Thoughts On The Dead

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

Tag: mickey hart (Page 24 of 71)

It’s All Connected, Man

May 28, 2016 / / 5 Comments

As TotD revealed exclusively yesterday, the Martin Scorsese-produced documentary about the Dead has had its scope significantly expanded to become the Grateful Dead Cinematic Universe (GDCU), with a strategically-planned docket of solo films, team-ups, and spin-offs scheduled from now until the end of time.

After speaking with director Amir Bar-Lev, I received an anonymous text that said “Hey, this is Amir Bar-Lev.” I told him he was terrible at being sneaky, and then he sent me a picture of Billy’s dick and the texts stopped. After the precise amount of time it would take to set up a number to text anonymously from, I got an anonymous text. “Hey, this is NOT Amir Bar-Lev,” and I just went with it to save time. Then he asked me to call him Deep Throat, but I would not go with that, even to save time. “Okay, call me Margaret, because I’m leaky.”

And I asked him to stop texting me, but he sent me the official schedule for the GDCU and was all “You didn’t hear this from me,” and sent me more dick pics, at least one of which was not Billy’s. I asked him if he would stop contacting me if I leaked the information, and then he sent me a selfie, and then a text that read, “Shit. That’s not me lol,” and at that point I put the phone in the other room.

It’s still a good scoop, so here we go: The Official Schedule for the Grateful Dead Cinematic Universe.

2017

GARCIA: THE FIRST GRATEFUL DEAD Directed by the Russo Brothers, and starring T.J. Miller as Garcia (with abs), the film sets up the other films for around two hours. It’s set during Garcia’s five months in the Army, where his drill sergeant  (Javier Bardem) is secretly a monster or a demon or some bullshit. Bardem hopes to get hold of one of the Six Cumberlands of Power, which will tie the GDCU together.

PIGPEN: THE OTHER FIRST GRATEFUL DEAD Ang Lee will helm this fractured, angular take on a complicated man. Keenan Thompson stars, and the Big Bad of the GDCU is introduced in the post-credits scene: it is Sean Penn sitting in a space-chair, and when we figure out what to do with him, you’ll be the first to know. Pig’s girlfriend will be played by Lupita Nyong’o. In the after-credits scene, Bill Graham appears to invite Pigpen to join the Grateful Dead Initiative.

2018

BOBBY: BOBBY Instead of a straight-forward tale, Nicolas Winding Refn planned a lyrical and evocative poem about Bobby’s summer on the ranch; he even had the synthesizer score written. Then Bobby insisted on playing himself and now it’s just three hours of a 68-year-old guy on a horse. (The horse is motion-capture, and played by Andy Serkis.) The second Cumberland of Power is involved, somehow.

PHIL & BILLY: COURT IN THE STREET Phil is played by Donnie Yen; Billy is played by Tony Jaa; the two of them kick the living shit out of each other for an hour. Then, Ned Lagin (The Rock) shows up and the two of them team up to fight him for control of the fourth Cumberland of Power. (The third Cumberland was claimed by the road crew on the Netflix spin-off show Front Street Blues.)

2019, 2020, 2021

Cancelled due to war.

2022

MICKEY: HART OF THE GALAXY Mickey, played by Miles Teller, is some sort of space pirate. Billy appears, now played by Shailene Woodley, as Flapjack the Space Fucker. (Billy was allowed to write his own part.) Keith and Mrs. Donna Jean are introduced, setting up their solo film.

KEITH & MRS. DONNA JEAN: WAR IN THE PARKING LOT Keith is played by Donnie Yen; Mrs. Donna Jean is played by Tony Jaa; the two of them kick the shit out of each other for an hour. Then, the second set of an ’88.

2023

GRATEFUL DEAD: WAR FOR THE HEAVENS Set in 1974, the band unites for the first time (somehow) to defeat a sentient and power-mad Wall of Sound. (The Wall is motion-capture, and played by Andy Serkis.) The Grateful Dead save the world…but at what cost? The entire movie is the post-credits scene.

BOBBY II: BOBBIER This solo film is about a solo album: none of the other Grateful Deads appear, as Bobby is instead surrounded by the Midnites (John Cena, Quvenzhané Wallis, Fred Ward in an alien costume). The fallout from the Wall’s rampage–the Reno Incident–have had sever repercussions and now the Dead is feared and loathed. Bobby just wants to play music and be treated like a rock star, so he puts together the Midnites. At their first show, though, Bobby uncovers a vast conspiracy that could rip the GDCU to shreds! Aliens? Nazis? Fuck it: alien Nazis.

2024

GARCIA 2: JERRY BAND Garcia, too, is on the run: he joins John Kahn (Adrien Brody) and a talking dog named Pumpkin. (The dog is motion-capture, and played by Andy Serkis.) Billy is along for the ride, now played by Sam Rockwell. They have been chased to China, where they have fun adventures and note what progress China has made, and how many strides the Party has taken; Garcia receives a sidekick, Choog Li (John Cho), and the production receives a billion potential viewers.

TBA

2025

UNTITLED BRENT MOVIE

Head Code

May 22, 2016 / / 12 Comments

Once again, Enthusiasts, we are in Mr. Completely’s debt: a comment he just left has inspired me and I hope that my inspiration shall move us all…

You’re a monster.

…brightly.

Ugh.

No conversation about tapes can be without a sidebar on Dead Shorthand. All sub-cultures have jargon, a shared and allusive pidgin that evolves memetically; it serves two purposes: first, any group of humans with a shared and specific intent has need for different language than the masses, as concepts that may not even exist outside the group are vitally important within; second, jargon serves as a shibboleth and identifier of group membership far better than any uniform ever could.

There was the common tongue of the lot, and certainly one backstage, but the one most Deadheads are familiar with is Dead Shorthand: the tape code. At first an impenetrable glop, like Polish had sex with a broken typewriter, the cypher quickly opened itself and one could get down to what’s important: nitpicking details and arguing about ephemera. Did the transition arrow look like “->” or did it look like “>”? Was it GDTR or GDTRFB? Playin or PITB? (The answers: no dash, GDTRFB, and Playin. My brain reads PITB as a Bronx cheer, and it makes the experience less pleasant than it could be. I do not need Dead songs giving me raspberries.)

But as I said, Dead Shorthand is at first a complete hash, and perhaps there are younger readers or those new to the Dead who may still have problems with the initialisms. (The Dead’s abbreviations are not acronyms, but initialisms. An acronym makes a new word out of the first letters of other words (NASA); an initialism just pronounces the first letters (IRS).)

In an effort to lend a hand to those joining this ship of fools, TotD now presents a Guide To Dead Shorthand:

BIODTL Beat it on Down the Line.

NFA Not Fade Away

KHPOA Keith has Passed Out Again.

S>T>S>LBC Smoke>Tune>Lackluster Beatles Cover.

SIOMWTMBA Stuck Inside of Memphis with the Memphis Blues Again.

AWSTAAITBWTSTST Are We Sure that an Abbreviation is the Best Way to Shorten this Song Title?

IHDFMTWATSM If Humans Descended from Monkeys, Then why are There Still Monkees?

D Deal. (Rarely used.)

MNFW My Nipples Feel Weird.

SJW Spanish Jam Warriors. (These are people who feel that the Mind Left Body Jam is offensive to those with Dissociative Disorder.)

GDTS Grateful Dead Ticket Sales

GDTSS Grateful Dead Time-Share Sales. (This was Rakow’s idea.)

JGB Fuckin’ Jerry Band.

JGWMLDOTGDOI Japanese Guy who Makes Lego Dioramas of the Grateful Dead on Instagram.

DMF>HJ This doesn’t mean anything; don’t worry about it; move on.

TRCRTWWC The Road Crew Refuses to Work Without Cocaine.

UJB Uncle John’s Band.

BJS Big John Studd.

TMGLTMKITGROA To Make Gentle Love to Michiko Kakutani is the Greatest Review of All.

MDTH Mickey Dosed the Horses.

For Satirical Purposes Only; No Endorsement Implied

May 21, 2016 / / 0 Comments

PicsArt_1463877959163

The limited edition becomes a collector’s edition in just a few hours; there’s still time to purchase a high-quality (perhaps, let’s see, sure hope so) Wall of Sound for President ’16 shirt. A reminder: you are allowed to buy more than one. This is America, even if you’re in Canada, like the gentleman who Photoshopped this picture.

Lego ‘Land

May 21, 2016 / / 11 Comments

lego winterland

The lack of a nose isn’t funny until you put the beard on, and then it’s hilarious. Look at Lego Garcia. Look at him.

The future is turning out underwhelming, half-baked, but it allows a guy from Japan to listen to a band from San Francisco, build a diorama of them with toys from Denmark, and post it on a social media site that is also from San Francisco. So, there’s that.

Also:

lego garcia mickey

LOOK AT LEGO GARCIA.

Take Off Your Shoes, Mickey, And Take A Snapchat

May 20, 2016 / / 3 Comments

mickey snapchat

We were promised flying cars,
And robots we could fuck.
Deep-sea cities, cures for death,
And clones of fat John Kruk.

They told me there’d be jetpacks,
And peace for all mankind;
And phasers we could set to stun,
And visors for the blind.

The future seemed so close, and
It would be here any year.
But we didn’t get our sexbots; no,
We got this bullshit here

Three Men And A Bambino

May 17, 2016 / / 1 Comment

sammy hagar mickey john mayer ferrari

Young John Mayer has a nifty little car collection; it’s precisely the lineup you’d expect him to own. There’s a Ford GT with the proper racing livery, and the old Land Rover. A few Mercedes and a Porsche with tacky wheels. He’s even got a Ferrari, though it’s the 599, which is the single most boring car Ferrari ever made: the only thing exciting about them is that they occasionally burst into flames for no reason.

But even international pop icon and Instagram champion John Mayer is not allowed to own a Ferrari LaFerrari. They only made 499 of them and you weren’t even allowed to apply for one unless you already owned five Ferraris. And, you know: not used. Full-boat retail, which starts at $1.4 million before the options.

(I was thinking: what kind of options could there possibly be? You can’t really jam anything else into the cockpit of the car. Then I looked, and all I’ll say is: diamond wheels. The wheels’ finish has diamonds in it to make it shine. That’s fifty grand, which is peanuts compared to carbon fibering up the sucker. Guess how much the front end is. Just doing the front end.

…

$333 grand. I know, right? Now: people are allowed to whatever the hell they want with their money. On the other hand: in any just world, the 498* people who bought these middle-fingers-to-the-middle-class would be lined against a wall and shot.)

Sammy, who has an exceedingly cool garage with old El Caminos and Mustangs (that’s one of them on the right; I think it’s a ’67 fastback) and Lambos (that’s a Miura on the left), but the man loves him some Ferrari: he’s got a ’72 Daytona, and a 330 GT 2+2 from the Sixties, and a 400i, which is a weirdo four-seater sedan with an automatic transmission he bought when he had his kids. (Sammy is practical.)

The LaFerrari (yes, yes: the name is self-referential) is the Italian supercar company’s first attempt at a hybrid engine: it’s got one of those thingamajigs that captures energy when you brake, but despite the Prius-like features, it still does 217 mph. (According to Ferrari, and you cannot test it on your own, as there’s no place to go that fast except the Bonneville Salt Flats, and no one takes a LaFerrari to salt flats.)

It’s a technological marvel. of course, but plug-ugly from the front: it looks like a hammerhead shark whose mother drank during the pregnancy. It’s better from the side:

Image result for laferrari

It cuts a belle epoche.

If it’s your thing, it’s your thing. TotD is a traditionalist, as always, and prefers American muscle, as usual; in fact, Sammy Hagar already owned a perfect car, one that I feel tops the Ferrari’s elegant, but cold futurism any day:

sammy hagar trans am

(Fun fact: when Bobby would come over to hang out, Sammy had to hide those shorts.)

That’s a 1979 Pontiac Firebird Trans Am (on the ’78, the license plate was in the middle of the brake lights, but on the ’79, the brakes are one solid, grated strip across the whole back-end; it is much better). Usually, they look like this from the front and without Red Rockers lounging on top of them.

[PDF] 1979 Pontiac Trans Am 455

Does the LaFerrari have any chicken on it, let alone a magical and golden one? Plus, what if you buy a LaFerrari and there is a beer shortage in Atlanta, and you are in Texarkana with a shipment of Coors and you need to run interference for the truck? You’re fucked. The job is undoable in a LaFerrari.

It doesn’t end there, though: the car above is the human version. That’s the one normal people got. Sammy had this:

[PDF] Sammy Hagar's Famous 1979

I’ll take this American beauty over the Ferrari any day.

*Sammy gets a pass. I like him. When the Revolution comes, I will shelter him like Anne Frank.

Say Cheese

May 14, 2016 / / 7 Comments

deadandco kimmel group

Right off the bat: this is bullshit and it needs to stop. Are Oteil and Jeff Chimenti in the band or not? They’re not the backup singers or the horn section; they should be in the picture. Maybe–just maybe–you can not let the keyboard player in the picture, but Oteil plays bass. You need a bass player.

And interviews, too. Let Oteil and Jeff Chimenti sit in for the interviews. Now: I am not a lunatic. I am in no way suggesting that either of them be allowed to speak. But let ’em sit there. What do they do when the pictures and interviews are taking place? Because I picture them standing immediately out of frame in the shot above, pouting. Perhaps Jeff Chimenti will kick feebly at the dirt, and say, “I didn’t want to be in their stupid picture, anyway.”

Also: every time I’ve figured out whose making the funniest face, I change my mind. It’s probably Mickey, but the other two are trying their hardest.

Also also: Mickey’s cold.

Also also also: $215 grand.

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