The Ishmael Gradsdovic Papers, part fifteen


Ishmael Gradsdovic takes in the Grateful Dead in part fifteen of the papers...


Date: Wed, 6 Apr 94 11:17:57 PST

All through the first set this speed freak danced in front of me with his hairy, acne-landscaped back interrupting my view of the stage at irregular intervals. He was dancing to a very steady beat which was very nearly but not quite double that of the music being played. When the music reached especially subtle and delicate filligrees of guitar work, with Bruce's piano tripping along casually as though he had always been up there with the boys, the speed freak would yell "Jerry! Yeah! Jerrrrrrrrrry!" and lean back his head and howl "Woooooo!"

When the first set ended and Bobby told us they'd be right back, we sat down, and the speed freak kept dancing, even as he sat, waving his arms in the air as if he was a hollywood actor auditioning to play the part of Joe Cocker's brother, the abstract impressionist stricken with Cerebral Palsy.

And then he turned around and offered me his pipe. I visually checked his lips for cold sores, and, finding none, took the pipe, eyeballed its contents, and took a deep hit. . It was good weed.

Then he proceeded to start talking. "Oh man," he said, "they're on! They're really on. Oh, Jerry, oh man. He's just there! Did you see him there in Slipknot! And Phil, man. He smiled at me. Did you see him? He looked over at me and then I yelled at him and then he smiled at me and then booom bu do ba da bidi bo da boo" And he started playing spastic air guitar.

"Yeah," I answered. "It's too bad."

He looked me over as if maybe I was an enemy agent. "What do you mean, man?"

"You know. I mean it's just too bad it's gotta be the last show."

"You ain't gonna be here tomorrow, man?"

"Well, what do you think?" I said.

I could tell he was confused, but this wasn't an unfamiliar condition for him, so he adjusted quickly and just accepted things. "Isn't this Saturday?" he finally asked.

"Yes!" I answered, congratulating him. Then I shook my head sadly. "One More Saturday Night..."

"I don't get it, man."

"Don't get me wrong. If you're gonna go out, go out at a Dead show. I'm having a great time. I'm just glad I'm not dosing. It would be a pretty heavy trip when it all got started."

The speed freak evaluated his own pharmacological inventory and decided to request more information, which he did with the following syllable: "Huh?"

"I hope you aren't telling me you don't remember. Man, we're all going out tonight. By the time this show is over, we'll all be grateful dead."

He looked me over, then smiled, "No, man..."

"Yeah. Didn't you hear them. Have they ever played with that bittersweet thing they had going tonight? And Jerry, did you listen to what he was saying?"

He thought for a moment. "Death Don't Have No Mercy..." he said, hopelessly.

"Hell of an opener, huh? They play hardball. It was nice of Bruce to join us. He didn't have to be here. I give him a lot of credit."

"Man, I'm not sure I want to go through with this." He looked around for exits, then looked up at his eyelids, as if trying to make up his mind by bringing it within sight. "When is it going to start?"

"I dunno. Probably during drums/space, but maybe not until the encore."

He chuckled. Then stopped. "Well, I dunno."

"They wouldn't let you out now, anyway," I said. "You might as well just enjoy the show. The gas is pretty heavy, so the band won't get it until we're pretty far gone. The folks in the bleachers won't go out until probably ten or fifteen minutes after the music stops. We're pretty lucky to be sitting here."

"Man, I'm really not sure I'm up for this, man."

"Well, it's kind of late to worry about it now, isn't it? Don't worry about it. Knowing the Dead, they've probably picked something pretty good to dose us with first. By the time we know what's happening, we'll be too juiced to care."

"No man, I can't believe they'd do this."

"Jerry's a buddhist, you know? Oh. You didn't know? Yeah -- he's really into this reincarnation trip. He picked all of the songs in the next set himself to give us all instructions on how to die right so we can be reincarnated as part of their cosmic road crew in the Pure Land or something. You gotta keep one nostril closed when you're going out and some other stuff."

"Which nostril?"

"I forget. Jerry'll clue us in, though. Just listen real close to what he's singing, and he'll let you know. All of their songs are like letters in an alphabet -- or more like Chinese pictograms really. Each concert is a message, compact and poignant like a zen haiku. It's a dialogue. Jerry will say something, and then Bobby will butt in and talk for a while, and every once in a while Phil will pipe up and change the tone a bit. The way they play gives it the inflection and body language -- you really have to pay attention."

He looked at me and briefly lost his balance, as if the effort it took to decide which of our minds was more addled had warped gravity around his brain. He decided that I was an authority, and then, just as slowly, decided that he was in fact my peer in the linguistic interpretation of Dead sets.

"Yeah, man. I know," he told me.

Then the crowd rose to its feet in a tremendous false alarm as a roadie walked across the stage. I took another hit from his pipe, which he had abandoned on the ground next to his backpack, then another. Holding both of them deep in my lungs as long as I could. When I exhaled for the second time, the crowd let out a huge cheer and the boyz walked out casually and and started to tune up.

The speed freak got carried away by the mood of the crowd and cheered loudly. For a moment I worried that he had forgotten about his impending doom. But when the band broke into "He's Gone," he stopped dancing suddenly and I could tell he took it personally.

When they got to the part where they sing "Goin' where the wind don't blow so strange..." he turned around and faced me with wide, panicky eyes. I quickly cupped my hand behind one ear and mouthed the word "listen" with all of the urgency I could muster.

Through the next few songs, he stood completely still, staring at the band. After a groovy "Sugar Magnolias" the band settled into a sort of reggae- like space jam. A few people in front of us started to sit down. The speed-freak turned around and said "I gotta go to the John." "Hurry back," I said, "it won't be long!" As he turned to leave, I tapped him on the shoulder. "Right nostril," I said, "in case I don't see you again." I didn't.

They played "Knockin' on Heaven's Door" as an encore. Jerry smiled at me.




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