Musings on the Most Ridiculous Band I Can't Stop Listening To
Speaking of Phil, he’s back at the Cap, which owes me an apology and probably some money. Ste4ve sent this nifty photo in; the second set’s starting soon. Watch here, or listen here.
(This is dangerously close to Hologram Garcia, but I’ll allow it. Do not make Hologram Garcia.)
How many Phils is Melvin? Three Phils? Four? After a good dinner, Melvin equals four Phils doesn’t he?
As TotD revealed exclusively yesterday, the Martin Scorsese-produced documentary about the Dead has had its scope significantly expanded to become the Grateful Dead Cinematic Universe (GDCU), with a strategically-planned docket of solo films, team-ups, and spin-offs scheduled from now until the end of time.
After speaking with director Amir Bar-Lev, I received an anonymous text that said “Hey, this is Amir Bar-Lev.” I told him he was terrible at being sneaky, and then he sent me a picture of Billy’s dick and the texts stopped. After the precise amount of time it would take to set up a number to text anonymously from, I got an anonymous text. “Hey, this is NOT Amir Bar-Lev,” and I just went with it to save time. Then he asked me to call him Deep Throat, but I would not go with that, even to save time. “Okay, call me Margaret, because I’m leaky.”
And I asked him to stop texting me, but he sent me the official schedule for the GDCU and was all “You didn’t hear this from me,” and sent me more dick pics, at least one of which was not Billy’s. I asked him if he would stop contacting me if I leaked the information, and then he sent me a selfie, and then a text that read, “Shit. That’s not me lol,” and at that point I put the phone in the other room.
It’s still a good scoop, so here we go: The Official Schedule for the Grateful Dead Cinematic Universe.
2017
GARCIA: THE FIRST GRATEFUL DEAD Directed by the Russo Brothers, and starring T.J. Miller as Garcia (with abs), the film sets up the other films for around two hours. It’s set during Garcia’s five months in the Army, where his drill sergeant (Javier Bardem) is secretly a monster or a demon or some bullshit. Bardem hopes to get hold of one of the Six Cumberlands of Power, which will tie the GDCU together.
PIGPEN: THE OTHER FIRST GRATEFUL DEAD Ang Lee will helm this fractured, angular take on a complicated man. Keenan Thompson stars, and the Big Bad of the GDCU is introduced in the post-credits scene: it is Sean Penn sitting in a space-chair, and when we figure out what to do with him, you’ll be the first to know. Pig’s girlfriend will be played by Lupita Nyong’o. In the after-credits scene, Bill Graham appears to invite Pigpen to join the Grateful Dead Initiative.
2018
BOBBY: BOBBY Instead of a straight-forward tale, Nicolas Winding Refn planned a lyrical and evocative poem about Bobby’s summer on the ranch; he even had the synthesizer score written. Then Bobby insisted on playing himself and now it’s just three hours of a 68-year-old guy on a horse. (The horse is motion-capture, and played by Andy Serkis.) The second Cumberland of Power is involved, somehow.
PHIL & BILLY: COURT IN THE STREET Phil is played by Donnie Yen; Billy is played by Tony Jaa; the two of them kick the living shit out of each other for an hour. Then, Ned Lagin (The Rock) shows up and the two of them team up to fight him for control of the fourth Cumberland of Power. (The third Cumberland was claimed by the road crew on the Netflix spin-off show Front Street Blues.)
2019, 2020, 2021
Cancelled due to war.
2022
MICKEY: HART OF THE GALAXY Mickey, played by Miles Teller, is some sort of space pirate. Billy appears, now played by Shailene Woodley, as Flapjack the Space Fucker. (Billy was allowed to write his own part.) Keith and Mrs. Donna Jean are introduced, setting up their solo film.
KEITH & MRS. DONNA JEAN: WAR IN THE PARKING LOT Keith is played by Donnie Yen; Mrs. Donna Jean is played by Tony Jaa; the two of them kick the shit out of each other for an hour. Then, the second set of an ’88.
2023
GRATEFUL DEAD: WAR FOR THE HEAVENS Set in 1974, the band unites for the first time (somehow) to defeat a sentient and power-mad Wall of Sound. (The Wall is motion-capture, and played by Andy Serkis.) The Grateful Dead save the world…but at what cost? The entire movie is the post-credits scene.
BOBBY II: BOBBIER This solo film is about a solo album: none of the other Grateful Deads appear, as Bobby is instead surrounded by the Midnites (John Cena, Quvenzhané Wallis, Fred Ward in an alien costume). The fallout from the Wall’s rampage–the Reno Incident–have had sever repercussions and now the Dead is feared and loathed. Bobby just wants to play music and be treated like a rock star, so he puts together the Midnites. At their first show, though, Bobby uncovers a vast conspiracy that could rip the GDCU to shreds! Aliens? Nazis? Fuck it: alien Nazis.
2024
GARCIA 2: JERRY BAND Garcia, too, is on the run: he joins John Kahn (Adrien Brody) and a talking dog named Pumpkin. (The dog is motion-capture, and played by Andy Serkis.) Billy is along for the ride, now played by Sam Rockwell. They have been chased to China, where they have fun adventures and note what progress China has made, and how many strides the Party has taken; Garcia receives a sidekick, Choog Li (John Cho), and the production receives a billion potential viewers.
TBA
2025
UNTITLED BRENT MOVIE
As I told you yesterday, Tiger is on walkabout; when Jim Irsay is told of what he’s done three or four days from now, he’s going to freak out. So far, it has been to Terrapin Crossroads, Haight Street, and Alcatraz. (Tiger is a history buff.) As with the last time the showing of a Garcia relic coincided with a Grateful Dead semi-reunion, cries have arisen to get the guitar into Young John Mayer’s hands. This is because we are soft, and life has become so easy as to allow for time in the day to ponder such inanities.
(To list the pros and cons, but not choose a side because–like I implied–this is not something to care about: PRO, Woody Hayes already plays Wolf for those symphony shows, and who cares; CON, it’s so fucking cheesy and tacky and gross, but I don’t care.)
I mean: who gets to decide this legacy nonsense, how we’ll properly beatify the man? Does he? His current opinion is the same as mine: Garcia does not give a shit. Were he alive, it would be a different story. First of all: he would still be in the Grateful Dead, rendering the entire Josh Meyers timeline null and void. It is a certainty that were Garcia alive, and you began to play his guitar, Parish would punch you. Garcia wouldn’t even have to tell him to. And, quite frankly, you should have known better.
Tiger was Garcia’s longest-tenured guitar. It made its debut 8/4/79 at the Oakland Auditorium, replacing Wolf, and Garcia used it exclusively(?) until ’89, when it was replaced by another guitar made by Doug Irwin that was pretty much the same thing with a different piece of art glued to it. (Phil also got an Irwin with the same body, but must not have liked it, as the “devil bass” was abandoned for a passel of four-strings in the early 80’s.)
The instrument was made from nineteen different kinds of wood, four of which were bred, grown, and harvested into extinction specifically for this guitar. The core of the body was made of Oscillating Maple, which is very difficult to cut down because the lumberjacks get dizzy. This was sandwiched by North Korean Elm, which is rare. The tree itself isn’t rare–they’re all over the place in North Korea–but I think you see the problem. There was also ebony, and mahogany, and many other woods that might also be names of Pam Grier characters.
Much more exotic materials were involved in Tiger’s creation: the fingerboard was made of raw paduk, and the core of the neck was cocabola, and the headstock was pure dinglebingle. Tuning pegs were made of zincium, and could only be forged in the heart of a dying sun. The inlays took 3500 man-hours and are made of the finest father-of-pearl.
As much work went into the Tiger’s electronics as its body; if you laid all the wiring out straight, it would circle the planet 2.1 times and probably garrotte a bunch of people. The pickups were hand-wound by hand models, and there was both a pre-amp and a post-amp, plus a number of intra-amps. The electricity used to power Irwin’s soldering gun was generated via orgone.
The famous tiger logo from which the guitar gets its name conceals a hollow; Garcia generally kept a few grand in cash and a passport under the name “Jerry Businessman” in there. Sometimes he would put in some snacks, but then he would eat them, and then there would not be snacks. It was planned to add a miniaturized Slurpee dispenser, but because of the size, the only flavor would be blueberry; Garcia passed.
All of this naturally made Tiger rather heavy; it topped out at 32 tons, fully loaded, and Garcia had trouble with it until March of ’82, when he had a backup spine installed.
Meanwhile back at TXR, the other side of this semi-dysfunctional, choogly-type family is up to all sorts of shenanigans. Phil and his Phriends are playing a show from 1987. TotD has, through careful sleuthing–
You googled it.
–determined that the show is 9/18/87 from Madison Square Garden, which was released as part of the 30 Trips set, but is also available as a Healy UltraMatrix; someone better-informed than TotD can fill us all in as to what precisely an UltraMatrix is in the Comment Section, but whatever their makeup, the sound is unique and maybe you’ll like it, and maybe you won’t.
But there’s more, Enthusiasts: Jim Irsay got all pilled up and sent Tiger on a field trip; it’s been wandering around the Bay Area like the Stanley Cup and I’m expecting to see Tweeted pictures of rando babies napping on it. Perhaps it will be taken to inner-city schools to inspire poor children. Will the lame be permitted to lay their twisted flesh upon it, that they may be healed?
Tiger has made friends with baseball pitchers:
And reunited with the Lesh family:
Phil got in on the action, too:
And then Phil handed Tiger into the audience, where it was passed from Deadhead to Deadhead; everyone got a turn.
As usual, though, TotD has a member of the Haight Street Irregulars in the audience (if we’re honest, he’s a full-fledged FoTotD) and he sent along this sweet shot of Phil and Grahame:
Fun fact: that is Kidd Candelario’s head in the foreground.
Less fun fact: from the angle of this shot, TXR needs to step up security. Maybe some velvet ropes, or give the busboys truncheons; I don’t know; I’m not a restaurateur.
Funnish fact: a silent letter is written but not pronounced; the “n” that is pronounced but not written in the word “restaurateur”is the opposite of a silent letter. (See also: the second “r” in “sherbet.”)
I wasn’t lying: Chris Robinson has no hips. Still playing at Radio Busterdog.
The lack of a nose isn’t funny until you put the beard on, and then it’s hilarious. Look at Lego Garcia. Look at him.
The future is turning out underwhelming, half-baked, but it allows a guy from Japan to listen to a band from San Francisco, build a diorama of them with toys from Denmark, and post it on a social media site that is also from San Francisco. So, there’s that.
Also:
LOOK AT LEGO GARCIA.
“I have randos, too.”
Phil, those aren’t randos. They’re children.
“Little randos.”
That’s terrible. But, yeah, kinda.
“I have a scarf, also.”
Are you jealous? Was I paying too much attention to Bobby?
“Absolutely not. I have a restaurant and bocce courts and a book about lions and little randos. I have everything I need.”
And an Apple Watch. You can play Dick Tracy with that thing.
“It doesn’t do FaceTime, actually.”
…
You’re shitting me.
“No.”
The whole point of the thing is playing Dick Tracy!
“It has many other features.”
Such as?
“It tells you when you need to look at your phone.”
Your phone tells you that.
“Listen: I have more computing power on my wrist than they had to go to the moon with; I think that’s cool.”
All you had to say.
“What the hell’s Bob up to?”
Canada invited him up to talk about science.
“Bob Weir?”
Yup.
…
“Why?”
No idea. He raised a bunch of money for charity, though.
“He could have done that without talking about science.”
Sure, but it wouldn’t have been as fun.
“How’d he do?”
He aggressively defended phrenology, then claimed the “S” in “STEM” stood for “solemnity.”
“Sounds right.”
Y’know, this is the cutest thing I’ve ever seen.
“C’mon, man: the Dead have always been family-friendly.”
Oh, no: there were children wandering around. That doesn’t make it family-friendly.
“Whatever. I like it. Kids are cute, they like the stories, it’s fun.”
I said nothing to the contrary.
“The adults are a pain-in-the-ass.”
I continue to agree with you. What specifically?
“There’s a Taper’s Section right outside the frame of the picture.”
Jesus.
“There’s three guys streaming Storytime With Phil. I understand when we play, but this is just weird.”
Yes.
“A couple chicks are noodle dancing.”
To what?
“There’s no music. I’m reading a story to children. And yet: noodle dancing.”
Well, you know: if a Grateful Dead stands still in public long enough, a Taper’s Section and noodle dancing will generate themselves.
“That’s not untrue.”
I bet you guys will be friends forever.
“Yeah?”
“How much you wanna bet?”
…and goes and whispers in a well,
is not as apt to make a dollar,
as he who climbs a tree to holler.
So, you know: go buy the best t-shirt in the world.
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