Musings on the Most Ridiculous Band I Can't Stop Listening To

Tag: phil lesh (Page 29 of 105)

In Which Phil Has Reservations

phil kids scarf txr

Hey, Phil. Whatcha–

“I’m not talking to you.”

–doing? What did I do now?

“You remembered I exist?”

Hold on: you don’t like me. Now you’re jealous I’m spending time with the other lunatics?

“I’m complicated.”

Well, they’re doing so much ridiculous bullshit in so many ridiculous places. You play in your restaurant wearing that green flannel.

“The busboys are up to some cray stuff. Seriously cray.”

This jealousy is not a good look for you.

“Fuck Josh Meyers.”

Don’t curse in front of the little randos, Phil.

“It’s my restaurant and I’ll curse in front of whoever I want.”

Aw.

In Which Phil Meets Isadora Duncan

My favorite dumb sci-fi trope is reverse engineering. Not the actual, every-day kind where you get ahold of a rival company’s product, or an enemy county’s technology, and figure out how to make your own; I’m talking about the nonsense motivating the plot of the new Independence Day movie or the Terminator movies (there were only two) or any number of Star Trek episodes. People are always winding up with future gizmos or alien doodads  in these stories, and then they immediately build their own. It always takes me out of the story.

Forget the alien stuff; that’s just cartoon bullshit. Let’s concentrate on the time travel, because what’s the point of having a Time Sheath if you don’t use it?

Phil, bored and drunk at 11 in the morning, decides to improve the lives of San Franciscovians in 1916 by giving his iPhone (but not the Watch) to Isadora Duncan, the Mother of Modern Dance. While Phil knows that Isadora Duncan won’t know what to do with the gift, he figured she would know some smart people.

shwZAMPF!

“Isadora Duncan?”

“Darling, you are interrupting my rehearsal and those shoes are dreadful.”

“My name is Phil. Phil Lesh. Of the Grateful Dead. I am from the future.”

“So?”

“I have a gift for you that will change your world! I’m amazing for doing this.”

“Are you drunk?”

“I have been drinking.”

“Is the gift the scarf? I like scarves.”

“It’s not a scarf, it’s…listen: I have this thing that I’m going to give you and you’re going to bring it to a scientist and then when I go back to whenever I came here from, the world’s going to be super-advanced.”

“That’s not how it works.”

“Sure it is.”

“Let me see your toy. Yes, darling: the tools to open the case have not been invented yet. Just so much that needs to happen before this ugly little white lump can be possible. Nothing about this trope makes any sense and, as the inventor of modern dance, I am an expert in not making any sense. It’s a non-starter; I’m going to pass.”

“But, Isadora Duncan–”

“Hard pass!”

And so on.

Technology is linear and cumulative: you can’t skip steps.

That was your point?

Yes. Everyone else is talking about abortion and courtrooms and racism and recessions, so I felt like keeping it light.

Yeah, I’m still calling bullshit.

Shocker.

Choogle Finds A Way

When the last pterodactyl had been felled, and the blood cleaned up, people began to ask questions; first among them was “Why was the Grateful Dead allowed to have dinosaurs?” In the Dead’s defense, no one had told them they couldn’t.

Mickey had bought a piece of hash the size of a well-fed child, and discovered an ancient mosquito within its crumbly innards. He brought the mosquito (and a sizable chunk of the hash) to Front Street for a more scientific investigation; Phil, luckily, was already wearing a lab coat. Unluckily, he was wearing nothing else, but he wouldn’t let Mickey use the microscope or any of the other doohickeys without being included.

They began by thin-slicing the mosquito, then carefully affixing it to slides. Stains were added to some, and others were treated with various chemicals. Phil made notes for five minutes and then started drawing mean cartoons of Mickey with a drum kit up his ass. After the slides had all been prepared, they examined each specimen.

“You know what you’re looking at?”

“They’re pretty.”

So they asked the Wall of Sound to figure it out and went out for tacos.

ISLA INVIERNA – ONE YEAR LATER, BUT ALSO SIMULTANEOUSLY

“Jerassic Park?”

“Well, yeah. See: your name’s ‘Jerry.’ So it’s like–”

“It wasn’t that I didn’t get it, Weir.”

“–combining that with…okay, yeah, sure. It’s a great name. Irving Azoff thought it up.”

“I managed to avoid that guy my whole life, and you do this to me? Nice work, pal. The shame, the shame.”

“It’s a good name, Jer. Lends itself to merch. The shirt where you have tiny little T-Rex arms and you can’t reach your guitar and you look so sad? Big seller.”

“Right, man.”

“Phil’s head on a brontosaurus.”

“Yeah, I liked that. Yoinked one.”

“My favorite’s where they replaced the turtles on the porch with ankylosaurs.”

“That porch wouldn’t be around much longer.”

“Lotta collateral damage involved with having an ankylosaur dance your porch, yeah. Phil had one on his bocce courts. No good for anyone.”

“Billy punched a dinosaur in the dick yet?”

“Like, the second the first one was made.”

“He’s a go-getter.”

And Let’s Hear No More Of It

trey phil bobby

As you know, TotD has eyes, ears, and genitals everywhere, especially the Foot Locker. (It’s been a while since I recommended taking your dick out at the Foot Locker, and that’s a sad oversight: you totally should. You feel better afterwards.) Pictures, gossip, popular opinion: all of these flow inwards and flood Fillmore South in a sad, weird, and lonely Grateful Dead juice.

And it is one of these popular opinions that I must refute, this idea that Young John Mayer is more suited to the Dead’s music than Tralfamadore Abilene. I have seen more than one person say that they were “gay for Trey, but gayer for Mayer.” And while all things that rhyme are true, this one is also false, and for one reason.

The last three Dead (Or What’s Left Of ‘Em) shows that TotD attended, Tripoli Ardennes was the guitarist. Therefore, he is better. Now, if Josh Meyers wants to swing down here on the way to Colorado and pick me up (I will not chip in for gas) and make me his tour buddy for the rest of the summer, then he would be better than Tr@y.

I hope that settles things.

(Also: in the background of the photo is longtime Dead photog Jay Blakesberg, and now I can’t get the image of him and Jeff Kravitz doing an Enemy at the Gates thing with each other.)

Should I Stay Or Should I Go?

Phil and Friends

Hey, Phil. Whatcha doing?

“Busting out the old girl.”

Is that the Godfather or Big Brown?

“It’s one of them.”

Sure. Lemme ask you a question: you see that interview with Meyers?

“Fuck, no.”

Well, he said he’d love for you to jam with Dead & Company.

“Did he say that?”

Yeah.

“Why haven’t you linked to it?”

Rolling Stone has started doing that thing where you need to disable your ad blocker to view the site.

“Assholes.”

Yup. But would you?

“Not on your life. I voted #Leave.”

What?

“During the Grexit referendum.”

Grateful Dead Exit?

“Campaign got very heated.

I’m not even going to ask. Phil?

“What?”

What’s with the milk crate?

“Precarious stopped by. You have to let him do something or he just drives around making up bullshit about America.”

Right.

Grateful Deb

bobby natasha white gloves deb ball

Hey, Bobby. What in God’s name are you doing?

“Looking spiffy.”

You look like the opera singer that Bugs Bunny got in a fight with.

“I’m beginning to get the feeling that a great deal of your worldview was shaped by cartoons.”

Just the good ones. So: what is this?

“Debutante ball. Daughter’s being presented to San Francisco society.”

That is the most gentile sentence I’ve ever heard.

“It is un-ethnic, yeah. Hey, uh: didn’t we play one of these things? My sister’s, right?”

Yeah.

deadball

“Phil had a Fender?”

Apparently.

“Don’t remember that. When was this?”

September of ’66.

“Huh.”

Yeah.

“If you start–”

SunRIIIIIIIIISE, sunset. SunRIIII–

“–singing we’re done. We’re done.”

Congratulations, Bobby. And to your wife, Natasha Monster.

“Thank you. Go away.”

The Randos Of Navarone

mickey walter cronkite mike gordon

“I found randos!”

Oh, for fuck’s sake, Mickey: that’s Walter Cronkite and Mike Gordon. And the lady looks important. And I think that’s Steve Kimock’s hat.

“Gimme a second.”

I don’t want to.

“But you will.”

Oh, fine.

“Here you go. Prime rando.”

mickey peter fonda stills

Nope.

“Not randos?”

They are actually less rando than you are, Mick.

“Is the guy behind me a dolphin?”

No, he’s the living embodiment of both nepotism and the different beauty standards society holds male and female movie stars to.

“Wait, wait, wait: I got ’em. I got the greatest collection of randos. Check this out.”

obama michelle band

Jesus, Mickey.

“What? I’m standing right next to two randos!”

On which side of you?

“Right side?”

Wow.

“They are randos, though.”

Sure, but their rand gets overwhelmed by the non-rand surrounding it.

“I’m not great at this.”

Not at all.

“I didn’t know Branford was married.”

You’re not allowed to be in the Rando War anymore.

Start Of Something Big

My favorite part of a Dead tape is the very beginning, the first half of the opening song, Bertha, Promised Land, whichever rocker they eased into the evening with. The drums come up and down, and the guitars come in and out; Phil is nowhere to be seen and then THERE HE IS, and sometimes it’s just the piano and the vocal. By the end of the song, the mix has settled in.

But for a minute, it sounds like the tape is just trying to get its head together, so it can go into the show.

Keep It In The Family

phil sons txr sitting

“Why are you the only one with a cool microphone?”

“Because I paid for them. When you buy the microphones, then you can have the cool one.”

“Fine, I’ll buy my own cool microphone.”

“You will do no such thing, young man.”

“Why not?”

“Because I’m your father and I said so.”

“That’s not fair! JIIIIIILLLL!”

“I’m pretty sure you call her Mom.”

“Whatever. You’re just mean. You hate me.”

“Are you Brian or Grahame?”

“SEE! You don’t even know who I am!”

“You look so similar.”

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