You Sweet Little Softcore Pretender

Today’s intended blog was completely derailed by the news of John Lennon’s star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame being desecrated by someone who inscribed the words to ‘Deal.’ They wrote “it cost a lot 2 win and even more 2 lose. U and me got to spend sum time,” along with a bunch of hippie type drawings of mushrooms and flowers and peace signs. This of course gives Deadheads a bad name, as if we needed help in that respect. I can’t help but wonder how the vandals got all that copy on the star in the first place. Did they use a fine point sharpie? Sidewalk chalk wouldn’t have bonded to the gaudy glass and marble shiny stuff they use for those things, but it seems it took a whole lot of hullabaloo to purge the piece of tribute from the taint of it all. Of course this episode has Beatles fans in a frenzy, and Deadheads bowing their heads in shame. And the blog is spoiled, because today I wanted to discuss blowjobs and Jerry Garcia, not separately mind you, but together as one thing. The inspiration came from my virtual friend at Thoughts on the Dead, who has entered into a series of posts about bad Dead Art, and his latest offering is this rendering of Garcia as Saint Jerome. Jerry clearly would have hated this, and as TotD asserts, he was a human bean, imperfect and vulnerable to all sorts of bad things, including the propensity to want to have his knob polished. This perked me right up, for I had never really considered Jerry Garcia as anything but asexual, and the idea of him receiving fellatio was novel. I will confess, I have thought about the sexual antics of Jerry Garcia from time to time, for when you are as obsessed with the Grateful Dead as I am, it sort of has to wind around to those types of thoughts from time to time, you know, when the well runs dry and the emptiness of man’s infinite desire plagues me. But the truth is, the Grateful Dead were more asexual than most rock and roll bands. When the portions of sex, drugs and rock ‘n roll were passed out by the divine, the Dead took two helpings of drugs, sometimes three.

So some schmoe defaces the star of John Lennon’s tourist spot on Hollywood Blvd., and my whole rap about Jerry and my yearnings to know more about the darkest recesses of his sex life converge with what I know about John Lennon’s sex life, and pretty much my whole day is filthy with things I don’t want to know. So, of course, I must share them with everyone within reach. When I read the news today, oh boy, I was reminded of the bit in the unauthorized biography of Linda Lovelace where she was summoned by the penultimate submissive male, John Lennon, to demonstrate the prowess of her infamous deep throat. She claimed (or the guy writing the unauthorized bio claimed she told him) Lennon’s penis had head cheese, and did not smell very good at all. This is what I now have in my mind when I consider the man who penned ‘Imagine.’

So anyway, the Grateful Dead were never really a sexy band. Bobby Weir, of course, was the closest thing they had to that, and Pigpen was raw sexuality; probably too much, in fact, but he left early without much of a liver, so Bobby had to carry the torch. Which of course brings me to the video for ‘Hell in a Bucket,’ for it is the strangest attempt to fit the formulaic mold for a sexy rock video that was ubiquitous in the 80’s. But it features the Grateful Dead, who shouldn’t be doing music videos at all, because they are too cool for that kind of pop culture nonsense. Or maybe they aren’t cool at all, and that’s why there should be no theatrical interpretation of this music in the 80’s MTV style. But wait, they did it, and they did it in Salvador Dali meets Helmut Newton meets PT Barnum style. Initially, the thing is a joke, and one that makes you uncomfortable like when granny isn’t sitting properly and you see her panties. But I have decided just today that this thing is genius, and it’s worth a complete exegesis (but I will spare you that for now). Jerry is of course as disinterested as he could possibly be without actually falling asleep, while Bob Weir is Don Johnson (which wasn’t even cool in the 80’s) with a kinky duck. I’m telling you, you must really consider the circus. There’s all kinds of sex in this thing. Sex is everywhere. The ravenous Catherine the Great gets a cameo. Phil gets tongue. Bobby gets chained up and whipped and somehow comes out on top because if he can’t dance he’ll crawl. And Jerry, he just stays cool at the bar, with a laid back chick in a slave collar waiting for him to finish being a bad ass mutherfucker on his Tiger. I don’t feel so alone in my Z-rated mind anymore.

But I can’t talk about that stuff today because some wookie defaced the star of the Beatle. Kids today. Enjoy the ride, kid.