The Rider Reflects
January 13th, 2006 (posted 1/16)
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''You can't overlook the lack, Jack,
of any other highway to ride''

I met Jerry Garcia in Noblesville, Indiana the day of the canceled Deer
Creek show in the summer of 1995. As he emerged from the Radisson hotel
after composing the letter to the 'Deadheads' after the bottle-throwing
fiasco, one chorus from the fans in the parking lot was burned indelibly
into my mind: 'Play China Doll, Jerry!'

Play China Doll.

Here was this guy who gave the best he had to give 'til his dying day, and
that was the overwhelming sentiment: Play China Doll.

Not until the recent rash that broke out on the Other Stuff Discussion Board
have I witnessed such an ungrateful cadre.

Don't get me wrong. There is nothing more pure than an honest discussion of
music. I've been to GD shows in the past where one starry-eyed fan
proclaimed they'd been to the mountaintop and seen the promised land, and
the next disgruntled critic registered his disgust a la the comic book guy
on the Simpsons: worst Eyes ever.

This kind of dialogue is not only acceptable, it is encouraged! Jerry
himself explained: ''they are a very selective audience ; they understand
what we're trying to do and they've heard us enough to know when we're doing
it and when we're not'. By all means, this is our music. We share it with
the band. Anybody's choice, I can hear your voice.

But, there ain't no time to hate.

Using the New Years run as a model, outcry about the choice of Friends was
to be expected. There's Warren fans, the Jimmy camp, purists who long for
the Q, and so on ad infinitum. But in recent memory, the Board has regressed
from a sophisticated, spirited musical debate into a soap opera of bile and
venom found only in the grittiest corners of the web.

Phil chose to spend his New Year's Eve with his extended family, our tribe,
and I was able to have this baroque experience with some of my dearest
friends in the world. First and foremost, I am grateful for that.

Was a Ryan Adams Joan Osbourne configuration my cup of meat? It's here nor
there. I fancy myself as the Rollin' Rider. To paraphrase the great Andy
Warhol: 'I'd attend any opening. I'd go to the opening of a toilet seat'.

If we keep it about the music, we're tending the garden with care. Sure,
thorns will grab your ankles. But if you plant ice, you're going to harvest
wind.

One thing is crystalline about Phil Lesh. He has created this format, this
ever-changing configuration of friends searching to make 'IT' happen, and
with that freshness and sense of musical adventure there is risk.

In the same interview, Garcia admitted about the fans: 'They encourage us.
C'mon you guys, Go For It. If it means go out on a limb and fail
occasionally, then that's acceptable. It's okay to fail. But the important
thing is to try'.

Phil gushed, "When the Grateful Dead is happening, I can't put a finger in a
wrong place". I travel up and down, city to city, just for that one magic
night. That one sacred tune. That one golden riff.

Along the way I've seen clunkers, buzzkillers, and times when the whole
thing just stunk on ice. That big rusty machine that Phil describes doesn't
crank up automatically. But the important thing is to try.

I'm not a site administrator, and I'm not on Phil's payroll. I pay my
Ticketmaster surcharges and cross my fingers for Ruby to come through like
everyone else. One man's opinion: let your voice be heard, but keep it about
the music, and come with respect.

When our Board is happening, it lights me up. That energy is precisely the
kind that keeps our family all Playing in the Band.

Goin' back to New York City,
The Rolling Rider '06

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Chicago Theater - 11.25.05

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