How do you like your Dead?

These days, you can get Grateful with the Dead any way you like it. Phishified with Trey. Slow and bass-heavy with Phil and his friends. Fucked up and falling over on Ratdog. Nostalgic recreations of entire shows by Dark Star. Even pop-bluesy with Mr. John Mayer. Not to mention the rap mixes for the bling-custy niche that only listens to rap and Jerry. And, even if you missed the Furthur runs in which they incorporated new old man songs about the rain and other elder hippie business, you can still catch the funkity blue mastery of Joe Russo's Almost Dead. And in all likelihood, you will dance harder.

Like I can't stop dancing and have to pee everywhere but will drink everyone in the vicinity's water to keep fucking dancing hard. You don't want to miss a riff.

JRAD has brought the fire back to my mountain since I saw them this summer at the Great North festival. Now the Dead has been alive in me for nearly half my life, but I had never danced so hard at any orientation of the GD as I have at JRAD. Holy jamtastic. It's like Medeski, Martin, & Wood began blaring the jam classics in that creep-along jazz, funksplosive phenomena fantastica. Oh that Terrapin in Portland. The weebly warps of spookily space. The searing splooge of hyper-stimulated folk. The songs that have been a sacred auditory landscape for generations of jammers come to such an energized pinnacle and high point with every note. If you haven't seen Almost Dead, go forth Gratefully and catch them live....the music has still never stopped.

Pisces Band Fulfills Scorpion Desires, Blows All Else Out of All Water

If you missed the 2015’s most kickass orchestration of the year, that’s cus it happened at the very end if you weren’t one of the 10,000 jamsters at MSG, you were probably skankin’ elsewhere. Thing is, I know you felt it. Phish’s first jam first night of the New Years run, I knew EVERYONE felt it. There is truly nothing in life like getting real down on that gushy smile level with someone, that diggity dirty, funk flingin groove, all that Phishy absurdity oozing out every communal pore, like AHHHHHHH, really! REALly!!!!!...yep, this is still Mike's Song right now.

Like really, we danced as hard as those narrow cement tiers allowed us, funxtreme-tastica in every spoodley lick. And really, if you had showed me what the set-list would be for the first night of the MSG run, I would have nodded like I had heard all those songs a million times, because I have. But not like that. Each jam opened up into vibrating jams that opened and flowed and flounced so deeply and friskily in the moment and then the next. I haven’t missed an MSG run yet, and the hype’s true about this one. Every jam exemplified an ecstatic propulsion of art. And everyone felt it.

Phish reallh reaches all those under-water layers. Breaking through the Piscean chaos into the ️Neptunian love spell it has to offer, and bleeding, rippling, raging through the Scorpion/Plutonian core of if all. I swear. I felt it.

I always feel it.

Every head got so down on the whimsy, flitting “Bathtub” splanks, so thrilled thrashy wild as it built up and up and out for 15 minutes The whole show was riddled with the incessant sparks and tickle of the Phish crowd culminating again. So like wowwww, Phish totally is The band of the Scorpion Pluto generation, keeping us vibing, crawling, chasing their spirals under the rug, til they sting us with zaps of funk and splizzam lasers into zings and zongs we feel, love, rage and radiate. Yup. Phish has lured and played, pampered and swayed us all under the same covers. Where it’s dark, mysterious, and helplessly rainbow, so every cell in the midst of it is smiling so can’t-help-it-groovy.

I posted forever ago about my skepticism travelling to the city during such a chaotic time, but caught a ride with my daugther’s sister and her mom on their way back to Phili; thank the beauty of blended families. My excitement completely blinded me from initial hesitance, even through the metal detector and flashlights digging through my bag as one patted down my freckled friend in denim cut-off shorts and a “PURE SEX” button gleaming on her Mexican blanket coat, I was still unconcerened and completely shut off to the possibility of risk. But the cab driver on the way to my dad’s from the train reminded me.

“I hope security was tight,” he said, “ya never know what those nuts will do after that shit in Paris.”

At first I was like, “Come on, really…”, inclined to say something like, “Then we can blame all nuts for fear of the unknown, not an allocated few.” But before speaking, I let the intention behind his sentiment linger, and I remembered my gratitude. I prayed protection barriers for everyone dancing and celebrating music and art in beauty and love.

And to me at that point still, it was all very Phishy and drippy and teeth-clenching exciting to get home and drink so much water I wouldn't have to slip someone a dollar then duck away for it not being two...and have a cigarette and pass out with my toddler, replaying replaying replaying that bass-slapping energy, that build, that force of everyone singing “Character Zero,” knowing it was the last song; knowing in a breath, the boys would leave the stage and be gone. Until tomorrow, for most of them. Until Mexico, for the fortunate ones. The lesson here is urging everyone I know to get ready for summer tour, because Phish is gonna blast all our hats off. And also, all are welcome and encouraged to continue beaming love and protection for the jammin’ masses. We couldn’t have momentum without all of us making moves.

Don't Stop Not Sleeping, NYC: Awaken Together

There are some really great cultures uprising right now, and it’s totally important for my 11^th house uptonian hopes and dreams, let alone the collective Uranian liberation. But for the first time, I’m hesitant to return to Manhattan for Phish New Years. Vulnerable island, high population, international crisis...Of course I will go; I haven’t missed a year since...whenever this five or more or less year-run began. Of course. Go home to begin the New Year, finish the rest somewhere else. Of course. So what's really going on in the city? Am I afraid? Or I am no longer called?

 

Yes, hipster loft parties are fun, but at what point do mystical animal-named bands start sounding the same? At what point do you stop trusting $2 well drinks that have you lose your fairy wings and make out with a caterpillar twice your age on a rooftop? At what point do rooftops cease feeling infinite and largely become entrapping?

 

So move to the woodland rocky coastline in Maine an hour from a smaller city, five minutes from one of the country’s best breweries? Hear the coyotes all night and see David Grisman the next? Be encompassed by tourmaline dripping mountains and near-blinded by the stars? In a community of self-sustaining homesteaders who haul their spring water, chop their wood, and grow their own food? Anyway. What are the spiritually inclined New Yorkers doing to free their brethern’s spirits in this universal time of chaos and fear?

 

Aside from sacrificing more trees to print more conspiracies to shove in strangers’ faces. Aside from wearing underwear in the subway for the sake of nonchalant publicity. Aside from manipulating gluten and calling it vegan. Is everyone defying conformist capitalism sleeping in the L-Train terminal? Bleeding more music into tunnels? Growing pot in boarded up warehouses and charging triple its worth to the corporate class? Or are they all going to overdose underfed in a mask-wearing society that doesn’t see them or anyone for what we are…One.

 

Not that I didn’t quote my father’s tear-jerking, emphatic memory of how united the city was when he was cleaning up Ground Zero for a decade. Not that I didn’t feel that total communion with our heartland, not that anyone didn’t feel it, experience it, and live it together. But does it have to take another tragedy to forget the space between natives and tourists or the Upper and Lower East Side? Why is it only okay to make eye contact and nod in simple recognition of another on a bus or train after a communal tragedy? Why is it otherwise common law to look away and pretend to be alone?

 

We are not alone. The freegans have a strong, beautiful platform. They take care of each other with selfless Free Store offerings and dumpster diving wealth distribution. And it’s good pickin’s. There is truly a lot going to waste that is bountiful to share. But while the freegans are enamoring and quite openly nurturing, I cannot got swept away. And upon my last cigarette dancing to “Mambo Italiano” under the blinding Maine stars, I randomly came up with the analogy of why.

 

They are the seagulls. Quite beautiful and bright, sometimes loud and laughy: “Ha! Ha! Ha!” they caw, take what they want, and fly off to vibe off the ocean and what can be felt/experienced/consumed there. And they always come back. There’s always a lil more.

 

It’s like this one ethereally beautiful woman I know, who converted from vegan to freegan to avoid as much waste as she could in a throw-away culture. “Would you like some mussels?” a mutual friend offered her in her home, where she had prepared the garlic, butter herb dressing a regulated vegan would refuse, along with the idea of shellfish altogether.

 

“If there are any left,” the freegan said, smiling with neither a nod nor a shake.

 

“Would you like some?” the other offered again, this time with a small plate extended. The freegan didn’t shake her head, she simply swooped it diagonally outward in denial of the plate.

 

“I would certainly not let you throw any away, but as of now, I am good,” the freegan explained.

 

Nothing was accomplished. Nothing was satisfied. It was a total miscommunication in which one party felt the other was unappreciative while that party felt the other was being pushy. And I doubt the seagull ever returned, feeling more comfortable scavenging with the flock who seemed to understand her.

New York is money. New York is time. New York is everything. New York sets the stage, turns the dial, drops the ball for the rest of our teetering country. And there are ample mediums, guides, teachers, yogis, mostly individuals in this warp to bring it together for all the boroughs. But it's not giving and taking. It's not handing out or keeping. It's not seagulls and king rats.

 

I empathize with both sides. I am both sides. But really, I shy away from being the seagull as well as the mothering crab, because I’d much rather go by butterfly. Cocoon all winter in a world of my own and emerge with more expansive colors every spring. That’s why I’m on the craggy beach, in the woods, ideal distance from the city. Because who knows where each new year will guide these wings? 

Yes, Phish in my own Ground Zero has always fulfilled my blast off into my own calibration. Still I feel safe and rested in Maine, with the room and support yet space to be One with it all. So assuming I do make it down for Phish…I’ll be vibing that into our incessant Manhattan Earth, an apex, the climax, our culmination—hopefully of universal creation. To make a brand new start of it...in old New York!

Last Tour Ever To Follow Up With Another "And Company": "Not that bad"

To be fair, I am totally one of those haters who can't get over "Your Body is a Wonderland" to view John Mayer as a serious guitarist, but admit Furthur tour got very repetitive. Heard mostly nothing but positive feedback about the Last Ever Dead tour, now spanked with a pop guitarist and billed as "And Company." 

Okay, okay, okay, I've never given his version of the blues a chance, and some muscians I respect defend it. And I did even groove to him doing a song with Buddy Guy on some jam montage movie thing once. I believe though, that working in a health food store that played that corny whispery Wonderland song multiple times a day on the satellite radio, that I am tainted forever. Much like all the country pop songs of summers 2009-10 when I worked for a tobacco farm heiress. I regress. I resent that I know all the lyrics to songs that now make me cringe. I've had to mentally strive to get the redundant looping out of my head. So thank the real Dead for jam.

None of my friends in Maine who intended to see the latest Dead congregations actually made it to Worchester, as ticket prices lept to 5"" bucks. My dearest Venutian sister from the south shore went, and chiller than the crispest cucumber ever--when I asked her how the show was--her eyes lit right up, she pursed her lips and nodded, like her pupils were expanding again. Still nodding, she said, "Not that bad."

Of course Show Magic Meggy on the Jersey shore flounced her way into the city, happened upon a miracle ticket into MSG, and had the band's setlist snuck to her from a security guard. But those stupendously how-great connections were the biggest aspects of the show she expounded upon, and when I asked about the music, it was an echo of her whole gooeyly stoked vibe: "IT WAS SO GREAT!"

Granted, not every jammer is gonna say, "The style was this!" or "the danceabilify was that!" And to be fair, my amazing coparent companion who's been touring since the '80s can hardly ever tell you what anyone plays, 'cus if it's the Phish or a Dead spinoff, he'll always gleam, "This is my Favorite Song!" and skip away like a dancing Pan in the forest having his heart fluted to, and if you ask him what they played afterwards, all he can ever say is, "ALL MY FAVORITES!"

He didn't make the pre-$500 Worchester tickets, but he saw David Grisman last night in Portland, and Dark Star Orchestra the night before. Of course when I asked him what DSO played, he started giggling and shimmying, through laughter at my irritation, he got it together enough to explain--at first the whole set sounded really familiar, then he realized he was AT that show they were covering, perhaps September 24th though wait a minute he forgot the year - and all of the songs.

"Ya know, I was IN it," he said, shrugging and sinking into another knee-bending spoodle of laughter, show vibes tickling his aura, which tickled me in return. Even though I can't phathom simply "forgetting" songs, and can probably name at least one or two songs from the +/-30 Phish shows I've seen, i mean at least the openers and encores and THEY PLAYED WHAAAAT moments. But he really vibes the show, Til the next day. So that's a damn good show. And I am epically curious with wonder whether he would have been so enthusiastic about John Mayer, who he knows nothing about.

But I do know we raged the electric jammin funk out of Joe Russo's Almost Dead. Are you serious? Their show at Great North this September was THEE hardest I've danced at any love Dead anything. And really, who wouldn't take that amped up, charismatic raging of the whole freerange Dead spirit over that (sorry) throaty floaty song Furthur wrote about the Rain? I mean, that dimly sparked subtle swaying at best.

The potential with every new Dead arrangement is where that culminating energy is tapped into within the show as a whole. The vibration of the band with their current city, the energy of the crowd receiving the sacred musical communion. I love the Dead. And glad that I've only heard of good experiences, I am grateful for Joe Russo as my winter prelude Dead experience, vs Mr. Mayer taking Trey's place. Trey totally channeled Jerry but maintained his own guitar "voice," like if you closed your eyes, you'd know it was Trey. Ahhhh.....yeah. Let Trey Sing.

Thank The Past We Liked Good Music That's Still Good Right Now

Who can resist the rabid punky edge of Interpol?! I couldn't ten years ago as a high school freshman, and seeing them again in Portland the other day, I raged my whole body to the music still. The lights followed the cutting riffs as the smooth bass rippled beneath; the jumping and headbanging was hardly enough outlet for the energetic excitement. Killer show.

My first Interpol show, I was 15 in 2005; they played in between Tegan & Sarah and The New York Dolls at Yankee Stadium in Staten Island (minor league). The balladic Canadian sisters were cute, and my little girlfriends and I got their signatures on our tickets, with crappy flip-phone pictures. Interpol was incredible; playing all the favorites and never toning it down. Banks had a cigarette hanging from his mouth for half the day-lit show, sitting on a stool and not looking at anyone, like he was playing on his back porch. It was so enamoring we left two songs into The NY Dolls, mutually agreeing going back to Jersey to toke up would be a more fitting close to the music high day than staying for the headlining band The Killers.

I loathed Mr. Brightside.

I must say, in ten years Banks does not look or sound like he's aged five minutes. This show at portland's State Theater was a powerful performance for alll the band members, who each surged that gust of "AH!!!" into the constant climaxes of the music.

Admittedly I've barely heard their latest album, but from what I have randomly on Pandora. "It still sounds like Interpol," was the best I could surmise before the show. 

"That's...GOOD!" my girl said, and i outwardly agreed, and my impression held true. Every song carried as much energy and raw edginess as the last. "Slow Hands" jammed as hard as where that song has always taken me and higher. The builds ups and bridges had everyone in the pit dancing their asses off. The new songs fit well within the classics. And like my girl said, "There wasn't a song I didn't dance my fuckin' ass off to."

And yes, they played "Evil."

Fare Thee Well Done

Did he do it? How could he not do it?! Trey totally honored Jerry's signature sound of guitar with his high-pitched, searching-through-the-sounds upbeat playfulness with the Grateful Dead. After seeing the July 4^th show streamed at the State Theater in Portland, then streaming the audio free online after too many failed video attempts, I can say he did it. Trey raged Jerry for the “Fare Thee Well” Tour, totally channeling his guitar spirit yet playing with it in his Trey-zy way. With Phish for brains, I was stoked to still hear Trey at the core of the Jerry whittling and winding. Yes, the proof was in my third eye, as Trey even emanated the inner-visual I always get from Jerry's guitar, a green flower garden movin' and groovin and opening and closing blossoms to the slick licks, stems slithering like snakes up and down to the wormy diddlin'. But the Phishy flutter was flowing there too. I heard Trey come out in his rittling strummy build-ups before plunging into the high wails of a Jerry sound. Bridge into "Truckin'"? So Trey-zy!! He projected Jerry. But he kept it Trey. As well as tasteful. What more could a Dead-head ask for?

Well, to at least hear the damn shows that everyone we've ever met flew and caravaned out to in Chicago. I was lucky to have a line on free tickets for the streamed shows in Portland for the 4^th, and passed the Sunday tickets off to my co-parent so he could have a night too. After all, he was the one who hitch-hiked his way through Dead shows selling tie-dyes in the '80s, then helped haul Phish's equipment from $5 shows at the end of the decade, watching them rise as the Dead scene fell to dope and federal infiltration...all of which has transpired the cult-jam scene each band has molded and transformed...and basically this musical culmination happening would mean a whole big wow of a world to the daddyo.

So when I get a link from my boy down in Maryland for streaming the show, I'm stoked! The Couch Tour/Stream Scene has been growing so that people are throwing parties projecting the show on the sides of their houses, having July 4th parties based around streaming the show after bbqing. Some have paid so they can replay the shows all month. So I send this link out to like, ten people as broke as I am with the same warning from PJ: “Do not post, spread the love among family.” Then from PJ, my phone bleeps, “CHINA CAT!” Then from my co-parent, “I called the opening song china cat (smiling-with-sunglasses-on emoji) !!!!!! Love love love,” which is obviously one of my Top 3 Dead songs, so I go downstairs after just laying my daughter down to sleep and click the link. Ugh. Not working, check back later. Kait texts, “It says copyright infringement.” Michael, “Error message, bad link.” Ooops.

But then, this!

And so, a few of us stranded on the east coast were thankfully able to tune into the show. Like, Trey singing "Althea"?!?! My heart burst of the wettest dream alive in my ears!! And even without the video, we still all got madhouse picture messages of everyone we've ever met at the epic music event of the summer. And realize, yeah, this couldn't have happened at a camping venue. That amount of people is a city in itself and would surely sink a mountain. But hell yeah for the heads—Trey synced right up with the band and merged the musical legacies of America's biggest jam bands. So big, not even the internet can stop the rest of us from listening.

Photo by Meggy Schaeffer--Bear's Stadium July 5th

Blood Sugar Weed Baby

Coffee and bananas all day and beer and cigarettes all night may seem like the ideal diet to prep your body for life in the Amazon. But if you're not there yet, you could probably really fuck up your blood sugar.

So hypoglycemia/adrenal fatigue happened like this. My daughter and I took a bus then train to my parents, and after about eight hours of traveling, are fed very well with salmon, salad, and a sweet potato.

Then came the morning. Typically I get my caffeine fix from the organic coffee bar that employs me, and I drink it like water through the day. But not at my parent's house. There, we have the dreaded..Keurig..thing. And I remember last time, every cup giving me a headache.

I go for the Hazelnut and dip a dark chocolate almond biscotti and mmm...SO good. I drink the rest of the coffee and oo, don't stop at the headache, but a full-fledged migraine. This persists all week. On the trek home, I go for an iced Dunkin Donuts and nope, still get an earsplitting headache which I can barely think through, every sip is torture. And yet, waking up at 6 AM every morning with an almost 2-year old is so draining after her babble-kick-flailing fights before sleep, that I. Need. Caffeine.

 Or energy somehow.

And it was there in the car with my stepmom halfway through the car ride back north that I realize, I've had a crashing point every day, napping nearly every day with my daughter during our trip. And when I didn't, I fell asleep with her. I was wiped. Fatigued. Drained and...incaffeinatable?

But dear daughter only got a half an hour of sleep on that lovely ride. So I did something I hadn't done in years. I drank a Pepsi. As something I never do, I felt great. Awake. Sparkles! But an hour later, I crashed. I could barely keep my sinking-on eyes open during the baby screams that stopped reading/singing/tickling my restless car-ridden baby. I had to take a rejuvenation period of head-against-window, shutting out all the outside noise. It was as if I had reverted to a child, helpless to my body, brain, and discomfort, and had to go inside. And whew do I hope my incredibly intelligent and astutely alert child can learn this one day.

The days settling back into home only get worse. One of my favorite meals of bananas, nuts, blueberries, and maple syrup gives me the same splitting headache. And it doesn't go away anymore. It pierces my brain until I fall asleep. When I return to the cafe, I don't get coffee, but figure a soy chai will offer protein and a tea high rather than a coffee one. Wrong. Horrible, deafening, dizzying headache. Holding my head up becomes a challenge.

What was different? Why all of a sudden, was I intolerant to sugar and caffeine? I avoid it and even do completely uncharacteristic things like eat meat to try and balance my blood sugar. I do great and even though feel weak, drink two 9.8% Founders beers before a Wailers concert and try to reawaken my lively self.

Oh god. What a mistake. In my weakened state and a few normally alcohol-levelled beers after the show, I completely black out. I drank wine basically every night over the winter without reaching that level. My body and mind were completely out of control of each other. That was Friday. Today is Sunday.

Yesterday was Saturday. I actually woke up without a hangover, and generally happy about the good experience of the show (as I did not black out until after, and chain-smoked almost a whole pack of cigarettes with my equally-as-giddy coparent). So la la la, we recover the last of the cash from the show, peeking in the diaper bag, digging for my wallet, finding some beneath the driver's seat, and other dollars in his wallet. Eventually, we have enough for breakfast and stroll off into town. I get this big, beautiful sandwich at the Country Store called the Jake's Garden, and it is an art piece. Jam-packed with veggies, sprouts, and avocados, I was in breakfast heaven.

Was.

Until the last bite. Holy shit. The headache split my head like my skull was pinching my brain, and would not stop until hours and hours later that evening. The good news is, I quit smoking that day yesterday (this time, I really have to stay quitting to keep my brain operating at a near-decent, socially acceptable level.) I took a nap and woke up at 3:30 with my hands and feet tingling. Oh shit. I call my stepmom who has seen my symptoms and agree I should get my vitals checked at the hospital.

Here's one thing that probably would have saved me the trip. After a head-wrenching hour of failing to put dear daughter down for a nap, her dad comes back from a grass run to take her for a ride in the car. And to allow me to rest as well. He finally got some green that was not the scuzzy trim that burnt my throat. And in too much pain to even lift my head to smoke it, and did not want to further inhibit oxygen flow to my brain.

Well the next day after working from 8-430 with no caffeine, no sugar, no bread, and small squirrelly meals every two hours, I had no headache. And I finally, for the first time since the trip to my parents, toked up. HALLELUJAH. I felt more connected and clear-headed since I could remember. The blood in my brain wasn't burning, but flowing. I do a little research. Ah ha. So marijuana is rising as "The Diabetic Drug." It regulates blood sugar, of which mine was continuously getting too low.

So PLEASE friends. Do not take a week off. It could be the worst detriment to your head you've ever known. But I am almost grateful. If I hadn't taken a break, I wouldn't have been able to identify the food triggers that are hindering my body. So I have to revamp my diet and lifestyle completely. But I know one thing that will not stay very far. Yesterday, I literally felt like an infant unable to move or take care of myself. Today, I almost felt coherent enough to read a book. And at the least, felt inspired enough to think about writing one.

(YES! I AM THINKING AGAIN!)