Bean All Around This World

Hey, Garcia.

“Hey, man. Oh, yeah, hey: thanks for taking care of Phil yesterday.”

During the boner incident? I didn’t help that much.

“Well, you gave him someone to panic to, y’know. Phil always was a mess on his own.”

As opposed to others.

“Right, man. I could always entertain myself. One of those French Humanists, wasn’t it, said man’s unhappiness comes from being unable to sit quietly in a room? I figured it out.”

Yeah.

“Ha!”

How’d that work out for you? Long run?

“Well, I’m not on a conference call with Billy and Phil’s wife talking about money, man.”

You have a point.

“I usually do, man.”

…

I always dug that guitar.

“Oh, yeah: the Travis Bean. Aluminum neck.”

Right. Is that better than a wood neck?

“Well, a whole shitload of people who are complete assholes about their guitars thought so. So: maybe. Probably not, though. It was a thing to do.”

Okay.

“Weird guy, Travis Bean. Always smelled like pretzels, which was nice. Turned out he did a lot of off-license taxidermy.”

I cannot even begin to imagine what that phrase entails.

“That’s probably healthy. Psychologically.”

Sure.

Mill Valley Liberation Army

“So, we’re just throwing the people from TV in jail now?”

What? Oh. No, Bobby.

“Thanks, Obama.”

Nope.

“They should arrest that Dexter fellow they did that long documentary on.”

No, Bobby.

“I think he lives in Miami. Anyway, I know that murderer guy’s sister, Patty. Little troublemaker, that chick, man.”

…

Are you talking about Patty Hearst?

“Sure. Ran into her years after that little gap year of hers at Bohemian Grove.”

Sometimes I forget you were always a rich kid, Bob.

“And we’re both naked and high as kites on drugs, and I tell her, ‘Why didn’t you just drop out of school and come follow the Dead?’ Pretty much the same bullshit, as far as pissing your parents off was concerned.

“Plus, it was ’74, so the band was just cooking.

“And she says something about how she was ‘interested in revolution,’ so I told her that ‘Phil’d talk that revolution bullshit all night long if you let him do weird stuff to your butt,’ and then she walked away from me.”

Imagine that.

“They need to arrest Hannibal. That guy eats people.”

Only bad people.

“Yeah, but still.”

A Jink

“You know how many people I killed?”

No.

“That’s cuz I never did a goddamned documentary about it!”

Wow.

“Fuckin’ amateur hour nowadays.”

Band Tryouts

When Garcia died in 1995, the surviving members of the Dead needed to find someone to solo constantly, sing half the songs, and play shortstop on the softball team. This slot (known colloquially as the Fake Jerry gig) has been a source of intra-band friction, with nasty words, vague Dylan quotes, and punched dicks on all sides.

Which FJ belongs to what Grateful Dead? Who hates whom? Who once throw which guy off what bus in the middle of where? For those who can’t tell the players without a scorecard, TotD presents A Guide to the Fake Jerries:

This is Dave Kimock, who is rumored to be one of several guitarists playing at Levi’s Stadium with Bobby and the drummers and maybe nine or ten other people, as though Garcia’s death were a problem you could solve by throwing guitar players at it.

Long a fan favorite, Kimick started in an ill-fated television pilot called The Jerry Garcia Club! The show was about a Monkees-style band that the Dead would mentor. The band would be made up of diverse and attractive youths that could actually play and every episode would end with them jamming with one or more of the Dead.

The pilot turned out to be rather unremarkable as a piece of entertainment, but it was shelved due to the fact that four of the five “band members” turned out to be serial killers. And not just serial killers, but perversions of human morality to the point where the people who discovered the things that they had done–like, the detectives and journalists on the case–all went nuts as well.

Anyway, Kimmock joined Phil and Friends and he got along with every single one of the Leshes pictured here:

Trust me on this one: the details are tedious. Later, Bobby hired him for Ratdog, partially to annoy Phil, but mostly because Bobby figured that Kimmik would know all the songs already.

The drummers are apparently fine with him, unlike the next guy. Below is John Kadillak:

He looks like Eric Stoltz and plays a Carvin. Bobby and Phil have no problem with him.

Billy, though: slightly more so. He has called Kadaverdog, among other things, a “cheese-shitting cousin-fucker who would walk through a perfectly good whorehouse to get to a fat boy’s ass.” That kind of statement is hard to walk back, so JK’s probably done as FJ.

Billy hung out with this swampmonster for a while, and he swore up and down that it could play guitar, but I’m positive that he found it in the Pine Barrens eating human babies.

One of these people may or may not be Keller Williams.

This is Tom Keifer, famously of Philadelphia’s own Cinderella, which some people would call a Hair Metal band, but Tom would argue came from a far more bluesy and soulful place than a lot of his contemporaries, but to be honest, Tom Keifer talks a lot of bullshit.

Another In A Series Of Open Letters To The Grateful Dead

Dear Grateful Dead (whatever that means anymore),

Grateful Dead, we need to have some Real Talk. What are you doing, Grateful Dead? Do you even know? Is there a plan here? Was there ever a plan? If there was a plan, did everyone sign off on it?

You captured magic in a bottle, and you did it righteously. Instead of a cut-rate Fake Jerry, you went with a guitarist who has spent his entire career trying his hardest not to be Garcia. It would be pretentious to invoke the story of the Prodigal Son, but it applies. Bruce provided a link back to the many, many keyboardists your organization has tragically killed. Chicago is where it all ended so abruptly.

The show will be on July Fourth because the Grateful Dead is an American rock and roll band.

You have captured interest and demand and enthusiasm because of the story you are promising to tell: we don’t know the plot, but the themes are universal. No one knows how you’ll sing, but we know it’s a good song.

An analogy: Marvel has the second Avenger movie coming out this summer, in which the world is once again saved via handsome actors punching computer graphics in the face. People are very excited for it and the grosses for opening weekend are projected to be enormous.

But: if the opening weekend numbers are massively, enormously, stupendously higher than predicted, Marvel will increase the number of showings and screens. They will not–under any circumstances–put out a cobbled-together mishmash of deleted scenes, alternate takes, and Steve Kimock and attempt to market it under the Avengers name.

Am I making sense? Take the Chicago lineup to San Francisco and DC. Or, don’t. None of you owe anything to anyone. But Bobby, the drummers, one of the Phishes, and John fucking Mayer isn’t selling out a stadium. It’s a great Thursday afternoon jam on the Bonaroo Jam Stage sponsored by Red Bull, but not two nights at the new Niners’ place.

Have you heard the story of the golden goose, Grateful Dead? One day, a farmer discovers that one of his geese is made of gold, and lays golden eggs. I’m rich, the farmer thought, and then the goose killed him, as it was now made of gold, and weighed around 300 pounds (troy.) That golden goose cut a swath of destruction through the village, using its dense wings to bludgeon children and pets to a pulp and snapping the leg bones of horses with one swing of its neck.

“What can we do?” the villagers cried.

“Perhaps it will rust,” one of the villagers said.

“It’s gold, idiot. Gold doesn’t rust,” one of the other villagers said.

“H0w was I supposed to know that?”

“That is common knowledge,” said a fourth villager. “But we don’t need the name-calling.”

And then the goose ate everyone.

What can we learn from this, you ask? The lesson is clear: kill the golden goose immediately. The very second you lay eyes on a golden goose, call in an air strike.

You were actually being helpful right up until the point you went insane.

I know, right?

…

Anyway, Grateful Dead: we love you and don’t fuck this up.

Sincerely,

TotD

Ladies And Gentlemen: The Grateful Dead (2015 Version)

Hey, Bobby. What fresh hell is this?

“This is the Grateful Dead now. We’re booking three shows at Yankee Stadium.”

Good luck with that.

“John Mayer’s gonna be there, too.”

Yay.

Strong Bench

“Am I in the Grateful Dead now, Trey?”

“Mike, I got no fucking idea what those numbskulls are up to.”

“But you’re not gonna be a Grateful Dead?”

“Please stop reminding me I got involved with these crazy people.”

“Who the fuck is Steve Kimock and why would anyone think that he could sell out a football stadium?”

“I’m begging you to stop talking, Mike.”

“Trey?”

“Oh, no, Fishman. Don’t help.”

“If you’re a Grateful Dead in Chicago and Mike’s a Grateful Dead in San Francisco, then can I be a Grateful Dead in New York?”

“All of you shut the fuck up.”

“Actually, Fishman: could you switch with me?”

“You wanna be in the New York Dead, Mike?”

“Well, I’m living there, now.”

“That would be a convenient pace for you to be a Grateful Dead, sure. Yeah, we can trade.”

“Great, thanks.”

“I hate you all.”

…

“I’m happy in Phish.”

“We know, Page.”

Line-Up

I can see you.

“Yeah, yeah. We can see you, too. It’s a press conference, man.”

I was talking to Phil.

“You were interrupting a very interesting anecdote I had about a pair of maracas I owned named Lenny and Honey.”

“Is this about Phil’s boner?”

“Oh, right. Phil had–”

“Yeah, I heard about this.”

“–like, boner surgery or something.”

“No, Bob, it wasn’t surgery. There was, like, some sort of exercise regimen.”

“Oh? He had men come by the house and work his boner out?”

“Paid good money for it, too.”

Guys.

“Garcia, what’s going on?”

“Bluntly?”

“Hee hee.”

“Phil took too Viagra and got a boner that now threatens our timeline.”

…

“That’s an impressive boner.”

“Shit, yeah.”

Phil, would you stop pretending to be asleep and talk to me?

“He’s not pretending and he’s not asleep.”

Unconscious?

“Little bit.”

…

“Where’s Brent?”

“Godammit, we left Brent at the hotel again.”

Dead Men Don’t Wear Plaid

“What if I make Billy look at it?”

Jesus Christ in a Fiat, don’t make Billy look at your boner.

“Oh. Hey, man.”

Hi, Garcia.

“What’s going on?”

Phil’s gone a bit rogue.

“He does that, yeah.”

“Billy punched me in the boner!”

Well, duh.

“Yeah, man. No sympathy here.”

 

Perfect Pitch, Lousy Sight

“Psst. Hey. Psst.”

Phil, please don’t “psst” me.

“It’s not Phil. Well, it is Phil, but a different Phil. I’m not this me, I’m the other me.”

What?

“The one with the boner.”

Um, hi?

“I found a way to hide my terrible erection: behind the world’s largest bass.”

John Holmes could hide his boner behind that thing.

“Yeah.”

…

Weren’t you Old Phil when the enbonering took place?

“Right. It’s quantum temporality.”

Between your boners and your metaphysics, you’re having a hell of a birthday, Phil.

“In your universe, time takes precedence over narrative. Here, it’s the other one.”

I see what you did there.

“I’m clever today.”

Yeah, except for the engorgement keeping you from your family and, increasingly, me from sanity.

“Well, yeah.”

Can’t you find a stone-cold teen fox to stick it in? Wiggle it around for a minute or two?

“Excuse me? I’m a married man. I take my vows seriously.”

But you haven’t met your wife yet.

“Not this me, no. But I have. So I can’t. If this guy were me, then he could bend waitresses over the salad bar at Terrapin Crossroads, but he’s not me: I’m him, so I’m gonna take the high road.”

This makes no sense.

“Well, who’s to blame there, funny man?”

Please stop being self-aware.

“Make me.”

I DID MAKE YOU.

…

Can you see without your glasses?

“Not a goddamned thing. The dark brown blur is Garcia, and the light brown one is Bobby. Anything beyond that is a guess.”