Musings on the Most Ridiculous Band I Can't Stop Listening To
There’s been a bunch of Downfall parodies made during this exhausting year with the Dead Or What’s Left Of It and I may have posted one, but that’s it.
I enjoy the meme when it’s well-written, and I have fun speculating on the backstories of Yodel and Krebbs*, and as you may have guessed, I’ve always agreed with Mel Brooks about Hitler: funny. But most of them regarding the Dead have sucked.
This one, though: not only funny, but endorsed on Twitter by John Perry Barlow!
Enjoy.
BOO!
Ha-ha: you forgot John Mayer was a Grateful Dead now, didn’t you? All caught up in the Stones and Wally’s presidential run and your families or whatever sad little bullshit occupies the part of your lives that TotD does not fill.
Welp: there ya go. Young John Mayer is, indeed, a full-fledged Grateful Dead.
Why did he ever break up with Taylor Swift: both of them seem to enjoy collecting famous people. (That is Keith Urban, who is both Australian and a country-and-western star, which makes him the white Iggy Azalea. He is or was married to Nicole Kidman, who cannot move her face. John Mayer can move his face, and he does frightful things with that ability.)
Billy’s not the only Grateful Dead to have a run-in with The World’s Greatest Rock Band™ – here we see Young John Mayer having a old-fashioned Guitar Face-off with Ronnie Wood. Ronnie is wearing a cardigan that you can just tell cost $1,200 and JM is dressed as Temple Grandin, for some reason.
You can read this; I can’t.
It’s getting less and less fun with this C-student.
Upon hearing the news of the Dead & Company lineup featuring Young John Mayer, most people made “Your Bobby is a Wonderland” joke. (Some clever types went with “Your Body Is a Winterland,” but that makes no sense, as women rarely appreciate being compared to crumbling roller rinks where Mickey used to get tuggers.)
Then, there were the wits who wanted to know whether Katy Perry would be taking over Mrs. Donna Jean’s parts. This is silly on many reasons, all of which having to do with demographics and fan bases and the suitability of hooking up with legendary drugmonsters when one is a Teen Queen.
But: I’m all for it.
She’s not as good a pure vocalist as Mrs. Donna Jean: Katy only has about five notes she can hit with any consistency, and they all leave her head through her nose, but worse singers have taken their turns at the Dead’s repertoire this summer, and Katy has much nicer boobs than Phil, so I think she’s capable.
Let’s spend a moment with Katy’s boobs:
Hey, Katy Perry’s boobs.
“Hi.”
“Hey.”
…
Keep up the good work, I guess.
“Gotcha.”
“Fuck Taylor Swift.”
That was fun.
The best reason to press Katy into service for a Playing Wail or two is scientific, though: does the Dead Curse still exist. Used to be that any musician appearing with the Dead got hippie all over themselves and, seemingly for the rest of their careers, had Deadheads following them around. Branford, Bruce, Hamza. (True story: a big group of hippie buddies got really into Hamza El-Din’s music after being introduced to it at the ’78 Winterland shows and followed Hamza back to Egypt and no one ever heard from them again; they are assumed eaten.)
Would–at the next KATY PERRY! Concert Tour Extravaganza Girls: YEAH! Tour Sponsored by Pepsi: The Taste of Wet Nails with Caffeine–hordes of Wooks follow her from town to town? Set up mini-Shakedown Streets in the lot, selling kind grilled cheeses and fatty burritos to thirteen-year-olds in braces and their cranky, half-drunk fathers? Will Katy Perry allow a taper’s section? Would the taper’s section last more than two shows after the tapers realize that shows with costume changes, production numbers, and pyro kinda have to be exactly the same every night?
How many times would Left Shark be dosed? How many of those dosings would be just from Billy?
“You think I forgot about your bullshit? I did not.”
“Kiss it, Weir. Kiss it. Find it, make your way through the hair, and kiss it.”
“I will kiss nothing. Stop trying to turn Young John Mayer against me.”
“I haven’t done that!”
“You didn’t send him a text reading “DO U WANNA MAKE FIN OF LOSS SAILBOAT W/ ME & BILLY LOL”?
“How’d you get that.”
“Because you sent it to me, Mick.”
“These phones confuse me.”
“Yeah? You confuse me.”
…
“You talk to Chimenti?”
“Sent him a cake with a file in it.”
“That’s funny.”
“Yeah.”
“Don’t poison Young John Mayer against me, please.”
“Oh, go talk to Dan Rather.”
Once again, TotD reminds everyone that while the Whatever’s Left Of The Dead is as goofy-looking as ever, no one’s wearing clothes meant for 20-year-olds and giant scarves to hide their old man heads.
But, like the most famous song Keith ever wrote says, “Hope I die before I get old.”
TotD takes solace in the fact that commentators make up around 1% of a site’s traffic; though the chattiest of you might be agitators and cranky-puss-in-boots, the vast majority (I feel) are reasonable.
I’m not saying let’s all have the (surprisingly pretty) lyrics to John Mayer’s 2003 hit Daughters tattooed onto our chests, but if we give the guy a shot, maybe we’ll be surprised and impressed with what we hear.
Keith Urban likes him.
Enthusiasts, we must look to Lincoln. Father of the Republic. Hero of the Revolution. Fighter of Nazis. Wearer of Hats. Remember Lincoln’s words: “I’ll give ’em the vote, but they can’t walk through the front door or anything.”
Different words.
Lincoln also mentioned something about fooling people, and the limits inherent. The facts are these:
Good enough to jam with the Stones.
Whenever The Roots are playing a Marriott ballroom someone left unlocked, they call Johnny.
Phil thought his playing was good enough to overlook whatever that garment he’s wearing might be.
In all sincerity: maybe we should give him a chance.
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After Grateful Dead:
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