Lost now on the country miles in his Cadillac

 I can tell by the way you smile, he is rolling back

Come wash the nighttime clean

Come grow the scorched ground green  ( Weir / Barlow)

for the record...shadow or no shadow...i foresee at least 6 more weeks of heavy drinking.

i received Dave's Picks #41 in the mail Monday night and yesterday i sat at my work computer and gave it a listen......Baltimore Civic Ctr May 26, 1977...definitely their finest year....i loved all the different incarnations of the Dead, but after many years of listening to the shows in detail, well...77 was in a class by itself.....it was soo good.....joy and sadness.....at the same time....jerry's guitar licks spoke to me....they danced and floated around the room like butterflies.....the band was like a magnificent locomotive rolling across the countryside.....and jerry was the engineer...they opened with "Music Never Stopped" and by the 2;30 mark it was crystal clear that Jerry CAME TO PLAY....it was one of those nites......joy that i saw soo many good ones....joy that the live music was captured and protected all these years later to enjoy.....sad that we will never again be in a cozy arena on a winters night and see Jerry do his magic act....but it was a hell of a start to my day.

And It's February.....forget stymie history...this has always been the month of Kerouac and Cassidy for me....Neil was born on Feb 8 in the back seat of a car passing through Salt Lake City on the way to California from Denver...and died on Feb 4th at the age of 41.........Jack, a Pisces; was born March 12th 1922.....would have turned 100 this year.....he too died before his 50th birthday....at the age of 47 in St Petersburg Fl. February is also the month i start reading "On the Road"......i have read it every other year for the past 40 years or so......might have missed once or twice.....but have definitely read it cover to cover 20 times in my life....never gets old for me....perfect pre spring reading.....coming out of winter....and with each passing year and re-reading of the classic novel, it just reminds me that the ROAD is gone.....

i feel empathy for the youth of today....that slice of Americanna is gone forever...the innocence that existed....the individual identity that each city, state or territory had is gone.....we are a homogenized nation....same banks, same starbucks and mcdonalds, same everything.....the corner bars are disappearing and have been replaced with corporate umbrellas that own a wide variety of diverse establishments.....chili's, outback, panera for breakfeast....doesn't matter where you go in the lower 48, we have a corporate outpost for you....serving up all your favorites just like home.......im not angry....i am actually grateful that i traveled the world and my own country as much as i did before it was extinct....i had steak and eggs in the Piel Street Bar in Montreal.....Drank Coors at Coors Field, had a Golden Road IPA on the pier in Santa Monica, smoked a joint in Golden gate Park near Haight -Ashbury, .ate in Gene & Georgettis whilst in the windy city, had a Sam Adams  in the Cask & Flaggon, visited many of the old ballparks and hockey arenas before they were replaced and my memory is strong....I had a Falaffel from a street cart in Haifa at 3:00 a.m., drank Rakki in Antalya Turkey, had a Tusker Beer in the Nairobi Hilton and imagined i was Hemingway on the eve of an Elephant hunt, I drank a Guiness across from the St James gate, i had a jambon and fromage( ham n cheese) sanwich on a warm baguette with butter in a little shack off the pier in St Tropez and drank red wine in the french country side....partied in Benidorm with Bath Separatists', watched Malvern defeat Geelong in Austrailian League Football, had Grandma Gretzky's pierogies in Toronta , had a mojito in miami and oxtail stew in Guantanamo bay, drank moonshine in Mississippi and a hurricane on Bourbon Street....and hell, i am probably forgetting half.......i'm just disappointed that we are losing our identity as a nation, and nations are loosing their identities around this magnificent planet........for God's sake there was a Primanti bros sandwich shop on the beach rd in Ft Lauderdale the last time i was there......sorry, but that kielbasa sandwich should only be enjoyed in the steel city or western PA , in the freezing cold and served up by a horde of Pollocks.....some things should remain regional in my opinion.....it's what makes traveling so rewarding.

maybe it's just the cold weather that has me down.....maybe i'm just old and cranky today.....maybe i am just mad because whoopi goldberg misappropriated Jewish Culture and stole a Jewish name and then said hurtful things on TV about the holocaust.....i hope she doesn't get cancelled, her brand of stupidity can only help the cause come November....maybe i need a little drink of the Jack Daniels......some Grateful Dead on the stereo and i need to read the opening chapter of ON the ROAD for the 20 something time.

. Fare thee well now

Let your life proceed by it's own design

Nothing to tell now

Let the words be yours, I'm done with mine