After all these years,

it still bothers me: At any number of Grateful Dead concerts, from I think 1969 through 1977 (when I stopped going to their shows), whenever they performed "Truckin" and got to this verse -


What in the world ever became of sweet Jane?
She lost her sparkle, you know she isn't the same
Livin' on reds, vitamin C, and cocaine,
All a friend can say is "Ain't it a shame?"


- the crowd would roar their approval at the mention of cocaine.

And mind you, this happened EVERY TIME. And every time, I would think, what part of that verse do you all think says, "yay, drug abuse!"?

This was part of the reason I had to stop going - the experience of going to concerts had originally been very exciting, and even inspiring in a way, like a gathering of the tribes. And this communal aspect made the actual performances seem even more vibrant.

But at some point, the crowd became just a crowd, a huge mass of strangers many of whom behaved like whatever substances they had gorged on had in fact leached away whatever intelligence or grace they may have possessed before. Which may have been the case.

So, it came to this - however much pleasure I took in hearing the band performing live (and as many know, with the Dead, it was really, really live, since their hallmark was to continually and unpredictably alter each song in performance, as if the goal was to NEVER sound like the recorded version), being with the crowd became too great a price to pay.

The straw that broke the camel's back: at that last show, which was in at Winterland in SF, June 1977, I was sitting at the back of the auditorium in the area where there were chairs for those who wanted get off their feet without being trampled by the crowd. Suddenly, a very big, very stoned-looking woman came reeling out of the mass of dancers in front of me, and proceeded to land in my lap. And pass out.

Wait, it gets worse. As I was trying to figure a graceful way to unpin myself, I felt something warm on my pants. Yes, my new friend had peed on me.

Sayonara, brothers and sisters, I thought.