Where The Meet Hits The Street

“Bob?”

“Sure, Bruce?”

“Did you invite all these people to join the Dead?”

“Sure did, Bruce.”

“And did you bring Vince here with the Time Sheath technology?”

“Uh-huh.”

“And Phil is where?”

“It’s raining, and he didn’t want to get the Ferrari wet. I’m sure one of these folks plays bass.”

…

“Bruce?”

“Yeah, Bob?”

“Um…you know about Time Sheath technology?”

“Dude, the first week I was in the band, you shanghaied me back to the 20’s to double-team Amelia Earhart.”

“Now I remember. She was a fun gal.”

“Yeah.”

…

“Does Billy look like a founding father?”

“Yes, he does.”

You’re Up Late

 

There is no culture so shame-based–not the Irish nor the Japanese nor the Calvinist Swiss–that its language has a word for the amount of side-eye that Garcia is giving Bobby and his fiestawear here.

You Look Wonderful Tonight

The Dead always liked high school foxes, but when they started taking them to their proms, there needed to be some real talk.

Suntana

The look on Garcia’s face is just aces.

“Hey, Señor Sunshine, wanna tone it down? You’re searing my rods and cones over here,  Chachi.”

Why does Garcia sound like late-80’s Dennis Miller?

Why do YOU sound like–

I’m not going to play if you’re gonna be crazy.

–late 80’s Dennis Miller?

…

Boo, you whore.

Sick Man Of Europe

Hey, Garcia. Whatcha doing?

“Sitting huddled in the darkness.”

Um. Yeah.

 

Meet You At The Jubilee

The rumor going around is that there’s a Big Ticket item coming for the 50th, and as always, TotD brings you EXCLUSIVE previews of some of the things being considered:

• Billy comes and lives with you for a while! Just what it sounds like: Billy moves in and (in descending order of probability) punches some local dick, accidentally cripples your dog, accidentally sleeps with your wife, accidentally sleeps with your crippled dog, and turns your basement into a Pai-Gow poker game that starts a gang war in Chinatown.
• Too Much Access Pass! This pass is not merely laminated, it’s encased in 16 pounds of gallery-quality acrylic and enables you true all-access. More access that that. Even more. Like, you can follow people into the bathroom, or home, or into their home bathrooms. You can tag along on the 50th anniversary tour if you want. Hell, you can drive the bus. Sit in on business meetings and listen to men argue about things that happened 30 years and five keyboardists ago. Waltz into The Vault at 3 AM, drunk, to play paintball with homeless people: no one can stop you from doing these things.
• Spiders! You send Rhino Records $800 and they send an intern to your house to throw spiders–a big box of them–at you. It’s an awful product, honestly.
• Vince! Every single note from the Vince years, with extras including rehearsals, jams sessions, secretly-recorded bitch sessions, Vince’s solo album, extensive interviews with Vince, and a full and thorough explanation of his actions by Bob Bralove.

Opinions On The Dead

Taste is subjective (well, not Garcia: Garcia tasted bad and that’s a pure fact) and what people like or dislike about this band is beyond me, though it’s not surprising: whatever your favorite part of these irrelevant yammerings are, I can assure you that mine is different. In the recent post about Europe ’72, I reported on Bobby’s disappointment and confusion over the fact that there were no Arthur Treacher’s in Denmark; it is the definition of a minor jape. However, it slayed me. No exaggeration: it’s, like, the favorite thing I’ve written in weeks and I keep coming back to it in my head and decrying the fact that there really isn’t much more juice to get out of that berry. Seriously: I had a conversation with myself enumerating why that joke was funny (1: A fast food place based on haddock? C’mon, now.) in the shower and I ran out hot water before I ran our of reasons.

Opinions abound; they must be encouraged and watered and fertilized. (Side note: plants are disgusting. They eat shit and breed by spraying their plant-jizz in the air. Plants are like colorful little G.G. Allin’s.)

Some opinions just suck and blow and cup gently and nomnomnom and work the shaft and make way too much eye contact and slide a spit-slickened pinky in back and thrust upward–

That’ll be enough of that.

Dude, what if you were getting some nice-nice mouthy style–

You are a grown-ass man.

–from a fox and when she looked up at you, she had stuck thoe googly eyes on her eyelids?

…

I’d marry that woman immediately.

I know, right?

Anyplow, TotD presents: Opinions about the Dead that Thoughts on the Dead has opinions about, deadly ones indeed! (I dare you to diagram that sentence.)

• Donna sucks I’ve mentioned this one before and this’ll be the last time; the subject’s boring. Some of the Donna dislike stems from misogyny, be it latent or blatant, and some has its roots in the undeniable fact that–occasionally–Mrs. Donna Jean couldn’t find the key with a flashlight and a cadaver dog. here’s the deal, though: on her worst all-time Playing, Mrs. Donna Jean was out-of-tune for 4% of the song; Garcia was out-of-tune for the other 96%. Yet no one gives him shit.
• Mickey sucks First off: don’t say that in front of him because Mickey will bite you on your face. Second: wrong-o, fuckbag. Which was better, the first or second half of the 70’s? Depends on what you’re listening to at the time, doesn’t it? Would the Dead have sounded as good in ’77 without Mickey? In ’73 with Mickey? We don’t know and according to the laws of Chaos Theory, which I thoroughly misunderstood one night on Wikipedia, WE CAN NEVER POSSIBLY KNOW. Spooky, right? Also, Mickey’s the only Jew in there, so I kinda gotta stand up for him.
• Bobby sucks No one says this around me.
• Garcia sucks No one says this.
• I suck Your mom says this.
• TC/Keith/Brent/Vince/Bruce sucks This is a matter of taste more than any of the others. Do you like the sound of the piano? The Hammond organ? Did you wonder what Keyboard cat sounded like without the overdubbing?
• Billy wasn’t involved in the Gardner Museum heist It’s just obvious, man.

Terrible (Yet Patriotic) Dead Art

The look on the eagle’s face says it all.

Driving That Train

What other website brings you–you, the discerning Enthusiast–exclusive news of how the Grateful Dead responded to the news of the Hyperloop? None!

Y’think there’s a reason for that?

Big Dead?

Really?

No, not this time. This shit’s getting arcane.

Phil half-read the article, then demanded that “this hyperlooper the boffins have invented” be worked into his amplifier rig.

All day, Bobby had been giggling, hard. He was doing that thing where you’re at a funeral or church or an orgy–somewhere you’re not allowed to laugh–and now YOU CAN’T STOP LAUGHING. Every once in a while, Bobby would try to catch his breath: he would double over, hands on knees, shaking his head. “Hyper poop,” he would whisper, and again start quivering with laughter. It continued for hours; Garcia had to sing most of the songs that night.

Billy invented a hyperloop, as well: it was sexual in nature, and I’d thank you not to ask me any more about it.

Vince was heartbroken over the rumor that the emergency brake was to be named the Vince Song, because it brought things to a dead stop.

Garcia would check into hotels under the name “Hy Perloupe”. He thought is was clever, and it actually wasn’t such a bad little joke. Then he would accidentally burn down half the building.

 

Found It!

A little more actual art to cleanse the palate…