Ars Gratia

Any artists out there? Like good ones, who wanna make a Dead comic book? Any lawyers out there wanna tell me precisely where on the scale from happy ending to prison girlfriend (the ugly one) that action would fall?

Also, if you mix up the letters in the word “dead”, you can make Dade, which is a county in Florida or Edda, which is Old Norse hoolihoo.  Perhaps you can make some other words it you’re some sort of Boggle nut, but if that’s the kind of nut you are, I’ll have no truck with you at all. Nut.

Top Of The Pops

Bands the Dead was better than:

And I’ll just tell you upfront that I’m leaving Phish out of this entirely. I have as much interest about arguing Dead v. Phish as I do with getting involved in internet arguments about atheism: none.

Pink Floyd – Quick: what was the Pink Floyd sound? (Yeah, yeah.) Imagine Floyd jamming on, say, Summertime Blues. What would it sound like? Right.

Jefferson Airplane – The whole two singers just kinda standing there annoyed me. If you’re singing on a stage, you either stand tall with thrusted chest holding a libretto or you rock the fuck out and end the show by laying your enormous wang on a PA speaker, allowing the audience to watch it vibrate to the feedback of the guitars. That’s a lead singer. Being curly-haired and singing part of shitty Airplane jams makes you just a guy standing there singing occasionally.

Van Halen – Eddie and Garcia were both virtuosos, I suppose. Eddie could play a lot more notes. Both were known for their custom guitars, although Eddie made his in his garage for $40, and the creation of Garcia’s guitars always included, somewhere along the way, the phrase,”Well, it costs what it costs, man.” These are some of the most dangerous words in the English language, and when you hear them, you should stop letting the person who spoke them have anything to do with your money ever again.

The Sleigh Bells

Where is your drummer? You fuck right off back to Brooklyn and get yourself a drummer. We understand that the Marshalls are ironic, but Leggy Von Bangsinhair, an Ibanez guitar, and an IMac do not a band make.

Queen – And that pains me to say, because I love Queen. When the Wembley ’86 double-CD live album from the legendary–yes, legendary: like Dunkirk–Wembley Stadium Show came out, I ditched school for an hour to go to the mall and pick it up immediately: I wanted to show enthusiasm in my purchasing so perhaps Queen would do another tour in America. Freddie was dead within weeks.

But still, it was a good album.

Freddie did this a lot. No one in the Dead ever did this, except maybe after chimichanga night at Club Front. So, points: Dead.

U2 – Because every band is better than U2. It’s music for people who don’t particularly like music.

The Beatles – You couldn’t dance to the Beatles. Could you make sweet, sweet love to them? You could certainly make drugged-out love to Revolver, but the rest of it? Piffle and bosh. Plus, Revolution #9 was, pound-for-pound, every bit as annoying as Seastones, but y’know what: Seastones wasn’t on the album in the middle of the all the other stuff, the stuff you actually wanted to hear but now you had to sit through these dicks futzing around with their recording desk or, since it was 1970, get up and walk across the room the move the record needle, which is barbaric.

The Who – The Dead and the Who had a friendship/friendly rivalry thing starting at the Day on the Green in ’76. It was only an equipment loan from The Who that turned the Egypt excursion from “economically infeasible” to simply “ruinously expensive.”  Also, Daltry, Townshend, and the dead one behaved badly after Keith Moon’s death: they should have retired the name, at least. Instead, they carried on with a drummer so boring he was called Kenny Jones.

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.

Elvis Is A Terry Pratchett Character

Sorry to rail on about this Ronnie Tutt fellow, but first off, he’s just a massive drummer who gives my wiener worries; second, he played with Garcia AND Elvis. That is an odd cross-section of the Twentieth Century there. Supposedly they never met, but this of course begs the question: why not? Garcia must have been interested in the King, and Elvis was up for any stupid bullshit after enough pills and sandwiches.

Ronnie mentions it off-hand one night, and Elvis jumps on it like a steel trap.

YUR WURKIN FER THAT HAIRY GARCIA?

“Yeah, Elvis. He wanted to meet you, so I thought he could come on down to Vegas and catch–”

VEGAS? HAIRY GARCIA AIN’T COMIN TA NO VEGAS. I WILL RECEIVE HIM IN THE THRONE ROOM. I WILL RECEIVE HIM UPON THE SEAT OF MY POWER.

“That’s Graceland, King?”

YEAH, I WILL SEND THE LISA MARIE.

So, Garcia and the boys show up at Graceland. A red-headed porter in a modified Elvis suit/apron answers the door and shows them in, stopping at the entrance to the Jungle Room.”

“King, I present–”

Bang.

HEY, GRATEFUL DEAD: AH JUST SHOT THAT WHITE BOY. THE FUCK YOU THINK ‘BOUT THAT?

This time, even Billy had nothing: he was just as impressed and terrified as anyone else. There was a silence; no, not a silence: there were birds birding and branches creaking and creeks branching and cars starting 300 yards away. It was actually a sound that, like the smell of a dominatrix decaying in a bathtub in a row house just north of the 7-11 on Santa Monica Blvd in West Hollywood, hit your primal nerves–it was a sound that your reptile brain recognized long before your dumb ass put a name it: the sound of everyone shutting the fuck up and listening to the guy with the gun.

AH’M JUST SHITTIN YOU NOW, BOYS: GET THE FUCK IN’ERE. STEP OVER THAT DEAD CRACKER FUCK.

So they did and a good time was had by all. They talked a bit, ate bacon. Dr. Nick stopped by and declared them all very, very sick so they needed medicines of all colors and shapes; the proper dosage of these pills should be “a handful”. The Dead, of course, had dosed everything and everyone in the room, as well. The combination of LSD and the three champagne glasses full of pills Elvis dry-swallowed (which would have been a great party trick except for the whole “saddest thing you’ll ever watch another human being casually do right in front of you” thing) hit the King a bit funny.

TIME FOR KARATE: AH’M GUNNA KARATE THE GRATEFUL DEAD!

With that, the King jumped off the couch (there are many shades of jumping, from vaulting or leaping to whatever it was that Elvis did that day). He ripped off his robe, expecting–I believe–that in an attack situation, he would just grow a karate suit like he was Super Man or something. But he didn’t: he just ripped off his robe and stood there, naked and confused for a good long moment and then someone came and brought him up to his bedroom to change.

The Memphis Mafia was thrilled by this; they took the time away from the King to smoke doobies with the Dead, since Elvis did not allow doobies to be smoked in Graceland.

“Is he really gonna karate out when he gets back? said Bobby.

“If he–PHWOOOOO (doobie)–remembers, yeah. And if he goes for it, we gotta join in. Sorry, Grateful Dead,” said Joe Esposito.

“Does anyone need towels or water?” said Charlie Hodge.

“Y’know, Charlie,” said Garcia. “My brow is sopping, but my throat is bone-dry.”

“I got the solution, chief: towels and water.”

Another two hours or so went by, and everyone was having a great time. They were high as kites, and girls showed up, and Red broke out the guitars, and everybody had just the right amount of towels and water, and they had a hootananny right there in the Jungle Room. The thick shag was sown with pills, like a qualude farm and–

KARATE TIME!

Elvis was back. As promised, the Mafia had to pretend to fight, but the Dead were just giggly at that point, perhaps due to all the velour. Even Billy didn’t have any violence in him.

FACE ME, GARCIA. FACE YOUR KING.

“Well, y’know man, it’s just that you’re kinda being a rude sort of host here and–

YOU LEAD THESE MEN. YOU ARE THEIR KING. NOW FACE ME, FOR IN THE THRONE OF KINGS, HE DIES WHO…SHIT. IN THE KING OF GAMES, YOUR BEER IS…NO, FUCK, NO.

“We’re gonna split, man.”

NO! KARATE WITH ME, HAIRY GARCIA!

The door shuts on the loud group of men, leaving relative quiet in the Jungle Room.

“I’ll karate with ya, King.”

SHUT THE FUCK UP, CHARLIE.

…

I WANTED TO KARATE WITH HAIRY GARCIA.

Good Morning Little Schoolgirls (And Boys)

Now,we know what would have happened if the Dead had taken over a hospital, but what if they all got jobs at a school? Wokka wokka?

Phil taught music, obviously. His decision to include the uncut Einstein on the Beach as the centerpiece of the Fall Music-alooza was hotly contested by some before the show, and by all about three hours into the show. Also, Phil threw a tuba at a kid once. In his defense, that kid’s a well-known dick.

Garcia went in the Teacher’s Lounge and it’s been a while since he’s come out and if you try to go in, Parrish punches you really hard in your face and head.

Keith taught geometry. Not algebra or trig, nothing but geometry. Sometimes, he could be harassed into teaching another subject, but he would do it so deliberately poorly, accidentally injuring so many students and mascots that he would be asked to stop before October got there, even, and he would go back to teaching strictly geometry, which it should be said, he was unbelievably good at. He is also heavily addicted to heroin and, to be honest, was rather mumbly before the Persian. Opiates are not the natural friend of diction

Bobby coached soccer and basketball and track because:

…and Bobby don’t do pants.

Mrs. Donna Jean was the art teacher. Because she looked like your art teacher, right: crunchy and maybe gay and in-retrospect high all the time and predictably liberal. But she wasn’t. Mrs. Donna Jean liked to get shitty on pills and whiskey and fuck Bobby and crash her BMW into things in the parking lot and sing off-key for eight years. (Now, you know I’m a Donna Defender, but if the old canard about “not being able to hear the monitors” were true, wouldn’t you have worked hard to fix that? Shouldn’t the Dead’s crew–for all the mockery, they could never be accused of being bad at their jobs; lethal, perhaps, but thoroughly competent in the face of disaster–have been able to set her up lickety-split? Things to think about.

The parents caught one glance of Billy leering at the 15-year-olds and chased him, reviling his good name in utter besmirchment and giving the dogs the lash to catch the natty minge. The parents rousted Billy into a boiler room, which they boarded him into and set ablaze! Now, with a scarred face in the shape of a mustache and drumsticks sloppily taped to his fingers, he haunts the dreams of hot, sexy teens doing hot, sexy teen things as…Billy Kreug-etz-mannger. (I did not think this through beforehand.)

The Rude Beauty Of Youth

Baby Fat

Look at those hamhock arms: he’s just so adorable.

Wabbits!

Awkward #2

Mrs. Donna Jean is crossing her arms and not looking at Bobby as hard as she can.