Showing posts with label Robert Hunter. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Robert Hunter. Show all posts

Thursday, May 23, 2013

Eyes of the World

Eyes of the World - Grateful Dead (studio version)



According to the invaluable ANNOTATED GRATEFUL DEAD (linked above), by way of Deadhead Scott Robertson:

"You are the eyes of the world" is a translation of the noted Buddhist practitioner Longchenpa's practical guide to the tantra (The Jewel Ship: A Guide to the Meaning of Pure and Total Presence, the Creative Energy of the Universe, byang chub kyi sems kun byed rgyal po'i don khrid din chen sgru bo). It was translated by Kennard Lipman and Merrill Peterson and published by Lotsawa of Novato, CA. I believe the change in name occurred after the last publication date of 1987. The song itself obviously held importance for the folks involved in its production for part of [Robert] Hunter's lyrics are printed opposite the title page. After reading the text the relationship becomes very clear since it instructs the reader how to experience pure presence. How many times at a show did I feel that...
I chose the studio version for the multiple sweet, sublime guitar solos. Just like a mountain breeze.

Thursday, February 21, 2013

He blacked my eye and he kicked my dog

The late Levon Helm performing the Grateful Dead's TENNESSEE JED... it's got trumpets! It's a carnival!

You know you bound to wind up dead...

TENNESSEE JED - Levon Helm (from "Electric Dirt")



Off to Atlanta (not Tennessee) for a long weekend, see you all when I get back... hopefully I'll return in time for Occupy Greenville General Assembly on Sunday (3pm) at the indispensable Coffee Underground. We will be discussing the upcoming film series, so be there or be square!

I woke up a-feeling mean
Went down to play the slot machine
The wheels turned round and the letters read
Better head back to Tennessee, Jed

Thursday, September 27, 2012

Wave that flag

US Blues - Grateful Dead (studio version)



Summertime
done come and gone
My oh my...

Tuesday, October 18, 2011

Rosy red and electric blue: I bought you a paddle for your paper canoe

Deadhead peace symbol at left is a lovely metal design from Mountain Metal Arts.



An eventful weekend, during which our plucky heroine studied Shantideva like a fiend, and nonetheless failed miserably at all her spiritual assignments. Deja Vu all over again!

Alas, Jesus, Mary and Joseph shake their collective heads at me, as I extend my various temperamental shortcomings and personality disorders to Buddhism. For his part, Buddha wonders (understandably) why HE is left holding the bag, and handed me off to Shantideva, which at first, I didn't readily comprehend. Now I do. Shantideva's Bodhicaryāvatāra is the fire-and-brimstone version; "Shape up or be reborn as a moth, you ridiculous, unenlightened fool!" (It actually reads like the Gospel of Mark, in segments.)

I'm trying, really, but moth-rebirth remains a distinct possibility, if not inevitability, at this point.

Especially when I deal with ... (dramatic pause) sexual harassment.

What?--say my regular readers. "Aren't you a fat redneck grandma? You sure do talk like one!"

Yes, sports fans, Daisy is a short, dumpy redneck grandma... but still, the men keep coming, you should pardon expression. I am currently dealing with a stalker. A weird one, a left-wing stalker who doesn't like what I say. And left-wing men often feel entitled to harass women in misogynist ways, since they think their pro-feminist politics put them beyond the pale and place them above criticism. (Considering the tepid response to this person, maybe they're right.)

Since I fancy myself "the Anti Ann Coulter" (particularly after I learned she was a Deadhead), this made me wonder what kind of misogynist harassment is directed at Coulter, Michelle Malkin, Laura Ingraham and other popular right-wing female commentators. The idea makes me cringe, since many left-wing men clearly feel no hesitations about such behavior. By contrast, many right-wing males will not openly sexually-harass women (under their own names; they will troll anonymously, of course), since it isn't Christian and makes them look lustful (that is to say, their reticence isn't about feminism or women, but about Christianity).

But you know, as long as this makes them act decently, I don't care about the reasons for it.

It is therefore ironic that the net result might be: Right-wing men do not sexually harass the women in their midst with the same regularity left-wing men do. Or if they do, it's in secret, not openly, all while making a "joke" out of it. As is currently happening to me.

No wonder Coulter gets nastier with each passing year, and obviously despises liberals more and more with every book she writes. Considering what has been directed at me lately, I can only imagine the filth she has read from left-wing men, and it makes me ashamed.

~*~


At left: Daisy speaks at Occupy Columbia, South Carolina Statehouse. (As I told my Facebook friends, I didn't realize I was pointing my finger.)


Right after my radio broadcast, went to Occupy Columbia (see Saturday photos), where I rabble-roused right after the amazing Tzima.... talk about a hard act to follow! She is talented and incredible, and I am ready to vote for her if she ever runs for anything. As it is, I will simply link to her radio broadcast, EVOLVE WITH TZIMA, which is on WOIC-AM in Columbia. You can listen from the link, too!

~*~

Nobody has any money, but if you do: my radio show needs advertising, I need a job and so on and so forth. (Deadhead voice: Hey mister, got any spare change?) The unemployment-benefits clock is winding down. I am nervous about this, as of course, millions of other Americans are also. I feel their pain and they feel mine.

The smug Republican element who joyfully-yelled at us to "Get a job!" on Sunday (as we marched through Fall for Greenville), are simply cruel. What do you think brought people to the streets, at long last? Losing homes, losing jobs, losing faith in the system.

If you still have faith in capitalism, this means you must still have money, so ante up. Pay pal button is at right! :)

~*~

Those Ancestry.com TV commercials just kill me... I have done a good bit of genealogy, and so I imagined an alternative version:

I knew when I started hunting for my ancestors, I might find some wild characters... so when I got to Ancestry.com, I found this little leaf and it took me to ANOTHER leaf and well... I found out that one of my great-great grandfathers went to prison for holding a man's feet to the fire! And you thought that was just an expression!

Daisy beams at the camera for emphasis: "You don't have to know what you're looking for, you just have to start looking!"
~*~

Half of the internet entries are spelled Charley and the other half Charlie. I confess, I forget which is correct. Regardless of spelling, courtesy of lyricist Robert Hunter, it's where we get today's blog post title.

Little bit quicker and we might have time
to say 'how do you do?" before we're left behind



Cosmic Charlie - Grateful Dead (studio version!)

Monday, September 14, 2009

Monday Music: Brokedown Palace

Not the best version; looks odd but historically fascinating. Weird pseudo-psychedelic visuals. European or Australian TV? (Does not look familiar as a USA-based show.) Personnel, older (and generally disheveled) musical arrangement, as well as Bobby's hair suggest this was the very early 70s.

"Listen to the river sing sweet songs to rock my soul."

~*~

Brokedown Palace - Grateful Dead

Tuesday, June 23, 2009

Fun search terms, June edition

All of the following terms were used to find my blog in Yahoo or Google:



forgive those lifelong suicides robert hunter*

u.s. supreme court t-shirt "fuck the army"

love quotes involving tambourines

"Alice Cooper" "Bob Jones University"

famous dead golfers

biker funhouse old fart

england home school well-done or relative friend to speak to bring teacher name to guess what a an beatiful surname pronoun to do to make

i had 80 favorite cities on weather underground and you deleted it

Mark Sanford on crack for HOW LONG?

Mark Sanford stupid

Mark Sanford idiot

Mark Sanford mistress?

I need to kill fleas NOW crazy insane drugs fleas herbs kill fleas?

Feminist christians UNFAIR to women and christians!

Did king edward invent the Cromer Carnival of 1969

Can republicans be vegetarian?

Did Bob Dylan mean Nixon?

Real Housewives of New York TV botox! botox! botox!


~*~

Now, who can argue with that? (name that movie quote!)



*I was intrigued by this line, and followed the search term back to Google, where I found Blue Heron's blog, and the entire quote in context:

Forgive those lifelong suicides
you who jumped into the water
fully clothed
to rescue the reflection
of the setting sun.


Robert Hunter

Sunday, March 22, 2009

If I knew the way, I would take you home

I am attending our yearly commemorative candle-lighting tonight, for the thousands of American dead in Iraq. It is YEAR SIX of the Iraq War. Do you believe? YEAR SIX.

I find I do not want to go; I find the sight of all those candles (one for each soldier) simply stunning (not in a good way) and almost utterly overwhelming. What possible good could come from thousands of dead enlisted personnel; thousands of once-alive, vibrant young souls?

Why are we still in Iraq, again?

Depressed, confused, talking to God (okay, arguing!) and feeling the futility of it all. And yet, giving up is not an option. I have never known how to do that. (See previous post: I have 4 Virgos in my astrological chart!)

As Deadheads know, there is only one song for these occasions.


~*~

Ripple (Robert Hunter/Jerry Garcia)


If my words did glow
with the gold of sunshine
And my tunes were played on the harp unstrung
Would you hear my voice
come through the music
Would you hold it near as it were your own?

Its a hand-me-down
the thoughts are broken
Perhaps they're better left unsung
I don't know, don't really care
Let there be songs to fill the air

Ripple in still water
When there is no pebble tossed
Nor wind to blow

Reach out your hand
if your cup be empty
If your cup is full
may it be again
Let it be known
there is a fountain
That was not made by the hands of men

There is a road
no simple highway
Between the dawn and the dark of night
And if you go
no one may follow
That path is for your steps alone.

Ripple in still water
When there is no pebble tossed
Nor wind to blow.

You who choose to lead must follow
But if you fall
you fall alone
If you should stand
then who's to guide you?

If I knew the way, I would take you home.



~*~

Do yall have any idea how many versions of this are on YouTube? Maybe hundreds.

This one is particularly nice in that you can hear the audience singing along.



Ripple - Grateful Dead

Sunday, March 16, 2008

Dead Air Church: Palm Sunday

In the liturgy for Palm Sunday, regular parishioners play the part of the mob, and well-dressed church-goers shout "Crucify him!" It's quite something to see and participate in. The theological lesson sinks in admirably, as intended: I crucified Him, and so did you.

And so, our countercultural equivalent for Dead Air Church: the Grateful Dead's New Speedway Boogie, their song about Altamont.

And it came to pass in 1969, that there was a free concert given by the Rolling Stones at Altamont Speedway on a cold December night, in which the Hells Angels were "hired" as security. (Note: This is fiercely debated, Sonny Barger claimed they were never technically hired in the conventional sense.) By the end of the evening, Meredith Hunter, an 18-year-old black man, would be murdered by "security." This event was captured in the concert documentary, Gimme Shelter, an amazing film.

The Dead were scheduled to play, and ultimately didn't. Jerry Garcia and Robert Hunter wrote this song to all who would alternately minimize the event and avoid moral responsibility, as well as to those who would self-righteously judge and second-guess the survivors. It's an amazing song. I've quoted lines here and there numerous times on my blog, but this is the first time I've played the whole thing.

I saw things getting out of hand
I guess they always will.


~*~

The relatively new version of this song I've chosen is by an Australian band known as Black Cab, recorded for their 2004 album, suitably titled Altamont Diary. This version gives the song the psychedelic gravitas it so richly deserves. And I really like this video, which puts events in a 60s/70s druggie context.

Black Cab - New Speedway Boogie

[via FoxyTunes / Black Cab]


Don't forget to pick up your palm leaf before you leave, and have a great Holy Week.