Tag: phil lesh (Page 47 of 105)

Dear Grateful Deads,

A’salaam Aleykem, Grateful Deads and assorted bearded youths or hot wives. How are you? I am fine, but tired from destroying America.

Michelle and I salute you in your fifty-year “long, strange trip.” She would be here in person, but she’s busy telling people what to eat and murdering the American cattle farmer in his sleep. Michelle’s thing with broccoli…it’s verging on sexual at this point, Grateful Deads.

I digress.

You travelled to the unsung cities of this great country: Lakeland, FL; Reno, NV; Philadelphia more than once. If nothing else, this country owes you a debt of gratitude for going back to Philadelphia so many times: no one should have to do that.

And now you end your voyage in my adopted hometown city of Chicago. Try to avoid being shot or running into Rahm Emmanuel; they’re both terrible things that require medical intervention. At least getting shot, you wouldn’t have to deal with that finger nub: thing gave me the heebie-jeebies and the nasty little fucker knew it, too. Wave it around the Oval Office. President shouldn’t have to deal with that shit.

Once again, I digress.

I first listened to the Grateful Dead while I was living in Hawaii, hanging out with the Choom Gang. We would smoke cigarettes, of both a tobacco and marijuana nature, and get down to, say, a good ’72. The rhythms reminded me of the music from my Kenyan home, where I was born and taught how to destroy America, and I also enjoyed when Garcia would rip shit up.

When you visited me in 2009, as we see in the picture above, I was taken back by your still-contagious enthusiasm for music, magic, and joy. My entire staff and I were taken aback by the amount of things from my office you stole. Look: we know people are going pocket stuff. It’s the White House, you want a souvenir, so we leave crap all over the place: ashtrays even though it’s 2015, and pads, and whatnot. Everyone else just understands that it’s the swag and you can have it. Not the Dead; several of them had to be stopped from ordering Jeff Chimenti to roll up rugs and put them in his van.

Billy took the Resolute desk.

Anyway, I wish you the best of shows in Chicago and, as Garcia would say, “Someone please bring me seven tacos or I’m not going onstage.”

Presidentially Yours,

Barack Hussein Obama

ps  Seriously, Billy needs to bring the desk back.