07-12-2015, 04:28 PM
The next morning, Monday, with another hangover, I headed straight to ORD even though my flight was later that evening. I wasn't going to get in to SFO until midnight, and I planned to work Tuesday, then go to the Giants game. But the GD weather control was over and a massive storm was delaying flights and shutting down the airport. They started laying out cots - hundreds of them - for travelers that would be stranded that evening. I consoled myself with one more treat - Garrett's Cheese Corn. OMG. Chicagoans know how to eat. Gotta eat fat there to store blubber for the winters. So I stumbled all over ORD, smeared with oily cheese grease, munching on Garrett's and sipping coke to try to stay awake.
My flight was packed and two hours late. The flight attendants warned us that we might be stranded if the pilots didn't get there in time, before the lightning. The flight was half deadheads and one broke out his guitar and started playing dead tunes. It became a big singalong, spilling out past our gate, so much so that we had to be shepherded back a few times. That's the thing that's hardest to explain about the GD, the deadhead community. You've all been to deadshows, but penetrated that community is another thing. We speak a secret language, embroidered with lyrics and puns. We can spot each other from our attire, even when it isn't loud tie dyes, even when we're on the down low, just like spies and gays. We're all in on the joke, the cosmic joke, some psychedelic joke told by the merry pranksters some 50 years ago. It's supportive, reaffirming and enabling. To be back within that community again, that community in full force, was such a treat. I had forgotten. I followed the post-Jerry permutations of the GD, the Other Ones, Furthur, Phil & Friends, Ratdog, When they were just 'the Dead' and not grateful, all the way until recently. I didn't go to a run last year, just because I didn't feel like driving up to S.F. or Oakland. GD music had fallen out of my playlist. But now it's back, now I can't get enough, now I feel like wearing all my old GD shirts and waving that flag, waving it long and high. I'm so blessed to have been treated to this final run - it was bittersweet and heart-breaking and such a lesson in impermanence. I remembered Jerry's passing, and Bill's and Brent's, in all of its poignancy and sorrow. But it also reminded me of days gone by and how glorious and thrilling it all was.
I doubt the boys will play under the Grateful Dead banner again. They will keep playing, in all of their weird permutations, because that's what they do. And I could see the band reforming for some special benefit, or when one of remaining core four pass away. They signed off with class, with a staggering demonstration of what power they still hold over the loyalist fans you'll ever see. And there's no band in sight that can generate such a culture now, but we remain hopeful.
FOREVER GRATEFUL.
My flight was packed and two hours late. The flight attendants warned us that we might be stranded if the pilots didn't get there in time, before the lightning. The flight was half deadheads and one broke out his guitar and started playing dead tunes. It became a big singalong, spilling out past our gate, so much so that we had to be shepherded back a few times. That's the thing that's hardest to explain about the GD, the deadhead community. You've all been to deadshows, but penetrated that community is another thing. We speak a secret language, embroidered with lyrics and puns. We can spot each other from our attire, even when it isn't loud tie dyes, even when we're on the down low, just like spies and gays. We're all in on the joke, the cosmic joke, some psychedelic joke told by the merry pranksters some 50 years ago. It's supportive, reaffirming and enabling. To be back within that community again, that community in full force, was such a treat. I had forgotten. I followed the post-Jerry permutations of the GD, the Other Ones, Furthur, Phil & Friends, Ratdog, When they were just 'the Dead' and not grateful, all the way until recently. I didn't go to a run last year, just because I didn't feel like driving up to S.F. or Oakland. GD music had fallen out of my playlist. But now it's back, now I can't get enough, now I feel like wearing all my old GD shirts and waving that flag, waving it long and high. I'm so blessed to have been treated to this final run - it was bittersweet and heart-breaking and such a lesson in impermanence. I remembered Jerry's passing, and Bill's and Brent's, in all of its poignancy and sorrow. But it also reminded me of days gone by and how glorious and thrilling it all was.
I doubt the boys will play under the Grateful Dead banner again. They will keep playing, in all of their weird permutations, because that's what they do. And I could see the band reforming for some special benefit, or when one of remaining core four pass away. They signed off with class, with a staggering demonstration of what power they still hold over the loyalist fans you'll ever see. And there's no band in sight that can generate such a culture now, but we remain hopeful.
FOREVER GRATEFUL.
Shadow boxing the apocalypse