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.

Kind Of All Blue In Green

Q: Is Garcia a jazz guitarist?

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

 

 

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.

Sunday In My Apartment With Garcia

This is how it always happens: a nice stranger on the internet pays you a compliment and BOOM: listening to the fuckin’ Jerry Band. (And don’t give me any guff about “Legion of Mary,” or “Reconstruction,” or whatever: it was always just the fuckin’ Jerry Band. And what that was, was Garcia and John Kahn making dope money.)

The Jerry Band mostly sucked, except for the times when, coincidentally, people like Merl Saunders or Ronnie Tutt were in the band. Odd how that happened. Otherwise, it was ponderous, unmemorable Dylan covers.

My main memory of The Jerry Band was my Dead Bodhidharma, Glenn. He dug the ’90 live CD, the one with Simple Twist of Fate on it, in which John Kahn takes an eight-minute bass solo (strike three) in the wrong key. Or for the first time on a fretless. Or with a number of head wounds and contusions. these are only some of the excuses he might have for whatever it was I was forced to sit through.

P.S. Speaking of intonational follies, check out Second that Emotion from 4/13/71 at the Catholic Youth Center in Scranton, PA. The intro answers the question “Could Garcia be so out of tune, he actually becomes in tune the long way around?”

P.P.S. Seriously, go find this recording: Jerry Garcia Collection vol 1: Legion of Mary.

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.)

Emergency Crew

Breaking news, my fellow Enthusiasts: the Hiatus was a lie! Well, not that it occurred: the Dead played only four shows in 18 months. That’s fact. What’s not fact is the reason why. We were all told it was because the Wall of Sound and the Wall of Drugs were driving them into bankruptcy and insanity. True, but not the only reason. In fact, not even the MAIN reason.

In the Summer of ’74, the Dead played a gig that appears in no database. They appeared as ringers in a local Anal Creek, WV, talent show to raise money for Li’l Possum, whom the city doctors had proclaimed was, “just as fucked up as you can be and still be alive. You want me to kill it? Let me kill it: I’d be doing everyone involved a favor.”

Well, they won, and raised that money. To thank them, the townspeople gave them a hospital, short on staff but long on love: St. Stephen’s Medical Center.*

Billy became Chief of Staff and immediately improved the hospital’s standing, financially and medically. From the top brain surgeon to the lowest psychiatrist, everyone respected Billy’s simple management style. He had one rule: “Y’sure you wanna do that?” And only one punishment. You knew where you stood with Billy. And sometimes, you knew where you lay in the fetal position, tenderly cupping your battered banana while puking.

Phil immediately went Phantom of the Opera: like, during the very first walk-through. Not only was Phil skinny, but he could dislocate his hips to the point where he could shimmy through an 18-inch pipe and he ran away from the group right when they got in the door and SHHOOOOOOP right into a duct and no one saw him for a month or so.

Garcia became the pharmacist and then four minutes later he threw up on himself and passed out, so the road crew instinctively put him on a plane to Milwaukee.

Vince would wander the halls convincing people to let go and follow the light, but he wasn’t all that good at judging how sick people were, so he would end up with a lot of 12-year-olds getting their tonsils out and 55-year-olds getting their knees replaced. Vince would clutch them tight (otherwise, they would squirm away) to his chest, and whisper, “Stop fighting. Be with your ancestors. THEY CALL TO YOU. Succumb. Succumb!” People lodged formal complaints; it was the kind of thing you filled out paperwork about.

Keith “would fuckin’ thank people to stop mistaking me for a corpse, please. I’ve had CPR administered on me four times today. Stop it: this is just the way I look.”

Bobby was the crusading internist/trauma doc/diagnostician (which is not a thing) of the hospital. He could heal anyone…but himself: Dr. Bobby, M.D. He battles with the suits, makes love to Nurse Donna Jean and tries to find a lead in the case of the disappearing livers.

Brent was a male nurse. He was gentle and kind and shaved all the ding-dongs.

*Yes, we’re all quite aware none of this makes sense and this bit makes no sense in particular. You’re very clever to have noticed.

Fire Up A Colortini

Two of my favorite dead guys. I used to watch Tom Snyder religiously, especially when Robert Blake came on. He was on that show frequently, if I recall, crazy as a shithouse rat each time. Tom would also have the TV writer David Milch on a lot. Milch had some sort of neck thing where his head would just loll to the side and then Snyder’s eyebrows would start to do some outlandish bullshit; it was some great TV.

Watch the pictures of the Boys as they fly through the air. They’re their usual charming selves. (Seriously, they–mostly Garcia–bitched about being on TV, but were suspiciously good at it.)

And then go listen to Dick’s Picks 13, with the He’s Gone for Bobby Sands, because that’s what they’re referring to when they say last night was “good”.

Fashion Victim Or The Crime?

In his defense…no, there’s no defending those trousers.

In The Army Now

Garcia was in the service, the Army. It was normal back then for most everybody except sissies, commies, or college boys in their raccoon coats. Mickey and TC were both in the Air Force (Mickey played drums in the Air Force, because the Brass didn’t let him play for three days or so and set fire to a mess hall, so they decided to just let the monster have his Slingerlands and keep the peace.)

Phil was in college and driving a mail truck while shooting speed, which seems like a lovely way to spend a summer at age 22, so no playing soldier for him. Billy got his letter and walked into the draft office, Pall Mall dangling from sneering lips under a newly-grown but already treasured mustache.

“You send me this letter?”

“Ye–”

SHWOKKATHOOM Dicks got punched, dicks got punched left and right, my friend. The sergeant, the lieutenant, the other hard-to-spell things: all of them down, dicks punched, just punched to shit, my man. Everyone got it; sometimes it seemed like he was going harder on the people who were just randomly there. A plumber just in the office got it the worst for some reason, perhaps because he begged. Ah, you think: if Billy hates it when one begs, then therefore, one must fight back to gain his respect.

No! Never fight back. You’re not understanding the main motivator here: when Billy gets to punching dicks, Billy gets to punching dicks. It’s not a competition: it’s a thrust, an urge, he MUST PUNCH DICKS. The thing that pisses him off is the time wasted: beg, bargain, fight, offer to slobber his johnson–these all just register on Billy’s radar as vague buzzing that, every second that it lasts, trends towards white-crazy lightning ruining his brain. You’re making it worse: just lie back and think of Sausalito.

Sweet Harmony

10/19/72 at the Southern stronghold, Hofheinz Pavillion in Houston. There are German families with deep roots all over Texas because the 19th century was just an absolute mess and everybody was fleeing from everyone, and if you’ve ever been to Texas, it is a place to flee to.

Speaking of the Southern strategy, go check out Mrs. Donna Jean singing a beautiful duet with Garcia on the old Dolly Parton/Porter Waggoner tune Tomorrow is Forever, a rarity that only appeared this many times. Wow! Just that many? Yup.

But the original is a bit better.