Grateful Dean

Faster than a few cups of tea through grandma’s urinary tract! More powerful than herbal viagra at a whorehouse! Able to leap a crack in the sidewalk in a single bound! It’s a bird! It’s a plane…. It’s HalloWeir! Promotional pictures posted last week showed Weir has been training at Krispy Kreme for the upcoming tour and has acquired a stylist to manage his hair after being accused of combing it regularly with an egg beater since Garcia’s passing. While considering costumes for Halloween, Weir attempted to put on a pair of his old shorts. Unfortunately, it looked like somebody shrink wrapped a bag of half eaten plums in denim. The Superman costume was the next thing he tried on but wearing a spandex suit in your 70s is like taking a highlighter pen and marking every lipoma on your body. He decided to scrap the idea altogether when he acknowledged that he’s Bob Weir and that’s more than enough…

With Halloween officially here, hippies in and around New York City, both obvious and undercover, are filled with the excitement and anticipation of a 12 year old boy getting ready to feel a nipple for his first time since breastfeeding. It seems like when shows are on the horizon, the smile from others wearing pieces representative of our tribe, however subtle, bring about a smile and a nod that’s just a little bit bigger than it would be otherwise. Whether it’s a small Stealie on a pin or full psychedelic attire, nothing brings some warmth into a city that’s known for its coldness like the small moments of tribal recognition on the streets of Manhattan.

Being around Madison Square Garden this week has been similar to holding the hand of a woman in labor. The knowns as well as the unknowns create a sense of unrivaled expectations tied to the impending journey we’re all in the process of participating in. Like being with a woman in labor, you know something completely heavy is going down. You know the feelings of joy, nervousness coupled with unmatched waves of Love and support. New life is on the way and there’s no turning back. The spectrum of emotions that course through the souls of those connected to life’s greatest musical transformation society is nearly as exhilarating. Yes my friends, These are The Days of our lives!

It seems like I came off of the oxytocin laden experiences we all had in Santa Clara and Chicago just in time to get loaded up on that stuff all over again. After essentially taking the entire year off from life and any hope of adulting, the past few months have given me just enough time to reestablish my life, in order to crash it into the proverbial tree of complete irresponsibility all over again. I’d like to take this time to thank the members of the Grateful Dead, not named Garcia(I still refuse to say Core 4), for reminding me what it’s like to absolutely not give a shit about anything other than dancing to live music in dark arenas. As I personally experience this process of rebirth, I look to the new baby that will emerge from the stage a few short hours from now. We’re all intimately acquainted with the parents that are responsible for this baby. We’ve followed them around collectively for varying lengths of time over the past 50 years. The baby is the music that is born through the collaboration of the parents whom are now also the elders in our community, along with Oteil, Jeff “Can Somebody Turn Me The Fuck Up” Chimenti and John “Simba” Mayer. What will become of this baby? Will Simba push too hard and shit the bed? Will John attempt to make things happen instead of letting the musical phenomena occur naturally? Will he realize that he’s a vessel through which the experience can be amplified if he’s able to surrender along with the guys around him that have been surrendering to that same Mystical and Musical Force for 50 years?

The Force is that magical organizing intelligence that has been orchestrating the phenomenal soundtrack of our lives, in ways that are difficult to explain, since the beginning. The invisible yet entirely substantial substance that has driven the Mother ship of Magical Moments throughout time and space and from coast to coast, restructuring our ideologies and internal compasses so that they always point to Terrapin. Terrapin is our cultural Due North point in life. The Absolute zero on the compass that guides us to the realization and manifestation of all that we’re called to do and see and experience in this life when we’re fully surrendered to it. While it’s challenging in the flesh to travel that course with zero deviation, we learned through the years that the answer was always found in separating one’s self from the demands of the flesh and moving in communion with something that was found far above the level of a grounded and earthly experience. For many of us, the process required a few alterations in our chemistry before we could walk through the quagmire of limitations installed by a society that relies on all that is known by way of education as opposed to receiving our required enlightenment from the source that far exceeds the limits of the educated mind. As we followed the compass that always points to Terrapin, we were given the tools that were impossible to acquire through endless layers of scholastic programming and woke up to the fact that WE had direct access to the infinite intelligence of creation and the keys to the kingdom were accessible to all of US. At least that’s what happened for me… While in my humanity I have deviated from the path at times, I have never forgotten the things I’ve learned along the way and my internal compass always points to Terrapin. I’ve stayed the course as have most of you, regardless of the external circumstances that would attempt to guide me elsewhere. I would imagine John Mayer has been experiencing a crash course in all of that as of late. Even with a fresh new wardrobe of expensive Grateful Dead attire, he will continue to be stripped of his external shell and ego as the unstoppable combination of Compass Correcting Force removes all interference to the expression of the Organizing Intelligence creating the baby that we’re preparing to experience over the next couple of months. If Albany is any indication of what we can expect, we’re in for a tremendous couple of nights in The Big apple. What a weekend it is in The World’s Greatest City! Dead and Company at MSG, Phil and Friends up the road, The World Series in Long Island and one of the world’s greatest Marathons tomorrow. Ain’t no place I’d rather be!

The only question that remains is, will Taper Rob stream Dead and Company and Phil Shows at the same time? I wouldn’t put it past him.
Countdown to Lift Off my friends… See ya at The Garden!

Dead To The Core,

Dean Sottile (pronounced So Tilly)