Elvis Has Left The Building, Entered Our Hearts

AH HEAR YURR LOOKIN FURR A NEW WRITER FOR THIS HURR NEWSPAPER.

Aw, man: you just made the spell-check kill itself.

DIRTY SOUTH! SKRILLEX!

Those two things are not related except for tangentially at best.

YEAH! KING! YEAH! ELVIS KING!

You’re not listening. This is a job with the Grateful Dead. I’ve heard there have been incidents.

MORE LIKE A NON-INCIDENT, HEH-HEH-HEH.

Why are you laugh–

HAIRY GARCIA WONT KARATE WITH ME, EVEN THOUGH I TOLD HIM TO!

That actually seems to be the precise way to get him to not do something. Maybe if you–

AH’M AUDITIONING NOW

—Great.

THE GRATEFUL DEAD WAS JUST SOME CHOOGLY-TYPE JAM BAND WITH NO DISCIPLINE INSTILLED IN THEM BY THE STUFF NECESSARY TO BECOME A BLUE BELT IN PRES-LEE-DO, WHICH IS A MARTIAL ART I MADE UP. THE FACT THAT EVEN I, ITS CREATOR, HAVE NOT MASTERED IT SHOULD SHOW ITS FIENDISH DIFFICULTY. AH AM HALFWAY THROUGH ‘KICKING.’

That’s gonna be all I need to hear.

SO ELVIS HAS THE GIG?

Sure: we start at 8:00 AM.

ELVIS PASSES.

Audition

Okay, E.H.?

The Dead was a good band, fine and manly. They first met as volunteer firemen in the Boer War. That was a fine war: manly as all wars were, except the French-Indian War, which was some totally homo shit.

Okay, we’re fine with stretching the truth, but that’s just wrong.

But I look like your guitar player.

Thank you. Next: E.D.?

When Etna purrs

I tremble

Have not left my room

since I discovered the Archive

So, it’s just poetry and frilly blouses and your meals being brought to you, right?

Essentially.

Thank you, sweetie. Next: R.H.

The Dead were like my testicles: hairy and they knew how to swing, man. Check out this MONSTERLICKER–

You sound familiar.

–of a show from 2/15/70 in Philly, that I haven’t actually listened to yet, just pretty much picked at random and will bother you with P.S.’s about in the coming hours.

Ah, fuck it: it’s you. I thought Billy…?

Oh, hells yeah, he worked my sack: I’ll never play the harmonica again, but as it turns out, you can’t truly fire me.

Why not.

We are the same person. It’s just…it’s just that the fonts change, buddy.

…

Buddy?

Why won’t you play along?

Oh, I’m sorry, man.

You always–

–You’re right–

—you do this–

I know.

And it’s why we can’t have fun, y’know?

So, let’s have fun!

I want to go skiing.

We’re gonna go skiing.

YOU KNOW I HATE SKIING!

OKAY, EVERYONE OUT OF THE POOL.

Imperfect Pitch #3

Okay okay okay: what if the Dead were mattresses? Garcia would be soft and fluffy, Phil would be firm and ungiving, Vince would be blood-stained and lying by the side of the road in an industrial section of town.

Are you mocking your own tropes are have you genuinely just run out of gas?

80/40.

That is not a thing.

70/40?

Nor is that. Look, I’m going to need the ball. We’re going with the lefty.

Wright?

Yes, yes: Lefty Wright.

Doesn’t he also switch-hit?

Yes and no.

KNOCK IT OFF WITH THE ABBOT AND COSTELLO ROUTINE.

Sorry, boss.

Life is short: listen to ’73!

You are just the worst kind of suck-ass that there is. What you do is shameful and whether or not you feel wrong about that like normal humans have evolved to do over millennia doesn’t matter: your actions have shame attached to them and will hound you not just here, but in all the worlds to come.

How about the boys as olde-time comedian? Bobby could be Lucy and get into situations because Garcia don’t wanna take ‘er to da show. Garcia, Ricardo, same shit, right.

BILLY!

NOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOthump0000000000000000thump00000000.

Audition time!

Imperfect Pitch #2

Okay: Garca is Hitler, right? And then Phil–

Get out.

No, wait: listen, they’re good. Phil is Goebbels and he’s all–

There is PUNCHING.

Imperfect Pitch

Hey, what if the Grateful Dead were Secretaries-General of the United Nations? Obviously, Garcia is Boutros-Boutros Ghali (which my spell-check says is spelled wrong, therefore: racist devil). Phil is clearly U Thant, and if you can’t see Trygve Lie’s baby blues staring out at you from behind the drums stage right, well…I don’t know what’s wrong with you, pal.

You got nothing, do you?

Not as such, no.

It really is going to be sad to see you go–

Dead as the A-Team? With Garcia as Hannibal and he’s like, “I love it when a jam comes together.” And Billy is Murdock and Bobby is Face and Merl is B.A., because they tried it with Mickey in black-face and even he saw the problems, so they called the only black guy they knew.

I’m going to pass.

Merl was the Dead’s Billy Preston

Nice observation, but still gonna pass.

Can I just go workshop some stuff, rub it up some flags, get it back to you in a much more proactive paradigm?

If you admit that what you just said doesn’t mean anything, then: yes.

Complete bullshit. All of it.

Get back to me.

 

 

Eighty-Five, Man

I just started in on today’s Listening, beginning with 7/2/85 in Pittsburgh. Check it out for nothing but the Jack Straw, where they basically dare themselves to play it that fast, and then mostly pull it off.

Plus, Healy is already being a giant creep–weirding Bobby’s voice all over the place and pulling his usual bullshit.

Kind Of All Blue In Green

Q: Is Garcia a jazz guitarist?

A: No. No, he is not. (Start around 14 minutes in.)