Musings on the Most Ridiculous Band I Can't Stop Listening To
CELL PHONE NOISE
CELL PHONE NOISE
“Hello?”
“Philbert J. Lesh, you get–”
“Honey…”
“–out of that boat–”
“Jill…”
“–right now before I get a chainsaw and bring you down the quick way.”
“But I can see everything from up here! It’s the perfect vantage point to watch for him.”
“Him?”
“The Pooper.”
“Oh, for fuck’s sake, Phil. Someone got wasted and took a dump. Let it go.”
…
“Whose side are you on, woman?”
“I’m calling the fire department.”
“Just admit it, Weir.”
“I don’t even know what a bocce court looks like, man. Describe it.”
“With or without the poop?”
“Wasn’t me.”
“You poop to mark your territory.”
“Just in Josh Meyer’s car.”
“Well, that wasn’t your fault. If you put a toilet in your car–”
“–You just have to expect a Grateful Dead to poop in it.”
“I think Clive Davis put that in the Arista deal: unfettered access to mobile shitters.”
“Shrewd dealmaker.”
“Fess up, Weir. You poop on the bocce courts?”
“Maybe it was a dog.”
“Lab says it’s human.”
“Lab? You got science involved in this?”
“It’s war, Weir.”
“That sounded funny.”
“This aggression will not stand. You invest your time and money into building a nice place–not some joint, a classy establishment–and the headaches never end and the busboys keep dying, but you work at it and it’s a success. And then some dickhead poops on your bocce court.”
“So, um: you’re going on the offensive?”
“Restaurant’s on total lockdown. Motion-activated thermal imaging cameras. Those laser beams like in the movies. Put a bunch of busboys in the trees with binoculars and nets. Got a sniper on the roof of the Trader Joe’s on the other side of the canal.”
“Maybe you could just get a dog?”
“Already got some. Did you know pit bulls could climb trees?”
“No.”
“They ate several busboys.”
“Wow.”
“You fuckers think I’m kidding about the bocce courts. Those things were expensive as hell: you gotta get special sand. Two or three busboys got buried alive. I won’t have people pooping on them. We rented a real nice bathroom trailer–that was also expensive as hell–or you could just hang your ass over the canal. Hell, that’s what the busboys do.
“The bocce court pooping stops now. We had a turd analyzed for DNA, and now we’re going to swab everyone in the room’s cheeks.”
Bonus Thought:
While TotD enoys pointing out foolishness, successes must be duly noted; the backyard at TXR looks great, and people who have been there have enjoyed it. There have been no kaiju attacks, and the busboys have stopped jousting using fallen palm fronds. (Those things are way heavier than they look, and sharp. Do not joust with palm fronds.)
Sunday is Phil’s big Backyard Bash, and if you go to his site, you read about it: there’s a note about what to expect and what not to bring, and that note was written by Phil himself. The version that appears on the site wasn’t his first draft, though; only TotD can bring you that:
Dear Backyard Bashers, Terrapin Nation, Deadheads, and assorted other Bernie Sanders supporters,
Hi, it’s Phil Lesh of the Grateful Dead. How are you? I’m fine.
The first of what will hopefully be many Backyard Bashes is here, and we wanted to give you a heads up of what to expect on Sunday. Also, having had several events in our new backyard recently, we wanted to discuss some behavior. I’m just going to get this off my chest: whoever’s been pooping on the bocce court is going to jail. It’s not funny. Those bocce courts are for everyone. There are now security cameras at the bocce courts, and they are heat-sensitive: this stops here.
The TXR family would also like our friends to remember the potency of day drinking. It is a scientific fact that a drink taken at two in the afternoon is worth 1.5 nighttime drinks. Please pace yourself. I understand that it’s a pipe dream to have no Deadheads fall into the canal, but there should be far fewer than two weeks ago. It was a poor showing on everyone’s part.
Now, on to this Sunday’s Backyard Bash: you shouldn’t bring your car. There will not be enough room in our parking lot, so you should take an Uber or a Lyft. (There are also taxis and mass transit, but let’s be honest: you’re going to take an Uber or a Lyft.) You may also take your unicycle, bicycle, or tricycle, but we do ask that you not come riding up on one of those quadcycle ATV things, as it’s just not the vibe we’re going for.
The following items will NOT be allowed in the Backyard Bash:
- Blankets.
- Chairs.
- Sofas.
- Drones.
- Refugees.
- A man-sized pile of fresh beaver pelts.
- Professional cameras.
- Semi-professional cameras.
- Cameras that never quite made it and now teach.
- Wombats.
- Kangaroos.
- Let’s just make it a rule that there are to be no marsupials of any kind at the Backyard Bash.
- Children under sixteen who are not named Baby Levon. And even if your baby happens to also be named Baby Levon, you cannot bring that baby; we all know I refer to a specific Baby Levon.
- Weapons of any kind. Perhaps you’re saying, “Phil, what if I am Jackie Chan and can turn anything within reach into a weapon? Or what if I am Bruce Lee and am myself a living weapon?” I would tell you to stop being a jackass; no weapons.
- Battering rams are considered weapons.
- Pocketful of sand may or may not be considered a weapon: if you intend to throw it in someone’s face, then it is a weapon and you cannot bring it; if keeping a tiny beach in your pants helps you in social situations, then by all means bring your pocket sand.
The whole Terrapin Crossroads family looks forward to seeing you at the Backyard Bash, and I’m not kidding in the slightest about the pooping. I will find out who you are.
Your Phriend,
Phil Lesh
Enthusiasts, I need your help.
Phil, who no longer counts Heineken as his friend, is playing tonight at Terrapin Crossroads with Jackie Greene. You can purchase the high-quality SBD feed right here, or you could listen to the free AUD stream courtesy of Radio Busterdog. Feel free to hop on Couch Tour, or–as we’re calling it this weekend–Couchella.
Here is the conundrum, though: FoTotD and author of the brilliant Paradise Now (available in the sidebar) Chris Jennings needs a ticket to tonight’s show and, need I remind you, he is the man who invited me to Chicago and miracle’d the living fuck out of me, so let’s pull together and make this happen.
E-mail me at thoughtsonthedead@gmail.com or leave a note in the Comment Section.
We can do this.
Someone needs to stop the Russian billionaire and dramatically-paralyzed scientist from launching their nanobots. Stephen Hawking and Yuri Milner have announced a plan to bother Alpha Centauri and I will break my prohibition on petitions for this. When the aliens are eating your faces and genitalia, you will all regret not having listened to me.
If you don’t want to read the article, or just prefer to have me make it up at you, then here it is:
Well, that’s not it. That’s just a picture of a solar sail, which is the concept here. Stars radiate radiation, and that energy bounces off the mirrored sail, which is very thin and light. This is just a tiny bit of propulsion, but since it’s space and there’s no friction, the sail adds speed continuously and eventually accelerates to subluminal speeds.
(I will freely admit to being disappointed in what a solar sail looks like when designed by actual scientists instead of comic book artists. I was expecting a chariot-type deal with rippling sails and maybe missiles.)
The problem with solar sails is that it takes a while to get up to speed, and there’s not much you can do about that. Increasing the size of the sail would do it, if not for the commensurate gain in mass: even when there’s no rocket involved, the rocket equation still rules space travel.
But what if you removed the “solar” from the sail, and instead blasted the card-table size ship with an earth-based laser beam the size of a suburban shopping mall?
That’ll do it.
It is here where I launch my first objection to this venture: these two are clearly Bond villains building a death ray. “We’re going to Alpha Centauri, yay!” Bullshit: death ray.
And even if they’re not bent on world domination (they are), then they’ve still created a death ray. Don’t make death rays. What if ISIS stole it, and bolted it into the bed of a pickup truck? Then what? You know ISIS would not use a death ray responsibly.
My main fear is one that Professor Hawking has also voiced. (Well, not “voiced.”) We shouldn’t be broadcasting our location, or even our existence. I am sure the galaxy is full of bullshit we want no part of: space is too big to not contain at least a few assholes.
Let’s say we do make contact with Alpha Centurians. Then what? I’ll tell you what: they eat us. Or they convert us to whatever their religion is (Space Episcopalian) and then they eat us. That crippled fucker is going to get us eaten by martians and I warned you.
Can I get you to stop?
I was actually done.
Oh.
Yeah.
Sorry, then.
No problem. Wanna see a picture of Phil?
Always.
Hey, it’s Phil.
Yeah, that’s from tonight. You can listen to it on Radio Busterdog, if you’d like.
Phil loves his Apple Watch.
He’s got pictures of Baby Levon on it.
Sure.
Many tales have been told of the Grateful Dead: they’ve been examined from angles musical, financial, sociological, historical, chemical, metaphysical, biographical, academic, and there was a coloring book once. Never, though, has the Dead’s relationship with exercise been detailed, and certainly not with the scholastic rigor I intend to apply to the following bullshit I’m about to make up.
Bobby was the most physical-minded of the group; he cared about the parts of his body that were not his dick or stomach, and engaged in strenuous and joyful fits of exercise, plus many soothing and barefoot yoga sessions. Bobby enjoyed running almost as much as he enjoyed running shorts. In the 70’s, he took up mountain biking, and in the 80’s got into hill biking; the 90’s saw Bobby become interested in riding his bike on flat terrain, and in the 00’s, Ebay was founded, which is where Bobby sold his bike.
Mickey gave Bobby a run for his money, though, and sometimes literally: Mickey liked to combine his athletics with gambling and would often make more money off his impromptu wagering than from a tour. Like Bobby, Mickey took up bicycling for a while, but always preferred his horses, as it was impossible to dose a bicycle.
And here lies a sheer and fatal drop-off in both athletic ability and exercisial enthusiasm. Except for Bobby and Mickey, every Grateful Dead would be picked last and sent to right field. (There are pictures of Bobby playing softball; there are pictures of Garcia watching softball.) You might pick Billy a little higher up if you were playing hockey and wanted to start a fight.
Billy’s exercise came primarily from running amok. Smoothie in the morning, throw a mailbox at a cop around lunch, run through a hospital with a chainsaw before the show, and then finish up the day with cardio (Billy calls anal “cardio”).
The ocean also provides Billy with a chance to stretch, strengthen, and shape up; he has invented something he calls “sharkour,” but is actually just swimming slowly and looking at fish. (You cannot do parkour underwater as there are no benches to vault over, and even if there were, you can’t vault over anything underwater.)
Phil’s idea of exercise was standing up during a blowjob.
The keyboardists were all over the place, as should be expected: Pig did Tai Chi once, by accident; TC did some fancy bullshit, I’m sure; Keith, along with Mrs. Donna Jean, trained in mixed-martial arts and practiced on each other constantly; Brent was the Marin county free-diving champ three years in a row until he was beaten; Bruce beat him; Vince owed his taut tush to ballroom dance.
Garcia always carried his own briefcase, though sometimes it was heavy.
Phil and Jill just built a whole new backyard onto Terrapin Crossroads, and they’re doing a Kid’s Day type of deal in April on Sunday afternoons: Phil reads stories and the Phamily Band plays children’s songs (and, I’m sure, Ripple) for the kiddies while Mom and Dad get lightly trashed at the bocce courts. (There are now bocce courts, apparently.)
This sounds like fun for everyone, and to mock it would be irredeemably prickish; I’ll simply note that Brent is in the mascot costume.
Also: Precarious Lee had nothing to do with building that stage. That’s a solid-looking wooden structure.
Although: would simply listing the children’s books that Phil rejected as inappropriate be mockery? I can’t see how. So, TotD presents Children’s Books Phil Won’t Be Reading At TXR Kid’s Day:
First things first: this is the most adorable photo ever taken featuring a Grateful Dead. There have been pictures in which Grateful Deads were cute, or cheerful, sexy, or Billy, but very few adorable shots.
I also now have the image of a cartoon Baby Levon wandering through Terrapin Crossroads causing innocent chaos with Phil chasing after him.
“No, Baby Levon! Don’t touch the–”
KASHWAM
“–lighting truss!”
“I okay, Gampa.”
“Okay, good. No! Don’t step in–”
KLANGSNAP
“–the bear trap!”
“I okay, Gampa.”
“Why do we have a bear trap?”
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