Musings on the Most Ridiculous Band I Can't Stop Listening To
Everybody’s friend Bill Walton recently did a long bike ride for charity, or solar power, or because he forgot where he lived: I did not read the article.
It was most likely for a good cause, though, so TotD salutes Bill for it, but also feels that it would be wrong not to point out how ridiculous everyone’s bikes look next to his. If Bill Walton got on a normal bicycle, he would look like one of those circus bears, but with more spandex.
Though you can’t see the whole word due to Bill Walton’s massive and surgically reconstructed back, his jersey reads “Iconoclast” because as a young man, Bill Walton didn’t care much for the accepted wisdom of his elders, nor did he esteem the men and women he was told to esteem.
Also, he once borrowed the Time Sheath to sack the Monastery of Saint Anthony’s in 1566, kicking off what’s known as the Beeldenstorm, which brought about the end of Catholic rule in parts of what would become the Benelux nations.
If there’s one thing that Coach Wooden pounded into his players’ heads, it was that indulgences were not to be sold.
Also, Mickey is wearing the sweatshirt that set Soldier Field buzzing when he wore it. During Drums, the camera caught a good view of the hood, which although you can’t see in this pic, has a bright red-and-white Stealie on the inside of it and 70,000 people turned to one another and said, “Ooh, that’s a nice hoodie.”
“GRNAAAAA! I’M A MONSTER! GRNAAAA!”
“Knock it off, Bill Walton.”
“Not me.”
“Knock it off, Mickey.”
“Nope.”
“Knock it off, Virginia Madsen.”
“Sorry, Steve Young.”
Also: those women are Steve Young’s wives.
Joan Baez sucks.
“I like Lost Sailor.”
“Great. You play drums on it.”
“Okay.”
“Look, Mick: they gave me drumsticks! Like a grown-up!”
“Godammit, I gotta get a Benjy.”
Inevitably, Walton freaked out and started picking up hippies, gnawing their heads off, and tossing the bodies at cops, but the man’s in the Hall of Fame, so a couple of $20 bills cooled everything out.
“Trey, you’re the Garcia now.”
“Um, not really.”
“Garcia’s daughter: you are Garcia’s rightful heir.”
“Lawyers have opinions on that, but: yeah, I guess.”
…
“I want to mate the two of you.”
“Bill.”
“I’ll need rum drinks, but I have a thing for gingers.”
…
“Yeah?”
“Why not?”
…
“Let’s do this.”
“AND THE REBIRTH COMMENCES!”
“You can’t be in the room, Bill.”
“Yeah, no.”
I am posting these pics under formal protest against this nap that simply will not take. Did I not lay down all sleepy-shluffy? Were there not David Attenborough-narrated nature documentaries on the Netflix?
I blame Peter Shapiro.
Let’s see what’s going on around the Dead’s world:
“Bruce, I’m gonna show them my power.”
“Jeff Chimenti: do not do that. They can’t handle your power. Bobby can’t even stand.”
“Power’s gotta come out, man.”
…
“You look like a drag queen’s Emmylou Harris routine.”
“Fuck off, Bruce.”
“Hey, Billy?”
…
“How’d you get up there?”
“No idea. Listen: can I have some real drumsticks?”
“Out of the question. You realize how much embossing Stealies on all those mallets and brushes was?”
“I guess. Can I bring every drum ever made?”
“Oh, sure, definitely.”
Were you aware that Bill Walton enjoys the Grateful Dead? He doesn’t really wear it on his sleeve – his freakishly large, surgically reconstructed sleeve.
People failed to recognize John Mayer’s buddy Andy Cohen in the previous shot; he is an executive at the Bravo channel and has some sort of talk show where he gets drunk with reality stars.
John Mayer is most often referred to as a douchebag; Andy Cohen has never been called this because douchebags are for vaginas and Andy Cohen is most assuredly not for vaginas.
The excitement! The glamour! The arthritic joints, and other kinds!
Welcome to TotD’s Tie-Dyed carpet, where we meet the stars coming to FTW and also, probably, John Mayer.
Bill! Bill Walton!
“Oh, hello, there.”
Bill, the entire Dead world wants to know who you’re wearing!
“T-shirt by Emiliano Zegna, cargo shorts are vintage Anna Sui.”
…
What?
“I’m just fucking with you: Mickey snagged me a 6XL and I’ve been wearing the same boxer shorts since the playoffs.”
Great. Anything you want to say to Internet-Land?
“I’m just reminded of something Coach Wooden used to say–”
Shocker.
“–‘Bill,’ he’d say. ‘Never let a Puerto Rican know where you live.’ Smart man, huh?”
We’re done.
“Should I put my hand in the Mani-Cam?”
Absolutely not.
In a sad, see-through, and destined-to-go-sideways attempt to be helpful, TotD presents a one-time feature: What’s Everybody Bitching About Now? This shall be prefaced by another singular event entitled And Where They At?
Here’s what we know at around 7 PM, June 8th, 2015:
Everyone’s played their last gig, or in the case of Billy, had anal sex with his last bookstore employee. Bobby and Phil played last night at their* respective restaurants. Bobby had custody of Jeff Chimenti for the evening and Steve Kimock showed up; Phil was surrounded by mammals, as well. There were webcasts of both shows, but you had to shell out seven bucks for Phil’s and that’s all I have to say about that.
Billy has come off the road, washed the skank off his potato salad, and sent Benjy down to Little Aleppo for the most Hawaiian shirts ever made. (In what was a lovely gesture, Benjy offered Billy the use of his (Benjy’s) apartment, but Billy had specifically inserted into the contracts “I get to stay where the Pope stays,” so Billy’s got a place to crash.)
Mickey has posted yet another picture of this fucking thing:
Previously, we had seen the yams Mickey planned to bang on while everyone else sat down for a while, but we now learn that there are technicians for the yams.
The gourds have their own roadies; some things are still just exactly perfect.
Now: Who’s Got Beef?
Grateful Dean got beef. He says things! and stuff! and other things that, to be honest, I could not follow. There are shenanigans afoot, and trouble ahead – he’s been taken aback!
If you can’t expect straight-shooting from a concert promoter who used to own a bowling alley, then what’s this world coming to?
Washington Post got beef, or at least tries to explain various beefs and levels of beefery. Will there be litigation? A class-action suit on behalf of people who couldn’t get quite as close to the stage as they desired? Did folks want to smell the band?
Old balls and good pot. The Grateful Dead smells like old balls and good pot. Now suck it up and sit in the damn loge.
Bill Walton got beef, in that he is planning to kidnap the surviving members of the Dead and force them to play in his basement.
Bring no vegans: there is beef here.
* Does Bobby own Sweetwater or not? He has to own a piece of it, at least, just from his bar tab.
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