Musings on the Most Ridiculous Band I Can't Stop Listening To
I’ve never seen more of Precarious Lee’s handiwork in one place. This stage setup (from the Dead’s first Giants Stadium show on 9/2/78) goes beyond a lack of interest in the visual aesthetic. This was a deliberate decision.
“How raggedy-assed can it possibly look?” the Dead said.
And the Greatest Roadie of All Time, Precarious Lee, answered, “Gimme an hour.”
Zoo World was some sort of brief and unmoneyed competitor to Rolling Stone for a few minutes in the early 1970’s and I can’t imagine why it folded.
“Jenkins!”
“Yes, Boss?”
“How’s the cover for the January issue coming?”
“Not great, Boss. We couldn’t decide between fonts, so we just used all five.”
“Okay.”
“Plus, you cannot read half the words. Just can’t make them out, and that’s before we print it onto that second-hand newsprint you bought from your friend, Rudy.”
“Big Rudy! Cheapest paper in town.”
“There’s a reason, Boss. There’s a reason Rudy is so cheap.”
“What else?”
“Picture’s rough.”
“How rough?”
“Only one of the guys in the band is even human-looking.”
“Which band is it again?”
“Grateful Dead.”
“Oh, that’s not the picture. That’s how they look.”
“Jesus.”
“Not a Deadhead, Jenkins?”
“I like hip-hop.”
“Jenkins, it’s nineteen seventy-fucking-four: you most certainly do not like hip-hop.”
And, so on.
PLUS, if you knew nothing about the Dead and looked at that picture and I told you that the guy on the left was about to leave the band, you would believe me.
ALSO PLUS, the men on either side of Billy are protecting their dicks. That’s muscle memory.
Earlier, I posted that oral history of the Dead in Austin; it goes on about Manor Downs, and one of those very shows got into the 30 Trips box: 7/31/82. I can’t link to the new mix, but this one is a Charlie Miller SBD with a bunch of good reviews, so it can’t suck.
Also from the oral history, here are two pictures of the Dead in Austin. They’re from–I think–the ’71 shows captured on the Road Trip release, and feature a terrible idea: see if you can spot it in this group shot.
Did you spot the terrible idea? You have to enlarge the picture, so luckily there’s a better shot.
Even if you’ve taken only a little tiny bit of acid, those numbers are going to start meaning shit. That will become distracting.
The youth of today are virtually illiterate dopesucking jitterbugs, and they’ll be the death of us.
But their memes…
Their memes.
We are done with the Rolling Stones, I promise you that.
But: have you ever wondered if there were things that you might overhear at BOTH Stones and Dead shows? Like, sentences, phrase, or questions that you could say at either place and they would make sense?
I think they understand the premise.
Hope so.
*Listen to this: it’s all wobbly, but the energy is stupid high and Bobby does the band introductions in extemporaneous rhyme and instead of being too cool for the old gag, everyone leaps in and starts soloing when their name gets called, especially Garcia, who has far more gusto than you would expect from a man who would be in a coma that weekend.
Hey, Mrs. Donna Jean. You look rustic.
“I’m gonna take that as a compliment, sugar.”
Totally was. You look so pretty that your daddy would have to find you a husband from back East.
“Okay?”
You look like you could run the farm on your own.
“Okay.”
It’s like the Wells Fargo wagon is-a coming round the tracks, and you’re in it, and you’re smokin’ hot.
“Stop talking, sugar.”
Yes, ma’am.
INT. FRONT STREET
GARCIA AND BOBBY SIT AT A TABLE.
“Hops are in there, Jer.”
“If you say so. I haven’t had a beer in years, man.”
“Not much of a beer guy, either.
“Water, I suppose.”
“Yeah.”
PHIL ENTERS.
“Hey, man, you’ll know–”
“About the hitchhiker that vanished? I don’t know anything about that.”
“–what’s in beer.”
“Oh, beer? Four ingredients: water, brown, bubbles, alcohol.”
“No hops?”
“Hops is German for bubbles.”
“Okay.”
“Are you stealing hitchhikers’ organs again?”
“Never mind that: I have huge news.”
CUT TO:
SUPER: “THE DEAD INHERIT A NEWSPAPER”
(Stock music plays.)
Anyway, all joshing aside: this is true. Back in the 70’s or 80’s, depending on which keyboardist shows up a few paragraphs from now, the Grateful Dead inherited a local paper, The Marin County Muckraker. For almost forty years, the daily kept the powerful in fear, the the citizenry informed, and local boobie models employed. (Much like the English papers, the Muckraker featured topless women on page 3. Also pages 5-12 on most days, with a pull-out on Thursdays. Sundays had full-color boobies.)
Phil’s uncle, William Randolph Lesh, had left the paper to his favorite nephew, who refused it, so it went to Phil.
Garcia was issued the largest fedora anyone’s ever seen: it blotted out the sky, and the press pass stuck in the brim was the size of Oklahoma. A pad was procured, along with several pencils; he also got a roll of dimes, so he could call the Copy Desk on a pay phone if there was breaking news.
“Get out there, Scoop,” Phil cheered and Garcia beamed at the name and got in his car and drove home, stopping only to trade the hat and dimes for Persian and start several small fires. (To Garcia’s credit, one of the fires got large enough to warrant a story in the paper, so in that sense, he did fill up a few inches.)
Mickey tried to help, as always. What if, he asked, someone broke into the Mt. Tamalpais Seminary and started whipping baby priests with a belt? Phil answered that it would certainly be a story, and then he realized what was happening and tried to restrain Mickey, but he had already removed his belt and begun running towards the seminary grounds.
Keith stumbled into the printing press.
“Fine! I’ll do it myself!” Phil muttered, and walked out into the street, where he realized he didn’t know what a reporter did. All the reporters he had met were the kind of reporters that talked to rock stars, which makes them not reporters at all, really.
But, Phil was full of water, brown, bubbles, and alcohol and couldn’t find his car, so he went back inside and interviewed Bobby for a while and took a nap. When he woke up, he wrote an Op-Ed about how supermarket carts should have engines, and then completely lost interest in owning a newspaper.
“Hey, Billy.”
“We’re speaking?”
“Yeah, it’s the 70’s.”
“Oh, okay.”
“You want to own a newspaper?”
“Yeah, why not.”
Phil tossed Billy the keys and then went off in search of another nap.
Billy walked over to the newspaper office and looked up with enthusiasm. Then, he shoved Benjy down the basement steps and lit the place on fire.
“WHY? I WASN’T EVEN IN THIS!”
“We all have our roles to play, Benj. Don’t come back as Freddy Krueger.”
“This sucks.
“Ah, boo-freaking-hoo.”
Batman vs. Superman Any answer other than “Superman would use his nigh-on-godly powers to disintegrate every atom of the rich kid in a pervert suit and a fancy car in less than a second,” is incorrect. Any answer that starts by attempting to set up Batman for victory must be responded to with a knee to the crotch.
“Well, if Batman had an hour toCROTCHKNEE.”
Superman is a force akin to the tides or volcanos; Batman’s main ability is killing Robins. Superman wins every single time.
TC vs. Keith vs. Brent vs. Vince So, really: Keith vs. Brent.
Keith was masterful piano player, but played other keyboards like a gay guy being forced to touch a vagina: you could tell he didn’t want his fingers there. Brent’s B3 work was awesome and tasteful and vibrant and driving, but he never learned how to water ski.
It’s a draw.
Star Wars vs. Star Trek Oh, fuck off, nerd.
Grateful Dead vs. Phish No longer valid, as the Grateful Dead seems to be subsuming Phish and they may or may not be one thing at this point.
Reddit vs. Gawker Let them fight.
Peanut Butter vs. Jelly Peanut butter raped all those guys in Wisconsin, but Jelly opened up a luncheonette so he could sell unsuspecting townspeople hobo meat. Both monstrous: also a draw.
Carpeting vs. Hardwood floors Hardwood floors with an area rug: best of both worlds. BOOM.
Drunks vs. Gravity In the long run, gravity will out. That goes for everyone, but drunks seem to pile up a lot of what you might call “negative gravitational karma.” Drunks are good at avoiding or negating or even ignoring gravity; gravity does not forget such slights. Gravity wins: gravity always fucking wins.
Garcia vs. Hotel Rooms Again, we speak of perspectives. The concept of hotels will be around longer than the concept of Garcia. People have been staying in hotel rooms for a long time: Jesus Christ’s parents, Joseph and Mary Christ, famously couldn’t get one. We’ll be sleeping uneasily on sheets strangers have buttfucked each other on long into the future, maybe even far enough into the future for the buttfucking to have been space-buttfucking.
However, if you ignore the conceptual in favor of the concrete, the fact is that Garcia’s going to be burning any room you put him in to the ground within hours of check-in.
Another draw.
Snorkeling vs. Dead Armadillo on the Side of the Road This is a tough one. People truly enjoy their snorkel-time, even though I’ve never been able to join in. (I have no idea why; I just can’t make the air go up and down the snorkel; then I freak out and take my bathing suit off; everyone’s all, “Get out of the fountain.”)
Armadillo on the side of the road, be it dead or alive, is almost surely infected with leprosy. Draw.
Kramer vs. Kramer Kramer wins.
Kramer vs. Black people Nobody won.
Boobs vs. Butts Now, all Enthusiasts know about TotD’s political and social beliefs regarding women: it’s a wonder they haven’t slit all of our throats by now. It will come, therefore, as no shock that I formally protest this category. Reducing women to body parts is archaic, sleazy, and just a bit trite by now. I object.
However, it was underlined, so I have to do it. (I don’t make the rules, man.)
They are similar in many respects. Evolutionary psychologists say that the rump evolved to resemble the rack, or vice versa. Of course, evolutionary psychologists just make shit up as they go, so let’s not pay attention to them anymore.
Both have rather humorous names: yabbos, for example, or badonkadonk. Sloppy Sallies, or Two Fine Christmas Hams Under a Blanket.
Upon first introduction to a woman, you may not grab at either of these parts of her body. Again, we see boobs and the butt are an even match.
They both have weird and almost deliberately stupid rules about the specific parts within the larger boob/butt that can be shown. The whole cheek of the butt is okay, but not the crack. You can show boobcrack (also known as cleavage) all the day long, but if you expose your nipple, you’re dishonoring the troops. This is a tie, too
On humans, the butt/boob ratio is 1:1. You got a leftie and a rightie. Other mammals, though, have many, many boobs; they only ever have one butt. Even the most spectacularly-assed gibbon or mandrill has but one ass, no matter how glorious it is. So: do boobs take the day on this point? No, because we’re talking about human ladies here: they’re the only ones with “boobs.” Animals have teats and a half-dozen leaky nipples at a time; let’s leave them out of this.
You can get implants in both boobs and the butt. Kicking someone in the butt is funny, but punching someone in the boob is also funny. (TotD decries all violence towards women, but it is an objective fact that the phrase “punched in the boob” is funny. Watch:
“What happened, Linda?”
“I got punched in the boob.”
See?)
I think this one, like so many others, must be declared a draw. Boobs and the butt are equally wonderful.
Now I need you stop.
One more.
Fine.
Black vs. White
Wait, no.
The colors. Exclusively speaking about the hues.
Okay, I guess.
Thanks. White, in many cultures, symbolizes purity and cleanliness; whereas the color black is naturally good at basketball.
NOPE.
SHUT IT DOWN.
…
You’re still here?
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