Musings on the Most Ridiculous Band I Can't Stop Listening To
Happy birthday, Bob. Many more.
“I like that bandana.”
Excuse me? Who was that?
“Me.”
![[PDF] John Mayer Helps Build](http://thoughtsonthedead.com/wp-content/uploads/PDF-John-Mayer-Helps-Build.jpg)
Josh?
“Don’t call me that.”
What are you doing?
“Long story short: another interview got away from me, and now I have to do this.”
Sure.
“Ask Bob where he got his bandana.”
No.
There was no one they could have called to set up a stream.
It’s not that I particularly wanted to listen; I would have checked it out, though. It’s just the principle of the thing.
Seriously: no one they could have called.
What has Young John Mayer done to the Dead? This. He has done this to the Dead. Thanks, John.
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:
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:
(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](http://thoughtsonthedead.com/wp-content/uploads/PDF-1979-Pontiac-Trans-Am-455.jpg)
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](http://thoughtsonthedead.com/wp-content/uploads/PDF-Sammy-Hagars-Famous-1979.jpg)
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.
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.
Enthusiasts, I have the working memory of a small lamp, or a well-formed puddle; I wandered into my kitchen for no reason ten minutes ago, and in ten minutes I will go to my kitchen with purpose, only to forget why along the way. I have–and not just once–used my phone as a tiny writing desk to jot a note on a scrap of paper, which I then lose. Once on an airport run, I got lost on the way there, while in the airport, in the parking lot looking for my car, and then again on the way home. My default setting is general befuddlement.
But I am good at Dead Picture Concentration. I remember Dead photos very well. Primo Levi remembered Auschwitz very well, but if that’s what it takes to get a book contract, then I’ll stick with the blog. That inappropriate statement was made in hopes of undercutting any sense that I was being braggadocious: I am fully aware that this is a niche ability, and a red flag for potential lovers and/or business partners.
The fact remains, though: I am very good at looking at pictures of the Dead. Nobody looks at pictures of the Dead like me. I’m the best at–
SLAP
Stop that!
…
I blacked out for a second. Who started talking?
Trump.
Oh, that’s no good for anyone.
Let’s just move on.
Sure. Something about Billy’s birthday cake looked familiar, and not just the Stealie: I had seen that cake before.
In Little Aleppo, the sun doesn’t rise: it stumbles in after disappearing all night without a call.
The Morning Tavern opens for the dockworkers and fishmongers and fishmonsters. (Little Aleppo is dedicated to inclusiveness to the point of allowing fishmonsters to drink in bars.) The alcoholics, and the alcoholic insomniacs, and weirdos, and sex perverts join them, and there is a trivia contest every Tuesday at 7 A.M. At noon, the respectable places and classy establishments open up, and the Bartender With No Name shoos everyone out into the shameful sunlight and the Morning Tavern shuts the door again.
All those lonely, miscast actors in there would never admit it, but a big part of the bar’s success (relatively: the floor was repossessed at one point) was the smell. Not the beer piss and cocaine sweat you would expect, no: it was sweet on days, and doughy most often, and sometimes cinnamon would seem to be sitting at the bar, right next to the fishmonster.
That addicting aroma came from next door, which was the only business in Little Aleppo whose lights went on earlier than the Morning Tavern: Anita the Baker’s Cakes That Do Not Have Drugs In Them. (The sign was a lie. All the cakes were full of all the drugs.) But of course not just cakes: there were pies which contained drugs; profiteroles, and these had drugs in them, as well; and cookies (drugs).
But the drugs were secondary, until around an hour later, to Anita the Baker’s wide-ranging confectionary skills. She could make cakes that look like things that were not cake at all, or she could make a cake that looked like cake. Whether you were from the Birmingham in America or England, she could make you a biscuit you would enjoy. She made erotic cakes, and she made esoteric cakes, but only a couple of people ordered them. There were hyper-funnel cakes, which had no inlet and two spouts that existed in four dimensions.
And, of course, Anita the Baker has been the Dead’s baker since the day she opened. In fact, that day was an interesting one, and I hope we’ll get to hear about it.
I hope we get to hear about a lot of things.
Did you see it?
Not Billy’s vest; we’ll ignore Billy’s vest; perhaps it’s his Birthday Vest.
And obviously not Josh Meyers’ guitar face, which is the most advanced case of Les Palsy I’ve ever seen.
Look carefully.
Jeff Chimenti has switched to his summer shorts.
CELL PHONE NOISE
CELL PHONE NOISE
“Hello, this is Phil. Phil Lesh. Of the Grateful Dead.”
“Weir here.”
“Hey, Bob. You guys doing Kimmel, huh?”
“Yeah, hold on: sending you a pic.”
DING
“Jesus, Bob: how many pictures of Billy’s dick do you have?”
“No, that’s Mickey.”
“Right. Jewish.”
“I got it in here somewhere.”
DING
“I’m giving the kid bunny ears.”
“You take this picture with a flip-phone?”
“No, no: that’s Kimmel’s green room. Very few pixels in there. Odd.”
“Huh. What are you gonna play?”
“Some Dead songs.”
“Well, yeah.”
“That’s not why I called. We had an idea: what if we all fight each other?”
…
“Did you see the Captain America movie, Bob?”
“I had it explained to me, and the premise is sound: Dead splits up–”
“We did that.”
“–and fights. We could do it at the Garden, or your restaurant. Whichever.”
“I don’t even understand this one.”
“Me and Mickey vs. You and Billy.”
“Pass.”
“Me and Billy vs. you and Mickey.”
“Pass.”
“Me and Ratdog vs. you and that bunch of beardos you play with.”
“There’s still a Ratdog?”
“Probably.”
“Bob, we’re not Civil Warring.”
“What if we just let the drummers fight?”
“What do you mean ‘let?’ They usually had to be stopped.”
“Still have to be.”
Dead & Company are on the Kimmel show tonight, if you’re interested. Not only are they promoting their upcoming tour, but also the movie project they are working on, in which the band splits into two teams and punches one another. (Josh Meyers has been wearing his Iron Man outfit for weeks and won’t take it off, no matter how many fridge magnets Billy sticks to his back.)
Is this a Periscope of the dress rehearsal? I dunno, maybe.
Is this a photo from the other day of the band rehearsing?
It is. We can learn two things: Mickey has negotiated the return of his bass drum; and the services of Red Metal Stool are apparently no longer required, which is good news.
Also: who wrangles the kleenex? Does the guitar tech do that, or is there a special roadie just for tissues? Is there a head cold going around the Dead & Company communal living space? (Oteil and Jeff Chimenti have to share a room.)
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