Monday, October 16, 2006
Friday, June 09, 2006
Will the Rhino Roar?
"The Music Never Stopped" torrent site (tmnsp.net) has been rebranded as Jerome's Place, likely in anticipation of a less benign attitude toward torrent Grateful Dead related material by the new "keepers of the vault", Rhino Records. Will the Rhino roar? Too soon to say, but I wouldn't bet against it.
In the meantime, RIP TMNSP -- the project that created the techtonic shift in what we imagine possible in terms of collecting GD &c music.
In the meantime, RIP TMNSP -- the project that created the techtonic shift in what we imagine possible in terms of collecting GD &c music.
Tuesday, June 06, 2006
Long Time Gone
Six months, long time away. I could never be a real (regular) blogger. Anyway, I am going to try to post occasionally.
Wednesday, December 07, 2005
Taking a Shit is a Political Act
Carol Brightman's Sweet Chaos: The Grateful Dead's American Adventure offers the thesis that Garcia and the Grateful Dead were "apolitical" and should be condemned to that extent, having failed to stand up (as the Berkeley radicals did) to the injustices and corruptions of American and international politics in the 60s and 70s. The GD/San Francisco/Merry Prankster thing was about sex, drugs and rock & roll, the denial of political responsibility, while the Berkeley thing was about politics first and foremost. She pursues a book-length exercise in head-scratching, asking herself and the reader how these people could have been so irresponsible while there was injustice in the world and while good radicals such as herself fought the good fight.
This is unadulterated bullshit. Wavy Gravy said on 2/9/73 at the Maples Pavilion (Stanford) that "taking a shit is a political act ... ", and he was dead right. Garcia's and the GD's politics weren't of the in-your-face-to-fight-injustice kind favored by the Berkeley radicals. But they were a politics nonetheless. Indeed, I think they were based on a coherent (if implicit) political philosophy in which living well (hedonism?) expresses an aspiration toward which we all (and society itself) might work.
These thoughts are obviously half-baked, and I am sure there are serious works of political philosophy which might articulate this kind of world view. I'd sure like to track them down and check them out.
This is unadulterated bullshit. Wavy Gravy said on 2/9/73 at the Maples Pavilion (Stanford) that "taking a shit is a political act ... ", and he was dead right. Garcia's and the GD's politics weren't of the in-your-face-to-fight-injustice kind favored by the Berkeley radicals. But they were a politics nonetheless. Indeed, I think they were based on a coherent (if implicit) political philosophy in which living well (hedonism?) expresses an aspiration toward which we all (and society itself) might work.
These thoughts are obviously half-baked, and I am sure there are serious works of political philosophy which might articulate this kind of world view. I'd sure like to track them down and check them out.
Thursday, October 27, 2005
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