1. I spent the afternoon in the Vizio room watching the documentary, Long Strange Trip, a six episode series chronicling the Grateful Dead's origins, their philosophical views of music and what it means to be a band, their devoted following, and the band's last years before Jerry Garcia died on August 9, 1995.
At some point, possibly in a letter, but maybe in this blog, I'll try to sort out the impacts I felt watching this documentary. I can say right now that it worked best for me whenever it focused on the Grateful Dead's music and on the relationship between their early experiences with LSD and their ideas about making and performing music, about how they envisioned themselves as a band. I have never dropped acid and I have very very little experience with pot. When I was a teenager, everything I read or heard about LSD was presented in print, on television, and by adults in my life as horror stories -- bad trips, terrifying flashbacks, users jumping out of windows and from other high places (most notably Diane Linkletter, daughter of Art Linkletter -- that her suicide was LSD or drug related has been debunked), chromosome damage (also disproven), and other dire anti-drug tales.
Not once, until I was much older, did I hear about psychedelic experiences liberating different people's imagination, creativity, sense of connectedness with others, or their repressed bliss.
In this documentary, whenever the band members or other observers of the Grateful Dead returned to discussions about the acid tests of the band's early days, whenever they explained the long lasting effect that those psychedelic experiences had on the way the band members created music together, I was fascinated. I enjoyed hearing these interviewees talk about LSD in positive terms. Dropping acid wasn't a joke. Their comments didn't fit with the dark and scary stories I'd grown up with. I realized today, in much deeper and fuller ways, that this deep enjoyment I've experienced over the last twenty-five years listening to the Grateful Dead was deeply connected with (among other things) the expansive, liberating, and inspiring impacts of LSD.
Because I don't ingest LSD and I don't use pot and because I haven't sought out other psychedelic experiences, the closest I come to experiencing a feeling of being transported, of experiencing moments free of my ego, of feeling no need to be in control is at certain unpredictable moments during Episcopal worship and when I listen to the Grateful Dead and other, to borrow Jeff Harrison's word, Deadish bands (Zero, Jerry Garcia Band, Legion of Mary, some bluegrass music, and, to move outside the Deadish realm, live Babes with Axes shows). Pink Floyd takes me there -- I wrote about such a transporting moment in my blog back in October of 2018 about a moment I had when suddenly I heard "Shine on You Crazy Diamond" coming out of an apartment in the Whitaker neighborhood in Eugene. I wrote about this ecstatic moment here. I experienced this out of my body feeling the last times I went to hear music live. It was in early March, 2020. The first night I heard the Cream tribute band, The Music of Cream, play Disraeli Gears and other hits by Cream and the next night the Black Jacket Orchestra played Dark Side of the Moon and then a series of hits from Pink Floyd. I left those shows having broken into blossom.
Okay. That's enough. I have a lot more on my mind and on my heart. The Grateful Dead does that to me.
2. Debbie, Gibbs, and I piled into the Sube and blasted up to Diane's house for a superb dinner of steak fajitas, Mexican rice, black beans, and tomalito. We also drank margarita. Diane's son Matt and his wife Leah as well as Diane's son, Marc helped make this a fun dinner party. After dinner, I got to go downstairs and see the four week old litter of four puppies Diane is caring tenderly for and preparing to sell. Matt and Leah have been at Diane's house for a few weeks and are helping her make progress on her mammoth remodeling job on the house she bought several months ago. Diane is overseeing a mind boggling transformation of this house from a barely livable space into what will be a gorgeous home when she finishes.
3. After dinner, we congregated in front of Diane's television, plugged in her karaoke machine and Diane, Leah, Matt, and Debbie all performed a series of songs. I declined. Lately, when I've tried to sing along with songs on the radio, my voice has been next to dead and I can't seem to carry a tune. But, now that I know these karaoke versions of songs are readily available on YouTube, maybe when I have the house to myself, I'll put on some songs I might enjoy and see if I can get myself able to do more than just croak them out. It's a process I didn't feel like working on in front of others last night, but would like to try it out in private.
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