http://thethrillsociety.com is your link to Thrilling Stuff! This article is just a taste!
In May of 1995 the Grateful Dead played their last show in Las Vegas, Nevada. Four months later Jerry Garcia would die of a suspected cocaine-induced heart attack. Though the legacy echoes on, the death of Jerry Garcia was essentially the coffin nail to one of the greatest phenomenon of modern human history. Quite literally this tiny handful of hippie musicians tapped into an energy unrivaled and spurned a migration only comparable to the wildebeest herds of the Serengeti; this isn’t spinnerhead bullshit, the numbers are simply that large. Listen, you don’t have to like the Dead, you don’t have to get the Dead but despite your personal visions of the cosmic, everyone should respect the Grateful Dead. They earned it. Im not going to lie, I’ve never been a huge fan of the music, I didn’t then nor do I now listen to it often. Its cool, it fine, I get it, its good in doses but I cant recite lyrics and frankly it starts to sound very much the same after awhile. However, I do admire what they created and much of what their message represented.Like any religion, political movement, or populist wave mostly it’s been bastardized, misunderstood, manipulated by is own selfish legion and brought to market by the Lords of Commerce. But what they came to represent was bigger than music, lifestyle, philosophy or any of the people involved. I have no intentions of trying to describe that force, a thousand books have already been dedicated, each both wrong and right. Its like trying to describe the epiphany of god or an hallucinogenic experience…..itsprivate to each individual and unknowable to the masses. This is merely my own tale of a day spent with the Dead where I experienced both the horrific and the sublime in the course of an afternoon, each element utterly crucial to the other.
Heaven, Hell and the Dead
Old friends had come to town for the show, crashing on available floor space in my apartment. We partied it up good, had fun, cruised the Strip, generally played tourist. The next day was the show, they planned to go out early and enjoy the carnival that is the parking lot experience but I had to work. I would drudge through my day fixing rich peoples broken houses then catch up to them at the show. Mind you this was before everyone had a cell phone, there would be fifty thousand spaced out loonies to sift through before I found my specific ones. It would not be easy but I was indeed up for the challenge.
I rolled up late in my old Buick, had to park miles away. I got as high as humanly possible, grabbed my ticket and what little spending money I could muster and started the long march. Walking through row after row of busted Winnebago and rusted wagon, seeing the remnants of grand parties recently abandon I was pretty jealous I had missed the festivities. Seasoned Deadheads are a very tuned in lot, perceptive beyond the everyday, an older hippie couple chilling and BBQing greeted me as I drew near.
“Had to work, huh. Well, don’t be bummed young man, there is plenty of party left inside,” says the random stranger from forty feet away. His lady, clearly once quite stunning, also smiled at me.
“Here kid, have a pull off this, it’ll help that smile,” as she handed me a clown face balloon. Being raised never to offend, also being one never to turn down free drugs I happily accepted, emptied my lungs and breathed deep…….WOWZA. I thanked and slapped five, off I floated toward the gates. The din grew louder as I approached. It was mostly empty outside the arena, with only a few ragtag groups milling about.
Walking around the mezzanine the crowd grew steadily thicker as did the smell of sandalwood, beer, frankincense, sand, sweat and mystery like some long lost post card from Persia. I still hadn’t seen the stadium floor but it smelled like when the magic of valkyrie carpets and the cloaked eyes of beauty enchanted the world with visions of a Middle East still romantic, still exotic and still something worth saving.
Dirty patch-work skirts and dreadlocks abounding, tribal hoops and sandals with tire soles; baggy jeans, short shorts, bikini tops, peasant dresses and linen, but also belted Dockers and Tommy Bahama, Wranglers and boots, Dickies, tuxedos, jester suits, caveman costumes complete to the club— old, young, rich, poor, black, Indian, Mexican, —the Dead draws them all. If you don’t know, have never been to a show one of the absolute keys you must realize is that the crowd at a Dead show is utterly and completely diverse. Though certainly there are plenty of the stereotypical, patchouli smelling hippies there are also buttoned down stock brokers, old black women, young frat boys, working men, hard core bikers, retirees in hotrod wheelchairs towing oxygen, babies in hand-knit slings, politicians, Jew lawyers, Korean cooks, welders, civil engineers, janitors and typists, executives sharing a joint with maids, dealers, tricks and pimps, and of course cops………. I don’t mean the ones cursed with security duty, those officers are needed. I mean the ones trapped in their obvious moustaches; sentenced to be those sorry fuckin storm-troopers assigned to blend in by wearing their satin team jackets in 100 heat……..Good luck with that ….. good luck indeed.
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