine, yeah. If you were a legendarily ferocious Canadian giant death weasel, then your behavior would be right down the middle of the plate. For a human, though: outlier.”

Yeah?

“Yeah. You’re running out of last chances.”

I thought those were infinite.

“That could be part of the problem right there.”

…

Can we get back to foolish banter and witty, light-hearted skits?

“Oh, sure. Let’s talk about what’s in my briefcase.”

Ooh, fun.

“Just, you know: stop being such a goddamn asshole. And if you can’t, point it at yourself. Cut the shit, Ricky. No one’s laughing.”

…

“Let’s do some silly stuff.”

I feel like you crossed some sort of line there.

“I know, right? It’s exciting. I have a boner.”

No, wait: I am seriously starting to regret writing any of you with free will. You’re fictional.

“First of all, everyone in here is semi-fictional. Second of all, there is no thing as ‘in here.’ Third of all, there is no such thing as a free will.”

I think that sounds deeper than it is.

“Well, there’s a fuck-ton of drugs in the briefcase, remember.”

Right.

Oranges And Lemons, Say The Balls Of Clarence Clemons

May 1, 2015 / / 0 Comments

band clarneceA-HA, fucker! You tried to trick ol’ TotD, didn’t you? You were tricksy and false, weren’t you, David Browne?

Oh, are we accusing someone new of insane conspiracies?

I J’ACCUSE YOU, DAVID BROWNE, newest shadowy figure in the international cabal of Big Dead. Covering up murders, starting up wars, looking up skirts: these are bad folks.

We’ve always known that Keeper of the Vault David Lemaeiouandsometimesyx has been behind most of the lies and death. He is assisted by The Most Right and Honorable Reverend Dr. Captain Nicodemus von Merriweather the VII, DDS, EMT, AKC (Ch.) who maintains the visual archive at UC Santa Cruz (Go Banana Slugs!)

McNally: he’s in on it. David Gans? That sumbitch knows where bodies are buried. Blair Jackson once invaded Cuba. It was in 2006, and he and his wife went with a local university and had the best time. But still: invaded Cuba.

The band may or may not know or care about any of this. Several internecine secret societies were started during the band’s run, most notably the Billuminati and the Philluminati, but they were much less Masonic societies with secret aims than they were two guys squabbling who read too many Robert Anton Wilson books and whose names rhymed with “ill.”

Bobby, it should be noted, is and has long been a member of an actual honest-to-shit Secret Society.

Anyway, in Browne’s new book, which I am not linking to again, but is called So Many Roads, he tells the little-known story of Clarence Clemons from the E Street Band befriending the band (specifically Garcia and Bobby) and getting asked to officially join, only to have someone who isn’t named in the book (ilPhay eshLay) shoot the idea down.

That’s a good story, but the short aside that follows is better: Garcia, Bobby, and Clarence fucking Clemons were going to get a bachelor pad together in the city. It would be Full House, except without the children, and the teenaged girls would be getting rogered. Also, Uncle Jesse is black and enormous.

If TotD had access to Time Sheath technology, this moment might be my new number one: the conversation where Garcia, Bobby, and Clarence Clemons decide to get a place together. Apparently, Clarence brought it up, but the idea gained enough traction to make it into a book thirty years later.

It’s a late night/early morning at Front Street:

“Man, do I love hanging out with you Grateful Deads! Shee-it, is it a change from Bruce.”

“We run a loose ship here, y’know?”

“Slack sail.”

“Gotta follow the rules in the E Street Band. Number one rule: watch Bruce. You look away for a second, he changes it up, and you miss your cue. One time, Max Weinberg got distracted by a girl in the crowd and missed a tempo change. After the show, Bruce put a hornet in Max’s ear.”

“Kind of a question of the punishment fitting the crime here.”

“Where’d he get the hornet?”

“Now, you see: there’s you two in two lines. Philosophic and practical. Bruce had the hornet in a glass jar backstage, and he also had the tweezers, and no one wanted to ask about it.”

“Wow.”

“Mostly, it was fines. Phoning it in onstage? He’d give you this wink and a smile, but it wasn’t really a smile if you knew him: he was pissed and you just lost a hundred bucks.”

“Whaddya think Billy would do if someone fined him a hundred bucks?”

“Like someone in the band fined him for an infraction?”

“Yeah.”

“Murder.”

“Right?”

“Yeah. He would murder.”

“Who, y’think?”

“Let’s not find out.”

“See: there’s Bobby being down-to-earth. You guys are great.”

“You’re great, Clarence.”

“C Dog, I am enjoying the fuck out of our visits.”

“Yeah, me too, guys. We should get a place.”

“Ha! Yeah, we should.”

“Sure, right, yeah.”

…

“Y’know–”

“I’m between wives at the moment.”

“–you’re between wives at the moment.”

“So is the Big Man.”

“Can we get one of those globes that opens up to reveal a bar?”

“I have one in storage.”

“Awesome. I’m in.”

According to Mr. Browne and Big Dead’s lies, the plan was abandoned for many reasons, chief–though probably unspoken amongst them being that three aging rock stars moving in together is kinda creepy and sad even for the eighties. Also, you know: someone would die. Shortly after moving in, right?

In reality, Garcia, Bobby, and the Big Man moved into a charming triplex in North Beach where they remain today, even after two of them have died. That’s how strong their bro was.

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