Thoughts On The Dead

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

Tag: jerry garcia (Page 66 of 139)

Crockett & Tubby

April 21, 2015 / / 0 Comments

jerry bobby happy 89

You guys look in good spirits.

“We’re having a good time.”

“Big Guy and the Bobber.”

“What’d I tell you about that, man?”

“Not in public. Sorry, Big Guy.”

“Dammit, Bobber.”

“You did it! We’re having a good time!”

“We are, Bob.”

Garcia, you look–and don’t take offense at this–clean.

“I showered. I mean: not specifically for this, but recently enough so that I can claim to have showered.”

What’s going on behind Bobby’s head?

“The ponytail?”

Yeah.

“It’s a thing, man. Bobby really wants to be on Miami Vice. Every week, he sits there and there’s another musician guest star and Bobby loses his shit. You know: he was okay when Miles Davis and Zappa were on, but when Glenn Frey showed up, Bobby had to be restrained and drugged. Well, drugged further, I suppose.”

“Garcia, I can’t make this clearer: if Glenn Frey’s allowed on the show, then I should be allowed on the show. He’s, like, the Los Angeles version of me: an Asian person could not tell the two of us apart.”

Your Damn Dirty Paws

April 6, 2015 / / 0 Comments

IMG_1517
This is a picture made of many, many pixels: blow it up as big as you can.

You will note that Garcia is handsome and his head is diamond-shaped. Close readers of TotD will have been Baader-Meinhoffed into seeing the loosely knotted ropes and unshielded power cables that mark this as Precarious Lee’s turf.

Did you see how much Billy looks like Hercule Poirot? Or at least like James Coco playing Hercule Poirot? And, of course, Billy’s adorable finger while pretending to make a chord on Bobby’s guitar.

And then there’s Bobby, who is SCREAMING ON THE INSIDE over that filthy roustabout TOUCHING MY MOTHERFUCKING GUITAR. Bobby wants Billy’s hand on his guitar’s neck like he wants Albert DiSalvo’s hand on his actual neck.

Bobby remembered this breach for quite a while and fumed until one day, while no one was looking, he jammed one of Billy’s drumsticks up his butt, then gave it a quick wipe and replaced it with the others. Looking back soon after, Bobby recalled how much he enjoyed enbuttening the ‘stick and ran to the music store in town to pick up several for his own personal use.

Unfortunately for Bobby, as he was leaving the store with the parcel of drumsticks under his arm, he ran right into Mickey, who was coming to the store to investigate the rumor that it was selling a drum from Tierra del Fuego made from the skins of three different kinds of endangered monkeys.

When Mickey asked Bobby what the drumsticks were for, well: Bobby couldn’t just come right out and say it. His puckered chap craved the taste and feel of a Vic Firth: the butt wants what it wants.

He thought about telling Mickey that the drumsticks were for him, that he wanted to learn to play the drums, but realized that would lead to immediate drum lessons from Mickey and Mickey appointing himself his Drum Shaman and long talks with Mickey about the history of drums and different kind of drums and drums drums drums with Mickey Mickey Mickey all the damn day and Bobby did not want that, please.

He hesitated for a bit too long; Mickey accused him of buying the ‘sticks for some sort of prank; Bobby hastily agreed and thought the matter dropped when Mickey confiscated the drumsticks.

Thus began the Prank War of 1974.

Dylan And The Dead?

April 4, 2015 / / 0 Comments

dylan band bwHow drunk was Dylan for the Dylan and the Dead tour? Pants-tucked-into-boots drunk.

Also: Garcia’s potato salad; Billy’s just about done*; Phil thinks that shirt’s dressy; Mickey’s got a secret.

Brent and his beard are present.

 

* There are only two images from this shoot–this one and another one, similar except for Bobby and Garcia chatting in it–because the secret Mickey had was that he saw how bored Billy was and decided to do him (Billy) a favor and fuck the photographer up with his Air Force judo. Two pictures.

Going Once

March 10, 2015 / / 0 Comments

Jerry Garcia’s black pocket T shirt from last Grateful Dead show @ Soldier Field July 9, 1995 presented to a close personal friend after leaving the venue with certification from an irrefutable source.

Estimate: $ (PRICELESS)

And in the end, their stuff will be hacked off to shitheads with Daddy’s money. Peddled by a third-rate auction house that needs to clear all of this hippie bullshit out the warehouse to set up for the next hoarder sale.*

No British accents, thick and glossy catalogues, and oak bidding paddles for the crap Parish (this is almost certainly Parish) needs to get out of his garage before he moves to Florida. And if the auction house seems more like an auction apartment, then so be it: Christie’s and Sotheby’s passed.

But he deserved better than that description, didn’t he? Nothing has screamed “written by an intern” more: the misplaced modifier, the phrase “close personal friend,” that fucking at sign. She had a hundred of these to do before lunch or Mr. Donley would yell.

 

*Clicking on the Directions page of the Donley Auctions website will leave you with the knowledge that there is also a Donley Wild West Town, which is a fact I will allow to stand there, naked but for your judgment.

Too Many Beards

March 9, 2015 / / 0 Comments

jerry bobby 5_17_77

Garcia’s beard hated Bobby’s beard from the time it was 5 o’clock shadow. If the beards got less than five feet from one another, they would hiss and spit and pop their claws; one time Mickey’s mustache got in between them and had to be taken to the vet.

After just one tour, Bobby made a tough decision, grabbed a razor and sent his beard off to live at a farm, where it runs and plays with other beards and is best friends with a pair of muttonchops.

You Know Your Name's An Adverb?

March 7, 2015 / / 0 Comments

IMG_1441Though some supposedly reputable and well-researched Dead source (looking at you, Lost Live Dead) deny his existence, forgotten member of the road crew Precarious Lee worked with the band well into the 1980’s.

In this rare photo, we see one of Precarious’ favorite engineering solutions: unsecured wooden chocks. Screwing things in was “dark-sided” according to Precarious, plus he had “lost the battery to the drill,” and also, it “looked fine, so get off my back, man.”

In addition to the unsecured wooden chocks, we must make note of another of Precarious’ signatures: putting the biggest thing on top. Most people familiar with gravity would balk at that route, but that’s what makes him special.

(Also–and this is a fun little touch–the little speaker wobbling on top of the monitor that’s balanced on the road case? That speaker is the heaviest thing of the three. Made out of tungsten. True fact.)

Other signs that Precarious Lee has helped include the exposed wiring just draped over things and Phil’s choice of sweater.

Mortal, Wound

March 7, 2015 / / 0 Comments

IMG_1438Hey, Garcia.

“Yo.”

Can I ask you a question?

“You just did.”

You got me.

“I love that one. You were saying?”

So–and tell me if I’m out of line asking–what’s it like being dead?

“The fuck should I know?”

Because you’re dead.

“Not currently. As pictured, I’m very nearly dead, certainly, but not entirely dead.”

Okay.

“Don’t get me wrong: I am shovel-ready. But not dead.”

But all of you exist all at once.

“Oh, sure. Time beads off our skin like shit off a koala’s ass-fur–”

Poetic.

“–but you’re speaking of existence, brother. And existence precludes comprehension of non-existence. We can describe it, but never understand it. It’s like how the Pythagorean theorem proves out to infinite dimensions: there’s a shitload of hypoteni out there, but our brains can only handle the one, dig?”

Kinda.

“All consciousness is the result of a couple watts of worth of juice skipping around your brain. Death is the cessation of electrical activity. That’s it.”

That’s it? No heaven, no hell?

“Oh, plenty of those. You see ’em before you croak, though.”

Deep, man.

“Don’t mock me. You’re the one talking to the dead guy on a Saturday night.”

Touché.

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