Haiku #2

Phil plays too many

Notes. Billy plays just enough.

Garcia just plays.

Haiku #1

Sometimes Bobby sang

Truckin’ just like this: Bum buh

Dah da duhda da.

 

 

 

 

The Cute One

 

Three guesses whether Bobby remembered all the words to Truckin’ the night this photo was taken.

Time Hates Us All #2

Come Sit On Uncle Billy’s Lap

Hi, I’m Bobby

There’s this new tumblr I like, Phil is weird, I think that’s the name. Funny pictures of Phil and funny captions and Phil is exceedingly goofy, just all the time and I haven’t seen most of these pictures: this Tumblr guy is a Google ninja and I salute him (or her, but let’s be honest, him.)*

Are you shitting me? When you saw the site, you sulked for an hour, muttering darkly, “Somebody’s being funny about the Dead on the internet: that’s MY thing, I invented that.” You whined like a kicked kitten.

None of that is true.

And then you stole all the pictures you could and reposted them on your little site, didn’t you?

I did that. Yes, I did.

But Phil’s just an amateur, man.

* It’s a lady. A pretty, pretty–

I’m warning you, buddy.

–lady. I’ve already planned our Wedding. The groomsmen have to wear Bobby shorts, then the Best Man locks himself in the upstairs bathroom for three hours.

Once You See It

Q: Why did the Dead play Estimated so much in ’77?

A: What time signature is Estimated in?

I’m sorry: did I just blow your mind?

In The Timbers Of Fennario

A friend of mine enjoys camping, him and his boys they go romping about New England forests and such, miles away from a fresh and reasonably-priced cup of coffee. At night, after what is, I’m sure, an improper and rushed toilet, they all kip out on the filthy ground like marmosets and then in the morning, they make their doodies squatting in a bush. Then a moose eats everybody; it’s no way to spend a weekend.

At base level, at the concrete bedrock of what “civilization” means to me, lies a non-temporary shelter connected to the water and electric mains. After that, we’re negotiable but I really must insist upon not having to build my home right before sleeping in it.  Or having to make my doodies squatting in a bush. Deal-breaker, that.

I’ve been camping once in my life, and halfway through, I faked being sick so I could walk back to the infirmary. I went to sleepaway camp and once a year they would herd us a couple hundred yards into the woods with our sleeping bags, just far enough to be a real pain in the ass. Build a fire, all that goyim bullshit. I made it until around dinner when I realized how dirty my hands were and that I was expected to just eat my franks and burgers like that and fuck that shit, man, I’m a HUMAN BEING, BABY! MAN ON THE MOON, MOTHERFUCKER! I get to tidy up before I eat my franks, so fuck this shit, my stomach hurts, and I find the counselor whom I know wants to be there even less than I do and before I can get the lie out of my mouth, he has his stuff packed and slung around his shoulder and we’re humping the quarter-mile back to the real camp, with bunks and sinks and cookies.

But these guys love this camping nonsense.

What I’m trying to say is, before you mock someones misguided love for the dire pace of ’76, remember your irrational love for the arena rock of ’78. (Especially Spring ’78. Check out the boys at Duke on 4/12/78. Garcia’s vocals come in after a bit; what is with 1978 and his vocals?)

I’ll Still Sing you Love Songs

Take all rumor as truth. For the sake of argument and thought, take all rumor as truth. So we accept that Buckaroo Bobby was putting the spurs to my golden-shanked filly Ms. Donna Jean right under Keith’s coke-ruined nose. (We hope. The possibility also exists that Keith was involved somehow, perhaps like that crippled foreign guy making his wife do sex in that movie: orchestrating things, directing, discreetly applying the necessary lubes and balms while rubbing himself. i choose not to believe that possibility.)

So, anyway, even Keith isn’t oblivious enough not to notice what’s going on, especially when Ms. Donna Jean keeps leaving notes on their hotel room door reading, “Gone Bobby Banging.”

And now you’ve got to go onstage and sing love songs written in the letters of your name as Keith cries the quiet tears of a cuckold onto his piano keys.

Awkward.

Who Wears Short Shorts?

I need to stop watching these videos, because…I hate to say this, but: looking at Bobby and his choices distracts me from the music.

He is wearing a too-tight purple Izod, and his short pants. They are the type of short pants that suggest a bikini underneath and a long, soapy afternoon washing cars to raise money for Cayden’s cousin Rex who’s got cerurul pawsy. or something–it’s bad. He is playing not his ultra-cool 335, but a Casio guitar. Not a joke, that: it was seriously made by Casio.

Bobby, why won’t you let us love you? You know we do, Bobert. But, these fashion shenanigans (fashenanigans?) are going to have to stop or you will have to start letting me out of the car at least two blocks from school.

It’s 9/10/91, MSG, NYC. Ok? It’s one of the only Vince-related things to hold up at all, and as I’ve stated before, it’s tough to sound too bad when you’re being propped up by Bruce Hornsby and Branford Marsalis.

Anyway, I won’t do my usual dissection of the thing, except to point out one bit that I BEG you to watch because it will make you very happy, I promise: it happens at  1.15.30–Branford is coming out of this wonderful solo and plays this figure, ascending sixteenth notes, pretty but nothing mind-blowing, except Bruce starts playing it, so Branford goes back to it and the Phil picks it up, but he’s playing it going down the scale, and Garcia finally just reaches up the neck of his guitar, effortlessly, to where he knows the notes have always been, waiting for him to play them, and he picks up the figure twice and launches into his solo and yes I said yes I said yes.