
Precarious?
“Yo.”
What’s the little one on the left?
“Donna.”
Not the little person. The small wooden box on top of the monitor.
“Humidor.”
Obviously.
OR
Keith’s posture can be used to calculate Pi.
Musings on the Most Ridiculous Band I Can't Stop Listening To

Precarious?
“Yo.”
What’s the little one on the left?
“Donna.”
Not the little person. The small wooden box on top of the monitor.
“Humidor.”
Obviously.
OR
Keith’s posture can be used to calculate Pi.

Maybe it was just the ossification of habit, but Brent was always stage left. Keith was left, right, sometimes in the middle, once he was by the merch table.
OR
“Don’t you do it, Weir.”
“What?”
“Step on a balloon.”
“You saw my leg?”
“I saw your leg, man.”
…
“Hey, Jer.”
“Ah, shit.”
“Y’know, it’s New Year’s Eve.”
“Every fuckin’ year.”
“That means, uh, that this is the anniversary of our friendship.”
“Great, man. Play the song.”
“I got you a little something.”
“You really shouldn’t have.”
“Here ya go, Jer.”
“You went to Jared.”
“I did, yeah.”
“Is this a tennis bracelet?”
“Better. Anklet.”
“What the fuck is wrong with you?”
OR
Later that evening, Mrs. Donna Jean (already in her ceremonial gown) would be thrown into the volcano to appease Gbaja-biamila, the god of backup singing.

This is almost certainly confirmation bias speaking, but there couldn’t have been a band that wore their own shirts as much as the Dead did. Metallica wears Metallica shirts a lot, but they’re pikers compared to the Dead; at any given show, at least 15% of all Grateful Deads on stage will be wearing Dead shirts. Shit, 3-to-1 that Keith’s wearing a Dead shirt in this photo.
Although, it was useful if you were too high.
“What band is this, man?”
(Looks at Mickey.)
“Oh, riiiiight.”

Mickey’s demands for the day:

Perhaps as usual I’ve stumbled onto a theme for the evening: the rank unprofessionalism of the past. All of this–every single part of it–is unacceptable in today’s shiny and buffed branding exercise of a culture: the duct tape all over the piano, the circus tent, the plywood the plywood the plywood holy shit the plywood. No one even thought to order some tie-dyed curtains from Nighthawk to drape over the backdrop which, as I have mentioned, is just naked plywood.
So much unused space to announce corporate partnerships.
OR
Precarious?
“Yo.”
What are you doing?
“Checking the stage to make sure it won’t collapse.”
You think maybe you should’ve done that before the band got on it?
“Things get gotten to when I get to them.”
…
Okay.
“You all right?”
Took me a second to parse that sentence.
“You knew what I meant.”
I truly didn’t.

Penduluminescent super troopers wrestle feedback gremlins in the balcony, while the ushers and the kids have ongoing discussions about the propriety of sitting on stairs, and the road crew barters for blowjobs backstage. The bathrooms need to be cleaned, cleansed, purified, all. In the concourse run round the loge, there is dynamism and torque, spooky action at such a far distance from the stage, where the next chord is a B minor.

Hey, Mrs. Donna Jean. Whatcha doing?
“Feelin’ it, sugar.”
I see that. You look like Kate Moss.
“All pretty people look alike.”
Your hair length says to me that you’ve suffered no extended illnesses.
“Okay, that’s enough. Don’t talk to me like you talk to those Burnin’ Man skanks, darlin’. I ain’t gonna contemplate the universe with you.”
Sorry.
“Besides, I’m married.”
What?

Oh, Mrs. Donna Jean. I don’t want to do this bit with you.
“IS THIS GUY BOTHER–”
shlummmmph-plop
…
Did Keith just slide off the horse?
“Looks like.”
Where’d he get a horse?
“Stable?”
Good talk, Mrs. Donna Jean.

Sometimes we go left to right, sometimes we don’t. This is one of those “don’t” times.

Hey, Godchauxes. Whatcha doing?
“Huh?”
“Waitin’ for my turn to sing, bein’ proud, wearin’ skirts. The usual, sugar.”
Who you two voting for?
sha-plumpf
…
Did Keith slide bonelessly to the ground?
“Looks like.”
Well, who are you voting for, Mrs. Donna Jean?
“Same person I always vote for: Jesus.”
I don’t think He wants the job.
“He didn’t wanna be the Messiah neither, but He did that pretty good. Jesus ’16!”
Not the worst candidate you could vote for.
“No, that’s Gary Johnson, honey.”
Right.
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