Tag: candace brightman

ONE

John Mayer has brought a lot to the Dead: new fans, and new energy, and he’s also brought Fashion Dipshits. TotD, you say: “Dipshits” is too harsh.

And what about Mayer’s on-stage fit—featuring vintage L.L. Bean and Off-White Nikes—which Mordechai got to photograph before the final show? “The vintage L.L. Bean anorak was the most genius thing to wear on the beach at night—it was genius. After the first few songs, he tied it around his waist. And the running shorts! I always say there’s a special caliber of musician who plays in shorts.”

Apologize to me, Enthusiasts. Apologize for doubting my ability to choose words. That’s a guy named Mordechai Rubenstein, who has a trust fund and an Instagram account, and took pictures of brightly-frocked older gentlemen in Mexico recently. He takes pictures of strangers wearing clothes, and that is a job. Vice magazine used to do that, too, but in Mordechai’s defense: he is not ironically racist in his captions. Good for you, Mortadella.

TWO

Speaking of pictures, in 1980, a Welsh journalist named Paula Yates produced a book entitled Rock Stars in their Underpants. The title was not euphemistic. The volume contains Rock Stars you might wish to see in their skivvies (Bowie, Debbie Harry, David Lee Roth) and also Elton John.

And Lemmy.

The shot begs the question: Did ever there exist a group of assholes that Lemmy didn’t love?

THREE

This is a video of the Dead’s crew setting up Englishtown. It’s exactly as interesting as I made it sound.

FOUR

Punching Nazis is a proud American tradition, and especially a Jewish-American tradition. Jews used to be a lot less respectable; used to carry knives and blackjacks, and have nicknames like Ice Pick Willie, and Kid Twist, and Longy. They were gangsters. They used to find out where the Bund meetings were being held, and they would infringe the shit out of the Nazis’ freedom of speech.

Some things about the old days were all right.

FIVE

Candace Brightman is going blind, and the Grateful Dead is turning a blind eye. I mean, they were sweet enough to ask you to pay for it, but no one at Front Street is digging into his pocket. Candace has something called Age-related Macular Degeneration. No cure, but there’s treatment, and Candace is getting the best treatment available, not some screwy-louie bullshit involving “voltage therapy.”

Surely, we’re not sending Candace to a quack.

Real doctors go on Coast to Coast with George Noory all the time, right?

SIX

The big finish! The 92nd Street Y put this together, and it stars a heck of a lot of FoTotDs talking about the Dead and their relationship with New York City.

I’m gonna let you in on a little secret, Enthusiasts: New Yorkers are the most provincial human beings on the planet. They will claim anyone who even briefly stopped in town as a favorite son, and–if you don’t stop them–will inevitably begin talking about “the energy of the streets.” If you bring up WWII, they will discuss the Navy Yards; if the topic is the Space Race, they will recall the ticker-tape parades for the astronauts; if you are a professor of Genghis Khanology, they will rave about a Mongolian place they ate at.

(Plus, due to the number of times the Dead played NYC, their batting average is shit for the location. If you don’t count the shows after ’88, the band had a far better great show-to-middling show ratio in Atlanta.)