Abraham Lincoln said it, Enthusiasts. You can fool most of the people some of the time, and a couple of the people usually, and all of the people once in a while, and people from Kentucky are generally slow on the uptake, but those looking for the dumbest fucks on the planet should concentrate on fashion. That’s Abe Lincoln saying that, folks, and he was so trustworthy that logs were named for him.
This is the pop-up Dead & Company merch shop that existed for but a brief time today on La Brea in Los Angeles, a retail fruit fly if there ever were one. The credulous and the over-moneyed came from miles. What hypebeast slouches towards Bethlehem? It was everything a rich idiot could want out of life: a chance to stand in line outside in July, and then buy an ugly shirt that costs too much. But not just any ugly shirt, no. An ugly shirt that no one else could buy. An exclusive ugly shirt. A one-of-a-kind ugly shirt. Sui generis and shit, yo.
What’s on the menu?
Who are these pieces for, and can we have their names and addresses so that they may be sterilized? Is this what Millennials are doing with their money instead of buying real estate? What the fuck is a “Dad Hat?”
I don’t mind the Mars Hotel keychain. It should be five bucks, though. Oh, wait: it is.
Pss pss pss.
No.
Pss pss.
You cannot be serious.
PSS PSS!
Don’t yell at me.
The bomber jacket’s reversible. It’s two ugly jackets for the price of one overpriced ugly jacket. Besides, when you think “Grateful Dead,” you think “bomber jacket.” Put on your shiny shell coat, lace up your Doc Martens, tighten up your crew cut, and let’s go choogle. No, a proper Grateful Dead jacket is one of those big, floppy, woolen coats from Peru or wherever, or maybe a Levi’s denim trucker model with the cover to Blues for Allah painted on the back and a shitload of pins on the front. Or an army jacket. A Vietnam-era slouchy, sloppy, multi-pocketed, olive-drab number–technically an M65 Field Coat originally designed by Alpha Industries–that brims over with utility and functionality that’ll last you a decade’s worth of tours. Semiotically speaking, you cant’t go wrong.
Unless you’re a complete asshole and spend $2500 on this:
Beyond the already-limited stock of the Dead & Company pop-up shop, there was also a “bootleg” section spotlighting handmade pieces from one artist. The artist–and, gosh, it was a struggle not to put quotation marks around that word–is named Matt McCormick, and you can see some of his work at his site. Matt spends his days tattooing people–some of whom are famous–and his evenings romanticizing cigarettes. His Spotify playlists are impeccable, he’s more than happy to talk about sobriety with you, and if you got 2500 bucks, he’ll doodle on your clothing.
Excuse me. He’ll art on your clothing. If it were doodling, it would be cheaper.
Matt even arted on the back. Look:
Now you see where the money went, right? You weren’t sold from just the front, but once I turned her around and you saw that there were horsies, you got on the bus. And look at the legibility of that printing, huh? You can read the shit out of those random snatches of someone else’s work, right? (And between you, me, and the horsies: I think “I wonder if you care” isn’t as random as it initially seemed. This jacket may, in fact, be Political. Great art has layers, folks.)
Oh, and:
Nailed it.
There’s a shirt, too. Wanna see it?
Wanna unsee it? WELL, YOU CAN’T, FUCKER. WE’RE ALL IN HELL NOW.
(I don’t know how much they were charging for the shirt, but if an army jacket with some Sharpie doodles on it was going for $2500, then I could imagine five hundred bucks for this useful and attractive garment. Furthermore, I can imagine hunting down anyone who would pay $500 for this bullshit, locking them into a brazen bull, building a fire, and listening to the beautiful music. I got a hell of an imagination.)
Also: is that the McDonald’s Moon Man? Isn’t he a Nazi now?
But that wasn’t everything available from Mr. McCormick at the pop-up shop. You could have also purchased an amateurishly- engraved flask:
This is shit. I tried to think up clever barbs, or some witty derision, but it’s just shit. If your cousin Jumpy made it for you, then you’d treasure it. You and Jumpy did Summer Tour together in ’83 and ’84. Jumpy had an engraving kit, and he’d personalize Zippos for custies on the lot to make some spending money and meet some heady folks. You’d probably still be a virgin if it wasn’t for Jumpy. Taught you how to talk to girls. Taught you how talk your way out of a speeding ticket. After the last show in ’84–Ventura, remember?–Jumpy gave you the flask. You didn’t even drink at the time. Maybe the best summer of your life. Hit Ceder Point on the way back home, rode all the roller coasters because Jumpy was a roller coaster nut. It was two weeks later you walked into his apartment and found him swinging. Didn’t leave a note, but he left you that flask and you think of him every time you take a pull of it. Lately, you wish you could think of him a little less.
But that’s not what this is. This is shit.
Once more for the road:
Merchandising – that’s where the money’s at.
Whose idea was this? Is the band that broke? Bad enough they promoted a crowd funding for $10k to cover Candace Brighton’s eye surgery, but to sell this crap? Could they finally be down on the actual with P. T. Barnum?
https://www.esquire.com/style/mens-fashion/a22062706/grateful-dead-company-merch-style/ How Bootleg Grateful Dead Tees Became a Legitimate Style Flex – The merch scene is shifting into full-blown tie-dye mode.
I… I don’t want to see them tonight.
Tax me to the limit of my revenues
When in LA..
Ode to Jumpy Joe