Nostalgia to Ring in the New Year

This past year was certainly a challenging one.  It started with me being in the intensive care unit.  I had three surgical procedures in a row on New Year's Eve, and truly forgot that it was the holiday when I woke up the next day.  I was worried more about the things that were leaking out of me, and what all of that would entail when it came to finishing up my treatment for ovarian cancer.
As it turns out, I am not quite done with that.  Bad diseases warrant longer treatments and I am certainly in that camp.  The good news is that there has been time for enjoyment that has been sandwiched in as well, and with shorter vacations, we have been able to focus on food, museums, walking, and theater.  Oh, that pretty much sums up every vacation, but we have done it for shorter periods of time this year.  Just hoping that 2017 has more of the good things and less of the bad things than 2016. 

Jerry Garcia Turns 70

Of course, he doesn't actually turn anything because he dies while in yet another rehabilitation center trying to control his heroin addcition, but if Garcia would be 70, then I too am getting up there.  There are plenty of examples of 1960's rock 'n roll icons who are now well past the age of traditional retirement, but they continue to ply their trade.  That is largely a good thing--for me in particular it is great because I share musical tastes with my children.  The music of my youth is not irrelevant to them, and for them, knowing what I like can guide them in pointing me in the direction of new music.  

But as I have said before, for me the Grateful Dead were not just about the music.  It was the social aspect as well.  I loved sitting in the same spot, show after show--the Phil side of the stage, as near to the first row of the first balcony as was possible when the show was general admission.  There were the people I traveled with and the people I would see at the show, and then the people I only knew at shows, people I would never see again.  The music was essential, there is no way around that.  Once Jerry was dead, it was never quite the same.  But the crowd was at least as much of the allure as the band.  It was a little bit like theater--some of the show was when the lights were off, but some of it was when the lights were on, and I loved both parts.  The players were different, but there was a predictable audience who wore remarkable clothes and expressed creativity--some of it annoying, some of it inspiring, and some of it just entertaining--but it was like no other place that I have been. 

I saw the Dead literally hundreds of times over 20 plus years.  Some people go to sporting events.  Some are into opera.  For a very long time concerts in general and the Grateful Dead in particular were my nirvana, the place I loved best.  It is funny to think about it now.  What have  I replaced it with?  What fills that spot in my life?  Now I travel without there being a concert to go to--I do my people watching in cafes and museums and on the streets, rather than between sets in a smoke-filled arena.   But I miss being able to see those people, all in one place at one time.  The arena changed, the crowd stayed the same, and I loved that place.  It was like an early precursor to a flash mob.  I am so glad I spent as much time as I did with the Grateful Dead, and I remember it ever so fondly.  RIP Jerry.  

The Grateful Dead at the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame

I have been a Dead head since I was 15 years old, when I saw my first show at the Hollywood Bowl,. I saw literally hundreds of shows from that point in 1974 through Jerry Garcia's death in 1995. The Dead fulfilled many roles in my youth. They were a way to see the country. I saw them on the West Coast, the East Coast and many places in the middle. They were the basis of my social life--I traveled with dozens of different people over the years to see them. When I met my spouse, he was wearing a Gratefull Dead shirt and I was on my way to see them in Lewiston, Maine. We had an extra ticket and space in the car, but he declined the invitation to join us--something about having to unload his belongings and return the U-Haul truck he was standing in at the time. Never-the-less, he got swept up in my love of the band, and pretty quickly joined me on the road for tours. It was a culture I belonged to fully. So when the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame had h Grateful Dead exhibit, my parents felt I needed to see it. I have to say, I was very disappointed. The exhibit does have a lot of memorabilia (see the list below) but somehow it failed to capture what was exciting about the Grateful Dead--I wish they had had a movie running showing different concerts. They do have Elvis movies playing in the exhibit devoted to him, and that would have been a better rendition of what the band was like. But in many ways, the audience was as much of the experience as the band or the music. Art and design have always been closely associated with Grateful Dead, and this exhibit does include a collection of original artwork that is immediately recognizable from the band’s album covers and posters--not enough of it, but some. It features numerous instruments used by the Grateful Dead over the years, including keyboards, drums, percussion, guitars and elements from the legendary Wall of Sound PA system. Additional items include: · Five Jerry Garcia guitars, including his Travis Bean TB5 · Mickey Hart’s custom-painted drum kit · Two Bob Weir guitars, including his first Ibanez “cowboy” custom guitar · Several original lyric manuscripts, including “Truckin’,” “Box of Rain” and “Sugaree” · Several original Grateful Dead-related artworks, including images from Workingman’s Dead, Without a Net and Fillmore Auditorium poster art · Bill Graham’s “Father Time” robe · Four McIntosh MC2300 power amplifiers used on tour by Phil Lesh and Jerry Garcia

Taking Woodstock

Beware. This is not a great movie. It is also not a movie to learn more about the history of the Summer of Love. The facts on that are disputed and probably largely unknowable. It was 40 years ago. The event came to be bigger than the sum of it's parts. Michael Lang and Elliot have good reason not to agree on who did what and why. So lay that aside when viewing the film. There is more to it than that.
The movie reminds me alot of the collection of short stories by Ellen Litman, 'The Last Chicken in America'. Elliot is the child of Russian immigrants who see him as needing to fix their problems. They don't listen to him, they boss him around, and even though he is well into adulthood in terms of age, he has the worst of both worlds with his parents. They don't listen to him, he is not an equal decision-maker with them, and they take it for granted that he will come to their aid when needed. And he fulfills that role to the best of his ability. They have a ramshackle 1930's style motel in the Catskills that is going to rack and ruin, not much used, and in constant danger of being foreclosed on by the bank. It is in the guise of trying to wring as much money out of everything that Elliot gets involved in the whole music festival scene. So whether this version of events related to Woodstock is true or not, the depiction of the economy in upstate New York and the pressures on first generation Americans are worth the time spent watching the movie. The music festival itself is depicted in a way that is pretty unobjectionable, with the obligatory hallucinatory scene being above average in accuracy. It is by no means Ang Lee's best effort, but he is a filmmaker worthy of attention.

New Year's Eve Nostalgia

I'm gonna wait 'till the midnight hour
That's when my love comes tumbling down...

I spent many a New Year's Eve in my youth in the Bay area at Grateful Dead concerts. Once I had children, my parents babysat. That didn't stop me. Moving away and finally Garcia's death changed the routine. The annual string of shows around Chrismas, ending in the New Years Eve show was always a great party. It was usually not a particularly good musical event, but it was rarely a bad one. Occasionally it was phenomenal.

The quality of the pre-NYE shows musically was usually excellent, which made up for the NYE show being less than perfect. Most of the shows were general admission, and by the mid-1980's, tickets were available via mail order, which made the whole process fairly painless. The ritual began with arriving at the venue mid-day, sitting in line with friends, meeting new people in the crowd around us, perusing the offerings of T-shirts, food, and handmade crafts for sale, all of which made the hours before the doors open pass comfortably. We rarely sat on the floor, , so we had no real rush on entering. I preferred the Phil-side balcony location for both sound quality and view. Friends could find us there, we could people watch before the show began, and while concerts lasted 4 hours from start to finish, the experience was an all-day event, and one that I thoroughly enjoyed 9 times out of 10.
The New Years Eve show was another kettle of fish. There were tables of hats and party favors on tables as you entered the venue. Everyone was clad in tie-dye and a Happy New Year tiara, blowing a noise maker occasionally for good measure. We all looked very silly, which made it festive. Someone usually smuggled in some champagne. Clothing was loose, Indian skirts prevalent, and security a little lax, so swinging a bottle of champagne on a chord between your legs was not the impossibility it would be today. The show would open with other bands, and the Dead would come out and play two sets before midnight. Then things usually were not as planned--there was a midnight float that would usually have some kind of major malfunction--either mechanically or because of fan-intervention, and the band would come out for the third set amidst the chaos, never quite getting their rhythm back. Amidst the chacophanyk, lots of confetti would fall, there would be lots of jumping and dancing and kissing and screaming, and I miss it.