Dire Wolfe

His name was Pigpen–it wasn’t, really; but that’s what the all the groovies and chickies called him–and he was first to be noticed. All eyes! no matter how doopy and drippy: there he was, not corpulent but solid behind a Vox organ, which is what all the garage bands–they’re called “garage bands” now in homage to their place of birth, even if it’s not true–are playing because it is far less dear than a Hammond or (God forbid) a piano. (“Can you imagine Pigpen playing a piano?” a barefoot girl asked me. “That’s what Shakespeare played!”) And then Jerry Garcia and his hair like a frozen storm cloud: black and tumultuous; he was not thin like the other members of the group, but nor was he as fat as Pigpen and he was so in a different way: a lazy weight, a seated weight, a joint-borne weight:::::::and then they began to make a sound like THRONGTHRONGDAKKA over and over::::::the drummer (who was introduced by a number of appellations: Bill, Billy, the Original White Negro) had several facial tics, and they competed and jousted: cheeks against eyelids in a holding pattern, gritted jaw coming around the flank.

The electric bass player is reportedly the smart one–almost five semesters at San Mateo Community College under the belt his old lady shoplifted from the Army surplus store–and he does not play like the black musicians who prefer an ostinato, instead wandering around the fretboard; sometimes like a cougar searching for prey, and sometimes like a senile pensioner searching for the house she lived in 40 years prior. The “cute” one is called Bob by men, or Bobby by girls, or WEIR! by the rest of the group: he is younger by a few years, and the Grateful Dead are all at an age when a few years matters.

And the rest! My God the hangers-on! Attendants, if you will. Burly brutes for lifting the delicate amplifiers and old ladies for fetching Cokes and skinny dudes in winklepicker shoes rolling numbers (no one calls them “joints” anymore; keep up, keep up) and engorged bikers in denim and leather–the only ones present drinking beer–and “with-it” negros and at least one nastily conspicuous newspaper reporter in a suit and tie.

Don’t forget the chickies! They are everywhere and eternally sixteen (if that); several have removed their blouses to reveal apple-dumpling breasts that remain static with the chickies’ torsos (gravity is a rumor to the chickies!) and they congregate–that is the word, congregate–beneath the “cute” one Bobby; they dance like deboned chickens in an earthquake and Bobby–WEIR!–smiles to himself and throws back his hair which is just as long if not longer than the chickies and 30 minutes, or maybe two, the band stops playing but the crowd keeps going.

The Grateful damned Dead!